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  They drove both rental cars to rue de Thillois, a street a few hundred yards southeast of Boutin’s apartment. A slight chill hung in the air as they parked, waited a few moments, then exited the vehicles, moving swiftly onto the empty street.

  While Noboru and Gillespie approached from the north, gaining access past the fences to take up positions in the trees, Hansen, Valentina, and Ames would enter from the south, through the passage Saint-Jacques.

  They reached the gate, and Valentina got to work on the lock while Ames patched into the security network and turned off the motion sensors.

  Keeping to the long shadows near the wall, they slipped into the passage, and Ames did a wholly impressive job of silently climbing his way into the old tree just to its north so he could cover the north side of the courtyard and the gate entrance.

  Hansen motioned for Valentina to halt. He took several long breaths to calm his nerves, then whispered in his SVT, “Nathan? Kim?”

  NOBORU was covering the north-south entrance to the courtyard directly opposite Boutin’s apartment. He had already found a particularly large branch on which to set up and was scanning the area with his NV binoculars when Hansen called. He checked in and listened to Kim do likewise. She was in much closer, having glided up like a wraith to the left side of the apartment building’s main entrance and found good purchase in a tree right there. In Noboru’s humble opinion, no one could approach the operational area without being detected.

  And while they didn’t have the luxury of thermal scans, Moreau’s satellite feeds could detect anyone approaching from outside their bubble.

  Noboru glanced over at the old church, just visible through all the leaf cover, and for a moment, he thought he saw a shadow creeping across the ancient stone wall. In fact, he had. Hansen and Valentina were approaching Boutin’s place and had donned their balaclavas.

  HANSEN checked his OPSAT once more: 11:14. He put Valentina to work on the main door, and then, on the periphery, he spotted something—a perfectly straight silhouette, unnatural against nature’s curves. He shifted over, leaned down, and there it was: a cell phone, the prepaid type, leaning against the wall, its antenna sprouting up between some weeds. He glanced back at Valentina as she finished with the lock. He motioned for her to step back; then he lifted the doormat and found a tremble sensor, the kind from a vehicle’s antitheft GPS tracker. A tiny, almost invisible wire snaked from the sensor back to the cell phone.

  Hansen cursed and stage-whispered, “Let’s move. He already knows we’re out here!”

  The old forger was a clever bastard, having jury-rigged his own personal alarm system to back up the building’s standard security. He must’ve assumed someone would be coming to visit, someone who knew how to bypass the gate and door, and that deeply troubled Hansen. He withdrew his SC pistol loaded with anesthetic darts, and Valentina did likewise as he announced to the others that they were moving in.

  The sensor at the door had tripped a mental alarm, and Hansen immediately decided to abandon stealth in favor of shock and awe. He gave Valentina the high sign, and they stormed through a short hall illuminated by a lone bulb, hit a stairwell, and thundered down it to reach Boutin’s door.

  Hansen’s single kick sent the door smashing inward, and he dropped to his haunches as Valentina came in over him.

  MOREAU sat at the desk in his hotel room and faced his computer while wearing the Trinity System’s virtual-reality headset and gloves. The gloves were fixed with dozens of wireless sensors, and the headset resembled a narrow pair of sunglasses with attached microphone that could be mistaken for an integrated Bluetooth device. The headset was both comfortable and discreet, so wearing it in public was not entirely out of the question. The gloves were another story. Images were produced by a low-intensity laser projecting them through Moreau’s pupil and onto his retina. The laser scanned vertically and horizontally at high speed using a coherent beam of light, and all data was refreshed every second to continually update him.

  The system was the result of a joint venture between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, the army’s Natick Soldier Center, and Third Echelon (whose involvement was kept classified from Kovac and the rest of the NSA through Grim’s careful maneuvering). Trinity allowed Moreau and Grim not only to meet in a virtual environment, but to interact directly with that environment in order to more expeditiously and visually share data with each other. Trinity was protected by a hybrid version of QKD, or quantum key distribution, that enabled participants to produce a shared random-bit string known only to their computers. That string became a key to encrypt and decrypt messages. Should anyone attempt to hack their link, they would be notified immediately while the system attempted to trace the hack to its source.

