La Porte said confidently, “The money will be there, Sir Arnold, when the need becomes so clear that even the politicians can evade the future no longer. When they understand that the fate of Europe is at stake.”

  Sir Arnold was watching the French general intently. “Do you perhaps envision a time when we’d want to go to war with the United States?”

  A hush spread around the room, while La Porte paced, his face in a sudden scowl, his ponderous body impressive for its agility. “We already are at war with the Americans, in every aspect of life and business except militarily. But militarily, we cannot be. We are too weak, too dependent on all their systems, hardware, and even the most modern weapons. We have soldiers and arms that we can’t properly equip, move, or control, without Washington.” He stopped pacing to face them, allowing his stern, unblinking eyes to examine each face. “For example, what would happen if there was some extreme crisis with Russia or China, and the American systems upon which we depend were all rendered useless or worse? What if Washington lost control of its own command and control systems? Where would we be then? If, for any reason, the Americans became defenseless, if only for a short time, then we would, too. In fact, we’d be even more defenseless.”

  Sir Arnold’s eyes suddenly narrowed in his leathery face. “Do you know something the rest of us don’t, Roland?”

  Roland la Porte met his gaze. “I know nothing more than you, Sir Arnold, and I’m insulted you’d even raise the question. If anyone would know more, it’d be you. We French do not have a ‘special relationship’ with the Americans, unlike you English. But yesterday’s invasion of the American energy networks could have easily been far worse, which certainly underlines my point.”

  General Moore stared at La Porte a full thirty seconds more. Then he seemed to think of something else. He relaxed, smiled, and stood up. “I believe our business here is over. As for the fate and future of Europe, we in Britain consider it tied permanently to that of the United States, whether we like it or not.”

  “Ah, yes.” La Porte smiled a humorless smile. “The concept of your George Orwell, I believe.”

  General Moore, the Englishman, flushed a livid red, locked eyes again with La Porte, then turned on his heel and marched out of the conference room.

  “What was that all about?” General Inzaghi wanted to know, his black marble eyes suspicious.

  Otto Bittrich said grimly, “The English novel 1984. In it, England was Air Strip One for a Pan-American and British Commonwealth entity called Oceania, united happily forever. At the same time, Europe and Russia were joined together and formed Eurasia. What was left over was called EastasiaChina, India, Central Asia, and all the Oriental countries. Personally, I’d say Britain already is America’s Air Strip One, and we must proceed without them.”

  “Exactly how do we proceed?” Gonzalez asked.

  La Porte had the answer: “We must each convince our nations and EU delegates that a future European military is the only way to protect Europe’s identity. And our greatness. In fact, that is our destiny.”

  “You are speaking about the principle of such an army, General La Porte, yes?” General Gonzalez said.

  “Of course, Valentin.” General La Porte’s eyes were dreamy. “I’m an idealist, it’s true. But it’s a principle we must start to work toward now. If the Americans can’t protect their own utility systems, how can they continue to protect ours? We must grow up, be on our own.”

  Captain Darius Bonnard stood out of the night wind as the last of the five generals’ helicoptersGeneral Inzaghi’srose up against the night sky. The salty Mediterranean air was crisp, invigorating, and he breathed deeply as he listened to the loud chop of the blades.

  The big bird flew north, in the direction of the Italian coast. Once it was safely out of range, the Charles de Gaulle altered course, sliding quietly through the sea in a long arc as it headed back to the French coast and Toulon. Still, the Frenchman continued to watch the Italian helicopter as its lights faded, the roar of its rotors dimmed.

  But he was not so much watching as mulling over the meeting of the generals, which had been instructive. He had sat at the back of the room, quiet and unobtrusive, where he had missed nothing. General La Porte’s compelling arguments for a European military had pleased him, as had discovering that most of the other generals were already thinking along the same lines. But the general’s implication that he knew more about the recent breakdowns in American electronic systems than was common knowledge had worried him.

