James Patterson Alex Cross 10 London Br

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diamonds!" Nikitin said.
"I don't care, and I don't believe you!" Captain Coridon shouted at the top
of his voice. "Get him out of here."
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"I know something!" Nikitin suddenly blurted out. "The suitcase nukes! The
number is four. It's al Qaeda who's behind it. Al Qaeda made the plan! They
call the shots. The prisoners of war everything."
I turned to the French policemen and shook my head. "The Wolf gave him up to
us. And he's not going to be pleased with his 'performance.' He'll kill him
for us. I don't believe a word he just said."
Nikitin looked at the three of us, then he spit, "Al Qaeda! Fuck you if you
don't like it, or believe it."
I stared back at him. "Prove what you're saying. Make us believe you. Make me
believe you, because I don't."
"All right," Nikitin said then. "I can do that. I'll make all of you
believers."
Chapter 86
As soon asI arrived back at the Pr�fecture, Martin Lodge caught up with me.
"Let's go!" He started to pull me along.
"What? Go where?" I looked at my watch something I seemed to be doing every
couple of minutes now. It was 10:25.
"A raid is going down in a few minutes. The hideout that the Russian gave
you it's real."
Martin and I hurried upstairs to the crisis room at police headquarters. My
old pal Etienne Marteau met us and guided us to a row of monitors set up to
view the raid. Everything was happening incredibly fast for a change. Too fast
maybe, but what choice did we have?
Marteau said, "They're confident, Alex. They coordinated with the power
authority, EDF-GDF. The power grid in the area goes down and then they go in."
I nodded at what he was saying and watched the screens in front of us. It was
strange to be once removed from the action. Then it was happening! French
soldiers appeared out of nowhere, dozens of them. They wore RAID jackets:
Recherche, assistance, intervention et dissuasion. They carried assault
rifles.
The soldiers rushed toward a small town house that looked harmless enough.
They broke down the front door. It happened in seconds.
A UBL, a French version of the Hummer, appeared and crashed through a wooden
gate in the rear. Soldiers jumped from the UBL.
"We'll see soon enough," I said to Martin. "RAID is good at what they do?"
"Yes, they are skillful at destruction and death."
A couple of the French police were miked and carried cameras, so we got to
see and hear much of the raid as it happened. A door was thrown open, a gun
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fired from inside, then a blaze of return fire.
Someone's shrill scream, the sound of a body thumping against the
floorboards.
Two gunmen ran out into a narrow hallway. Both in their underwear. Shot down
before they knew what hit them.
A half-naked female with a handgun shot in the throat.
"Don't kill them all," I muttered at the monitor.
A Cougar helicopter swooped down and more commandos appeared. Inside the
house, soldiers swarmed into a bedroom, then fell on a man lying on a cot.
They took him alive, thank God.
Other terrorists were surrendering, their hands held high.
Then more rapid gunshots, off camera this time.
A suspect was marched down the hall with a gun held to his head. An older
man. The Wolf? Was it possible they had captured him? The policeman with the
gun was smiling as if he had scored something big. The raid was certainly fast
and efficient. At least four of the terrorists had been captured alive.
Then we waited impatiently for news. The cameras at the raid site were shut
down. We waited some more.
Finally, about three in the afternoon, an army colonel stood at the front of
the room in the crisis center. Every seat was taken; there was no more
standing room; the tension was almost unbearable.
The colonel began, "We have identified the prisoners, those who are alive.
One from Iran, a Saudi, a Moroccan, two Egyptians. A cell. Al Qaeda. We know
who they are. It is doubtful that we caught the Wolf. It is also doubtful that
these terrorists were involved in the threat to Paris. I am sorry to give you
bad news at this late hour. We did our best. But he remains a step ahead of
us. I'm sorry."
Chapter 87
The terrible, "final"deadline was so close now, and no one had any more
information on what would happen next. We seemed to have run out of options to
stop the Wolf.
At 5:45, I was one of several nervous men and women climbing out of dark
Renaults and then hurrying toward the tall ironwork gates of the Minist�re de
l'Int�rieur building for a meeting with the DGSE, which is the French
equivalent of our CIA. The front gates were immense. Like supplicants entering
a cathedral, we seemed small and insignificant as we passed through them.
Ifelt small and insignificant, as well as at the mercy of higher powers, and
not just God.
The gates opened onto a grand courtyard, a vast expanse of cobblestones, and
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I was reminded of the horse-drawn carriages that had once rolled through these
very gates. Had there been progress in the world since then? It didn't seem
like it on that particular day.
I walked with other police officers, government ministers, and directors into
a magnificent entry hall with a marbled pink and white tile floor. Armed
guards lined the staircase. Hardly anyone spoke on the way up. There was only
the dull sound of our plodding footsteps, the occasional nervous cough. It was
possible that within the hour, Paris, London, Washington, and Tel Aviv would
be bombed and thousands would die. There could be a much higher number of
casualties. A hundred thousand or more was a possibility.
A Russian gangster is doing this? One with mysterious ties to al Qaeda? We
are at his mercy now, aren't we? How incredibly strange.
The meeting was in the Salle des F�tes, and once again I couldn't help
wondering what I was doing there. I was the American representative in Paris
because the FBI wanted me there, because there was a chance that I could make
a difference with my experience as a psychologist and homicide detective,
because something tragic might have happened to the Wolf in Paris a long time
ago. We still hadn't figured out what.
Inside the main hall, tables had been arranged in a U shape and covered with
plain white fabric. Propped on easels were laminated maps of Europe, the
Middle East, and the United States. The target areas were circled in thick red
crayon. Crude, but effective.
A dozen or more TV monitors were up and running. So was a state-of-the-art
teleconferencing system. There were more gray and blue suits than usual, more
important people, more obvious power on display. For some reason, I noticed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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