  At the moment they stood improbably in midair, about five hundred feet above Boutin’s apartment and its environs, the backdrop shimmering with a phosphorescent glow. Gravity meant nothing in this place. Moreover, these weren’t wire-frame images but a near-real-time streaming satellite feed enhanced by night vision, so that even the light from traffic well in the distance, gliding down the boulevards and auto-routes, was represented with only a slight delay.

  Moreau could look down past his avatar’s boots to see the apartment entrance, the positions of each member of the team denoted by green triangles, and the team’s cars parked on the street. He glanced over at Grim, her avatar remarkably lifelike, right down to the hair color and brand of glasses. Some of the best producers, programmers, and artists from the video game industry had obviously been tapped for this project, and the results were no less than stunning.

  Ahead of them, superimposed against a backdrop of stars and narrow rafts of clouds, were stacks of slightly translucent data boards similar to the home pages of websites. The boards floated like tabbed windows and were organized into groups created by Grim. She reached out with her finger, lifted one board from the stack, and drew a small circle with her finger that caused the board to hover before her. This one contained classified information regarding an NSA employee code-named Stingray. She widened the board by extending her thumb and index finger, then lifted her hand to a navigation bar and began to tap deeper into the information, flicking documents aside with her finger, the illuminated pages arcing high and away from the board and vanishing into the night. She wasn’t just surfing information; she was bulleting through it with a vengeance.

  “I think our subroutine on Kovac’s network finally picked up something,” said Grim. “This code name was attached to an agent who died three years ago. Why is it that agents who die always come back to life?”

  “That’s the zombie factor,” quipped Moreau.

  Grim stood back from the data board to reveal the face of an old man, probably in his sixties, with closely cropped white hair and beard. He had penetrating blue eyes and an earring in his left ear.

  “So that’s our tail,” Moreau sang darkly. “I know him. William Harvey Deacon. Special Forces. Black ops. Deacon the Beacon. I’ll kill his ass and be done with it.”

  “No, let’s see if we can put him on a diet of junk food.”

  “I like your style, Grim.”

  “The feeling’s mutual—except for the part about, ahem, killing his ass. We’ll just keep him misinformed.”

  “All right. But big and noisy is more fun.”

  “One other thing troubles me. I told Kovac you went home sick. No one ever followed up on that. I had someone take your car home. No tails, nothing.”

  “Maybe he bought it.”

  “Or maybe he already knows you’re in Reims.”

  “How?”

  Grim faced him, the avatar’s eyes narrowing. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  HANSEN and Valentina confronted Abelard Boutin in his sitting/TV/work room. The little forger was seated on his couch and just reaching over to his metal TV stand, where a pistol sat next to a large bag of potato chips. On the TV was a rerun of Miami Vice, in French. Hansen had hoped that Bou
tin would be sleeping when they broke down the door, but it seemed the gnome was a fan of pastel-colored suits and white Ferrari Testarossas. Nearby was a maple workbench with attached magnifying lamps, clamps, spools of multicolored thread, and the sheets of hooks of a fly-fishing-lure maker. This, of course, was part of Boutin’s cover, and those same tools could also be used as part of his forgery business.

  The old man stopped in midreach as Valentina hollered in French, “No no no, monsieur. I’ll take it.”

  Boutin blinked hard, hesitated, then sighed and collapsed back into the sofa as Valentina took his pistol and shoved it into her waistband.

  Hansen shifted up beside her and asked, “Did Francois Dayreis come to see you?”

  Boutin removed his thick glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then said wheezily, “Who’s going to pay for my broken door?”

  Hansen took a deep breath. “I’m going to blow your brains out if you don’t talk.” He glanced over at Valentina, whose eyes were emphatic: What’re you doing?

