*****
It was twenty after ten when a green Ford van drove right past Cameron’s window going West on Curzon and turned right on Queen to be lost from view. He could not see, but the van continued to the end of the block, made a U-turn at the corner, and returned, parking on the East side of Queen half-way between the door steps of two gorgeous town houses. The passenger got out, crossed the street and disappeared through the fence and then around the back of another townhouse. All this was watched by the Arab in the stocking cap, Selim Khan, who was twenty five and not Arab at all, but rather Pakistani. Selim was bored, he’d been out in the cold and rain for way too long, and he wished this Saudi would just come out so he could follow him to his hotel and quit for the day. The pictures had been sent to the number he’d been given. He didn’t think anything about the green service van parked a hundred meters to his right.
Five minutes passed, and Selim tensed as the Saudi came out the front door of the embassy and crossed the drive. He came out of the gate and turned directly toward the waiting tail, Selim was surprised and a little shocked by this, but he had no idea where the man intended to go, after all. So he simply looked bored and took out his phone again, pretending to make a call. He took a step out onto the walk along Curzon and turned to the East, faking a conversation. Traffic was light, just a few people walking on either side and very few cars. He turned back West as the attractive woman he’d chosen to watch passed the alley into Shepherds Market and a man came out the same way.
The Saudi was turning the corner onto Queen, so Selim stood fidgeting on his side of the street for a moment, still faking his conversation, and then he began to amble northward, slowly at first, letting the distance build up until is man was about twenty-five meters ahead on the opposite side. At this point he closed the phone and began to walk casually along, matching pace with the taller man he followed.
Cameron was twenty paces behind when he rounded the corner on the East side of Queen, but he was walking faster, silently, flowing, as Fahd had said after the encounter in Paris, like water down the cobbled walk. His wool coat was buttoned to the top, collar up, seemingly against the cold. His breathing was deep and even, his hands were open wide and swung naturally at his sides as he walked, closing the distance, needing to time it perfectly. Now that he was close he could see that his opponent was fairly slight, but wiry looking, he walked heavily, probably not trained very well if at all. “Good he thought, just another few paces and it begins.”
Selim approached the van, saw the driver nod a greeting to him, which he returned. Then something happened—the van driver looked beyond him at something, and at the same time he heard a footstep. By reflex, he turned quickly, his right hand found the small knife in his coat pocket just in case. What he saw was a man, European, dark hair, deep, blue eyes, who came to an abrupt stop two paces away, and said, “Assalamu alaykum, sedeek,” “Peace be upon you, friend.”
Something about the man did not look right. His feet were oddly placed, one slightly ahead of the other and about shoulder width apart, his arms hung loose at his sides, his stare was intense and dangerous. He’d used Arabic in London, which was definitely not normal. He did not speak again. Selim did not like this. In English he said, “and upon you be peace, good day.” He started to turn, but as he did he noticed the man just start to move, and at the same time he heard and sensed movement to his rear. Again, by reflex, his right hand came out with the knife, and he pivoted to his right rear to place the wall of the building to his back.
He was penned in, another man now to his right, bigger, and the first one to his left, the green van completing the trap to his front. Selim took a short step backward to get more space. The dangerous-looking man said in English, “Now, my friend, we simply want to talk with you, there is no need for the knife.”
But Selim had indeed been trained, at least for the six weeks he’d spent in the Afghan camp, and he thought he knew who or at least what these men were. It was all happening in slow motion, but really rather fast. Ten seconds had not passed, including the last remark, when he remembered the training on ambushes and what was to be done if caught in one—Attack!
This he did, taking two quick steps toward the man in the dark coat, swinging the knife in a wide arc at throat level, reaching out to find the target. He began to smile—it would be a good cut, this one would be dead and he’d pivot on his right foot, continuing the circle to his left to engage the next opponent who he could just hear already beginning to move behind him. His smile evaporated, though, just as the man did, just enough so that the blade missed and skimmed the surface of the thick wool of the collar of the coat, but not deep enough. There was no spray of blood from the severed neck arteries, no shocked look in the eyes, no familiar feel in the knife, only the same cold, hard look, and Selim felt his bowels loosen.
