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

thinking, but the steward at the front of the cabin had gone to sleep during the descent from ten thousand feet, and his new accomplice, David Allen, seemed as though he could sleep forever. The man had barely been awake at all during the seven hour flight from Andrews. As he looked, though, Jones saw that the eyes were open, and there was a gleam there under the heavy lids. Allen turned his head slowly in Jones’ direction, winked, and closed his eyes again. “Never know when you’ll next have time to sleep,” he said absently.

They rolled to a stop outside a large hangar on the general aviation side of the airport, and the stairs were let down while the turbines were still turning. First the crew, then the two passengers descended to the tarmac, where two French officials greeted them, accompanied by two baggage handlers. The pilots handled the French.

The bags went into the back of a seven-passenger van, Jones and Allen in the middle seats, and the two Frenchmen in the front. The Gulfstream pilots waived sarcastically as the van moved off, and Jones regarded the airplane: plain white all over, except for two blue and one silver stripe down the fuselage just under the row of windows, a U.S. “N-number” registration on the tail. Nothing to mark it as U.S. government, just another set of wealthy American businessmen come to work their magic in France.

The van made its way around the perimeter of the sprawling airport on a road that ran just inside the outer security fence. Twenty meters inside that one was another fence, clearly electrified in the truly bright glare cast by huge spotlights on poles ten meters high every hundred meters or so along the road. The French were taking no chances with security at this airport. The trip took ten minutes, the drivers apparently not intent on hurry, but in the end they arrived at an unused jet way at the north end of the new terminal building. Jones and Allen clambered out of the vehicle, were handed their bags, and shown up the steps through the jet way and into the terminal itself. From here they would join the regular airline arrivals to clear immigration and customs, and they began the long walk down the polished floor, following the signs.

Jones had been here before, of course, and so had Allen. The latter was now completely alert, walking with an easy, fluid pace, his eyes moving all the time as he scanned the sparse late-night crowd. He was not obvious, but to Jones he had the look and moves of a thorough professional. To anyone else he probably looked tired. To Jones he looked like he might be a very dangerous man. “Good company on this trip,” he thought.

They saw LaPlante at about the same time. He was reading a paper, sitting in a gate waiting area with his case and coat sprawled over two chairs. Allen began talking in French about their meeting tomorrow with executives of a French software company, and Jones fell into that language with no effort at all, pointing out himself that it would be an early morning, but that he was hungry for some dinner. The two men exchanged a look that told each what each already knew. They continued the flow of talk but walked on.

Renee thought the two men looked interesting. He’d not seen what plane they got off of, but he could check that. He knew that the corporate jets often had to have their passengers let in this way to clear the authorities. He envied the rich. But the man on the right, in particular, had a walk that he knew well enough, and he did not think it was the walk of a man who was planning a meeting with software executives tomorrow. He looked at his watch—just after eleven-fifteen. His shift was over, and there were no more arrivals or departures tonight to worry about. While the two men he would follow moved further down the terminal, he collected his things, and when they were a hundred meters away he got up to begin the chase.

At the end of the terminal the two Americans turned the corner into the immigration area, and cued in the line for “other arrivals” while most of the other passengers, few though they were, moved through the EU lines as quickly as they could and into the baggage area. They spoke little or not at all, each looking through the meager crowd for signs of another watcher. One or two people were already using cell phones, despite the signs that prohibited this, and Jones was thinking of using his to see what had been happening during their flight when LaPlante rounded the corner twenty yards away. “No need to give him an excuse,” he thought, giving Allen a look, and he moved to his turn at the immigration counter with the false passport in the name of William Murphy ready in hand.

Allen did not turn, but waited patiently, still watching the last of the crowd. He fumbled for a moment in his briefcase and produced a ticket folder, scanned it, checked his watch, made a show of looking around for a clock on the wall. This he found, and after stowing the ticket folder, having noted LaPlante, he re-set his watch to local time. It was his turn for the immigration clerk, and he approached the counter.

“What is the purpose of your visit to Paris?” the man said rudely, holding out his hand for the passport Allen handed across.

“Business,” Allen said, disinterested but polite.

“And what is your business, monsieur, and how long will you be staying in France?” pressed the clerk.

“I am in the computer business,” Allen replied, “we customize enterprise software for mid-sized companies. My firm has several clients in Paris and I’m here for a routine check on the progress of our projects. I’m usually here for a week, occasionally ten days, but it will depend on whether there are any problems to be solved.”