  Boutin returned the glasses to his nose. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”

  “Someone gave the police an anonymous tip about the warehouse assault. Was that you?” asked Valentina.

  The old man sighed. “I don’t know anything.”

  Hansen leaned in closer. Held up his free hand. And in the blink of an eye came a blade jutting from his fist. “You’re an artist. Your hands and eyes are your most important assets.”

  “You don’t sound like a torturer.”

  With that, Hansen grabbed the old man by the wrist, dragged him from the sofa and over to the workbench, where he pinned the man’s hand to a broad plank of maple, the stubby fingers with long gray hairs nice and flat, like sausages ready to be sliced. “Which one first? And then maybe a hook in each eye? It happens. Fishing is more dangerous than you think.”

  Boutin began to lose his breath.

  Hansen spoke more slowly for effect. “So, I ask, is Dayreis worth it?”

  The old man’s face flushed, and his cratered pate was growing slick with sweat. “So you’re looking for Dayreis? Okay, I’ll tell you what I know. Let go.”

  Hansen complied but held his blade to the man’s throat. Boutin rubbed his hand, took a deep breath, and said, “He came to me with five driver’s licenses, and then hours later the names on those licenses were on the news. Five men assaulted. I knew Dayreis was more trouble than he was worth, and I had to suspend my business because of him.”

  “Marty, you hearing this?” Hansen whispered into his SVT.

  Moreau’s voice came through the subdermal. “I’m hearing you calling me Marty.”

  Hansen repressed a snicker and widened his gaze on Boutin. “Do you know where Dayreis is now?”

  “He said he had a friend in Tuscany.”

  “He’s not in Tuscany,” said Valentina.

  Hansen looked at her. “How do you know?”

  “Because he had to go see another forger since our friend here ruined his plans. So, monsieur, if you were Dayreis, who would you go see?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Valentina sighed loudly for effect. “Give us the name, and you can get back to your TV show.”

  Boutin closed his eyes. “I would go see Emmanuel Chenevier. He is very good.”

  “Spell the last name,” Valentina ordered.

  Boutin did.

  “Run that name,” Hansen whispered to Moreau.

  “On it,” snapped Moreau. “Give the old man some money for his door.”

  Hansen reached into his pocket and produced two hundred euros (about $270). Boutin took the bills and counted. “That door was an antique. I’ll need twice as much.”

  With a snort, Hansen looked to Valentina, who managed to produce another hundred euros. “That’s all we have,” she said.

  “It will have to do,” said Boutin. “And you, lady, you are a smart one to ask me about another forger. I think you will find Mr. Dayreis. And when you do, tell him I said hello and that I hope he dies.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be pleased,” said Valentina.

  Hansen tipped his head toward the door, and they hustled out of the apartment, notifying the others that they were on their way.

  MOREAU and Grim were still connected through the Trinity System and watching as Hansen and his team went though a series of maneuvers to discreetly collapse back in on their vehicles. The team was at its most alert now, and Moreau was impressed by how deftly they came together, if not by the fact that Hansen had chosen to park both rental cars in one spot.

  “Look at that,” said Grim suddenly. “There’s someone on the park bench, right there.”

  “You’re not thinking what I’m thinking … ” Moreau began.

  Grim reached out toward a compasslike control and used it to zoom in on the satellite feed, where they glimpsed a bum with a newspaper folded over his head but lying on his side so that he could peer out from beneath it.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Grim. “Look at Kim. She’s walking right by him. Thirty feet! I told Sam to keep them close. But not that close!”

  As the cars drove away, the bum rose and began photographing them, and, yes, Moreau and Grim made a positive identification of Mr. Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell—the man who was going to bring down Kovac and stop an even bigger threat in one fell swoop.

  Grim felt a pang of guilt that she couldn’t tell Hansen and the others everything; however, she was even more thankful now that she hadn’t. Kovac’s man Stingray was close. Too close.

