Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (38 page)

The anchor looked up, speaking right into the camera with a grave expression
on his face. “Now when our reporters asked officials in Washington
and London to
comment, they were given the royal brush-off. Everyone from the president and
prime minister on down is refusing to say anything of substance to the press.
No one knows whether that's just the usual reluctance to comment on
intelligence operations and on criminal investigations or if it's because
there's fire under all this smoke. But one thing is certain. The angry people
across the globe burning all those American flags and smashing up
American-owned businesses aren't going to wait to find out.”             
      •

White House Situation Room

"Listen very closely, Mr. Hanson. I don't want to hear any more
waffling or evasion or bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. I want the truth, and I want
it

now!" President Sam Castilla growled. He
glared down the long table at his uncharacteristically silent CIA director.

Ordinarily trim and dapper under even the most trying circumstances, David
Hanson looked a wreck. There were deep shadows under his eyes and his rumpled
suit looked as though he had slept in it. He held a pen clutched tightly in the
fingers of his right hand in a futile effort to hide the fact that his hands
were trembling slightly. “I've told you what little I know, Mr.
President,” he said warily. “We're digging as deeply as we can into
our files, but so far we haven't found anything even remotely connected to this
so-called TOCSIN operation. If Hal Burke was involved in anything illegal, I'm
certain that he was running it on his own hook — without authorization or help
from anyone else in the CIA.”

Emily Powell-Hill leaned forward in her seat. “Just how stupid do you
think people are, David?” the national security adviser asked bitterly.
“Do you think anyone's going to believe that Burke and Pierson were paying
for a multi-million-dollar covert operation out of their own pockets—all with
their personal savings and government salaries?”

“I understand the difficulties!” Hanson snapped in frustration.
“But my people and I are working on this as hard and as fast as we can.
Right now I've got my security personnel combing through the records and logs
of every operation Burke was ever involved in, looking for anything remotely
suspicious. Plus, we're setting up polygraph tests for every officer and
analyst in Burke's Lazarus Movement section. If anyone else inside the CIA was
involved, we'll nail them, but it's going to take time.”

He frowned. “I've also sent orders to every CIA station around the
world immediately terminating any operation that involves the Movement. By now
there shouldn't be an Agency surveillance team within shouting distance of any
Lazarus building or operative.”

“That's not good enough,” Powell-Hill told him. “We're
getting killed over this—both domestically and overseas.”

Heads nodded grimly around the Situation Room conference table. Coming as it
did right on the heels of the nanophage butchery in La

Courneuve, the press reports of an illegal clandestine operation against the
Lazarus Movement had been perfectly timed to inflict the maximum amount of
damage on American credibility around the world. It had landed on the world
stage like a match tossed into a room full of leaking gasoline drums. And the
Movement was perfectly positioned to profit from the resulting explosion of
anger and outrage. What had been a relatively minor nuisance for most
governments and businesses was rapidly growing into a major force in global
politics. More and more countries were aligning themselves with the Movement's
demands for an immediate ban on all nanotech research.

“And now every lunatic who claims that we're testing some sort of
nanotech-based genocide weapon is being treated respectfully by the
international media —by the BBC, the other European networks, al-Jazeera, and
the rest,” the national security adviser continued. “The French have
already recalled their ambassador for so-called consultations. A lot of other
nations are going to do the same thing in a tearing hurry. The longer this
drags on, the more damage we're going to suffer to our alliances and our
ability to influence events.”

Castilla nodded tightly. The phone call he had received from the French
president had been full of ugly accusations and barely concealed contempt.

“We're in almost as much trouble on the Hill,” Charles Ouray
added. The White House chief of staff sighed. “Practically every
congressman and senator who was screaming at us to go after the Lazarus
Movement has already pulled a full 180-degree turn. Now they're falling all
over themselves to put together a Watergate-style investigative committee. The
wilder talking heads are already discussing a possible impeachment, and even our
usual friends are lying low while they wait to see which way the political
winds are blowing.”

