Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (45 page)

“Was that a prayer?” Randi asked.

Smith frowned. “If it was, I doubt he'll get any credit for it.”
He looked down at the twisted body on the floor and then shook his head.
“But I think he was trying to answer the question I asked him.”

Forty feet away, Peter stooped beside the corpse of the gunman Randi had
shot. He rifled through the dead man's pockets, collecting a wallet and a
passport. Quickly he flipped through the passport, mentally noting the most
recent entry stamps—Zimbabwe,
the United States, and France, in that
order, and all within the last four weeks. His pale blue eyes narrowed in
calculation. Most revealing, he thought coldly.

He pocketed the documents and moved on to inspect a bulky pack he had
noticed earlier. The plain green cloth satchel stood off on its own in the
nearest corner. And now that he thought back, it was identical in appearance to
two other packs he had seen dumped in other parts of the room.

Peter drew aside the flap and peered inside.

He sucked in his breath, staring down at two foot-long blocks of plastic
explosive wrapped together. They were wired to a detonator and a digital watch.
Czech-made Semtex or American-manufactured C4, he decided, with an improvised
timer. Either way, he knew that was enough plastic explosive to make one devil
of a bang when it went off. And now he saw that the numbers
on the watch were blinking rhythmically, steadily falling toward zero.

The White House

“Ambassador Nichols is on the phone, sir,” the White House waiter
said deferentially. “The secure line.”

“Thank you, John,” said President Sam Castilla, pushing away his
plate of untouched food. With his wife away and the Lazarus crisis growing
worse with every passing hour, he was taking his meals alone, usually, like
tonight, on a tray in the Oval Office. He picked up the phone. “What's up,
Owen?”

Owen Nichols, the U.S.
ambassador to the UN, was one of Castilla's closest political allies. They had
been friends since college. Neither man felt any need to stand on ceremony with
the other. And neither believed in sugarcoating bad news.
“The Security Council is moving toward a final vote on the nanotech
resolution, Sam,” he said. “I expect it within the hour.”

“That fast?” Castilla asked in surprise. The UN almost never acted

quickly. The organization preferred consensus and
lengthy, almost interminable discussion. He had thought it would take the
Council another day or two to bring the nanotech resolution up for a vote.

“That fast,” Nichols confirmed. “The debate's been strictly pro
forma. Everybody knows the votes are there to pass this damned thing
unanimously—unless we veto it.”

“What about the UK?”
Castilla asked, shocked.

“Their ambassador, Martin Rees, says they can't afford to buck the
international consensus on this issue, not after the revelations that MI6 was
tied into this secret war against Lazarus. They have to go against us on this
one. He says the PM's job is hanging by a thread as it is.”

“Damn,” Castilla muttered.

“I only wish that were the worst news I had,” Nichols said
quietly.

The president tightened his grip on the phone. “Go on.”

“Rees wanted me to pass on something else he picked up from the British
Foreign Office. France and Germany and
some of the other European countries have been working on another nasty
surprise for us, behind the scenes. After we veto the Security Council
resolution, they plan to demand our immediate suspension from all NATO military
and political roles—on the grounds that we might otherwise use NATO resources
as part of our illegal war on Lazarus.”

Castilla breathed out, trying to control the anger he felt boiling up
inside. “The vultures are circling, I guess.”

“Yes, they are, Sam,” Nichols said tiredly. “Between the
massacres in Zimbabwe, Santa Fe, and Paris
and now these stories about CIA-sponsored murders, our good name overseas is completely shot. So this is the perfect time for our
so-called friends to cut us down to size.”

After he finished speaking with Nichols and hung up, Castilla sat for a
moment longer, his head bowed under the weight of events that were moving
beyond his ability to control. He glanced tiredly at the elegant grandfather
clock along one curved wall. Fred Klein had said he thought

Colonel Smith was on the trail of something significant in Paris. The corners of his month turned down.
Whatever Smith was chasing had better pan out—and quickly.