  Bonnard sensed trouble on the horizon. He pulled meditatively on his lower lip as he thought about the British general, Sir Arnold Moore. The English bulldog was stubborn, obviously an American pawn, and altogether too paranoid. What La Porte had said had alarmed his English sensibilities, and he would soon be reporting possible plots to his prime minister, the War Office, and MI6. Measures would have to be taken, and quickly.

  Again the captain looked out to sea, where the retreating helicopters formed four tiny dots. Sir Arnold Moore would be handled. He smiled. There were only three more days. Just three days to control all aspects. Not long at all, but in other ways, perhaps, an eternity.

  Covert One 3 - The Paris Option

  Chapter Fifteen

  Toledo, Spain

  As Smith watched through the barred window, Emile Chambord tenderly pressed his wrinkled cheek down onto the top of his daughter’s head, closed his eyes, and murmured something, a prayer perhaps. Theacute;regrave;se clung to him as if he had come back from the dead, and in a way he had. He kissed her hair and turned furious eyes onto the short, stout man who had entered the room first.

  Smith could hear Chambord clearly through the window glass as he snarled, “You damned monster!”

  “I’m truly hurt. Dr. Chambord,” the other man said, his round face pleasant. “I thought you’d welcome your daughter’s company, since you’ll be with us for some time. You seemed so lonely that I feared your emotions were causing you to take your mind off your work. That’d be unfortunate for all of us.”

  “Get out of here, Mauritania! Have the decency at least to leave me alone with my daughter!”

  So that was what Mauritania meant. It was the name of this soft-looking man, who smiled but did not mean it, who was fueled by some kind of iridescent vision.

  Mauritania shrugged. “As you wish. I’m sure the lady is hungry. She’s forgotten to eat tonight again.” He glanced at the untouched meal on the wooden tray. “We’ll have a quick dinner soon, now that our business here is finished, and you can both join us.” He bowed in polite farewell and left, closing the door behind him. Smith heard it lock.

  Emile Chambord threw one more angry look over his shoulder and then stepped back from Theacute;regrave;se, his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Let me look at you, daughter. Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you? If they did, I’ll”’

  He stopped as a burst of gunshots sounded. A violent fusillade by small arms somewhere outdoors, near the front of the house. Inside, running feet hammered, and doors crashed open. In the barred room, Dr. Chambord and Theacute;regrave;se stared first at the door and then at each other. Theacute;regrave;se’s face was frightened, while Dr. Chambord appeared more concerned than scared. He frowned at the door. A tough old man.

  Smith had no idea what was happening, but this was a distraction he could not lose. Now that he had found them both alive, he must get them out. They had been through enough, and without Emile Chambord, the DNA machine might be useless to the terrorists. He did not know whether Chambord had been forced to operate his molecular computer for them, or perhaps they had another expert and had kidnapped Chambord to keep him from duplicating his triumph.

  Whatever the truth, Smith needed to get the Chambords out of their hands. As he pulled on the window’s iron bars to see whether any were loose, Theacute;regrave;se caught sight of him.

  “Jon! What are you doing here?” She ran to the window and tried to raise the glass. As she struggled, she turned back to her father. “It’s Dr. Jon Smith, an American. He’s a friend of your new collaborator, Dr. Zellerbach.” She studied the window, and her eyes grew large and appalled. “The wood part of it’s nailed shut, Jon. I can’t open it.”

  Bursts of gunfire continued to crackle in the distance as Smith gave up on the bars. They were set firmly in an iron frame. “I’ll explain everything later. Theacute;regrave;se. Where’s the DNA computer?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Chambord growled, “It’s not here. What are you”

  There was no more time for talk. “Stand back!” He held up his Sig Sauer. “I’ve got to shoot the frame loose.”

  Theacute;regrave;se stared at the weapon. She looked from it to Jon’s face and then back at the gun. She nodded and ran back out of the way.

