The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  “So you really want Rodet’s computer?”

  “Yes.”

  Grafton picked a park bench with a view of Rodet’s building and plopped down on it. “Let’s wait a while,” he said, “and see what happens.”

  I didn’t know what he had up his sleeve, and I didn’t really care. It had been a long, long day for me. So we sat there in the middle of that old square with its symmetrical buildings and ghosts, as Grafton made telephone calls. His cell phone was a peach, a bit larger than the usual. “It’s encrypted,” he said, when I remarked on it.

  His first call was to someone at NSA, I surmised, as I listened to his side of the conversation. He told the person on the other end about the transmitter/receiver on the satellite television system, listened a while, then grunted good-bye.

  “The French might have broken that code,” I suggested, indicating his telephone.

  “It’s possible,” he admitted, “but improbable. Still, everything in life is a risk.”

  “I suppose.”

  The night wore on. My butt got tired and I shifted around to maintain circulation. I decided I wasn’t going to do this for a pastime if and when I got out of the agency. At least I had my scooter jacket, which kept me reasonably warm. Grafton had only a sports coat, yet he didn’t complain. He received two telephone calls on his encrypted cell and made another. I didn’t try to figure out what the conversations were about. His side of the discussions consisted mostly of grunts and yeses and noes.

  After the last call, he told me, “The guys were set up to record the sounds from the apartment when they were shot. Sarah and Willie listened to the burglars search and trash the place. There were muttered comments in a language they can’t understand. They even got Callie in to listen, and she doesn’t understand it.”

  His wife was, I knew, a linguist who spoke seven or eight languages.

  “Sarah will send the stuff to Fort Meade and see if they make sense of the comments. I suspect it was just something like, ‘Look over there.’”

  “Be nice to know which language it was,” I suggested.

  He didn’t reply to that.

  While we sat on our bench, three people went into the building. One was a single man in his sixties, well dressed with what appeared to be a nice warm coat. The other two were a couple, in their forties, I would say. From where we sat, about a hundred feet away, it was hard to tell.

  It was a little past 10:30 in the evening and downright chilly when a limo rolled up in front of Rodet’s building. The chauffeur hopped out, zipped around the car and opened the right rear door. In a few seconds I saw Marisa Petrou’s dark brown hair. Seconds after that Rodet appeared, standing a head taller. As he spoke to the doorman, Jake Grafton rose and strolled in that direction.

  Being a loyal trooper, I cranked myself erect and fell in behind him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After Rodet and Marisa went into the building, Jake Grafton waited about two minutes, then followed. He didn’t tell me not to come, so I clumped up the stairs right behind him, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was going to be interesting to see Marisa’s face when she saw mine.

  The door was standing open and Grafton walked right in. Marisa was surveying the mess when she saw us. She managed to keep a grip on her face, which impressed me. Coming home to find your place trashed, and then seeing the last guy in town you expected, had to be difficult.

  “Bonjour,” she said automatically, without inflection.

  “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by,” Jake Grafton said in English.

  Rodet came out of the sitting room. He looked tired, stressed. His gaze went to Grafton. If he even saw me, he gave no sign.

  “You’ve had some messy visitors.”

  “Burglars,” Henri Rodet said curtly.

  “One would think they were searching for something,” the admiral said as he surveyed the wreckage.

  “You know anything about this?” Rodet asked, scrutinizing Grafton’s face.

  “Not a thing. Is the whole place like this?” Grafton walked past him and looked into the sitting room, then the kitchen. He whistled when he saw the mess on the floor. He turned back to Rodet, looked him in the eye and leaned slightly toward him. “Did they find it?” he asked.

  No one ever accused Jake Grafton of messing around. Rodet wasn’t used to the direct approach, and I could see that he wasn’t sure how to handle it.

  “Perhaps you and I should have a talk,” Rodet said to Grafton. “Marisa, will you entertain this gentleman for a moment while I visit with the admiral?”

  As Rodet led Grafton into the wreckage of the sitting room, I gave Marisa my best honest smile. When the two superspooks were out of earshot, I said earnestly, “We’re just here to sell you a good used car.”

  My pathetic attempt at humor went right over her head. She, too, had a lot on her mind. “What do you know about this?” she asked, searching my face.

  I looked around a bit before I answered. “Looks to me like they spent at least an hour at it. Two or three guys, I’d say. Where were you and Rodet this evening?”

  “At a party.”

  “The maids?”

  “This is their evening off.”

  “Convenient, you must admit. Did you tell your Mossad pals that the coast was clear?”

  She looked daggers at me.

  “Maybe you should make an executive decision,” I continued earnestly. “Decide that we’re on the same side and tell me what you know.”

  She half turned away from me.

  “Well,” I said, surveying the stuff on display like a suburbanite at a yard sale, “they didn’t find it. You’ve been living here and you haven’t found it, so I wonder why they would think they could in just an hour?”

  That stung her. “You talk too much,” she snarled.

  “Probably.” I decided a shot in the dark wouldn’t hurt. “Maybe Elizabeth Conner isn’t who she seems. Maybe she brought some friends over for an Easter egg hunt.”

  She acted as if she didn’t hear that comment.

