The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  I was standing in a doorway, two doors down the street from my building in the opposite direction from those two stations, trying out my French on two hookers, when a taxi rolled up and stopped. Willie Varner got out. He paid the cabbie, then stood looking around. He saw me and came sauntering toward us. A big grin spread across his face when he got a good look at the girls.

  “You didn’t tell me you were livin’ in a hot neighborhood, Carmellini.”

  “I’m a man of mystery.”

  “What you are is a guy who don’t tell his friends shit.”

  He settled himself, sort of squaring his shoulders, grinning at the women. I got him by an elbow and led him gently away. “The subject is a cute American girl, about five five or so, athletic, brunette. You got a phone?”

  He patted his pocket and gave me the number. Heck, it was a long distance call, clear to America. “That thing work over here?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Called my girlfriend on it.”

  I put his number into my cell phone and then put mine into his. “All you have to do,” I explained, “is punch the 1 button just once and it’ll ring my phone. Got it?”

  “I dial any other numbers, anything like that?”

  “Just push that 1 button once.”

  “Okay.”

  His eyes were slightly bloodshot, he had bags under his eyes, and he looked a little run-down. “You doing okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Just partyin’ hard, y’know. Don’t figure I’ll ever get back this way again so I’m havin’ my fling now courtesy of Uncle Sugar and the loyal taxpayers back to home. America’s a great country.”

  “She should be coming out any minute,” I said, anxious to get him briefed before the subject appeared. “If she turns this way, I want you to trot inside and stay out of sight, so she doesn’t see you. Stay out of sight until I motion for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She knows me. You keep her in sight and I’ll keep you in sight. If you have any problems, or lose her for even an instant, call me.”

  “Call you what, Terry or Tommy?”

  “Just call me.”

  He was running his mouth about his adventures last night when I noticed two dark men talking to a hooker several doors down the street. I was looking at them in profile. Were they Arabs? Their clothes were nondescript; they were perhaps in their twenties, cleanshaven—

  Just then Conner popped out of the door of our building, seventy-five feet down the street. I forgot about the Arabs. Sure enough, she turned right, toward the Rue du Faubourg. She was wearing a red jacket, slacks and sensible heels. She had her purse, which was actually more like a tote bag, slung carelessly over one shoulder. No hat. She walked like the fit, athletic woman she was.

  “That’s her,” I told Willie.

  “Okay.” And away he went. I wished the gals a speedy au revoir, flipped the hood of my sweatshirt up to hide most of my face, and followed him.

  I can’t help it—I like following people. It’s an art, really, tailing someone through a large city without letting them know you are behind them. An art, sport and secret trade. Not that I’m great at it, because I’m not. I’m probably about average as tailers in the spook business go, although I enjoy the work a little too much.

  The problem was that ol’ Lizzie Conner knew me on sight. One half-decent gander at me would ruin the game. She was way too smart to buy the coincidence thing, so we had to do it right or say good-bye. And I liked that, too.

  She headed for the Gare de l’Est, which presented its own problems. I kept Willie in sight, hoping he didn’t get too close. Of course, he didn’t have a lot of experience at this, but he was the best I could get. The other guys were monitoring bugs for Grafton, which was probably a lot more important than finding out where Conner shopped or went to class.

  She went down the steps into the subway and I saw Willie follow along. When I came down the stairs he was buying tickets at the booth. She wasn’t in sight. He turned around, ticket in hand, saw the look on my face and shrugged.

  He went through the turnstile and started down the stairs to the 5 train platform. “She go that way?” I called.

  “I dunno,” he answered. “I didn’t have a goddamn ticket.”

  “Try the 4 train.” I pointed. “Going downtown.”

  He trotted that way and disappeared down the stairs.

  Jesus! Talk about a couple of incompetents! And I didn’t know she was going downtown—I was just guessing. If she wasn’t going to the Sorbonne, she could be on any of these six platforms. Oh, man! I wasn’t going to tell Grafton about this one!

