The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  “I’m not looking forward to seeing that man,” she muttered as she glanced at the menu.

  “We’ll get through this,” I assured her warmly, laying my hand atop one of hers. “Ibiza will be worth it. You’ll see. Just the two of us, lazy mornings, walks in the afternoon, life slow and easy.”

  “You make it sound so tempting.” She turned her hand so her fingers touched my wrist.

  We chatted on, about how great it would be to be modestly rich and have each other. I hoped to hell the frogs who were listening were getting all this. Actually, it was an easy conversation to do. Sarah was lovely, smart and the kind of gal a guy like me could spend his life with.

  Where did that thought come from?

  Come on, Tommy! This is just an act. Remember?

  We didn’t have any trouble getting into the Conciergerie this time. The guard took one look at my Terry Shannon passport and motioned us on through. One of the security men accompanied us to the elevator, watched our faces as we rose two flights, then ushered us along to Arnaud’s corner suite. The receptionist took one look, then buzzed the great one, and we were shown in. The security man stood beside the closed office door.

  “Hello,” Arnaud grunted unenthusiastically.

  I have played my share of poker through the years and learned a thing or two about reading faces. Right then I would have bet my stack that Arnaud was on the fence: He wasn’t sure we were genuine and he wasn’t sure we weren’t. The truth be told, this was a better position than Grafton and I thought we might be in. We figured he would be pretty close to dead certain that we were conning him, so we were ahead of the game.

  I attacked. “I didn’t appreciate you siccing the police on me last night,” I said aggressively. “I had to get a diplomat involved and do a lot of explaining to my boss.”

  Arnaud regarded me icily from under bushy eyebrows. Now his face was expressionless, which I thought was probably his usual professional demeanor. “Two men on motorcycles tried to run you down. Why?”

  “My guess would be that they were trying to get even with me for throwing their pal though the clock at the museum, but I certainly don’t know. They very nearly made me a traffic statistic. If the police in this town were any damn good they’d be trying to find out if the motorcycle dudes knew the clock diver.”

  “Who blew up your car?”

  “Maybe those guys, or some friends of theirs. You obviously have a lot of assholes running around this town.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  We weren’t getting anywhere with this, and we both knew it. I was in no hurry, however. If Arnaud wanted to spend the afternoon beating around the bush, that was fine with me. Cons only work when the mark sells himself. While he was barking questions, his natural greed was percolating. I also knew a thing or two about greed.

  After two or three more questions, his eyes strayed to Sarah. That’s when I knew we had him hooked.

  “Don’t look at me like that, creep,” Sarah snapped.

  For a hundredth of a second, he looked startled. Then the mask dropped.

  This was too easy. Maybe he was conning us.

  “C’mon, Sarah,” I said, rising from my chair. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

  “Sit!” Arnaud ordered coldly.

  I obeyed.

  “I want to see it,” he said.

  “First the money.”

  “First I see it.”

  “No,” Sarah said firmly.

  I leaned across and got hold of a hand. “Hey, babe. This is our chance. Let’s do the deal.”

  “Don’t ‘babe’ me, Terry. I don’t trust this slimy bastard. I want the money first. Ten grand.”

  I got in front of her, lifted her from the chair and led her to the corner of the room farthest from Arnaud. I held her in my arms and we whispered. I told her I loved her and a bunch of other stuff, strictly part of the con. She let tears leak and swabbed at them with a fist.

  Man, she was good! Looking at her red eyes, watching that lip tremble, I’d have given her my life savings to help a Nigerian prince get money into the States.

  She capitulated.

  Arnaud gave her his chair. She turned to his computer, which was on. She began talking, telling him about the walls around the Intelink to keep out riffraff. Talking slowly, showing him every keystroke, she led him to her rathole. At one point he got too close to her, and she recoiled like a scared cat. He backed off.

  She looked up at him. “You’re recording all this, right?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Because I’m not doing it again unless you pay me a lot of money.”

