Stephen Coonts
The Traitor
PROLOGUE
She was on the other side of the room when she fastened her eyes on me and made a little kissing motion with her lips. There must have been forty people crammed into the space, which was the living/dining room of a rather opulent Georgetown apartment. The place was hopping with hot jazz and loud, lively conversation. Ooh yeah, Friday night, a party, people drinking and laughing, and this really foxy chick across the room had the hots for me.
Yes, it was me she was zeroed in on. I casually glanced left and right just to make sure.
I know what you’re thinking: That Carmellini is bragging again, but I’m not. I’m telling it exactly the way it went down. Truth is not one of my major virtues, yet I promise I won’t lie to you too much.
I was chatting up a Georgetown law student when the hot chick gave me the come hither, so I finished my remarks, got the future counselor’s phone number, just in case, then sort of circulated on, which meant I squeezed between people while trying not to spill my drink, a club soda with a twist.
The hot woman was in her mid- to late twenties — it was difficult to say with any certainty — with dark brown hair brushed over, exposing her right ear. She watched me drift toward her, lifting her cocktail glass occasionally to take a sip without taking her eyes off me. High cheekbones, brown eyes set wide apart, all this above a dress with a neckline that plunged almost to her navel. “Hi,” she said when I cruised up.
That wasn’t an American accent, or my name isn’t Tommy Carmellini. “Hi, yourself,” I said as I looked over the situation.
“You look bored,” she said, as if that were the most interesting of the seven deadly sins.
“I don’t really know anyone except the host.” “Oh, Jacques.” Actually his name was Jack, but it sounded like Jacques when she said it. “Is that a French accent?” “Yes. I am Marisa Lamoureux.”
“Travis Crockett,” I told her, holding out my hand to shake. “From Manor, Texas.” I pronounced it the Texas way, as if it were spelled Maynor.
“You don’t have a Texas accent.” “I have a set of cowboy boots. Will that do?” She glanced down at my feet and saw that I was lying, and we laughed together. Soon we were getting along fine. And yeah, I lied to her about my name, but it was okay because she lied to me about hers. Her real name was Marisa Petrou. Lamoureux was her maiden name; she was the daughter of a big mucky-muck in the French embassy, one Georges Lamoureux. She was still legally married to a Jean Petrou, the dirty-rich son of a filthy-rich French financier, but estranged, and was here in Washington for a few weeks visiting her father. Several years ago she spent a couple of semesters at Harvard studying medieval art, then moved on. She didn’t tell me any of this, of course; I had gotten it from her file earlier that afternoon.
What else? She liked white wine and champagne, had ended a relationship with a French heart surgeon several months ago and was now having a fling with the director of the French intelligence service, one Henri Rodet, who was twenty-five or thirty years her senior. A note in her file said she liked kinky sex. Where that tidbit came from I have no idea; I seriously doubted that I would get to know her well enough to prove or disprove it.
On the other hand, standing there looking down into those gorgeous brown eyes, I was acutely aware of the ripe state of her health. And everything else.
We mingled socially. I told her one lie after another about myself — all a part of my Travis Crockett, dude from Manor, Texas, identity — and we replenished our drinks when a waiter bearing a tray hovered into the neighborhood. Marisa was drinking white wine. I stuck to club soda since there was a faint possibility that I might need a wit or two later in the evening.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw our host, Jack Zarb, glance my way. He was a young lawyer who inherited a pile from his grandparents and liked to party. His little black book of hip, trendy women was legendary. I knew him through the friend of a friend. I told him I wanted to come to his party under a nom de guerre and meet a certain woman who might or might not show up. He thought it over, asked no questions and said he understood.
He didn’t know I worked for the CIA, or any government agency, for that matter. He must have thought I was a ding-dong or a predator, yet if he ratted me out, no big deal. I doubted if Marisa Petrou was going to think I was as cool as I pretend to be. Still, it was worth a try. With women, one never knows. An evening or two was a small investment, and if it didn’t work, I could always try something else.
We ended up on Jack’s small balcony looking at the traffic on the street three floors down. Somehow the crowd got so numerous that she was pressed up against me. It was a pleasant sensation. I grinned at her and she grinned back.
We continued to tell each other lies, mixing and mingling, and finally she suggested we leave. A capital idea.
She didn’t mention how she arrived at the party. I didn’t ask. My old red ‘64 Mercedes 280SL was parked in the next block, so we took that. I put the top down and she didn’t whimper, just climbed right in, which was a plus for her.
Rolling along the streets of Washington with the wind in her hair, she looked pretty good, let me tell you. “You dance?” I asked. “Out.”
I love it when they talk dirty.
“I know a place,” I told her, and aimed the car in that direction. Since it didn’t look like rain, I left the top down when we got to the club in Alexandria and tossed the key at the valet. We danced fast and we danced slow. She knew how to do it. Her body seemed to mold itself to mine. Fate — that was what it was. I began thinking I was living a dream, and it was a chick flick. Actually I was wishing that I was on my own time, not Uncle Sugar’s. Finally she whispered, “Your place or mine?” I had a little story all prepared about why it couldn’t be my pad, and now I didn’t need it. “Yours,” I said. Let s go.
It was that simple. We were past the lying stage. Now I know what you’re thinking: That Carmellini must be the most conceited bastard alive, going to a party expecting to be picked up by the girl who did indeed pic{ him up, but I beg to differ. Men and women do it every day. Besides, it wasn’t an expectation, it was merely a hope. Hope is the reason people buy lottery tickets and condoms. Let’s make a happy noise for hope.
I drove and she gave me directions — right to her father’s house, which was an old mansion in the northwest section of town, a few blocks from the French embassy. She hadn’t mentioned what her pop did for a living and I didn’t ask. I parked on the street in front of the joint, put the lid on and locked ‘er up. There was a guard standing near the door. It looked to me like he was packing heat, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Wow,” I remarked to Marisa as we walked toward the door. “Quite a pad! Does this belong to a friend of yours?”
“Of course.”
I gave the guard my best innocent smile, while he maintained a professional diffidence. He made eye contact with Marisa as he opened the door to let us pass. I wondered if he and Marissa had ever … Oh, well. Better luck next time, buddy.
Inside, surveillance cameras were mounted high in every corner. I suspected the floor had pressure-sensitive pads mounted under it, but I could see no evidence. Then I stepped on a place in the hallway that seemed to give just a fraction of an inch. Yep.
Marisa led me along the hallway to a large door that opened into a spacious library with a ten-foot ceiling. Two men were sitting in the chairs reading, even though it was almost three o’clock on Saturday morning. “My father, Monsieur Lamoureux. Travis Crockett, Father, from Texas. He has the boots.”
Georges Lamoureux smiled, stood and shook my hand.
“Alain Frechon,” he said, nodding toward the other man. Fre-chon didn’t rise from his chair, merely stuck out his hand for a limp-wrist waggle.
Lamoureux had fashionably gray hair and a trim figure, no doubt because he worked out four times a week. That was in his dossier. When I told you he was a high mucky-muck, I should have been more precise. He was the