  I followed Willie down the stairs. I stood on the stairway watching as he looked around, found her, then wandered over to the magazine rack. As he fooled around, pretending to look at magazines and actually keeping tabs on her, I decided I shouldn’t have telephoned him this morning; he was having his problems following this woman onto a subway train. He was easy to miss in a crowd, sure, but if she didn’t eventually spot the Wire, she wasn’t the competent intelligence professional I thought she was.

  Scanning the crowd, I looked for Arabs or North Africans who might be interested in me or Conner or Willie. Didn’t see any. That isn’t a politically correct remark, I know, but after my little adventure in the museum yesterday I was looking for swarthy faces. I saw some, too, although they didn’t evince the slightest interest in Willie or me or Conner.

  When I heard the train, I kept my eyes on Willie. He was glancing at Conner from time to time. The train stopped and the doors opened. He waited…I hoped he waited for Conner to board, but who knew? After a bit he wandered over to the train and got into a middle car. I waited five more seconds, then went for the last one. The door was closing on me as I stepped aboard.

  The door slammed behind me, and the train got under way.

  Now I had to find Willie, get him in sight, and hope he was cool enough to keep an eye on her and not get spotted.

  The train slowed for a station, Château d’Eau, where she could have boarded this train. Willie stayed seated.

  Another station, Strasbourg St. Denis, then two more, and in just another minute the train was pulling into the Les Halles station. This was a huge station, probably the biggest in Paris. If Willie lost sight of her in here…

  He was getting up, leaving the car. I did, too, taking care not to turn toward Conner and Willie. I had the hood of the sweatshirt up, and with luck, she wouldn’t recognize me if she didn’t see my face.

  A glance and I picked up Willie. He was going up a set of stairs. I followed.

  She wound her way up and over and ended up on the platform for the 1 train to the west, toward La Defense. I risked a look around a column. There she was, reading a paperback as she waited. She was waiting to board the rear of the train. Willie stood in the middle. That left the front for me, as if I had a choice.

  The train pulled in, and she got aboard. Willie climbed on, and so did I.

  She wouldn’t go far. She was changing trains to spot us, then she was going to ditch us and go on her way. I figured she would change again at the Concorde station, and sure enough, she did.

  This time she stood in the middle of the platform waiting for the 8 train eastbound, toward Creteil-Préfecture. Willie wanted the aft end of the platform. I joined him so I wouldn’t have to pass her.

  “She’s jivin’ us,” he muttered.

  “Yeah.”

  She got on, and away we went. I got my pocket map of the subway system out and scanned it. My guess was that she would ride to the end of the line, watch me and Willie get off the train, then reboard for the trip back into the city. There wouldn’t be many folks wanting to ride right back. We could either get back on the train with her or call it a bad day.

  When she didn’t get off the train at the last station where she could change lines, Daumesnil, I was pretty sure. “You stay aboard,” I whispered to Willie. “She’s going to the end of the line and catch this train back into town. Just stay with h
er. Call me when you start back to town. If she loses you, check in with me. Got it?”

  “Okay.”

  I got off at the next stop, Michel Bizot, and walked up the stairs. The doors closed behind me and the train pulled out. I ran to the top of the stairs and waited. No Elizabeth Conner. She had stayed on the train.

  I ditched the sweatshirt in a trash can and pulled on my baseball cap. Then I walked over to the eastbound platform and sat down to wait. Two French kids standing against the wall had a boom box and were serenading us with rap. It’s everywhere these days.

  A train pulled in and everyone on the platform except me got on. Blessed silence.

  The minutes ticked slowly by. The longer I sat there, the angrier I got. Elizabeth Conner was playing me for a sucker. She broke into my apartment, listened to me on a wall mike, scribbled secret messages to God knows who, and now was riding the trains through Paris reading a novel and laughing her pretty little ass off. At me. Because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going down!

