Peter strode into the hospital room, almost running. His angular face was tight. “Just talked to General Bittrich. The meeting on the De Gaulle was called by La Porte himself to press his case for a completely integrated European military. Eventually, Bittrich thinks, a united Europe. One nationEuropa. Bittrich was damned cautious, but when I told him our General Moore had been murdered, he finally spilled it. What had alarmed Mooreand, it turns out, Bittrich, toowas that La Porte hammered at the electronic and communications failures the American military was having and strongly suggested there’d be more, proving that the American military could not defend even its own country.”
Jon’s eyebrows rose. “When they met on the De Gaulle, there was no way General La Porte could’ve heard about our utility grid and communications problems. Only our people and the top Brit leaders were in the loop.”
“Exactly. The only way La Porte could’ve known was because he was behind the attacks. At the time, Bittrich dismissed his misgivings as an overreaction and also because he was concerned he was being influenced by the fact that he can’t stand La Porte personallya swaggering Frog, he called him.” His gaze searched their faces. “In essence, Bittrich is saying he suspects La Porte is going to launch an attack on you Yanks, when all your defenses are down.”
Jon asked, “When?”
“He suggested,” Peter’s voice became hard and bitter, “that ‘if such an impossible thought could be in any way true, which, of course, I don’t believe for a second,’ it’d be what we fearedtonight.”
“Why does he think that?” Randi asked.
“Because there’s a crucial vote coming up in a special secret session of the Council of European Nations on Monday about whether to create a pan-European military. La Porte was instrumental in making this clandestine session happen so the issue could be voted on in secret.”
The only sound was the ticking of the clock on Marty’s bedside table.
Looking out the window to the street below, Jon noticed two men. It seemed to him he had seen them walk past the hospital twice.
Randi asked again, “But when tonight?”
“Aha!” Marty announced from the bed. “Chteau la Rouge. ‘Red Castle.’ Is this it?”
Jon strode from the window to check the monitor. “That’s the castle in La Porte’s painting and photo.” He returned to the window and looked back at the others. “You want to know when? If I were La Porte, here’s what I’d do. When it’s six o’clock Saturday night in New York, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon in California. Sports and on-the-town time on the East Coast, the same on the West, plus crowded beaches if the weather’s good. The freeways are congested, too. But here in France, it’s midnight. Quiet. Dark. The night hides a lot. To hurt the United States the most, and to conceal what I was doing, I’d launch the strike from France sometime around midnight.”
Peter asked, “Where’s this Chteau la Rouge, Marty?”
Marty was reading the screen. “It’s old, medieval, made ofhellip;Normandy! It’s located in Normandy.”
“Two hours from Paris,” Peter said. “Within range of where we decided the second computer would be.”
Randi looked at the wall clock. “It’s nearly nine o’clock. If Jon’s righthellip;”
“We’d best hurry,” Peter said quietly.
“I said I’d call army intelligence.” Jon started to turn from the window. He needed to alert Fred instantly, but he glanced down at the street just once more. He swore. “We’ve got visitors. They’re armed. Two are walking in the hospital’s front door.”
Randi and Peter grabbed their weapons, and Randi sprinted to the door.
“Oh, my!” Marty said. His eyes grew large and frightened. “This is terrible. I’ve just lost the connection to the Internet. What’s happened?”
Peter popped out the modem’s hookup and tried the telephone. “It’s dead!”
“They’ve cut the phone lines!” Marty’s face paled.
Randi cracked open the door and listened.
Chapter Thirty-six
Outside the door to Marty’s room, the hallway was quiet. “Come on!” Randi whispered. “I saw another way out when I was looking for the phone booth downstairs.”
Marty found his meds, while Jon snapped up the laptop. With Randi in the lead, they slipped quietly from the room and along the corridor past the closed doors of other hospital rooms. A nurse in a starched white uniform had just knocked at one. She paused, startled, her hand on the doorknob. They rushed past, unspeaking.
