Screams erupted as nurses, doctors, and visitors dove to the floor, into doorways, and around corners.
Smith hurled breakfast carts out of the way and thundered on. Ahead, the man rushed through a doorway and slammed the door. Smith kicked it in and raced past a terrified technician, through another door, and past a hot-therapy tank in which a naked man sat, the nurse hurriedly covering him with a towel.
“Where is he?” Smith demanded. “Where did the orderly go!”
The nurse pointed at one of three rooms, her face pasty with fear, and he heard a door bang shut in that direction. He tore onward, punched open the only door in that room, and skidded into another corridor. He looked left and right along the hallway, chrome bright in its newness. Terrified people had pressed themselves against the walls as they gazed right, as if a deadly tornado had just swept past, barely leaving them alive.
Smith ran in the direction they stared, accelerating, while far down the corridor the orderly hurled an empty gurney lengthwise to block his path. Smith swore. He took a deep breath, demanding his lungs respond. If he had to stop to move the gurney, the man would surely get away. Without breaking stride, Smith summoned his energy. Telling himself he could do it, he leaped over the gurney. His knees felt weak as he landed, but he caught his balance and sprinted onward, leaving behind another trail of frightened people. Sweat poured off him, but at last he was gaining on the orderly, who had been slowed by throwing the gurney into position. Smith accelerated again, hopeful.
Without a backward glance, the man slammed through yet another door. It had an exit sign above it. The fire stairs. Smith hurtled in after him. But from the corners of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of someone hiding to the left of the door, behind it as he swung it in.
He had time only to lower a protective shoulder. In the shadowy stairwell, the orderly sprang out and crashed into him. The impact shook him, but he managed to remain on his feet. He smashed his shoulder into the orderly, sending him reeling back toward the stairs.
The orderly staggered. He hit the back of his head against the steel balustrade. But he had given way with Smith’s thrust and quickly regained his balance, while Smith, meeting less resistance than he had expected, dropped his Sig Sauer and lost his footing. He stumbled and crashed to the cement floor, taking a hard blow to his back where it struck the wall. Ignoring the pain, he stumbled back up to his feet and grabbed for his pistol, just in time to see the man’s shadow loom. Smith lashed out, too late. A searing pain exploded in his skull, and blackness and silence descended.
Chapter Four
When the morning express train from Bordeaux pulled in that Tuesday at the Gare d’Austerlitz, Captain Darius Bonnard was the third passenger off, striding through the throngs of arriving and departing Parisians, provincials, and tourists as if he did not know they existed. The truth was, he was watching for the slightest sign of interest directed toward him. There were too many who would try to stop his work if they discovered it, enemies and friends alike.
He stayed focused, his scrutiny covert, as he headed toward the exit, a compact, vigorous man with blond hair, impeccably attired in his French officer’s uniform. He had spent his entire adult life in the service of France, and his current assignment might be the most important in all the nation’s illustrious history. Certainly it was the most important to him. And the most dangerous.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and when the voice answered, he announced, “I’m here.” As soon as he hung up, he dialed a second number and repeated the message.
Outdoors, he bypassed the ranks of taxis, plus four official and unofficial drivers eager for his business, and climbed into the rogue cab that had just pulled up.
“Salaam alake koom,”
the gravelly voice greeted him from the backseat. As he settled in beside the robed man, Captain Bonnard replied with the customary response: “La bahs hamdililah.” He slammed and locked the door.
In the street, other drivers shouted curses at this breach of taxicab etiquette.
As the vehicle pulled away, driving southwest into narrow side streets, Captain Bonnard turned to the man who had spoken. In the shadowed interior, shafts of sunlight played intermittently across the hooded, green-brown eyes. Most of the man’s face was cloaked in the voluminous white robes and gold-trimmed kaffiyeh of a desert bedouin, but from what little Bonnard could see, the man had satin-black skin. Bonnard knew his name was Abu Auda and that he was a member of the Fulani tribe from the Sahel region at the southern edge of the Sahara, where the dry, forbidding desert met lush forest and grasslands. The green-brown eyes revealed that a blue-eyed Berber or ancient Vandal was somewhere in his family line.
“You’ve brought them?” the Fulani asked in Arabic.
“Naam.”
The French captain nodded. He unbuttoned his tunic, opened his uniform shirt, and took out a letter-sized, zippered leather portfolio. Abu Auda’s gaze followed each of the movements as Bonnard handed over the portfolio and reported, “Chambord’s assistant is dead. What of the American, Zellerbach?” “We found no notes, as was expected, although we searched thoroughly,” Abu Auda told him.
The man’s strange eyes bored into Bonnard as if they could reach the Frenchman’s soul. Eyes that trusted no one and nothing, not even the god to whom he prayed five times daily without fail. He would worship Allah, but he would trust no one. As Captain Bonnard’s face held steadfastly impassive under the heat of the bedouin’s examination, the hard eyes finally turned their attention to the portfolio.
Abu Auda felt it all over with long, scarred fingers, then pushed it inside his robes. His voice was strong and measured as he said, “He’ll be in touch.”
“No need. I’ll see him soon.” Bonnard gave a curt nod. “Stop the taxi.”
The desert bedouin gave the command, the vehicle pulled to the curb, and the Frenchman stepped out. As soon as the door clicked closed behind him, the taxi peeled away.
Captain Bonnard walked to the nearest corner, speaking into his cell phone again. “You followed?”
“Oui.
No problems.” Seconds later, a large Citron with darkened windows slowed as it neared the corner. Its rear door opened, and the captain stepped inside. The expensive car made a U-turn, taking him to his office where he had phone calls to make before he met with Abu Auda’s boss.
As Jon Smith regained consciousness in the stairwell at the huge Pompidou Hospital, an image lingered in his mind. It was a face, leering at him. Swarthy, a thick black mustache, brown eyes, and a triumphant smile that faded away like the grin of the Cheshire Cat. But the eyeshellip;He concentrated on the eyes that accompanied the smile down the stairs, fading, fadinghellip; Voices speaking, what? French? Yes, French. Where the devil was hehellip;?
“hellip; are you all right? Monsieur?”
“How do you feel?”
“Who was the man who attacked you? Why was he?”
“Stand back, you idiots. Can’t you see he’s still unconscious? Give me room so I can examine”
Smith’s eyes snapped open. He was lying on his back on hard concrete, a gray cement ceiling overhead. A ring of concerned faces peered down female and male nurses, a doctor kneeling over him, a gendarme and uniformed security people above and behind.
Smith sat up and his head swam with pain. “Damn.”
“You must lie back, monsieur. You’ve had a nasty blow to the skull. Tell me how you feel.”
Smith did not lie down again, but he allowed the white-coated doctor to aim his penlight into his eyes. He endured the examination with little patience. “Great. I feel absolutely great.” Which was a lie. His head pounded as if someone were in there with a sledgehammer. Abruptly, he remembered. He grabbed the doctor’s hand in a vise grip, pushed away the light, and gazed all around. “Where is he?” he demanded. “That Arab orderly. Where is he! He had a submachine gun. He”
“He wasn’t the only one with a gun.” The gendarme held up Smith’s Sig Sauer. His expression was severe, distrustful, and Smith sensed he was very close to being arrested. The gendarme continued, “Did you buy this here in Paris? Or did you, perhaps, find some way to sneak it into the country?”
Smith patted his suit jacket pocket. It was empty, which meant his identification was gone. “You’ve got my ID?” When the gendarme nodded, Smith continued, “Then you know I’m a U.S. Army colonel. Pull the ID out of its case. Under it is a special permit to bring my gun in and carry it.”