The Traitor tc-2

by Stephen Coonts

  I leaned out the window and motioned to my driver. He took his time climbing in, the cigarette still dangling from his mouth, then started the engine and pulled his chariot into gear.

  So she was checking for tails! That made me feel better. Running Al and Rich all over Paris was going to be difficult to explain if Marisa dropped into some boutique, bought a nightie, then went home.

  As we rounded the corner I looked back. The sedan was pulling away from the curb.

  My taxi sped toward the Place de la Republique. From there I thought we could go south toward the Boulevard Beaumarchais, and if Marisa Petrou didn’t jump a cab and boogie, we’d eventually arrive in her vicinity. Like all plans, this one was subject to instant revision.

  We had just about reached the Place de la Republique, the sedan following faithfully, when the phone rang again.

  “She’s walking west on Rue St. Gilles. I told Al to go up a block and parallel us. That way he’s out of her visual universe.”

  “What the hell is this? NASA? Where’d you learn phrases like that, anyway?”

  “I used to be somebody. ‘Bye.”

  I looked at my map. “Boulevard du Temple,” I told the driver. Like many European cities, the French renamed their avenues every few blocks. This one was soon to turn into the Boulevard des Filles du Calvare, then the Boulevard Beaumarchais. No doubt there was a logical reason for naming streets this way, once upon a time, but whatever it was, it has been lost to history. These days the system sells a lot of maps to tourists and foreign spies and fills up taxicabs with people trying to get from here to there.

  Marisa was staying close to home base. She might even return home, although I was betting she wouldn’t. She had a meet set up, and the person she was going to meet was Elizabeth Conner.

  It’s nice to be certain of something you have no proof for. I suppose that’s a symptom of the human condition. Proof or not, I did have a suspicion. Conner used The Sum of All Fears as the basis for a code. Marisa’s father had had a copy of the same book. Or did he? What if it was Marisa’s book? What if Marisa was the spy and not her stuffy old man?

  Well, it was a theory, anyway.

  “Turn here,” I told the cabdriver, and pointed. I might as well get ahead of Marisa so I’d be in the neighborhood if she went to ground or flagged a cab.

  The phone vibrated again. I was holding it in my hand. “Yeah.”

  “She’s crossed the Rue de Turenne. She dawdled twice to check for tails. Don’t think she made me.”

  “If she does, drop off and let Al take her.”

  “I know how to do this, Tommy.”

  The connection went dead. I looked behind us. Yep, we still had a tail.

  Who the hell were these guys?

  The cabdriver was eyeing me in his rearview mirror. “It’s alright,” I said in English. “I’m working for Rumsfeld.”

  “Rums…?”

  “Forget it,” I said in French. “Turn left.”

  But if Marisa and Elizabeth Conner were spies, who were they spying for?

  The phone again. “She’s marching up the Rue du Parc-Royal, headed straight for the Musee Picasso.”

  “Stay loose. There’s bound to be cabs there.”

  “No joke.” He hung up.

  “Musee Picasso,” I said to my chariot driver. He didn’t seem flustered or excited, so I guess he knew where it was.

  “She’s inside,” Rich Thurlow reported. “Went in the main entrance.”

  “Have Al go in and keep an eye on her. How many exits does that building have?”

  “I dunno.”

  The taxi rolled sedately alongside the sidewalk outside the front entrance and drifted to a stop. Being a fiscally prudent government employee, I gave the driver a two-euro tip. I did, however, leave him the newspaper with the nifty photos.

  I called Rich as I walked across the courtyard. “Where is she?”

  “The Blue Period Gallery.”

  As I went in the door I saw the sedan stop and two guys get out. They might have been the same two I saw on the Rue Paradis, but I didn’t take the time to make sure.

  The museum is a mansion from days gone by. Built in 1656, it now houses the paintings and sculptures the French government screwed out of the Picasso heirs in lieu of death taxes; a monument, if you will, to the fact that Pablo didn’t know any good lawyers.

