Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

in this game, I should have bailed. I've had it up to fucking here with this spy shit."
    Not a muscle in Grafton's face twitched. He should have been playing poker in Vegas instead of wasting his talent in the CIA.
    "Maybe I need to do some research on the federal statute of limitations," I muttered. "The diamonds the rat and I lifted were from a museum in the District of Columbia. That info should be online."
    "Tell you what," Grafton replied, locking me up with those gray eyes, serious as a hangman an hour before dawn. "You help me out on this, and I promise you there'll be no prosecution, even if you leave the agency."
    "Maybe a pardon, huh?"
    "No prosecution. That's the deal."
    I took a deep breath. "I want someone to watch my back."
    "The people I have lined up are career professionals." He gave me their names.
    I waved the names away. "Three guys. This is a joke. We couldn't follow Martha Stewart's limo through Manhattan with three guys."
    "Three plus you."
    "Like I said, I want someone to watch my back."
    "Is there a reason you don't trust these people?"
    "The agency has had its troubles in Europe—hell, that's why you're here!" I spread my hands. He knew as well as I that any of these pros could be a mole or double agent. True, the odds were remote, but it had happened. "You don't want this op blown and I don't want to stop a bullet."
    "Who do you have in mind ?"
    "Willie Varner, my lock-shop partner."
    "He isn't with the agency."
    "That's one reason I trust him."
    "He's a convicted felon."
    "Indeed he is. Willie got caught and went to the joint. Twice. I hate working with people who think they're too smart to get caught. Willie's careful, competent and paranoid—just my kind of guy. And he's one more guy. Believe me, we'll need him."
    "If he'll come, we'll make the arrangements."
    "I'll offer him a free trip to a French penitentiary—he'll be on the next plane."
    "We'll pay him contract wages."
    Willie wouldn't sign up for this gig if I told him what the job really was. Still, he had never been to France and was probably foolish enough to want to see it, so I wouldn't level with him until he was here. Like Jake Grafton, I'm sort of short on scruples.
    "He's going to need a passport," I told Grafton. "One in his own name would probably be best. He's a good liar but there's not much time and I need him now."
    I sat there thinking about Henri Rodet and the DGSE. Some years back the French spooks used murder and kidnappings to squash their enemies. In Algeria they used teams of assassins to take out people they didn't like; when the assassins had done their job, the spooks blew up the hotel the assassins used as headquarters—with the assassins in it, of course. This being la belle France, after the explosion leveled the hotel someone whispered the names of the bombers to the newspapers.
    If I got put through a grinder and turned into lean meat, bone meal and gristle, there was a shadow of a possibility that someday someone in the DGSE would leak the amazing facts to the press. If they did, that was probably all the epitaph I would ever get.
    "I hope I don't regret this," I muttered.
    "I just hope you live through it," Grafton said, and smiled again.
    A cold chill ran up my^ spine.
    CHAPTER THREE
    I called Willie Varner from a phone in the SCIF. Due to the time differential, I got him at home before he went to work. Way before. "Jesus Christ, Carmellini! You know what time it is?" "Early."
    "It's five thirty in the fuckin' mornin', man. You in jail or dead or what?"
    "I need some help, Willie."
    "You need a new watch, that's for sure."
    "I want you to come over to Paris and help me for a few weeks."
    "You mean, like, in France?"
    "Yeah."
    A long silence. "France," he said. I could tell he was warming to the idea.
    "We'll pay you for your time, of course," I said casually. "All expenses covered. Nice hotel, some time off. Sort of a working vacation." "Doin' what?"
    "Helping me. I need some backup." "Backup for what?"