“You heard me,” Chapel said. “Now, answer.” It was a whisper balanced on the razor’s edge of control.
“I said you don’t have to walk far.” Leclerc chuckled joylessly and the tautness went out of his shoulders. “I was thinking about your leg. There’s something wrong with it, non? First you miss grabbing Taleel. Then you’re the last man into that building. I hear you run marathons. I thought you could have caught up to him. That’s all. What happened, anyway? You pull a muscle or something?”
“Nothing happened,” said Chapel. “I missed him, that’s all. I thought I could tackle him. I came close. I just-” He broke off and looked away. There was no reason he should explain to Leclerc. Yet, he couldn’t stop. He needed to say the words, if only to forgive himself. “Those were my friends in that room. I worked with them every day for two years’ running. I’m the godfather to Ray Gomez’s son. I brought Keck over from the Agency, spent twenty-four seven with him until he was up to speed. We were a team. A unit. I got there as quickly as I could. I tried so hard-are you listening?” The pressure at the back of his neck was building. Each second, he found it harder to remain seated. “I asked you a question.”
At some point, Sarah Churchill had come closer, and suddenly, Chapel was aware of her hand on his good shoulder. “Mr. Chapel,” she said softly. “I’m sure Mr. Leclerc meant nothing by his comments.”
“It’s Captain Leclerc, don’t you remember?” Chapel said. “And where were you, by the way?” he said to the Frenchman.
“Ahead of you,” Leclerc answered, eyes locked on Chapel. “In the back bedroom. I was just lucky, I guess.”
“You both were,” said Sarah Churchill. “Enormously so. Now then, Azema Immobilier, is it?” she asked, reading from the slip of paper. “Are they expecting us?”
Leclerc smiled diplomatically. “I am sure they will be the model of cooperation.”
Needing fresh air, Adam Chapel stood from his chair and walked the length of the table toward the door.
“You really think you will find them that way?” Leclerc remained seated, making a show of gathering his papers, eyes never leaving the desk.
“What way?”
“By tracking the money. They say an Indian can track a horse over rock, too. Me, I never believed it.”
Chapel paused in the doorway, a hand for the frame. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Captain Leclerc. All the stuff you guys gather from your informants is, by definition, suspect. Just look at who gives it to you. It’s the product of treachery, deceit, bribery, and interrogation. Money is incorruptible. Audit trails don’t lie. In the end, they’re the diary every terrorist keeps, even if he doesn’t know it.”
“If you say so,” agreed Leclerc, but to Chapel’s ears, the words were a challenge.
Prove it. And fast.
Chapter 14
Admiral Owen Glendenning paid off the taxi and made his way into the cool recesses of the Hôtel Plaza Athénée. The lobby was an oasis of marble. Marble floor. Marble columns. Marble counters. The tinkle of a fountain softened the noise of traffic drifting in from the Avenue Montaigne. A colossal spray of gladiolas and white geraniums decorated a table in the center of the atrium. Except for the very slim, very chic women sauntering through the place, Glendenning found it more like a mortuary than a five-star hotel. He’d been thinking a lot about death lately.
At the front desk, he inquired where he might use a telephone.
“Down the corridor and to the left, sir,” answered the clerk.
“Merci,” said Glendenning, though the clerk had spoken to him in perfect English.
Walking to the bank of phone booths, he caught his cane on the transom separating the marble floor from the carpeted corridor. He stumbled, but caught himself. He was hurrying… that was the problem. He flushed with shame, and then with anger at his vanity. You’d have thought that after being stuck with the lousy sticks for thirty-five years, he’d have grown used to the deflected glances, the impromptu hushes that crowded his wake. The fact was that he’d never gotten over being a cripple. There was honor in a face that had seen battle, but the scarred, useless legs were an embarrassment. A sign of weakness. He’d tried everything to regain full control of them. Exercise. Therapy. Surgery. Nothing had worked. In the end, he’d decided it was a failure of the will and tortured himself for his weakness.
Inside the booth, he sat down, arranged his canes, and picked up and folded his legs so that he could close the door. Through the window, he caught a boy staring at him. Glendenning smiled, but the boy ran off with a frightened expression. Glendenning’s smile faded. It wasn’t the physical inconvenience that bothered him most, or the ever-present pain. It was being the bent, shuffling reminder of what could go wrong in this life. Any way you looked at it, it was a damned high price to pay for capturing four low-level slopes who didn’t know jack shit.
Turning his back to the window, he picked up the phone. The hotel operator answered. “Oui?”
“An international call, please,” he said. He gave the number and waited as the operator dialed. His heart was beating very fast and he thought he’d lost his taste for clandestine ops.
“Allo.”
“Hello,” he said, trying to sound calm, dispassionate. “It’s me.”
“Where are you?” The voice belonged to a woman. She was concerned. “You sound next door.”
“In Paris.”
“Should you be calling?”
“Probably not, but I had to talk to you.”
“It’s too risky. Hang up now.”
“Don’t worry,” said Glendenning, glancing over his shoulder, a hooded eye scanning the lobby. “No one followed me. First time I’ve been alone in days.”
“You’re in France? Couldn’t you have given me any warning?”
“I didn’t have a chance. We had to play it fast. Went from the office right to the plane. People are watching me every step of the way. I had to sneak away just to call you. Said I was getting a souvenir for my nephew.”
“Is it that tight?”
“Yep. And you? Are you ready for the event? Ticket, passport, the special papers you’ll need?”
“Everything’s in order. I am a professional, after all.”
“Just checking. Security will be tight. The timing of this couldn’t be worse. We don’t want anything to go wrong. It will be enough of a scene already. So you’re ready?”
“I said I was. You’re making me nervous.”
“Don’t be. The only way to get through this is by guarding our nerves. Anyway, we’ll talk later.”
“But, Glen-”
“Yes?”
“No more risks. We’re too close.”
Chapter 15
“Roux, Bertrand. Yes, yes. I have it right here. Pays by check the second of every month.” The keyboard clicked as Jules Ricard, office manager of Azema Immobilier, scrolled back in time through Taleel’s rental record. Abruptly, he stopped, and pressed his damp, gray face closer to the monitor. “Incredible, really. Sixteen months and always on the second. ‘Like clockwork,’ you say in English, non?”
“Yeah,” said Chapel, without the verve. “Like clockwork.”
The office was small and cramped and windowless, and like most offices housed in a nineteenth-century building, without the luxury of air-conditioning. In deference to the heat, Ricard had turned off the lights, so that even though it was only three P.M., the room had the fusty, melancholy pallor of an abandoned classroom. Thumbing open the top button of his shirt, Chapel billowed the fabric to get some air.
The place was a pigsty. Strips of paper were taped to every free square inch of Ricard’s monitor, each bearing an abbreviated message punctuated by a quiver of exclamation points. “Appelez P!!” “20:00 Chez FB!!!” “Payez C!!!” Ashtrays filled to overflowing decorated his desk and credenza, while piles of magazines lay toppled and scattered across the floor. Chapel shuddered at the sight. He was a “neatnick” of the first degree, the kind of guy who kept his desk clear of everything but what he was working on at the time and who regularly checked his shelves to make sure the spines of his books were properly aligned. He enjoyed filing. The mere act of organizing calmed him. How anyone could work in such squalor was beyond him.