Completely in control, Cameron let the knife pass, glad he’d thought of the collar, watched the man’s expression turn to one of panic as he finished the first slash and began the second, cutting now from left to right. Cameron moved into the attack, so that his neck was even with the elbow of the outstretched knife-arm by the time it would have taken him, well inside the arc of the knife. As he pivoted on his left foot his own left arm came up forcefully under the Arab’s triceps, stopping the swing of the arm, the hand with the knife momentarily stopped in mid slash and the man lifted slightly off balance up and to his own front. Cameron’s right hand reached up and grabbed the stationary wrist, his own palm up, controlling the knife. Then a smooth, forceful move, he pivoted his hips and feet 180 degrees to his right, away from the man, and at the same time took the wrist down in a circle to his right while his left hand pressed on the man’s elbow. This propelled Selim in a circle around Cameron, but a descending, spiraling circle led by his knife hand, and the walk came up fast. He hit the cobbles with a thud, scraping his face hard and barking his knees. Cameron was in a controlling position above him, the wrist pinned to his right knee and his left hand putting breaking pressure on the elbow. Selim groaned at this and involuntarily relaxed his grip on the knife, which Cameron whisked out of his hand and put into his own pocket. Seizing the now empty hand from the rear so that he pinched the thumb with his own and bent the wrist at a right angle to the forearm, Cameron made a small twist to allow a little bend in the elbow, but leaving no slack in the connective tissues. Then he just dropped his weight, and his left knee, onto the back of the triceps, and the arm broke cleanly at the elbow with a soft “crack” and a short yelp from the Arab, who immediately passed out.
“That’s for the coat, dirtbag,” Cameron said, standing. He took a reflexive step back to clear the area, saw the Agency man standing a few paces away.
“What did you do that for?” the man asked, clearly in shock at the brutality. "You broke his arm."
“Pissed me off,” Cameron said. “It’s been that kind of week and my sense of humor is just done.” Fahd was just coming up the walk himself. The man on the ground groaned, starting to come to.
“Let’s get moving,” Cameron said, and the freeze frame broke. The van door slid open, the driver stepped out, and the two CIA guys picked up the semi-conscious Pakistani and tossed him into the back like a sack of potatoes. Cameron waived and began to walk North, intercepting Fahd and turning him around to also walk North. The driver zip-tied the man’s hands and feet, his passenger closed the van door and went around to his side. The van fired up, turned right on Curzon, and sped away. The whole evolution had taken just forty-five seconds.
Cameron and Fahd walked briskly for two blocks to the corner of Charles and Queen, then turned East. The weather had closed in again, mist falling in a heavy curtain that bordered on drizzle, and they would be miserable soon. Fahd decided that this would not do, and stepped out onto the street to hail a taxi. The black car pulled in at the curb and they piled into the warm, dry interior. They gave the address of their hotel and sat there, silent.
<
br /> Traffic was heavy and it took ten minutes, but when they finally reached the hotel they went straight into the small restaurant and asked for a table at the back, and coffee. Only when it was steaming on the table in front of them did either man speak.
“Paul, who are these people? And where did you learn that?”
“Second question is easier,” Cameron replied. “It’s the aikido thing that I started when we were at school together. I could never let it go, I still go to class two or three times a week. Never really expected it to come in so handy, I just liked the exercise. But that’s it. Now the other thing. They’re obviously al-Qaeda, they’re obviously interested in you, which has to be because of this thing with your nephew. Two things about that are clearly worrisome. First, they’re damned well organized, and they have pretty fast communications to have managed to have someone onto us in London so quickly. Second, they want to find you pretty bad, which to me means they think you’re onto something very big that they very much want to keep secret. They sent four men to kill all of you in Paris, Fahd.”
