Direct Action (29 page)

1:47:39
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. When he heard the single tsk in his ear, Tom slipped out of the doorway, kept close to the building, and made his way slowly up the street. The key was to do everything slowly and evenly. No jerky movement. Nothing that would attract attention. At night, sudden movement normally causes people to shift their eyes—change focus, use peripheral vision. And Tom didn’t want anybody doing that. He wanted his adversaries staring straight at him because that way they were likely to miss him. Of course, if they had night-vision equipment, it wouldn’t matter. But better safe than stupid.

1:47:52. Tom crossed the foot of rue Nicolet. He’d started to ease around the corner onto rue Ramey when he saw headlights coming in his direction. He stopped, stepped back, and retreated into a doorway.

The car—it was a small convertible—continued south on rue Ramey. As soon as its taillights had disappeared, Tom stepped out, made his way to the corner, and turned north. He was about halfway up the block when the intersection of rue Labat came into view. He continued cautiously until he dared to look across the street and saw the van was gone. That struck Tom as strange. Static surveillance units seldom shifted their positions because doing so drew attention to them.

Tom had once spent thirty-eight hours straight on a two-man static surveillance. It had been in Cairo, in the summer. After about twenty-six hours in hundred-plus-degree heat, he’d come down with a horrible case of turista. All the Imodium, of course, was stored safely in the medicine cabinet back at his apartment, and so the last half day had been without question the most uncomfortable twelve hours in his entire life. He didn’t want to think how nasty it had been for his unfortunate partner.

1:48
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. The mouth of the alley was sealed by a two-and-a-half-meter wall—just over eight feet—topped with an occasional shard of glass. There was no gate. The wall was smooth—there were no dogs’ teeth to help him gain any purchase.

He paused, took a deep breath, then sprang, catching the exposed cap of the brick wall with his fingertips. He pulled himself straight up vertically, as if he were chinning on a bar. In truth, he hadn’t done any rockclimbing since college. He ran, of course, and when he’d been at Langley, he’d occasionally lifted some free weights down in the clandestine personnel gym. But since he’d moved to Paris, his exercise sessions had been sporadic at best—and now he was going to suffer the painful consequences.

But he kept going. When Tom’s nose was level with the top of the wall, he threw his arm up and over, careful not to impale himself on the pieces of broken bottle. Then, inch by inch, Tom struggled until he’d pulled himself over the top of the wall. It was no fun.

Exhausted, he rolled and dropped into the first of the three yards. He was careful to land evenly. He didn’t need a sprained ankle. Not tonight.
1:50. He caught his breath and scanned his surroundings. It was just as Reuven had described: a postage stamp of a yard. A tree, bare in the November chill, stood in the center of the four-by-four-meter plot. Laundry was hung out. Tom picked his way past the rear of the house, trod carefully in the darkness up to the far wall, and jumped tippy-toe like a six-year-old at a candy counter to see if he could make out what was on top. This wall came topped with a single strand of what appeared to be rusty barbed wire. More fun and games. He shook his head and sprang for the lip of the wall.

1:53
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. Tom stood, head tilted back, looking up toward the second floor, his gloved right hand resting on the shiny black-painted cast-iron drainpipe. It was perhaps four inches in diameter—about the size of a healthy hickory sapling. But a lot smoother. The good news was that pipe joints protruded every four feet or so, and they’d give him something to catch on in case he lost his grip and started to slide. Tom exhaled, reached up, grabbed the first joint, wrapped his legs around the pipe, and pulled. By the time he was eight feet off the ground, he was sweating.

He remembered, in the way ironic memories sometimes intrude, that Sam Waterman had once told him, “Kiddo, pain is simply weakness leaving the body.” The thought brought a grim smile to his face. If what Sam said was true, Tom would be left completely without weakness by the end of his night’s work.

1:58. He was almost at the halfway point—which meant his nose was almost level with the first-floor windows. He looked down. It had taken him more than five minutes to climb less than eighteen feet.

