The Traitor

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

As Willie attacked his second glass of wine, Inspector Papin glanced at his watch and excused himself. Watching Willie slurp it kinda bothered me, too.

Grafton waited until the policeman was out of the room. Then he said, “If you were going to kill eight world leaders, how would you doit?”

“Wait until they were all in one place,” Willie said, “then blow it up. While the television cameras watched.”

“The only place all eight will be together on television is upstairs in the Hall of Mirrors. Oh, Wednesday evening they’ll all go to a state dinner hosted by the French president at his residence in Paris, but that won’t be televised live.”

“It’ll be here,” Willie Varner insisted. “While the world is watching.”

I agreed with Willie. Still… “The bomb squads have had dogs in the building all day.”

“Indeed they have, but dogs are trained to smell certain types of explosives. No dog can be trained to find everything in the chemical cornucopia that can be made to go bang.”

We discussed it and decided to start in the basement and work up. We found a door to the dungeon, all right, a damp, dark place of massive stone walls and iron beams. The beams were at least a century old, installed to replace the original oak beams, yet the iron looked serviceable. It had been painted recently with some kind of red rust inhibitor.

Grafton had a pocket flashlight, and we used that to supplement the poor light from the overhead light fixtures. The fixtures and wires looked as if they dated from the nineteenth century. We found the remnants of ancient cells that probably once held political prisoners, back when the musketeers were dashing and slashing.

“The dungeon,” Willie whispered.

After my recent jail experience, the place gave me the shivers— and an uncomfortable, closed-in feeling.

It seemed to get to Willie, too. “Man could get that clause-tro-phoby in a place like this,” he remarked at one point. “People musta been smaller back in them days.”

“How much explosive would it take to knock out the supports and bring down the building?” I asked Grafton. He was a naval officer; he must know more about explosives than I did.

“A few hundred pounds if it were placed right. A whale of a lot more if it were just packed in here.”

“They don’t have to bring down the building,” Willie pointed out.

“That’s right,” Grafton admitted with a sigh. “But I don’t think there’s anything here. Let’s go upstairs.”

When we got back to the kitchen, the door to the stairwell was locked. As Willie worked on it with the bobby pin, I said, “A man could go far with a thing like that.”

Willie opened the door with a flourish.

“All the way to the penitentiary,” Jake Grafton said as he walked by.

We walked the passageways looking at everything, not that there was a lot to see. The floors were wooden, the walls and ceiling plasterboard, and there were lights and wires and doors. That was it. So we walked along looking for discontinuities, something out of the ordinary, such as a floorboard that had been removed and replaced, a section of the wall that had been repaired, anything. It was time-consuming and tedious, and, of course, we found nothing.

We had been at it an hour and were in the south wing of the building when two paras came along with a bomb-sniffing dog. They looked at our badges, then looked us over while I eyed the dog — it wasn’t interested in us — edged by, and went on.

“We’ll never manage to walk through all these passages,” Grafton remarked. “Let’s go back to the main building where the summit meeting will be held.”

“In the main building on the main floor, in the passageway between the king’s bedroom and the Hall of Mirrors, there are ladders — actually just boards nailed to the wall,” I told him. “A dog couldn’t climb them.”

“We’ll try that,” Grafton said.

The first ladder we came to went up into the ceiling, yet the trapdoor was screwed shut. We walked along, looking. There were three ladders, and all three had secured trapdoors.

“I saw some hand tools in the kitchen, Tommy.” Grafton told me where they were, and away I went. I found them and paused for a drink of water, then headed back.

I took off my coat, got up on the middle ladder, and started screwing. Ten screws, with paint covering the heads. It took a while.

I got the honor of going up first. When I opened the trapdoor in the ceiling, it was dark as a tomb above me. I stuck my head up and felt around, found a switch, and flipped it. Way up high, a naked bulb illuminated among the rafters and braces. The space between the massive uprights of the walls of the Hall of Mirrors and the king’s bedroom was crisscrossed with wooden braces that stabilized everything and tied the whole building together. It was dusty and gloomy up there. There was only that one bulb, and in that huge dark space, it looked like a firefly in the night.

“We’re going to need a flashlight,” I said.