“I know, I know, but don’t tell the rest of them that.” Cameron could see heat behind the eyes. “Paul, you think they’re going to use these boys with American passports to do something in the US, don’t you?”
“Yes, Fahd, I do, and I suspect you do, too, and I’m pretty sure you’ve thought so all along, haven’t you?”
“Truly? Yes, although I did not want to believe it. It’s all so stupid. They can’t accomplish anything beyond killing some people and getting themselves killed. Oh, I suppose with the right plan and the right support they could do something spectacular like the World Trade Center. But in the end, what did that accomplish? Two Muslim governments toppled, many people dead, their headquarters in Afghanistan denied to them forever, I suspect their leaders are either dead, living in caves, or getting along very unpleasantly at some unknown location hosted by some very angry Americans. And on top of all of that, they’ve made Arabs and Muslims the subject of hatred, suspicion, and prejudice all over the world. To be honest, Paul, I’m ashamed of what they have made of us all, and I’m angry.”
“Amen, my friend. But I have a feeling their plan this time is less spectacular, but still very dangerous. How big a town is al-Ha’il, Fahd?”
“Not big, maybe fifteen or twenty thousand, not more. Why?”
“What about businesses, shopping, police, security, that kind of thing?”
“Well, there’s a gold market, of course, and a small shopping center, the usual kinds of stuff you find in small towns everywhere I guess. There would not be many police, perhaps twenty or so, crime isn’t much of a problem in the Kingdom, Paul, you know that. And, everybody knows everybody, most people are al-Auda or related to someone, so what could you do without everyone knowing? And we have a pretty effective way of dealing with violent crime in the Kingdom.” He made a chopping gesture that landed with a thud on the table top.
“Hmmm, not much different in the US, the police department might be a little bigger, and there might be more small businesses. People wouldn’t be as related, and they probably wouldn’t know each other well. Still, close enough. Now, Fahd, what do you think would happen if say fifteen terrorists armed with automatic rifles, maybe grenades and RPGs, showed up in your hometown, and if they were trained pretty well in small-unit infantry actions? What could they do?”
Fahd thought a moment, then said, “I don’t know, Paul. It would depend what they tried to do. Certainly if they wanted they could shut down the city center, the police couldn’t handle it in a small town; kill a lot of people in the beginning before the streets cleared, put business to a stop for the day, God forbid they should attack a . . .school, Paul?”
“God forbid. I hadn’t thought of that, wouldn’t have thought of it, but they did in Russia a few years back. I was thinking of the business, to be frank, but the school scares the shit out of me, beg your pardon, now that you mention it. Now suppose you have six or seven teams of fifteen men, Fahd. What if they did this in as many small towns across the Kingdom, either all at once, or better yet I think, one at a time over a period of three weeks or so? I can tell you what I think would happen in the US. Nobody would send their kids to school, nobody would open their businesses, people wouldn’t go shopping unless they had to, things would just shut down. It would take a long, long time and a lot of convincing for the public to regain confidence that it wouldn’t happen in their town. In the US you’d probably see actual troops, armed, in the streets or at least publicly known to be in every little town, just to give the impression that the government was doing something. We’d look like a garrison, a police state. People would be afraid. The people would start carrying their own guns openly, just to feel like they could protect themselves. It’d change everything, at least for a while, maybe for a very long time. And the backlash against Arabs and Muslims in America would be horrible.”
“One thing they could not do in al-Ha’il, they could not take over any of the major family homes. They all have a wall, Paul, and like yours, our people are usually armed, especially in the small towns way out in the desert. It’s a tradition. Once the shooting started, people would defend their homes. The bigger compounds like my family’s would hold out easily if very many people were at home.”
“A little different in the US, I’d think. Individual homes would be easy, one at a time. Eventually someone might put together an organized defense of people with hunting rifles and the like, but it would take time, and leadership, and courage. Sheesh, something like this could get out of hand very, very quickly in the US.”
“You think this is what they plan to do, Paul?” Fahd asked soberly, still thinking hard and not liking what he saw.