2:02. Three-quarters of the way home. He’d developed a rhythm. He used his upper-body strength (what there was of it) to pull himself up a few precious inches. His legs were wrapped around the pipe, his feet jammed against the rough brick wall. He’d pull, and squeeze, pull and squeeze, and rise a few inches with each painful repetition.

2:06. Tom’s head came level with the sill of the target window. Exhausted, he reached up to the next pipe joint and, using the last of his strength, wrestled himself the final half foot into position. Rivulets of sweat running into his eyes, he hung there totally spent, his weight supported by the half an inch of pipe joint his sneakered insteps rested on. After about fifteen seconds, he rubbed his face against his sleeve, breathed deeply, and then set to work.

First, he slid his right hand around the drainpipe to keep himself from slipping. With his left hand he loosened the inch-and-a-half-wide web belt around his waist, pulled it out through the trouser loops, ran it behind the pipe, cinched the pressure buckle tight, and then took hold of the belt with his left hand and wrapped the strap three times around his hand and wrist. Now, by using the belt, he could swing himself back and forth, giving himself the reach he needed to see inside the window.

2:07. Using his right hand, Tom retrieved the camera from his fanny pack. He said a silent prayer to the gods of video transmission and activated the device. Holding it securely in his hand, he swung himself to his right, sidling up to the window.

It was shut tight. He brought himself back, feet clamped on the pipe joint and left hand holding firmly on to the webbing, while he considered his next moves.

He shoved the camera back into the fanny pack and—taking no chances—zipped the compartment shut. Then he swung back toward the window as far as he could. It took him two tries, but he finally was able to touch the cracked paint of the outer sash with his fingertips.

That wasn’t enough. He swung back to the drainpipe. Now he took his right foot off the pipe joint altogether, skidded his left instep around the lip of the joint, unwrapped the web belt to give himself another five inches of reach, then pushed off once more.

This time he swung low enough so that his right hand was actually able to grasp the wooden sill. Not daring to breathe, he held himself there, fully extended for some seconds, the unwilling hero of his own Harold Lloyd cinema verité feature film.

When he’d finally convinced himself he wasn’t going to fall, he gripped the sill and pulled his body as low as possible. Carefully, he brought his face close to the dirty glass.

2:09:21. The shade had been pulled down. Of course it had—he’d seen no light emanating from the window from the yard below. But now, with his nose just inches from the glass, he saw roughly an inch, maybe an inch and a half, of open space at the bottom of the window shade.

Using every bit of his strength, Tom unwrapped the belt one more wind and extended himself another two inches. Now he was at the very end of his tether, and his left toe on the pipe joint was all that kept him from falling. Still, he strained to peer inside. It was impossible.

He let go of the sill and swung back, heaving a huge sigh when he had both hands and both feet firmly on the drainpipe. He fiddled with the web belt until he had it wrapped exactly the way he’d need it. Tom extracted the camera from the fanny pack. Then he slipped his right foot off the pipe joint, leaned out, and swung back toward the window.

He eased his right hand past the sill, held the camera lens up to the glass, and moved the pencil-size instrument, oh so slowly, from left to right, hoping that Murphy’s Law would, this one time, not be in effect, and that the camera’s low-light-capable lens would capture whatever was in the room—and even perhaps, some images of what lay beyond.

2:13
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. He’d counted to a hundred and eighty—roughly three minutes of video. If the gods were indeed smiling on him tonight, the camera’s transmissions were secure on the battery-powered recorder in the 4627 van. Well, he’d know everything there was to know in a few minutes.

Gently, Tom set the camera into the fanny pack and zipped the pouch closed. He pendulumed back to the drainpipe, where he hung for some seconds, the sweat pouring off his face and neck. His feet were so numb he couldn’t feel his toes.

He unwrapped the web belt from his hand, pulled it around the pipe, and buckled it around his waist. He tightened the Velcro tabs on the backs of his gloves so his wet hands wouldn’t slip on the painted cast iron.

He slipped his hands around the drainpipe as if it were a firehouse pole, eased his feet off the joint, and slid down until his running shoes caught on the next lowest protrusion. He stopped momentarily, then repeated the action, faster each time, dropping another four feet, then another, then another.

