“Which group, do you think?”
“I believe they were called the Black Flame.” He picked up what appeared to be a TV remote control, pressed a button, and Captain Bonnard stepped into the grand room through a side door. “Darius, would you be so kind as to prepare a copy of the file the Sreteacute; sent over about the bombing for Colonel Smith?”
“It will be waiting for him whenever he leaves, mon geacute;neacute;ral.”
“Thank you, Darius. What would I do without you, eh?”
Saluting, but smiling, the aide left the gilded room. General La Porte picked up the coffeepot. “Now, a second cup, Colonel, and tell me more about your friend. He is, I’m told, a genius, but with some sort of unfortunate affliction.”
The general refilled their cups while Smith described Marty’s history. “Asperger’s Syndrome makes it difficult for him to function in our world. He tends to avoid people, is terrified of strangers, and lives alone in D.C. Still, he’s an electronic genius. When he’s off his medication and in his manic state, he has insights and leaps of creativity that are dazzling. But if he stays off the meds too long, he borders on incoherence, and eventually he simply starts raving. The medicine allows him to function with people in daily practicalities, but he tells me it feels to him as if he’s underwater, and his thinking, while still brilliant, is slow and painful.”
General La Porte seemed genuinely affected. “How long has he had this affliction?”
“All his life. It’s not a well-known condition, often misdiagnosed and misunderstood. Marty’s happiest when he’s off his meds, but that’s difficult for other people to be around. That’s one reason he lives alone.”
La Porte shook his head. “Still, he’s also a great treasure, eh? But in the wrong hands, a potential danger.”
“Not Marty. No one could get him to do what he didn’t want to. Especially since they wouldn’t know what he was actually doing.”
La Porte chuckled. “Ah, I see. That’s reassuring.” He glanced at a clock in the shape of a temple that stood on a sideboardgreen stone and gilded columns and cherubs. He stood up, towering over Smith. “You’ve been most illuminating, Colonel, but I have a meeting and must leave. Finish your coffee. Then Captain Bonnard will give you that copy of the Black Flame file and see you out.”
As Smith watched the massive general leave, his gaze was drawn to all of the paintings, mostly of French landscapes, hung around the room. Many appeared to be of museum quality. He recognized two fine late Corots and a muscular Theacute;odore Rousseau, but he had never seen the large painting of a massive castle built of dark red stone. The painter had rendered it in intense and brooding shades of red and purple, where bright afternoon sunshine illuminated the angles in the stone walls and towers. Smith could not place the painting, and he did not recognize the style of any nineteenth-century French landscapist. Something about it, though, was unforgettable.
He stood up, raising his shoulders to stretch, not bothering to finish his coffee. Instead, he was already thinking about the rest of his day. He had not heard from Fred Klein, so it was time to check whether his cell phone worked.
He started for the doorway through which he had entered, but before he had taken two steps, Captain Bonnard appeared in it, file folder in hand, as quiet and unobtrusive as a wraith. The captain’s accurate anticipation that he was leaving gave Smith a chill. Had Captain Bonnard been eavesdropping on the entire conversation? If so, he was a much more trusted employee than Smith had realized, or he wanted to know himself what Smith had told the general.
From the high, paned-glass window of the general’s study, Darius Bonnard watched Smith climb into a taxi. He continued to watch until the vehicle blended into traffic and disappeared. Then he walked across the room, through the rectangles of morning sunlight that patchworked the parquet floor. He sat at his ornate desk, dialed his telephone, and tugged impatiently on his lower lip.
Finally a quiet voice answered. “Naam? ”
“Smith’s gone. He’s got the file. And the general is off to one of his meetings.”
“Good,” Mauritania said. “Did you learn anything new from the general’s interview with Smith? Do we have any indication of who Smith truly is and why he’s in Paris?”
“He stuck to his story that he was here merely to take care of his friend.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I know Smith’s not CIA or NSA.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, and the sounds of a large, echoing space full of hurrying people indicated that Mauritania was on a cell phone. “Perhaps. Still, he’s been a bit busier than that, wouldn’t you say?”
“He could simply be concerned about avenging his friend, as he told the general.”
“Well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough.” There was a cold smile in the terrorist’s voice as he continued, “By the time we’ve discovered the truth of Jon Smith, it’ll no longer matter. Heeverythingwill be as irrelevant as a few more grains of sand upon the Sahara. Whoever he iswhatever he or any of them intendwill be too late.”
The dark-haired woman had slowly and meticulously searched Mauritania’s entire silent apartment and found nothing. The terrorist and the others she had seen come and go were careful. In fact, she found nothing of a personal nature. It was as if no one actually lived here.
As she turned toward the door to leave, a key turned in the lock. Her heart pounded, and she sprinted away. Across the living room, she slipped into the narrow space behind the rug that covered the far window and listened as the door opened and someone entered. The footsteps stopped abruptly just inside the doorway and remained unmoving for some seconds, as if the newcomer sensed something wrong.
To the woman, it seemed that the breathing of the unseen person was like the slow switch of a rattlesnake’s tail. She drew a 9mm Beretta from under her skirt, careful not to touch the rug that hid her. She must not make it move.
She heard a careful footstep. And a second. Coming toward the windows. A man, and small. Mauritania himself? In her narrow space, she listened. Mauritania was good, she had known that all along, but not as good as he thought. A quick, normal walk would have been quieter and more deadly. Harder to react to. He had guessed the best places to hide, but he moved too slowly, giving her time to prepare.
Looking warily around, M. Mauritania studied the room, an old Russian-made Tokarev TT-33 7.62mm pistol in his hand. He heard nothing, saw nothing unusual, but he was sure someone either was here or had been here, because he had seen marks of tampering on the locks to the doors to the building and apartment.
He glided delicately to the first window and quickly drew back a corner of the heavy rug covering it. The space behind was empty. He repeated the maneuver on the second and last carpet, the Tokarev ready to fire. But that space was also empty.
The woman looked down and saw it was Mauritania. Her Beretta was in her hand, ready in case he gazed up. She was hanging in a compact ball from a single titanium hook she had carried under her skirt and, once she realized her danger, had silently implanted over the top frame of the high window. There was no way he could react fast enough to raise his pistol to shoot her before she killed him. She held her breath that he would not look up, as her muscles strained to keep herself in a tight knot. She did not want to kill him, it could be a setback for her investigation, but if she had to
A suspended few seconds passed. Onehellip;twohellip;and he stepped back and allowed the rug to drop into place.
She analyzed his retreating steps, quick now, into the other two rooms. Then there were a few moments of silence, and she heard something heavy being dragged. It sounded as if a floor rug was being pulled back. When a board creaked and clattered, she suspected he had decided whoever had broken into the apartment was gone, and it was safe to retrieve something from a secret hiding place in the floor she had missed.
There were two soft clicks as the apartment door opened and closed. She waited, listening for another sound. For a sense of movement. There was nothing.
She dropped down to the windowsill. Her body was cramped from hanging in the clenched ball, but as she straightened she glanced out the windowMauritania stood alone across the street, watching the building, waiting.
Why was he still here? Why was he watching the building? She did not like that. If he really believed his “visitor” had left, he would be gone, toohellip;unless he was particularly security-conscious right now because of whatever he was up to.