The Phoenix Affair - Dave Moyer (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

to loosen his joints, stretch, look nonchalant, and watch his fellow students arrive.

There were four already in the room, all apparently regulars, talking quietly in French in the back corner where the two windowed walls met. Two of these wore indigo blue hakama like his own, wide traditional pleated Japanese pants that looked very like a skirt over their white cotton judo uniforms, black belts visible underneath the straps that cinched the skirt about their hips. The others were in plain white from ankles to necks, no colored belts, a very typical Iwama-style school: black or white, nothing in between but skill and long, deliberate practice. A minute later another student arrived, this time a woman, also wearing hakama, about five feet three, perhaps a hundred and ten pounds, dark hair, blue eyes, a kind, pretty face and a ready smile, probably mid-thirties. She looked straight at him with a smile and a small bow, which he returned, having risen quickly to his knees with his feet tucked beneath him, under his hips. She said something in French that he did not recognize, and he replied in English, “I regret I do not speak French, do you speak English, I’m Paul Cameron?”

She extended a hand, and said in accented English, “Hello, welcome, I am Elise Bourget. You are American?”

“Yes, yes I am, I am in Paris on business this week, and very happy to have found your dojo. Will you point out sensei for me, I would like to meet him before class and introduce myself,” he said.

“Oh, he is not here yet,” she replied, “he usually comes in at the stroke of the class start time, and we begin. You will probably have to wait until after class, but he will not mind. We are always pleased to have guests to train with. Now I had better stretch a little. Welcome, again, Mr. Cameron.” And she moved off several yards to an empty place on the mat.

There was no sign of anyone he would have thought to be Ripley, but he’d not expected to see him yet anyway, no reason for him to show up until later, near the end of the class. A soft ruffle brought his attention around to his left and he saw the teacher enter, drop to his knees, bow in the general direction of the shrine at the front of the room. He rose, clapped his hands loudly, and all the students made to line up near the rear of the room, facing front, all on their knees, in order of rank as was customary. He took notice that the woman Elise appeared to outrank one of the two men in hakama. He took his place next to the lower of the two, the white belts lining up to his left as two more came hustling in and joined at the end. Eight students in all, pretty typical for a weeknight class anywhere in America.

Sensei led the ceremonial bows and claps to begin class, and they spread out to warm up. Cameron watched the teacher carefully, mirroring his movements as they went through the unfamiliar warm-up routine. It was funny, he reflected, that everywhere he’d ever trained the techniques themselves were so very similarly practiced, and yet the warm-up routines seemed to come from different planets, some teachers placing great emphasis on limbering up the wrists and elbows, some focusing on stretching the legs and ignoring the arms altogether. He found he was also distracted, looking for Ripley, but he focused on breathing deeply with a long, loud rasping exhalation, “ki-breathing,” and he returned to the duty of the class.

Twenty minutes later, he sailed through the air for the tenth time to land in another soft roll on the mat and spring to his feet, facing toward the teacher who’d thrown him. “Hai, dozo” sensei said with a shallow bow toward him, “Please begin,” and the students paired off to practice the technique the teacher’d been demonstrating on each of them.

This time Cameron was paired with the senior student, a man about his height and weight but perhaps mid-thirties who moved with very obvious power and concentration, guaranteed to be a good partner. Cameron, the junior, was first to be thrown, and in a moment he was airborne yet again, reflecting as he flew that the man certainly had powerful aikido, fast, smooth, irresistible. Four times he flew, and then it was his turn to throw, he concentrated, breathed deeply, and did it perfectly, the overall feeling light and yet he tossed the man bodily across the room.

It went on like this for another hour, the partners alternating, he threw and was thrown by Elise on three occasions, by sensei once more, and by the senior student twice more, the techniques varying across the aikido repertoire in a way that reflected the teacher’s theme or emphasis for the night, without ever a word about how they were connected or what this emphasis was supposed to be. It was very Japanese, right there in Paris, but they were all used to it. By the time it was over and they had bowed and clapped again he was damp with perspiration but feeling exquisitely alive, focused, alert. It was always the same, he reflected, perhaps also very Japanese.

Cameron made his introductions to the teacher, and thanked him for allowing him to practice as a guest for the afternoon. He took a quick look around, glad to see that the other students were folding their hakama on the mats. He removed his hakama and laid it flat to begin the ritual of folding it, and the senior student approached, his own already done.

“I think we may have trained together before,” the man said in English, sounding American but with a hint of what must be a French accent. He stood now only a couple of paces away. “I’m not certain, but I believe it was at a weekend seminar in Indiana, perhaps three or four years ago, and the teacher was Matsuoka Sensei. Were you there?”

