“Maybe when this is over you can catch some R&R there.”
“Been there, done that, got the black French nightie.”
Bill just went with it, “Well all-righty then… let’s get down to the case. What have you found out?”
“The two break-ins are definitely connected, and while each on its own means nothing, the patterns are obvious. It seems to point to a Nigerian connection.”
“Maguambi?”
“Ding-ding-ding, you win the kewpie doll. How’d you find out?”
“Somewhere there’s a leak. A Percival Cutney, a.k.a. Percival Smyth, came in here and knew all about you, the Vera Cruz, the crucibles, and the whale thing.”
“That’s not comforting. Is he foreign intel?”
“We are trying to track him down now. In fact, Joey is in Paris as we speak, on his trail.”
“You think this Percy guy is a Maguambi operative?”
“Could be, but he seems more MI-5ish. And you’ll piss him off if you call him Percy — he prefers Percival.”
“Well isn’t that precious. I tell you what, I will meet up with Joey and make my report and maybe we can double team old Percy while I am here.”
“Sounds good; be careful.”
“Bill, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, what?”
“When you talk to Joey, do you ever tell him to ‘be careful?’”
“Yeah… I think I do, especially when he’s out there doing something for me. So, I’ll tell you what I always tell him. ‘Be careful… and wear a cup if you scrimmage.’”
“Thanks, Quarterback.”
Raffey awoke in a cold concrete room, strapped to a bed. He strained to look around. A woman and man entered the room. It took a second and then he realized it was Hanna in black hair. “Hanna, why did you do this to me and my family?”
“Shut up and listen. Blindfold him.”
Hans tied a strip of cloth around Raffey’s head and made sure his eyes were covered.
Raffey sensed someone else had entered the room. He smelled cigarette smoke and started to think they were going to beat him. His body tensed. Then the new voice talked.
“You are Raffael Juth?”
“Yes. Where are my sister and niece?”
A switch of metal, like an old car-radio antenna, whipped down on his legs and stung him so hard he whimpered.
“You will only answer my questions and not deviate from that or she will hit you again, only next time across your face. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now, you work at the LHC?”
“Yes, I work at the Large Hadron Collider. I am attached through CERN.”
“You will follow our instructions to the absolute smallest detail or we will make your family suffer and curse your name as they die.”
“What can you possibly want with me?”
The whip came down across his face, aggravating his already sore cheek. He screamed.
“You are supposed to be smart, yet you can’t follow the simplest instruction not to speak except in response to my questions,” the man calmly said.
“Are you ready to obey or should we amputate one of little Kirsi’s limbs?” Maya added.
“No, no, don’t do that. I will listen; anything you say.”
“Good, now maybe we can proceed without interruption.” The man coughed as he ground his cigarette into the carpet of the hotel room. “So you are familiar with the high voltage distribution circuitry that powers the magnets in the machine?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to program an aberration into the frequency regulator module. At our direction you will pre-program this variant to occur at the time we choose. You will do this and it will work or Leena will watch her baby be dismembered slowly. Do you believe we will do this?’
“Yes.”
“Do you plan to carry out our wishes?”
“Yes.”
“Then they shall be spared.”
There were no more questions, and Raffey sensed that he was alone in the room.
Outside the room in an abandoned warehouse, the man reached into the pocket of his car coat and retrieved a pack of Gitanes, placing one between his lips. It wagged as he spoke. “Has he asked for proof of life?”
“No.”
“Surprising,” was all that The Engineer said as he lit his cigarette and left without saying another word.
“The conductor on the train is French ex-paratrooper and my former brother-in-law, so I e-mailed him the picture from the ID. He says your man is in the fifth car, first row of seats,” Marc Dupré, the rather rotund director of the French Intelligence service said matter-of-factly.
“You have an ex-brother-in-law on the train who was a paratrooper?” Joey Palumbo said.
“Oui. From my first wife, but we still like each other.” He turned as the horn of the train announced its entrance into the grand station at Paris.
Joey watched as a few dozen people departed the train. Percy, whatever his name was, was indeed in the fifth car from the engine. Dupré approached him and in a very gallant way extended his arm as if to say follow me, although Joey thought he probably said something like, “s’il vous plaît.” And judging from the non-confrontational look on Smyth’s face, he had probably called him Percival to boot.
As he approached, Joey could see the recognition on Percy’s face as he matched Joey’s to the White House.
“Hey, Percy, good to see ya! Let’s have a chat, shall we?” Joey said in a grand gesture as he opened the door of his state department car. The only response Percival gave to the slight of excessive familiarity was a tired facial expression. The car had reached the end of the parking lot when two Paris police cars came to a stop in front of the Intelligence Agency’s car. Joey was out in a flash. “What is the meaning of this?”
The tall, thin sergeant of the Surté simply said, “You must hand over your prisoner to us.”
“First off, he is not a prisoner and second, Director Dupré is my liaison and he is right over there.”
“Sergeant, what is this about?” Dupré yelled as he trotted up to the cop car.
“I have a warrant of protection from the court, signed by all three magistrates with their seal affixed below.”
Dupré pulled out his reading glasses and scanned the document. “Mr. Palumbo, my friend, I am sorry, but a judicial order is sacrosanct. I must ask you to let Monsieur Smyth go with these officers, please.”
“Where will they take him?” Yardley stepped forward.
“That is for the judge to decide, but for now we must comply.”
Joey thought about handcuffing himself to the limey bastard and throwing his own key in the nearby sewer. That way, wherever Percy went Joey went, but he figured they’d just produce a hacksaw and it would all be for show. “Yardley, I want the ambassador notified and a formal complaint filed before we get to your office.”
“Yes, sir,” Yardley said as he dialed the number.
The cops reminded Percy to watch his head. As he was loaded into the backseat, he looked at Joey and said, “Better luck next time, old bean.”
“You know, you are really starting to bug me, Percy!”
With that the two cop cars sped into Paris traffic. Joey turned to Dupré, “Okay, now explain this bullshit to me.”
“Unlike America, the courts here are the judicial system. They have unequaled power and it is absolute. I am sorry, my friend.”
“Not as sorry as the president of the United States is going to be when he hears about this.”
Joey was right. The president didn’t like it when his handpicked team, headed by Bill, didn’t get what it wanted. He made sure the secretary of state understood how steamed he was. That prompted the phone call Bill made to Joey on the secure scramble link. “I just got off the phone with the secretary of state. He says he’ll have the French ambassador in front of him within the hour. But he also said this can go on a while because it is a Metropolitan Paris matter, not national.”