The clerk tried to look unimpressed. He wondered how he could go to school, get into this computer business, travel, be important, make money. These Americans. Well, the papers were in order, there was no reason to delay any further, and he was finished for the night in three quarters of an hour anyway. He stamped the passport and closed it, adding the required “welcome to Paris, monsieur” as he handed it across the counter to Allen who took it, saying nothing, and walked on into baggage claim.

He found Jones with the cell phone to his ear, listening intently, eyes looking dangerous. They walked to the customs pass at the end of the baggage hall, through the lane marked “nothing to declare” and out into the transportation mall. There were few people.

The two men made a show of shaking hands, talking low and smiling at one another. “Meet you at the hotel Agora in St. Germaine,” Jones said. You take the train, St. Michel stop, keep the tail if he follows you. I’ll go by taxi, and call you with instructions once he’s chosen. Have to think about this, and I need to make a call to Ripley, the local guy, to make a plan.”

“No problem,” Allen smiled again, gave the proffered hand a brisk shake, turned on his heel, and headed for the ticket booth to buy a transport pass.

Jones went left, straight for the doors to the outside, and found the taxi cue empty but two taxis waiting for a fare. He hailed one, heaved his bag into the back seat, and as he contorted his body into the car he looked hard at the bank of doors where LaPlante would have to exit if he was going to follow, but the man was not there. “Good,” he thought. He was not yet certain what he wanted to do, but for now, he wanted this guy, who he assumed was a Paris policeman, to stay relatively close. Might be useful, depending on what Ripley had in play.

He’d called the comm. Center, who’d told him that Ripley had taken down one of the terrorists, and where, and that he and Cameron had taken the suspect to a hotel in St. Germaine. Jones thought that was a strange choice, but he was getting used to Cameron’s unpredictability and imagination, so he was not that surprised. He did not yet know whether they’d done anything else about the possible attack on Falcon for tonight, and that was what he must know soon if he was going to get into the act.

The taxi was rolling, he’d given an address he knew in North Paris, near Sacre Coeur, where he planned to switch to the subway himself and proceed from there to the Agora. He settled into the seat and opened his phone again, entered the number he needed, and waited.

“Nam?” answered the voice after only one ring.

“Hello, my name is Smith, calling from Phoenix, USA,” Jones said, a little surprised by the greeting. This was supposed to be the cell number Cameron had picked up . . .when was it? This morning? “Jet lag sucks” he thought.

“Phoenix,” said the voice on the other line. “Well, I’m not sure you have the right number.” There was a pause, then “What was the name of Lawrence’s book about his time with the Arab resistance?”

Jones was briefly startled, then said, a broad grin on his face, “Hello Mr. Cameron. Seven Pillars of Freedom was the title. Are you secure there, and is Ripley with you?”

“Good evening Mr. Smith,” Cameron replied, clearly pleased on the other end of the phone. ”Yes, we’re at the Hotel Agora, in St. Germaine, Ripley is with me, and, ahh, our guest is here as well.”

“Wonderful. I think I should speak to Ripley, then, if he can spare a few minutes. I need to get up to speed and I suspect we have a time press on our hands.”

“We do, and he’s just finishing up with our friend. I need to get moving, too, here’s Ripley.”

Cameron handed the phone over as Ripley came out of the second bedroom of the suite where he’d been working on the Egyptian they now knew was called Salah. It’d taken quite a cocktail of drugs to partially revive the big man from the near-coma Ripley’d put him into with the hefty dose of valium, but in the end he’d come to in just the right state for an informative conversation. Still bound hand and foot but in no pain at all laying there on one of the beds, Salah had confirmed what Ripley was already pretty sure he knew. Salah was a foot soldier, not as nasty as he looked, not a kingpin by any means, a small fish. He did know the cell number for the bigger fish up north, his near-dead phone confirmed he’d dialed the number every two hours all day today. He called the big man Ibrahim, sheik, and a few other respectful things, he had an address, which Ripley already knew, but he also named two restaurants in the same neighborhood. Beyond that he was pretty useless.

“Smith” Cameron said as he handed over the phone.

“Mr. Smith, how good to hear from you. You’ve come to Paris, I believe?”

“Uh huh,” Jones’ voice came back. “I have, and I have one associate with me, who I believe has attracted a guest of his own. He’s headed your way, guest in tow. I thought the man might be useful, but I need to know your situation.”

Ripley frowned briefly, then gave a quick summary of their actions since eight o’clock tonight. “We think the last call our friend here made set the time for a hit on the hotel. He doesn’t speak much English, sad to say, but the Colonel has some Arabic and we’re pretty sure that’ll happen around two in the morning, a little more than two hours from now, give or