“What about Prometheus and DeJonge?”
“Prometheus could mean a few things, but my best guess is Tetzel was referring to a weapons program being developed by a European consortium. About eight months ago Langley told all case officers to press our agents for information on any foreign weapons program that took a quantum leap in development. Some military scientist had just died, and the Pentagon was worried his research had been stolen.”
“How did the scientist die?”
“They didn’t say anything, not even his name. The Pentagon doesn’t want the CIA’s rank and file knowing their secrets. Still, it didn’t take much digging to learn that Prometheus is a weapon that uses something like microwaves.”
“Microwaves were Tetzel’s subject.”
“How do you know that?”
“I asked Lieutenant Eisert.”
Silver chuckled. “Maybe you can crack the case.” He jerked the car into a sharp right turn down a street Brian already had seen three times.
“And DeJonge?” Brian asked.
“Don’t know. It’s a common name in Central Europe, but with several spellings. Figuring out his—or her—identity is my next step.”
Silver took another left turn, looking back through the driver’s side window for the Deux Cheveaux. Brian slid his knee forward and depressed the cigarette lighter.
Now he had to drive Silver past distraction to aggravation. He said, “Then why smuggle me into France? Wouldn’t it be easier to find all this information from your office in Bern? Or is this because you don’t want your superiors to figure out your deal with Tetzel?”
Silver’s voice hardened. “The hell are you talking about, kid?”
“Last night you called Tetzel your ‘million-dollar asset.’ Sounds like you had an Our Man in Havana scam worked out with him. Maybe you told your superiors he was a highly placed source, a gold mine with contacts in the Swiss aerospace industry.”
Brian didn’t know if Switzerland had an aerospace industry, but this was no time to slow down. “So you convinced them Tetzel was worth a premium in payoffs, and they started sending him large sums of cash every month. But Tetzel didn’t have that much access, did he? You beefed up his reports and split the money with him and stuck your cut into a Swiss bank account.”
Silver’s neck turned red. Brian pressed on. “You weren’t expecting Tetzel to ever learn anything big, but he did and he died for it. Your ‘million-dollar asset’ gets silenced and you have no idea why. All you know is that you had better figure out the answers before Langley starts asking the questions. You got scared, scared enough to snatch a fifteen-year-old tourist who wandered into your mess—”
“That’s enough!” Silver’s voice was a whip. “I don’t want to hurt you, kid,” he shouted, “but you’re writing your death warrant here, and you’d better shut up before you sign it.”
The cigarette lighter sprang free, silently nudging Brian’s knee. Adrenaline coursed through him, but he acted calmly. Disguising his movement as a reaction to Silver’s rage, Brian sat up to move his knee clear of the lighter. He had to attack before the lighter cooled. The signal at the next corner turned from green to amber. Three vehicles were ahead of them, preventing Silver from gunning the car through the intersection.
In A Whisper of Death Foster Blake jabbed the cigarette lighter into Mr. Nix’s neck, but Brian couldn’t bring himself to do that. He had another method in mind. As the traffic light turned red, Brian looked over Silver’s shoulder and said, “I think I see that yellow car you described.”
“Where?” Silver asked. He looked out his window, away from Brian.
In one motion Brian swept his right hand forward to knock his backpack to his feet, scoop the lighter from its socket, and lob it into a high arc with a trajectory that would end in Silver’s lap. The lighter’s coil glowed bright orange as it spun in the air.
Brian said, “Catch!”
CHAPTER 8--IMPACT
Instinctively, Silver took his hands off the wheel to catch the lighter. He screamed as the hot metal seared into his palm. Brian hit the switch to unlock all the doors. Then he braced himself and shut his eyes as their car plowed into the rear bumper of the sedan in from of them. Their air bags fired instantaneously. It was like being walloped by a bounce house.
