“Sure he would,” said Karr.
“We want to see what’s on the disks you got from LaFoote’s house,” said the Art Room supervisor. “I think that’s more important right now. The account information may not yield anything.”
“How many hiding places can a priest have?” asked Karr.
“Let me see if I can get ahold of Mr. Rubens again. Stand by.”
Karr walked over to the car where Knox was slumped back in the seat. The CIA officer had been both apologetic and defensive since Karr had discovered LaFoote dead.
More the latter.
“I need you to create a diversion,” Karr told him. “Keep the housekeeper occupied.”
“How?”
“Just talk to her.”
“But—”
Karr leaned against the car, which sagged heavily under his weight. “Do what I say, all right?”
“I’m sorry. Yeah.”
The back door to the parish house was open, and Karr had no trouble sneaking inside and getting up to the priest’s room while Knox pretended to be a parishioner in need of immediate counseling. The ruse wasn’t particularly apt — the parish was small enough that even the housekeeper knew just about everyone who lived in the area — but it gave Karr enough time to check the room, which had no furniture besides the bed and clearly wasn’t hiding anything. He nearly got caught in the kitchen when the housekeeper came back, but the telephone saved him.
“You were supposed to wait,” said Farlekas when Karr got back to the car.
“Yeah, but I’m done now,” said Karr. “He doesn’t have it in his room and he doesn’t seem to have a study here. According to the housekeeper he travels among several parishes.”
“Mr. Rubens said that if you couldn’t find it easily, bring the CDs back to Paris. We’re looking for the account on our end in the meantime.”
“Sure? Church doesn’t look like it’s locked.”
“Tommy.”
“I’ll call you from the safe house in Paris.”
54
“Wake up. We have to go steal a computer from a library.”
Dean jerked out of bed with a start. Lia was standing over him, frowning.
“How the hell did you get into my room?” he asked her. “I had the dead bolt set.”
“Oh, Charlie. You’re so naive.”
Dean pulled his clothes on and went to the bathroom to shave. Just as he finished he heard a knock on the door; thinking it was Lia, he yelled to her to come in. A French voice answered, informing him it was room service with his coffee.
Suspicious, Dean took a towel and covered his pistol, opening the door for the man. He was, in fact, from room service, and he did have a large pot of coffee. Dean blanked on the cover name used for the reservation, so he scrawled a signature that could have been anything from John Doe to Napoleon on the receipt. He was on his second cup when Lia returned.
“I got a car. Come on, let’s go,” she said.
He grabbed the small knapsack that had met them at the airport as part of their mission equipment. Besides some maps, his handheld computer, and a sweater, the knapsack had a spare satellite phone.
“Where are we going?” Dean asked in the car.
“A library.”
“You said that.”
“Why’d you ask again?”
“You going to be like this for the rest of your life, or just the rest of the day?”
“Like what, Charlie Dean?”
Her habit of saying his whole name grated on him, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction of complaining about it, especially not now.
He wanted to talk to her, to
What?
That he cared. That he loved her.
“Look,” he started. “I know you’re still…”
The words failed him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say — or he did, but he couldn’t put it into words that sounded real. He wanted to hold her, protect her — he hadn’t done that, had he?
“I’m still what, Charlie Dean?”
“I love you,” he said.
But her frown only deepened.
The computer was located in a small library in a town on the eastern outskirts of Paris. Unfortunately, the Art Room had no way of narrowing down which of the two dozen computers the libraries owned; each one had to be checked. The process was simple — they could tell simply from the directory — but it would require trying each machine, including those that weren’t in the public areas.
Farlekas suggested that the Art Room sabotage the library’s network. Lia would then go in as a techie to fix it. But the library closed at 5:00, and by the time they got out to the town it was already 4:30. Dean and Lia decided it was very possible the librarians would decide dinner was more important than fixing the machines and put it all off for the morning. Besides, Dean’s lack of French meant he’d have to stay in the background, difficult to do if he was supposed to be a technician. So they decided they would go in, look the place over, then break in after it closed.
Lia dropped Dean off and parked the car two blocks away before doubling back. She walked in the door expecting to see Dean at one of the public access machines, hunting and pecking. But instead he was talking in English with the librarian.
And quite animatedly. The woman, in her early forties, gestured with her hand and led him toward the back offices.
“What the hell is he doing?” Lia muttered.
“Looking for information on a World War One Marine who stayed in the village after the war,” said Farlekas in her ear. “Good idea for a cover, huh? He says he got it from a book he’s been reading.”
Lia stifled her response and went over to the computers used for the library catalog, trying them one by one. Dean soon reappeared, listening to the woman as she told him he could find all of the information he wanted online. She led him to the computers and then offered a cup of coffee, which he accepted with a very mispronounced,
“Well, he’s got the dumb-American act down pat,” Lia said under her breath.
The machines used for searching the catalog had only thirty-gigabyte local hard drives. Lia drifted through the library, noticing a room at the side that had two computers but was empty. She was just about to go in and check them out when Farlekas announced, “He found it.”
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“If you’re going to talk to yourself,” said the Art Room supervisor, “better use French.”
The computers were at the edge of the open reading area, and Lia could watch Dean easily by pretending to look through the nearby stacks. He sat at a small desktop unit whose monitor was on top of the case; there was no hope of opening it unseen.
With the computer spotted, the next step was to check the security arrangements and plan for the break-in. Lia drifted to the side of the room, examining the large windows. A simple contact burglar alarm was wired to the sill; she slipped a knife from her pocket and slit the wire covering open, then used a small clip to short-circuit the
