“Yes, sir.” And then Chapel was doing five things at once. “Ditch the coat and bring round the van,” he ordered Santos Babtiste. “And call in a second tail car.”
“Get to the service entrance, PDQ,” he commanded Ray Gomez. “Carmine, circle the other way. Calmly, now. Calmly.”
“Go, Kreskin,” cheered Carmine Santini.
“Keck, put your system on automatic pilot. You’ll ride in the second car. Be ready to hit the street at my mark.”
“And you,” Chapel said very quietly to Mr. Leclerc of the Sûreté, first name unknown. “Where I come from we like our prisoners alive, so please put away that peashooter and get on your feet.”
But the last word belonged to Keck. Keck with the spiky blond hair and elfin stature. “Hey, dude,” he said as they filed out of the hotel suite. “Three words.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Don’t fuck up.”
Mohammed Al-Taleel, aka Romeo, emerged through the tinted glass doors of Royal Joailliers fifteen minutes later. In his hand, he carried a scuffed leather briefcase, the tried companion of attorneys and academics around the world. He left the square along the same path as he had entered it, walking with the same brisk gait that Chapel had remarked on earlier. One more man about town in the world’s most cosmopolitan city.
“All right, Carmine, move in. Put a smear on Romeo. One chance, my man. Do not mess up. Tag him.”
“Tagging” referred to the act of depositing a trace of tritium on a subject’s person. Though invisible to the naked eye, the mildly radioactive substance could be tracked by a sensitive Geiger counter at distances up to five hundred yards.
Santini closed in on Taleel. As he passed, he nudged him ever so slightly, a shoulder glancing against the back, nothing more. Taleel never felt the applicator brush his trousers. Bingo, thought Chapel, you’re ours.
From the Place Vendôme, Taleel walked up the Rue de la Paix, turning left on Rue Daunou and passing Harry’s Bar, one of Ernest Hemingway’s favorite haunts when he’d lived in Paris in the 1920s. Keck followed at twenty yards, with Leclerc shadowing him ten yards farther back on the opposite side of the street.
By the time they reached the Madeleine, the sidewalks pulsed with a vibrant, swarming humanity. Chapel decided that blue blazers and tan slacks were a kind of French national uniform. From his position in the passenger seat of the postal van, he counted seven men wearing a similar outfit crossing the intersection at the Boulevard des Capucines. A small metallic box similar to a Magellan GPS rested on his lap. The backlit display showed a map of Paris. The blinking red dot above the Madeleine Métro station represented Mohammed al-Taleel.
“He’s hitting the Métro,” said Santos Babtiste. “Merde.”
“Ligne douze. Mairie d’Issy,” said Leclerc, already underground.
“Keck, pull back,” Chapel ordered. “Leclerc, it’s your turn to play shadow.”
“D’acc,” replied the Frenchman.
“I’m going in,” said Chapel, flinging the tracking device onto the seat.
Crossing the street, he hit the stairs to the Métro at a run. The underground was crowded and hot. White tiled tunnels led in four directions. It was a labyrinthine steam bath. The sign for Ligne 12 pointed to the right. Not stopping to buy a ticket, he jumped the turnstiles and dashed down the corridor toward the platform. At least, he’d picked up one worthwhile skill growing up in Brooklyn. Hustling down another flight of stairs, he rounded a corner to find the platform deserted and the door to the train closing.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, even as he rushed toward the train. As if by a miracle, the doors wheezed open and he slid into the car. At the next doorway, Leclerc retrieved a foot from the entry. Taleel sat ten feet away, paying the briefcase between his legs no concern.
A pro, thought Chapel, as he took a spot toward the rear that positioned Taleel in his line of sight.
Concorde. Assemblée Nationale. Solférino.
The stations passed in turn. Chapel swayed with the train’s rhythmic swagger. Don’t look at him, he repeated over and over, reciting the lines from his training manual. Live your cover. You’re a tourist from New York. You know better than to stare.
As new passengers came and went, the cars grew neither more nor less crowded. More than once, he felt Taleel’s eyes sweep over him. When the train pulled into the station at Sèvres-Babylon, Taleel stood and walked to the door. Chapel stood, too, taking up position inches behind the man. He smelled the Saudi’s cologne and noticed that he’d recently had a haircut. And, yes, Gomez was right: Taleel’s fingernails were shined to perfection.
The doors rattled open, and Taleel stepped out and walked down the platform toward the exit. Chapel followed. From the corner of his eye, he saw Leclerc’s diminutive form slink past and shuffle up the stairs.
And then Taleel did an odd thing. He stopped. Dead in the center of the platform. A rock in the midst of a fast-flowing stream. The exiting passengers walked past him, and Chapel had no time to react, no choice but to follow them. In a moment, he was ascending the escalator, sure he had blown the assignment, the light of day as punishing as his own tortured conscience.
“He’s staying put,” he said to Babtiste. “He’s still on the platform.”
“Montez. We have a clear signal.”
The van idled at the corner. Chapel climbed in and a second later, Leclerc followed suit. The three huddled close to one another, all eyes on the beacon. A minute passed. Then another. A tremor shook the van. A new train had pulled into the station beneath them.
“Which way?” Chapel asked, his eyes moving from Babtiste to Leclerc to the illuminated screen. Suddenly, the red spot began moving.
“Salaud,” said Leclerc. “Just waited for the next train in the same direction.”
They drove. The city took on a grittier feel. Gone were the monuments, the grand boulevards, the chic boutiques and the pricey cafés. This was the old Paris. The Paris of artists and immigrants and the hopeless poor. The streets were narrow and unloved, the buildings painted black with soot and grime. Every once in a while, Chapel caught a glimpse of the Tour Montparnasse, the tallest building in the city, looming before them like a mystical glass tower.
“End of the line,” said Leclerc as they pulled to a halt at a red light. Beside them in a beat-up blue Renault, Keck and Gomez nodded hello. Spurts of men and women exited the Métro as trains came and left. The red dot stopped moving. Taleel’s train had arrived. A few people trickled out. At their tail came Taleel. He crossed the street without looking around him. His gait slackened, the briefcase dangling at his side, and Chapel guessed he was on his home turf, relaxing, congratulating himself on a job well done.
“We’re close,” he said. “Let’s not spook him. We follow him in, let him get comfortable, count all his dough.”
“If he’s going home,” cautioned Babtiste.
It was Leclerc on the street, Santini playing his shadow. Gomez and Keck followed a block up and over, Chapel and Babtiste keeping in the rear. The city changed its clothing once again, the urban grit yielding to leafy roads lined with pleasant apartments. This part of town was called the Cité Universitaire, and true to its name, it housed thousands of students doing their course work at one of the French capital’s many outstanding academic institutions. Taleel turned down a broad avenue. As Babtiste edged to the corner, Chapel had a clear view down the road.
It was a landscape by Renoir. Century-old elms lined the street, the tallest branches providing a verdant canopy through which determined rays of sunlight penetrated, each marvelously accented, defined in shades of orange, yellow, and gold. Halfway down the block, a park began. Rolling grass hills cradled a fountain that shot a plume of water into the sky. Somewhere, a dog was barking, and for a moment, it all seemed to blur together in a collage of beauty and hope and the infinite possibility of a glorious summer’s day. Chapel knew that he’d been right to follow Mohammed al-Taleel, that his gamble had paid off, that they would capture Taleel, and maybe his associates as well, and that they-meaning the law enforcement communities of the Western nations allied against the new scourge of Islamic terrorism-stood a good chance of learning what Taleel was up to, and stopping it, then and there.