*****
Colonel Cameron was drinking Coke again, this time with dinner, chicken for the second night in a row. “What is it with chicken and Paris this trip?” he mused, deeper in the jet-lag fog he knew would get deeper still. Ripley was still talking . . .
“ . . .slums in the Northern sector, about half way to de Gaulle airport. I’m thinking we might make a little field trip up there tomorrow, just to look around, see what these addresses and the neighborhood look like. Do you think your Saudi friend will be able to help?”
His phone rang, startling him out of the fog again, and he answered. Ripley’s phone rang just as the look of concern covered Cameron’s face, and the CIA station chief noted that as he flipped his open.
Ripley was still listening when Cameron said “Just a minute, Fahd,” covering the phone and saying, “Ripley, we have a problem . . .”
The latter was also very concerned, asking short, clipped questions and clearly not liking the answers, holding up a finger indicating that Cameron should wait. He checked his watch, nodded, gave instructions that he should be called in an hour with an update, and rung off.
“What’ve you got?” he asked, folding the phone away.
“My Saudi friend, General Fahd, has had a bit of a slip up. Seems his oldest boy, who’s with him here in Paris along with the wife, a daughter, and his youngest son, slipped out of the hotel I moved them to last night and went joy-riding on the subway. No problem with that, except the dimwit kid went back to the old hotel. No problem with that, except the old hotel is being watched by a nasty-looking hulk of an Egyptian thug. I spent three hours or so watching the hotel and him this morning.”
“Shit,” Ripley said. “Well, what I’ve got is worse. Is he still on the other end of that?” indicating the open phone.
“Yep, what’ve you got?”
“Langley has a phone intercept that looks pretty strong, says the General’s house or some other property in Dhahran may be hit tonight. Somebody doesn’t like him. Ask him what the address is, that’ll help us some.
This Cameron did, and he could tell General Fahd was upset. “Paul,” he said, “I need to make another call immediately. Stay at this line and I’ll call you right back when I’m done.”
“Right, will do. Fahd, keep everyone in the hotel for now. I have help. Talk to you shortly.” He hung up.
Looking at Ripley, Cameron said “Addresses in Saudi are a little iffy. Here’s the street address, but also a couple of landmarks nearby and some directions from a main road intersection, that usually works better. What’ve you got in Kingdom?”
“I have no idea. That was the Comms/Ops center relaying a message from Jones. He’s on the DDO’s plane, God help us, enroute to Paris from Andrews as we speak. Should be here in about,” he checked his watch again, did some mental math, “about five hours. They land at De Gaulle and clear customs there. We’re supposed to run an op here to see if we can round up this Paris group. Jonesey’s bringing one other guy, don’t know him but I’ve heard the name. We’re gonna be real busy.” He signaled the waiter to bring the check. “What do you think about the General’s hotel, Colonel?”
“Well, I guess that’s obvious. We need to make a low pass by there and see if the Pharaoh” he grinned, but the blue eyes had gone cold, hard, and dangerous, “has found his way there. If he has, we need to sort him out somehow.”
“Yep, just what I was thinking.” Ripley rummaged in a pocket for a wad of Euros, said “dinner’s on the Company,” and laid down enough to cover it. “Two things first, though. One, we need to pick up my car, we’ll do a drive-by on the first pass. Two, we need to get you into street clothes,” and he pointed at what was left of Cameron’s aikido garb, the white pants conspicuous under the table. “Car’s at the embassy, short walk to the metro, couple of stops south, then a couple of blocks again. We may pick up some equipment while we’re at it. Tell you what,” he said, looking at his watch again, “why don’t you go back to your hotel and change, I’ll meet you there in about an hour?” Cameron nodded. “Good. Now, just which hotel should I come and collect you from?” At this both men grinned broadly, then broke into hearty laughter.
Cameron recovered first. “Did I lose you on my way in from De Gaulle?,” he thought for a moment, “yikes, was that just yesterday morning?
“Yep, it was yesterday. You got it bad, don’t you? Ripley asked.
“Yeah, but at least it’s predictable. Happens this way every time I come East across the pond,” Cameron replied. “I’ll rally. But let’s get moving,” he stood up and collected his bag, Ripley did the same. “I’m at the Grand Hotel du Champagne on rue Jean Lantier, just off the Rue Rivoli. Do you know it?”
“No, but I’ll find it. Subway’s this way” he said as he led the way out the door, and they turned right down the walk.
