The Crimson Code. Rachel LeeЧитать онлайн книгу.
gun in one hand, the other vainly trying to staunch the angry geysers of blood spurting from the side of his neck. Yawi was dimly aware of one of his comrades coming around the corner to check on him, of the target turning and raising his pistol, of three more shots, of the target finally crumpling to the floor, half-atop him.
Mission accomplished, Uncle, Yawi thought. We killed them all.
And then the darkness swelled around him.
Frankfurt, Germany
It all sounded so simple, but Lawton knew it wasn’t. Nothing could be that simple. He drew Renate from the back room into one of the executive offices. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“This sounds too simple.”
“Anything sounds simple when it is laid out this way.”
Damn, she was so distant again, as if everything that made her Renate had flown away to another star system.
“Renate, listen to me.”
“I am listening, Law.”
“Then think about it. If this bank really contains the kind of information you think it does, why isn’t it better guarded? The entire Frankfurt Brotherhood could take a fall if their computer records were breached.”
She turned to face him directly. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the only reason they’d do this is if their records are so heavily encrypted that we’ll probably be wasting our time anyway.”
She shook her head. “First we go for their communications. We hack into their computer system and view their private Internet messages. If we find what we need there, we can talk about what to do next to nail them. But trust me, if we follow the money we’ll find them.”
“But how will we break their encryption? Even the NSA can’t hack SWIFTNET. When they want the information, they get a subpoena.”
She gave him a tight smile. “You must have faith in me. And in Assif. We have done this before.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?” he asked.
“Because there are some things that it’s better not to know,” she replied, her icy eyes fixed on him. “Trust me, Lawton. I know what I’m doing here. And we will get what we need.”
She left to rejoin the others, and he followed reluctantly, thinking that he didn’t mind putting his neck in a noose if he could be certain it would serve a purpose. He wasn’t sure of that with this job yet.
Niko was regaling Assif with the story of the murder of Jürgen Ponto.
“He was the head of the Dresdner Bank, back in the 1970s. It was a terrible time in Germany, in Europe. Lots of terrorist groups active. Suzanne Albrecht was Ponto’s godchild, the daughter of a man he’d known since childhood. But he didn’t know she’d joined the Red Army Faction. She showed up at his door carrying a bouquet of roses, acting like the loving godchild. Then she and her two companions tried to kidnap him. He fought back. They shot him five times.”
“Wow,” said Assif, shaking his head. “His godchild?”
Niko nodded. “It makes you think, doesn’t it? You can know someone from the day they were born and still not know them at all.”
“He was the enemy,” Renate said quietly.
“The anger of disaffected youth,” Niko said. “So easy to twist young minds.”
Assif’s face froze as he looked at the television news. “Yes. And it’s happening again.”
8
Saint-Arnans-la-Bastide, France
General Jules Soult sat in the comfortable leather armchair in his library. He puffed on a cigar and studied the papers that had arrived by pouch from Frau Schmidt only a short while ago. The courier was cooling his heels outside, awaiting Soult’s response.
It would be positive, of course. He had every intention of taking over intelligence operations for the European Union Department of Collective Security. He also intended to make very sure that these documents he was to sign would hamper him in no important way.
He was quite pleased to discover that there was nothing to object to in the papers before him. He was assigned full intelligence responsibility and ordered to report directly to Frau Schmidt herself. Apparently the good German woman had no desire for any dirt to get past the two of them. That pleased him.
His operational budget would be generous, and while his operatives were forbidden to use deadly force except in self-defense, Soult wasn’t worried about that detail. His people would ensure that he retained plausible deniability.
Satisfied, he signed and initialed the first set of documents, keeping a copy for himself, and slipped the executed version back into the pouch. He touched a button on his desk, and moments later his butler appeared. An English butler, of course. There was something about the way the English buttled that remained without compare.
“For the courier. Then I should like my brandy.”
The man bowed, accepting the pouch. “At once, Monsieur le Général.”
Soult sent the butler on his way, then reached into his top right desk drawer and pulled out a remote control. With the touch of a few buttons, the library wall to one side opened and revealed a large-screen television. As always, it was already tuned to a news network. Today he chose to listen to one out of Germany. It always paid to have a wide variety of sources.
What he saw pleased him immensely. Students in Berlin were burning pictures of Osama bin Laden. The Islamic Center in Vienna had suffered from graffiti and broken windows. The violence was still only in the stage of small outbreaks. But it would provide perfect cover for what was to come.
He was still smiling when his butler returned with his Napoleon brandy on a silver salver. The man placed the snifter carefully on Soult’s desk and began to bow out.
“Wait, Devon.”
The butler paused and straightened to attention. “Monsieur?”
“Have you seen the news about the public attacking mosques? And protesting?”
“Yes, sir.”
Soult turned to look the man in the eye. “What do you think of it?”
“I can understand the anger, monsieur, but the actions accomplish nothing of purpose.”
Soult nodded slowly, and dipped the mouth end of his cigar in the brandy for a moment. “What would be your idea of a proper response?”
Devon’s eyes widened only a fraction, and only momentarily, before he resumed his customarily formal demeanor. “I’m quite sure I don’t know, sir. I am merely a butler.”
Soult chuckled. “And a diplomatic one at that. Don’t you feel the least urge to strike back, to seek vengeance, no, justice, for these atrocities?”
Devon hesitated. “What I feel, sir, is not necessarily a wise response. Yes, I feel loathing for persons who could commit such crimes. But does that give me the right to take the law into my own hands?”
With that, before he could be questioned any further, Devon and his salver disappeared from the library.
Soult studied the curl of smoke rising from his cigar, then glanced at the news again. Devon would bear watching, he decided. Then, a moment later, he changed his mind. Devon had spoken as a rational, mature man who had been raised in a culture of law. And everything that he himself was about to do would be under the color of law. And if it were so, then Devon should have no reason to object, not that Soult had any intention of letting his butler in on his secrets. Still, he knew better than to presume that a butler—even one as impeccably trained as Devon—would be oblivious to what happened around