over for me, too, one of these days.
“That thing was just a transmitter, right?” I asked Grafton.
“Transmitter and receiver. There’s a computer someplace. If the people who went through that apartment had found it, they’d have quit and left. He writes the messages on a computer, encrypts them, plugs in the leads and transmits. It’s an ultrawide band signal, a UWB, superimposed on the regular television signal. He receives the same way.”
“Why haven’t the wizards at NSA picked it up?”
“Oh, now that we know what to look for, they’ll intercept the signal. The question is, Can they decrypt it? If he and his agent use some multiple of really large prime numbers as the basis for the code, it could take years to factor the number, even with huge computers.”
“So you really want Rodet’s computer?”
“Yes.”
Grafton picked a park bench with a view of Rodet’s building and plopped down on it. “Let’s wait a while,” he said, “and see what happens.”
I didn’t know what he had up his sleeve, and I didn’t really care. It had been a long, long day for me. So we sat there in the middle of that old square with its symmetrical buildings and ghosts, as Grafton made telephone calls. His cell phone was a peach, a bit larger than the usual. “It’s encrypted,” he said, when I remarked on it.
His first call was to someone at NSA, I surmised, as I listened to his side of the conversation. He told the person on the other end about the transmitter/receiver on the satellite television system, listened a while, then grunted good-bye.
“The French might have broken that code,” I suggested, indicating his telephone.
“It’s possible,” he admitted, “but improbable. Still, everything in life is a risk.” I suppose.
The night wore on. My butt got tired and I shifted around to maintain circulation. I decided I wasn’t going to do this for a pastime if and when I got out of the agency. At least I had my scooter jacket, which kept me reasonably warm. Grafton had only a sports coat, yet he didn’t complain. He received two telephone calls on his encrypted cell and made another. I didn’t try to figure out what the conversations were about. His side of the discussions consisted mostly of grunts and yeses and noes.
After the last call, he told me, “The guys were set up to record the sounds from the apartment when they were shot. Sarah and Willie listened to the burglars search and trash the place. There were muttered comments in a language they can’t understand. They even got Callie in to listen, and she doesn’t understand it.”
His wife was, I knew, a linguist who spoke seven or eight languages.
“Sarah will send the stuff to Fort Meade and see if they make sense of the comments. I suspect it was just something like, ‘Look over there.’”
“Be nice to know which language it was,” I suggested.
He didn’t reply to that.
While we sat on our bench, three people went into the building. One was a single man in his sixties, well dressed with what appeared to be a nice warm coat. The other two were a couple, in their forties, I would say. From where we sat, about a hundred feet away, it was hard to tell.
It was a little past 10:30 in the evening and downright chilly when a limo rolled up in front of Rodet’s building. The chauffeur hopped out, zipped around the car and opened the right rear door. In a few seconds I saw Marisa Petrou’s dark brown hair. Seconds after that Rodet appeared, standing a head taller. As he spoke to the doorman, Jake Grafton rose and strolled in that direction.
Being a loyal trooper, I cranked myself erect and fell in behind him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After Rodet and Marisa went into the building, Jake Grafton waited about two minutes, then followed. He didn’t tell me not to come, so I clumped up the stairs right behind him, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was going to be interesting to see Marisa’s face when she saw mine.
The door was standing open and Grafton walked right in. Marisa was surveying the mess when she saw us. She managed to keep a grip on her face, which impressed me. Coming home to find your place trashed, and then seeing the last guy in town you expected, had to be difficult.
“Bonjour” she said automatically, without inflection.
“We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by,” Jake Grafton said in English.
Rodet came out of the sitting room. He looked tired, stressed. His gaze went to Grafton. If he even saw me, he gave no sign.
“You’ve had some messy visitors.”
“Burglars,” Henri Rodet said curtly.
“One would think they were searching for something,” the admiral said as he surveyed the wreckage.
“You know anything about this?” Rodet asked, scrutinizing Grafton’s face.
“Not a thing. Is the whole place like this?” Grafton walked past him and looked into the sitting room, then the kitchen. He whistled when he saw the mess on the floor. He turned back to Rodet, looked him in the eye and leaned slightly toward him. “Did they find it?” he asked.
No one ever accused Jake Grafton of messing around. Rodet wasn’t used to the direct approach, and I could see that he wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“Perhaps you and I should have a talk,” Rodet said to Grafton. “Marisa, will you entertain this gentleman for a moment while I visit with the admiral?”
As Rodet led Grafton into the wreckage of the sitting room, I gave Marisa my best honest smile. When the two superspooks were out of earshot, I said earnestly, “We’re just here to sell you a good used car.”
My pathetic attempt at humor went right over her head. She, too, had a lot on her mind. “What do you know about this?” she asked, searching my face.
I looked around a bit before I answered. “Looks to me like they spent at least an hour at it. Two or three guys, I’d say. Where were you and Rodet this evening?”
“At a party.”
“The maids?”
“This is their evening off.”
“Convenient, you must admit. Did you tell your Mossad pals that the coast was clear?”
She looked daggers at me.
“Maybe you should make an executive decision,” I continued earnestly. “Decide that we’re on the same side and tell me what you know.”
She half turned away from me.
“Well,” I said, surveying the stuff on display like a suburbanite at a yard sale, “they didn’t find it. You’ve been living here and you haven’t found it, so I wonder why they would think they could in just an hour?”
That stung her. “You talk too much,” she snarled.
“Probably.” I decided a shot in the dark wouldn’t hurt. “Maybe Elizabeth Conner isn’t who she seems. Maybe she brought some friends over for an Easter egg hunt.”
She acted as if she didn’t hear that comment.
I went to the nearest chair, an antique by the looks of it, cleaned off the seat by dumping the contents on the floor, examined the slashed padding, then parked my fanny.
Marisa seemed lost in thought.
I prattled on anyway. “Remember that evening in Washington that you and I danced the night away? Who would have suspected that we were going to have a long-term relationship? I should probably write to Jack Zarb to thank him for starting something grand.”
She ignored me. That didn’t bother me much; women have been ignoring me all my life.
The forensic scientists were busy swabbing explosive residue off the floor and ceiling of the parking garage when Jean-Paul Arnaud arrived. Inspector Papin was conferring with another police official. Arnaud saw Papin glance at him, so he merely stood and watched until Papin finished his conversation and came over.