“It’s what I’m afraid they may plan to do, Fahd.” Cameron was still thinking of all the implications and he liked it less and less. “Well, we’d better get on with it. I think I’ll call my friends in Paris again when I leave you, but we have things to do. Fahd, I need to go buy some clothes for Saudi, didn’t bring the right kind of thing with me. Can I leave the booking of tickets to you? I think we can assume you’re safe in London as long as you stay away from your embassy. The more I think about it, I think our enemies simply made a lucky guess.”
“Yes, I’ll take care of the tickets, Paul. I think it should be tomorrow if there are seats—do you agree?”
“I agree, the sooner the better, but not today. If you go out, Fahd, may I suggest that you take Mohammed with you? Two might be better than one on the street, just in case, and the boy is probably curious, it would make him feel, well, engaged?”
“Good idea. The women and Aziz will be fine at the hotel. Anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Cameron said. He looked at his watch. “OK it’s nearly eleven. I’ll go see if I can find what I need, make my calls. I’ll call you around, say two o’clock and see if there’s anything else we need to do or coordinate. Let’s plan on dinner again tonight all together if you think the ladies would like that, your pick of time and place?”
“I think I can guarantee Fadia will love that. She’s become very fond of you, abu-Sean.” He got up, “your treat this time, Colonel,” smiling.
“My pleasure, General,” Cameron smiled back. Fahd left through the door, while Cameron paid. A few minutes later he was outside for the short walk to the Green Park tube station, from there to Harrods’s where he knew they would have what he needed.
On the train he checked his phone for a signal and found a seat away from the sparse mid-day crowd. When Ripley answered he gave a short description of events and the plan for the rest of the day. He finished with “I’m not certain, but I expect we’ll find tickets to Amman for tomorrow afternoon, my guess will be arrival late that evening. Christ, what day is it Patrick?”
“Wednesday. I’ll get our guys working on tickets, let me know as soon as you know for sure. You have transporta
tion squared away on the other end?”
“Yep, the General’s handling it. Your guys have any trouble with the equipment I asked for?”
“Nope, they’ll have it ready in Amman. Can we assume departure by road from there the next day, or would you leave tomorrow night if that works out? I’d prefer daylight . . .”
“No, I think the next morning. We have the two women with us and the little boy. Ripley, who the hell was “Smith”, the guy I was emailing when I arrived in Paris on Sunday morning?”
“Well, you’re going to think this is crazy, but it was the guy “Jones” that was on the park bench at Versailles yesterday morning. You met him as you left.”
Cameron just laughed. “You guys and names, so creative. OK, so if Smith-Jones is in Paris, who’s running this op at Langley, or maybe I’m not spook enough to know how these things usually work?”
Ripley was quiet for a moment, then said, “Good question, you’re right, there’s usually someone back at Langley to coordinate support and the like. You need something else? I can sling the DDO’s name around some more if you want, seems to work pretty well and I like watching people jump.”
“Not exactly, just wanted to run something by somebody. Might as well be you. Tell me what you think of this . . .”
Cameron first looked to make sure there was nobody within easy earshot on his train, then gave a detailed explanation of his theory about the Saudi-Americans and what their plan might be. When he finished he asked, “Crazy, or what do you think?”
“Hmmm. Not really my area, Colonel, strictly speaking. From a small-unit infantry point of view, though, I think you make a good argument. We don’t know who or what we’re really talking about here, but if they’re even remotely competently trained, they’d chew up a small town police force pretty bad. The strategic utility of a target like that is way out of my league, they usually go for something more obvious and with bigger casualties that will make the news. But my gut tells me your theory has pretty strong logic on the real impact of this kind of thing. I know if I was married with kids in a small town after several of those I’d be awfully nervous. Hell, if it was me, and if the police would tolerate it, I might be organizing a neighborhood watch that was armed, maybe a rifle on the roof 24/7, stuff like that. Kinda gives me the creeps.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Cameron agreed. “So, how would we pass this kind of idea back to the guys at Langley, or would they care?”
