The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  I thought he looked Middle Eastern. Perhaps North Africa? With the sunglasses it was difficult to say.

  If the DGSE watcher noticed him, he gave no indication.

  I went back to my novel.

  The man in the sweater saw the American, Carmellini, sitting on the bench reading. He, too, was watching, but for what?

  The Americans had a watch station in the plumbing van—he was sure of it. It sat there surrounded by cones, yet no plumbers came or went.

  Americans were pouring into Paris. They were around the George V Hotel, where the U.S. president would stay, and now were present in squads around the American embassy on the Place de la Concorde, men in sports coats and suits, carrying handheld radios. They visited with the French police, strapping, fit men wearing submachine guns and kepis. The French police operated in squads from small buses, which they parked on street corners and sidewalks near the American embassy and up and down the Champs-Elysées. No doubt by the time of the G-8 conference, Paris would be full of police and military units, brought in from all over the country.

  Germans, Japanese, Russians, British…he had already seen security men from all those countries. Not a lot, but a few.

  The rustle of branches in the autumn breeze caught his attention. Then a small whirlwind played with some fallen leaves.

  Ah, Paris. It was so different from the desert. Who was it that said, “God loved the Arabs—He gave them the Koran—but He loved the French more: He gave them Paris”?

  Callie Grafton was one of those people who enjoyed learning new things and being around schools and colleges. Her father and mother had been academics, so universities had been part of the warp and woof of her life ever since she could remember.

  Today as she walked through the buildings of the Sorbonne, looking for Professor Heger’s office, she remembered her parents. They would have enjoyed Paris, the Sorbonne, the faculty club. Ah, yes.

  According to a student she questioned, the philosophy department was in an old building on a narrow street. She had no trouble finding it, or the sign just inside the door that listed the members of the faculty and the room numbers of their offices. A passing student confirmed the sign: Professor Heger’s office was on the top floor.

  The elevator had obviously been installed just a few years ago, probably much to the relief of the gray-headed professors who had spent their adult years climbing the building’s narrow stairs. New or not, it creaked and groaned as it descended to the floor where she stood. She could hear it coming, protesting all the way. When the door opened she discovered that it was of modest dimensions—big enough for perhaps four average-sized Europeans or three porky Americans.

  As she rode upward she went over her planned approach to Heger one more time. She needed confirmation of Qasim’s name, and she needed it now.

  Undoubtedly someone had asked him not to talk, and that was the promise he was honoring. Since he made that promise the world had turned, she would explain. Times had changed. For Qasim’s sake she needed to know: All those years ago, had Qasim been a friend of Henri Rodet?

  The elevator stopped with a bump, and the door protested as it opened. Somehow the French had accomplished the impossible—installed a brand-new old elevator in an old building.

  She went along the hallway examining the numbers on the door. There it was. She knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  Well, he might not be here. He might be in class.

  She rapped again. Heard a thump. Or was it her imagination? A noise from inside the room?

  Callie tried the doorknob, and it opened.

  “Professor Heger?”

  She looked inside. The room was small, lined with books on shelves, two little windows, a desk, a computer…and behind the desk on the wooden floor, just visible, a shoe.

  She stepped into the room. “Professor?”

  He was lying behind the desk. “Professor Heger?”

  She turned him over and saw the bullet wound in his head. It had bled some, and the blood had congealed on the floor and the side of his face. He also had a deep bruise where his face had hit the floor when he had fallen.

  He was still alive, breathing erratically. His eyes were unfocused.

  Callie reached into his mouth and cleared his airway. The man was obviously in a bad way, perhaps even dying. There was no time to lose.

  “Professor Heger, I’m Callie Grafton. Yesterday you denied knowing Abu Qasim. It was twenty-five years ago, Professor.”

  The old man obviously heard her. He made a noise, swallowed, tried to focus his eyes.

  “I know you promised not to tell who he was,” Callie continued, “but the world has turned. Times have changed. It’s a matter of life and death. I need to know. Did you have a student named Abu Qasim?”

  He was trying to talk. Callie bent down. She heard the whisper.

  It was incoherent noise.

  Then Professor Heger lost consciousness. Callie talked to Heger in the hope that he might hear, but within a minute he breathed his last.

  At half past twelve the limo came slowly along the street and glided to a stop in front of Henri Rodet’s building.

  I stowed the paperback in my pocket and walked toward the long Mercedes as the driver got out and opened the right-side rear door.

  A very shapely leg appeared, then another, and out stepped Marisa Petrou. She was wearing some kind of frock that ended just above her knees, a pair of high heels that consisted of a sole, a heel, and straps to hold it all together, and a little designer jacket. She reached back into the car for her purse, which was a large one.

  Then she saw me. She didn’t recognize me for a few seconds, then it hit her. She looked again at me and her mouth dropped open.

  “Hello, Marisa.” I walked over, closing the gap. “Travis Crockett.”

  “The man with the boots,” she said. “You’re a long way from Texas, cowboy.”

