“Washington is obviously worried.” He held his hands out and looked at them. “I feel as if the world I know and love is dying.” He balled up his hands into fists. “Civilization is mortally wounded, and something truly evil is being born to take its place.”
George Goldberg, the CIA’s Paris station chief, was a large, balding man with a serious paunch who moved slowly and deliberately. He had a square jaw and heavy brows on a face that was usually expressionless. He never smiled or frowned, looked excited or disappointed. On first meeting him most people thought he was stupid. They couldn’t have been more wrong. He had attended college on a football scholarship, playing tackle, and been drafted by a pro team but refused to sign. Instead, he stayed in school to complete his PhD in economics.
He and Jake Grafton sat in the SCIF in the basement of the American embassy chatting about their careers as they got acquainted. “Perhaps I should have gone to the NFL, just for the heck of it,” Goldberg told the admiral, “and after a couple of years returned to school. There were days in Moscow when I wished I had done it that way.”
“Ah, the road not traveled …”
“At the time the London School of Economics looked more interesting than the Cleveland Browns. I’d been to Cleveland, the Mistake on the Lake.” Watching the way Goldberg said that, with his deadpan face, Jake Grafton was reminded of Buster Keaton. “How well do you know the folks at the DGSE?”
“Very well. We have a liaison officer, of course, but when he goes to the Conciergerie, he talks to some guy in a tiny office. To get any cooperation I have to go over there. I get to see Arnaud any time I want. Occasionally Rodet.”
“Tell me about Henri Rodet.”
“He’s a smart, ambitious survivor,” Goldberg replied thoughtfully. “He’s built his career in the Middle East. I would bet he knows the Arabs better than anyone else in Europe — well, better than any other intel pro. Nobody knows more Middle Eastern scumbags than he does. He speaks fluent Arabic and Farsi, and he’s got a GI system that’s as impervious to germs as sewer pipe.”
“So he can talk the talk and grab the goat.”
“You got it. He spent twenty-five years listening and connecting the dots.”
“Arnaud, Rodet’s number two?”
“Shrewd, smart and unscrupulous. There’s another guy looking out for number one.”
“So what was your reaction when you heard Rodet was buying stock in the Bank of Palestine?”
Goldberg shifted his weight as he considered his answer. “My first reaction was that he had figured out another way to make money from other people’s troubles. You see, Rodet’s the son of a couple of schoolteachers. He wound up in the intelligence service and spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Then he married the daughter of a rich French merchant who sold hardware all over the Arab world. She was ten years older than he was. Maybe it was love, maybe it was money, but… when the passion cooled the father-in-law gave him a ton of money and the wife moved out. Then there’s all this smoke rising from the Oil-for-Food debacle. Some folks say some of that money wound up in Rodet’s pocket. I don’t know if it did or not. In any event, when I heard about the bank stock, I thought that story might be true.”
“And now?”
“Well, now I’m not so sure. It could be a slick smear.”
“Tell me about the Veghel conspiracy.”
“It was just another day, like any other. I was at the Conciergerie talking to Arnaud when a messenger or someone stuck his head into the room and said the director would like to see me. So I got up and trooped off behind the guy, leaving Arnaud sitting there.”
“Did he know why Rodet wanted to see you?”
“Didn’t act like he did, but these guys are pros. Who could say?”
“So what happened?”
“I went in to see Rodet and he shook hands, put me in a chair. Told me about the Veghel conspiracy, who they were, what they intended to do, when, and so on. What he didn’t tell me was how he learned about all this. So that was the question I asked. Do I call the president right now, wake him up with this hot tip, do I send it to Washington flash immediate, or do I put it on the computer and let the bureaucracy grind it up for the in baskets?
“And Rodet looked at me innocent as a lamb and said, ‘I cannot tell you that.’ Didn’t feed me a line about secret sources or broken codes or any of that other bullshit. Just, ‘I cannot tell you that.’ Of course I decided it was gospel, and by God, that’s the way it is turning out. Those raghead bastards were going to blow up Wall Street and everyone in it, including themselves.”
“Got any theories on how the DGSE found out about this group?” “I asked Arnaud that question again the next time I saw him, and he just stared at me. Didn’t say a word.” Goldberg shrugged.
“I read your report. What I want to know is what you think. You’ve been talking to these people for years.”
“Four years.” George Goldberg scratched his nose and eyed Jake Grafton thoughtfully. “I don’t think the DGSE came by this info. Arnaud always tells me what the organization wants me to know. Rodet is the political guy. On the other hand, this was big. Really big. Maybe Rodet thought he should do this himself for political and PR reasons.” “If the DGSE didn’t come up with this information, how did Rodet get it?”
Goldberg raised his hands. “Rodet has always been well informed about Middle Eastern terrorists — the radical imams, the financiers, bankers, sympathizers, possible targets, methods… We always thought he had people here and there who heard things and passed them along, the classic way to gather intelligence. French business- people roam the Arab world at will and they talk to the DGSE. On the other hand, the Veghel thing wasn’t something someone overheard down at the mosque. One suspects someone inside the conspiracy or inside Al Qaeda passed the information to Rodet. In any event, he isn’t saying anything to anyone about his sources.”
“You’re saying that Henri Rodet may have a secret source inside Al Qaeda, one known only to him?”
“That’s a possibility. The most probable possibility, in my opinion. The Veghel stuff was hot — really hot.” Goldberg shrugged. “You know as much as I do.”
“If you could construct that hypothesis, other people can, too.”
“They could,” Goldberg agreed.
“Washington has a name. They say the spy is a guy named Abu Qasim.”
Goldberg looked skeptical. “Where did they get that tidbit?”
The admiral shrugged. “I wasn’t told the source.”
“If my memory serves me correctly, Qasim is one of the aliases of a top Al Qaeda guy, who also goes by the name of Abdullah al-Falih.” Goldberg made a face. “Getting a name from some illiterate holy warrior doesn’t make it so.”
“You think that’s where they got it?”
“Probably. The Egyptians, the Pakistanis and even the Saudis torture those guys, who will say anything to stop the pain. That kind of information is worse than worthless, and the fools in Washington take it for gospel. ‘Let’s raise the security level to yellow this weekend — a guy in a Cairo prison said his pals are going to blow up Washington.’”
Grafton sat lost in thought. Finally he sighed and spoke, on a different subject. “This DGSE agent who was killed last night, Claude Bruguiere — any whispers on who might have killed him?”
“I haven’t heard any.”
The G-8 conference? What are the French authorities doing about security?”
“Everything they can, and I mean everything. Rodet is chairman of the security committee. They are making life uncomfortable for the French Muslim communities. The trick is to keep track of the suicidal fanatics without triggering more rioting. They are tightenlng border security and shifting police and army units here from all over the country. By the day the G-8 leaders arrive at Charles de aulle, the lsle de France — that’s the heart of France, Paris and the surrounding area — will be an armed camp. The French have absolutely no intention of giving terrorists any cracks at all to exploit. While the foreign leaders are on French soil, Paris and the surrounding area will be the most heavily policed area on earth.”
They talked over the G-8 security arrangements for several minutes before Grafton moved on to another subject. “I’d like to go over the past year’s DGSE intercepts and summaries with you, if that’s possible.”
“Certainly,” George Goldberg said. “We’ll use the Intelink.” He swiveled to the computer beside him and
