Grafton responded, “I have no doubt that it’s as good as can be devised. The point is that Rodet probably passed it to Al Qaeda. We can assume that the bad guys have the summit agenda, the flow plan, the photo op plan, and the security plan.”
There were a few more questions; then the high mucketys huddled in front of the podium. I made my escape. Willie wasn’t in the lobby.
I went down to the SCIF to find Sarah Houston.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself. You’re looking better this morning than you did yesterday.”
“What a difference a day makes, huh?” I dropped into a chair. “Did you talk to Grafton?”
She played dumb. “What about?”
“About your future?”
“Not yet. No use leaving the agency until I get a better offer.”
“I see.” Believe me, I did see. Life is for the living, and here she was — but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Maybe I should have zigged, but I zagged. “Seen Gator around?”
“Nope.”
“He owes me money. Know where he is?”
“You may have trouble collecting. I heard he quit.”
“Quit what?” The company.
I scratched my chin as I considered. I figured that Grafton turned him over to the French police, who probably had him locked up someplace, and the admiral wasn’t broadcasting the fact. I wouldn’t, either, if I were him. Too much going down, Le Monde would have a field day with Gator Zantz. Ah, me.
Good-bye, Lizzie.
The phone on the desk rang and Sarah picked it up. She grunted a few times, hung up and said, “The Secret Service honcho, Pink Maillard, wants to see you and Willie.” She concentrated on her computer screen and went back to tapping keys.
“Keep it warm, babe,” I said, and levered myself up. I was still stiff and sore — felt like I had gone a few rounds with a gorilla.
“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” she said without enthusiasm, not bothering to look up. I closed the door behind me.
Pink had already corralled Willie when I found him in Grafton’s closet office. “I don’t have much time. The security team is reconvening in a French government building in half an hour. The admiral says I can use you guys as additional spotters at the summit tomorrow and Thursday.”
“I ain’t with the gover’ment,” Willie said. “I’m just here in Paris on a consultin’ basis, checkin’ things out, lendin’ my professional expertise to the spooks. For money, of course.”
Maillard didn’t quite know what to make of Willie. “You won’t be carrying weapons. I want two more sets of eyes out there. You see anything suspicious, and I mean anything, tell one of my agents or a French officer. Okay?”
“Sure,” Willie said. “But I ain’t doin’ nothin’ dangerous, you understand? Ain’t bein’ paid enough.”
“Put us on the duty list,” I said cheerfully.
“I want you to go out to Versailles and look around. Stay out of the way — just look.”
“We get to wear those cool little radios with the lapel mikes and earpieces?” Willie asked.
“No.” Maillard started to say something cutting, then thought better of it. What he did say was, “I need eyes. The guys downstairs will give you a pass with your photo on it. Go take care of it.”
“You bet.” I took Willie by the elbow and got him out of there before he managed to convince Maillard we were a couple of ding-dongs.
We rode out to Versailles on the subway and strolled the street of the tourist trap that the area around the chateau had become. Neither of us had eaten, so we had brunch in a cafe on a corner. We were given a seat against the window where we could watch the passersby. Willie looked at the menu and launched into a monologue about the prices. I tuned him out; been doing that for years.
Two tourists — obviously Americans, wearing casual clothes and armed with digital cameras with big lenses — were seated at the next table. In answer to their questions, the waitress told them that the chateau was closed to the public. They were disappointed.
After we ordered, I watched the people on the street. The day was blustery, with small puffy clouds racing overhead and casting shadows that came and went quickly.
The only people in the Sun King’s palace today and during the summit were going to be officials, security people, and the press. Al Qaeda knew that. If Rodet passed along the security plan, they knew precisely how the whole staged event would go. I didn’t, but if I could corner Grafton or Maillard, they would give me the outline. Might even let me read the whole plan, which wouldn’t help me much.
So if I were a terrorist, how would I assassinate eight heads of state? Or seven, or six, or as many as I could get?
The problem was that I wasn’t an assassin. Nor was I suicidal. I didn’t have the mind-set for the job.
“You haven’t heard a word I said,” Willie remarked.
“Sorry.”
“Practicing up for gettin’ married, huh?”
I snorted.
“Talked to ol’ Sarah this morning. She’s got her sights on you, Tommy.”
“Yeah.”
The entrance to the palace grounds lay at the end of a broad, tree-lined avenue. A small crowd of camera clickers stood outside shooting pictures through the fence. Willie and I threaded our way through, presented our passes to the paramilitary police at the gates, and were admitted.
Without tourists, the place looked deserted. Actually, it probably looked much as it did when Louis the Whatever came riding up in his carriage with Marie Antoinette at his side. The huddled masses yearning to be free were kept outside the gates in those days, too. Versailles was, and still is, an extraordinary monument to the vast chasm that existed between the filthy rich at the top of the pecking order and the 99 percent of the populace at the bottom. No wonder the French had a revolution.
We hiked along looking the place over. The chateau, or palace, was an extraordinary, sprawling building, the second largest palace in Europe. The first? The Louvre, the king’s house in town. Today Versailles is a Paris suburb, but back then Paris was a much smaller town centered on the two islands in the Seine.
Even though they chopped off Louis’ head, the revolutionary French were proud of the palace, and today’s French still are. They love to hold state functions here to show it off. The glory and grandeur of France, and all that.
Bomb squad trucks were parked at some of the entrances. The explosives experts were searching every square inch. No doubt Abu Qasim and Henri Rodet knew they would, so I doubted if a basement full of dynamite was on their list of possibilities. I ran through every explosive possibility I could think of and rejected them one by one.
Airplanes? Mobile antiaircraft missile batteries were already in position and being checked over by troops. I saw two and knew there were more. If the bad guys planned on crashing a plane into the building, or driving a truck through the gate to blow it up alongside the building, they would make a big splash in the news media and probably not kill a single politician. If that was the plan, there was little Willie or I could do about it except get out of the way. The truth was, if they did that, they would prove how impotent they were.
They didn’t think of themselves that way. They needed a success.
Snipers? The French had snipers on the rooftops. I saw uniformed men with rifles moving around up there.
No, I decided, if an attempt was going to be made, it would be one man, or a small group, that came through the gate with passes. Politicians, cameramen, reporters, the chateau staff… or the military or police.
Rather than go inside, I led Willie away to look at soldiers. Over the next two hours we saw a bunch. We were footsore and ready for a restroom when Willie finally complained. We headed inside.
There was a stack of tourist brochures just inside the door; I picked one up. The usual tour-group guides had the week off, so we were on our own. A paramilitary cop with a submachine gun stood in every doorway. We met two groups of police with bomb-sniffing dogs working the rooms systematically, looking for anything out of the
