21

Swain paced back and forth in his hotel room, his usual good-humored expression replaced by one that was cold and hard. No matter how he looked at it, he was literally on his own. The mole at Langley could be anyone: Frank’s assistant; Patrick Washington, whom Swain had liked so much that one time he’d talked to him; any of the analysts; the case officers—hell, even the DDO, Garvin Reed. The only person there Swain totally trusted was Frank Vinay, who was in critical condition and might not live. With this revelation from his mysterious caller, Swain had to consider that Frank’s automobile accident might not have been accidental, after all.

But if he had thought of that, then probably several thousand others at Langley had thought the same thing. What if the mole was conveniently placed to divert suspicion from the accident?

The thing was, though, auto accidents were tricky, definitely not the most reliable method of eliminating someone; people had been known to walk away from accidents that totaled their cars. On the other hand, if you killed someone and didn’t want anyone to know it was deliberate, you staged events to make it look like an accident. How well it was staged depended on the reliability of the parties involved, and the amount of money behind it.

But how could anyone stage an auto accident that would take out the DO? Logically, predicting where someone would be at any given moment in the D.C. traffic was impossible, what with the fender benders, mechanical troubles, and flat tires all over the city that delayed and diverted traffic to other routes. Add in the human factor, such as oversleeping, stopping for a latte—he didn’t see how it could be done, how anyone could time things so perfectly.

At any rate, surely to God, Frank’s driver hadn’t taken the same route to work every day. That was basic. Frank wouldn’t have allowed it.

So—logically, the accident had to be just what it seemed: an accident.

The result was the same. Whether or not Frank lived, he was out of commission, unreachable. Swain had been a field officer for a long time, but he’d been in the field, working with various insurgents and military groups in South America; he hadn’t actually spent much time in CIA headquarters. He didn’t know very many people there, and they didn’t know him. He’d always considered it a bonus that he was seldom at headquarters, but now that put him in a bind, because he had no one he knew well enough to trust.

So there would be no more help from Langley, no more requests for information. He tried to work the angles on what this meant to his particular situation. The way he saw it, he had two options: he could pull the plug on Lily right now and complete his stated mission, then hope to God that Frank lived so he could root out this damned mole—or he could stay here, work with Lily in cracking the Nervis’ security, and try to find out from this end who the mole was. Of the two, he preferred staying here. For one thing, he was already here, and no matter how good the security was at the Nervi complex, it wouldn’t be anything compared to the security at Langley.

Then there was Lily. She touched him and amused him and turned him on way more than he’d expected. Yeah, he’d found her attractive from the get-go, but the more time he spent with her, the better he knew her, the more intense the attraction became. He was getting in deeper with her than he’d ever planned, but it still wasn’t deep enough. He wanted more.

So he’d stay here and do the best he could to work things from this end, totally on his own. He’d been playing along with Lily’s scheme to break into the lab complex out of his own curiosity—that, and a strong desire to get into her pants—but now he needed to get serious about it. And he wasn’t totally alone; he had Lily, who was no novice, and he also had his unknown caller. Whoever he was, the man was well-placed enough to know what was going on, and by warning Swain he’d placed himself on the side of the angels.

Thanks to the handy-dandy little cell-phone feature that listed incoming calls, Swain had the guy’s number, both literally and figuratively. A person almost couldn’t make a move today without leaving an electronic or paper footprint somewhere. Sometimes that was a blessing, sometimes a curse, depending on whether you were searching or hiding.

It was possible the guy even knew the name of the mole, but Swain doubted it. Otherwise, why give him a generic heads-up? If it had mattered enough for him to warn Swain, then he’d have given the name if he’d had it.

But you never knew how much information anyone had that they didn’t know they had, bits and pieces they simply hadn’t put together yet into a cohesive whole. The only way to find out was by asking.

He didn’t want to call his unknown informant back using his cell phone, on the off chance that the guy didn’t want to talk to him and wouldn’t answer after seeing his phone number listed as incoming. Likewise, he didn’t want this guy to know he was staying at the Bristol; just seemed safer that way. He’d bought a telephone card the day he’d arrived in France, figuring he’d never use it but wanting to have it just in case his cell phone batteries died unexpectedly or something. Leaving the hotel, he walked down Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, bypassing the first public phone for one farther down the street.