Cameron’s phone rang, he flipped it open and said, “Nam, ya amid,” which is “yes, General.”
It was Fahd. “Paul, good news, the boys and the children are safe in al-Ha’il. I’m thinking of calling the Air Police at the Base to cover my house. What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Cameron replied, “Not sure about that. Hold a minute.” He turned to Ripley and asked, “What do you think about Fahd calling in the Saudi authorities in Dhahran about his house?”
Ripley shook his head, said “I think we’d rather he didn’t do that. I took what looked like a pretty official photo of what I assume is your General off the guy you had mugged last night.” Cameron looked surprised. “Searched him in the alley, he was still out cold. Nice touch, by the way, we need to talk about that later tonight. Anyway, I think someone on the inside fingered your pal, so if I were him I’d stay away from that for now. Also, the Company may be doing something to cover it, that’s why they wanted the address. Saudi police will make that more complicated.”
“Right.” Cameron went back to the phone. “Fahd, we think that might be a bad idea. However, we have probable American help on its way to Dhahran. If you can hold out, I think it’d be better to wait on any call for Saudi police until we know more. We should be with you there in less than two hours in any case, and we should have something else by then.”
“Very well, Paul,” the General said, “but it better be good. In the Kingdom, this is a Saudi problem. I’ll want to know exactly what’s planned before I become a part of it or allow it to go on in my country.”
“Of course,” Cameron said, “wouldn’t have it any other way my friend. Now, I’m getting on a train,” they were walking quickly and had reached the steps down to their station. “I’ll call you again in about an hour, but you call me if you see or hear anything suspicious there.”
“Right, thanks Colonel,” and both phones clicked off.
On the platform, Ripley said “You need the purple line one level down, this is my train,” as they felt the surge of air from the leading cars approaching in the tunnel to their left. I’ll see you at the hotel in an hour, maybe less. I’ll call you on that line” he indicated the cell, “before I come up.” The train stopped and the doors opened, Ripley moved quickly inside and seemed to immediately disappear into the crowd within.
Cameron looked again, couldn’t see him, and shook his head. “Real spooks,” he thought. He turned and headed to the escalator for the lower platform and his train back to Chatelet station.
An hour later, true to his time, Ripley pulled up in of the front door of the Grand Hotel de Champagne on Rue Jean Lantier, and before he had switched off the car Cameron came through the door, once again in black slacks, dark turtleneck sweater and the thigh-length navy blue coat. He carried a pair of black leather gloves in one hand.
The drove East on Rue Rivoli, then turned north after a few blocks at the Place Chatelet, and Ripley was saying “we’ll drive by on the hotel side of the street, you looking out your side and I’ll check the north side. We’re looking for a stocky guy you said, d
ark hair and complexion? What was he wearing when you last saw him?”
“In this light he’ll look like we shopped at the same store. Dark pants, shirt, coat. The hair is jet black, he has a nose that would make a pharaoh proud, and he is a big, awkward looking guy. He was not a very smooth surveillance guy, he should stick out like a sore thumb unless he’s gotten some fast training since eleven this morning.”
“OK, we’ll just make that pass and see what we see, then we’ll decide what to do next. If we see nothing, though, I think I’ll make a long turnaround, couple of blocks maybe, and we’ll make a second pass on the other side just to be sure. If the coast is clear, we park and go see the General. If it’s not, we call him, then we think a bit.”
“Fine,” said Cameron, and they both lapsed into silent thought.
Traffic was light, it took only another five minutes, and Ripley made the right turn onto the street they needed, slowing to just the legal limit. They drove slowly by the hotel, but saw nothing. “What’ve you got?” It was Cameron, still looking out his window, almost a block beyond the hotel. “I’ve got nothing on this side.”
“I got nothing as well,” Ripley answered, “I think. There was a really dark doorway I don’t quite like, about a hundred yards this side of the hotel. Didn’t see anything in there, but it’s worth another look. Time for the long 180, there’s a roundabout another two blocks northeast of here. We’ll double back there and you can take a closer look on your side. Open the glove compartment.”
Cameron did, and found the night vision goggles. “You know how to use those?” Ripley asked.
“Not these, but I used some about 17 years ago when we went drug smuggler hunting in F-15s down over the Gulf of Mexico." He turned on the dome light. "Ok, power switch is here. What’s this gizmo do?”
