The Paris Option Read online

  A typical Marseille feisty character, the bartender glared for a moment, then jerked his head toward a beaded curtain that separated the boisterous main room from a backroom. The English “sailor,” whose name was Carsten Le Saux and who actually spoke excellent French and was not a sailor at all, thanked the bartender in even worse French and ambled back through the curtain to sit across a scarred table from the only occupant of the room.

  As if by a miracle, Le Saux’s French improved. “Captain Marius?”

  The man at the table was whiplike, of medium height, with the usual thick, dark, Gallic hair worn down to his shoulders and hacked off with a knife. His sleeveless shirt revealed a body that seemed to consist of nothing but bone and muscle. He tossed back a marc, a very cheap brandy, pushed the empty glass away, and sat back as if waiting for something momentous to occur.

  Le Saux smiled with his mouth, not his eyes, as he waved to a waiter in a white apron, who was swabbing dirt around on an empty table. “Deux marcs, s’il vous plaît.”

  Captain Marius said, “You’re the one who called?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You said there were dollars? One hundred of them?”

  Carsten Le Saux reached into his trouser pocket and produced a hundred-dollar bill. As he laid it on the table, the captain nodded but did not pick it up. Their marcs arrived. The captain reached for his.

  The two men sipped slowly. At last Le Saux said, “I’ve heard you and your boat had a close call at sea a few nights ago.”

  “Where did you hear? From who?”

  “From a source. He was convincing. He said you were almost run down by some large vessel. A rather unpleasant experience, I expect.”

  Captain Marius studied the hundred-dollar bill. He picked it up and folded it into an ancient leather pocket purse he produced from somewhere. “It was two nights ago. Fishing had been bad, so I sailed out to a bank I know and most others don’t. It was where my father would go when there was no catch closer in.” He took a half-crushed packet of cigarettes printed in Arabic from his shirt pocket and extracted a pair of bent, foul-smelling, Algerian cigarettes.

  Le Saux took one. Marius lit both, blew a toxic cloud into the air of the curtained room, and leaned closer. His voice was intense, as if he were still shaken by the event. “It came out of nowhere. Like a skyscraper or a mountain. More like a mountain, because it was a behemoth. Only moving. A moving, mountainous behemoth, bearing down on my little boat. No lights inside or outside, so it was darker than the night itself. Later I saw it did have its running lights on, but who could see them so far above, eh?” He sat back and shrugged, as if it no longer mattered. “It missed us to port. We were nearly swamped, but here I am.”

  “The Charles de Gaulle?”

  “Or the Flying Dutchman, hein?”

  Carsten Le Saux also sat back, thoughtful. “Why would she be running dark? Were there destroyers? Other ships?”

  “I saw none.”

  “What was her course?”

  “From her wake, I’d say south-southwest.”

  Le Saux nodded. He waved to the waiter again and ordered another pair of marcs. He pushed back his chair, rose, and smiled down at the fishing boat captain. “Merci. Be careful out there.” He paid the waiter as he left.

  Twilight had turned into indigo night. On the crowded waterfront, the pungent odors of fish and alcohol filled the air. Le Saux paused to gaze at the rows of masts and listen to the lulling sound of ropes slapping against wood hulls. The ancient harbor had supported one city or another here since the days of the Greeks in the seventh century b.c. He turned and gazed around as if he were a tourist, then he walked quickly along above the quays. To his left, on a hill high above Marseille, stood the ornate basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the modern city’s guardian, aglow with light.

  At last, he turned into an old brick building on a narrow side street and climbed the stairs to a two-room apartment on the fourth floor. Once inside, he sat on the bed, picked up the phone, and dialed.

  “Howell.”

  Le Saux grumbled, “How about a pleasant ‘good evening’? I retract that. Considering your generally surly nature, I would accept a simple ‘hello.’”

  A distant snort at the far end of the line. “Where the devil are you, Carsten?”

  “Marseille.”

  “And?”

