more?'
'I'm doing that right now.' He typed a dozen more words and straightened up. He studied Smith. 'Don't worry, Doctor. We know what we're doing here. Your friend is in excellent hands. A week from now, with luck he'll be complaining loudly about his aches and pains, the coma completely forgotten.' He cocked his head. 'He's your dear friend, I can see that. Stay as long as you like, but I must continue rounds.'
Warmed by the hope that Marty would not only emerge from the coma but with all his brain functions intact, Smith sat beside the bed, among the flashing dials and gauges of the monitors, and watched him, thinking all the way back to Council Bluffs and high school, where he and Marty had met and Jon's uncle had first diagnosed Marty's Asperger's Syndrome to Sophia's murder and the Hades virus pandemic, when he had needed Marty's genius with all things electronic.
He took Marty's hand and squeezed it. 'Did you hear your doctor? He thinks you're going to be all right. Mart, can you hear me?' He waited, watching the still face. 'What in God's name happened at the Pasteur, Mart? Were you helping Chambord develop his molecular computer?'
Marty stirred, and his lips trembled as if he was trying to speak.
Excited, Jon continued, 'What is it? Tell me, Mart. Please! We both know you're never at a loss for words.' He paused, hoping, but when Marty made no other sign, he put an encouraging warmth in his voice and continued, 'This is a hell of a way for us to meet again, Mart. But you know how it is, I need you. So here I am, asking you to lend me that extraordinary mind of yours once more.'
Talking and reminiscing, he stayed with Marty an hour. He squeezed Marty's hand, rubbed his arms, massaged his feet. But it was only when he mentioned the Pasteur that Marty tried to rouse himself. Smith had just leaned back in the chair and stretched, deciding he had better get on with the investigation into Dr. Chambord's molecular computer, when a tall man in a hospital orderly's uniform appeared in the opening to Marty's cubicle.
The man was dark, swarthy, with a huge black mustache. He was staring at Smith, his brown eyes hard and cold. Intelligent and deadly. And, in the split second when Smith's gaze and his connected, he seemed startled. The shock was in the bold eyes only briefly, and then, just before the man turned and hurried away, there seemed a hint of mischief or amusement or perhaps malice somehow familiar.
That flitting sense of familiarity stopped Smith for a heartbeat, and then he was up and rushing after the orderly, snatching his Sig Sauer from its holster inside his jacket. It was not only the man's eyes and expression that had been wrong, but the way he had carried the folded linens, draped over his right arm. He could be hiding a weapon beneath. Was he there to kill Marty?
Outside the ICU, all eyes were on Smith as he furiously burst through the large swinging doors, his trench coat flapping. Ahead, the orderly knocked people out of the way as he put on a burst of speed and tore off down the corridor, escaping.
Pounding in pursuit, Smith shouted in French, 'Stop that man! He's got a gun!'
With that, all pretense was gone, and the orderly flourished a mini-submachine gun not much bigger than Smith's Sig Sauer. He turned, expertly trotting backward, and raised the terrorist weapon without panic or haste. He swung it back and forth as if to sweep the corridor clean. The fellow was a professional of some kind, letting the threat of his gun do the work without having to fire a shot.
Screams erupted as nurses, doctors, and visitors dove to the floor, into doorways, and around corners.
Smith hurled breakfast carts out of the way and thundered on. Ahead, the man rushed through a doorway and slammed the door. Smith kicked it in and raced past a terrified technician, through another door, and past a hot-therapy tank in which a naked man sat, the nurse hurriedly covering him with a towel.
'Where is he?' Smith demanded. 'Where did the orderly go!'
The nurse pointed at one of three rooms, her face pasty with fear, and he heard a door bang shut in that direction. He tore onward, punched open the only door in that room, and skidded into another corridor. He looked left and right along the hallway, chrome bright in its newness. Terrified people had pressed themselves against the walls as they gazed right, as if a deadly tornado had just swept past, barely leaving them alive.