From the open stairwell, they heard Dr. Cameron’s outraged voice float up in French: “Halte! Who are you? How dare you carry guns into my hospital!”
They increased their speed. Marty’s face was bright red as he hurried to keep up. They passed a pair of elevators, and at the end of the hall Randi pushed her way through the fire-exit door just as footsteps pounded up the stairs behind them.
“Oh, oh! Wh-where to?” Marty tried.
Randi shushed him, and the four of them ran down the gray stairwell. At the bottom, Randi started to open the door, but Jon stopped her.
“What’s on the other side?” he asked.
“We’re below the first floor, so 1 assume it’s some kind of basement.”
He nodded. “My turn.”
She shrugged and stepped back. He handed the laptop to Marty and pulled out the curved knife he had taken from the Afghan. He opened the door a few inches, waiting for the hinges to creak. When they did not, he pressed it farther and saw a shadow move. He forced his breathing to calm. He looked back and touched his fingers to his lips. They nodded silently back.
He studied the shadow again, saw where the overhead light must be that had cast it, gauged the movement once more, and eased out.
There was a faint smell of gasoline. They were in a small underground garage packed with cars. The elevators were nearby, and a man with pale skin, dressed in ordinary clothes, was circling away from them, an Uzi in his hands.
Jon released the door, and as it swung back, he sprinted. The man turned around, blue eyes narrowed. It was too soon. Jon had hoped to slip up behind. His finger on the trigger, the man raised his weapon. No time. Jon threw the knife. It was not meant for throwing, not balanced properly, but he had nothing else. As it spun end over end, Jon lunged.
Just as the man compressed the trigger, the knife’s handle hit his side, ruining his aim. Three bullets spit into the floor next to Jon’s feet. Concrete chips sprayed the air. Jon slammed his shoulder into the gunman’s chest, propelling him back into the side of a Volvo. Jon reared back and crashed a fist into his face. Blood spurted from the fellow’s nose, but he merely grunted and swung the Uzi toward Jon’s head. Jon ducked and dodged back, while behind him silenced gunfire spit.
As Jon looked up from his crouch, the man’s chest erupted in blood and tissue. Jon spun around on his heels.
Peter stood off to the side, his 9mm Browning in his hands. “Sorry, Jon. No time for a fistfight. Must get the hell out of here. My rental car’s outside. Used it to get Marty out of the Pompidou Hospital, so I doubt anyone’s made it. Randi, grab everything in the poor bloke’s pockets. Let’s find out who the bloody hell he is. Jon, take the man’s weapon. Let’s go.”
Outside Bousmelet-sur-Seine, France
There are moments that define a man, and General Roland la Porte knew deep within himself that this was one. A massive man of muscle and determination, he leaned on the balustrade of the highest tower in his thirteenth-century castle and gazed out through the night, counting the stars, knowing the firmament was his. His castle was perched on a hill of red granite. Meticulously restored by his great-grandfather in the nineteenth century, the castle was illuminated tonight by the light of a three-quarter moon.
Nearby stood the crumbled, skeletal ruins of a ninth-century Carolingian castle, which had been built on the site of a Prankish fort, which in turn was on the remains of the fortified Roman camp that had preceded it. The history of this land, its structures, and his family were entwined. They were the history of France itself, including its rulers in the early days, and it never failed to fill him with prideand a sense of responsibility.
As a child, he longed for his periodic visits to the castle. On nights like these, he would eagerly close his eyes in sleep, hoping to dream of the bearded Prankish warrior Dagovic, honored in family lore as the first of the unbroken line that eventually became the La Portes. By the age of ten, he was poring over the family’s Carolingian, Capetian, and illuminated medieval manuscripts, although he had yet to master Latin and Old French. He would hold the manuscripts reverently on his lap as his grandfather related the inspiring tales that had been handed down. La Porte and France, France and La Portehellip;they had been the same, indistinguishable in his impressionable mind. As an adult, his belief had only strengthened.