Grafton, who was below me on the ladder, passed up a small pocket flash. “Callie always packs these when we go anyplace, just in case the power goes out.”

I took the flash, put it in my shirt pocket, and climbed into the loft. Grafton, then Willie, followed.

There were spiders and webs. Didn’t look as if anyone had been up here in a while.

Willie cussed as he climbed. “This is my good suit, I’ll have you know. Paid near two hundred dollars for it. It gets ripped, I’m gonna bill the gover’ment. Grafton, just want you to know.”

“He got it at the Salvation Army,” I said.

“That’s a damn lie.”

Near the top of the ladder was a catwalk. I climbed up on it. The lightbulb was in a ceramic fixture screwed to a rafter. Scanning the flash around, I could see that the rounded ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors was suspended from the rafters and joists and braces. The joint work looked superb to me. I could see by the different shades of the wood, and the texture, that the beams were of various ages. Across the space was the outside wall of the chateau; the beams and boards there butted into the masonry.

“Bet some of these boards are as old as the building,” Grafton muttered as he joined me on the catwalk.

I looked down the ladder. Willie was going back down to the passageway below.

“Hey,” I called.

“You don’t need me up there. I’m too old for this shit, anyway.”

Grafton took the flash and went down the catwalk, looking at everything. I followed along. We went all the way to the end of the catwalk and worked back to the other end. It was a nice distance, at least a hundred feet, but the room below was huge.

All we saw was beams and dust and spider webs and sawdust from the construction last winter and spring. Finally Grafton sat down on the catwalk. I did, too. We could hear chairs being set up in the hall below, plus some other banging and clanging.

“Maybe we figured this wrong,” Grafton said disgustedly.

“Maybe it won’t be a bomb. Maybe a submachine gun, a pistol, something for the evening news.”

“Who’s going to pull the trigger?”

“A cop? A paramilitary guy? A fake cameraman? I don’t know.” Grafton smacked his fist on his thigh.

“If that was the plan, Rodet wouldn’t have needed a scapegoat,” I told him. “Maybe we should go over to the hospital and sweat the guy, make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

“I know you didn’t really mean that, but don’t say those things. By three o’clock in the morning I’ll be ready to do it.” Grafton idly played the beam of his flashlight back and forth over the timbers.

“Maybe Abu Qasim himself. Whaddaya think?”

Grafton turned off the flash and sat silently in the gloom. “Maybe, but I doubt it. Anyone could push a button.” He flipped on the light, then flipped it off. “If it was going to be Qasim, Rodet could have told us a tale, who Qasim was, where he was, knowing that would send us off on a wild goose chase and clear the way for Qasim here. But he didn’t.”

“He didn’t because you would have figured he was lying, and since he said it wasn’t so, it was.”

Grafton wasn’t going to waste time chasing his tail. “Only place we haven’t looked is over there,” he said. The beam shot out across the hump of the ceiling in the hall below, pointed at the far wall. “On the other side of the apex there’s an area that can’t be seen from the catwalk.”

I hoisted myself erect and flexed the leg with the stitches in it. “I can get over there.”

“You fall, you’ll go through that ceiling and land down below. Make a splash, maybe even the evening news.”

“Get famous, sign a book contract for my autobiography, get rich and retire.” I put Grafton’s flashlight in my trouser pocket, stripped to my undershirt, climbed up on the railing, then began working my way across the beams. I got some splinters in my hand and did a little quiet cussing. It was just so dark out there.

I stopped just ten feet from the other side, eased the flashlight out without dropping it, turned it on and began looking. The beam wouldn’t reach either end of the hall, so I started right below me, in the trough where the roof met the exterior masonry.

And by God, there it was. A small black cylinder, perhaps three feet long. It was strapped to a timber, I could see that. There was a valve on one end, and a hose leading to the ceiling of the room below. A wire led from the valve … to a black box of some type. A radio receiver!

I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. “I think I’ve found something. Crawl over here and look.”

“Gimme some light here,” Grafton said as he inched himself in my direction.

When he arrived, I ran the light over the cylinder and the box. “What do you think is in that cylinder?”

