Rules of Vengeance

73

Graves shook Sergei Shvets by the collar. “What the devil do you have planned? You’ll tell us now, or by God, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”

“He’s wounded,” said Ford. “Go easy.”

“I’ll go easy after he talks.” Graves yanked Shvets’s shirt so hard that the Russian bounded off the couch. “Where is she? Where’s Emma Ransom?”

Shvets grimaced. “You’re too late,” he whispered. “It’s done.”

“Too late for what?” demanded Graves.

“Go to hell,” said the Russian.

“Oh, I will. I’m sure of that. But I’m going to do my best to make sure you get there before me.” Graves balled his fist and ground it hard against the wound in Shvets’s gut. “Where-is-Emma-Ransom?”

Shvets’s eyes bulged, and a moan escaped his clenched teeth.

“Enough!” Kate Ford grabbed Graves from behind and forcibly separated him from Shvets. “Leave him.”

Graves shook her off, and took a step back toward Shvets before thinking better of it. “They’ll have your head on a pike looking over Red Square, tovarich, before I’m done with you.”

Shvets didn’t answer. He sat hunched over his stomach, sucking down great drafts of air.

“Get him out of here,” said Graves, delivering a last glancing blow to the top of the Russian’s head. “And make sure you don’t leave his side. I want guards at his door, even when he’s in the operating theater. Do you understand me?”

A team of medical technicians lifted Shvets onto a gurney and wheeled him out. No fewer than six Black Panthers accompanied the director of the Russian FSB to the ground floor and all the way to the hospital.

“ La Reine,” said Jonathan.

Graves looked over to where Ransom stood in the corner, held in an armlock by a policeman.

“What did you say?” asked Graves, who was wiping his brow with a handkerchief, barely listening.

“ La Reine. That ’s what Emma’s going to try to blow up.”

Graves shot an impatient glance at Ford. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “ La Reine is France’s newest nuclear power facility. It’s on the Normandy coast, near a town called Flamanville.”

“Let him go,” said Graves with a casual wave.

The police officer released Ransom.

“There’s going to be some kind of bomb,” said Jonathan. “I read about it on a laptop I found at Shvets’s house in Èze. It’s supposed to happen today.”

Graves gave Ford a look. “You see that laptop?”

“No.”

“It was in the car,” said Jonathan.

“Sure it was.” Graves eyed him with skepticism. “And why should we believe you?” he asked, crossing the room toward the American.

“Give it a rest,” said Jonathan. “Can’t you see we’re on the same side? I want to stop Emma as badly as you do.”

Graves halted a foot away from Jonathan. “All I see is a fugitive from British justice wanted for the car bombing of Igor Ivanov’s motorcade, as well as for the murders of a doctor in Notting Hill and a yet-to-be-identified corpse burned beyond recognition currently resting in a Monaco morgue. That’s what I see.”

Jonathan appealed to Ford. “She’s going to plant a bomb inside the reactor somewhere.”

“And just how is she getting in?” broke in Graves.

“She’s pretending to be someone named Anna School,” said Jonathan, fighting to extract a kernel of grain from the pages of chaff he’d pored over. “I mean, Scholl. Yes, that’s it. She’s some kind of an investigator.”

“Go on,” said Ford, in a less hostile manner, which was a signal to Graves to take it easy.

“All the material was written in Russian,” explained Ransom. “Most of it went over my head. But I remember a few things. Emma’s supposed to pick up something in the northeast corner of something called W-4. Maybe if I could talk to the engineers or the plant manager, I could figure out more of it.”

“Not a chance,” said Graves. “Your merry flight from justice is officially terminated. From here, you’ll be transported directly to one of France’s darkest and most secure jailhouses. And there you’ll remain until we file all proper diplomatic papers in triplicate and see to it that your extradition to England goes off without a hitch.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Jonathan. “I can help.”

“And you, sir, are a liar, and as far as I can tell, an agent with extensive training and experience in the employ of a foreign government to be determined at a later date. This nonsense about being a simple doctor stops now.”

“No,” said Kate Ford. “He has to come.”

Graves shot her a whiplash glance. “You’re not serious?”

But Ford kept her eyes locked on Ransom. “Call the plant,” she said. “See if anyone named Anna Scholl is visiting or if there’s been an inspection from the IAEA.”

Graves hesitated.

“Do it, Charles.”

Graves first consulted with the captain of the Paris gendarmerie, who gave his blessing and provided the plant’s emergency phone number. It took another five minutes to be put in touch with the plant manager and five minutes more to explain in his perfect schoolboy’s French who he was and why he was calling.

“She’s there,” said Graves, lowering the phone to his side. “She arrived at shift change. Security checked her out. She passed with flying colors. Even the palm print.”

“God,” said Kate Ford. “This is it.”

Graves put the phone back to his ear. “Do you know where she is right now?” he inquired in French. And then his face fell. “She’s inside the main complex somewhere. There are fifteen buildings. She has an all-access pass card.”

Kate turned to the French police captain. “How far to Flamanville?”

“Three hundred kilometers. One of my choppers can have you there in fifty minutes.”