  I climbed the stairs and went out on the sidewalk. France stretched away in every direction. I got out my cell phone and checked the battery charge.

  The time had come to play a hunch. I punched up my list of numbers, found the one I wanted and pushed the button. Two rings, then a male voice answered.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey your own self,” I said. “Who else is there?”

  “Just Al.”

  “That girlfriend of Rodet’s. She still in the apartment?”

  “Getting ready to leave, I think. She was talking to the maids about vacuuming while she was out.”

  “Is there a limo waiting?”

  “Not down front.”

  “Tail her. You and Al. Don’t lose her, and call me. I want to know where she goes.”

  “Okay.”

  I snapped the phone shut, then opened it again. I pushed the 1 button and listened to the ring.

  “Yo.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Damn if I know, man. Somewhere in France, I figure, out here ridin’ through the suburbs. We’re aboveground now.”

  “Get off at the next stop, get a cab, tell the driver to take you back to your hotel.”

  “You know how goddamn much that’ll cost?”

  I wasn’t in the mood. “It isn’t your money, Willie. But if you don’t have the jack on you, walk back or take the subway.”

  He started to reply but I closed the phone and shut him off. There was a taxi sitting by the curb; I walked over and got in.

  “Talk to me,” Jake Grafton said to Sarah Houston. She was sitting at a computer keyboard in the SCIF in the basement of the American embassy, so he pulled a chair around and sat where he could see her face.

  “The key logger Tommy installed gave me the passwords to Rodet’s computer and his files,” she said, glancing at Grafton, “and the e-mail addresses to get in to two other computers he owns, one at the apartment on the Rue des Vosges, the other a laptop that either he or Marisa Petrou uses occasionally. I’ve managed to search the hard drives of all three computers.”

  “And?”

  “None of the three is used to communicate with any secret agent anywhere.”

  Jake Grafton made a face. “I had hopes,” he said.

  “Don’t we all?”

  “How about encrypted e-mail?”

  “Nothing long enough to contain a secret message—with, of course, the exception of unsolicited junk e-mail, but that stuff gets filtered out, and no one has ever done anything with those files, as far as I can tell. There is nothing on the hard drives to show that the junk has ever been processed.”

  “The Bank of Palestine investment?”

  “The computer at the apartment is used to track three investment portfolios, all belonging to Rodet. If he owns a share of stock in the Bank of Palestine, there is not even a hint of it on that machine.”

  “So how does Rodet send and receive messages to his agent in Al Queda?”

  Sarah didn’t reply.

  Grafton sighed. If he didn’t use some kind of electronic communications, that left the regular mail. Who writes letters these days? Grafton thought that eventually long, chatty letters would arouse suspicions somewhere, especially in this day and age.

  So what did that leave? Well, it left the entire world of third person com, couriers, dead drops, microdots, all of that. And yet, if that was indeed the method by which Rodet and his agent communicated, that meant there was a third person who knew the secret. That third person—if there was a third person, who was it? Someone who worked for the DGSE? Rodet’s estranged wife? His girlfriend? Perhaps one of the agent’s relatives who traveled back and forth fairly regularly.

  If there was a third person, anyone really searching would find him or her. That fact alone suggested that the mysterious third person did not exist.

  So what method did that leave?

  The aerial photo of Rodet’s château was pinned to the wall over Sarah’s desk. Jake pulled the pins out, took the print down and studied the photo.

  Henri Rodet told his secretary he was going to lunch and walked out of his office. In the courtyard he ignored the limo that was his to command and asked for an agency car. He got in and drove out the gate, turning right on the street.

  He checked his rearview mirror at the first light, and the second. No one seemed to be following. Flowing with traffic, he drove to the large parking facilities that served the Pompidou Center and went in. There were four possible exits. He went straight though the building, ensuring that no cars were behind him, and exited.

  He parked in a small lot near the Boulevard Richard Lenoir and walked. Ten minutes later he entered a modest restaurant. The staff were still cleaning and preparing for the luncheon crowd.

