He turned to Owen Thorson. “Whatever the Secret Service was transporting through Colorado, the minute we got the heads-up from Tel Aviv, the Secret Service convoy went from six agents to three. And within an hour of that, a levee breaks, a motel is washed away, and all three agents are missing.”
“They’ll be found. I still don’t know what—”
“One of them has been found. It was in the overnights,” John said. Thorson flushed; he hadn’t had the time to study the nightly download of intelligence and journalism reviews. “The agent’s name is Boyd Renfro. His body washed into a ravine about a mile and a quarter from the motel where the convoy had stopped.”
Thorson shrugged. “It was a huge flood. I’m sure the other two who drowned will show up eventually. I don’t—”
“Agent Renfro didn’t drown. He died of a gunshot wound to the head.”
That caught the attention of everyone in the room. Stanley Cohen, who leaned on the wall in the back, his lower spine killing him this morning, had been studying the whorls in the conference-room carpet. His sad, hound dog eyes rose now, his attention fully on the briefing.
“With one dead agent, we now are looking at two missing, as well as the package. But I’m betting we only find one more dead agent. The third guy killed his fellow agents and stole the package. That Marx Brothers routine in Manhattan? The threat to the president? That was all to run interference for this.”
Not a particularly tall man, John hopped a few inches off the ground and stabbed the TV screen with one finger, hitting Colorado.
Nanette Sylvestri asked the obvious question. “What were they transporting? This
package
?”
“I don’t know yet. I put in a request. The Secret Service is stonewalling me.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Nanette Sylvestri nodded firmly, coming to a decision. She turned and looked him straight in the eye. “It’s a hell of a theory, John, and it’s solid analysis. But, honestly? We have an assassin and a potential sleeper agent, a spectacular heist of sensitive CIA property and intel, and photos of the presidential compound, the holiest of holies. This thing in Colorado is intriguing, and worth pursuing. But in my opinion, we stick to Pegasus A. Director Cohen?”
Stanley Cohen pushed himself away from the wall, feeling his spine protest. “I concur.”
John turned to him. “Permission to—”
“Yes,” Cohen said. “John, you look into Pegasus B. Everyone else: we stay on Belhadj and Gibron.”
Paris
Belhadj rolled down the garage-style door but did not relock it. He brushed his palms on the front of his canvas trousers. “Why would Sahar come to Paris?”
Daria shrugged, the midnight blue sweater rising. “What did his people steal in America?”
“I don’t know.” He walked to a cheaply made steamer trunk, opened it and pulled out Daria’s clunky, chain-studded boots and latex miniskirt. He dug the handcuff keys out of his pocket and tossed them underhand. Daria caught them and undid both cuffs. “You expect me to put on those stupid clothes?”
Belhadj looked surprised. “These are your clothes.”
“Idiot. I bought them as a disguise. You don’t think I dress like that all the time?”
Belhadj let a little exasperation show in his face. “Wear them or not. I could not care less.”
Daria accepted the little skirt, stepped into it and wiggled it up her legs. It was so short that only two inches remained visible beneath the RAF sweater. There was no sign of her duster coat in the trunk. She closed the lid, sat, and accepted the punk boots from him.
“We need to find another place to stay and we need to find Sahar.”
Daria concentrated on the boots. “If Asher is operating in France, there’s a man who might know how to find him.”
“Who?”
“Why can’t we stay here? I assumed this was a Syrian safe house.” It would explain why Belhadj had keys for the place. The lack of first-floor windows also made the building ideal as a safe house.
“You ask too many questions.”
Daria stood. She thought the massive boots made her look like a Japanese anime character. “Do you have another place for us to go?”
“I’m working on it. Who is this man who might be able to find Sahar?”
Daria batted her black eyelashes at him. “I wouldn’t be of much use to you if I just told you. I’ll take you to him.”
Belhadj pondered that. Daria tucked the handcuffs into her sweater sleeve.
“I also can find us a place to stay.”
“How?”
Daria brushed her spread fingers through her damp hair. “I was stationed in Paris for nearly a year. I know the city well. Plus, while I was here, I was seeing an archeologist. He’s probably at a dig in South Africa, this time of year. Give me my mobile.”