“Please get it here as quickly as possible,” she said, before turning toward Jonathan. “Dr. Ransom, you’re coming with us.”

“Lock down the plant,” said Graves. “We’ll get them a photo and description of Emma Ransom within the next five minutes. And tell your people that she’s armed and dangerous, and that she’s most likely carrying high explosives. Don’t take any chances. Shoot to kill.”

Jonathan clutched the safety webbing as the Aérospatiale helicopter dipped its nose and plummeted toward the Normandy coast. Staring out the window, he had a clear view of the La Reine nuclear complex. To the casual eye, the area appeared calm, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, and purposely so. It was paramount that no word of the threat leaked to the general public. The mildest panic would have long-lasting consequences. Only after looking closely did he spot the unmarked cars blocking the entry road, and the armored personnel carriers stationed near the guardhouses, and the large black vans belonging to the GIGN- the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, the elite force trained to deal with threats to the country’s nuclear infrastructure- parked adjacent to the main administration building. In the sky above, he caught a glimmer of metal in the morning sun. It was the Mirage jets from the French Air Force, executing a box holding pattern to freeze air traffic above the target area.

Throughout the fifty-minute flight they had maintained an open channel of communication with La Reine. A running update of events delivered in urgent telegraphese.

“She tampered with the closed-circuit video feeds so we wouldn’t be able to see her,” the plant manager had reported soon after takeoff. “M. Royale discovered what she’d done and is going to try to find her. He spotted her in the warehouse, but she could be anywhere.”

“Is that warehouse also called W-4?” asked Kate, referencing Jonathan’s information.

“Yes, it is.”

“What do you keep there?”

“Pipes, equipment, maintenance supplies.”

“A lead pipe might conceal a high explosive from any detection system,” said Graves. “She may have gone to the warehouse to pick up the bomb.”

Kate nodded, then asked, “Who is Royale?”

“He’s the deputy security director. He met with Mrs. Scholl because M. Grégoire, our chief of security, didn’t come in today.”

“Have you spoken with Grégoire?” asked Graves.

“He isn’t answering his phone.”

At which point Graves asked the pilot to radio the police and instruct them to send a car to Grégoire’s home as quickly as possible. Then, to the plant manager: “Contact M. Royale and ask him if he’s found Mrs. Scholl yet.”

The minutes ticked past and the news grew more frantic.

“Royale isn’t answering,” said the plant manager. “He always has his phone with him. Something’s wrong.”

“Go find him,” ordered Kate in a drill sergeant’s tone, which made everyone look at her with trepidation.

Ten minutes passed. The first to report back was not the plant manager but a local policeman sent to rouse Grégoire. “I found him and his family in their house, tied up in their beds. The wife had a broken nose, and Grégoire, he is in shock. He said it was a woman who did it. She Tasered them.”

“And the children?” asked Kate.

“Fine.”

Another two minutes passed before the plant manager finally reported back. “We located Royale. He was in the warehouse. He is unconscious and his jaw is broken. What shall we do?”

Seated behind the pilot, sunglasses hiding his tired eyes, headphones clamped firmly over his ears, Jonathan was privy to it all.

The helicopter flared, nose up, and landed with a jolt. Graves slid back the door and leaped to the ground. Jonathan followed, with Kate Ford and several representatives of the French DST behind him.

Waiting nearby was the plant manager, his face damp with sweat. “She’s inside the reactor building,” he said, leading them into the administration building. “I saw her on the monitor myself.”

“Is she alone?” asked Graves.

“Yes, she’s carrying a large purse, that’s all.”

“Can she get into the control room?”

“Never. The room is locked from the inside. My men have orders to stay where they are.”

A few feet away, the rear doors of the vans stood open. GIGN troops clad in black assault gear sat with their backs to the walls, machine guns resting on their laps, looking very much like sticks of paratroopers readying for a jump.

Graves introduced himself to the chief of the counterterrorism squad, who joined them as they filed into the manager’s office. A map of the plant hung on the wall. Every building was marked with initials, with a legend in the lower left-hand corner.

“Any of this look familiar?” asked Graves. “Time to sing for your supper.”

Jonathan pointed to the main reactor complex, a grouping of four buildings inside a fenced perimeter. “Where is the containment building?”

“Right here,” said the manager, pointing to the largest building of the four.

“Do you store fuel there?”

“Of course, prior to inserting it into the reactor.”

“That’s it,” said Jonathan. “That’s what I read about.”

Graves spoke to the chief of the commandos. “Get your men to the containment building. She’s either carrying explosives in that bag or carrying the means to detonate devices that have been previously planted. Don’t take any chances.”

Jonathan stepped in between the two men. “Let me talk to her,” he said. “Give me a minute to reason with her.”

“Did you a lot of good in London,” said Graves. “Get out of my way.”

Jonathan placed a hand on his chest. “This is different,” he said. “Emma wouldn’t do this.” He looked at Kate Ford. “I know her. Let me try.”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Graves knocked away Jonathan’s arm. “See that Dr. Ransom stays here until we resolve the situation. Oh, and put the cuffs back on. We don’t want any more trouble.”