At last they dove over a stone wall, scrambled back up to their feet, and ran onward, gasping for breath, sweating, until, finally, they found the main blacktop road. They lurked inside the woods and studied the road both ways, weapons ready.

  “See anything?” she asked.

  “Not two-legged and armed.”

  “Smart-ass.” In the shadowy trees, she looked at him as a crooked smile of greeting curled up the corners of his mouth. He had a great face, one she had always liked. His high, flat cheekbones and chiseled chin were very male. She pushed that from her mind as she continued to study the road, the woods, the shadows.

  Jon said, “We’d better move on back toward Toledo, try to keep ahead of them. And I really do want to know about your face. Please don’t tell me it’s plastic surgery, I’d be devastated.” They trotted off again, alongside each other now on the dark road.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  “I have a feeling I shouldn’t.” He stuck out his free hand anyway.

  She reached inside her upper lip, left side, right side, and removed inserts. She extended her hand, intending to drop them onto his palm.

  He yanked his hand away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  She grinned, unzipped a pocket on her web belt, and slipped them inside. “The wig stays on. It’s bad enough you’re running around in that neon Hawaiian shirt. At least it’s a dark blue. My blond hair would be like a beacon.”

  She really was good; she knew how to use very little cosmetic change to great effect. With the inserts, her features had been lumpy and wide, making her eyes seem too close together, and her chin too small. But now her face was the one he remembered. Her wide-set eyes, straight nose, and high forehead radiated a kind of sexy intelligence that he found intriguing, even when she was her usual prickly self.

  He was thinking about all that as he watched for the terrorists. He half-expected a truckload of them to roar down the road, a machine gun attached on top, when he heard engines thunder to life behind them from the direction of the farmhouse.

  “Hear that?” he asked.

  “I’m not deaf.”

  The noise changed, and the chop-chop of rotors was added to the booming engines. Soon, from behind them in the direction of the farmhouse, three helicopters rose into the night like the shadows of giant birds, one after the other, their red and green navigational lights blinking as they circled and headed south. Dark, bruised-looking clouds scudded across the sky. The moon peeked out and disappeared, and so did the helicopters.

  “We’ve just been abandoned,” she complained. “Damnation!”

  “Shouldn’t that be ‘amen’? That was a damn close call for you.”

  She bristled. “Maybe, but I’ve been tailing M. Mauritania for two weeks, and now I’ve lost him, and I damn well don’t know who the rest of them were, much less where they’ve gone.”

  “They’re an Islamic terrorist group called the Crescent Shield. They’re the ones who bombed the Pasteur Institute, or had it done by a front group to cover their tracks.”

  “What front group?”

  “The Black Flame.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Not surprising. They’ve been out of action for at least ten years. This operation was their attempt to raise money so they could get back to their game. Tell your people the next time you check in, and they can warn the Spanish authorities. The Black Flame also kidnapped Chambord and his daughter. But it’s the Crescent Shield who’s holding them prisoner, and they have Chambord’s DNA computer, too.”

  Randi stopped running as if she had hit a wall. “Chambord’s alive?”

  “He was in that farmhouse, so was his daughter.”

  “The computer?”

  “Not there.”

  They resumed moving, this time walking in silence, busy with their own thoughts.

  Jon said, “You’re part of the search for the DNA computer?”

  “Of course, but peripherally,” Randi told him. “We’ve got people out investigating all known terrorist leaders. I was already surveilling Mauritania, because he’d reemerged from whatever hole he’d been hiding in the last three years. I tailed him from Algiers to Paris. Then the Pasteur was bombed, it looked as if a DNA computer had been stolen, and all of us were put on high alert. But I never saw him make contact with any other known terrorist except that big Fulani, Abu Auda. They’re friends from the old days of Al Qaeda.”

  “Just who or what is this Mauritania that he was on the CIA’s to-be-watched list?”