  “I will try to remember your words, Miss Houston.”

  She got back to it. Five minutes later the opening page of Intelink C came onto the screen.

  Sarah rose. “You owe us ten thousand dollars.”

  Arnaud sat playing with the scroll buttons as he read. After a moment he turned, nodded at the security man, who was still standing over by the door, and said to us, “Tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.”

  He was still staring at the screen when I went through the door and glanced back.

  Sarah Houston stayed in character when we were out on the street. “Do you think the bastard will buy the whole package?” she asked.

  I grinned at her. It’s a pleasure to work with a pro, and she certainly was one. “Hard to say,” I replied. To give the unseen watchers material for their report, I put my arm around her shoulder as we walked. She felt mighty good as we strolled across the bridge over the Seine and the wind whipped at us.

  At the embassy I went into the men’s room. Sitting in a stall, I used a penknife to pry the transmitter out of my belt. I twisted it loose from the antenna and dropped it into the trash when I left.

  Pink Maillard and Grafton were huddled in the admiral’s office. I looked in, gave Grafton the Hi sign, and stepped back outside. Pink looked worried. I didn’t blame him; I’d be on tranquilizers if I were responsible for keeping the president alive in this day and age.

  Gator Zantz was there, too. He looked properly humble, having been summoned from his London sinecure to help fill the hole created by Al and Rich’s sudden departure.

  “Hey, Tommy,” he said when he saw me sitting beside Sarah, holding her hand. He merely nodded at her; I wondered if he remembered her name. “What in hell have you guys got going around here?”

  “G-8 meeting, spies all over, assassins…another day in the CIA. That’s going to be the title of my memoirs.”

  “Always the clown.”

  “How’s every little thing in merry ol’ England?”

  “Still there. Wanna make a little bet on the Monday night game?”

  “Man, I don’t know who’s playing, and I don’t want to take your money. Don’t you have a car payment or rent or something like that?”

  “Very funny,” he said, and went away. Which was fine. Personally, I never liked the guy, but then, there are a lot of guys I don’t like. Dozens, scattered all over the world.

  Grafton wanted to see me before I left, someone said. I winked at Sarah and went to see if he was alone. He was.

  The admiral wanted to know every word and detail of our performance at the Conciergerie. After fifty questions, he asked my opinion. I rubbed my chin while I considered. “I think he bought it, but maybe not.”

  Grafton grunted. His parting comment didn’t give me much comfort. “Be careful, Tommy. Watch yourself out there.”

  “Yeah.” That’s what I told him. Yeah. Sure. Always. I’m going to live forever.

  Sarah and I had dinner, just to keep up appearances, at an intimate little place George Goldberg recommended. He certainly knew his restaurants.

  Sarah was—but I don’t need to bore you with that.

  I dropped her at her hotel and took a cab to the Rue Paradis. Riding through the streets I remembered Rich and Al, and how I felt when my car blew up. Now wasn’t the time to start coasting. I sensed that matters
were coming to a head; this thing was going to be over pretty soon, one way or the other, and I was going to be a free man. What was I going to do without the CIA—and the green paycheck?

  I thought about that as I checked the traffic and scanned the pedestrians. Where were the local sons of Islam? I’d thrown one through a clock, and two had crashed. Maybe they bombed the car, maybe they didn’t, but I was blaming them for it until a better candidate showed up. Then there was Al and Rich—somebody iced them.

  I had the cabbie drop me two blocks from my place. I stood there on the sidewalk watching the cab drive away, breathing deeply and soaking up some Paris. No other cars whipped up and let people out. It was nearly eleven o’clock. At that hour on the sidewalk in that neighborhood, it was just me and a few stray johns dying to meet some of the neighborhood cuties.

  I paused at the top of my street and looked over the scene. I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

  Man, I’ve been doing this too long.

  So where am I going to go and what am I going to do when I get back to the States?