2:19. Tom peered over the wall at the end of the alley. The intersection was deserted. He jumped, pulled, scrambled, rolled over the top, dropped onto the pavement, and headed south toward the rendezvous point at a slow jog.

He’d just reached the foot of rue Ramey when Reuven’s voice exploded in his ear. “Change of plans.” It took Tom an instant to realize Reuven was speaking in Arabic.

Tom answered in kind. “Go.”
“I’m at your flat.”
“What?”
“MJ’s all right—nothing happened. No time to talk. Grab the truck.

Meet us out front. I’ll explain.”
“Us? But—”
“Just move—move now.” Reuven’s belligerent attitude didn’t brook

2:48
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. They were waiting in the vestibule. Reuven ushered MJ into the front seat of the truck, slammed the door shut, then went around to the side, opened the cargo bay, loaded her suitcase, and hoisted himself inside. “Office, Tom. Go to the office—now. I called Tony Wyman. He’ll meet us there.”

Tom wanted answers before they moved. He looked at the confused, frightened expression on his fiancée’s face and enveloped her in his arms. “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Then he turned toward the Israeli. “What the hell’s up?”
“That fellow on the street had your address on him,” Reuven machinegunned in rapid French. “Since you told me this wonderful woman had shown up unexpectedly, I thought it prudent to get over here.”
“Why in God’s name didn’t you get hold of me?”
“Because you had a job to do, my friend—something I couldn’t do. And because I was on the case.” Reuven smacked his fist into his palm. “The sons of bitches are onto you. I don’t know how, but they are.”
Tom had more than an inkling how. They were onto him because Tom had been the last person to talk to Shahram Shahristani. They were onto him because they were keeping the American embassy under constant surveillance and he’d turned up there and left with a known CIA case officer. The same case officer they’d seen talking to Shahram Shahristani. They’d known because they were competent adversaries and they could put two and two together.
Reuven broke into Tom’s train of thought. “Did you see anything up there?”
“The shades were down and the lights were out. I saw nothing. But there was a gap between the shade and the sill and I used the camera.”
Reuven lifted the painter’s tarp to reveal the rack of video equipment. “While you head for the office I want to see what you got.”

3:19
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. Reuven had scrambled the staff and 4627’s offices were in condition red. A pair of security cars sealed off the front and rear exits. The entrance to the five-story building was manned by an armed guard. Inside, roving two-man teams patrolled the corridors.

Tom had never seen Tony Wyman without a tie. Now Wyman, in a pressed pair of jeans and a thick cashmere turtleneck, monocle screwed into his right eye, squinted intently at the high-resolution plasma screen in Tom’s office. A police scanner played softly in the background as Reuven explained what Wyman was looking at.

“Tom—freeze the picture. Those are detonators,” the Israeli said, pointing at a slightly fuzzy image of objects roughly the size of tongue depressors. “Ben Said disassembles the backpacks piece by piece. He inserts several thin sheets of explosive to replace the layer of padding between the inner and outer linings at the bottom and back side of the bag. Then he removes one of the stiffeners they use where the backpack straps connect to the body of the rucksack, and replaces it with the detonator.”

Reuven pointed at the half dozen detonators lying on a kitchen towel— kitchen because the words Cuisine et Tradition in dark lettering were visible on the portion of the towel that was draped over the edge of the table. “I can’t be sure, but it seems pretty straightforward. The bottom end—the business end if you will—is pressed into the plastic explosive. It follows that the middle section is probably the battery that sends the electric charge into the explosive and detonates it. And the top is actually a small receiver and antenna—similar to what’s inside a cell phone.”

Tony Wyman nodded.
“Then he reassembles everything carefully.”
Wyman said: “Where does he get the thread?”
Reuven’s eyes brightened. “Good point.”
MJ looked at the Israeli. “Huh?”
“He has to sew the backpacks using the original needle holes and a

thread that looks exactly like this—” Reuven reached across MJ, pulled her own Vuitton backpack from where she’d hung it over the arm of her chair, and tilted it. “Look at the stitching. The thread is unique. He had to have an inside source.” The Israeli returned the backpack and scratched himself a note. “I’ll check it out.”