  “You’ll hear him called Monsieur Mauritania,” Randi corrected. “It’s a sign of respect, and he insists on it. We think his real name’s Khalid al-Shanquiti, although sometimes he goes by Mahfouz Oud al-Walidi. He was a top lieutenant of Bin Laden but left before Bin Laden moved his people to Afghanistan. Mauritania keeps a damn low profile, almost never shows up on intelligence radar, and tends to operate more in Algeria than anywhere else, when we do spot him. What do you know about this Crescent Shield group?”

  “Only what I saw in that farmhouse. They seem to be experienced, well trained, and efficientat least their leaders are. From the number of languages I heard, I’d say they’re from just about every country that has Islamic fundamentalists. Pan-Islamic, and damn well organized.”

  “They would be, with Mauritania in charge. Organized and smart.” She turned her X-ray eyes on Smith. “Now let’s talk about you. Clearly you’re part of the hunt for the molecular computer, too, or you wouldn’t have appeared at that farmhouse in the nick of time to save my skin, and know what you know. When I spotted you in Paris, the story Langley told me was you’d flown to Paris to hold poor Marty’s hand. Now”

  “Why was the CIA having me watched?”

  She snorted. “You know the services spy on each other. You could be an agent working for a foreign power, right? Supposedly you don’t work for CIA, FBI, NSA, or even army intelligence, no matter what anyone says, and the ‘I’m only here for poor Marty’ story is obviously bull. You had me fooled in Paris all right, but not here, so who the hell do you work for?”

  Smith feigned indignation. “Marty was almost killed by that bomb, Randi.” Inwardly he cursed Fred Klein and this secret life to which he had agreed. Covert-One was so clandestineblack codethat even Randi, despite all her CIA credentials, could not learn about it. “You know how it is with me,” he continued with a self-deprecating shrug. “I can’t not find out who nearly killed Marty. And we both know that won’t satisfy me. I’ll want to stop them, too. But then again, what else would a real friend do?”

  They stopped at the base of a long, low hill and gazed up. It was such a gentle incline that Smith had not even noticed it while he was following Elizondo. But now, for the return trip, the upward slope seemed long and hard. They looked at it as if they could make it go away.

  “Nuts,” she told him. “Last time I heard, Marty was in a coma. If he needs you anywhere, it’s in the hospital, bugging the doctors. So give me a break. Once it was personal, like with the Hades virus, because of Sophia. But now? So who do you really work for? What don’t I know that I should?”

  They had stood there long enough, he decided. “Come on. Let’s go back. We’ve got to check the farmhouse. If it’s empty, maybe they’ve left something to tell us where they’ve gone. If there’s still someone there, we’d better question them and find out what they know.” He turned around, retracing their steps, and she sighed and caught up. “It’s all about Marty,” he told her. “Really. You’re too suspicious. All that CIA training, I suppose. My grandmother used to warn me to not look for filth in a clean handkerchief. Didn’t your grandmother ever tell you something useful like that?”

  She opened her mouth to retort. Instead, she said, “Shhh. Listen.” She cocked her head.

  He heard it, toothe low purr of a powerful car engine. But no headlights. They darted off the road and into a grove of olive trees. The sound was coming toward them, down the hill, heading toward the farmhouse. Abruptly, the engine stopped, and all he could hear was something strange, something he could not quite identify.

  “What the devil is that?” Randi whispered.

  Then he knew. “Rolling car wheels,”, he whispered back. “See it? It’s that black, moving lump on the road. You can almost make it out.”

  She understood. “A black car, no headlights, no engine. Coasting down the hill. Crescent Shield?”

  “Could be.”

  They made quick plans, and Jon darted across the road to an olive tree that stood alone, probably cut off from the little grove when the road was put in.

  The vehicle emerged from the dark like a mechanical apparition. It was a large, old-fashioned touring car of the type favored by Nazi officers during World War II. The top was open, and it looked as if it could have glided straight out of an old newsreel. There was only one person inside. Jon held up his Sig Sauer to signal Randi. She nodded back: The Crescent Shield would not have sent one man to attack them.

  As the elegant touring car continued coasting, it had gained speed and now was just a hundred feet away. Randi pointed to herself and then at Jon and nodded toward the car. Jon got the message: She was tired of walking. He grinned and nodded back: So was he.

