Sandor was greeted at the St. Barths airport by Lieutenant Henri Vauchon. After a warm embrace Sandor took a step back and had a good look at his friend.
“Seems your shoulder healed up pretty well.”
The Frenchman shrugged. “Not too bad.”
“I take it you’ve been receiving the proper attention. Medical and otherwise.”
“Several women I know have been most helpful with my recovery.”
“I’ll bet. You still a local hero?”
“Glory fades quickly.”
Sandor smiled. “Isn’t that the truth.”
As they headed outside to the small parking lot, Vauchon said, “When you called you said you were coming down here for a short rest. I assume that’s a lie.”
“Why would you think such a thing?”
Vauchon grinned. “You booked yourself into Guanahani for only one night.”
“Come on, Henri. A lie is not a lie if the truth should not be expected.”
“Who said that?”
“A clever lawyer I know.”
“Sounds like it might have been written by Voltaire.”
“You’re so French. More likely came from Machiavelli.”
“What are you really here for?”
“Adina.”
“As I expected, although I doubt you’ll find him on St. Barths.”
“You may be surprised what we’ll find.”
Vauchon responded with a skeptical look, but Sandor let it go.
They reached the parking lot, where Sandor tossed his bag into the backseat of Vauchon’s car, then the two men headed into the port town of Gustavia. They parked along the main dock and made their way to the outdoor patio at Le Select. The lieutenant ordered burgers, grabbed a couple of bottles of beer, and led them to a small table on the patio.
“Look at you, Henri, drinking on duty in the middle of the day.”
“Perhaps no longer a celebrated hero, but still enjoying certain privileges.”
Sandor gave an approving nod.
“So tell me, what makes you think you will find Adina hiding here, of all places?”
“I didn’t say he was hiding here,” Sandor replied, then took a swig of his Caribe. “But we now know he was staying on a yacht here when he coordinated the attack on Fort Oscar. And he had men at that villa in Pointe Milou, both before and after the attack.”
“So this is the starting place for your search?”
“In a manner of speaking. I believe you can help.”
“You know I will if I can.”
“I want to review the electronic tracking records, see if we can identify his phone calls.”
Vauchon did not hide his pessimism. “Do you have any idea how many cellular calls are made in and out of here every day?”
“Of course,” Sandor said as he held up his hand. “I’m talking about a very limited search. I want to see if we can trace any calls to and from his base of operations in Venezuela during that short time frame. How many calls into and out of Venezuela could there have been?”
“Not many,” Vauchon conceded.
“We have some general intelligence about the area where Adina currently has his command center. If we can triangulate some of those calls from last month it might help to pinpoint the location.”
Vauchon thought it over. “Why not work this through Washington?”
Sandor took a gulp of beer without responding.
“Ah, I see. You have come all this way rather than simply phoning in the request or sending an email.” When Sandor remained silent Vauchon nodded. “Would it be fair to say that your visit is not official?”
“That would be fair.”
“Would it also be fair to say that you have been told not to pursue this matter on your own?”
“Fair seems such a strange word in that context. Couldn’t we just say that one friend is asking another friend for help?”
Their food came and Vauchon paid. “The least I can do,” he explained. “Last visit you bought me dinner at Maya’s.”
“I’ll buy dinner wherever you like tonight.”
“Because you need this help. Unofficially.”
“Because I enjoy your company.”
“Of course.” The lieutenant bit into his hamburger. Sandor waited. “Our systems are not what they were. The explosions at Fort Oscar were devastating.”
“I understand. But you can do it?”
“I believe so.”
“Without creating a problem for yourself?”
Vauchon drank some beer. “That’s another matter entirely. As I have mentioned, I do enjoy a certain, how would you call it, standing. And I am still well regarded by the DGSE,” he added, referring to the French intelligence service.
Sandor responded with an appreciative nod. “Don’t tell me you’re on a second payroll now, Henri.”
Vauchon smiled. “Using your expression, let’s just say they enjoy my company.”
Given the unofficial status of Sandor’s request and the anxieties of the local military after the recent invasion of Fort Oscar, Vauchon reminded his friend that subtlety in their approach to this fact-finding mission would be at a premium. Sandor agreed. He knew that if any word were leaked to Washington about what he was up to the consequences would be dire. He would be disciplined by Byrnes and CIA Director Walsh, but that was of no great concern. The important thing was that he would be put under watch and his operation scrubbed, and that worried him far more than any bureaucratic scolding.
“Just think of me as Mr. Subtle,” he said.
Vauchon shot him a knowing glance. He had seen Sandor in action before. “All right, Mr. Subtle, let’s see what we can do.”
The destruction of the telecommunications center that had been secretly maintained in the lower levels of Fort Oscar had been damaging to the defenses in the Western Hemisphere, not to mention a horrific black eye for the French. It would be fair to say that no one in the world expected a terrorist attack on the glamorous island of St. Barths. And, since it came on the heels of the downing of a jetliner just outside St. Maarten, the lax precautions in defending the old fortress became a humiliation that reached from Gustavia to Paris. Vauchon told Sandor that enough heads were rolling to evoke historic memories of the Bastille in its heyday.
The lieutenant was the one man who had emerged as a hero from the debacle, having rescued a number of the fort’s civilian personnel as well as military guards who were taken captive during the attack. Yet even for Vauchon, gaining entrance to the new computers and gathering the information Sandor needed was going to be difficult. Much of the replacement hardware had been relocated to Guadeloupe, where access was simply out of the question. Whatever technology remained on St. Barths was now temporarily situated in a makeshift facility above the hills of St. Jean, under tight security.
It was nearly five o’clock in the evening when Vauchon pulled up to the whitewashed stone building that housed the new telecommunications center. He left his car in a small parking lot below the building, then trekked up a steep path to the first checkpoint. Sandor was right beside him.
Vauchon knew the two sentries waiting at the entrance by name and, after polite greetings, their exchange became more formal.
“What brings you here, lieutenant?”
“Ah, this damned thing never ends. They want me to review some of the telephone records from before and after the attack.”
The guards exchanged a quick glance. Then one of them asked if Vauchon had written orders.
The lieutenant rolled his eyes, as if to say that such things were beyond caring about. “No, just a call from Guadeloupe. The Americans again.” He gave a tilt of his head and, although they were speaking in French, Sandor got the gist of the conversation.
Both sentries responded with knowing looks. The Americans.
“You really should have written orders.”
“I’d just as soon go home, believe me. I’ll tell them I couldn’t get in, let them worry about it.” Then he turned to Sandor and began to explain the problem in English.