Renard smiled.
“Shame on you for doubting my snout.”
When they reached the enclosed office at the room’s far end, the attendant raised a wireless phone to his ear and spoke in Spanish. He lowered the phone and depressed a large oaken door’s brass latch.
He pulled open the door, let the visitors pass, and closed the door behind them.
Four flat screen televisions covered an entire wall and showed international news and market data. In front of the screens, a conference table rose from the floor, and leather chairs faced multimedia stations. Next to the table, an oak desk filled a quarter of the room, and Jake saw Grant Mercer standing behind it.
Mercer had always been a tall combination of fat over muscle, but Jake guessed that he had grown forty pounds in all directions since their last meeting. Mercer studied Jake, who had beefed up and slimmed down during years of studying martial arts.
“Well,” Renard said. “You molest me in the waiting room, but now you just stare at your long lost friend?”
Jake kept his gaze on Mercer.
“From the looks of this place,” Jake said, “I don’t know you anymore — Senior Martinez.”
“I’m the same guy, just richer. And you can drop the Martinez crap. The room is secure.”
Mercer stepped across the room and hugged Jake.
“I missed you buddy,” he said.
Jake felt that the embrace and salutation seemed standoffish.
“Me too,” he said. “You remember Pierre, of course.”
“Of course,” Mercer said as he drew Renard into a half-handshake, half-hug.
“I apologize for making you wait,” Mercer said. “I was closing a deal to sell sugar cane land for ethanol production. I love the business of South America. Sit down, guys. We have catching up to do.”
Jake sank into leather and heard Renard do the same.
“These seats are magnificent,” the Frenchman said. “I must know who your designer is.”
“Not yet,” Mercer said. “I know you have a lot of questions, but I’ve taken a huge risk in letting you find me. You guys have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Where to begin?” Renard asked.
“How about with — what the hell made you think it was safe to sprinkle a trail of breadcrumbs from France to this secret paradise I’ve taken great pains to create?”
Renard stirred but Jake cut him off.
“A lot has happened in four years.”
“True,” Mercer said. “And people and priorities change. Perhaps you’ve decided to side with the feds?”
“I’d never—”
“I wouldn’t blame you buddy,” Mercer said. “Just in case you’re trying to get out of a death sentence by helping the feds bring me in, you should know that I have a lot of well-armed and well-paid men to assist me.”
“Indeed,” Renard said. “We witnessed a sampling of your thugs on the way in. Other than the gentleman who brought us to this room, your men are brutish.”
Jake scowled.
“Go on,” Renard said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“But you always do,” Jake said.
He turned back to Mercer.
“Forget about it. We’re the ones the feds wanted,” Jake said. “You were just icing on the cake.”
“Wanted?” Mercer asked. “Past tense?”
“No one is hunting us anymore,” Renard said. “It’s a complex matter.”
“I’m all ears,” Mercer said.
Jake lay back in his chair and sighed.
“Go ahead, Pierre,” he said. “You tell better stories.”
“Very well.”
Renard lit a fresh Marlboro.
“After you left for Spain,” he said, “Jake and I started our new lives in Avignon. I was relieved when Jake mentioned that he had established a secure chat room with you and that you had continued to South America. At that time, the more distance between us, the better.”
“Then why did you let Jake stay in Avignon?”
“We did more than steal and destroy an American Trident missile submarine,” Renard said. “We took one hundred and twenty million dollars from Taipei before scuttling the Colorado with its warheads. Scrutiny from those in the Taiwanese Defense Ministry was tighter than any net your country’s feds could throw over us. I had to keep Jake close to protect him.”
“Great,” Mercer said. “Two nations out for our hides.”
“I fought to a détente with the Taiwanese for about two years,” Renard said, “but then they forced my hand. They purchased a Pakistani Agosta submarine and made me staff and command it.”
Mercer’s face became flushed.
“I read about a Taiwanese submarine purchased from Pakistan that single-handedly pushed back the Chinese blockade,” he said. “Was that you?”
“Indeed it was me,” Renard said.
Jake cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” Renard said. “It was us. We were officially advisors augmenting a Taiwanese crew, but we were responsible for sinking a Chinese Kilo and forcing another to surface for capture.”
“I should’ve guessed you guys were involved. I assume that settled the score with the Taiwanese?”
“Of course,” Renard said. “But we also discovered that a Pakistani submarine had gone rogue with the intent of attacking the carrier Stennis in Pearl Harbor.”
Renard tapped his Marlboro against an ashtray while he let Mercer digest the story.
“I read about that too,” Mercer said, “and I saw the footage. That Pakistani submarine succeeded. I remember seeing smoke from the back of a crippled aircraft carrier.”
“Succeeded?” Renard asked. “I think not. The popular version of the story is that an American submarine intervened just in time to prevent the Pakistani rogue from sinking the Stennis with conventional torpedoes, but the truth is that we prevented a nuclear torpedo attack and spared Honolulu from a radioactive fallout storm.”
Mercer’s jaw dropped and he looked at Jake, who shrugged his shoulders.
“That earned us favor with American officials,” Renard said, “and the CIA has made a deal. We are essentially on glorified parole. We are free.”
“I can go back to America,” Jake said, “as long as it’s a prearranged trip, specified location where nobody is likely to know me, and for limited duration.”
“This is a lot to swallow,” Mercer said.
“It gets better,” Jake said. “The CIA knows exactly who you are and where you are, and they have for years.”
“Then why haven’t they brought the hammer down on me?”
Jake watched a sly smile curl over Renard’s face.
“Apparently, Director Gerald Rickets of the CIA has secretly been considering you an asset. Now he wishes to cash in.”
“So on top of your quasi freedom, I learn that I’m now supposedly the victim of constant surveillance—”
“Oh no, it’s not constant,” Renard said.
Mercer frowned.
“Sorry,” Renard said. “Please. Continue.”
“On top of my periodic surveillance, I’m a resource that a bigwig at the CIA is waiting to what? Blackmail?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Renard said. “I see it as an opportunity whose time has come.”
“Okay,” Mercer said. “Convince me. All details. From the beginning.”
“From the beginning?” Renard asked. “Well, I have retained my contacts with DCN International, whose Scorpène-class submarine is selling well. With design and fixed costs covered, I have a verbal agreement with the Scorpène program director, an old colleague of mine, to lease the unit that was just recently declared ready for sea trials prior to delivery to Malaysia.”