positions and then motioned his men to take up posts in various spots. He eased into a chair and studied the man.
“I was expecting more people,” he said.
“I am authorized,” said the man in clear English.
Waller noted the sheen of perspiration on his face, the way his eyes wandered the room. And then the Arab snapped his attention back to Waller and Rice.
“HEU,” said the man.
“Highly enriched uranium,” said Waller.
“How can you get it?”
Waller looked puzzled. “This has already been explained.”
“Explain again.”
“The HEU Purchase Agreement between Russia and the United States signed in 1993,” began Waller in a monotone as though set to lecture a class. “It’s a way for the Russians to dismantle their stockpile of nuclear weapons, reduce the uranium to a form that can be used in nuclear reactors and other nonweapon processes. I can bore you with terms like uranium hexafluoride, depleted uranium tails, blendstock, and the like, but the bottom line is the Russians had five hundred tons of HEU they agreed to sell to the Americans. Thus far the Yanks have received about four hundred tons, averaging thirty tons per year. The entire process is monitored by both sides except for the initial dismantling and separation of the HEU metal weapons component from the rest of the nuclear weapon. The Russians perform this initial step on their own. In so doing, it allows certain people with contacts inside this process to help themselves to a bit of nuclear gold.”
“And you have such contacts?” asked the man.
Again, Waller looked perplexed. “If I didn’t I can’t think of a reason why I would be here negotiating with you.” He held up his cell phone. “One call can verify that I do.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“For the weapons or the quantity of HEU?”
“HEU.”
Waller noted that the man was rubbing his fingers together a bit too fiercely. He caught Waller looking at this movement, and the hand disappeared under the table.
“Five hundred tons of the material can be used to arm roughly thirty thousand nuclear warheads, or about as many as the Soviets possessed at the height of the cold war. My contacts can smuggle me two hundred pounds of HEU. That’s enough for two warheads that could devastate a large city or be used to arm a number of smaller improvised devices that can be deployed against multiple targets.”
“So it is very valuable?”
“Let’s put it this way. Iran is spending billions of dollars as we speak to build the facilities, technology, and processes to ultimately achieve what I’m offering to sell to you tonight. The only thing more valuable on earth might be plutonium, but that is impossible to get.”
The Muslim sat forward abruptly. “So the price?”
Waller looked at Rice once more and then back at the man. “And you say you’re authorized to make an agreement?”
“To paraphrase you, I wouldn’t be here if I was not.”
“And your name?”
“Unimportant. The price?”
“Two hundred million British pounds wired to my account.”
Waller was about to say something else when the man said, “Agreed.”
Waller glanced down at the Muslim’s midsection and then sniffed the air. He dropped his cell phone and bent down to pick it up. The next moment Rice fell backward as Waller lifted up the table and pushed it on top of the Muslim. He grabbed Rice’s arm and screamed to his men, “Run!”
The next instant Rice felt himself being flung through a window. A jagged edge caught him on the leg, tore his pants, and then bit into his thigh. Something landed on top of him, driving the wind from him. Then he was jerked up and pulled along, his breath coming in gasps, his injured leg bleeding badly.
The concussive force of the house exploding hurled him ass over head. Debris poured down, even as he felt Waller covering him with his own body, the older man breathing in strained bursts. Once the boards, bricks, shattered glass, and the odd piece of furniture stopped falling, Waller and Rice slowly sat up.
“What the hell,” began Rice as he clutched his injured leg.
Waller rose and dusted off his clothes. “The idiot was a suicide bomber.”
“How did you know?”
“The thobe is designed to be loose-fitting; his clothes were too tight because dynamite sticks are bulky. His eyes were unfocused and he was looking at us but not looking at us. He was hiding something, and it’s human nature to feel that if you don’t look at someone, they can’t see you. You’ll also note that same instinct in dogs.”
“Unfocused eyes?”
“He was probably drugged to get through his mission, because really who wants to blow themselves up, even for virgins in paradise? And then there was the smell.”
“Smell?”
“Dynamite is contained in water-soaked wooden sticks. It has a distinctive odor. And I also got a whiff of metal. Probably shrapnel balls contained in the canvas pack he had wrapped around his belly. That provides for maximum carnage at the point of origin. I dropped my phone so I could look under the table. There was a bag next to him. It held the battery with wires connected to the explosive that would detonate the bomb pack sewn around his body. Sewn so he couldn’t easily remove it. That’s why he put his hand under the table, to hold the detonator. And the man didn’t rise to greet us. Very unlike a Muslim. But dynamite packs are heavy, and he was probably afraid we might glimpse something suspicious if he exposed himself in that way.” Waller shrugged resignedly. “I should have seen it far earlier. Now let’s take a look at your leg.”
He squatted down and tore open Rice’s pants leg and examined the wound more closely. “Sorry I had to push you through the window.”
“My God, Evan, you saved my life.”