  “Ah, Steuvels. Bonjour. Good to see you again.”

  “And you, Monsieur Rodet.”

  “Steuvels, I am expecting a friend, an American. He will be along in a little while, and I wondered if we might have one of your private rooms upstairs?”

  “Pardon, monsieur, but they are not ready for lunch. You understand, we use them only in the evenings…”

  “It doesn’t matter. This is a private meeting.”

  “But of course. Come, follow me, and we will make a few preparations. What is your friend’s name?”

  “Grafton.”

  In the small room, which was just big enough for a table, eight chairs and a sideboard, Rodet had an excellent view out the window. He moved back in the room so that someone outside could not see him.

  The day was bright; a square of light fell upon the table.

  A waiter knocked, then bustled in with bottled water and two glasses.

  “A beer, s’il vous plait,” Rodet said.

  When the waiter left Rodet loosened his tie and settled back to wait.

  He and Qasim had had their last meal together in a brasserie in the Latin Quarter. The brasserie was gone now—the owner had a heart attack ten, no, fifteen or so years ago. These days the business on that corner sold ice cream to tourists.

  Qasim had fallen in love with Paris. Rodet tried to talk him out of going to Egypt. “You don’t need to do this,” he said. “This isn’t your fight.”

  Qasim didn’t argue. He took tiny sips of wine and ate slowly, savoring every bite.

  Rodet found that it was difficult to argue with a man who refuses to speak, so he gave up. He drank wine and watched people come and go and listened to conversations swirling around them.

  When he had finished eating, Qasim ordered the best bottle of wine in the house. The proprietor brought it out reverently and opened it before them. Qasim took an experimental sip, then nodded his approval.

  As the conversational hubbub engulfed and surrounded them, he spoke softly, so Rodet had to lean in to hear. “It will be a long time before I write to you. I’ll write to your grandmother. In the letter a place will be mentioned. That will be where I am. Eventually, when it is safe, we will meet somewhere
. I will tell you the place and time.”

  “It would be best if all our communications are in code.”

  “I understand. That will come later, when I have something to tell you. We must wait. The longer we wait, the more they trust me. The more they trust me, the more damage we can do them.”

  Rodet nodded.

  “It is important that you understand, Henri. I may not survive. The Egyptian police may beat me to death or the fundamentalists may kill me. What happens will be God’s will. But if God wants me to survive, it will be because He wants me to destroy these people.”

  Rodet drank more wine and said nothing.

  “You see, I am a holy warrior at heart. Islam is the religion for warriors. A man must accept God in his heart and submit to His will. The rest is only details.”

  Rodet did see. He did not understand, but he saw the iron in the man before him.

  They talked and talked until the wine was gone. Mostly Qasim talked and Rodet listened. In his new life as a spy, Qasim could only survive if he said very little, and then nothing that revealed the inner man. So now he talked freely, as if saying good-bye to himself.

  He left the next day for Egypt. Rodet waited for several days, then followed along behind. When the Frenchman reached Cairo, Qasim was already in jail. Rodet didn’t ask about him, but he saw the lists and found his new name.

  Yes, he had to have a new name. Too many people knew Abu Qasim, philosophy student.

  Months later Rodet failed to find the name on the newest list. He didn’t know if Qasim had died or been released. That was when the reaction to Qasim’s choice hit him the hardest. Abu Qasim, he realized, was the greatest human being he had ever met. In an era when most people refused to get involved, Abu Qasim was willing to give his life for what he believed in.

  The waiter knocked, breaking Rodet’s chain of thought. Now the door opened and the waiter stuck his head in. “Monsieur Grafton.”

  “Show him in, s’il vous plait.”

  “She’s out and walking, Tommy.”

  I was sitting in a taxi near the Gare de l’Est. The meter was running and my driver was leaning against the front fender, smoking and chatting with a colleague who had driven the taxi parked behind us.