  I went to the nearest chair, an antique by the looks of it, cleaned off the seat by dumping the contents on the floor, examined the slashed padding, then parked my fanny.

  Marisa seemed lost in thought.

  I prattled on anyway. “Remember that evening in Washington that you and I danced the night away? Who would have suspected that we were going to have a long-term relationship? I should probably write to Jack Zarb to thank him for starting something grand.”

  She ignored me. That didn’t bother me much; women have been ignoring me all my life.

  The forensic scientists were busy swabbing explosive residue off the floor and ceiling of the parking garage when Jean-Paul Arnaud arrived. Inspector Papin was conferring with another police official. Arnaud saw Papin glance at him, so he merely stood and watched until Papin finished his conversation and came over.

  “Ah, Arnaud. They have decided to call me on every police matter that might have any intelligence implications, so you and I are going to become closely acquainted.” The inspector gestured with his hand. “A car bomb.”

  “Victims?”

  “Apparently none. The car was a rental. It was rented to an American, a Terry Shannon.” He held out a slip of paper with the passport number and local address. “One of our clerks did a routine check and it came back a hit. So we called you.”

  Arnaud glanced at the paper. “Shannon…Wasn’t he the American attacked by thugs at the Musée d’Orsay?”

  “Yes.”

  Arnaud folded the paper once and pocketed it as Papin briefed him on the investigation so far of this bombing. “Initial indications are that the explosive was a military type. We’ll have more when the chemists finish their work. We have yet to determine how the bomb was triggered. We’ll be examining the wreckage, but that will take a while.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Not yet. Nor have we questioned Shannon. Do you have any objections?
”

  “Treat it as a routine police matter.”

  “Very good. We’ll try to find him this evening.”

  “Keep me advised, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the Bruguiere killing? Anything new?”

  “Nothing yet.” The inspector hesitated, as if trying to make up his mind.

  Arnaud waited, perfectly willing to give the man his moment.

  “This afternoon two French Muslims on motorcycles chased a motor scooter through Paris. They crashed. One is dead, the other is in the hospital. We will question the survivor as soon as he is fully awake, although, as you know, these people usually refuse to say anything. And, of course, none of the people we talked to noted or remembered the license number of the scooter. I did have the motor vehicle registration people run a check, and, as it happens, several days ago Terry Shannon bought a scooter.”

  Rodet frowned.

  “Shannon is having a memorable visit to Paris, by any measure. Islamic thugs attacked him yesterday in the Musée d’Orsay, this afternoon his car exploded, and this evening he may or may not have fled from two thugs on motorcycles.”

  “Perhaps he should go home,” Arnaud muttered.

  “One wishes he would,” the policeman said. “He has been extraordinarily lucky so far, but with luck there is always a limit. The examining magistrate may forward a request to the ministry that he be expelled from France.”

  Arnaud scrutinized Papin’s face, then nodded curtly. “Keep me informed,” he said.

  As the deputy director of the DGSE walked away, he thought about Papin’s comment: “With luck there is always a limit.”

  “The people who searched your apartment are trying to discover the method that you use to talk to Qasim,” Jake Grafton said conversationally to Henri Rodet as they stood in the center of the disaster area.

  Rodet could think only of his friend Qasim. Even looking at the trash strewn about the floor, the personal danger this mess implied seemed but an annoyance. Qasim laid his life on the line every single minute of every single day, and he had been doing it for twenty-five years. And yet…

  Those bastards! Breaking in here!

  From his pocket he pulled a pistol. He aimed it at a painting on the wall of the Algerian desert, one he acquired as a youth, and pulled the trigger over and over again.

  The booming roars filled the room.

  The action was so unexpected that Jake Grafton stood stock still, watching.

  Only after Rodet had jerked savagely at the trigger several times and gotten no reports because the pistol was completely empty did the American breathe again.

  Rodet pocketed his weapon and stalked into his bedroom. He rooted through the pillow feathers and underwear and clothes strewn over the floor until he found a box of cartridges. Then he returned to the sitting room.

  When the pistol was reloaded and back in Rodet’s pocket, only then did Jake Grafton say, “You’ve been passing Qasim’s intelligence to the Israelis for years, and they haven’t used it in a manner that would betray him. Why don’t you trust the Americans?”

  “I could write a book.”

  Grafton took a deep breath, sighed, then stirred the trash with a toe. “They are getting very close,” he said softly. “Qasim’s life is hanging by a thread. So is yours.” He gestured angrily and roared, “These people mean business, and they don’t give a damn who knows it. If you don’t use some sense and get him out of there, they’ll kill you. If that doesn’t shut him up, they’ll purge their organization, kill everyone who might be the leak. Think Joe Stalin. Now, that outcome wouldn’t be a disaster, if your man was already out of there.” He paused and scrutinized Henri Rodet’s face. “Think about it,” he said softly.

  “I have been thinking,” Rodet said, “and probably not too clearly. The truth is I’m in over my head, and so is my source.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I love Abu Qasim like a younger brother…or the son I never had.” He took a few seconds to compose himself, then spoke again. “Did you ever have a son?”

  “Thousands,” Jake Grafton shot back.

