At last he stood up, pressed Marty's hand once more, and told him he would be back. He left the ICU but stayed on the same floor, returning to the fire stairs. On the landing, he searched for anything the gunman might have dropped, for any clue at all. He found nothing but a trace of blood on the post of the balustrade, evidence he really had wounded the gunman, which could be useful information if the man ever reappeared.
Still on the deserted stair landing, he activated his cell phone with its special scrambler capacity and dialed. 'Someone tried to kill Marty in the hospital,' he reported.
The head of Covert-One, Fred Klein, answered from across the Atlantic Ocean in his usual growl. 'Do we know who?'
'Looks like a pro. It was a good setup. The guy was disguised as an orderly, and if I hadn't been there, he could've gotten away with it.'
'The French guards didn't pick up on him?'
'No, but maybe the Sret will do better now,' Smith said.
'Better yet, I'll talk to the French myself, ask them to send special forces soldiers to guard Zellerbach.'
'I like that. There's something else you need to know. The guy had a mini-submachine gun. He was carrying it hidden under bed linen.'
There was an abrupt silence at the other end of the connection. Klein knew as well as Smith that the submachine gun changed the picture. It turned what had appeared a straightforward assassination attempt into something far more complex. When Klein spoke again, he asked the question, 'Meaning what exactly, Colonel?'
Smith was sure Klein knew perfectly well what he was thinking, but he said it anyway: 'He had the firepower to kill Marty from where he was standing. My being there would've been no deterrent, if he'd been willing to shoot me and maybe everyone else in the ICU, too. His initial plan was probably to go in with a knife, something quiet, so he wouldn't attract attention. The submachine gun was only for last-ditch protection.'
'And?'
'And that suggests he realized that if he opened fire and killed a handful of us, his escape from the hospital would've been far more difficult, and that means he didn't want to take any chances that he might be captured, alive or dead. Which, in turn, suggests again that the bombing was no random act or the crazed vindictiveness of some fired employee, but part of a careful plan by people with a specific goal who will go to great lengths to not be discovered.'
Klein was silent again. 'You think it's clearer now that Dr. Chambord was the target. And therefore Marty, too, because he was working with Chambord.'
'Has there been any group or individual claiming credit for the bombing?'
'Not yet.'
'There won't,' Smith decided.
Klein gave a cold chuckle. 'I always thought you were wasted in medicine and research, Jon. Very well, we think the same, but so far everyone else is whistling in the dark in hopes Chambord's death was collateral to the bombing, an accident.' There was a deep sigh at the far end. 'But that part's my job. Yours is to dig deeper and turn up those notes and any type of prototype computer he developed.' His voice grew hard. 'And if you can't grab them, you've got to destroy them. Those are your orders. We can't run the risk of that kind of power staying in the wrong hands.'
'I understand.'
'How's Zellerbach doing? Any change in his condition?'
Smith reported the improvement. 'It's good, but there's still no guarantee it means a full recovery.'
'Then we'll hope.'
'If he knows anything, or took notes, he could've stored the data on his mainframe back in D.C. You'd better send a Covert-One computer expert.'
'Already did, Colonel. Had a hell of a time getting in, and when he did, he found nothing. If Zellerbach kept notes, he followed Chambord's lead and didn't put them into his computer.'
'It was an idea.'
'Appreciated. What do you plan next?'
'I'm going to the Pasteur. There's an American biochemist I've worked with there. I'll see what he can tell me about Chambord.'
'Be careful. Remember, you have no official position in this. Covert-One has to remain hidden.'
'It's just friend going to friend, nothing more,' Smith reassured him.
'All right. Another thing I want you to meet General Carlos Henze, the American who commands NATO forces in Europe. He's the only person over there who knows you're assigned to investigate, but he thinks you're working for army intelligence. The president called him personally to set this up. Henze's got his contacts at work, and he'll fill you in on what he's found out over there. He doesn't know anything about me or Covert-One, of course. Memorize this: Pension
Chapter Five
It was early morning, and a spring breeze blew the scent of cherry blossoms across the Tidal Basin and in through the open French doors of the Oval Office, but President Samuel Adams Castilla was too distracted to notice or care. He stood up behind the heavy pine table he used as a desk and glared at the three people who sat waiting for him to continue. He was just a year into his second term, and the last thing Castilla needed was a military crisis. Now was the time to solidify his accomplishments, get the rest of his programs through a fractious Congress, and build his historical image.
'So this is the situation,' he rumbled. 'We haven't got enough evidence yet to determine whether a molecular computer actually exists, and if it does, who has it. What we do know is that it's not in our hands, dammit.' He was a big man with thick shoulders and a waist that had spread as wide as Albuquerque. Usually genial, he glared through his titanium glasses and worked at controlling his frustration. 'The air force and my computer experts tell me they have no other explanation for what happened on Diego Garcia. My science adviser says he's consulted top people in the field, and they claim there could be many reasons for the blip in communications out there, starting with some rare atmospheric anomaly. I hope the science folks are right.'
'So do I,' Admiral Stevens Brose agreed promptly.
'So do all of us,' added National Security Adviser Emily Powell-Hill.
'Amen,' said Chief of Staff Charles Ouray from where he leaned against the wall near the fireplace.
Admiral Brose and National Security Adviser Powell-Hill were sitting in leather chairs facing the president's desk, which he had brought with him from Santa Fe. Like all presidents, he had chosen his own decor. The current furnishings reflected his rural Southwestern taste, now modified by five years of the cosmopolitan sophistication he had unexpectedly found he enjoyed in this loftiest seat of federal government, plus all the official trips to capitals, museums, and banquets around the planet. The ranch furniture from the New Mexico governor's residence had been thinned and joined with elegant French side tables and a comfortable British club chair before the fireplace. The red-and-yellow Navajo drapes and the Amerindian vases, baskets, and headdresses now blended with Senegalese masks, Nigerian mud prints, and Zulu shields.
Restless, the president walked around the desk. He leaned back against it, crossed his arms, and continued, 'We all know terrorist attacks tend to be by people whose main goal is to get attention for their cause and expose what they consider evil. But this situation has at least two kinks so far: This bomb wasn't against the usual symbolic target an embassy, a government building, a military installation, a famous landmark and it wasn't some lone suicide bomber taking out a crowded bus or busy nightclub. Instead, the target was a research and teaching facility. A place that helps humanity. But specifically, the building where a molecular computer was being built.'
Emily Powell-Hill, a former U.S. Army brigadier general, raised her perfect eyebrows. In her fifties, she was slender, long-legged, and highly intelligent. 'With all due respect, Mr. President, the information you have about a DNA computer's being completed appears to be largely speculation, projection from insufficient data, and plain old