  The stairwell was narrow and dark, as usual. I paused by Elizabeth Conner’s door and listened—could faintly hear television audio. I kept going, unlocked the door to my palace, stepped inside and took off my shoes.

  After I got out of my clothes and brushed the fangs, I pulled out my infrared goggles and put them on. I looked downward and fiddled with the gain and contrast controls.

  It took me several seconds to realize what I was looking at. Elizabeth Conner was lying motionless on the floor, and she was difficult to see. I changed positions while I adjusted the gain control. No help there. Contrast didn’t seem to make any difference. The battery?

  I looked at the hot-water pipes. About as usual. Back at Conner, her legs akimbo…

  I tore off the goggles. Grabbed my lock picks. Left my door standing open, charged down the stairs three at a time. Pounded on her door. No answer, of course.

  The television ran a series of ads for something or other as I worked with the pick and torsion wrench. I was all thumbs. God damn it all to hell!

  The lock gave and I threw open the door.

  She hadn’t moved. Her eyes were open and she was staring at nothing at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Elizabeth Conner was very dead and had been for hours. How many I don’t know, but her body was cool to the touch. Of course. That was why her body was just a ghostly shadow on the infrared.

  Ah, me. She was wearing her bra and panties, nothing else. A towel lay under her.

  She had been strangled. Her neck was a mass of bruises. I tried not to look at her face.

  The contents of the room had not been touched, as far as I could tell. Whoever murdered her had apparently come for that purpose. Someone knocked, she wrapped a towel around herself, then opened the door. Whoever was standing there advanced, seized her by the neck and began to squeeze violently. Maybe she took a couple of steps backward. When his victim was dead, the strangler left, pulling the door closed behind him.

  You’ve probably read the mysteries and seen the CSI shows where the victim has big gobs of the killer’s DNA under her fingernails. I have, too, so I looked. Well, I didn’t see any obvious wads of skin and hair, although she did have two broken fingernails. The broken nails looked jagged, as if they were fresh breaks.

  I forced myself to look at her face. Whoever did that…

  Suddenly I felt embarrassed, as if I were shaming the dead. I was in the presence of sudden, unexpected violent death, and I was wearing only shorts and a T-shirt.

  I pulled the door shut and smeared my palms around over the back of the knob. The killer wouldn’t have left any prints, and I certainly didn’t want to decorate the knob with mine. Nor did I want it wiped clean, just covered with useless smeared prints.

  Back upstairs I sat down for a think.

  After a few minutes, I called Jake Grafton on his cell phone. “Elizabeth Conner’s dead. Strangled in her flat. I just found the body.”

  He groaned. “Damnation.”

  After a moment of silence, he said, “Go get her cell phone. Bring it with you tomorrow.”

  I was losing my patience with Jake Grafton and this whole spy gig. “You know whose number is on it, don’t you?” I said roughly.

  “I think I know who killed her, if that’s what you mean. Please, go get the cell phone before the police find the body.” He hung up on me.

  Jake Grafton stared at the computer screen, trying to concentrate. He had two pages of text in front of him. He scrolled through it, reading it again, word for word. Then he hit the print button. When he had the pages he folded them carefully, put them in a shirt pocket, and turned off the computer.

  I stopped to put my pants on before I went back downstairs. I picked the lock again and went into Conner’s room, leaving the door open so I could hear anyone coming up the stairs.

  I tried not to look at her. Even in her underwear, she looked obscenely naked.

  I began frantically looking for her cell phone. Alone in a bedroom with a strangled woman, listening for the heavy tread of policemen, I could feel the tension ratchet up with every passing second. Of course, as the tension tightened, I developed an urge to pee, which got steadily worse. I tried to put all the extraneous stuff out of my mind and concentrate on thinking logically about my task. It was difficult.

  Three minutes of searching did it for me. I convinced myself that her cell phone wasn’t in the room. It was possible, I suppose, that it was under her, but not very probable. In any event, I wasn’t going to move the corpse to look.