  Rodet looked surprised.

  “Have you ever been to the American cemetery at Normandy?” Grafton asked. He didn’t wait for a reply. “Young Americans have been fighting for freedom, for liberty, since the American Revolution. They’ve fought kings, rebels, dictators, Communist oligarchies, and now religious fanatics. They’ve been maimed and killed on battlefields all over this planet. Black, white, yellow, brown, they come from the four corners of the earth and obey the orders of elected officials. Those officials have made many mistakes, sometimes grievous ones, but still young people step forward to wear an American uniform, to fight for the flag. They’re my sons and daughters; all of them—soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen—every last one of ’em.”

  “But a son you have known and loved?” Rodet said, unwilling to drop the point.

  Grafton gathered himself. “When the planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the buildings were on fire, Port Authority police and New York City police and firefighters rushed to the site and charged into those buildings to save as many people as they could. They died by the dozens when the buildings collapsed.” His voice was husky now. He leaned toward Rodet; their faces were only a few inches apart. “On that day three thousand innocent people were murdered by madmen. Those people were my flesh and blood—I claim them all.”

  Rodet found a place to sit. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at his ransacked apartment.

  Finally he spoke. “So far we’ve been lucky—the Islamic fundamentalists have used true believers as soldiers. But they’re sitting beside the biggest river of money the world has ever known. It was inevitable that sooner or later they would use some of that money to pay infidels to go places they can’t, to supply expertise they don’t have, to fight the holy war as hired mercenaries. They’re doing all three now.”

  Jake swept the trash from a chair and sat down as Henri Rodet continued to talk.

  When I heard the shots, my heart about stopped. If that frog bastard shot Grafton—

  I scrambled for the door to the sitting room and jerked it open. Saw Rodet put another one into a painting. He killed it dead as hell. When his gun was empty I closed the door and went back to Marisa. Her face was a study as she scrutinized mine.

  When I didn’t say anything she moved toward the sitting room door. She stood about six inches from it and looked rapt. She might as well have glued her ear to the door. I thought she got most of it.

  When she looked my way, I waggled my finger. She ignored me. It was amazing how good she was at that.

  Time dragged. I got tired of looking at Marisa and sat thinking about Al and Rich out there in that van.

  Finally, after an age and a half, Rodet appeared in the door. He motioned for Marisa, who by then was over by the sink noisily storing things in cabinets. She picked up her purse and went into the sitting room.

  I sort of followed along to see what was happening. I was standing in the doorway when I saw her hand something to Grafton, who glanced at it and put it in his pocket. Then she turned and came out, sweeping by me as if I weren’t even there.

  Grafton shooed me away with a head nod.

  It would sure be nice if for once I were a party to whatever was going down!

  I snarled at Marisa, who was standing at the sink looking about distractedly. She paid no attention. Ah, me!

  Five minutes later Grafton came out of the sitting room. Marisa met his eyes but didn’t say a word. He jerked his head at me and marched for the door. They probably don’t do a lot of marching in the Navy, but Grafton learned to cover ground somewhere. I was halfway to the sidewalk, following Grafton, when I realized I hadn’t even grunted au revoir to the Israeli agent.

  Grafton got to the sidewalk and set off at a good clip. I fell in beside him. “What’d you get?” I asked hopefully.

  When he didn’t answer, I thought maybe he didn’t hear
me, so I tried again. “What’d you learn?”

  He ignored me. It was that kind of day.

  As we walked the streets, he made a few telephone calls on his encrypted phone. After the second one he said, “The police are looking for you. They know about your car.”

  I groaned. I wasn’t up for a night at a police station answering questions. Truthfully, I was whipped.

  Grafton walked along the Paris sidewalks with his hands in his pockets, his head down. If he knew where he was going, he wasn’t sharing that, either. The wind was downright chilly, and I was so tired I shivered. Grafton didn’t seem to notice. Finally he said, “I suggest you crash at the embassy. I think they have a cot or two over there for the staff when they pull all-nighters. Tomorrow I want you and Sarah Houston to betray your country.”

  “Okay by me,” I said with a sigh. “You American bastards deserve it.”

  In the basement of the American embassy, Secret Service personnel and young Marines placed the bodies of Alberto Salazar and Richard Thurlow in coffins and packed dry ice around them. The technician, Cliff Icahn, sat in the van playing with the equipment while Jake Grafton and Pink Maillard watched from the open door.

  “They had the interior tape running, which is standard procedure,” Cliff said. “It’s a four-hour continuous loop. Here is the sixty seconds before the shots.” He played it. Jake stood with closed eyes concentrating as he listened to the words, the sound of the door opening, the fast two pops, a pause, then two more, then the door closing.

  “That’s basically it,” Cliff said. “Want to listen again?”

  Jake and Pink looked at each other and both shook their heads. “No,” the admiral said.

  “A cop,” Pink mused.

  “More precisely, someone dressed as a policeman,” Jake said.

  They walked away from the van. Pinckney Maillard had his hands in his pockets. “The ambassador isn’t going to like this,” he muttered, more to himself than Jake. “How are we going to get the bodies back to the States? We don’t have death certificates for the immigration people.”