The air bags deflated as rapidly as they had deployed, and Silver automatically whipped the lighter from his hand. It ricocheted off the windshield. Brian ducked as the lighter flew toward his face. It bounced off his headrest and landed in the door well, which couldn’t have been more perfect for Brian. He hit the button to unfasten his seatbelt and grabbed his backpack. Silver lunged as Brian opened the door, but his seatbelt held him back. Brian rolled out of the car and onto the curb. He snatched the lighter from the door well. It was still hot enough to melt the plastic strap binding his ankles.
Once his feet were free, Brian took off. Cars were backing up behind the accident, and people had gathered on the sidewalks, attracted by blaring horns and cries of “Au secours!” Brian looked back to see Silver exit the car with his wounded right hand jammed beneath his left armpit. He shouted, “Get back here, Brian! You have nowhere to go.” Before Silver could follow, the driver of the rear-ended sedan grabbed his arm and let loose a tirade of what Brian guessed were the filthiest words in the French language.
Silver would be occupied for several minutes, hopefully longer, but Brian needed to be far from the scene before the police arrived. He ran down the sidewalk at full speed, dodging people as they jostled for a closer look at the accident. He slowed only for a second when he noticed that one of the cars caught in the jam behind the crash was yellow and looked like an old VW Beetle, except flatter.
Brian put the car out of his mind as he tore around the corner and flew past slender buildings of pink and ochre. He zigged down three blocks and zagged across two before darting into a music store. He walked swiftly to the back of the store and ducked behind a cardboard standup advertising two bands he had never heard of, The Acid Thwacks and Funky Lederhosen. Brian pulled all the euros from his left sock and jammed them into his pocket. He removed his jacket, sunglasses, and Brewers cap from his backpack and put them on. His appearance altered, Brian left the store. He walked at a normal pace to avoid attracting attention.
The exhilaration of the escape wore off swiftly. Brian was away from Silver, but he was alone in France and didn’t know his next move. Maybe he could hide in a movie theater for a few hours then go to a library to try to find information on DeJonge.
Brian turned the corner and a solution presented itself. He was walking toward a bus station, and passengers were boarding a bus with the word Cannes above the windshield. Brian knew Cannes wasn’t far, and Silver wouldn’t expect him to leave Nice so quickly. The short bus trip should buy him enough time to determine a plan before Silver could find him.
Inside the station, Brian was pleased to discover his French was sufficient enough not only to buy a ticket, but also to learn the bus was leaving in five minutes and would arrive in Cannes thirty minutes after that.
The bus was half full. Brian took a seat toward the rear and overlooking the street. He watched for Silver, but the CIA man did not appear by the time the bus driver closed the door. Relieved, Brian settled back in his seat.
Someone pounded on the bus door. Brian sat up again expecting to see Silver as the door swung open. Instead, a tall man with black hair and a beige shirt stepped aboard. After an exchange of rude French with the driver, the man walked past Brian without glancing at him and settled into the rear seat.
As the air brakes sighed and the bus pulled away, Brian allowed himself a sense of triumph. He may be a fugitive in another country with little idea what to do or where to go next, but he was free. To celebrate, he pulled his iPod from his backpack, pushed the buds into his ears, and started his Gwen Stefani playlist (he had been a fan ever since her cover version of Roberta Flack’s Clandestinely Yours, his favorite Foster Blake theme). Right now B
rian was more excited than frightened, and he decided to enjoy that feeling for as long as it lasted.
CHAPTER 9--SEARCH
The feeling lasted two songs.
A few stanzas into the third song, Brian found the lyric “I’m walking into spider webs” ominous. He, too, was walking into spider webs, or at least riding a bus into them. What would happen if he got caught? Would his family ever learn what happened to him? Brian turned off the iPod and stowed it in his backpack. Morbid, fearful thoughts would paralyze him. He had to trust his intelligence and abilities and keep moving ahead.
His immediate goal was to learn the identity of DeJonge. Once in Cannes, Brian would find the public library, log on to a computer, and rely on his Internet search skills to locate DeJonge. He hoped it wouldn’t take hours. A complication occurred to him. What if he needed a library card to use a computer? Brian doubted his freshman-level French would convince a librarian to let him use a computer. No, those were negative thoughts. Brian resolved to go to the library and simply try his luck.
