man, one Jon did not recognize. Pascal the poodle was nowhere to be seen.
Jon scrambled up into the Renault, followed closely bv the Englishman. They pulled the doors shut behind them and then stood awkwardly hunched over in the cramped space.
“Glad you could make it,” Randi said. She flashed a quick smile at them and waved a hand at the equipment mounted in racks on both sides of the van interior. “Welcome to our humble abode, the nerve center of our surveillance operation. Besides human watchers, we've been able to rig a number of hidden cameras at key points around the target.”
She nodded to the other man, who was sitting on a stool in front of a computer screen and keyboard. “Let's show them what we've got, Hank. Bring up Camera Two first. I know our guests are dying to find out what we're doing here.”
Her subordinate obediently entered a series of commands on his keyboard. The monitor in front of him flashed on immediately, showing a clear TV picture of a steep gray-blue slate roof. Antennae of every size, shape, and description sprouted from the roof.
Smith whistled softly.
'Yeah.“ Randi nodded flatly. ”These guys are set to send and receive just about every kind of signal you can think of. Radio, microwave, laser pulse, satellite… you name it.'
“So what's the problem?” Jon asked her, still puzzled. “Why run so scared about feeding Langley the whole scoop?”
Randi smiled sardonically. She leaned forward and tapped her equipment operator on the shoulder. “Bring up Camera One, Hank.” She glanced back at Smith and Peter. “Here's the street entrance of the same building. Take a good close look.”
The picture on the screen showed a building five stories high. Centuries of pollution and weather had pitted and darkened its plain stone facade. High, narrow windows looked down on the street from every level, rising all the way up to a series of dormer windows that must open into attic chambers just below the roof.
“Now zoom in,” Randi told her assistant.
The image expanded rapidly, centering at last on a small brass plaque beside the front door. In deeply incised lettering it read:
18 RUE DE VlGNY
Parti Lazare
“Oh, bloody hell,” Peter murmured.
Randi nodded grimly. “Exactly. That building just happens to be the Paris headquarters for the Lazarus Movement.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
An hour later, Jon Smith stood outside the door to his room at the Hotel des Chevaliers. He knelt down, checking the telltale — a thick black hair stretched between the door and the jamb, about a foot off the hall carpet. It was still there, completely undisturbed.
Satisfied that the room was secure, he ushered Randi and Peter inside. The CIA team's Renault van was too cramped for a prolonged meeting, and the nearby cafes and restaurants were far too crowded and public. They needed somewhere more private to try to find a solution to the predicament they suddenly faced. And at the moment, the Hotel des Chevaliers was the closest thing they had to a safe house.
Now back in her own likeness with short neat blond hair and wearing a black jumpsuit, Randi moved restlessly around the room. With her long legs and slender five-foot-nine-inch frame, she had often been mistaken for a dancer. No one seeing her now would make that mistake. She drifted back and forth like a caged and dangerous animal seeking a way out. She was deeply frustrated by the self-inflicted paralysis she sensed engulfing the CIA — paralysis that was robbing her of any serious backup or advice just when she needed it most. Her uncertainty over what to do with the stunning discovery her team had made left her feeling uneasy, even with her old friends and allies.
Randi cast a skeptical eye over the room's elegant furnishings and decor and glanced over her shoulder at Smith. “Not bad for someone on a U.S. Army expense account, Jon.”
“Just your tax dollars at work,” he replied with a quick grin.
“Typical Yank soldier,” Peter said, with a quiet chuckle. “Overpaid, overindulged, and overequipped.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Smith told him drily. He dropped into the closest chair and looked across the room at his two friends. “Look, we should stop fencing with each other and start talking seriously about what we're going to do next.”
The other two turned to face him.
“Well, I do admit that the position is a bit difficult,” Peter said slowly, settling himself into an overstuffed armchair.
Randi stared at the Englishman's leathery face in disbelief. “A bit difficult?” she repeated. “For crying out loud, why don't you ditch the stiff upper lip routine, Peter? The position is pretty well impossible, and you know it.”
“'Impossible' is an awfully big word, Randi,” Smith said, forcing a slight smile.
“Not from where I'm standing,” she snapped back. She shook her head in dismay, still pacing back and forth between the two men. 'Okay, first you two heroes go and prove that some of our own people have been fighting a very nasty and very illegal secret war against the Lazarus Movement. Which puts everybody, including the president and prime minister, into panic mode, right? So they start piling onto the intelligence agencies— hitting us with immediate cease and desist orders for any covert actions involving Lazarus. Not to mention gearing up for congressional and parliamentary investigations that could easily run for months, maybe even years.'
The two men nodded.
Randi frowned deeply. “Mind you, I've got no real problem with that. Anybody dumb enough to fall in with Hal Burke, Kit Pierson, and the others deserves to be crucified. Using blunt nails.” She took a deep breath. “But now, now, with all of this flak raining down around our ears, you both want to turn right around… and do what? Why, break into a Lazarus Movement building, of course! And not just any old building, naturally, but the headquarters for its whole Paris-based operation!”
“Certainly,” Peter told her calmly. “How else do you propose that we learn what they're up to in there?”
“Jesus,” Randi muttered. She swung toward Smith. “And you see it the same way?”
He nodded somberly. “I'm pretty sure that somebody outside the intelligence services was manipulating Burke and the others. Using their undeclared war as a cover for something even worse, something like what happened at the Teller Institute or here in Paris… only magnified a hundred times over,” he said quietly. “I'd like to find out who — and why. Before we learn the hard way.”
Randi bit down on her lip, mulling that over. She crossed the room to stare out the window at the little courtyard behind the hotel.
“Lazarus Movement or not, at least some of the people working inside 18 rue de Vigny knew the nanophage attack that hit La Courneuve was coming,” Smith continued. He leaned forward in his chair. “That's why they were setting up those sensors you saw. That's why they were willing to kill anyone who got in their way.”
'But the movement is anti-technology to its core — especially nano-technology!“ she burst out in frustration. ”Why would Lazarus supporters help anyone commit mass murder, especially using a means they oppose so vehemently? It doesn't make sense!'
“That may well mean that Jon's mysterious somebody — perhaps we should call him Mr. X, for short — is using the Movement as a cover for his real plans,” Peter pointed out. “In much the same way that we believe he used a few fools inside the CIA and the FBI. And MI6, alas.”
“You're giving this Mr. X a hell of a lot of credit,” Randi remarked acidly. She swung away from the window to face them both with her chin held stubbornly high. “Maybe too much.”
“I don't think so,” Smith said, with a grim look settling on his face. “We already know that X, whether it's a
