'Eh… vous parlez la langue?' he asked.
'Je parle un peu,' Hood said.
He spoke a little French. 'Then we'll speak English,' replied Ballon. 'I don't want to hear you murder my tongue.
I'm particular about that.' 'I understand,' said Hood. 'Six years of French in high school and college didn't exactly make me a linguist.' 'School does not make us anything,' Ballon said. 'Life makes us what we are. But talk is not life, and sitting in this room is not life. Mr. Hood, I want Dominique. I've been told you have equipment which will help me get him.' 'I do,' Hood said.
'Where are you?' 'Hamburg,' said Hood.
'Very good You can fly here on one of the airbuses which made Dominique's father a fortune. If you hurry, you can be here in about two hours.' 'We'll be there,' said Hood.
'We?' Ballon felt his passion leak away. 'Who else is there?' Hood said, 'Deputy Foreign Minister Richard Hausen and the two other persons in my party.' Ballon had been glowering. Now he was sulking. It had to be a German, he thought. And that German in particular.
God does not love me as He promised He would.
'Colonel Ballon,' Hood said, 'are you there?' 'Yes,' he said glumly. 'So now I don't have to just sit here for two hours. I can fight with my government to get an attention-hungry German government official into France on an unofficial visit.' I take a different view of him,' Hood said. 'Attention can be selfless if it's for a worthy cause.' 'Don't lecture me about selflessness. He's a general. I fight in the trenches. But,' Ballon added quickly, 'this is pointless. I need you, you want him, so that is that. I'll make a few calls and I will meet you at the Aerodrome de Lasbordes at eight o'clock.' 'Hold on,' Hood said. 'You've asked your questions now I want to ask mine.' 'Go ahead.' 'We think Dominique's preparing to launch an online campaign designed to spread hate, inspire riots, and destabilize governments.' 'Your associate General Rodgers told me all about this chaos project.' 'Good,' said Hood. 'Did he also tell you we want him stopped, not threatened.' 'Not in so many words,' Ballon said. 'But I believe that Dominique is a terrorist. If you can help me prove that, I will go into his factory and stop him.' 'I'm told he's avoided arrest in the past.' 'He has,' Ballon said. 'But I intend to do more than arrest him. Let me give you an overview which I hope will answer all of your questions. We French are very solidly behind our entrepreneurs. They've prospered in the winter of our economy. They've thrived despite government manacles. And I admit, with some shame, that a great many Frenchmen approve of the work of the New Jacobins. No one likes immigrants here, and the New Jacobins attack them like pack dogs. If people knew that Dominique was behind those attacks, he would be an even greater hero.' Ballon's eyes burned through the image on the TV. He saw, in his mind, Dominique sitting smug and comfortable in his office.
'But while we French are an emotional people, most of us also believe in concord. In healing wounds. In harmony.
You Americans see that as waving a white flag, but I see it as civilized. Dominique is not civilized. He violates the laws of France and God. Like his father, he has a conscience made of diamond. Nothing scratches it. It is my intention to make him answer for his crimes.' Hood said, 'I believe in moral crusades and I'll back yours with the full resources of my organization. But you still haven't told me where this crusade is headed.' Ballon replied, 'To Paris.' 'I'm listening,' said Hood.
'I intend to arrest Dominique, confiscate his papers and software, and then resign from the Gendarmarie.
Dominique's attorneys will see to it that he never goes to trial. But while that process is under way, I'll go to the press with a catalogue of his crimes. Murders and rapes he has committed or ordered, taxes he hasn't paid, businesses and properties he misappropriated, and more that I couldn't reveal as a government employee.' 'A dramatic gesture,' Hood said. 'But if French law is anything like American law, you'll be sued, drawn, and quartered.' 'That is correct,' replied Ballon. 'But my trial will be Dominique's trial. And when it's over he'll be disgraced.
Finished.' 'So will you.' 'Only this career,' Ballon said. 'I'll find other honorable work.' 'Do your teammates feel the same way you do?' 'Not all,' he admitted. 'They're committed only to— what's the word? The limitations? Boundaries?' 'Parameters,' said Hood.
'Yes.' Ballon snapped his fingers. 'They're committed to the parameters of the mission. That's all I ask of you as well. If you help me prove what Demain is doing, if you give me a reason to go inside, we can bring Dominique down.
Today.' Hood said, 'Fair enough. One way or another, we'll get there.' He added, 'Et merci. ' Ballon replied with a gruff thank you of his own, then sat holding the handset. He dropped his finger on the plunger.
'Good news?' asked Sergeant Ste. Marie.
'Very good news,' Ballon replied without enthusiasm.
'We have help. Unfortunately, it's an American and a German. Richard Hausen.' Ste. Marie moaned. 'We can all go home. The Hun will take Dominique singlehandedly.' 'We'll see,' said Ballon. 'We'll see what his pluck is like when there are no reporters present to admire it.' With a short aftershock of outrage— 'Americans and a German,' he declared— Ballon called the office of an old friend in the CDT, the Comite Departemental de Tourisme, to see if they could simply look the other way when the plane arrived, or if he'd have to tangle with the territorial carnivores in Paris.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Martin Lang was on his cellular phone as Hood helped Matt Stoll gather together his equipment. Lang was phoning the airport outside of Hamburg, ordering the corporate jet to be readied. Stoll was zipping up his backpack and looking anxious.
'Maybe I missed something when you were explaining it to Herr Lang,' Stoll said, 'but tell me again why I'm going to France.' Hood said, 'You're going to T-Ray the Demain factory in Toulouse.' 'That part I got,' said Stoll. 'But someone else is going to go inside, right? Professionals?' Hood looked from Stoll to Hausen. The German was standing in the doorway between the two offices, phoning to arrange for clearances for Lang's Learjet 36A. The aircraft held two crew members and six passengers and had a range of 3,151 miles. At an average speed of four hundred miles an hour, they should arrive right on schedule.
'Done,' said Lang, hanging up. He checked his watch.
'The plane will be waiting at seven-thirty.' Hood was still watching Hausen as a thought occurred to him. One which chilled and then annoyed him. Hausen's aide had turned on him. What if the office was bugged?
Hood pulled Stoll aside. 'Matt, I'm getting sloppy. That kid who worked for Hausen, Reiner. He could have left a bug here.' Stoll nodded. 'You mean, like this one?' He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a folded-over piece of cellophane tape. Inside was a gumdrop-shaped object slightly larger than a pinhead. 'I did a sweep of the room while you were away. I forgot to tell you in the heat of the hate game showing up and all that.' Hood sighed and squeezed Stoll's shoulders. 'Bless you, Matt.' 'Does that mean I get to stay here?' he asked.
Hood shook his head.
'Just thought I'd ask,' Stoll said disconsolately.
As he walked away, Hood was angry with himself for having overlooked that. He turned to Nancy, who had walked over. They were going into a potentially dangerous situation where a screwup could cost them the mission, a career, or a life.
You've got to focus on the job, he remonstrated himself. You can't be distracted by Nancy and all the mighthave- been scenarios.
'Anything wrong?' Nancy asked.
'No,' he said.
'Just standing around, beating yourself up.' She smiled. 'I remember the look.' Hood flushed. He glanced up to make sure that Stoll wasn't watching.
'It's okay,' Nancy said.
'What is?' he asked impatiently. He wanted to get out of here, break the tempting closeness.