  The chauffeur was standing there respectfully, still holding the door. Being an American working man, I grinned at him and winked as she said, “Out for a stroll this morning?”

  “Yep. Imagine my surprise at seeing you. I guess it’s truly a small world, after all.”

  She moved away from the car and the chauffeur closed the door. She nodded at him; he got back behind the wheel and drove away.

  As he did so, I looked around at the building we were standing in front of and said, “You live here? Cool neighborhood.”

  She was looking me over, apparently trying to figure out what I wanted.

  “It’s nice seeing you again,” I said. “May I call you sometime? Perhaps take you out for a drink?”

  “No.” She bit her lip and glanced toward the park. “What are you doing in Paris, Tommy Carmellini?”

  “My name is—”

  “You left fingerprints. You’re Tommy Carmellini, an officer in the CIA. What are you doing in Paris?”

  “Standing on a Paris sidewalk in front of God and everybody chatting up a beautiful woman. And you?”

  She grabbed my arm. “Come inside for a moment.”

  I went willingly.

  “What should I do?” Callie Grafton asked her husband. She was standing in Heger’s office talking to Jake on her cell phone. She had told him everything, including the fact that Heger died without saying a word.

  “Does he have a telephone on his desk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call the police. Wait for them. You’ve left fingerprints, so we don’t want to send them off on a wild goose chase or get you in trouble. Don’t tell them about Qasim. Tell them you met the professor yesterday and wanted to talk with him again.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked, although he knew the answer.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Call me later. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Jake,” she replied, and closed the telephone.

  She and her husband made a point of saying “I love you” at the end of every telep
hone conversation. Life is short, random chance happens to us all—she glanced again at Professor Heger’s body—and there is evil.

  Evil exists. Filthy, obscene, virulent, evil is out there, ready to sear us all.

  I love you, Jake, she whispered again, and picked up the telephone on Heger’s desk.

  Marisa Petrou unlocked the street door of her apartment building on the Place des Vosges. The door opened into a stairwell. There was no elevator, so we had to hike up two flights. She used a key on the only door on the third floor.

  “Wow,” I said when I was inside. The rooms were spacious, with ten-foot ceilings. The joint certainly didn’t look like this in the Renaissance when the maids were emptying chamber pots out the windows. Someone, I assumed Henri Rodet, had spent serious euros remodeling and improving. Huge, original oil paintings hung on the walls, the ornate baseboards and moldings were gilded, thick drapes framed each window and antique chairs that looked as if they had welcomed Napoleon’s bottom were scattered here and there. Modern sculptures sat in corners, illuminated by tiny spotlights. The place reminded me of a museum. It was something to see, if you like that sort of thing. I didn’t particularly care for it, but I made polite noises.

  Marisa marched through the place, checking every room, as I trailed along behind. She found the maid in the kitchen and asked her to run an errand, a trip to the market. She gave the maid money and sent her off.

  Then we were alone.

  She zeroed in on me. “What are you doing in Paris?” she asked again.

  “Huh-uh. You first.”

  “I live here.”

  “In this place?” I looked around. “Nice work if you can get it.”

  Her mouth formed a straight line. Just then the telephone rang. She reached for it. I headed for the living room. From the window I could see the guard in the park. He was on his cell phone—probably checking with Marisa.

  I could just hear the murmur of her voice. I was staring at a modern painting, trying to figure out what it was, when she came into the room.

  She sat on the couch. “Sit, Tommy Carmellini.” She patted the seat. I sat down beside her and left a few inches between us. “Let’s start with the easy questions first. Why did you make a play for me in Washington?”

  My eyes widened. “I seem to recall that you picked me up, not vice versa.”

  “So you knocked me out, had sex with me, then left me in a drugged stupor.”

  “If that’s a question, I’m not going to dignify it with an answer.”

  She looked around the room, thinking.

  “You could answer a question for me, you know.”

  “I’ll be as honest with you as you were with me,” she said.

  “You had my fingerprints checked by someone, so you’re not just the socialite daughter of a diplomat. Do you work for French intelligence?”

  She kept her gaze on my eyes and didn’t reply. The thought occurred to me that she was a knockout. Oh, well—that’s the way my luck goes.

  “If I show up for a visit with Henri Rodet and tell him my name is Terry Shannon, are you going to rat me out?”

  “Rat…?”

  “Spill the beans. Tell him I’m not Terry Shannon.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “That’s the spirit. I saw character in your face the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  Now it was her turn. “Are you going to tell Monsieur Rodet that we’ve met before?”

  “A grand jury couldn’t drag it out of me.”

  “Grand jury…?”

  “That’s a political joke. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  The phone rang again. Marisa made a face and went to answer it in the kitchen.

  I was standing, closely inspecting a two-foot-high sculpture of a voluptuous, armless nude, when she returned.

  “I am curious,” I said. “There is a man sitting in the park that I would like to point out to you. I wonder if you know him.”

  She followed me reluctantly. “There’s a DGSE man in the park. He saw you come in. I told him we had a mutual acquaintance.”

