No reasonable request refused.”
“You thinking of a career move, Peter?” Smith asked, grinning.
Peter Howell chuckled. “Not at all. Merely a possible sideline to supplement my meager retirement pay.” He turned serious. “I assume you have news?”
“I do,” Smith confirmed. “Where are you?”
“A charming little pension on the Left Bank,” Peter replied. “Not far from the boulevard Saint-Germain. I arrived here all of five minutes ago, so your timing is impeccable.”
“How are you fixed for equipment?”
“No problems,” the Englishman assured him. “I paid a little call on an old chum on my way in from the airport.”
Smith nodded to himself. Peter Howell seemed to have reliable contacts across most of Europe — old friends and comrades-in-arms who would provide him with weapons, other gear, and assistance without asking awkward questions.
“So, where and when do we meet?” Peter asked quietly. “And with what purpose precisely?”
Smith filled him in — passing along the information relayed by Klein, though he described it as coming to him only from a “friend” with good contacts inside the CIA. By the time he was finished, he could hear the undisguised astonishment in the other man's voice.
“It's a funny old world, Jon, isn't it?” Peter said at last. “And a damned small one, too.”
“It sure is,” Smith agreed, smiling. Then his smile faded as he thought of the terrors that might lie in store for this small, interconnected world if he and the Englishman were only chasing yet another dead end. Somewhere out there, those who had designed the nanophages were surely busy brewing up an even deadlier batch of their new weapons. Unless they could be found and stopped — and soon — a great many more innocent people were going to die, eaten alive by new waves of murderous machines too small to be seen.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
An autumn breeze ruffled through the leaves of the chestnut trees planted around the neatly landscaped edges of the Place des Vosges. As the wind freshened, small gusts whipped through the spray of one of the burbling fountains. A fine mist of water droplets swirled sideways — staining the broad pavements and glistening like early morning dew on the lush green grass.
Impishly the breeze danced and curled around the weathered gray and pale rose stone facades of the covered galleries, the arcades, lining the square. In the northwest corner of the Place, cloth napkins pinned down by water goblets fluttered on the highly polished wicker tables of the Brasserie Ma Bourgogne.
Jon Smith sat alone at a table on the edge of the arcade, lounging comfortably in one of the restaurant's red leather-backed chairs. He looked out over the fenced-in square, paying careful attention to the many people strolling casually along its sidewalks or occupying park benches, idly tossing bread crumbs to the murmuring pigeons.
“Lin cafe noir, m'sieur,” a glum voice said nearby.
Smith looked up.
One of the waiters, a serious, unsmiling, older man wearing the bow tie and black apron that was a hallmark of Ma Bourgogne, slid a single cup of black coffee onto the table.
Smith nodded politely. “Merci.” He slid a few euros across the table.
Grumbling under his breath, the waiter pocketed the money, turned away, and stalked toward another table, this one occupied by two local businessmen making a deal over what looked like an early lunch. Smith could smell the fragrant odor of the plates piled high with saucisson de Beaujolais and pommes frites. His mouth watered. It had been a long time since breakfast at the Hotel des Chevaliers, and the two cups of strong coffee he had already consumed while waiting here were eating away at his stomach lining.
For a moment he debated calling the waiter back, but then he decided against it. According to Klein, this was the CIA surveillance team's primary rendezvous point. With a bit of luck, he might not have to sit here idle much longer.
Smith went back to watching the people moving through the square and among the surrounding buildings. Even at mid-morning, the Place des Vosges was reasonably crowded, full of students and teachers on break from the nearby schools, young mothers pushing infants in strollers, and squealing tots happily digging in the sandbox set in the shadow of an equestrian statue of Louis XIII. Old men arguing about everything from politics, to sports, to the odds of winning the next national lottery stood around in small groups, slicing the air with wide, vigorous gestures as they made their points.
Before the French Revolution, when it was still called the Place Royal, this beautiful little patch of open ground had been the site of innumerable duels. On every square inch where ordinary Parisians now enjoyed the autumn sun and let their pampered dogs run free, cavaliers and young aristocrats had fought and died — hacking at each other with swords or exchanging pistol shots at close range, all to prove their courage or to defend their honor. Though it was fashionable now to deride these duels as the hallmarks of a savage and bloodthirsty age, Smith wondered whether or not that was especially fair. After all, how might future historians characterize this so- called modern era — a time when some men were determined to slaughter innocents whenever and wherever the}' could?
A plain, plump, dark-haired young woman in a knee-length black coat and blue jeans passed close by his table. She noticed him watching her and flushed red. She walked hurriedly on with her head down. Jon followed her with his eyes, debating with himself. Was she the contact he had been waiting for?
“This seat? It is taken, m'sieur?” rasped a gravelly voice made hoarse by decades of smoking three or four packs of cigarettes a day.
Smith turned his head and saw the slender, ramrod-straight figure of an aged Parisian dowager glaring down at him. He had the overriding impression of a mass of immaculately coiffed gray hair, a deeply lined face, a prominent hawk-like nose, and a fierce, predator}' gaze. She raised one finely sculpted eyebrow in apparent disgust at his slowness and stupidity. “You do not speak English, m'sieur? Pardon. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
Before he could recover, she turned away to address her dog, a small, equally elderly poodle who seemed intent on gnawing one of the empty chairs to death. She yanked on his leash. “Heel, Pascal! Let the damned furniture fall to pieces on its own!” she snapped in idiomatic French.
Apparently satisfied that Smith was either deaf, dumb, or an imbecile, the old woman seated herself across the table from him — groaning slightly as she slowly lowered her creaking bones into the chair. He looked away, embarrassed.
“Just what the hell are you doing trespassing on my patch, Jon?” he heard a very familiar and very irritated voice ask quietly. “And please don't try to sell me some cock-and-bull story that you're here to see the glories of Paris!”
Smith turned back toward the old woman in amazement. Somewhere behind that mass of gray hair, wrinkles, and lines were the smooth, blond good looks of CIA officer Randi Russell. He felt himself flush. Randi, the sister of his dead fiancee, was a very good friend, someone with whom he shared dinner or drinks whenever they found themselves in Washington at the same time. Despite that, and though he had known that his presence right at her team's rendezvous point would eventually draw her attention, she had still managed to slip past his guard.
To buy himself some time to recover from his surprise, he took a cautious sip of his coffee. Then he grinned back at her. “Nice disguise, Randi. Now I know what you'll look like in forty or fifty years. The little dog's a nifty touch, too. Is he yours? Or standard CIA-issue?”
“Pascal belongs to a friend, a colleague at the embassy,” Randi replied briefly. Her mouth tightened. “And the poodle is almost as much of a pain in the ass as you are, Jon. Almost, but not quite. Now quit stalling and answer my question.”
He shrugged. “Okay. It's pretty simple, really. I'm here following up on the reports you and your team have been sending to the States for the past twenty-four hours.”
“That's what you call simple?” Randi said in disbelief. “Our reports are strictly internal CIA product.”