  I zipped across the courtyard and up the steps of the main entrance.

  When I had gone through the short queue and passed the ticket lady, I took stock. It was nearly noon. The gift shop and cafe were on the ground floor. I headed in that direction.

  I was in the gift shop hiding behind a rack of art books when I spotted Elizabeth Conner crossing the hall, heading for the cafe. I snapped a photo of her with the digital camera, then called Rich on the cell phone.

  “We’re doing his Cubist stuff now.”

  “Time to fade, fella. Leave her.”

  “I’m gone.”

  One of my tails came into the lobby and busied himself with a guidebook. I got four pictures of him. He didn’t seem to notice.

  Six minutes later Marisa Petrou crossed the hall and went into the cafe. I got a three-quarter photo of her face with the zoom out as far as it would go as she went by.

  With both the women in the cafe, I strolled toward the exit. My tail turned his back to me as I walked past.

  The sedan was still at the curb with the driver inside. I made a mental note of the license number. I walked to the Metro stop and went down the stairs.

  Sure enough, two of them joined me on the platform, the guy from the lobby of the museum and another one. I ignored them. When the train pulled in, I got aboard. At the very last second, as the door was closing, I got off.

  They didn’t make it; the train pulled out with them aboard. They stood looking at me out the window, their faces expressionless, as the train went past, one of them with his cell phone to his ear. I wondered about the reception down here in this tunnel.

  I climbed the stairs, crossed over to the other platform and caught the next train going the other way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Henri Rodet had little to say to Jake Grafton as they waited for their wine, which Rodet had chosen. He watched the sommelier open the bottle, sipped experimentally and said, “Bon.”

  The sounds of the street were strangely muffled, even though the window was open a trifle, admitting just a hint of cool autumn air.

  Rodet savored his wine as he scrutinized the American’s face. Grafton didn’t seem to mind. He glanced at Rodet from time to time, looked about the room, studied the pictures, which were original oils by unknowns, and loosened his tie. His suit, Rodet noticed, was not well made, the fit only so-so. Still, Grafton looked, Rodet thought, like a man in perfect control of himself, supremely self-confident. Ah, yes, Rodet remembered: Grafton had been a combat aviator, one of those fools who bets his life on his flying skill, again and again and again.

  So what, precisely, did the American know about Abu Qasim?

  They were sitting in silence, each waiting for the other to begin the conversation, when there was a knocking on the door, then the waiter entered. Rodet raised his eyebrows at Jake, who made a gesture with his hand. Rodet ordered for both of them.

  When the waiter departed, Rodet said, “You wished to talk, Admiral. This is your chance.”

  Grafton nodded. “You have an agent in Al Qaeda,” he said. “I came to ask you to share the information he gives you.”

  Rodet took his time answering. He had been thinking all morning, trying to decide the best way to handle this, and he hadn’t yet reached a decision. Finally he said, “Without admitting or denying that assertion, I wish to discuss with you the delicate position anyone would be in, if, indeed, he were privy to the information of such an agent. Needless to say, secret information begins to lose its exclusivity when the circle of people with access is expanded. In the world in which we live, inevitably, sooner or later, whispers that such info
rmation exists will begin to circulate.” Grafton said nothing, merely listened.

  “Then there is the information itself. The greater the revelation, the greater the temptation to put newly acquired, valuable knowledge to use. Your use of knowledge reveals that you have it. If it was acquired by spying, those who have been spied upon will inevitably begin looking for the leak.”

  Now Grafton spoke. “All this is true, of course, and true of every piece of secret intelligence.”

  “Aah, not quite. The more possible sources there are for any given secret, the smaller the probability the owner will find the leak. In the hypothetical you describe, there could only be one source.”

  “One?”

  “Just one.”

  “So you have arrived at a logical absurdity,” Grafton said softly. “Your spy sends you information that you cannot use for fear of endangering him. His sacrifice is for naught, his information of no practical value.”