Grafton didn’t answer immediately. He took his time, looking everything over with the flashlight. Finally he said, “High-pressure gas, highly flammable. Explosive. A push of a button and the radio control unit opens the valve, venting gas into the top of the room below. Somewhere around here there’s an igniter. After the cylinder empties — and it would only take five or six seconds, I imagine — a push of another button ignites the mixture.”

“A radio-controlled bomb.”

“Yep. The concussion will probably kill everyone in the room. If it doesn’t, the resulting fire will.” He scanned the flashlight right and left. Finally the light stopped moving. “There’s another one.”

There were five cylinders and four igniters, which were also attached to radio-control units.

When we finally got back to the catwalk, I could see the sheen of perspiration that covered Grafton’s face. He pulled a shirttail out, unbuttoned the shirt, and used the tail to wipe his face and hands.

“What kind of gas, you think?”

“Good Lord, I’m not a chemist. Hydrogen with an enhancer would be my guess.”

“This stuff wasn’t installed last week.”

“It was installed during the renovation, probably just before they closed up this area.”

“The location for the G-8 summit wasn’t announced until a few weeks ago,” I mused.

Grafton shook his head vigorously. “Just before we came to Europe. But Rodet knew long before that. He may even have recommended this site. Probably promised ironclad security.”

“Think the batteries in the radio control units are still good?”

“I expect they are, but just in case, look here.” He bent down and used the flash to illuminate the underside of the beam that he had just crawled out on.

I looked and didn’t see anything. Then I did. There was a black cord there, taped under the beam. The end was within easy reach.

“That cord is looped around the cylinder valve. If the radio won’t open the valve, it can be opened manually.” He went along searching under beams. Sure enough, each cylinder had a cord, and each igniter. The two different kinds were even color-coded.

“Moving the summit to another location at this late date is out of the question,” Grafton said as he inspected the cords with his flash. “Questions will be asked that the French government won’t want to answer. The powers that be wouldn’t consider it.”

I didn’t argue.

“We’ll take the actuating wires off the gas valves on these cylinders,” he continued. “The easiest thing is probably to just cut the wire. Our bomber can push his button until his thumb wears out and there won’t be any gas to ignite. And, of course, we can cut the cords.”

I thought that would work. “We need to get sweep gear up here, ensure we’ve found all the radio control units.”

“You stay here. Don’t let anyone touch this stuff. I’ll be back after a while.”

He left me the flashlight and disappeared down the ladder. I turned the light off to save the battery and found a place to sit.

That turned out to be the longest night of my life. Grafton came back after a couple of hours with Inspector Papin and a few other Frenchies. One of them was a bomb squad guy, and he disconnected the radio-controlled actuators from the cylinder valves. All I did was hold a flashlight and keep it pointed at his work. He didn’t need it since he was wearing a miner’s light strapped to his forehead.

While he worked the other technician crawled back and forth over the beams working with the sweep wand, which had an extender that lengthened it to over twelve feet. He had a heck of a time maneuvering it around the framing in there, but he verified that there were only four igniters. The bomb squad man disabled them and removed one to take back to the lab.

Finally the frogs left, and it was just me and Grafton. We sat on the catwalk with our legs dangling, listening to the workmen in the Hall of Mirrors below us. You could hear the sound of voices, although words were indistinguishable, and bangs and thumps from people dropping this or that or scooting things around.

“If you’re willing, I’d like for you to spend the night here,” Grafton said as he watched my eyes. “Don’t want to take a chance that anyone might come up here and reconnect this stuff. Or crawl out on those beams and open the valves manually.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll get you a bucket to pee in and food and water. You can sleep in the hallway.”

“I need to visit the facilities awhile before you leave.”

He nodded. “Better go now,” he said.

So I went down the ladder and on down to the kitchen in the basement and used the small restroom there. After slurping some water, I headed back to where Grafton waited. He was standing in the hallway at the bottom of the ladder.

“You can sleep right here, if you want. We’ll bring a pillow and blanket.”

“See you later,” I said.

He stuck out his hand to shake and smiled at me.

When he was gone, I was still glowing. It wore off quickly, though. I strolled the hallway, sat a while, and strolled some more. I sang silently to myself, whistled, thought about After, when this was over. I was bored silly.