“It’s in the trunk.”
Daria bent at the waist, opened the trunk, and rooted around. She found her smartphone. She also found the small, spade-shaped blade that turned on a single hinge inside a leather sandwich. She picked up the phone and the blade in one hand, the blade tucked behind the phone.
When she stood, Belhadj had moved closer to her. He drew his Springfield and gently placed the barrel against her forehead. He didn’t press it in, just held it there so she could feel the cold metal two inches above her eyes.
“Speakerphone.”
“There’s no need for—”
The warehouse echoed with the clattering of empty tin cans. It was a good distance off; not in the cavernous room where they stood. She recognized the sound for what it was: a warning. Belhadj had been expecting trouble and had set up some noisy trap.
Daria saw it in the Syrian’s eyes—they no longer were safe in his safe house.
As Belhadj’s eyes slid toward the noise, Daria tucked the little folding knife into her skirt waistband. She doubted the tin can warning could be Ray Calabrese coming to rescue her. But if it was, Daria would need a way to even the odds. The folding knife just might do it.
“Come. Now.”
Belhadj grabbed an olive sapper jacket and his oilskin messenger bag off one of the folding chairs. He shrugged into the jacket en route to the garage door. He used both hands to open it, rust pellets again raining down on his head.
The cobblestone alley no longer was empty.
Two men in dark clothes and long coats awaited them. They stood with their combat boots shoulder-width apart, their hands clasped before them. Daria noted the telltale ridges of shoulder holsters under their coats.
The men appeared to be Middle Eastern.
One man wore a navy watch cap pulled low over his ears. “Major. Back inside, please.” He made no effort to keep the threatening tone out of his voice.
The second man wore black plastic-framed glasses. His eyes raked Daria from head to toe. “Who is this?”
Belhadj said, “She is our best hope for finding Asher Sahar. You know this. Get out of my way.” His voice took on the flinty edge of every military officer Daria had ever served with.
“Damascus says this is no longer your concern, Major.”
Daria’s brain began running the numbers for the calculus of crisis: Belhadj wanted to find Asher. These men did not want to find Asher. Daria didn’t know if Asher was behind any of this or if she was being lied to. But if he was, then she wanted to—needed to—find Asher.
She glanced down the long, snow-flecked alley. No car or van awaited them. This wasn’t a transport operation.
Major, back inside, please.
She heard the squeak of a floorboard over her head. One of the two men in the alley smiled and shook his head. The other reached for his gun.
Daria rotated her arm behind her hip and let the handcuffs slide out of her right sleeve. She caught one cuff, the other undone and hanging free. The effect was to extend her reach by eight inches and to give her, for want of a better term, a jagged-toothed, prosthetic hook.
“Please!” She stepped toward the men and wailed in Arabic. “This man is mad! Help me! He—” She turned as if to point at Belhadj. The handcuff arced through the cold air and sliced into the cheekbone of the man in the eyeglasses. His glasses flew. Blood arced. He snapped to his right and stumbled into his partner.
Belhadj stepped forward, right arm a blur, and the heel of his hand smashed up and into the nose of the man in the watch cap. Blood shot upward from his shattered nose as he fell straight back. His spine snapped like fresh asparagus when he hit the alley cobbles.
Daria was on the first man, driving a knee into his balls and a forearm into his ear. He fell like a stone. Daria went down with him, adding her weight to his own. She aimed to incapacitate, not kill.
Daria flipped open the coat of the man she’d decked and reached in to thumb off the safety strap of his holster.
Belhadj grabbed her by the sweater collar and lifted her easily to her feet before she could reach the downed man’s handgun.
“Go!”
He hustled her down the alley toward the street.
Langley
The assistant director for antiterrorism called a meeting of the team leaders for the Pegasus Group at 12:30
P.M.
Friday. That included, naturally, Nanette Sylvestri and Owen Cain Thorson. John Broom had not been invited.
* * *
John sat a couple miles away, at an Internet café that featured Turkish coffee and baklava. He had bypassed protocol to go directly to a longtime friend at the Secret Service, Constance de Castro. This sort of back-channel communication wasn’t usually conducted on one’s office phone.