“Oh, I think they’d care, Boss. Can you imagine the ass that the DDO would have if this went down and he found out you’d thought of it ahead of time? And I’m sure you’d tell him, wouldn’t you?”
“Damned right I would, if I could figure out how. So what do we do?” Cameron finished.
“Leave it with me. I’ll talk to Jones, he’ll put something together to email to the DDO personally, I’ll make sure he does it. What? Just a minute, Colonel.” After a brief pause Ripley came back on the phone. “Whatsup with the broken arm? Knife attack? What’d you do to this guy? You didn’t say anything about that a few minutes ago!”
“I gather you’ve heard from “Johnson?” Well, that was quick. Hey, the guy came at me with a knife, a little yokomen uchi gokkyo was all that came to mind,” he said, giving the Japanese name for the aikido technique he’d used. “The arm was extra, he almost cut my throat and ruined a perfectly good coat in the process. I’ve had a hard week and I’m a little pissed off. It should be a nice clean break, it’ll heal.”
“I guess. Well, like you said, he shoulda known when he signed up, and I think once the Brits are done with him the arm will be the least of his worries if he has any at all. At any rate, you hit the jackpot again. This dirtbag is Selim Khan, Pakistani. He’s on a “list,” you don’t need to know which one. Nobody knew he was in the UK, which is kinda embarrassing for both us and MI5. Good news is that MI5 are very happy we happened to pick him up, the arm notwithstanding. According to Johnson, the guy’s cell phone was crammed with numbers, Brits are running them now, if you watch the news tonight in London you’ll probably get to see the results of your handiwork. Night of the long knives for Al-Qaeda in Britain I’ll bet. Bad news, of course, is that you’re very anonymously a one-man train wreck for those bastards. You want to make sure you travel as Michael Callan the rest of this trip, Colonel, and someone besides yourself if you ever work for us again. You don’t ever, ever, want to become un-anonymous to that crowd. You got that, sir?”
“Got it, Ripley, and I’ll certainly do exactly that.” The train was pulling into the station at Knightsbridge, where he needed to get off. “Anything else, I have to navigate the London tubes and I can’t do that with this phone in my ear?”
“Yeah. We got a match on the photo Jones and Allen took out of the apartment in North Paris night before last. Guy name of Ibrahim Sultan al-Otaibi, Syrian we think, but maybe Saudi, spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, very nasty piece of work. From the stuff we found laying around over in Afghanistan at one time or another he seems to be something of a protégé. Pretty big cheese, shame that we didn’t get him. However, we’re going to keep a watch on Kisani’s phone, you know, the little guy that got beat up? If the French don’t reel him in first, we might get lucky and Ibrahim will call his old pal from a new line and we’ll have a new track on him. That’s it for now.”
“OK, thanks. Let me know what you can about my theory at Langley. Cameron out.” He shut the phone, now standing on the platform to look at the system map. Then he walked quickly to the escalator and rode up to the street. Harrods was just less than a block away, and he needed clothes and shoes for the desert.
XVIII. Virginia
Bobbie swept into the room at her usual high velocity, leaving a perceptible breeze in her wake. Anderson could swear that the pages of the magazine on the nearby coffee table lifted and ruffled as she passed enroute to his desk, but the surface of the coffee in the cup she carried was as tranquil as a millpond in winter, even when she deposited it without ceremony on the desk in front of him.
“What are you gaping at, you look like a beached fish with your mouth hanging open like that, boss,” she said.
Anderson’s mouth closed with a “plop” and he reddened noticeably. Recovering, he said simply, “thanks for the cup of Joe, Bobbie, you’re the best. Decaf?” he said, hoping for the real thing.