About seven that evening Willie showed up with a bucket, a box of really good grub, water, wine, a flashlight, a blanket, and a pillow. “So you guys found a bomb, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He wanted to know all about it. When I finished talking, he whistled.

“Did you bring a book or magazine or newspaper?”

From the depths of his bag he whipped out a paperback. A romance. “This was all I could find in English.”

At that point I had no shame. I took it.

“You don’t look like yourself, Tommy,” he said, scrutinizing my face. “You get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Take care of yourself, man.”

“I got the zapper.”

He nodded, looked at me again, then was gone.

After I ate I dove into the book. The heroine was a sweet young thing, innocent, who fell in love with a jerk who was trying to find himself. A rich jerk, which is the very best kind. Finally I gave up and tried to sleep.

Several times during that long night, someone — I don’t know who — rattled the doors to the hallway, checking the locks. Each time I came wide awake and lay there with the ray gun pointed at the door. But the doors didn’t open.

I was never so glad to see anyone in my life as I was Jake Grafton on Wednesday morning. I heard someone fussing with the lock on the door, so I popped around the corner into the hallway that led to the right wing of the building while I turned on the battery of my ray gun. When I heard footsteps, I eased an eye around, “Tommy?”

“Here.” I stepped out and hit the ray gun’s power switch.

“Breakfast.”

“I need a potty break.”

“Okay.”

I took the bucket with me down to the kitchen and dumped it in the commode. When I got back upstairs, Grafton was pacing the hallway.

“Long night?” he asked as he handed me several newspapers. One was in English, even.

“You have no idea.”

“We spent the night sweeping this building. My pension against a doughnut there aren’t any more radio-controlled devices.”

“We’re going to be in big trouble if you’re wrong.”

“Oh, no,” Jake Grafton said. “If I’m wrong, our troubles are over. We’re going to be dead.”

It was a long, noisy morning in the hallway. I felt like a monk in his cell, cut off from the world, yet it was just beyond the walls, thumping and bumping. I read all three newspapers, flipped listlessly through the pages of the romance. Nibbled some on the breakfast items that I hadn’t eaten. Peed in the bucket. Walked the hallway, back and forth, back and forth. My headache was back — the concussion, I figured — and I was stiff and sore from being pounded on by gorillas and sleeping on the floor.

I knew Abu Qasim was the guy coming to press the button and send the G-8 leaders and their entourages to wherever it is that good suicidal terrorists don’t go, someplace without virgins. Then I convinced myself that it wasn’t him, that it would be someone else, anybody. A team maybe, anxious to share in the glory.

There was no guarantee that we had found all the bombs. For all I knew, I had slept on one. Underestimating the terrorists was an error that would prove fatal for a lot of people, me included.

Hijack a plane and crash it into the chateau? It was certainly within the realm of possibility. As I walked, the scenes of the World Trade Center collapsing ran through my mind, over and over.

Well, we had Jake Grafton on our side. Maybe that leveled the playing field.

Fire and blood.

Damn, boy, you gotta get away from this.

I felt clammy and sweaty and started swallowing repeatedly. I should have known! Seconds later I ran for the bucket and heaved my breakfast. I felt a little better afterward, but not much.

I was about ready for the straitjacket and funny farm when Jake Grafton came up from the kitchen at 10:03 a.m. I knew because I’d been checking my watch twice a minute since he left my breakfast.

“Here’s a key to the door Willie picked yesterday,” he said, holding it out. “Want a break?”

I snatched the key, grabbed the bucket and started hiking for the stairs.

“Come back in an hour or so.”

“You bet.” I took the stairs down two at a time, dropped a bonjour on the five or six plainclothes security folks sitting around the kitchen table, and hopped into the restroom. When I was done there I went through the kitchen to the great outdoors.

I found myself on the back side of the chateau. I needed a walk, so I circled the building. That takes a while, but that’s how long I had. I was stunned when I rounded the north wing and saw the courtyard, which looked like the parking lot at the Super Bowl. There must have been two dozen media trucks there with satellite dishes on the tops; miles of cable ran everywhere in a hopeless tangle; here and there stood a generator truck with its diesel engine snoring loudly; and there were even a couple of private buses.

Three reporters gripping microphones stood with their backs to the chateau in front of cameramen. A couple appeared to be on the air, chattering into their mikes.