He was smiling as he dialed the number, but this smile was totally lacking in humor. It was more like the smile of a shark as it closed in on lunch. He glanced at his wristwatch as he listened to the phone ringing: 1:43 AM. Good. He was probably getting the guy out of bed, which is what he deserved for hanging up the way he had.

“Yes?”

The tone was wary, but Swain recognized the voice. “Hi there,” he said cheerfully, in English. “I didn’t disturb anyone, did I? don’t hang up, now. Play along and all you’ll get is a phone call. Hang up on me and you’ll get a visit.”

There was a pause. “What do you want?” Unlike Swain, the guy on the other end spoke in French; Swain was glad he knew enough of the language to get by.

“Nothing much. I just want to know everything you know.”

“One moment, please.” Swain heard the man speaking quietly to someone, a woman. Though it was difficult to tell what he was saying with the phone away from his mouth, Swain thought he caught something about “taking the call downstairs.”

Ah. So he was at home.

Then the man returned to the phone, saying briskly, “Yes, what may I do for you?”

Smoke screen for the wife’s sake, Swain thought. “You can give me a name, for starters.”

“The mole’s?” He must be out of earshot of his wife, because the guy had switched to English.

“Definitely, but I was thinking of yours.”

The man paused again. “It would be better if you do not know.”

“Better for you, yes, but I’m not worried about making things better for you.”

“But I am, monsieur.” Firmness there now; the man wasn’t a milquetoast. “I am risking my life and the lives of my family. Rodrigo Nervi is not one to take betrayal lightly.”

“You work for him?”

“No. Not in that sense.”

“I’m feeling a little dense, here. Either he pays you or he doesn’t. Which is it?”

“If I give him certain information, monsieur, he does not kill my family. Yes, he pays me; the money further incriminates me, yes?” Bitterness entered the quiet voice. “It is an insurance that I will not talk.”

“I see.” Swain eased off on the smart-ass tough-guy act—or at least he racheted down his behavior—though, it came so naturally to him, it probably wasn’t an act. “Something puzzles me. How did Nervi even know I was here, that he would be asking about me? I assume that’s how my name came up, and how you got my phone number.”

“He was searching for the identity of one of your contract agents. I believe it was a facial-recognition computer program that identified her. The mole accessed her file, and there was a notation that you had been dispatched to handle the problem she caused.”

“How did he know she was a contract agent?”

“He did not. He was exploring several different means of identifying her.”

So that was how Rodrigo had acquired a photo of Lily without the disguise she had used when she was with Salvatore. He knew what Lily looked like, and he knew her real name. Swain asked, “Does Nervi know my name?”

“I cannot say. I am the conduit between the CIA and Nervi, but I haven’t given your name to him. He did ask for a way to contact you.”

“In God’s name, why?”

“To offer you a deal, I believe. A lot of money in exchange for any information you have about the whereabouts of the woman he is seeking.”

“What made him think I would take the deal?”

“You are for hire, yes?”

“No,” Swain said briefly.

“You are not a contract agent?”

“No.” He didn’t say more. If the CIA had sent him, and he wasn’t a contract agent, then there was only one other category for him: field officer. He suspected this guy was bright enough to figure it out.

“Ah.” There was the sound of a sharply drawn breath. “Then I have made the correct decision.”

“Which is?”

“I did not give him your phone number.”

“Even though your family is in danger?”

“I have a cover. There is another Nervi, a younger brother, Damone, who is . . . not quite in the family mold. He is intelligent, and reasonable. When I pointed out the inherent dangers in contacting someone who worked for the CIA, that this person would realize the only way Rodrigo could have his telephone number was if someone with the CIA had given it to him—moreover, this person could be very loyal to his country—Damone saw the wisdom of what I was saying. He said he would report to Rodrigo that the CIA person—that is yourself, of course—had rented a mobile here and had not yet contacted headquarters, so there was no current number available.”

That made sense, even though the explanation was a tad convoluted. Rodrigo likely didn’t know that field officers, when outside their own country, would use either secure international cell phones or satellite phones.

Another piece also fit neatly into this little piece. For information to be routed from the CIA through this man to Rodrigo Nervi, then the man Swain was talking to had to be in a position to request such sensitive information—and have quite a lot to lose if anyone found out. “What are you?” he asked. “Interpol?”