  “Who?”

  “I didn’t name her.”

  “Okay.”

  The older man wearing sunglasses was still sitting in the same place. I pointed him out to Marisa. “Do you know him?”

  She took a good look, perhaps fifteen seconds’ worth. That pause convinced me she was a professional; if she ever saw him again, she would remember. “No,” she said.

  She led me to the door and opened it. “Good-bye, Tommy.”

  “Terry.” I didn’t want to leave. “So how is your father?” I asked.

  A look of surprise crossed her face, then disappeared. “He died,” she said.

  “Oh. Sorry to hear it. He looked pretty healthy when I saw him.”

  “An automobile accident, in the Alps. Two months ago. A truck on the wrong side of the road.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. Good-bye, Terry.” She gently touched my elbow.

  Hell, I can take a hint. I motored off and she closed the door behind me.

  I had a lot to think about as I descended the stairs. I ignored the men in the park. Didn’t look for or at them. I walked down the block and went through the arch under the buildings, which took me out of the square.

  I called Rich on my cell as I walked. “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Hey.”

  “Where is the watcher who was in the park?”

  “He’s still there.”

  “How many telephone calls did he make?”

  “One.”

  “There’s another one, an older guy in sunglasses, ratty pants and a sweater, Semitic features. Get a shot of him and ask Washington to come up with some ID, if they can.”

  “I see him,” Rich said.

  “I’m going home. Turn on the equipment, see what you can get out of those bugs. Make sure they work, then turn them off.”

  “What rooms did you put them in?”

  “Living room, hallway and kitchen.”

  “Nice job,” he said, and hung up.

  I stretched my legs and marched.

  I really didn’t care if Marisa told her guy Henri that I was Tommy Carmellini—I just threw that in to see what she would say. Was she DGSE? If she already knew that the DGSE knew one CIA type named Carmellini was in town, she hid it well. She had seemed genuinely surprised to see me—and not pleasantly surprised.

  If she wasn’t a DGSE officer, then whom was she working for?

  Jake Grafton leaned over Sarah Houston’s shoulder so that he could see her computer screen and asked, “What do you have?”

  “They used the computer at the château this morning after the power came back on.”

  “And…”

  “I’m still sorting through what I have.”

  Grafton dropped into the folding chair beside Houston’s small desk. “I want everything you can get off that hard drive, and the hard drive at his apartment in town.”

  Sarah Houston eyed him without warmth. “I know you don’t believe in telling anyone anything, but until you tell me what I’m looking for, you can classify my efforts as recreational digging.”

  Grafton seemed to accept that with good grace. With him you never knew, Houston thought. The truth was he intimidated her a little, although she would never admit it.

  “I’ve told you what I’m after. I want to know how Rodet and his spy communicate. And, obviously, what they say to each other.”

  Houston played with her keys a bit before she answered. “If you don’t know how they communicate or what they say to one another, how do you know there really is a spy?”

  “I don’t,” Grafton said with a smile. “All I have is a theory. Prove me wrong, if you can.” He picked up Carmellini’s file on Rodet’s château and opened it.

  “They may not use e-mail. Or if they do, they may use a public computer, such as one in a library or Starbucks, something like that.”

  “The agent might, but I
can’t see the director of the DGSE pounding a keyboard at a library.”

  “Why shouldn’t the agent use a dead drop?”

  “Too risky. This person is in a murderous conspiracy, surrounded by religious fanatics who are convinced that they are warriors of God, fighting God’s battles. The least suspicion would cost him his life. So he doesn’t go for walks alone, doesn’t visit post offices, doesn’t mail letters to foreign cities…none of that.”

  “A mailman?” This was a person who carried messages between the spy and his controller.

  “Same objection.”

  “You have me searching for a needle in a haystack,” Sarah Houston groused, “one that might not even be there.”

  “That kind is the hardest to find,” Grafton admitted.

  She frowned at her boss. He didn’t seem to notice. He dug into the file, held up each satellite photo and examined it closely.

  Jake Grafton looked amused as he listened to me tell of my success in getting bugs into Rodet’s Paris flat. When I ran out of air he sat in silence looking around with unfocused eyes, lost in thought. There in the SCIF the only sounds were the hum of the air-conditioning and faintly, almost too faint to discern, the sound of background music. The speakers for the Musak were inside the walls, floors and ceilings, to foil listening devices.

  Finally he looked at me and blinked, almost as if seeing me for the first time. “That was a bold stroke,” he said, “and regardless of what she does or whom she tells—in the French government—I can’t see how we’re compromised.”

  “In the French government?”

  “She could be MI-6, BND, Russian, Polish, Italian, Israeli—even an agent of a terrorist cell.”

  “Okay, okay. Maybe I should have talked it over with you first.”

  Grafton sighed. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. You used your best judgment and acted on the information you had, which is the only way we’re going to get through this.” He smiled at me. “I spent my adult life in an outfit that operates that way and it’s probably too late for me to change now. However it works out is how it works out.”