“John, I’d love to help you,” de Castro said, flashing that high-octane smile of hers over the Skype connection, “but D.C. police are about to tow our command vehicle!”
John was fairly sure this would be the source of yucks in the intelligence community for weeks to come. He waited for her to stop laughing and wipe tears from her cheeks. “I wish this was a lighthearted call. It isn’t. It’s about the Colorado thing.”
De Castro’s grin froze then faded. “John? Are you telling me the CIA had—”
“Not to the best of my knowledge.” John tried never to overpromise. “It’s just, you losing three agents in Colorado to a levee break coincides too nicely with that cluster we had in Manhattan. I think they’re connected.”
“How?”
John outlined the theory that now, inside the halls of Langley, was being called Pegasus-B.
Constance de Castro didn’t sneer at it. “The news that POTUS was the target did chop the transport mission in half. You’re not wrong there. And the timing sucks.”
“What do you know about the transport?”
He waited. De Castro paused. He could tell she was calculating. John Broom worked hard to maintain his reputation as a guy who offered intelligence, pro bono, and who wasn’t quick to collect on favors owed. He was counting on all of that working in his favor.
“Colorado State Police found another of our agents,” De Castro said. “He was lodged under a car. He’d been shot in the head, too.”
John winced. “God, I’m sorry. So what were they transporting?”
She hesitated, her image flickering a little. “We don’t know.”
John blinked. “A blind transport? You do that?”
“Not usually. We will, if it’s on behalf of another agency. And if the request comes from high enough up the food chain.”
“Who asked for the favor?”
“The Department of the Army.”
John began nibbling around the edges of the scenario. “Okay. So, the army needs something transported. It’s obviously a weapon of mass destruction, because the law is clear that you guys are the only agency tasked with moving something like that across U.S. soil. But there’s a handshake agreement at the top of both agencies, and the Secret Service agrees not to look inside the box.”
De Castro nodded.
“Search-and-rescue hasn’t stumbled on a dirty bomb or a thermos of sarin or whatever, so the package was stolen. Plus, you’ve got at least two Secret Service personnel dead with gunshot wounds.”
She kept nodding.
“Who do I talk to at the Pentagon to figure out what was being transported?”
“Johnny boy, you didn’t hear this from me.”
“’Course.”
She gave him a name.
“Okay. I got the go-ahead to look into this. I find anything worth sharing, you know I will.”
“Thanks,” de Castro said, licked her lips. “Hey, John?”
He nodded.
“You didn’t state the obvious. The candor is appreciated.”
The obvious was this: three Secret Service agents were ambushed, and two ended up with bullets in their brainpans. The first, most obvious suspect was agent number three. Who remained missing.
John said, “Thanks. I’ll keep in touch.” And rang off.
He paid his tab and stepped out of the café, buttoning his coat, as his cell phone chirped. He checked the message. It was Nanette Sylvestri.
“Hey.” His eyes checked the pewter sky and the bustling people, heads down, shoulders hunched. They were predicting snow or sleety rain.
“John? The FBI liaison, Ray Calabrese…”
John glanced at his watch. “Is he in? I’ll head over to National. He should—”
“He’s been shot,” Nanette cut in. “They found him at the airport. Two to the back. Nine caliber. He’s alive, but John?”
John already was racing for the subway.
“It doesn’t look good.”
Twelve
Paris
Daria and Belhadj took two quick rights through narrow streets filled with more middle-class businessmen and nannies with prams than clusters of tourists. They climbed a short, high canal bridge and Daria tried to gain her bearings. She was used to seeing the skyline of Paris but the point-of-view was unfamiliar, until she realized they were in the western peninsula of the Right Bank, created by the curve of the Seine. It was Paris’s Sixteenth arrondissement—9 o’clock, if the arrondissements, or neighborhoods, had been laid out as a clock face.
Daria said, “This way,” and led them over the narrow pedestrian bridge toward a commercial district.
Belhadj said not a word.
They caught the metro at Michel-Ange-Auteuil. They found two seats together in a car near the back of the train. Belhadj discreetly kept his sapper jacket closed to hide his shoulder holster.