“It’s bleeding, but it’s not deep enough to have hit an artery.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen such wounds before. If it were an arterial wound you wouldn’t be conscious because you would have nearly bled out by now.” He used strips from Rice’s pants to fashion a rough bandage. “We’ll get you medical attention as soon as possible.”
He looked over at the house and saw one of his men staggering toward him. He hurried over to the fellow, took him by the arm.
“Pascal, are you hurt?”
“No, just got my bell rung.”
Pascal was Greek and his skin was dark, his hair darker still and curly. He was five-nine and wiry with a motor that never quit. He could run all day, shoot straight, possessed nerves of iron, never moved fast when caution was called for, and no one moved faster if the situation demanded ultimate speed. He was the smallest of Waller’s men and also the toughest. Since Pascal had come to stay with him when he was only ten years old, Waller had groomed him to rise to the top of his security chain. He did not possess the mind to run the actual business, not like he or Alan Rice. But still the man was an invaluable piece of Waller’s security team. “What about the others?”
“Tanner and Dimitri are dead. Dimitri’s head got blown off. It landed in a damn flowerpot. The rest of the guys are okay, just bumps and bruises. Explosion knocked out one of the trucks, though.”
Waller eyed the smoky mass near the front door. The Escalade had taken the brunt of the blast, fortunately shielding the other vehicles from damage. Screams came from their left and Waller and Pascal started running in that direction. From out of the darkness three people emerged; two struggling with one.
Before Waller and Pascal could reach them the two finally won. The captive was the man in the fine suit who’d led them into the house.
“Son of a bitch was trying to get away, Mr. Waller,” said one of the men holding the captive’s arms behind his back.
Waller reached out and gripped the turbaned man’s throat.
“You want me to shoot him, Mr. Waller?” asked Pascal.
“No, no, Pascal. I need to talk to him first.”
Waller looked
into the man’s eyes. “You are a little fish. The man who blew himself up? He too was a little fish that you throw back because it is not worth your time. But you are worth my time. I need to know who authorized this. You understand me?”
The man shook his head and started speaking rapidly in his native language.
Waller answered him, in his native tongue. He looked delighted at the shock in the fellow’s eyes before ordering his men to collect Tanner’s and Dimitri’s remains.
“One more thing,” said Waller. He reached into the captive’s pocket and pulled out the customized nine-millimeter pistol that had been confiscated earlier. “I’m quite fond of this gun. So fond, in fact, that I will use it to kill you after you’ve told me what I need to know.”
Riding back to the plane, Waller sat next to Rice. “A doctor will meet us at the airfield and fix your leg,” he said.
“Why would they invite us down here and then try to blow us up?”
“I don’t know why yet. But I will find out and then hit them back far harder than they just hit me.”
Rice shook his head and gave a hollow laugh. Waller shot him a glance.
“What?”
“I was just thinking that after all this you’re going to really need that holiday in Provence.”
CHAPTER
23
SHAW STRETCHED HIMSELF out along the top of the flat rock set at the far end of Gordes and checked his watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. Tourist buses came all during the day, disgorging their passengers, who would stand where Shaw was now, prone, and snap their digital pictures of the breathtaking views. Shaw was also here because of the views, only his were of the twin villas, Waller’s and Janie Collins’s. His electronic night glass turned solid masses, such as people, cars, and potted plants, into firm heightened outlines with many discernible features, while casting the background into a liquid green. There was one light on in the woman’s place, while Waller’s was dark. Not surprising since the man was not there yet.
He had not seen Janie Collins for a couple of days, but his interest in her had only increased. Shaw moved his torso a bit to provide relief against the sharp rock digging into his shoulder. The movement from below brought him back to alert. He focused his glass and watched as she emerged from light into darkness that his optics ate through with enviable clarity. Janie was barefoot and wearing a robe. As she slipped it off he saw she was wearing a one-piece bathing suit underneath. She slipped on swim goggles, tied her hair back, and dove in, breaking the surface of the water cleanly.
She cut through the water with sharp strokes. She reached one side, did a flip turn, and proceeded back the other way. After five laps, Shaw knew she was counting her strokes. There was little ambient light, no moon, and the light from the house lost all potency before it reached the poolside, so there was no way she could see the walls to know when to turn. Thirty laps later she’d not diminished her speed. Shaw had to keep rubbing his eyes because her methodical movements were hypnotic, like watching a metronome whisk back and forth.
The light coming on caused Shaw to leave the woman and focus on the villa next door. As the man came into view Shaw saw that it wasn’t Waller. He couldn’t see his features that clearly, but the man was bigger and far bulkier than the Canadian. Shaw assumed that he was part of an advance security team. As Shaw had predicted to Frank previously, Waller’s men would search the place and then lock it down, probably posting sentry perimeters until the boss arrived. It was the same protocol the United States Secret Service used.
Shaw watched as the burly man dressed all in black expertly searched the outdoor space, his pistol out and ready as it pointed into darkened corners. Shaw saw the man flinch and then look over his shoulder. In a few seconds he’d passed by the pool in Waller’s rear grounds, gained hand- and footholds on the dividing wall between the properties, and scrambled upward to peer over it.