  But before Jon could fire, the door to the room flung open, and the short, heavy man known as Mauritania stood there. “What’s all this shouting?” His gaze froze at the window. On Smith. They looked into each other’s eyes. Mauritania drew a pistol, fell flat onto his belly, fired, and bellowed, “Abu Auda! I need you!”

  Smith peeled away just in time. The bullet smashed through the glass. He burned to return fire, but if he shot blindly into the room, he might hit one of the Chambords. Clenching his jaw, he waited until another bullet blasted through the window, and then he quickly raised up, Sig Sauer first, one eye peering into the room, ready to shoot.

  But it was empty, and the door was wide open, showing an equally empty hall. Emile and Theacute;regrave;se Chambord were gone. As quickly as he had found them, they had disappeared.

  Smith ran toward the third window. Perhaps they had been moved to this room. But just as he reached the window and discovered an empty office inside, the tall Fulani in the long white robes, who had patrolled earlier, appeared from around the back of the farmhouse, gun up and ready. Right behind him came three more armed men, and all had that alert look of soldiers at war.

  Smith went into an instant shoulder roll as bullets thudded into the ground, following him. He returned fire through the dark night, thankful for the thickening spring cloud layer that blocked the moon. His bullet hit one of the men in the midsection. The man doubled over and fell, and in those few seconds Smith’s other pursuers shifted their attention to their wounded comrade. That was when Smith leaped up and sprinted.

  More bullets chased him, whining past and hitting the ground, tufts of weeds shattering up into the air. He ran a zigzag pattern, faster than he had ever run in his life. Marksmanship was more than being able to shoot straight and hit the target. It was psychology, reflexes, and being experienced enough to predict what the target was going to do next. An erratic pattern was good defense. As Smith’s weary body complained, he saw he was approaching the windbreak.

  With a final burst of speed, he threw himself into the growth of trees. The musky odors of decaying leaves and wet soil filled his head. Again he shoulder-rolled, came up in a tight ball on his haunches, whirled around, and pointed his Sig Sauer back at his assailants. He squeezed off a series of rounds, a hailstorm of bullets, and he did not care where they landed. His barrage was enough that the tall leader and the others fell to the ground for cover, and maybe he had hit two of them. But then, they had run straight at him, perfect marks.

  Smith tore away through the woods, heading around toward the front of the house, where the initial gunfire had started. He listened. The shots were sometimes sporadic, sometimes intense. Behind him in the trees, there was no sign of pursuit.

  Then he saw it: In the front of the farmyard, pandemonium had broken out. Figures lay stretched out on the ground, weapons up and pointed at the windbreak. At least twenty of them. As Smith watched, rapid muzzle flashes burst from the other side of a thick oak, while out in the yard, someone screamed in agony.

  In his white burnoose, the lead extremist came running around through the open area, shouting orders. He crouched next to the corral and bawled an instruction in violent Arabic back at the house. Moments later all the house’s lights went out, its windows suddenly inky black pits, and a spotlight mounted at the left corner just beneath the roof blazed to life, illuminating the yard and rotating mechanically from some remote control until it focused on the windbreak, where it homed in on the oak tree.

  Now that his men were no longer back-lighted, the white-robed leader waved them forward.

  In response, a furious burst of automatic fire erupted from the woods. Two attackers fell, grunting, cursing, one clutching an arm and the other a shoulder. The rest plummeted to the earth again and raised up on their elbows to return fire. Only the bedouin leader remained a target, kneeling in plain sight as he coolly shot his old British assault rifle and cursed the others in vivid Arabic. With the gunman’s total attention directed at the oak bathed in merciless light, Smith dropped lower and scrambled closer to see who was firing from behind it.

  He parted a cluster of Spanish broom and peered through at a single figure, who knelt behind the tree, reloading a Heckler & Koch MP5K compact submachine gun with a fresh banana clip. The spotlight illuminated the front and sides of the tree, leaving the back in shadow. Still, he could see enough to be shocked a third time that night: It was the unattractive, dark-haired woman he had spotted yesterday outside the Pasteur Institute, the same woman who later walked right past where he sat in the cafeacute; but had shown no interest in him.