“Decaf,” she said, a scolding frown on her face. “We’re at war, Mr. Anderson, and we must all put service above self. In your case, I’ve decided that your service is more important to the United States of America than the caffeine that might otherwise kill you. I have your doctors’ orders to back me up. Now, you would not want me, a humble secretary, to be found guilty of single-handedly losing the war on account of dereliction of my clear duty. Would you? Can you just see the history books?”
“No, of course not, but a man can hope once in a while.” He considered, then, with his best imitation of what he thought an eight year old boy would look like in the same situation, he asked, “any chance there’s a donut around, or maybe a chocolate biscotti?” He cringed a little in anticipation of the blast.
It didn’t come. “I knew you’d want one today. There’s a steward bringing down a small selection from the dining room in a few minutes. I’ll send him right in after I search him for contraband coffee, so don’t get any ideas.”
At this he brightened up, and it seemed like the sun shone stronger outside despite the broken cloud cover over Langley. He smiled and picked up the cup, took a sip. “Old son,” he thought, “it’s decaf, but damned if it doesn’t taste as good as the real thing, and real cream and sugar, perfect cup of coffee.” To Bobbie he raised the cup in salute. “Awesome, Bobbie, Thanks.”
“No problem, Boss,” she said, and before he could say anything else he felt the breeze as she moved again, headed out the door. “Don’t get too involved in anything, you have a guy from NRO at ten past eight, and th
e rest of the morning is full.”
“Great,” he yelled out the now empty doorway. He returned to his email and noted the time at the bottom of the screen said 0745.
Not two minutes passed, he was sipping the coffee and plodding through a report of some interesting stuff from Southeast Asia when the phone buzzed. He punched the speaker button, and heard Bobbie’s voice again.
“Boss, it’s your French alter ego calling from Paris. You have thirteen minutes, do you want to take it?”
Anderson considered. On the one hand, it was likely that Henri Broussard, his counterpart at the DGSE in Paris, was pissed as hell and assumed that the little trouble there two nights ago was a CIA operation. That might take quite a lot longer than thirteen minutes to solve, and he did not like to keep people waiting. On the other hand, he’d done a lot of work to cultivate relationships with all his counterparts around the world, and particularly the French guy, with some considerable success. Hard as this might be, being “out” just now would probably cause him bigger headaches later. After all, it was a CIA op that had trashed a Paris hotel suite and left 4 men dead or nearly so, with a trail of other questionable items cutting an even wider swath across town. This was not after all a call he hadn’t expected to come. Looking at his watch and the calendar, he congratulated himself that it had taken this long.
“Boss?” Bobbie yelled through the door.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll take it,” he said, coming out of his reverie.
The phone line flashed, he pushed a button, and picked up the handset. He heard the chirps, beeps, and ping of the encryption devices negotiating, saw the notation on the small screen on the instrument indicate that they were “secure” and the name of the Director of DGSE clearly displayed.
“Randall, are you there? Henri Broussard calling.”
“Good morning, Henri, or good afternoon in your case. How good it is to hear from you. How is the weather in Paris?”
“Not as nice as it has been earlier this week, I might actually say it’s turning dreary, but it’ still warm by April standards. And in Washington?”
“A fine Spring day here, Henri. And how is your lovely wife?” It was always a necessity not to rush with people from the other side of the “great water,” even though it was often tedious. He thought he could sense that on this occasion Henri would have preferred to dispense with the pleasantries, but both men were too old and too experienced at the game they played to break the rules and get right down to business. So the dance continued.
“She is well, Randall, although I feel I should soon own half the boutiques of Paris. This week she is at our country house in Lorraine where I hope she can do less damage. How is your garden?”
“Thriving, Henri, thriving. I’ll have magnificent watermelons to show you the next time you come over.” The decent interval had elapsed, but he decided to wait and let Henri make the first move. An uncomfortable silence settled in for nearly ten seconds before the Frenchman cleared his throat.”
