Chapter Forty-One
Smith crawled out along the high, sharp peak of the roof at 18 rue de Vigny. He used his hands and arms to pull himself along, preferring not to risk the noise his rubber-soled boots would make scraping and scrabbling across the roof's cracked slate tiles. He moved slowly, seeking whatever handholds he could find along the slick, slippery surface.
The Lazarus Movement headquarters was among the highest buildings in this part of the Marais, so there was nothing to block the cold east wind rushing across Paris. The frigid breeze keened through the array of antennae and satellite dishes clustered on the roof. A stronger gust swirled suddenly along the sheer slopes, tugging hard at his clothing and equipment.
Buffeted by this gust, Jon felt himself starting to slide off the ridge of the roof. He gritted his teeth and desperately tightened his grip. A hundred-foot drop beckoned, with nothing below to break his fall but iron-spiked railings, parked cars, and cobblestones. He could feel his pulse hammering in his ears, drowning out the faint sounds drifting up from the city streets far below. Sweating despite the cold, he pressed closer to the roof, waiting until the force of the wind eased just a bit. Then, still shaking slightly, he pushed himself back up and crawled on.
A minute later, Smith reached the modest shelter afforded by a large brick chimney. Randi and Peter were there ahead of him. They had already rigged an anchor line around the base of the chimney. He clipped on to it with a quiet, grateful sigh and then sat up, breathing heavily— uneasily perched like the others on the sharp ridge of the roof.
Peter chuckled, looking along the row at his two companions. “So here we sit,” he said quietly. “Looking for all the world like a rather sad and bedraggled band of crows.”
“Make that two ugly crows and one graceful swan,” Randi corrected him with a slight smile of her own. She clicked the transmit button on her tactical radio. “Anything stirring, Max?” she asked.
From his concealed post some distance down the rue de Vigny, her subordinate radioed back. “Negative, boss. It's all real quiet. One light came on a few minutes ago, up on the third floor, but otherwise there's no sign of anyone coming or going.”
Satisfied, she nodded to the others. “We're clear.”
“Right,” Smith said flatly. “Let's get this done.”
One by one, they edged closer to the chimney and prepared their rap-pelling gear — taking special care to ensure that their ropes, harnesses, and snap and descending links were correctly rigged.
“Who wants to go first?” Randi asked.
“I will,” Smith volunteered, looking down at the roof stretching away in front of him. “Tackling this was my bright idea, remember?”
She nodded. “Sure. Though 'bright' isn't exactly the adjective I would have used.” But then she laid a gloved hand gently on his shoulder. “Just watch yourself, Jon,” she said softly. Her eyes were troubled.
He flashed her a quick, reassuring grin. 'Til do my best,' he promised.
Smith took a couple of deep breaths, steadying his jangled nerves. Then he swung around and slid slowly backward down the slope, carefully controlling his descent with one hand on the rope as it uncoiled. Tiny pieces of broken slate pitter-pattered ahead of him and then fell away into the darkness below.
Inside Number 18 rue de Vigny, the tall auburn-haired giant called Nones strode out of the third-floor office he had commandeered immediately upon arriving in Paris. Ordinarily reserved for the head of the Movement's African aid and education programs, it was the largest and the most beautifully furnished in the whole building. But the local activists had known better than to protest his curt decisions or to ask inconvenient questions. After all, Nones carried authorizations from Lazarus himself. For the time being, his word was law. He smiled coldly. Very soon, the Movement's followers would have cause to regret their unhesitating obedience, but by then it would be far too late.
Five men from his security detail waited patiently for him on the landing outside the office. Their packs and personal weapons were ready at their feet. They stood up silently at his approach.
“We have our orders,” he told them. “From Lazarus himself.”
“The orders you expected?” the short Asian man called Shiro asked calmly.
The third member of the Horatii nodded. “Down to the last detail.” He drew his pistol, checked it over, and then slid it back into his shoulder holster. His men did the same with their own weapons and then bent down to pick up their packs.
They split up. Two headed down the main staircase toward the small garage at the rear of the building's ground floor. The rest followed Nones up the stairs, moving determinedly toward the fifth-floor rooms occupied by the field experiment surveillance team.
Smith stopped his descent and balanced himself precariously right on the very edge of the roof. Holding the rope tight, he forced himself to lean far back into thin air, taking a good long look at the dormer windows raised above the slope on either side. These windows opened into small attic rooms just below the roof and just as the pictures they had studied earlier had shown — they were securely shuttered.
Smith nodded to himself. They weren't going to be able to break through those heavy wooden shutters, at least not without making a hell of a lot of noise. They were going to have to find another way into this building.
He leaned out farther, now peering down the side of the building below him. Lights glowed in the windows on the fifth floor, and their shutters were open. Moving in short, cautious bounds, he rappelled down the wall. There was very little noise — just the quiet creak of the rope as it slid through the metal descending link on his harness and the soft thud of his boots as he hit the wall and then pushed off again. Twenty feet down, he tightened his grip on the rope, braking himself to a stop right next to one of those lighted windows.
He glanced up.
Randi and Peter were there at the edge of the roof, two dark shapes outlined against the black, star-filled sky. They were looking down over their shoulders at him — waiting for his signal that it was safe to come ahead.
Smith motioned for them to hold where they were. Then he craned his neck, trying to take a good look through the closest window. He had the fleeting impression of a long, narrow room — one that ran at least half the length of this side of the building. Several of the other windows on this floor opened into this large chamber.
Inside, an assortment of computers, video monitors, radio receivers, and satellite relay systems were stacked on a row of tables pushed up against the opposite wall. Other tables and more equipment were set at right angles, breaking the room up into a series of improvised computer workstations or bays, and power and data transfer cables snaked across a bare hardwood floor. The walls themselves were dingy, stained by centuries of use and roughly daubed with cracked and peeling paint.
Off in one dark corner Smith could make out a row of six cots. Four of them were occupied. He could see stocking feet protruding out from under coarse woolen blankets.
But at least two men were awake and hard at work. One, an older man with white hair and a scruffy beard, sat at a computer console, entering keyboard commands with lightning-fast fingers. Images flashed on and off the monitor in front of him at a dizzying pace. The second man wore a headset and sat in a chair next to one of the satellite communications systems. He leaned forward, listening closely to the signals coming through his earphones and occasionally making small adjustments to its controls. He was younger and clean-shaven, and his dark brown eyes and olive-toned skin somehow suggested the sun-drenched lands of southern Europe. Was he a Spaniard? An Italian?
Jon shrugged. Spaniard, Italian, or someone from the South Bronx. What did it really matter? The Lazarus Movement recruited its activists from around the world. At the moment, only one thing was important. They were not going to be able to enter 18 rue de Vigny unobserved — at least not on this floor. He glanced down, examining the rows of darkened windows below.
Suddenly, on the very edge of his vision, he caught a flicker of movement inside the room. Smith saw the bearded white-haired man swivel away from his keyboard and stand up. He seemed surprised but not unduly