Shaw’s glass shot back to Janie. Finished with her swim, she was walking up the steps of the pool. As he continued to stare, she stripped off her wet bathing suit and let it fall to the pool deck. She picked up the towel and dried off before wrapping it around her. Shaw swiveled his gaze to the man at the wall. Even with his electronics he couldn’t see the man’s features clearly enough, but he assumed the guy was pleased with this show of female nudity. He was certain the man would report back to Waller with this juicy bit of intelligence. “Janie” might have inadvertently made a very serious blunder.
An hour later the Waller villa went dark and Shaw let his night glass swivel back to Janie’s house. He stiffened a bit. In the darkest corner, by an alcove, he thought he saw movement. Was it Janie? Or had one of Waller’s men gotten into the rear grounds from the other direction while Shaw was focused on the villa next door?
Shaw’s mind raced ahead. Had the woman locked the rear sliding glass door? Shaw decided that she probably hadn’t. She was too trusting, too ready to give out personal information. For the time being he forgot about any vague suspicions he might have had of her. She was probably a young, naïve heiress vacationing next door to a psychopath who sold young women into sexual slavery.
Shaw jumped to his feet and ran. He had a Vespa he’d been getting around on, but the little engine’s whine would be problematic at this hour of the night. He pounded down the empty cobblestone streets of Gordes, past the town square, down a shortcut by the church, around an alley, and down another set of aged steps that cut still more time off the trip. Passing an amphitheater that hosted concerts during the warmer months, he skipped down the final set of stone risers that would deliver him to within ten meters of the two villas. He peered around a corner of stone jutting out from the otherwise sheer face of the cliff. Janie’s villa was on the right, Waller’s on the left.
There was a silver Citroën van in the small park-off directly in front of Waller’s villa. By Janie’s entrance was her small two-door crimson Renault with its rear hatch a bare foot from the front door. Shaw could see that the Renault was empty but the Citroën wasn’t. Two men sat in the front, one of them probably the guy he’d seen doing the earlier recon, but he couldn’t be sure about that. He calculated that their line of sight had one blind spot. Proceeding along this path slowly, he tested the validity of this assumption. The two sentries remained right where they were. Shaw turned a corner and was now at a point where he could gain access to Janie’s rear grounds.
The wall was six feet high, but unlike the common wall between the two villas, on top it had long stones mortared in vertically that added another eighteen inches to the height. That was probably because this wall was next to a public walking path. That would make peering over the wall impossible and climbing over it painful. Shaw found this to be true on his first attempt to mount the barrier. He let go, dropped to the street, slipped off his jacket, covered his scraped hands with it, and tried again. He was up and over the wall in a matter of seconds, dropping noiselessly to the other side in the soft grass. He crouched, getting his bearings. He was in the side yard whose border was planted with climbing roses and luscious bougainvillea. The pool area was up a short flight of flagstone steps to his left. He put his windbreaker back on, his small night scope in one of the pockets.
He tried not to think about what Frank would say if he could see him right now. He was jeopardizing the entire mission by being here. He knew that. Yet he also knew that he wasn’t going to let one of Waller’s hired thugs have a free go at the young woman either. He crossed the short patch of grass and scrambled up the stack of steps.
Shaw felt the muzzle of the gun against his head a millisecond before he heard the click of the hammer being pulled back.
CHAPTER
24
THAT WAS the first mistake. The person was too close, mere inches away, which allowed no adequate buffer to ward off a sudden counterattack. The second mistake was not pulling the trigger and killing him. Shaw’s thumb jammed behind the trigger, making discharge impossible. His other four fingers closed on the muzzle, jer
king it downward so it pointed at the ground. The final mistake was not letting go of the pistol. He pulled hard, bent his body forward, and the figure sailed over him, landing hard in the grass. He ripped the gun free, straddled the body, and pointed the weapon at the person’s head.
“Janie?”
She was lying under him, her cotton robe askew and her hair in her face. She was breathing hard, probably from the impact with the ground. She had on a pair of tennis shoes, a robe, and not much else that he could see.
Her knee slamming into his left kidney sent a jarring pain up his back. He fell sideways and lay hunched over in the grass next to her. The two rose slowly, nursing their bumps and bruises. Shaw kept the gun in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, her gaze flitting from the gun to his face.
“I saw lights on in the villa next door. Then I thought I saw a guy coming over the wall into your grounds.”
She looked around. “From where did you see all this?”
Shaw pointed at the cliffs. “I was taking a stroll. From up there it’s a clear line to your villa.”
“How did you know where I was staying?” she said sharply.
He looked sheepish. “Okay, I confess, I followed you home the night we had dinner, but just to make sure you got here okay. You know, rich woman traveling alone? I was worried about you.” He held up the gun. “I’m a little surprised you have one of these.”
“Like you said, I’m rich and traveling alone. And I have a permit for it.”
“Really?” He handed it back to her. “I thought France was pretty strict about guns.”