Smith ran in the direction they stared, accelerating, while far down the corridor the orderly hurled an empty gurney lengthwise to block his path. Smith swore. He took a deep breath, demanding his lungs respond. If he had to stop to move the gurney, the man would surely get away. Without breaking stride, Smith summoned his energy. Telling himself he could do it, he leaped over the gurney. His knees felt weak as he landed, but he caught his balance and sprinted onward, leaving behind another trail of frightened people. Sweat poured off him, but at last he was gaining on the orderly, who had been slowed by throwing the gurney into position. Smith accelerated again, hopeful.
Without a backward glance, the man slammed through yet another door. It had an exit sign above it. The fire stairs. Smith hurtled in after him. But from the corners of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of someone hiding to the left of the door, behind it as he swung it in.
He had time only to lower a protective shoulder. In the shadowy stairwell, the orderly sprang out and crashed into him. The impact shook him, but he managed to remain on his feet. He smashed his shoulder into the orderly, sending him reeling back toward the stairs.
The orderly staggered. He hit the back of his head against the steel balustrade. But he had given way with Smith's thrust and quickly regained his balance, while Smith, meeting less resistance than he had expected, dropped his Sig Sauer and lost his footing. He stumbled and crashed to the cement floor, taking a hard blow to his back where it struck the wall. Ignoring the pain, he stumbled back up to his feet and grabbed for his pistol, just in time to see the man's shadow loom. Smith lashed out, too late. A searing pain exploded in his skull, and blackness and silence descended. Chapter Four
When the morning express train from Bordeaux pulled in that Tuesday at the Gare d'Austerlitz, Captain Darius Bonnard was the third passenger off, striding through the throngs of arriving and departing Parisians, provincials, and tourists as if he did not know they existed. The truth was, he was watching for the slightest sign of interest directed toward him. There were too many who would try to stop his work if they discovered it, enemies and friends alike.
He stayed focused, his scrutiny covert, as he headed toward the exit, a compact, vigorous man with blond hair, impeccably attired in his French officer's uniform. He had spent his entire adult life in the service of France, and his current assignment might be the most important in all the nation's illustrious history. Certainly it was the most important to him. And the most dangerous.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and when the voice answered, he announced, 'I'm here.' As soon as he hung up, he dialed a second number and repeated the message.
Outdoors, he bypassed the ranks of taxis, plus four official and unofficial drivers eager for his business, and climbed into the rogue cab that had just pulled up.
'Salaam alake koom,' the gravelly voice greeted him from the backseat.
As he settled in beside the robed man, Captain Bonnard replied with the customary response: 'La bahs hamdililah.' He slammed and locked the door.
In the street, other drivers shouted curses at this breach of taxicab etiquette.
As the vehicle pulled away, driving southwest into narrow side streets, Captain Bonnard turned to the man who had spoken. In the shadowed interior, shafts of sunlight played intermittently across the hooded, green-brown eyes. Most of the man's face was cloaked in the voluminous white robes and gold-trimmed kaffiyeh of a desert bedouin, but from what little Bonnard could see, the man had satin-black skin. Bonnard knew his name was Abu Auda and that he was a member of the Fulani tribe from the Sahel region at the southern edge of the Sahara, where the dry, forbidding desert met lush forest and grasslands. The green-brown eyes revealed that a blue-eyed Berber or ancient Vandal was somewhere in his family line.
'You've brought them?' the Fulani asked in Arabic.
'Naam.' The French captain nodded. He unbuttoned his tunic, opened his uniform shirt, and took out a letter-sized, zippered leather portfolio. Abu Auda's gaze followed each of the movements as Bonnard handed over the portfolio and reported, 'Chambord's assistant is dead. What of the American, Zellerbach?'
'We found no notes, as was expected, although we searched thoroughly,' Abu Auda told him.
The man's strange eyes bored into Bonnard as if they could reach the Frenchman's soul. Eyes that trusted no one and nothing, not even the god to whom he prayed five times daily without fail. He would worship Allah, but he would trust no one. As Captain Bonnard's face held steadfastly impassive under the heat of the bedouin's