Paris

For a fraction of a second longer, Peter stared down at the activated
demolition charge, unwillingly admiring the sheer thoroughness of the
opposition. When it came to covering their tracks, he thought, these fellows
never stopped at half-measures. After all, why be satisfied with killing a few
potential witnesses when you could blow apart the whole building as well? The
timer flickered through another second, still inexorably counting down toward
its predetermined end.

He jumped to his feet and ran toward Jon and Randi, dodging around the
worktables and bullet-smashed electronics gear. “Out!” he yelled,
pointing to the windows. “Get out now!”

They stared at him, plainly mystified by the sudden urgency in his voice.

Peter skidded to a stop beside the two perplexed Americans. “There's at
least one ruddy great bomb set to go off in this building—and probably
more!” he explained fast, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Then he
grabbed each of them by a shoulder and shoved them toward the two windows they
had smashed open to get inside. “Go on! If we're lucky, we might have
thirty seconds!”

Horrified understanding at last dawned on Jon's and Randi's faces.

They each grabbed one of the three ropes still dangling in through the
windows. “No time to waste trying to clip into a harness,” Peter told
them. “Just use the bloody rope!”

Smith nodded. He jumped up onto the stone window ledge, whipped a length of
the rappel rope around behind his hip, brought it diagonally up and over the
opposite shoulder, back across to the same hip, and then

along his arm down to the hand he would use as a
brake. He saw Peter and Randi doing the same thing with their
own ropes.

“Ready?” Peter asked.

“Set!” Jon confirmed. Randi nodded.

“Then go! Go! Go!”

Smith leaned out, turned sideways toward the ground, and simply let gravity
do most of the work, plunging down the side of the building in huge bounds. The
ground rushed up at him at a dizzying pace. He could smell the nylon rope
scorching through his leather gloves and feel it burning across his shoulder
and hip.

He was aware of Peter and Randi keeping pace with him. All three of them
came hurtling down the wall at high speed.

When he judged he was just twenty feet or so above the little cobblestone
alley running behind the Movement headquarters, Smith tightened the grip of his
braking hand and pulled that same arm sharply across his chest in a hard, fast
movement. He did not want to risk hitting the ground at that speed, and going
that fast there was no way he could brake gently or
slowly. He slammed to a stop, dangling only ten or twelve feet above the
ground.

In that instant, a series of enormous explosions tore through the upper
floors of the building soaring above him —rippling from one end of Number 18
rue de Vigny to the other in a growing fury of flame and glowing superheated
air. Hellish tongues of fire burst through every window, scorching the night
and turning the darkness as bright as da}' in one blinding, awful moment.
Broken pieces of stone and slate and other debris tumbled high into the air,
lit from beneath by the inferno consuming the Lazarus Movement headquarters.

Smith felt his rope give way—ripped apart by the blast. He dropped, hit the
ground hard, and rolled. Randi and Peter thudded down beside him. They
scrabbled to their feet and ran for it, streaking down the darkened alley as
fast as they could go, slipping and skidding on the dank,

smooth cobblestones. Huge chunks of rubble were
falling all around them—smashing onto nearby roofs or crashing down into the
tight confines of the alley with killing force.

The trio burst out of the mouth of the alley and turned onto a wider cross
street. Still running at full speed, they ducked into the recessed door of a
small tobacco shop, seeking cover. A new wave of white-hot debris cascaded down
across the surrounding streets and buildings, punching craters in roofs and
pavements and setting new fires in its wake. The shrill anti-theft alarms going
off in parked cars pummeled by the falling wreckage only added to the unholy
din rising on all sides.

“Anyone have any brilliant ideas?” Randi said quickly. They could
all hear sirens in the distance, drawing nearer with every passing second.

“We need to get clear of this area and drop out of sight,” Smith
said grimly. “And fast.” He looked at her. “Can you call for
help on that radio of yours?”

She shook her head. “My radio's kaput.” She yanked off the headset
with a disgusted look. “I must have landed right on the damned thing when
those bombs cut my rope. It sure feels like I did, anyway!”