“That’s a dual-mode NVG, starlight/low light and infrared. Switch vertical is starlight, turn it clockwise ninety degrees and it’s in IR mode. Use IR for this pass. Power on now, if you will, to let ‘em warm up a little, here’s our turn. You can put them on and start getting used to it as we approach.”
Cameron held the goggles in his right hand. They were light, much lighter than the set he’d fixed to his helmet as a Captain with a jury-rigged bracket back in the day, and the image was sharper, clearer, higher contrast, but the field of view was still narrow. “Hey, let me know as we get close, this is a little like staring down a soda straw,” he said.
“About a block to go,” Ripley answered. “OK I can see the doorway, just beyond that long glass storefront window.”
“Bingo,” Cameron said as they cruised by, a combination of triumph and dread in his voice. He lowered the glasses. “That had to be him. Leaning against the door post like this morning against a lamppost on a street corner, right size, and it’s where I’d be if I was watching this hotel. Damned dark here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Dark of the moon and there’s a cloud cover. I’ll find a place to park in a block or so and we’ll think about this a little.
This they did, taking a right turn after rounding a curve four blocks beyond the hotel. Ripley reached down and ran his seat back few inches, then squirmed a little sideways to face Cameron, leaning against the door. “All right, what do you think?”
Cameron looked at his watch. “This morning I watched him long enough to see him make a phone call on the even hours, two hour reporting cycle it looked like, so it’s just past eight now. He’s not due to phone home again for a couple of hours.”
“Interesting, I hadn’t heard anything about AQ guys doing that kind of thing. Guess they’re learning; at least they don’t learn fast. This guy look tough?”
“Yeah,” said Cameron. “Big, tough, strong I think, but not fast probably, and not quick. You thinking of taking him?”
“Definitely. Jones’ message says the DDO wants us to take down this Paris cell, whatever its size I gathered, so we might as well start somewhere. I hadn’t bargained on starting tonight, though. Jones won’t get in until later with his cavalry.”
Cameron was thinking. “Question is, how long is the big guy planning on waiting there tonight? Is he just a watcher, or is he going to try and pop Fahd and the family himself sometime tonight? Or does he have help coming?”
“There’s a thought,” Ripley reached for his phone, hit the speed dial and waited.
“Hello,” came the deadpan voice.
“Viper” Ripley said. “Any activity on either of my north Paris taps lately, like since we last talked this morning?”
“Yes. The calls from Saudi I think you already have seen, but the cell phone gets pinged by the same guy every two hours. You want the translations, they’re pretty short, “nothing to report”, in Arabic. The last three we don’t have translated yet.”
Ripley thought a moment, doing math again. “I need the last two. Get the translators working double-time on those right now, I got a situation here. Can you give me a call when you have them?”
“Yes. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Any outgoing calls from the north Paris cell tap in the same period?”
“One, about five minutes ago, that’s in the queue. Do you want that right away as well?”
“You bet, ASAP. DDO’s priority, I’ll answer for it if I have to. Get them going, please, and call me as soon as you have them.”
“Will do.” The line went dead.
Turning to Cameron he said, “We got the cell phone and a landline on the Paris organization this morning, fruits of my labor with the little guy, Kisani, last night. Sounds like your watcher is calling the cellular line on his two hour cycle, nothing to report through translations six hours ago. My bet is his report of finding and tailing the kid is on one of the last two, probably the last one at eight reports the hotel address. Bad news is the cell up north made an outgoing call right after that report, or at least that’s my guess. We’ll know for sure when we get the translations, probably take about an hour.”
Cameron was thinking faster now. “What time did you say Jones and his buddy get to De Gaulle?”
“I figure around eleven. What are you thinking?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I’m guessing, probably same as you, that they guy up north may be arranging a hit on the hotel for later tonight. My guess is they wait until maybe two in the morning when things are really quiet, so we have some time. But I’m not sure we can wait for the cavalry, ‘cause I’m just guessing and I don’t want to be wrong. If we had to take the Pharaoh right now, do you think we could do it quiet enough, and what would we do with him?”
“We can take him anytime we like,” Ripley said, and Cameron could faintly see the lines of a smirk on his face in the dark. “But I think we can wait for the translations, an hour tops. Your Pharaoh won’t even make another phone call by that time, and I think the small hours of the morning for any hit is a safe enough bet. I think I’ve got the plan, here’s what we’ll do . . .”