He heard a quick intake of breath and triumphantly thought, Bingo! Got it in one. Looked as if Salvatore Nervi had poked his fingers into a lot of pies that he shouldn’t have.

“So what you’re doing,” he said, “is getting back at Nervi without endangering your family. You can’t overtly refuse to do anything he asks, can you?”

“I have children, monsieur. Perhaps you don’t understand—”

“I have two of my own, so, yes, I understand perfectly.”

“He would kill them without hesitation if I don’t cooperate. In this matter with his brother, I did not refuse a request; his brother made a decision concerning it.”

“But since you had my number anyway, you thought you’d put it to good use by making an anonymous call to warn me of the mole.”

“Oui. An investigation prompted by an internal suspicion is far different from one instigated from outside, no?”

“Agreed.” This guy wanted the mole caught; he wanted that contact closed off. He must be feeling guilty about the information he’d passed along over the years and was trying to somewhat atone. “How much damage have you done?”

“To national security, very little, monsieur. When asked I must provide at least a soupçon of reliable information, but always I have removed more sensitive items.”

Swain accepted that. After all, the guy had a conscience or he wouldn’t have called him with a warning. “Do you know the mole’s name?”

“No, we have never used names. He does not know mine, either. By that I mean our real names. We have identifiers, of course.”

“Then how does he get information to you? I assume he sends it through channels, so anything that is faxed or scanned would have to be sent to your attention.”

“I set up a fictitious identity on my home computer for those things that must be sent electronically, which is most things. Only rarely is anything faxed. Such a thing could be traced, of course—assuming one knew what to look for. I can access the account from my . . . the word escapes me. The small hand-computer in which one puts one’s appointments—”

“PDA,” Swain said.

“Oui. The PDA.” Said with a French accent, it was pei d’ay.

“The number you use to contact him—”

“It is a mobile number, I believe, as I am always able to reach him on it.”

“Have you had the number traced?”

“We do not investigate, monsieur; we coordinate.”

Swain was well aware that Interpol’s constitution directly prohibited the organization from conducting its own investigations. His guy had just confirmed that he was indeed Interpol, not that Swain had doubted it.

“I am certain the mobile phone would be registered under a false name,” the Frenchman continued. “That would be easy for him to do, I think.”

“A snap of the fingers,” Swain agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose. A fake driver’s license was easy to come by, especially for people in their line of work. Lily had used three sets of identification running from Rodrigo. For someone who worked at Langley, how hard could it be?

He tried to think of the various means available for nabbing this guy. “How often are you in contact?”

“Sometimes not for months. Twice in the past few days.”

“So a third contact so soon would be unusual?”

“Very unusual. But would he be suspicious? Perhaps, perhaps not. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking, monsieur, that you’re between a rock and a hard place and would like to get out. Am I right?”

“A rock and a—? Ah, I understand. I would like that very much.”

“What I need is a recording of your next conversation with him. Turn off the recorder while you’re talking, if you want. The content of the conversation isn’t important, just his voice.”

“You will get a voiceprint.”

“Yeah. I’ll also need the recorder you use. Then all I have to do is find a match.” Voiceprint analysis was fairly exact; that and facial-recognition programs had been used to differentiate Saddam Hussein from his doubles. A voice was a product of the structure of each individual’s throat, nasal passages, and mouth, and hard to fake. Even impressionists couldn’t exactly match a voice. Variables came in with the differences between microphones, recorders, audio feed, and so on. By having the same recorder, he took that variable out of the equation.

“I am willing to do this,” the Frenchman said. “It is a danger to me and my loved ones, but I think the risk is manageable, with your cooperation.”

“Thank you,” Swain said sincerely. “Are you willing to go a step further, and perhaps remove the threat from existence?”

There was a very long pause; then he said, “How would you do this?”

“You have contacts you trust?”

“But of course.”

“Someone who could maybe find out the specs of the security system at a certain complex?”

“Specs . . . ?”

“Blueprint. Technical details.”

“I assume this complex belongs to the Nervi organization?”

“It does.” Swain gave him the name of the laboratory, and the address.

“I will see what I can do.”