  “And the De Gaulle was at sea southwest of Marseille a few hours before General Moore reappeared at Gibraltar. I checked before I talked to the captain of the fishing boat and also discovered there were no NATO or French naval exercises scheduled at the time. Actually, none this week at all. The De Gaulle was heading farther south and west toward the Spanish coast. And get this, she was running dark.”

  “Dark, was she? Interesting. Good job, Carsten. Thanks.”

  “It cost me two hundred American.”

  “More likely one hundred, but I’ll send the hundred in pounds.”

  “Generosity is its own reward, Peter.”

  “Would it were so, would it were so. Keep your ears open, I need to know why the De Gaulle was out there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Mediterranean, Near Algeria

  For hours, the fast motorboat slammed through the waves. Trapped like an animal in a cage, Jon kept himself sharp by playing games with himself, seeing how perfectly and with how much detail he could reconstruct the past…. The too-brief time with Sophia…his work as a virus hunter at USAMRIID…the long-ago stint in East Berlin undercover. And, too, there was the fatal mistake in Somalia, when he had failed to identify the virus that eventually killed Randi’s fiancé, a fine army officer. He still felt guilty, even though he knew that it had been a diagnostic error any doctor could have made, and many had.

  The years pressed in on Jon, and as time dragged and the boat continued to batter him, he began to wonder whether this journey would ever end. He fell into an uncomfortable sleep. When the door to the storage room opened, he was instantly alert. He released the safety on his Walther. Someone entered, and he could hear what sounded like a search. The minutes passed slowly, and he felt a trickle of sweat run down his side. The frustrated crewman muttered to himself in Arabic. Jon strained to understand, finally realizing the man was looking for a certain wrench.

  Fighting a rising tide of claustrophobia, Jon tried to envision the storage room, wondering whether he had inadvertently hidden the damn wrench. Inwardly he swore, and almost simultaneously he heard the crewman curse, too, aloud. But the crewman’s tone was excited, not frustrated, because he had found the tool. Soon his footsteps retreated across the storage room and out the door.

  As the door settled back into its frame, Jon let out a long stream of air. He wiped the back of his arm across his forehead, put the safety back on his gun, and slumped against the bulkhead with relief. Almost instantly, the boat slammed into another wave.

  He checked his wristwatch again and again. In the sixth hour, the motorboat’s throbbing engines suddenly racheted down, and the boat slowed. Soon it glided to a floating stop, and there was the metallic creak of the anchor being released. Its chain rattled out, and the hook hit the sea bottom quickly. Which meant they were in shallows. The sharp shrieks of seagulls told him they were near land.

  There was quiet activity on deck. A brace of soft splashes, followed by a flurry of padded scrambling sounds over the side. There were no shouted orders. The crew was being as quiet as they could. Jon heard the creak of oars and the controlled splash of paddles, and then the noises faded. Had both the dinghy and the rubber raft been launched? He hoped so.

  He waited. The boat rose and fell rhythmically, without the teeth-jarring crashes of heavy waves. As the sea washed against the hull, the vessel seemed to sigh, its wood and metal joists and panels settling in to rest. Silence permeated the craft.

  He eased the hatch cover open over his head and stood up slowly, waiting for the feeling to return to his limbs. He stretched, his gaze on the line of light under the do
or. At last he climbed from his hole. As he advanced through the dark room toward the door, his knee struck some kind of machine part, knocking it to the floor with a clang.

  He froze and listened. There was no sound on the deck above. Still, he did not move. He waited. A minute. Two. But no one came along the belowdecks passageway.

  He inhaled, opened the door, and peered out in both directions. The corridor was clear. He stepped into it, closed the door, and headed forward toward the gangway. He did not realize it at the time, but he had lowered his guard, allowing himself to rely on his sense of the boat’s silence and emptiness, the way he had initially found it.

  That was when a powerful-looking man stepped out from one of the small sleeping cubicles, pointing a pistol at Jon. He had a fez on his head and a nasty look on his beard-stubbled face.

  “Who the fuck are you? Where’d you come from?” His English had some kind of Middle Eastern accent. Egyptian?