  As the car passed, still dark and silent, they jumped onto the old running boards on either side. With his free hand, Jon grabbed the top of the door, and with the other he pointed his Sig Sauer at the driver’s hat. Amazingly, the driver did not look up. In fact, he did not react at all. And then Jon saw that the man wore a black suit and clerical collar. He was an Episcopal ministerAnglican over here.

  Randi grimaced across the car at him. She had noticed, too. She rolled her eyes, her message clear: It was not good international relations to steal a car from a parson.

  “Feeling a shade guilty, are we?” the British voice boomed, still not looking up. “I expect you would’ve managed eventually to get back to Toledo by yourselves, but it would’ve taken too bloody long, and, as you Americans say, time it is a wasting.”

  There was no mistaking that voice. “Peter!” Jon grumbled. “Are there any agencies not chasing the DNA computer?” He and Randi climbed into the backseat of the open car.

  “Not bloody likely, my lad. Our world has the wind up. Don’t blame them, actually. Nasty scenario.”

  Randi demanded, “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “Same place you did, Randi girl. Watched your little dustup from a hill above the farmhouse.”

  “You mean you were there? You saw it all,” Randi exploded, “and you didn’t help?”

  Peter Howell smiled. “You handled the situation nicely without me. Gave me a chance to observe our nameless friends and saved you the trouble of going back, which, of course, you were already on your way to do.”

  Jon and Randi looked at each other. “Okay,” Jon said, “what did happen after we got away?”

  “They bunked lock, stock, and barrel in their helicopters.”

  “You went down to search?” Randi asked.

  “Naturally,” Peter said. “Food still warm in the kitchen, waiting to be served. But the house was empty of people, dead or alive, and no clues to who’d been there or where they’d gone. No maps in the house, no papers, absolutely nothing, except great heaps of burned paper in the fireplace. And, of course, there was no sign of the beastly machine itself.”

  “They have it all right,” Jon assured him, “but it was never there, or at least that’s what Chambord believed.” As Peter turned the car around in a wide place on the road, Jon and Randi filled him in on what they had learned about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the Chambords, and the DNA computer.

  Covert One 3 - The Paris Option

  Chapter Sixteen

  Elizondo Ibarguengoitia licked his lips and dropped his gaze. His wiry body was hunched, the red beret askew, his demeanor harried. “We thought you were leaving Toledo, M. Mauritania. You say you have another job for us? The money is good?”

  “The others left, Elizondo, I’ll join them soon. There was too much I still had to do here. Yes, the rewards for this new job are impressive, I assure you. Are you and your people interested?”

  “Of course!”

  They were inside the vast, echoing Cathedral, in the famed chapel of the White Madonna with its white statues, columns, and rococo stone and plaster decorations. Abu Auda was leaning against the wall next to the Christian icon Mary and the infant Jesus, where his white burnoose seemed to mimic the statue itself.

  As Mauritania talked to the three BasquesElizondo, Zumaia, and Iturbihe smiled, leaned on a cane, and studied Elizondo’s face.

  Elizondo nodded eagerly. “What’s the job?”

  “All in good time, Elizondo,” Mauritania said. “All in good time. First, please describe for me how you killed the American Colonel Smith. You’re certain his body’s in the river? You’re positive he’s dead?”

  Elizondo looked regretful. “When I shot him, he fell into the river. Iturbi tried to pull his body out, but the current captured him, and he was gone. We would’ve preferred to bury him, of course, where he wouldn’t be found. With luck, his corpse will float all the way to Lisbon. No one there will know who he is.”

  Mauritania nodded solemnly, as if considering whether there would be problems when the corpse was eventually recovered. “All of this is strange, Elizondo. You see, Abu Auda there”he nodded at the silent terrorist”assures me that one of the two people who attacked us at the farmhouse after you left was the same Colonel Smith. That makes it unlikely you killed him.”