  She was no longer wearing the dowdy, ill-fitting clothes and plain shoes of Paris. Instead, she was dressed in a slim, black jumpsuit, a black watch cap rolled up above her ears, and snug black boots. A change that revealed a far from frumpish shape, and also suited the requirements of her current activity. As Smith watched, she moved as calmly and smoothly as if she were on a firing range, releasing a series of careful bursts of three as she swept the MP5K across the semicircle in front of her. There was a precision, but at the same time a controlled carelessness to her work, as if her instincts were as well honed as her craft, which was impressive. As she released her last burst, somewhere to the left, there was another shriek of pain, and she jumped up and ran back, retreating deeper into the woods.

  Smith followed, fast and low to the ground, attracted by the fact that not only were she and he fighting on the same side, but he suddenly realized there was something about her that was familiar, something that had little to do with the events of today or yesterday Her coolness and skill, the shape of her body, the intuitive risk-taking while at the same time the almost machinelike exactness. The right move at the right time.

  As he watched, she dropped again, this time behind bushes. Simultaneously, bursts of gunfire and a round of swearing showed that the terrorists had arrived at the oak and found she had flown.

  Smith remained motionless, hidden behind a poplar tree, as the sense of familiarity grew. Her face was wrong, her hair was wrong, and yet? Her body in the slim coveralls, the way she held her head, the sure, powerful hands. And then there were her movements. He had seen it all before. It had to be her. What she was doing? Being here. CIA was in on this, that was certain. Randi Russell.

  He smiled briefly, feeling the same surge of attraction he experienced every time he saw her under any circumstance. That was because of her close resemblance to her sister, Sophia. At least he always accounted for it that way, knowing he was not being completely honest with himself.

  She glanced away over her shoulder, clearly planning her next move, a certain angry desperation on her face. He would have to help her, despite the fact that if they survived, she would interfere with his investigation. In fact, she already had. But her chances of getting away alone were minimal.

  The terrorists had stopped their frontal assault and were moving around her in two arms, while holding her pinned down from in front. Smith could hear the men padding through the murky woods on both flanks. She glanced nervously right and left, listening, too, her desperation deepening. It was like the jaws of a trap closing in on her, and if she was caught alone, she would be unable to recover.

  The first man slipped into view. It was time to remind the Fulani and his men that they were dealing with more than just one opponent.

  Smith unscrewed his Sig Sauer’s silencer and opened fire. As the sound of his gunshot cracked like a thunderbolt in the quiet, woodsy air, the terrorist spun back, clutching his wounded firing arm. Another man appeared suddenly to the first one’s right, still not understanding the danger. Quickly, Smith shot again. As the new man screamed and fell, there was a babble of shouts, scurrying feet scrambling for cover, and the angry voice of the leader. Almost simultaneously, Russell squeezed off three bullets aimed at assailants on her other side, where Smith could not see.

  More shouts followed, and then more noise of feet in retreat. Smith turned to run when a flash of white attracted his attention, from the direction of the farmhouse. He looked more closely and saw the dark Fulani had arisen to his full, erect height and was standing defiant in his white robes at the edge of the windbreak. His voice was furious as he raged at his people to hold their ground.

  Then Smith heard another sound and turned again: Randi Russell was speeding toward him. “Never thought I’d be glad to see you.” Her whisper was filled with both relief and annoyance. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Seems like every time we meet, you’re on the run.”

  She glowered at him, and they bent low and bolted in the direction of the main road.

  He was on her heels. “What did you do to your face?”

  She did not answer as they tore through the timber. Their pursuers were momentarily disorganized, and that was going to be their only break. They had to make time while they could. They pounded onward, ducking under tree branches, dodging patches of scrub, terrifying the wildlife with their ferocious pace.