  I locked the door behind me, smeared the knob one more time, and went upstairs. Safely back in my hole, I made a beeline for the bathroom. When I had relieved the pressure, I called Grafton and gave him the bad news.

  Jake Grafton was walking toward the embassy’s main entrance when the phone rang. He signed out at the security desk as he listened to Tommy.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Tommy demanded.

  “Well, I have made some guesses. Based on evidence, I suppose, or lack thereof. But it’s thin. We’re not there yet.”

  When I heard that comment, I couldn’t restrain myself. “Maybe you should tell somebody what you’re thinking. Don’t think I’m being pushy, but if on the way home tonight you get crushed by a falling piano, it would be nice if some other human on planet Earth had an inkling of what the hell you think is going on in Paris.”

  Grafton sure took his time answering. “I suppose you’re right,” he said finally.

  I waited expectantly.

  He began with random comments, then finally got into the groove. He told me about Abu Qasim and Henri Rodet, and he told me what he could prove, what he surmised, and what he thought might happen as events played out. The recitation took about twenty minutes.

  As I listened I sat at my window and watched the first snowflakes fall into the streetlights.

  Finally Grafton ran out of words. I thanked him for taking the time to talk to me and hung up.

  A few minutes later I climbed into bed. I lay there listening to the wind sing as it passed my window, which was open about half an inch.

  I tried to think about something besides Elizabeth Conner. I thought about Sarah, and about a woman I used to know and had sort of decided to wait for, Anna Modin. But it didn’t work. Their faces faded and I was left with the image of Elizabeth Conner lying dead on her floor, strangled, her eyes bulging, every muscle in her face taut, frozen in death. The image was ugly, and I began thinking evil thoughts.

  It was a few minutes past midnight when Jake Grafton put his cell phone into his pocket. As he talked he had taken shelter behind a pillar on the portico of the embassy. Now he stood looking at the Place de la Concorde, and at the two police vans parked in a side street to his right. On the sidewalk beside one of them, a small knot of policemen stood smoking and drinking something hot. Grafton could just see the steam rising from their cups.

&n
bsp; There wasn’t much traffic in the huge square. No taxis in front of the Hotel de Crillon, which was next door, and none zooming along the Rue de Rivoli, ready to careen through the plaza and across the Seine on the Pont de la Concorde. He fastened the neck buttons on his coat, jammed his hands in his pockets, and set off for the Metro stop. A few snowflakes were falling, melting when they hit the pavement. The wind had a nasty bite, so he hurried the last few paces toward the stairs leading underground.

  There were four or five people on the platform; he didn’t pay much attention. He walked out to within four feet or so of the edge and unfastened the top buttons on his coat, looking idly at the billboards advertising haute couture jeans and expensive tennis shoes.

  Grafton was thinking about Elizabeth Conner when he realized that the man on his left was walking toward him. He looked. The man was young, Midde Eastern, of medium height and build.

  Jake glanced right. Another man, also Middle Eastern, advancing toward him.

  He heard a noise. Two behind him—he had walked right by them when he came out onto the platform.

  They had been waiting for him!

  He was outnumbered four to one. There were no other people on the platform at this time of night. No, there was one other person on the platform, sitting on the bench, a man in a long coat.

  Grafton turned to face the young thugs.

  They kept coming. One of them pulled a knife from his pocket.

  This might be an excellent time to try out the wireless Taser, Grafton thought. He pulled it from his coat pocket and flipped the switch on the side to turn it on. What was it Maillard had said? The thing took ten or fifteen seconds to charge the capacitor?

  “You guys stop right there.”

  They did stop, momentarily, their eyes on the weapon. Then one of them realized there was no hole in the barrel. He laughed, pointed at it, and made a comment to his friends, who grinned.

  The man on Jake’s left pretended to piss, and laughed. They thought the thing was a squirt gun.