  Elizondo’s complexion turned as bloodless as the statue. “He’s wrong. He was shot. We shot”

  “He’s quite certain,” Mauritania interrupted, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Abu Auda came to know Colonel Smith in Paris. In fact, one of Abu’s men was there when you kidnapped the woman. So, you seehellip;”

  Now Elizondo understood. He pulled his knife from his belt and lunged at Mauritania. At the same time, Zumaia yanked out his pistol, and Iturbi spun away to escape.

  But Mauritania whipped his cane up with the speed of a striking snake, and a narrow blade shot out from the tip. It glinted in the dim light of the chapel and then disappeared as Elizondo impaled himself on its point with his frantic charge. Mauritania, his face red with anger, twisted the blade and ripped it up in an arc through the vital organs. Elizondo collapsed, holding his own entrails, staring in surprise at Mauritania. He pitched forward, dead.

  At the same time, Zumaia had managed to half-turn, his pistol firing a single unaimed shot before Abu Auda’s scimitar slashed through his throat. Blood spurted, and he sprawled forward.

  Iturbi tried to run, but Abu Auda smoothly reversed his powerful wrist and thrust the blade backhanded so deep into the fleeing Basque’s back that the point exited through his chest. With both hands, the giant Fulani lifted the sword a few inches and, with it, the dying Basque. Abu Auda’s green-brown eyes flashed with anger as he watched Iturbi wriggle like a rabbit on a spit. When the man slumped dead on the blade, Abu Auda pulled the scimitar out.

  Mauritania wiped his narrow sword on a white altar cloth and touched the button on the cane that retracted the blade. Abu Auda washed his sword in the font of holy water and dried it on his burnoose. His desert robes were now not only dirty but bloody.

  Abu Auda sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve washed in the blood of my enemies, Khalid. It feels good.”

  Mauritania nodded, understanding. “We mustn’t linger. There’s still much to do before we strike.”

  The two men stepped over the dead Basques and slipped through the Cathedral and out into the night.

  An hour later, Jon, Randi, and Peter were on the highway, driving away from Toledo. First they had stopped in the city, where Jon had retrieved his laptop and bag from the trunk of his rented Renault. The car was untouched, containing only the cut ropes. With luck, Bixente had escaped back to his life as a shepherd. As Jon loaded his belongings into the touring car, Peter and Randi put the top on it, and they sped away, Peter driving. Now as the spires and towers of the fabled city of El Greco faded in the distance, Peter slowed to just beneath the national speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour. They did not need to attract police attention.

  Randi settled into the rear of the classic touring car, where the old seat still gave off a scent of expensive leather. She listened as Jon and Peter discussed in the front seat which route to take to Madrid, where they would report in and regroup.

  “Just don’t go back the same way Jon drove, in case the Basques were tailing him.” She repressed her irritation as Peter took her advice. Why was she so testy around Jon? At first she had blamed him for her fianceacute; Mike’s death in Somalia, and later for Sophia’s tragic murder, but she had since grown to respect him. She wanted to put the past behind her, but it nagged like an unfulfilled promise. The odd part was she felt he would like to forget about it, too. They were frozen by too much history between them.

  “God knows what we’ll find next,” Peter said. “Let’s hope it’s the molecular computer.” The “retired” SAS trooper and MI6 spy was muscular and lean, perhaps just a shade too lean under his priest’s costume. His hands were curved brown claws on the steering wheel, and his face was narrow, the color and texture of leather dried out by years of wind and sun. It was so deeply lined that his eyes seemed embedded in canyons. But even in the night, those eyes remained sharp and guarded. Then they suddenly twinkled, amused. “Oh, and Jon, my friend, you seriously owe me for this little scratch. But I suppose I owe you for a bump on your noggin, too.”

  Peter reached up and lifted off his churchly black hat to reveal a bandage wrapped around the top of his head.

  Jon stared at the bandage and shook his head as Peter adjusted the hat back onto his head. “I’ll be damned. So you were the Algerian orderly at the Pompidou who caused all the trouble.” He remembered a flitting sense of familiarity as the orderly had run backward down the hospital corridor, waving a mini-submachine gun in warning to keep everyone at bay. It was Peter’s head that had left the trace of blood on the banister. “So you were there to protect Marty, not to kill him. That’s why when you finally shot, it was high.”