  Chapter 18.

  DOUCET WAREHOUSE REIMS, FRANCE

  HANSEN and Moreau had agreed that questioning Emmanuel Chenevier would need to happen in the morning, lest they catch the man in a very foul mood at 1:00 A.M. The team was now driving straight out to Doucet’s warehouse to confirm that Fisher had been there and see if there was anything that might indicate his next move. It was a long shot, to be sure, but failing to at least inspect the warehouse would be foolish … and Hansen had already made one such mistake.

  Taking a tip from Moreau, Hansen made sure that the team parked its rental cars about a quarter mile apart. He should’ve had them do likewise back at Boutin’s apartment, but he was so pumped full of adrenaline that his better judgment had been clouded. Parking the cars together was a tactical error he would not make again. Paying attention to the minutiae kept you alive. Period.

  Doucet and his thugs had been living out of a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot Quonset-style warehouse within a mostly deserted industrial park on Reims’s west side. Brown and green quilts of tilled fields unfurled to the south and west, dropping off into darkness, with the only significant light coming from the streetlamps dotting the road.

  After a quick radio check, the team fanned out. Noboru and Gillespie would descend from the north and set up overwatch. Valentina would advance from the south and cover the loading dock entrance. Hansen and Ames were threading between the buildings just east of the warehouse and would cross to the dock itself and enter through that rear door.

  Within two minutes, the calls came in:

  “Nathan here. I’m in position. All clear.”

  “Kim here. Same deal on my side.”

  “Ben, I’m just behind the white truck near the dock,” said Valentina. “There are a few cars parked across the street, but they look empty. I can see a Range Rover and a couple of others. You’re clear to go.”

  “Roger that. Hold positions. Here we come.”

  Hansen and Ames darted along the building directly east of the warehouse, the sheet-metal walls already growing damp with dew. On three they sprinted across the parking lot, bounded up the stairs to the loading dock, ducked under the blue police tape, and reached the front door.

  Hansen covered Ames, who was about to pick the lock when he simply tried the handle: open.

  “Nice police work here,” Ames said softly. “They didn’t even lock up on their way out.”

  “Works for me,” Hansen replied.

>   Drawing their pistols, they eased into the warehouse and switched on their penlights, illuminating the open spaces in dim shades of red. Off to their right was a living room of sorts, with torn-up couches and recliners positioned around a big flat-screen TV, fifty inches or larger. Nearby sat a DVD player with literally hundreds of movies stacked beside it. Most of the titles were either kung fu flicks or porn. A trash can near one sofa was overflowing with garbage, and a rat scurried off as Hansen caught it with his light.

  Directly ahead stood a flight of metal stairs leading up to a loft along which ran a metal railing. “I’m going up. Find me something down here.”

  “I’m sure I will,” said Ames. “Fisher’s getting sloppy. I’m telling you… .”

  Hansen sighed and quickly mounted the staircase. At the top, he moved along the railing, then crossed into the kitchen. Farther back were a breakfast nook and laundry area partially obscured by a makeshift bedsheet divider.

  Oddly, the door to the base cabinet under the kitchen sink hung wide-open. Hansen thought about that as his light played over the floor, looking for any signs of blood. Nothing. He moved out of the kitchen and found a bathroom with a simple toilet and sink. Again, his light swept along the floor, where he spotted a tiny sliver of black plastic. He reached down, picked it up, turned it over.

  Plastic from what?

  Hansen lifted the toilet seat, saw that someone had urinated but not flushed. Urine stains were on the seat and the floor. He thought about that. Then he turned to a door, swung it open, and found that he was in a closet with wall-mounted ladder leading up to a skylight. The warehouse had obviously been a conversion project; thus the closet had been constructed to preserve that roof access, probably for maintenance purposes or even escape in case of a fire.

  “Ames, anything?” Hansen called into his SVT.

  “Not yet.”