He looked out the window to enjoy the remaining sights of Nice before the bus left the city limits. They were passing through the urban fringe. Buildings no longer crowded each other. Storefronts were glassy and modern and would fit in any American strip mall. Familiar fast food signs flickered by. Some shops remained distinctly European, like the Internet café up ahead. Brian smiled. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? An Internet café would be better than the library. He would be any other tourist checking his e-mail or updating his Facebook status. No one would notice him. No one would remember him.
Brian consulted his French phrasebook. The translation for Internet café was café Internet. Simple enough. The book even said how to ask directions to the nearest one: “Est-ce qu’il y a un café Internet près d’ici?” He practiced the phrase under his breath.
Knowing what to do and say when he got to Cannes, Brian reclined in his seat to watch the scenery. Drab concrete condominiums obstructed the Mediterranean until the bus turned onto a wide thoroughfare with lines of palm trees running down the median. The sea, with its beaches and jetties, was on one side of the boulevard. On the other was a wall of expensive shops and belle époque hotels. Brian instantly recognized the Carlton because every May during the Cannes Film Festival a billboard advertising the next Foster Blake movie straddled the hotel’s entrance. The palm trees flashed past like a tropical picket fence until the bus reached a massive, angular structure that resembled the Sydney Opera House after Godzilla had sat on it. Brian read the name of the building, the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, as the bus passed and realized it was a glorified movie theater.
The boulevard curved to reveal a harbor where fishing boats bobbed alongside luxury yachts. The trip ended as the coach pulled into a station located between the harbor and the city hall, which looked exactly how Brian imagined a city hall on the French Riviera should. A modest, central clock tower topped by a shallow cupola divided the muddy yellow façade into symmetrical halves limned by a red-tile roof. The French Tricolour flew from the balcony two floors below the clock, with the main entrance directly beneath the flag.
Stepping off the bus, Brian hitched his backpack over his shoulders and looked for someone who could direct him to the nearest Internet café. His best bet, he figured, was to ask someone exiting the city hall, someone likely to be a resident. He approached a blonde woman in a light pink sundress who appeared to be in her late thirties (women nearing middle age always were nice to Brian, for some reason) and asked, “Pardonnez-moi, Madame. Est-ce qu’il y a un café Internet près d’ici?” She smiled, and in a mélange of English and French told him an Internet café was only a few blocks away in an old part of the city called Le Suquet. She pointed to an ancient church atop a nearby hill, which Brian gathered was Le Suquet’s landmark. The woman added that if he said “pardon” instead of “pardonnez-moi,” he would sound less like a tourist.
Brian thanked her and walked up the hill. He found himself inside an M.C. Escher print of narrow, tilting streets, some linked by tight stone stairwells that cut sharp angles between buildings. He had to ask directions twice more before finding the café.
Once inside, Brian paid for a half an hour on the computer and set to work. He called up the Google home page, typed in “De Jonge Heinrich Tetzel,” and hit enter. More results than he expected came up, but they were in French. This wasn’t going to work. Brian looked at the URL and saw the problem. It read “http://www.google.fr.” He changed the “fr” to “com,” and tried again. This time the results came back in English.
Well, almost in English. The first link led to a badly translated German academic site that listed physics professors in all European universities. Eight DeJonges were given, along with two Dejonghs, one Dejonghe, two De Jonges, five De Jonghs, and nine De Jonghes. Silver wasn’t kidding about the multiple spellings.
Brian pulled his notebook from the backpack. It was one of those composition books with the dappled black and white covers that he mentally referred to as Harriet the Spy specials. He flipped past the now mundane journal entries describing rain clouds over Innsbruck and stamp dealers in Liechtenstein until he found a blank page. He transcribed the names from the computer screen and their corresponding universities. None of the professors worked at the University of Neuchatel, which didn’t surprise Brian. Silver had smuggled Brian into France, which is where Silver must have expected to find DeJonge. Brian underlined the names of the eleven professors from French universities. Six taught in Paris, one in Toulouse, three in Lyons, and one in Aix-en-Provence.