A blue Volvo sedan came screeching around the corner from the rue de Vigny.
It swung sharply in their direction and came roaring ahead. They were caught in
its glaring twin headlights, silhouetted against the locked and barred door of
the little tobacco shop. They were trapped, with nowhere to run and nowhere to
hide.

Wearily Smith turned, fumbling for his SIG-Sauer,
but Randi caught his arm and shook her head. “Believe it or not,
Jon,” she said in amazement, “that's actually one of ours.”

The sedan braked hard, skidding to a stop just a few feet away. A window
rolled down. They saw Max's astonished face peering up at them from behind the
wheel. He grinned weakly. “Man! When that building blew up, I never
thought I'd see you folks again—not in one piece anyway.”

“I guess it's just your lucky day, Max,” Randi told him. She
scrambled into the front seat while Jon and Peter piled into the back.

“Where to?” the CIA agent asked her.

“Anywhere for now,” Randi said tersely. “Just put some
distance between us . . . and that!” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder
at the blazing pillar of fire roaring high into the night sky.

“Sure thing, boss,” Max replied quietly. He spun the steering
wheel through a half-circle and pulled back onto the street. Then, keeping a
wary eye on his rearview mirror, he drove away at a sedate but steady pace.

By the time the first fire trucks and police cars pulled up outside the
blazing, bomb-gutted ruins of Number 18 rue de Vigny, they were already more
than a mile away and heading for the outskirts of Paris.

■

The Forest of Rambouillet lay roughly thirty-five
miles southwest of the city. It was a lovely expanse of woods, lakes, and
ancient stone abbeys tucked away amid the tall trees. The elegant mansion and
beautiful grounds of the chateau of Rambouillet stood in the heart of this
rolling woodland. The chateau itself, more than six centuries old, had once been
a weekend country retreat for several French kings. Now it served the same
purpose for presidents of the French
Republic.

The northern fringes of the woods, however, were miles removed from the
glories of the chateau and mostly deserted—a haven for herds of skittish deer
and a few wild boars. Narrow roads wandered here and there under the trees,
providing access for hikers and for the occasional government forester.

In a small clearing just off one of those rough woodland tracks, Lieutenant
Colonel Jon Smith sat on a tree stump, bandaging the reopened knife wound on
his left forearm. Finished, he put aside the tape and unused gauze. Then he
tested his new field dressing, rotating his arm back and forth to make sure it
would stand the strain of sudden movement.

Smith realized that at some point, the wound would need new stitches, but at
least this bandage should stop the worst of the bleeding. With that

accomplished, he pulled on a fresh shirt, wincing
slightly as the cotton knit slid over fresh cuts, bruises, and knotted muscles.

He stood up, stretching and twisting as he did so in an effort to clear away
some of the fatigue crowding in on his exhausted mind. A half-moon hung low in
the west, barely visible above the canopy of the surrounding forest. But a
small hint of pale gray light on the eastern horizon signaled the slow approach
of dawn. The sun would be up in a couple of hours.

He glanced across at his companions. Peter was sleeping on the front seat of
the Volvo, snatching whatever rest he could with the practiced ease of a
veteran soldier. Randi stood next to a small black Peugeot parked at the far
end of the clearing, quietly conferring with Max and another CIA agent—a junior
officer named Lewis who had just driven out from Paris to deliver the new civilian clothes
they needed. She was undoubtedly arranging for the immediate disappearance of
their assault gear, weapons, and old clothing—of anything that might tie them to the carnage inside 18 rue de Vigny.

No one was in earshot.

Smith took out his encrypted cell phone, took a deep breath, and punched in
the code for Covert-One headquarters.

Fred Klein listened to Smith's report of the night's events in silence. When
he finished, Klein sighed heavily. “You're riding an awfully narrow rail
between disaster and utter catastrophe, Colonel, but I suppose I can't argue
much with success.”

“I sure hope not,” Smith said drily. “That would smack of
rank ingratitude.”

“You're satisfied that this Abrantes was telling you the truth?”
Klein asked. “About the relationship between Lazarus and the nanophages, I
mean? What if he was only trying to lay another false trail —trying to send us
rushing off in the wrong direction?”