Cameron was amazed. “Yes, I was there, closer to four years ago, August I think it was.” He looked closer at the man, stood up, trying to find a memory, match the face, but he could not. He remembered a woman he’d trained with at the time, very light, very graceful, the best woman he’d worked with until tonight. He did not remember this guy, at least not specifically. “Are you American?”

“Yes, I am, but I spend most of my time here in Paris, have been here for nearly ten years now, it’s my home. What did you think of Sensei?”

“Excellent,” Cameron replied. “But . . .”

The man smiled and waved as he turned to go. “I’ll be back in a minute, I’m just going in to change, wait here.”

He was back in five minutes, wearing street clothes, his aikido equipment in a black duffle bag. Cameron had retrieved his own from the back corner of the dojo. He’d come in his judo pants, planned to wear them back to the hotel or wherever his rendezvous with Ripley might take him, but his jacket, hakama and black belt were now inside the bag and he wore a dark grey polarfleece over a dry tee shirt. He was drying his hair with a towel.

“That was an excellent seminar in Indiana,” the man said, “Matsuoka is amazing, a student of Segal Sensei’s you know? I remember you were quite good at the time, I thought, although I believe you were not yet shodan then, still wearing a white belt.”

“Yes, yes I was,” Cameron said, feeling uncomfortable, not remembering as well as this guy.

“Are you busy now?” the man said quickly. “Perhaps we could have a drink, perhaps some dinner?”

Alarm bells went off in Cameron’s head, and he shifted his weight automatically, balancing evenly on both feet, the bag hung light in his hand, his knees flexed slightly as he lowered his center of gravity. “Who the heck is this guy” he wondered to himself, and he saw the man’s hand reaching for the pocket of his duffle.

The smile broadened on the man’s face, and he said “Very good, Mr. Cameron, very good. But don’t be alarmed.” He produced a cap from the bag, and placed it on his head. “Boston Red Sox, Mr. Cameron. In Indiana my name was “Smith” if that helps you remember, although we only just barely introduced ourselves. Here, I’m Patrick Ripley. Now, let’s go find some dinner, we have a lot to talk about.”

*****

Dusk fell very quickly, gloom descending onto the Hotel du Vieux Saule so that the unlit marquis could not be read from beyond twenty meters’ distance. The streetlamps as usual lent their charming ambiance to Paris-after-dark, but they were useless for anything else. Illumination on the sidewalk outside the hotel was confined to the pool of light spilling through the glass door of the lobby.

A dark, slender figure moved quickly into this pool, opened the door, and disappeared into the hotel, the early night returning to undisturbed quiet except for the motor traffic flowing by in either direction. Shops were closed, and there were few pedestrians about. But after perhaps five minutes, another dark figure moved into the light, this one big, heavy. Nobody was watching, but if they had been, they would have seen the big man look deliberately through the door and into the hotel lobby, pausing very slightly for a good look, before he resumed his brisk walk and passed on into the deepening Paris night.

*****

“Spaniards? What are Spaniards? What are they doing in Paris, and why are they attacking . . .I mean, why would they attempt to break our business deal there? I do not understand, and I am very concerned!”

Jones looked from this transcript to another on his desk, making notes and thinking about the possibilities. This call had been recorded by Paris station only two hours ago, the Paris cellular number the results of Ripley’s activities yesterday. Now, thanks to that call, he also had not one but two cell numbers in Saudi Arabia. A search of NSA’s global listening program led to an earlier call, recorded as a matter of routine and not likely ever to be used for anything before today. Both Saudi cellular lines were now on the full-time watch list at NSA, the translated “product” to be flashed to his desk with the highest priority.

There was no doubt, from what he knew of Phoenix’s capers, that the two Arabic speakers were talking about the mugging he’d engineered in a dark alley north of the Eiffel Tower. Likewise, he had no doubt that if they could, these people intended to eliminate Falcon and his family once they were located. He was less certain, but strongly suspicious, that the Saudi Arabian end had a plan for violent mischief in Dhahran tomorrow night. He looked at the time and did the math: “Well, really only about sixteen hours from now before it’s dark tomorrow, Saudi time,” he said to his empty office. “Add a few hours, figure they want to make the hit around two in the morning the day after, and that makes about twenty hours from now, perhaps a little more.”

A moment more for thought, and he addressed a secure email to Ripley in Paris, with a copy to the embassy communications center so he would get it immediately regardless of where he was.

Ripley,

Two urgent warnings for you, Phoenix, and Falcon:

Cellular intercepts indicate strong likelihood that the Paris cell you have engaged is intent on liquidating Falcon’s contingent as soon as possible. Exercise extreme caution.

New cellular intercept making connection to Saudi cell, same organization probably. I strongly suspect that the Saudi cell intends action against a Falcon-related target in Dhahran area over the night hours tomorrow, Saudi time.

We are standing by to support any operational needs you may identify. Paris station has full text of all intercepts, and I will forward future material as it develops.

Let