Now to further cull the list. Brian typed in “DeJonge Prometheus” and clicked the search button. He was prepared to do this for every spelling of the name, but when the results appeared Brian saw that he got it right on the first try. Numerous entries highlighted the name Edouard DeJonge. One description read, “French researcher leads Europe’s answer to America’s Positive Enforcement program.” Another said, “Breakthrough in Paul Sab laboratory pushes EU ahead of America in race to manufacture directed-energy weapon.” The latter entry, dated six months earlier, was linked to the University of Toulouse’s Internet domain. Brian hit the link and a French home page with the heading “Université Paul Sabatier/Toulouse III” came up. The article Brian sought was missing, and the link to the home page’s English translation failed. He intuited that “Paul Sab” was a nickname for Université Paul Sabatier, which seemed to be connected to the University of Toulouse. That didn’t bring him much closer to finding Edouard DeJonge, though.
Frustrated, Brian returned to the search results and looked for an entry with an American source. He clicked on a link to the archives of www.militech.org and was rewarded with the following, dated four months earlier:
U.S. LOSES P.E. LEAD
A breakthrough by a French physicist has allowed the European Union to leapfrog past the Pentagon in the development and likely implementation of a Positive Enforcement weapons system.
Prof. Edouard DeJonge, a researcher in microwaves and millimeter waves at Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France, made this breakthrough roughly two months ago, although Eurocorps—a European Union military consortium based in Strasbourg, France—is mum about the nature of DeJonge’s brainstorm. DeJonge has been put in charge of the program, called Project Prometheus, with Eurocorps footing the bill. DeJonge continues to be based in Toulouse, capital of Europe’s aerospace industry thanks largely to the presence of Airbus.
America’s Positive Enforcement program, in development for over a decade, encountered numerous setbacks following the sudden death last year of the program’s chief researcher, Dr. Roland Eck, in a plane crash. Plus, Congress began to listen to critics who claimed the weapon could be turned into a torture device.
Eurocorps hints that its Prometheus device may be ready for public demonstration as early as this summer. If the EU continues at this pace, it could implement Prometheus within a year, marking the first time since World War II tha
t Western Europe has deployed a new military technology while the Pentagon remained in the testing stage.
Brian blinked at the computer screen and shivered. Apparently he was hip deep in a covert war over some sort of next-generation super weapon. What sort he could only guess. Militech.org obviously was a website for military gearheads with prior knowledge of Positive Enforcement. The name Positive Enforcement was vague enough to be meaningless. Didn’t it have something to do with training dogs?
He could worry about that later. Before Brian’s computer time ran out, his priority was to learn how to find Edouard DeJonge and warn him. But warn him of what? The most likely scenario was that Matthias Skyrm, the man who killed Tetzel, was part of a plot to sabotage Prometheus. Skyrm may be planning to blackmail, kidnap, or murder DeJonge. Brian wondered how big the conspiracy was. Had Skyrm killed the American scientist, Roland Eck? Eck must have been the Pentagon researcher Silver had mentioned. Brian thought about Silver. Had he pinpointed Edouard DeJonge and put all this together yet? Not likely. Brian had escaped Silver only ninety minutes ago. Silver might still be in a police station filling out an accident report.
The news about an experimental weapon unsettled Brian, but the revelation about DeJonge and Prometheus also offered him a way out. If Brian got to DeJonge in time to warn him, this professor could protect him.
Brian navigated to an online telephone directory for Toulouse and pumped a triumphant fist when he found Edouard DeJonge listed. This whole mess could be finished before the day was through, depending on how long it took to travel to Toulouse by train. Brian had to assume DeJonge’s phone was tapped, so calling him would be too dangerous. Brian wrote DeJonge’s address in his notebook, which he returned to his backpack. A quick map search told him the Cannes train station was eight blocks northeast of the café. The clock at the bottom of the computer screen told him he had five minutes of Internet time remaining, five minutes to learn about the mystery weapon.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much Page 5