  Exasperated, frustrated, Jon lunged. He grabbed the terrorist’s gun wrist with his left hand while he used his right to draw his stiletto.

  Taken aback by the suddenness of the assault, the man tried to pull free. He jerked back, off balance. Jon slammed a fist toward his jaw, but the fellow recovered, dodged, and jammed his pistol into Jon’s side, his finger on the trigger.

  Jon twisted away just in time. The man pulled the trigger, the gunfire like a cannon blast in the confines of the boat. The bullet shot past Jon and into one of the cubicles, where it thudded into a wall. Before his attacker could aim and fire again, Jon plunged his stiletto into the man’s chest.

  The terrorist went down, landing hard on his knees, his black eyes blazing. With a grunt, he keeled forward onto his face.

  As Jon kicked the pistol—a 9mm Glock—out of the man’s hand, he drew his Walther from his waistband and stepped back. The man lay motionless, blood trickling out from beneath him.

  Jon crouched and felt his pulse. He was dead.

  When he stood again, Jon was shaking. After a long bout of forced inactivity, his nerves and muscles had been required to surge into sudden, violent action. He shook the way a racing car did when slammed from high speed to a sudden stop. He had not intended to kill the man. In fact, he did not like to kill at all, but he’d had no choice.

  Once his quaking passed, he stepped over the corpse and climbed up the gangway to the deck. Afternoon sunlight came to greet him.

  His eyes just above the opening, he surveyed the deck. He could see no one. Built for speed, the boat had few structures to catch the wind. The deck was flat and clear all the way to the bridge, which was unoccupied. The dinghy and rubber raft were gone.

  Warily, he crawled up and moved forward to the bridge, from where he could view the rest of the boat. It was empty, too. In the bridge well, he found a pair of binoculars. To the west, the sun was a ball of lemon fire low in the sky. The air was cooling rapidly, but then, according to his watch, it was past six o’clock in Paris. Judging by the amount of time spent on the ride here and the speed at which he guessed the vessel had been traveling, he figured he was likely still in the same time zone or, at the most, one zone over.

  Through the binoculars, he scanned the shore, aglow in the cooling light. There was a fine, smooth beach with what looked like plastic green houses. Other green houses had been built in rows behind it, reaching inland. Nearby, a citrus grove ran from the coast into the distance. He could see oranges ripening in the leafy branches. There was a large promontory, too, that jutted out into the sea. It appeared to be entirely enclosed by a long white wall at least ten feet high. The high height impressed him, and he studied the promontory. Dark olive trees and palms stood stark against the wall, and he could see some kind of domed building behind.

  He moved the binoculars. Far to the right, modern cars sped along what looked like a good highway, close to the sea. He moved the binoculars again, this time sweeping the distance. Behind everything rose a line of hills, while taller hills loomed in the distance.

  Jon lowered the binoculars, mulling over the clues…. This was not France. It could be southern Spain, but he doubted it. No, this had the feel of North Africa, and from the lushness, the green houses, the wide sandy beaches, the palms, the hills, the highway, the newer cars, in fact the prosperous appearance of it all, and the speed and time of the journey, his judgment was that he was anchored off Algeria, probably not far from Algiers.

  He raised his binoculars to study the far-off wall again. The rays of the afternoon sun had grown even longer and now bounced off the tall white barrier as if it were chrome, half-blinding him. The light danced with dust motes, too, which made what he could see of the wall hazy and indistinct. It seemed almost to undulate. With so much visual interference, he could not make out the buildings behind it. He studied the beach, but there was no dinghy or rubber raft resting there.

  Pursing his lips, he lowered the binoculars and contemplated the setup. He was intrigued by that tall, very solid-looking wall that seemed to enclose the promontory.

  He hurried belowdecks to the storage room, where he remembered seeing a plastic bucket. He stripped to his shorts again and folded his clothes, Walther, and stiletto into the bucket. Back topside, he carried his belongings down the swaying rope ladder to the darkening sea. He slid into the cool water, and, pushing the bucket in front of him, swam toward the coast, creating as little ripple as possible, since white water reflected sunlight and could attract attention.

