All in all, this was a fitting location for the Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE)—the military arm of NATO, and the main office of the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, the SACEUR himself, General Carlos Henze, U.S.A. Located a few kilometers outside the historic town, the entrance to the parklike campus was a simple kiosk standing before an array of flagpoles flying the banners of all the NATO member nations, plus the United Nations. In the background was a flat-roofed, two-story pale brown building, and behind that rose more unprepossessing buildings.
When Smith presented his credentials at the kiosk, he stated his business as reporting to the chief medical officer. Because of the heightened security of the twenty-first century, one of the military policemen on duty called the chief medical officer’s office to confirm the appointment, while another scrutinized Jon, his army uniform, and especially his photo ID and army medical credentials.
When the guards were satisfied, Smith drove onto the right arm of the V-shaped road, parked in the designated lot, and walked to the main entrance, where a steel-beamed marquee like those on a no-frills hotel announced proudly: supreme headquarters allied powers europe. Above that was SHAPE’s green-and-gold official shield. Inside, the receptionist directed him to the second floor, where Master Sergeant Matthias met him with a sharp salute. Dressed in full uniform, with rows of stripes and battle ribbons, Matthias escorted him through endless corridors to General Carlos Henze’s office.
The wiry general was as blunt as ever: “Is all this damned cloak-and-dagger necessary, Colonel?”
Smith saluted and said, “Don’t look at me, sir. It’s not my idea.”
Henze glared, returned the salute, and grumbled, “Civilians.” He waved Smith to a leather chair that faced his desk. “The president’s people filled me in. Here’s the data they sent over.” He pushed file folders toward him, holding back one file. “My staff couldn’t locate damn-all about any Crescent Shield. Even the CIA knew zip. Looks like you’ve found a brand-new gang of Arab thugs, Colonel. I had my doubts, but maybe you know what you’re doing. Now what?”
“Not Arabs alone, sir. Militants from all parts of the Muslim world: Arabs from many countries, Afghans, a Fulani from northern Nigeria…who knows who else. Their leader appears to have been originally from Mauritania. Islam is a world of many nations and ethnic groups, and I’m not even certain they’re all Muslims.”
As the rail-thin general listened, the four stars on his uniform seemed to glint belligerently as if to defy the terrorists, the bleak day outside his rain-swept windows, and the fruit salad climbing from his pocket nearly to his shoulder. His gaze was intense, as if he were seeing every country, every ethnic group, analyzing every implication. This was no longer a potential threat. It was real. So real and worrisome that Henze rotated his chair around to face his window in his usual back-turned act.
“Indonesia? Malaysia?” the general’s voice rumbled. “Turkey?”
“Not so far. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there were recruits from all of them, and we have indications some of the Central Asian tribes and countries could be involved as well.”
Henze whipped his chair back around to stare at Smith. “Indications?”
“An MI6 man I know identified an unusual auditory night signal as being from Central Asia, similar to the night signals of our woodland Indians.”
“The old Soviet Republics? Tajiks? Uzbeks? Kirghiz and Kazak?”
Jon nodded, and Henze stroked his nose, deep in thought. He picked up a thinner file from his desk and tossed it across the desk. “The president wanted you to have this, too. It’s the complete official NATO dossier on Captain Darius Bonnard, plus what the Oval Office dug up from the French. You’re suspicious of General La Porte’s top aide? A trusted man who works right here? Practically in my lap?”
“I’m suspicious of everyone, General.”
“Even me?”
Remembering his earlier suspicions about the “orderly’s” visit to Henze’s pension in Paris, Jon’s smile was thin. “Not so far.”
“But I’m not above suspicion?”
Jon hesitated, then decided to be as blunt as the general. “No, sir.”
“God in heaven,” Henze breathed. He leaned back and studied Jon, his fierce focus reminding Jon of a laser beam. “Yesterday when you and I talked, we knew zip. Now we know the doohickey is for real, the big Kahuna who created it is alive and kicking, and the gang that has them and the daughter is both multinational and multiethnic. So answer what I asked earlier: Now what?”
“Now we find them.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t know yet?” Henze stared at Smith. “When the hell will you know?”
“When I do.”
Henze’s mouth opened, his bony face turned almost purple. “Is that supposed to satisfy me?”
“It’s that kind of war, General. I wish I could give you more, a lot more. I have ideas, leads, hunches, but nothing I can honestly say will do the job, much less how and when.”
The general continued to stare at Smith, but his high color receded. “I don’t like this kind of war. I don’t like it one damn-all.”
“Neither do I. But it’s the way it is right now.”
Henze nodded to himself, his focus turned inward. He was the supreme commander of NATO in Europe, with all of the highly mechanized, cyber-smart armies of the member nations at his disposal. Yet he was feeling powerless in the face of this new enemy—little known, without territory or tribe, with hardly a way of life to protect. Only an apocalyptic vision and impossible-to-satisfy grievances.
He rubbed his eyes, looking tired. “I went through one kind of ‘new’ war, Colonel Smith, and it damn near destroyed me. After Vietnam, I’m not sure I can handle another ‘new’ one. Maybe it’s just as well. Time for a new kind of commander.”
“We’ll get it done,” Jon said.
Henze nodded. “We have to win.” Looking drained, he indicated Jon should pick up the file folders.
Jon took them, saluted, and left. In the corridor, he paused and decided to take the files to Brussels, where he was to meet Randi. He could study them there. As he walked off, he heard his name called. He turned to see General the Count Roland la Porte striding toward him with a broad smile.
“Bonjour, General La Porte.”
Doors seemed to rattle on their hinges as the massive general cruised past. “Ah, Colonel Smith. The man who’s given us all the great shock. We must speak at once. Come, my office is near. We will have coffee, non?”
Jon agreed they would have coffee, and he followed La Porte into his office. The general sat in a large red leather armchair in the style of a British club chair. It looked as if it were the only piece of furniture besides the desk chair that would not crumble under his oversized body. He assigned Jon another delicate occasional chair from the Louis Quinze period. Soon a nervous young French lieutenant served coffee.
“So, our Émile is alive after all, which is magnifique, but the kidnappers have him, which is not so magnifique. You could not be mistaken, Colonel?”
“Afraid not.”
La Porte nodded, scowling. “Then we’ve been duped. The remains found in the bombed Pasteur building were not there by accident, nor the fingerprints and DNA profile in his Sûreté file, and the Basques were only a front, a charade to hide the real terrorists. Is that so?”
“Yes,” Jon acknowledged. “The actual perpetrators call themselves the Crescent Shield. A multiethnic, multinational Muslim extremist group led by a man who calls himself M. Mauritania.”
The general gulped angrily at his coffee. “The information I was given, and then gave to you, appears to have misled you on many counts. I apologize for this.”
“Actually, it was following the trail of the Basques that revealed most of what we know now, so in the end you turned out to be of great help, General.”
“Merci. I take comfort in that outcome.”
Jon put down his cup. “May I ask where your aide, Captain Bonnard, is?”
“Darius? I sent him on a mission to the South of France.”
Not far from Spain. “Where exactly, General?”
La Porte stared at Jon, frowned. “Our naval base at Toulon and then on to Menorca for an errand. Why? What are these questions about Darius?”
“How well do you know Captain Bonnard?”
“Well?” La Porte was astonished. “You suspect Darius of…? No, no, that’s impossible. I can’t think such a treason.”
“He gave you the information you gave me.”
“Impossible.” The general glared in anger. “How well do I know Darius? As a father knows his son. He’s been with me six years. He has a spotless record with many decorations and commendations for courage and daring from before the first time we were together—when he was a platoon commander for me in the Fourth Dragoons in the Iraq War. Earlier, he was a poilu in the Second Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment operating in North Africa at the request of nations that were our former colonies and still called on us from time to time for aid. He was commissioned from the ranks. How can you suspect such an honored man?”
“An enlisted man in the Legion? He’s not French?”
“Of course he’s French!” La Porte snapped. His broad face seemed to freeze, and a look of discomfort took hold on it, squeezing his features. “It’s true his father was German. Darius was German born, but his mother was French, and he took her name when he was commissioned.”
“What do you know of his private life?”
“Everything. He’s married to a fine young woman from a good family with many years of service to France. He’s a student of our history, as am I.”
La Porte swept his arm in a wide circle to encompass the entire office, and Jon saw that the walls were covered with paintings, photographs, drawings, maps, all of great moments in French history. There was one exception, a photograph of the painting of the red-stone castle Jon had seen first in the general’s Paris mansion.
But the general was still talking. “History is more than the story of a nation, a people. Real history chronicles a country’s soul, so that to not know the history is to not know the nation or the people. If we do not know the past, Colonel, we are doomed to repeat it, non? How can a man devoted to his country’s history betray it? Impossible.”
Jon listened with a growing sense that La Porte was talking too much, defending Bonnard too hard, as if to convince himself. Was the general realizing deep down that what he saw as impossible might just be possible? There was more than a little doubt in the general’s final few words. “No, I cannot believe it. Not Darius.”
But Jon could, and as he left the office, he glanced back at the general in his great, thronelike chair. La Porte was brooding, and there was dread in his unfocused gaze.
Paris, France
Peter Howell dozed on the narrow cot he had insisted the hospital move into Marty’s private room, when a bee or wasp or some kind of annoying flying stinger buzzed his ear. He slapped hard and awakened to the pain in his head where he had clouted himself…and the harsh, insistent ringing of the room telephone on the stand next to his pillow.
Across the room, Marty stirred, mumbling.
Peter glanced at him and grabbed the phone. “Howell.”
“Sleeping were we, Peter?”
“An unfortunate necessity at intervals even for a field operative, no matter how inconvenient for you nine-to-five civil servants who get to spend every night in your own bloody beds, or your mistresses’.”
In London, Sir Gareth Southgate chuckled. But there was no real amusement in the sound, for it had been his unenviable task, as the head of MI6, to manage Peter Howell long past when he should have seen the maverick’s backside. But nothing about the retired agent was normal, including his pleasure in being troublesome. The fact was, Peter Howell was a brilliant operative, which made him useful in emergencies. Therefore, jocularity and a very rigid lip were the methods Southgate had chosen to deal with him.
But now Southgate’s chuckle died in his throat. “How is Dr. Zellerbach, Peter?”
“Unchanged. What the devil do you want?”
Southgate kept his voice light, but added an overtone of gravity: “To give you some disturbing information, and to ask your oh-so-insightful opinion on the matter.”
In the hospital room, Marty stirred again. He appeared restless. Peter looked at him hopefully. When Marty seemed to fall back into slumber, Peter returned his attention to the conversation with Southgate. Once he knew he had gotten under any of the bosses’ skins, he became quite civil. Noblesse oblige. “I am, as we say in California, all ears.”
“How nice of you,” Southgate commented. “This will be ultrasecret. PM’s eyes only. In fact, I’m making this call using a brand-new scrambler and encryption code, to make bloody damn sure the terrorists haven’t had a chance to break through it yet. And I’ll never use it again, not until we get that monstrous DNA computer under our control. Do you read me clearly, Peter?”
Peter growled, “Then you’d best not tell me, old boy.”
Southgate’s testiness rose closer to the surface. “I beg your pardon?”
“The rules haven’t changed. What I do on an assignment is my decision. Should I, in my judgment, need to share the information to achieve the goal, then I will. And you may tell the PM that.”
Sir Gareth’s voice rose. “Do you enjoy being an arrogant bastard, Peter?”
“Immensely. Now tell me what you want me to know or push off, right?” Peter figured it was only logical that officials a great deal higher up than the head of MI6 had invited him to this party, which meant Southgate was powerless to fire him. He smiled as he envisioned Southgate’s frustration.
Southgate’s voice was brittle: “General Sir Arnold Moore and his pilot are missing and presumed dead on a flight from Gibraltar to London. He was flying home to present a report of utmost urgency to the PM. All he would tell the PM over even the most secure electronic connection was that it involved the—and I quote—‘recent electronic disruptions in America.’ For that reason, I have been instructed to relay the information on to you.”
Peter was instantly sobered. “Did General Moore give any hint of how or where he had encountered what he wanted to tell the PM?”
“None.” Southgate, too, abandoned the feud. “We’ve checked every source we have, and what we know is that the general was supposed to be at his country estate in Kent. Instead, he flew to Gibraltar from London with his own pilot. After that, he and the pilot took a helicopter and returned some six hours later. During those six hours, he was out of contact.”
“Gibraltar station doesn’t know where he flew?”
“No one does. His pilot, of course, vanished with him.”
Peter digested this news. “All right, I need to remain here until I can question Dr. Zellerbach. Meanwhile, put everyone you can on finding out where Moore went. Once I’ve spoken to Zellerbach, I’ll head south and root around. A helicopter has a limited flight range, so we should be able to narrow the general’s destinations.”
“Very well. I…hold on.” Southgate’s voice faded as he turned to speak with someone else. The two voices continued for some seconds before the chief of MI6 resumed his conversation with Peter: “We’ve just received a report that debris from Moore’s Tornado have been found at sea off Lisbon. The fuselage showed signs of an explosion. I imagine we can consider both him and the pilot dead.”
Peter agreed. “An accident seems unlikely, considering everything. Keep your people digging, and I’ll be in touch.”
Southgate bit off a remark that Howell was also one of his people, subject to orders. But it was not true. Inwardly, he sighed. “Very good. And, Peter? Try to tell as few people as possible, eh?”
Peter hung up. Pompous ass. He thanked his stars he had always managed to remain out of a position of authority. All it did was go to a perfectly decent man’s brain and im
pede oxygen, progress, and results. On second thought, decent men rarely sought or received authority. You had to be a solemn fool before you wanted that sort of agony.
“My goodness.” A shaky voice was speaking behind him: “Peter…Peter Howell? Is that you, Peter?”
Peter leaped from his cot and ran to Marty’s bedside.
Marty blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Am I then…dead? Surely I must be. Yes, I must be in hell.” He gazed worriedly into Peter’s face. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be seeing Lucifer. I should’ve known. Where else would I meet that insufferable Englishman but in hell?”
“That’s more like it.” Peter smiled broadly. “Hello, Marty, you silly fellow. You gave us quite a turn.”
Marty peered worriedly around his hospital room. “It looks pleasant enough, but I’m not tricked. It’s an illusion.” He cringed. “I see flames behind these innocent walls. Orange, yellow, red. Boiling fire from the hubs of hell! Blinding! Don’t think you can hold Marty Zellerbach!” He threw back his sheets, and Peter grabbed his shoulders.
As he struggled to hold Marty in bed, Peter roared, “Guard! Get the nurse! Get the damn doctor! Get somebody!”
The door snapped open, and the guard looked in and saw what was happening. “Be right back.”
Marty pressed into Peter’s hands, not struggling now so much as simply using the full weight of his stout body to push determinedly toward freedom. “Arrogant Lucifer! I’ll be out of your clutches before you can blink. Reality and illusion. Zounds, who do you think you’re dealing with? Oh, it’ll be fun to match wits with the archfiend. There’s no way you can win. I’ll fly from here on the wings of a red-tailed hawk. No way…no…no…”
“Shhh, boy,” Peter said, trying to calm him. “I’m not Lucifer. Not really. Remember old Peter? We had some good times, we did.”
But Marty continued to rave, caught in the grip of the extreme manic stage of his Asperger’s Syndrome. The nurse ran in, followed by Dr. Dubost. While she and Peter held Marty down, the doctor injected him with an aqueous solution of Mideral, the drug that controlled his manic stage.