Castilla grimaced. Too many of the men and women serving in Congress were
political opportunists by habit, inclination, and experience. When a president
was popular, they crowded in close, hoping to share in

the limelight. But at the first sign of trouble or
weakness they were only too eager to join the pack baying for his blood.

The White House

Estelle Pike, the president's longtime executive secretary, opened the door
to the Oval Office. “Mr. Klein is here, sir,” she said waspishly.
“He doesn't have an appointment, but he claims that you'll see him
anyway.”

Castilla turned away from the windows. His face was lined and weary. He
seemed to have aged ten years in the past twenty-four hours. “He's here
because I asked him to be here, Estelle. Show him in, please.”

She sniffed, plainly disapproving, but then obeyed.

Klein stepped past her with a murmured “thank you” that went
unacknowledged. He stood waiting until the door closed behind him. Then he
shrugged. “I don't think your Ms. Pike likes me very much, Sam.”

The president forced a dutiful smile. “Estelle isn't exactly a warm and
cuddly people person, Fred. Anyone who bucks her daily calendar gets the same
treatment. It's nothing personal.”

“I'm relieved,” Klein said drily. He looked narrowly at his old
friend. “I assume from your pained expression that the NSC meeting did not
go well?”

Castilla snorted. “That's almost on par with asking Mrs. Lincoln how
she liked the play.”

“That bad?”

The president nodded glumly. “That bad.”
He motioned Klein toward one of the two chairs set in front of the big table
that served him as a desk. “The senior people inside the CIA, FBI, NSA,
and other agencies are too goddamned busy trying to dodge the blame for this
TOCSIN fiasco. Nobody knows how far up the ladder the conspiracy reached, so
nobody knows how far anybody else can be trusted. Everybody's circling one
another warily, waiting to see who gets it in the neck.”

Klein nodded quietly, not greatly surprised. Even at the best of times,
debilitating turf wars were a fact of life within the American intelligence

community. Their long-standing feuds and
internecine conflicts were largely why Castilla had asked him to organize
Covert-One in the first place. Now, with a major scandal embroiling the two
biggest overseas and domestic intelligence agencies, tensions would be rising
fast. In the circumstances, no one with a career to protect was going to risk
sticking his or her neck out.

“Is Colonel Smith on his way to Paris?”
Castilla asked at last, breaking the silence.

“He is,” Klein said. “I expect him there by late tonight, our
time.”

“And you honestly believe Smith has a chance to find out what we're
really facing here?”

“A chance?” Klein repeated. He hesitated.
“I think so.” He frowned. “At least, I hope so.”

“But he is your best?” Castilla asked sharply.

This time Klein did not hesitate. “For this mission?
Yes, absolutely. Jon Smith is the right man for the job.”

The president shook his head in exasperation. “It's ridiculous, isn't
it?”

“Ridiculous?”

“Here I sit,” Castilla explained, “the commander in chief of
the most powerful armed forces in the history of mankind. The people of the United States
expect me to use that power to keep them safe. But I can't. Not this time. Not
yet at least.” His broad shoulders slumped. “All the bombers,
missiles, tanks, and riflemen in the world don't matter worth a damn unless I
can give them a target. And that's the one thing I cannot give them.”

Klein stared back at his friend. He had truly never envied the president any
of the various perks and privileges of his position. Now he felt only pity for
the tired, sad-eyed man in front of him. “Covert-One will do its
duty,” he promised. “We'll find you that target.”

“I hope to God you're right,” Castilla said quietly. “Because we're running out of time and options fast.”

Monday, October 18 Paris

Jon Smith looked out the windows of the taxi, a black Mercedes, speeding
south from Charles de Gaulle International Airport toward the sleeping city.
Dawn was still several hours away, and only the hazy glow of lights on both
sides of the multi-lane Al Motorway marked the suburban sprawl around the
French capital. The highway itself was almost deserted — allowing the
cabdriver, a short, sour-faced Parisian with bloodshot eyes, to push the
Mercedes up to the legal limit and then well beyond.

