DEUXIÈME BUREAU, PARIS
«It is she,» said the man behind the desk in the darkened office. On the right wall was projected a detailed map of the Caribbean, specifically of the Lesser Antilles, a flickering blue dot centered on the island of Saba. «We can presume she sailed through the Anegada Passage between Dog Island and Virgin Gorda—that’s the only way she could survive the weather. If she survived.»
«Perhaps she didn’t,» said an aide, sitting in front of the desk and staring at the map. «It would certainly make our lives easier.»
«Of course it would.» The head of the Deuxième lit a cigarette. «But for a she-wolf who has lived through the worst of Beirut and the Baaka Valley, I want irrefutable proof before I call off the hunt.»
«I know those waters,» said a second man, who stood to the left of the desk. «I was posted to Martinique during the Soviet-Cuban threat, and I can tell you the winds can be vicious. From what I understand of the battering those seas took, my guess is that she did not survive, not with what she was sailing.»
«My assumption is that she did.» The Deuxième chief spoke sharply. «I cannot afford to guess. I know those waters only by the maps, but I see scores of natural recesses and small harbors she could have gone into. I’ve studied them.»
«Not so, Henri. In those islands the storms blow first one minute clockwise, the next counterclockwise. If such inlets existed, they’d be marked, inhabited. I know them; studying them on a map is merely a distant exercise, not seeking them out, looking for Soviet submarines. I tell you, she did not survive.»
«I hope you’re right, Ardisonne. This world cannot afford Amaya Bajaratt.»
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
In the white-walled subcellar communications complex of the CIA, a single locked room was reserved for a unit of twelve analysts, nine men and three women, who worked in shifts of four around the clock. They were multilingual specialists in international radio traffic, including two of the Agency’s most experienced cryptographers, and all were ordered not to discuss their activities with anyone, spouses no exception.
A fortyish man in shirt-sleeves wheeled back his cushioned swivel chair and glanced at his colleagues on the midnight shift, a woman and two other men; it was nearing four o’clock in the morning, half their tour over. «I may have something,» he said to no one specifically.
«What?» asked the woman. «It’s a dull night as far as I’m concerned.»
«Break it up for us, Ron,» the man nearest the speaker said. «Radio Baghdad is lulling me to sleep with its bilge.»
«Try Bahrain, not Baghdad,» said Ron, picking up a printout discharged from his word processor into a wire basket.
«What’s with the rich folks?» The third man looked up from his electronic console.
«That’s just it, rich. Our source in Manamah passed the word that a half a million, U.S., had been transferred to a coded account in Zurich destined for—»
«Half a million?» interrupted the second man. «In their league that’s chickenshit!»
«I haven’t told you its destination or the method of transfer. The Bank of Abu Dhabi to Zurich’s Crédit Suisse—»
«That’s the Baaka Valley routing.» The woman spoke with instant recognition. «Destination?»
«The Caribbean, the precise location unknown.»
«Find it!»
«At the moment, that’s impossible.»
«Why?» asked the third man. «Because it can’t be confirmed?»
«It’s confirmed all right, the worst way possible. Our source was killed an hour after he made contact with our embassy point man, a protocol officer who’s being pulled out posthaste.»
«The Baaka,» said the woman quietly. «The Caribbean. Bajaratt.»
«I’ll secure-fax this up to O’Ryan. We need his brains.»
«If it’s half a million today,» said the third man, «it could be five tomorrow, once the D-route proves out.»
«I knew our source in Bahrain.» The woman spoke sadly. «He was a good guy with a lovely wife and kids—goddamn it. Bajaratt!»
MI-6, LONDON
«Our field man in Dominica flew north and confirms the information the French sent us.» The chairman of Britain’s foreign service intelligence approached a square table in the center of the conference room. Covering the surface was a large, thick volume, one of hundreds in the bookshelves, that held detailed cloth maps of specific areas of the world. The gold lettering across the black cover of the volume on the table read: The Caribbean—Windward and Leeward Islands. The Antilles. British and U.S. Virgin Territories. «Index someplace called the Anegada Passage, would you please?» he asked his associate.
«Of course.» The other man in the strategy room moved quickly as he noticed the frustration of his superior; it was not due to the situation but instead to his rigid right hand that would not obey his commands. The associate flipped the heavy cloth pages to the map in question. «Here it is… Good God, no one could have traveled so far in those storms, not with a craft that size.»
«Perhaps she didn’t make it.»
«Make what?»
«Wherever she was going.»
«From Basse-Terre to the Anegada during those three days? I’d think not. She’d have to have been in open water more than half the time to reach it so quickly.»
«That’s why I asked you here. You know the area quite well, don’t you? You were posted there.»
«If there’s such a thing as an expert, I suspect I qualify. I was the Sixer control for nine years, based on Tortola, and flew all over the damned place—rather a pleasant life, actually. I still stay in touch with old friends; they all thought I was a fairly well situated runaway with a penchant for flying my plane from island to island.»
«Yes, I’ve read your file. You did outstanding work.»
«The cold war was on my side and I was fourteen years younger—and I wasn’t a young man then. I wouldn’t get behind the controls of a dual engine over those waters now on a heavy bet.»
«Yes, I understand,» said the chairman, bending over the map. «So it’s your expert opinion that she couldn’t have survived.»
«Couldn’t is an absolute. Let’s say it’s highly unlikely, damn near impossible.»
«That’s what your counterpart at the Deuxième thinks.»
«Ardisonne?»
«You know him?»
«Code name Richelieu. Yes, of course. Good man, if rather opinionated. Operated out of Martinique.»
«He’s adamant. He’s convinced she went down at sea.»
«In this case, his opinion is probably justified. But, if I may, since you’ve asked me up here for whatever I can offer, might I ask a question or two?»
«Go ahead, Officer Cooke.»
«This Bajaratt woman is obviously somewhat of a legend in the Baaka Valley, but I’ve been poring over those lists for the past several years and I don’t recall ever having seen the name. Why is that?»
«Because it’s not her own, not the Bajaratt part,» interrupted the head of MI-6. «It’s the name she gave herself years ago, the name she thinks preserves her secrets, since she believes no one has any idea where it came from or who she really is. On the assumption that we might be infiltrated, and in the projection that she could be on to larger things, we’ve kept that information in our black files.»
«Oh, yes, yes, I see. If you know a false name and its origins, meaning the real one, you can trace a background, build a personality, even a pattern of predictability. But who exactly is she, what is she?»
«One of the most accomplished terrorists alive.»