  He was tired as he closed in on landfall, wearied by the stress of events as well as by the day’s rough travel. But as he stopped to tread water so he could scrutinize the white wall, fresh energy coursed through him. The wall was higher than he had gauged—at least fourteen feet. Even more interesting was the sharp, rolled concertina wire that ridged its top like a crown of thorns. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to discourage trespassers.

  Contemplating that, he swam quietly on toward the end of the promontory, the temperature of the seawater and air dropping as twilight spread like an inky hand. The point’s terminus was overgrown with what looked like an impenetrable mass of vegetation and palm trees. He continued swimming on around but still saw no sign of buildings.

  Then he smiled soberly to himself: There on the beach lay the dinghy and rubber raft, pulled close up to the thick growth. This was progress.

  The strength of his stroke improved, and he continued farther on until he spotted a place where the wilderness ran so close to the sea it almost seemed to drop into it, and the white wall had ended in tribute to the density of nature’s green wall. Again he stopped to tread water, this time watching the coastline for movement. After a time, he pushed his bucket ashore toward the thick vegetation and crawled up onto the sand, still warm from the day’s sun. He lay there a full minute, feeling his heart pound against the beach, absorbing the comfort of the warmth.

  At last, he pulled himself up and ran barefoot into the vegetation where he soon found a tiny glade, dark and shadowy, filled with the scents of rich earth and growing plants. Under a date palm, he dressed quickly, stuck his Walther into his waistband, strapped the stiletto into a sheath Velcroed to his calf, and hid the bucket.

  He moved through the trees and bushes, keeping the beach in sight, until he ran into a dirt trail. He crouched to study it. There were footprints with treads characteristic of athletic shoes like the ones he wore. The most recent prints—a jumble of several different sets of feet—led away from where the raft and dinghy were tied.

  Encouraged, he took out his Walther and followed the trail inland for another fifteen yards until it ended at a vast open area in the grip of night’s growing shadows. There were olive trees and date palms and beyond them a rise of land. On it stood a large white villa crowned by a white dome inlaid with mosaic tiles. He had seen that dome from the boat.

  The sprawling villa appeared completely isolated, and at first glance it seemed deserted, too. No one worked or strolled in the gardens, and no one sat in the blue, wrought-iron fu
rniture that was arranged artistically on the long terrace. Neither could he see anyone through the open French doors. No cars or other vehicles were visible. The only movement was from gauzy curtains, billowing from the open windows. But then voices came from somewhere in the distance. They were raised in unison in a marchlike rhythm, while an occasional gunshot echoed faintly from somewhere far away. Obviously, there was more here than the ordinary visitor might expect.

  As if to prove the point, a man wearing a British camouflage uniform and with an Afghan puggaree on his head appeared at the far corner of the house. He carried an AK-47 slung casually over his shoulder.

  Jon felt his pulse increase. He sank down behind a bush to watch as a second guard appeared from the villa’s other corner. This man was bareheaded, dressed in denims and a flannel shirt, and looked Oriental. He cradled a U.S. M60E3 light machine gun in the crook of his left arm. The pair crossed paths below the terrace steps and continued on in opposite directions around the house, patrolling.

  Jon made no move. Moments later, a third guard appeared, this one from inside the house. As well armed as the others, he stood on the terrace, cradling his assault rifle, his gaze sweeping the grounds, and then he returned inside. Five minutes later, the pair circling the villa reappeared, soon followed by a fourth sentry, who emerged from the villa onto the terrace. They were using four guards.

  Now that Jon was beginning to see a pattern, it was time to work his way inside the villa. He circled back through the dense green growth until he found what appeared to be a secluded door near the building’s front. Here the rambling mansion was closer to the junglelike forest than at any other point. He still saw no cars or even a driveway, which was probably on the other side of the villa. The distant voices raised in a chanting chorus sent a chill up his spine. He could make out the Arabic words now, and they were a litany of hate for Israel and America, the Great Satan.