officials a great deal higher up than the head of MI6 had invited him to this party, which meant Southgate was powerless to fire him. He smiled as he envisioned South-gate's frustration.
Southgate's voice was brittle: 'General Sir Arnold Moore and his pilot are missing and presumed dead on a flight from Gibraltar to London. He was flying home to present a report of utmost urgency to the PM. All he would tell the PM over even the most secure electronic connection was that it involved the and I quote 'recent electronic disruptions in America.' For that reason, I have been instructed to relay the information on to you.'
Peter was instantly sobered. 'Did General Moore give any hint of how or where he had encountered what he wanted to tell the PM?'
'None.' Southgate, too, abandoned the feud. 'We've checked every source we have, and what we know is that the general was supposed to be at his country estate in Kent. Instead, he flew to Gibraltar from London with his own pilot. After that, he and the pilot took a helicopter and returned some six hours later. During those six hours, he was out of contact.'
'Gibraltar station doesn't know where he flew?'
'No one does. His pilot, of course, vanished with him.'
Peter digested this news. 'All right, I need to remain here until I can question Dr. Zellerbach. Meanwhile, put everyone you can on finding out where Moore went. Once I've spoken to Zellerbach, I'll head south and root around. A helicopter has a limited flight range, so we should be able to narrow the general's destinations.'
'Very well. I hold on.' Southgate's voice faded as he turned to speak with someone else. The two voices continued for some seconds before the chief of MI6 resumed his conversation with Peter: 'We've just received a report that debris from Moore's Tornado have been found at sea off Lisbon. The fuselage showed signs of an explosion. I imagine we can consider both him and the pilot dead.'
Peter agreed. 'An accident seems unlikely, considering everything. Keep your people digging, and I'll be in touch.'
Southgate bit off a remark that Howell was also one of his people, subject to orders. But it was not true. Inwardly, he sighed. 'Very good. And, Peter? Try to tell as few people as possible, eh?'
Peter hung up. Pompous ass. He thanked his stars he had always managed to remain out of a position of authority. All it did was go to a perfectly decent man's brain and impede oxygen, progress, and results. On second thought, decent men rarely sought or received authority. You had to be a solemn fool before you wanted that sort of agony.
'My goodness.' A shaky voice was speaking behind him: 'Peter Howell? Is that you, Peter?'
Peter leaped from his cot and ran to Marty's bedside.
Marty blinked and rubbed his eyes. 'Am I then dead? Surely I must be. Yes, I must be in hell.' He gazed worriedly into Peter's face. 'Otherwise, I wouldn't be seeing Lucifer. I should've known. Where else would I meet that insufferable Englishman but in hell?'
'That's more like it.' Peter smiled broadly. 'Hello, Marty, you silly fellow. You gave us quite a turn.'
Marty peered worriedly around his hospital room. 'It looks pleasant enough, but I'm not tricked. It's an illusion.' He cringed. 'I see flames behind these innocent walls. Orange, yellow, red. Boiling fire from the hubs of hell! Blinding! Don't think you can hold Marty Zellerbach!' He threw back his sheets, and Peter grabbed his shoulders.
As he struggled to hold Marty in bed, Peter roared, 'Guard! Get the nurse! Get the damn doctor! Get somebody!'
The door snapped open, and the guard looked in and saw what was happening. 'Be right back.'
Marty pressed into Peter's hands, not struggling now so much as simply using the full weight of his stout body to push determinedly toward freedom. 'Arrogant Lucifer! I'll be out of your clutches before you can blink. Reality and illusion. Zounds, who do you think you're dealing with? Oh, it'll be fun to match wits with the archfiend. There's no way you can win. I'll fly from here on the wings of a red-tailed hawk. No way no… '
'Shhh, boy,' Peter said, trying to calm him. 'I'm not Lucifer. Not really. Remember old Peter? We had some good times, we did.'
But Marty continued to rave, caught in the grip of the extreme manic stage of his Asperger's Syndrome. The nurse ran in, followed by Dr. Dubost. While she and Peter held Marty down, the doctor injected him with an aqueous solution of Mideral, the drug that controlled his manic stage.
'I must fly away Satan can't outwit me! Not me! I will. '
While Peter and the nurse continued to restrain Marty, the doctor nodded approval. 'Try to keep him as quiet as possible. He's been in the coma a long time, and we don't want any relapses. The Mideral will take effect soon.'
Peter talked quietly as Marty continued to rant, building his schemes and castles in the sky, all centered on the delusion that he was in Pluto's underworld and had to outwit the devil himself. Soon he grew less physical and no longer tried to escape, and eventually his eyes turned dull, his lids drooped, and he began to nod.
The nurse smiled at Peter and stepped back. 'You're a good friend to him, Mr. Howell. A lot of people would've run screaming from the room.'
Peter frowned. 'That so? Don't have much backbone, do they?'
'Or heart.' She patted him on the shoulder and left.
For the first time, Peter regretted not having electronic communications or being able to bounce cell calls off a satellite. He wanted to let Jon and Randi know about Marty, while at the same time, he should call his contacts in the South of France, along the Costa Brava into Spain, and all the places a helicopter from Gibraltar could have flown to see what he could learn about General Moore's last few hours. But they were best reachable by their cell phones.
Frustrated, he sat down, sighed, and let his head fall forward into his hands. That was when he heard light steps behind him. Soft, evasive footsteps, and he had not even heard the door open.
'Randi?' As he started to turn, he reached for the Browning Hi-Power 9mm in his belt. That tread was not Randi's. And he was too late. Before the weapon was in his hand, the cold metal of the intruder's gun muzzle pressed firmly into the back of his head. He froze. Whoever it was, was skilled. Frighteningly adept, and not alone.
Chapter Twenty-one
Smith closed the cover of the last file folder, ordered a second Chimay ale, and sat back. He had dropped a note at the Caf Egmont, telling Randi to meet him at the caf Le Cerf Agile, where he was seated at a sidewalk table. It was his favorite caf in the rue St-Catherine area of the lower city, not far from the bourse and what had once been the banks of the river Senne when this part of Brussels was a port to hundreds of fishing vessels. As this was still a fish-market area, seafood remained the order of the day in bistros here, even though the river had long ago been boxed inside a man-made channel and bricked over to become the boulevard Anspach.
But the fish, the hidden river, and the food were far from Smith's mind as he took a long draft of his dark ale and looked around. No other patrons were sitting outside, since dark clouds still rolled occasionally across the sky. But the rain had stopped an hour ago, and when Smith had asked, the matre d' had wiped off this table and the two accompanying chairs. The other patrons had decided to take no chances that the heavens would open again in another deluge, which was fine with Jon.
He liked being out here alone, out of range of prying eyes and ears. He had changed out of his uniform after he left SHAPE and now looked like any tourist in his tan cotton slacks, open-necked tartan shirt, dark-blue sports jacket, and athletic shoes. The shoes were important, in case he had to run. The jacket was important, to hide his pistol. And the black trench coat he had slung over the back of his chair was important, because it helped him to blend with the night.
But now, as the sun fought the clouds for dominance of the afternoon sky, Jon was thinking about what he had learned at NATO. The file on Captain Darius Bonnard was revealing. Either La Porte did not know or he was protecting Bonnard by withholding the fact that Bonnard's current wife — the French woman that La Porte had so admired was not Bonnard's first: While serving in the legion, he had married an Algerian woman. Whether he had