  Henri Rodet reached for the wine bottle and refilled his glass. When the bottle was again sitting on the table, he lifted his glass. Over its rim, he looked at Grafton and said, “I think you understand the problem.”

  “I am not so sure that you do,” Grafton shot back. “When you revealed the Veghel conspiracy, you knew there were going to be arrests. And there were. So now the Al Qaeda leaders are looking for the leak they know must be there.”

  From a pocket Grafton produced the cell phone that Tommy Carmellini had taken from Muhammed Nadal and slid it across the table. “On that phone are nine telephone numbers. Here is a list of the people they belong to.” From an inside pocket he produced a folded sheet of paper. This, too, he pushed across the table. “All these people are Muslims living in France. We think they are Al Qaeda soldiers.”

  “Where did you get the telephone?” Rodet asked.

  “My aide, Terry Shannon, and I were followed yesterday when we left the Conciergerie. Shannon recognized the man. Then Shannon was followed yesterday afternoon when he left the embassy. He took the telephone off one of the thugs and threw another through the clock at the Musee d’Orsay.”

  “Oh, yes,” Rodet said. He had seen the photo of the clock in the newspapers earlier and read of the incident in his morning brief. “And the list?”

  “You can find anything on the Internet.”

  Rodet let that one go by. “A few obnoxious Muslim thugs do not prove your point. Nor do they prove your hypothesis, which was the assertion that I have an agent inside Al Qaeda.”

  “I am not a lawyer and this is not a court,” Grafton said. “Contemplate the situation for a moment. Someone killed Claude Bruguiere, who, as it happens, had completed a transaction at the Bank of Palestine in your name a few months ago. One might theorize that he was killed because he knew too much about that transaction, that the man who sent him to Amman killed him to shut him up. That would be you or someone who wants to smear you. If the authorities suspect you of the murder or your connection to the Bank of Palestine becomes public knowledge, you will, at the very least, be forced out of the DGSE.”

  Rodet said nothing.

  “And there is the murder of Professor Heger of the Sorbonne. I’m sure you have seen the police report. My wife discovered the body.”

  “Your wife. What business did she have with Professor Heger?”

  “She wanted to ask him the name of the Algerian student who was such good friends with you twenty-five years ago, one Abu Qasim, also known as Abdullah al-Falih. Our information is that he’s a big wheel in Al Qaeda.”

  “That wasn’t in the police report.”

  The fact that Rodet hadn’t denied his friendship with Qasim did not escape Grafton’s notice. “She didn’t think the police needed to know that fact,” he replied. “If you wish to pass it on to them, please do.”

  Grafton stood and walked to the window. With his back to Rodet, he said, “The man who could link you to Qasim has been murdered. The man who invested in Bank of Palestine stock on your behalf has been murdered. You are in an uncomfortable position, Monsieur Rodet.”

  He turned to face his host. “And on top of everything, you have become a target. You don’t live in a bank vault. You have an estranged wife and a mistress. The Palestinians know of your bank stock investment, as do the Israelis. The fact is probably known to every terrorist and radical thug in that corner of the world. All these people have probably heard about the arrest of the members of the Veghel conspiracy. You are in the crosshairs, Monsieur Rodet.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Grafton opened a hand. “Not from us. But the folks in the Middle East don’t hesitate to assassinate their enemies. Sooner or later they’ll come at you. It is possible that they may come at you through your family.”

  “I have four men guarding my wife around the clock. Marisa and I can take care of ourselves.”

  Grafton came back to the table, where he stood looking down at Rodet. “You are the one who should be shouting at me. You have a sleeper buried deep and you’ve covered his trail so well that his identity has remained a secret for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years! Then he told you of a threat that forced your hand, and you passed it to the American CIA. And someone within the CIA is dirty. He told… someone, and the source of the information got out. Yet you have not complained to or berated any of us Americans. Not the American ambassador, not George Goldberg, not me, no one.”

  Grafton put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Who is the CIA leak? Give me his name.”

  Henri Rodet opened his mouth, then closed it.