“Well, excellent Randall. Listen, we have had a rather exciting week here in Paris, and I, err, wanted to share some information with you, perhaps see if there is anything you might add to what we know. . ." He paused, and when Anderson said nothing, continued. "Three days ago there was a mugging near the Eiffel Tower, the victim was a Moroccan national who is here on a student visa but who now appears is not enrolled in any school. At first we thought this was a simple crime and the police were handling it in the usual way. Now of course our immigration people are also involved. Anyway, the following night, or more properly in the small hours of the morning of the next day, four Arab men walked into a hotel, where it appears from the ballistics they killed the night clerk, and were then killed themselves in a third-floor suite. They had no identification, but we have identified them all as wanted members of al-Qaeda, albeit small fish. They were all on “the list” we’ve been sharing—I have provided the names to your legal attaché, I’m sure your people will have it soon as well.” At this there was another brief pause. “Now, it appears to us that at least three interesting Americans also entered France in this same time period, but all of them have since vanished. Airport records show names like Smith, Jones, and Allen, which I’m hoping will ring a bell, as you would say, for you.”
Henri stopped here, and Anderson allowed another silence while he thought. It would have been very bad form to have asked directly if the operation had been done by the CIA; using the names was dangerously close to bad manners, but not quite over the line. It was well done, actually. He had not mentioned Cameron, which was good, although Anderson knew he’d traveled under his own name and the wily Frenchman certainly would know this. That meant they clearly suspected Cameron, which could be awkward for the boy someday, but not much to be done about that just now. It might be the subject of a deal later, and he put this away for future use. He decided that Henri sounded more curious than angry, perhaps interested in helping, but one could never be sure. He elected a middle ground.
“Hmm, well Henri, I’m sure there were hundreds of Americans entering Paris this week alone, maybe thousands, and God knows how common those names can be. I must congratulate you on your good fortune with the four Arabs, however. Have you any further leads to pursue? A pity everyone was killed.” Anderson had not said “no” to the veiled question of whether it had been a CIA op, but he had not said “yes” either. He could not of course confirm that it had been the CIA, but Henri would make his own conclusion. One of the things Anderson loved about this game was its complexity, it’s subtlety, but it could be a real bore with someone who didn’t know the rules. Henri knew.
“We have some items of interest we’re looking into in collaboration with the FNP. And we have the mugging victim under surveillance, including his telephone. We have tracked the supplier of the weapons the Arabs brought to the hotel, and we have that source under surveillance. Let me change the subject, Randall, to a delicate question. Are you people, uhh, how shall I say, concerned about anything in particular just now? It might help me to know what to look for if you need any assistance.” Again he stopped abruptly and quiet settled in.
Anderson reacted with an instant double-riposte. “Nothing in particular, Henri, and I appreciate your offer to share the “take” from your two or three remaining sources in this matter.” He paused for effect to let the obvious offer of the “three” settle in. He was referring of course to the Egyptian that Ripley had interrogated and left in the hotel in St Germaine, but who Henri had not mentioned in his litany of the Moroccan and the people from the shot-up hotel. This would either tell Henri that it had indeed been a CIA op, which was OK as long as it was only an assumption, or it would worry Henri a little about the Agency’s ability to know what was happening in Henri’s backyard, which was also rather a nice touch. He could almost hear Henri’s smile across the fiber optic telephone line.
“Well, Randall, I appreciate your making time to talk on the spur of the moment like this. We’ll let you know if we develop anything significant from our three sources, just in case it might be interesting for you. I have a meeting now and I’m sure you are also busy. Good day, my friend.”
“And you, Henri, thank you for calling.” Anderson replaced the phone. The Frenchman had taken the offering of the third source, and he seemed to have picked up the “nothing in particular” in the way it’d been intended. “Nice bit of work, Randy,” he congratulated himself aloud. Bobbie must have seen the lights blink out on her phone, because the dining room steward appeared in the doorway with a tray of donuts and a glass of grapefruit juice. He could just see Bobbie standing behind eyeing both of them to make sure there was no coffee hidden someplace she hadn’t already checked. Behind them both, he could see his eight o’clock appointment fidgeting, anxious for his audience.