“You're satisfied that this Abrantes was telling you the truth?” Klein asked. “About the relationship between Lazarus and the nanophages, I mean? What if he was only trying to lay another false trail — trying to send us rushing off in the wrong direction?”
“He wasn't,” Jon said. 'The guy was dying, Fred. For all he knew, I was his sainted grandmother come down from heaven to escort him to the Pearly Gates. No, Vitor Abrantes was telling me the truth. Whoever
Lazarus really is, he's the son of a bitch who's been behind these attacks from the beginning. Plus, he's been throwing sand in everyone's eyes by stage-managing both ends of this war between the Movement and the CIA and FBI.'
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “To what end, Jon?” Klein asked finally.
“Lazarus has been buying time,” Smith told him. “Time to run these perverted 'field tests' of his. Time to analyze the results and to reengineer the nanophages — making them more and more powerful and deadly. Time to develop and evaluate new methods of delivering them to his chosen targets.” He grimaced. “While we've all been running around in circles, Lazarus has been out there designing, developing, and testing a weapon that could wipe out most of the human race.”
“At Kusasa in Zimbabwe, the Teller Institute, and now La Courneuve,” Klein realized. “All the places showing up in those passports and other travel documents Peter Howell retrieved.”
“Exactly.”
“And you think this weapon is ready for use?” Klein asked quietly.
“I do,” Smith said. “There's no other reason for Lazarus to destroy the people and equipment he was using to monitor those experiments. He's clearing the decks — getting ready to strike.”
“What's your recommendation?”
“We pinpoint Lazarus and whatever lab or factory he's using to produce this stuff. Then we kill him and capture his nanophage stocks before they're dispersed for any large-scale attack.”
“Short and sweet, Colonel,” Klein said. “But not very subtle.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Smith demanded.
The head of Covert-One sighed again. “No, I don't. The trick will be finding Lazarus before it's too late. And that's something no Western intelligence agency has managed in more than a year of trying.”
'I think Abrantes told me most of what we need,“ Smith argued. ”The trouble is: My Spanish is fair to middling, but my Portuguese is nonexistent. I need a clear translation of what he said when I asked him where Lazarus was now.'
“I can find someone to handle that,” Klein promised. He faded from the phone a moment. There was a small click in the background, and then he came back on the line. “Okay, we're set to record, Colonel. Go ahead.”
“Here goes,” Smith said. From memory, and trying to make sure he used the same pronunciation he had heard the dying man use, he repeated Vitor Abrantes' last words. “Os Agores. O console do sol. Santa Maria.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Smith frowned. “Abrantes told me he was shot by a man he described as 'one of the Horatii.' If I'm right, I've already run into two of them — first outside Teller and now here in Paris. I'd like a better read on what those big identical bastards were… and how many more of them might be out there!”
Klein said, “I'll see what I can dig up, Jon. But this might take a while. Can you stay where you are for a bit?”
Smith nodded, looking around at the tall trees dappled in shadow and in fading moonlight. “Yeah. But make it as quick as you can, Fred. I have a bad feeling that the clock is running fast on this situation.”
“Understood, Colonel. Hold tight.”
The line went dead.
Smith paced back and forth across the clearing. He could feel the tension inside mounting. His nerves were stretched almost to the breaking point. More than an hour had gone by since Klein had promised to get back to him. The gray light in the east was much stronger now.
The sudden sound of a car engine startled him. He swung around in surprise and saw the little black Peugeot drive away, bouncing and rolling awkwardly along the heavily rutted forest track.
“I sent Max and Lewis back to Paris,” Randi explained. She had been sitting calmly on his tree stump, watching him pace. “We don't need them here right now, and I'd like to find out more about anything the French police have dug up inside what's left of the Movement headquarters.”
Smith nodded. That made sense. “I think—”
His cell phone vibrated. He flipped it open. “Yes?”
“Are you alone?” Klein asked abruptly. His voice sounded strained, almost unnatural.
Jon checked his surroundings. Randi was perched just a few feet away. And, operating on some sixth sense honed by years in the field, Peter had woken up from his catnap. “No, I'm not,” he admitted.
“That's extremely unfortunate,” Klein said. He hesitated. “Then you'll have to be very careful of what you say on your end. Clear?”
“Yes,” Smith said quietly. “What have you got for me?”
“Let's start with the Horatii,” Klein said slowly. “The name comes from an old Roman legend — a set of identical triplets sent into single combat against warriors from a rival city. They were renowned for their courage, strength, agility, and loyalty.”
“That sure fits,” Smith said, thinking back over his deadly encounters with the two tall green-eyed men. Both times, he had been very lucky to emerge alive. He winced. The thought of a third man with the same strength and skills still lurking out there was disconcerting.
“There's a famous painting done by the French neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David,” Klein went on. “Called The Oath of the Horatii.”
“And it's hanging in the Louvre,” Smith said, suddenly realizing why the name had conjured up old memories.
“That's right,” Klein confirmed.
Smith shook his head grimly. “Swell. So our friend Lazarus has a love for the classics and a nasty sense of humor. But I guess that doesn't bring us any closer to finding him.” He took a deep breath. “Were you able to secure a translation of Abrantes' last words?”
'Yes,' Klein said quietly.
“Well?” Smith asked impatiently. “What was he trying to tell me?”
“He said, 'The Azores. The island of the sun. Santa Maria,'” the head of Covert-One reported.
“The Azores?” Smith shook his head, surprised. The Azores were a group of small Portuguese-settled islands far out in the Atlantic Ocean, close to the line of latitude linking Lisbon and New York. Centuries ago, the archipelago had been a strategic outpost of the now-vanished Portuguese empire, but today it survived largely on beef and dairy exports and on tourism.
“Santa Maria is one of the nine islands of the Azores,” Klein explained. He sighed. “Apparently, the locals sometimes refer to it as 'the island of the sun.'”
“So what the hell is on Santa Maria?” Smith asked, barely controlling the irritation in his voice. Fred Klein was not usually so slow to get to the point.
“Not much on the eastern half of the island. Just a few tiny villages, really.”
“And in the west?”
“Well, that's where things get tricky,” Klein admitted. “It seems that the western end of Santa Maria is leased by Nomura PharmaTech for its global medical charity work — complete with a very long hard-surfaced runway, enormous hangar facilities, and a huge medical supply storage complex.”
“Nomura,” Jon said softly, at last understanding why his superior sounded so strained. “Hideo Nomura is Lazarus. He's got the money, the scientific know-how, the facilities, and the political connections to pull something like that off.”
“So it appears,” Klein agreed. “But I'm afraid it's not enough. No one's going to be persuaded by the purported last words of an unknown dying man. Without hard evidence, the kind of evidence we can show to wavering friends and allies, I don't see how the president can possibly approve an open attack on Nomura's Azores facility.”
The head of Covert-One continued. “The situation here is worse than you can imagine, Jon. Our military and
