with passports and credit cards and traveler’s checks to rent trucks and make bombs without some serious help. Henri Rodet has some questions to answer. Our job is to convince him to do the right thing.”
“You, me and Sarah.”
Grafton grinned. “Have faith, Tommy.”
“It’s going to take more than faith, dude. No one in France is going to want us digging up smelly little secrets. Not a single solitary soul.”
“I have faith in you,” Jake Grafton said firmly.
“It’ll take a couple of weeks to scope out those two places and bug them. I’ll need a couple of vans, all the good people we can get — and I mean real damn good — and a whole lot of luck.”
“We got the vans in Italy. They are in Paris now. I’ve raided the warehouse in Langley, and they used the diplomatic pouch to send us everything I thought you might need. And we don’t have a couple of weeks.”
It took a moment for the implications of that remark to sink in. Grafton didn’t come up with this caper last night. When the guys at the very top start scheming, it’s time to run for cover. “Oh, man!”
“I want you to go to France tomorrow, rent this apartment”—he passed me a slip of paper with an address on it—“and wait for a telephone call. The caller will give you a place and time. Subtract four hours from the time. Two guys you know will pick you up in a Citroen precisely at that time. If you’re followed, don’t go there. They won’t make the meet if they are under surveillance.” He removed a cell phone from a desk drawer and slid it across the desk.
I didn’t touch it. “It’s sort of funny,” I said, “how people talk. For instance, you don’t say, ‘we want,’ you keep saying, I want.’ “
“I’m the man they gave the job to,” Grafton said curtly. “I’m responsible for results. You could assume that I’ve discussed with my superiors how I intend to get the results they want. On the other hand, if your view of my character is a little darker, you might assume that I’m some sort of idiot rogue, that if my actions wreck the Franco-American alliance, it won’t bother me. Make any assumption you like — doesn’t matter an iota. Your job is to do what I tell you to do. You can bet your ass on that. Got it?”
“I am betting my ass. That’s the problem.”
His features softened. “That’s the job, Tommy.”
“You made any arrangements to get us some luck?”
“You’re going to supply the luck. Be careful, professional. Think every move through, keep your brain engaged and don’t get sidetracked. We’ll peel the onion one layer at a time. I want to know what you’re doing and when you’re doing it and what the results are. Keep me advised, keep your eyes open and you’ll be lucky.”
The last twenty-four hours of my life had been rocky. Now, faced with the prospect of another Jake Grafton adventure, the gloom was setting in, which was why I said, “When they told me you were getting in this game, I should have bailed. I’ve had it up to fucking here with this spy shit.”
Not a muscle in Grafton’s face twitched. He should have been playing poker in Vegas instead of wasting his talent in the CIA.
“Maybe I need to do some research on the federal statute of limitations,” I muttered. “The diamonds the rat and I lifted were from a museum in the District of Columbia. That info should be online.”
“Tell you what,” Grafton replied, locking me up with those gray eyes, serious as a hangman an hour before dawn. “You help me out on this, and I promise you there’ll be no prosecution, even if you leave the agency.”
“Maybe a pardon, huh?”
“No prosecution. That’s the deal.”
I took a deep breath. “I want someone to watch my back.”
“The people I have lined up are career professionals.” He gave me their names.
I waved the names away. “Three guys. This is a joke. We couldn’t follow Martha Stewart’s limo through Manhattan with three guys.”
“Three plus you.”
“Like I said, I want someone to watch my back.”
“Is there a reason you don’t trust these people?”
“The agency has had its troubles in Europe — hell, that’s why you’re here!” I spread my hands. He knew as well as I that any of these pros could be a mole or double agent. True, the odds were remote, but it had happened. “You don’t want this op blown and I don’t want to stop a bullet.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Willie Varner, my lock-shop partner.”
“He isn’t with the agency.”
“That’s one reason I trust him.”
“He’s a convicted felon.”
“Indeed he is. Willie got caught and went to the joint. Twice. I hate working with people who think they’re too smart to get caught. Willie’s careful, competent and paranoid — just my kind of guy. And he’s one more guy. Believe me, we’ll need him.”
“If he’ll come, we’ll make the arrangements.”
“I’ll offer him a free trip to a French penitentiary — he’ll be on the next plane.”
“We’ll pay him contract wages.”
Willie wouldn’t sign up for this gig if I told him what the job really was. Still, he had never been to France and was probably foolish enough to want to see it, so I wouldn’t level with him until he was here. Like Jake Grafton, I’m sort of short on scruples.
“He’s going to need a passport,” I told Grafton. “One in his own name would probably be best. He’s a good liar but there’s not much time and I need him now.”
I sat there thinking about Henri Rodet and the DGSE. Some years back the French spooks used murder and kidnappings to squash their enemies. In Algeria they used teams of assassins to take out people they didn’t like; when the assassins had done their job, the spooks blew up the hotel the assassins used as headquarters — with the assassins in it, of course. This being la belle France, after the explosion leveled the hotel someone whispered the names of the bombers to the newspapers.
If I got put through a grinder and turned into lean meat, bone meal and gristle, there was a shadow of a possibility that someday someone in the DGSE would leak the amazing facts to the press. If they did, that was probably all the epitaph I would ever get.
“I hope I don’t regret this,” I muttered.
“I just hope you live through it,” Grafton said, and smiled again.
A cold chill ran up my spine.
CHAPTER THREE
I called Willie Varner from a phone in the SCIF. Due to the time differential, I got him at home before he went to work. Way before. “Jesus Christ, Carmellini! You know what time it is?”
“Early.”
“It’s five thirty in the fuckin’ mornin’, man. You in jail or dead or what?”
“I need some help, Willie.”
“You need a new watch, that’s for sure.”
“I want you to come over to Paris and help me for a few weeks.”
“You mean, like, in France?”
“Yeah.”
A long silence. “France,” he said. I could tell he was warming to the idea.
“We’ll pay you for your time, of course,” I said casually. “All expenses covered. Nice hotel, some time off. Sort of a working vacation.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Helping me. I need some backup.”
“Backup for what?”