As I watched, a helicopter descended onto the paved area behind the main gate and a small knot of people got out. They walked past the statue of Louis XIV toward the chateau and the waiting television cameras. It looked like a Hollywood premiere — all they needed was a red carpet and a hot dolly or two draped for action.

Trailing along at a respectful distance, I had to run a gauntlet of security types, some in uniform wearing submachine guns, some in plainclothes with bulging armpits. Every one of them scrutinized my face and the pass dangling from the chain around my neck.

Inside the building was bedlam: television lights, cables strung willy-nilly to trip the unwary, cameras, and the technicians and on-air people to make the magic; needless to say, all these people were talking loudly to each other. Several interviews were in progress in front of large blue drapes, which allowed the producers at home to put in any background they wished any time they wished. I recognized none of the interviewers or interviewees, which is natural since I’ve led a sheltered life of quiet contemplation.

In one of the rooms, press secretaries were briefing the working press on agreements and statements that the ministers had issued after yesterday’s meetings. More uniformed paras, police and plainclothes security guys.

Pink Maillard was huddled with a couple of women carrying Secret Service purses. The women were hardbodies who looked as if they would enjoy shooting me or breaking my neck just for practice. I gave Pink the Hi sign and he jerked his head at me in acknowledgment.

Of course I looked around for Arabs and North Africans and didn’t see a one.

Then I did, a delegation in white robes and beards. They appeared to be Saudis, but who knows.

The newspeople were a polyglot lot: their stories and broadcasts were going all over the globe. I leaned against a wall for a while and watched them interview government stooges and ministers and each other. They never tired of it.

As I watched, another knot of people came in, Japanese security types surrounding their leader. Just as I was glancing at my watch, noting that my hour was almost over, the president of Russia arrived. These heads of state were shuffled off to await their summit in the north wing, where they could visit with their own ministers or each other free from press scrutiny.

I stared at the people, scrutinizing them one by one. Which one was the guy with the radio transmitter? Which one had a gun?

That camera — that could be a gun! I walked over, looking at the camera. The guy had a ponytail and wore jeans.

I must have had a strange look on my face, because he said, “Who the hell are you?” in a Texas accent.

I realized I was making a fool of myself and turned away.

Qasim. It would be him. But which one was he?

The key that Grafton had given me opened the door behind the curtain that we had gone through yesterday. No siren went off and no one started shooting. I pulled it shut behind me until it latched, then rattled it.

Jake Grafton was sitting on the catwalk at the top of the ladder. I climbed up to join him. My head was thumping like a toothache and I was perspiring freely, so I held on to the rungs for dear life as I climbed.

“We’ve done everything that can be done,” Grafton said when I was seated beside him, clinging to the rail with a death grip. “The French have searched this building from end to end, including both north and south wings. They’ve swept it for electronic devices of any sort and swept it with magnetic detectors looking for suspicious metal in the walls, and they’ve got people stationed everywhere. Antiaircraft missile launchers are on the grounds around the building, concrete barriers have been erected at every entrance to force vehicles to slow to a creep to get through, and tanks are stationed where they can take any vehicle out at can’t-miss range. Oh, and troops are out in town patrolling to minimize the chance that someone could shoot a shoulder-launched missile at the chateau.”

“Food and drink have been inspected,” I suggested.

“Yep. And no one is in the building except authorized staff, news-people, security folks, and the political delegations from all over. Absolutely no tourists.”

“Sounds like you have it covered.”

“I’m just praying there was only the one bomb.”

He departed for the security command center, which was a trailer outfitted with three different global communications systems that sat by the door in the courtyard, right outside the main entrance. It had been obscured by the news trucks, so I hadn’t noticed it. Grafton assured me it was there, and I believed him.

It did figure that there was only the one banger. Two doubled the chances that one would be found; then the building would be searched like a Columbian nanny. But since I saw it that way, maybe there were indeed two. Or three.

The problem was that I was a little dizzy. I climbed down from the catwalk gingerly, making sure my feet were properly placed on the rungs. The irony of the moment made me want to cry. I’m a rock climber, for Christ’s sake, a cat burglar. I can free-climb a brick wall, and here I was, holding on to a ladder like a kid climbing an apple tree for the very first time.