Moving at more than 120 kilometers per hour, they flashed past several
darkened neighborhoods where flames danced skyward, licking red and orange
against the black night. Dilapidated apartment blocks were on fire there,
casting a flickering glow across the neighboring buildings. Near those areas,
rolls of barbed wire and hurriedly deployed concrete barriers blocked all
entrance and exit ramps off the motorway. Each checkpoint

was manned by heavy concentrations of police and
soldiers in full combat gear. Armored cars fitted with tear-gas grenade
launchers and machine guns, tracked personnel carriers, and even fifty-ton
Leclerc main battle tanks were parked at strategic points along the route.

“Les Arabes!” The taxi driver sniffed contemptuously,
stubbing his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. He shrugged his narrow
shoulders. “They are rioting against what happened in La Courneuve.
Burning down their own homes and shops—as usual.
Bah!”

He paused to light another unfiltered cigarette with both hands, using his
knees to steer the heavy German-made sedan. “They are idiots. Nobody much
cares what happens inside those rats' nests. But let them put one foot outside
and ppffft.” He drew a line across his throat. “Then the
machine guns will begin talking, eh?”

Smith nodded silently. It was no real secret that the overcrowded and
crime-ridden housing projects outside Paris
had been carefully designed so that they could be swiftly and easily sealed off
in the event of serious unrest.

The Mercedes turned off the Al and onto the boulevard Peripherique, swinging
south and east around the crowded city's maze of alleys, streets, avenues, and
boulevards. Still grumbling about the stupidity of a government that taxed him
to pay welfare to thugs, thieves, and “les Arabes,” the
taxi driver abandoned this ring road at the Porte de Vincennes. The cab plunged
west, circled the Place de la Nation, roared along the rue du Fauborg-St.
Antoine, screeched around the Place de la Bastille, and then threaded its way
deeper into the narrow one-way streets of the Marais District, in the city's
Third Arrondissement.

Once a swamp, this part of Paris was one of the few untouched by the
grandiose nineteenth-century demolition and reconstruction projects carried out
by Baron Hausmann at the orders of the emperor Napoleon III. Many of its
buildings dated back to the Middle Ages. Seedy and
run-down in the mid-twentieth century, the Marais had experienced a rebirth. It

was now one of the city's most popular residential,
tourist, and shopping areas. Elegant stone mansions, museums, and libraries sat
beside trendy bars, antique shops, and fashion-conscious clothing salons.

With a final flourish of his tobacco-stained hands, the driver pulled up
outside the front door of the Hotel des Chevaliers—a small boutique hotel scarcely
a block from the ancient tree-lined elegance of the Place des Vosges.
“We arrive, m'sieurl And in record
time!” he announced. He grinned sourly. “Perhaps we should thank the
rioters, eh? Because I think the flics,” he used the French slang
word for policemen, “are too busy cracking their heads to hand out traffic
tickets to honest men like me!”

“Maybe so,” Smith agreed, secretly relieved to arrive in one
piece. He shoved a handful of euros at the cabdriver, grabbed his small
carry-on bag and the travel kit he had picked up before boarding his flight at
Dulles, and scrambled out onto the pavement. The Mercedes roared away into the
night almost the second he closed the passenger door.

Smith stood quietly for a moment, savoring the restored silence and
stillness of the damp street. It had rained here not long ago, and the cool
night air carried a clean, crisp scent that was refreshing. He stretched limbs
that had grown stiff in a cramped airline seat, then breathed deeply a few
times to clear the lingering secondhand traces of the cabdriver's harsh tobacco
out of his lungs. Feeling better and more awake, he slung his luggage over his
shoulder and turned to the hotel. There was a light on over the door, and the
night clerk—alerted by an earlier phone call from the airport to expect him
—buzzed him in without trouble.

“Welcome to Paris, Dr. Smith,” the clerk said smoothly, in clear,
fluent English. “You will be staying with us long?”

“A few days, perhaps,” Jon said carefully. “Can you
accommodate me that long?”

The night clerk, a neatly attired middle-aged man alert despite the early
hour, sighed. “In good times, no.” He
shrugged his shoulders expressively. “But, alas, this unpleasantness at La
Courneuve has caused many cancellations and early departures. So it will be no
problem.”