  They were interrupted by the knocking of the waiter and the opening of the door. Behind the waiter came another man carrying a tray.

  Grafton resumed his seat. When he and Rodet were served and the wineglasses recharged, the waiters disappeared. The two men ate in silence.

  When they finished, Rodet pushed his chair back and sipped on the last of the wine.

  “Your man has risked his life for many years,” Grafton said. “If he is not under suspicion, he soon will be. His days are numbered. Yet he knows a great deal. If we can get him alive, we can destroy these people.”

  “If you cut off one head the monster will grow another,” Rodet muttered.

  Jake Grafton pushed his chair back from the table. “I am telling you the unvarnished truth,” he said. “Your secret cannot be kept. If you leave your man in place, he will eventually be ferreted out and killed.”

  Rodet felt a huge weight pressing on him. The risks were great, yet no worse than they had always been. What a tragedy it would be for Abu Qasim’s friend, Henri Rodet, to betray him. As for Heger, he was gone and nothing could bring him back.

  “No,” Rodet said, so softly that he thought Grafton might not have heard it. He repeated it louder and more clearly. “No. The time is not yet arrived. I ask you to trust my judgment on this matter.”

  “I would, except for the fact that you are wrong. The building is on fire, and we cannot wait.”

  Henri Rodet shook his head from side to side. “No,” he repeated.

  Grafton threw up his hands. “I will ask you one more question: Do you have any credible information, from any source, that Al Qaeda is planning an attack on the G-8 leaders at the summit?”

  “We have heard rumors, yes, dozens of them. No doubt your agency has also heard them, or similar ones. But credible information, no.”

  “Thanks for lunch,” Grafton said, and walked out. He closed the door behind him.

  I took a cab back to my place and unlocked the Vespa. I needed to lower the frustration level. I had had it up to here with spies and ex-cons who couldn’t follow a beer truck to a bar.

  I went buzzing off, still stewing. The day was clouding up, so maybe it would rain. That would be the perfect ending to this day, let me tell you.

  I was sitting at a stoplight, the little Vespa mumbling under my butt, when I realized that there were two really tan black-haired guys sitting in an old pale blue sedan in the next lane, and they were looking
me over. This was not the late-model, dark sedan that had followed me to the museum. The paint on the car was chipped and sun-bleached. The tires were bald, the muffler sounded as if it were shot and a faint cloud of noxious smoke was spewing from the tailpipe. The third world had arrived in Paris.

  The light changed and I goosed my ride. I putted off, riding between cars, right down the lane stripe, just the way we used to do it back in California. This maneuver left the grungy blue car behind.

  Two lights later I was sure I’d lost them. I turned left and headed over to the embassy.

  Grafton was down in the SCIF in the basement, staring at the photo of Rodet’s country home, which he had taped to the side of a file cabinet. Beside it was a photo taken from a helicopter or airplane of Rodet’s apartment building in town.

  He gave me his full attention when I told him about my morning and produced my camera. “I would like to see if the CIA can match the photos of these women and the guy who followed me with anyone in the database.”

  Grafton palmed the camera and examined it. “Tell me about the men who followed you.”

  I did. I also told him about the old blue sedan I saw at the light and gave him the plate number of that car, too. “I think they’re friends of that asshole I threw through the clock.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “The guys who followed you to the museum — they knew you made them?” Sure.

  Grafton sat down and idly examined the camera.

  “I think Marisa and Conner are Israeli agents,” I told him. “That code that NSA was interested in this spring might have been used by Marisa, not her father, Lamoreux. The Sum of All Fears could have been the key. And Conner has a copy.”

  “It’s possible,” Grafton admitted.

  “Maybe you should share this possibility with your buddy Rodet.”

  “Not yet.”

  “He might be surprised.”

  “I doubt it.”

  I guess I gaped. “You think he knows?”

  Grafton’s eyebrows rose and fell, and he gave a minuscule shrug.

  I lost it. “Jesus, Admiral, I’m trying to do you a good job and you don’t tell me where you are!”