in. He obviously either owned or worked at the bookstore. Smith felt a stab of deep disappointment.
Still, someone had been surveilling him, and he had narrowed the potentials to the dark-haired woman or the man who had been checking out the street vendor's wares. In turn, whichever of the two it was, he or she had also recognized Smith's suspicions and exited the chase.
He gave the bookseller a friendly wave and hurried back to the metro station. But then, with a sinking feeling, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise again. Someone was still nearby, studying him. Frustrated, worried, he stood outside the station and gazed all around. He saw nothing. He had to lose his tail. He could not lead them to his meeting with the general. He turned and rushed down into the station.
In a doorway partially shielded by a bush, the dull-looking woman in the shopkeeper's black outfit scrutinized Smith as he carefully surveyed the area. Her hiding place was recessed and dark, which was perfect, since it allowed her dusky clothing to disappear into the gloom. She took care to keep her face far back in the shadow, because although she was tan, the paler color of her skin might reflect just enough light for the very-observant Smith to notice.
He looked uneasy and suspicious. He was handsome, with almost American Indian features high cheekbones, a planed face, and very dark blue eyes. Right now the eyes were hidden behind black sunglasses, but she remembered the color. She shivered.
At last he seemed to make a decision. He hurried into the metro. There was no further doubt in her mind: He had realized he was being followed, but he did not know it was specifically she, or he would have followed after she passed his table outside the caf and stared straight at him.
She sighed, irritated by the situation. It was time to report in. She pulled her cell phone from a pocket beneath her heavy black skirt. 'He figured out he was being tailed, but he didn't make me,' she told her contact. 'Otherwise, he appears to be here really because he's worried about his injured friend. Everything he's done since he arrived is consistent with that.' She listened and said angrily, 'That's your call. If you think it's worthwhile, send someone else to tail him. I've got my own assignment.No, nothing definite so far, but I can smell something big. Mauritania wouldn't have come here unless it was imperative. Yes, he's got it.'
She clicked off the cell phone, looked carefully around, and slipped out of the shadows. Jon Smith had not reappeared from the metro, so she hurried back to the caf where he had sat. She searched the pavement beneath the chair he had used. She nodded to herself, satisfied. There was nothing.
Smith made four changes of trains, returned rapidly to the street, and plunged back down again at two of the stations. He watched everywhere until, finally, after an hour of this, he was confident he had lost his tail. Relieved but still wary, he caught a taxi to the address Fred Klein had given him.
It turned out to be a private pension in an ivy-covered, three-story brick building on a small courtyard off the rue des Renaudes, secluded from the street and the bustle of the city. At her post inside the elegant front door, the concierge was as discreet as the building itself. A matronly woman with steel-trap eyes and a face that revealed nothing, she showed no reaction when he asked for M. Werner, but she came from behind her counter to lead him up the stairs with decidedly unmatronly movements. He suspected that more metal than just her house keys was hidden under her cardigan and apron.
He did not have to guess about the bantamweight sitting on a chair in the second-floor corridor, reading a Michael Collins detective novel. The concierge vanished back down the stairs like a magician's rabbit, and the small ramrod on the chair studied Smith's ID without getting up. He wore a dark business suit, but there was a bulge under his armpit that, all things considered, looked to Smith to be an old regulation-issue 1911 Colt semiautomatic. The man's stiff and precise mannerisms hinted at an invisible uniform that was all but tattooed to his skin. Obviously, he was a career enlisted man; an officer would have stood. In fact, he was a privileged enlisted man, to still be carrying the old Colt.45— probably a master sergeant for the general.
He returned Smith's ID, gave a slight nod of his bullet head as a salute to rank, and said, 'What's the word, Colonel?'
'Loki.'
The bullet head pointed. 'The general's waiting. Third door down.'
Smith walked to it, knocked, and when a guttural 'Come in' sounded, he opened the door and stepped into a sunny room with a large window and a view of tangled, blooming gardens that Monet would have liked to paint. Standing inside was another bantamweight, but ten years older and forty pounds lighter than the one in the hallway. He was rail thin, his back turned to Smith as he stared out at the watercolor-perfect gardens.
As Smith closed the door, the general demanded, 'What's going to happen with this new technology that's supposed to be out there somewhere, Colonel? Are we looking for a result on the order of a nuclear bomb, or is it more like a peashooter? Or maybe nothing at all? What are they planning?' Small as he was, his voice was six feet tall and should have belonged to a heavyweight. It was as rough as redwood bark and hoarse, probably from a youth spent bellowing orders over gunfire.
'That's what I'm here to find out, sir.'
'You have a gut hunch?'
'I've been in Paris just a few hours. A would-be assassin has threatened me and Dr. Martin Zellerbach, who worked with Dr. Chambord, with an automatic weapon.'
'I heard about that,' the general admitted.
'I've also been tailed by someone who knows their job. Plus, of course, there's the incident at Diego Garcia. I'd say it's definitely not nothing.'
The general turned. 'That's all? No theories? No educated guesses? You're the scientist. An M.D. to boot. What should I be worrying about? Armageddon in the hands of sweet damn all, or just a schoolboy's bloody-nose and our vaunted American ego bruised?'
Smith gave a dry smile. 'Science and medicine don't teach us to theorize or make wild guesses in front of generals, sir.'
The general brayed a laugh. 'No, I suppose not.'
General Carlos Henze, U.S. Army, was the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (SACEUR) for NATO's combined forces. As wiry as a coiled spring, Henze wore his graying hair short, which, of course, was expected in the military. But it was not the boot-camp buzz affected by marine generals and other stiff-necks to show they were plain, no-nonsense soldiers who slogged through the muck like any other hero. Instead, his hair grew down to an inch above the collar of his immaculately tailored, charcoal-brown, two-piece suit, which he wore with the easy familiarity of the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. He was the new breed of general, integrated and fully prepared for the twenty-first century.
The general gave a crisp nod. 'All right, Colonel. What say I tell you what I know, okay? Have a seat. That couch will do.'
Smith sat on the ornate velvet couch from the time of Napoleon III, while the general returned to his window and bucolic view, his back again to Smith, who found himself wondering if this was Henze's way of focusing a roomful of division and regimental commanders on the matter at hand. It was a good trick. Smith thought he might try using it in one of the meetings with his notoriously disorganized fellow research scientists.
The general said, 'So we've maybe got some kind of new machine that can access and control all the world's electronic software and hardware, including any country's codes, encryptions, electronic keys for launching missiles, command structures, and instructions. That about sum up what the gizmo will be able to do, assuming it exists?'
'For military purposes, yes,' Smith agreed.
'Which is all that concerns me and, right now, you. History can handle the rest.' His back still facing Smith, the general raised his gaze to the steely clouds that hid the May sky, as if wondering whether the sun would ever shine again. 'Every sign is that the man who built it is dead, and his records are ash. No one claims responsibility for the bomb that killed him, which is unusual among terrorists but not unheard of.' This time Henze simply stopped speaking, an almost imperceptible stiffening of his back and shoulders indicating he expected a response, either yes or no.
Smith repressed a sigh. 'Yes, sir, except that we can add the probable assassin, affiliation unknown, who attempted to kill Dr. Zellerbach in the hospital this morning.'
'Right.' Now Henze turned. He stalked to a brocade chair, dropped into it, and glared at Smith as only a general could. 'Okay, I've got some information for you, too. The president said I was to extend all help, and keep mum about you, and I'm not in the habit of ignoring orders. So this is what my people and the CIA have found out:
