“No,” Magdelena said. “What are you do?”
“You understand more English than you let on,” Mike replied. “I’m trying to figure out what event a terrorist attack is most likely to be against,” he continued, flipping back to Headline News. It was at the top of the hour and he listened to the news, ignoring most of the underlying commentary. President Cliff did this, what a horrible person, deaths in Iraq, Syria swearing it’s not a source of terrorism, the pope visiting Paris…
“Wait,” Mike said, swearing, as the seven seconds devoted to the pope’s visit cycled off. Apparently the pope had suddenly become aghast at the state of Catholicism in European countries and after traveling the world had decided to work nearer home. But that was all that Mike could get in the brief bit that Headline News mentioned. And there wasn’t anything on the other channels about it, just commentators nattering about how horrible President Cliff and America were, except on Fox, where they were nattering about how horrible the other channels were.
“Crap, crap, crap,” Mike muttered. “I need info.” He picked up his cell phone and called Northcote, but all he got was voicemail. The pope would be a perfect target; Catholics from all over France would be gathered to see him. Sure, France was increasingly an Islamic country; Muslims made up about ten percent of the population with an enormous immigration and birthrate while ethnic “French” were barely reproducing themselves. But he was sure that the incidental few hundred thousand Muslims that would be killed in a nuke strike would be of no real issue to Al Qaeda, if that was who was running the show. He thought about the terrorist “engineer” who was at the top of the list to have refurbed, and likely armed, the nuke. He wouldn’t bat an eye at killing a few hundred thousand Muslims if he could take more Christians with them. They would simply be martyrs to Allah.
He thought about it some more and decided that his gut was telling him this was the target. So he picked up the sat phone again and dialed OSOL.
“Office of Special Operations Liaison, Colonel Johannsen, Duty Officer, how may I help you, sir?”
“Go scramble,” Mike said, punching in his code.
“Scrambled.”
“This is Mike Jenkins,” Mike said. “Pull up my file if you don’t know who I am. I need somebody to brief me on where the pope is going to be in Paris and when. I also need access to France in a private jet for myself and one undocumented female.” He felt the jet begin to reduce power, as if preparing to land, and stopped. “Wait one.” He keyed the intercom for the cockpit and whistled.
“Sorry about this,” Mike said. “I don’t suppose we have fuel to get to Paris?”
“We do, sir,” Hardesty replied. “I take it I should divert?”
“If you please,” Mike said. “I have to get back to the other line.
“Sorry about that,” he continued. “We were landing in Sarajevo. Can you get somebody to run point for me by the time we get to Paris? We’ll probably be going into DeGaulle, at a guess.”
“I can do that,” Johannsen said. “Is this about the item?”
“Yes. I’m running on gut. Everybody else can run around to whatever event they want, but I’m guessing it’s the pope. The timing is right, the target is right. So I’ll need high-level access.”
“What’s the name of the undocumented female?” Johannsen asked.
“Magdelena Averina,” Mike said, pulling the first Russian name that came to mind. “And I’m under the cover name, Michael Duncan.”
“Got that, too,” Johannsen said. “I’ll put out the word that you’re headed there and give a heads-up to the locals.”
“Thanks,” Mike replied. “Out here.”
“We are not go Sarajevo?” Magdelena asked.
“Nope,” Mike said, leaning back. “We’re on our way to the City of Light.”
Chapter Six
“The pope is going to do a large audience at the Stade de France and a high mass on Sunday at Notre Dame. The high mass is the culmination of a seventeen-country European tour.”
Colonel Mark De’Courcy was one of three military attachés in the U.S. embassy in Paris. He had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, served as a junior officer in the Twenty-Fourth (later Third) Infantry Division, then up the chain, mostly in staff positions, until he had managed to wangle this assignment. And as with everyone associated with military or security work in Europe, he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep in the past two days. So he was less than thrilled about meeting some high-level, no-real-names-I’m-special agent at two in the morning at Charles DeGaulle.
“French police are all over both events like flies,” he continued as he, the agent and the agent’s Russian hooker-girlfriend walked to the waiting embassy car. It was a Peugeot with diplomatic plates. “We’ve got the call on the van and they’re looking for it. So why are you here?”
“Because I’ve been lucky every step of the way,” Mike replied. The colonel was a starchy regular Army SOB who clearly thought he was hot shit for getting such a choice assignment as military attaché to the French. Of course, the French military had sunk to such a low ebb, they’d be hard pressed to defend their country from a troop of well-trained Cub Scouts. So being a military attaché was less than impressive to Mike. “I got lucky in Russia, I got lucky in Bosnia and if this is where it’s coming, you’d better hope I get lucky here.”
“Well, we put the word out to the French security guys that you were inbound,” De’Courcy said, sighing as they got in the car. “They’re less than thrilled but willing to work with us. What are you planning on doing?”
“The events are tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” De’Courcy said. “The audience is at noon and the high mass is at four PM. Then he goes on to Berlin. That’s closer to Bosnia, I might add.”
“I know that much geography,” Mark replied dryly. “But the longer this item is in play, the more likely we are to pick it up. And if they didn’t know we were tracking, they do now with the way that IFOR took down the warehouse; that stood out like a sore thumb. I’m surprised it’s not all over the news.”
“There was a squib about it,” De’Courcy said. “We covered it with a suspected bomb-making facility.”
“Like that’s going to hold with NEST running around in coveralls that say NEST,” Mike said irritably. He thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Where’s this stadium?”
“Southwest of Paris, out in the suburbs,” De’Courcy replied, pulling a map out of his briefcase. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere away from the stadium,” Mike said. “And away from Notre Dame. Northeast of Paris is there a good hotel?”
“There’s a Hilton up there,” De’Courcy said. “Will that do?”
“I dunno,” Mike said. “Is it outside the radius of a ten-megaton blast?”
De’Courcy shot a look at the girl and his jaw worked, but he nodded. “Yeah.”
“Suits,” Mike answered. “Leave the map, give me some contact info and I’ll cut you loose. Where do you want to be dropped? I take it I can keep the car and driver?”
“At the embassy,” De’Courcy said grumpily. “It’s going to be an all-nighter. And, yeah, the car’s yours.”
Mike checked into the Hilton, taking a suite that he insisted be on the north side, and led Magdelena upstairs. They attracted looks from the late-night staff, especially since he was pretty travel-worn and both of them were carrying single bags, but he could care less about the looks.
When they got to the suite, and got rid of the entirely unnecessary bellhop, Mike showed her the two rooms.