Safely on the floor, I propped my head on the pillow and lay down on the blanket I had slept under the previous night. Closed my eyes and tried to ignore the pounding in my head. Tried to shut out the noise that seeped through the walls from all sides. Tried to sleep, but it didn’t happen. The person on my mind was Abu Qasim.

Grafton found Willie Varner in the basement kitchen watching the ceremonies on television. He was alone. “Carmellini still upstairs in the hallway?”

“He hasn’t come down.”

“The door is locked, right?”

“Yep. I checked a little while ago.”

“Don’t let anyone through that door to the servants’ hall. Anyone.”

“Got one of those radios for me?” Grafton was wearing a radio earpiece in his left ear and a lapel mike. The wires ran to a radio transceiver hooked to his belt.

“No. I got the last one they had.” He pulled out a cell phone, made sure it had a signal, and passed it to Willie. “This is Callie’s. Call me if anyone wants to go up. Just open the phone, push the green button, then the number 1.”

“Okay, boss.” Willie put the cell phone on the table.

“I don’t have a weapon for you, either. Think you can do this?”

Willie opened several drawers, searching. Finally he pulled out a large knife. “Yeah,” he said.

“Good man,” Jake said. He patted Willie on the shoulder, and went up the staircase that would take him to the main hall.

Willie Varner pushed the knife up his left sleeve. He opened the refrigerator, which held nothing of interest, then filled a glass of water from the tap. He eyed the television as he sipped it.

The helicopter settled onto the pavement in the vast square in front of the chateau, but no one got out. The rotors slowed and eventually stopped.

Jake Grafton was standing near the command center, adjusting his radio earpiece, when Pink Maillard’s voice sounded in his ear. “He wants to see us, in the bird.”

Jake clicked the transmitter button on his belt transceiver twice and began walking toward the helicopter. Maillard caught up with him and matched him stride for stride.

They walked past the media trucks, the paras and the waiting diplomats. A crewman wearing a helmet was standing beside the open door as they approached the helicopter. They climbed aboard and found the president of the United States and the U.S. ambassador to France, Owen Lancaster, seated side by side. The president pointed to the facing seats; Grafton and Maillard sat down.

“You found a bomb.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake described the cylinders and igniters and explained how they would work.

“So who has the radio control unit that would have set these things off?”

“Someone who is already here,” Pink Maillard said tightly. “The French have sealed this place off. No one gets in without a pass.”

“But our bomber probably already has a pass,” the president said.

“That’s right.”

“And it could be anyone,” the president mused. “Any politician, staffer, cook, policeman, soldier, reporter, cameraman …”

“Anybody,” Jake agreed.

“Have the terrorists got a Plan B?”

No one answered that question.

When the silence had gone on too long, Owen Lancaster said, “The French have given me assurances. They know the risks as well as we do.”

“Right.”

“Anybody,” Grafton repeated.

“Sweet Jesus,” the president muttered. He rose from his seat and climbed out the door of the helicopter.

Pink motioned to one of the Secret Service men who was getting off to follow the president. “Give me your pistol.”

The man produced it and passed it to Pink, who handed it to Jake Grafton.

Outside, the president walked toward the row of television cameras and waiting dignitaries.

The British prime minister was the last to arrive. He made his way into a foyer where he was greeted by the president of France. The two of them walked shoulder to shoulder toward the Hall of

Mirrors as the other G-8 leaders came in from the north wing of the building.

Grafton was already in the hall with his shoulders pressed against the back wall. He was amazed at the crush of newspeople, cameramen and bodyguards. The room filled quickly as the heads of government shook hands and seated themselves around the large conference table in the middle of the room.

Grafton watched the crowd and listened to the radio chatter among the security men. He didn’t have a good vantage point — he had three men with large videocams on their shoulders directly in front of him — and there was no way he could easily and unobtrusively move to a better one. That’s when he glimpsed a face he thought he knew on the other side of the room. Then it disappeared.

Henri Rodet pushed the button on the transmitter in his jacket pocket repeatedly. He glanced up, waiting… and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Well, the gas might be colorless.

He counted silently to ten, took a deep breath, and pushed the button on the other transmitter.

Nothing.

Mon Dieu! Perhaps he had accidentally switched transmitters. If so, the gas was coming out now. He kept counting… seven, eight, nine, ten! And pushed the button on the first unit again.

Nothing.

Had they found the bomb and disabled it? Or were the batteries dead?

“Jake, this is Pink. The French just got several hits on their radio receiver. Someone is transmitting on the bomb activation frequency. They didn’t get a location.”

“Pink, Grafton. I thought I just saw Rodet.”

“He’s in the hospital.”

“Maybe he’s out. It could have been someone else, but it looked like Rodet.”

“What’s he doing here?” This rhetorical question went unanswered. “I’ll check with the French.”

Grafton moved left, elbowing his way around the room as the president of France spoke into a microphone. He scanned the crowd. Rodet had disappeared.

“Papin says Rodet came through the gate twenty minutes ago,” Maillard told Jake over the Secret Service net. “He had a pass. No one told the gate people that it was invalid.”

Jake clicked his mike twice and kept moving, trying to find Rodet among the hundreds of onlookers.

The batteries, Rodet thought. They were always the technological weak link. Ten months they had been in place, through the heat of the summer.

At the top of the staircase to the basement he passed two paras, who nodded at him. He went down the stairs as quickly as he could. He was favoring his left side, but with the tight wrapping, it didn’t hurt too badly.

I’ll climb to the bomb. That is the best way.

As he entered the kitchen he glanced around. A slender black man sat at the table. He had been watching the television. He rose.

“What are you doing here?”

Rodet went to the door that would admit him to the stairs to the servants’ hall. He removed a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock.

“You can’t go up there! Get away from that door!” The black man came at him. He had a knife in his right hand.

Rodet reached into his coat pocket and grabbed the pistol. But it had no silencer. If he fired a shot here, it would bring an army of paramilitary police and security men. He palmed the pistol, and as the black man stabbed with the knife, he hit him in the side of the head. The man went down and stayed down.

Rodet looked at his side. The knife had gone through his coat, ripping it, but it hadn’t penetrated the vest.

He unlocked the door, went through, and pulled it closed behind him.

Stunned, Willie Varner levered himself from the floor and fought to clear his head. He had recognized Henri Rodet, stabbed him — and the knife hit something hard.

He struggled to his feet and grabbed the door handle. Locked. He had the key Grafton had given him. Swaying on his feet, he fished for it.

Should call Grafton, but no time.

He inserted the key in the lock, opened the door, and started up the stairs.

The commotion in the Hall of Mirrors got my attention. I could hear the sonorous French over the PA system, hear every word.

I was standing there in the hallway nursing my headache when I saw the man come up the stairs from the kitchen.

I turned toward him. Holy…! Henri Rodet!

I walked toward him.

He saw me, pointed his pistol at me and kept coming, closing the distance.

“You fucking bastard!” I screamed. I had the ray gun out, so I raised it and aimed. Rodet’s arm came up, the pistol in his hand.

I squeezed the trigger; the laser leaped across the space and hit Rodet in the chest.

He fired the pistol and something whacked me in the left arm. I released the trigger of the ray gun, steadied myself and pulled it again as I launched myself toward him.

I got the laser on his chest just as his pistol cracked a second time and Willie Varner shouted, ‘Wo, Tommy! He’s wearing a bomb!”

We were only twenty feet apart when the finger of God shot from my fist in a brilliant flash, strobed once…

Henri Rodet disappeared in a blinding explosion.

The expanding fireball raced toward me and smacked me like a giant hammer; I flew backward through the air … That was the last thing I remember. Everything went black.

Jake Grafton heard the muffled shots, barely audible over the PA system, then the dull whump of an explosion. Pieces of plaster flew off the wall behind the French president and several mirrors shattered.

The president paused just long enough to shoot a glance at the falling glass, then continued his speech without missing a word.

The crowd shuffled their feet, restless, but nothing else happened, so they settled down almost immediately.

Jake Grafton forced his way through the onlookers behind the cameras and made for the stairs to the kitchen as Pink Maillard’s voice sounded in his ears, giving orders to his men to enter the servants’ hall and report to him.