Chapter 27
US embassy
Paris
It was Eliza Porter Elkins’s first visit to Paris. She’d traveled to England, Spain, and throughout Scandinavia. Somehow her European itineraries, both personal and professional, had never included France.
The drive into the city was unimpressive. The sky was gray and overcast. The buildings grayer, damp, drab, and all too similar. The sidewalks carpeted with fallen leaves. Well, she thought, gazing out the window, maybe she really hadn’t missed that much.
Then the car crossed a bridge. Her first glance of the Seine.
Pea green, roiling, crowding its banks. The buildings fell away.
As if by command, the traffic disappeared.
Alone, they sped across the Place de la Concorde, broad and sweeping, tires rattling over cobblestones.
There was the Obelisk, Napoleon’s hard-won trophy from his Egyptian campaign.
How old was it? A thousand years? Two thousand?
To her left, the Champs-élysées, eight lanes flanked by poplars, climbing over a mile to the Arc de Triomphe.
Her heart soared. For a few moments, her anxieties vanished.
She was mistaken. She had missed that much.
France.
America’s oldest diplomatic mission, founded in 1778 by Benjamin Franklin.
France, without whose help a fledgling republic would never have won its independence.
In a sense, then, America’s oldest friend.
And so, the reason why Elkins had jumped onto a plane at the last minute, driven by her sworn duty and a secret fear.
She could not allow an American—a former agent, to wit, and declared dead these past nine years—to interfere with the most important diplomatic conference of the new millennium. Not on her watch.
The US embassy to France was located in an elegant four-story building called the Chancery, facing the Champs-élysées gardens.
They parked in back, where a tall fence and a wall guaranteed their anonymity.
Fields led them past the marine guards and into the building.
An elevator whisked them to the third floor.
“Record time,” said Sam McGee, showing them into his office. “Welcome in.”
“Hope you didn’t have to cancel your tennis match,” said Elkins pointedly, remarking on his casual attire. Khakis, polo shirt, and a crew neck sweater.
McGee was tall and strapping, ten years in Special Activities, the paramilitary branch of the Agency, and not one to take shit from anyone, including his superiors. “No indoor courts, I’m afraid,” he said. “With the leg I prefer pickleball.”
“The leg?”
McGee hiked up his trousers, revealing a titanium prosthesis. “It’s a little easier for me—and for people your age, I understand.”
“Touché, Mr. McGee,” said Elkins. “We should get along just fine.”
“Doubtful, but let’s give it a shot.”
The office was spacious and well appointed, with furniture more suited to a country home than a government office.
She made a note to ask her father, the senator, if she might borrow some of the furniture from the house in Potomac to redecorate her own office.
She might work for the government. It didn’t mean she had to work like them.
“You didn’t mention the leg,” she said, buttonholing Don Baker as they sat down.
“You didn’t ask,” he replied, sotto voce. “IED. Fallujah. Mac Dekker was with him.”
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“Broken leg, knee, jaw,” said Baker. “He was laid up six months. You can ask him about his tennis game when we find him.”
Elkins gave him a look—Watch it!—and sat down in a comfortable armchair. Sam McGee sat opposite her. He was rather handsome, trim beard, high forehead, intelligent eyes. He asked how the flight was and if she wanted coffee. She said, “fine,” and “yes, with three sugars and cream.”
“Anything more on Dekker’s whereabouts?” she inquired, now that they were on the safe side of small talk.
“Last seen around four a.m. in the Marais,” said McGee.
“Nothing from the police?”
“We’re keeping Mac’s identity under wraps,” said McGee. “They think they’re looking for Robert Steinhardt, Swiss national. Unless you wish to instruct us to do otherwise?”
“Not at the moment,” said Elkins. She smiled. “Don just informed me you worked together, you and Mac.”
“Did a few hops downrange,” said McGee. “That would be 2005 or 2006. Post surge. Yeah, we had our share of adventures. He went back to Bagram after that, then Syria.” He caught himself. “Oh, you don’t care about the past. You’re wondering if I might have seen him lately.”
“Well?” said Elkins, with an edge. Took you long enough.
McGee colored. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but until ten o’clock last night, local time, I believed that Mac Dekker was dead.
Out of the blue we receive a flash transmission that Mac is, in fact, Robert Steinhardt, Swiss citizen, wanted by the police here in Paris for the murder of two Saudi diplomats and that his capture is a level-one priority.
An hour after that you issued a red flag for Mackenzie Dekker.
Don, here, was good enough to fill me in on some of the particulars.
Given the timing, I understand your concern.
But I hope you’ll excuse me if I say that my head is still spinning. ”
“Fair enough,” said Elkins. “But it had better stop spinning now. Mac Dekker is alive and well, and God knows what he’s up to.
But he’s here in Paris, and his consort, Ava Attal, who I’m not pleased to inform you is a decorated officer of Mossad—is also in Paris.
On this weekend. Now if you’d be so kind, Mr. McGee, please tell me if you’ve seen him. ”
“No,” said McGee.
“Good,” said Elkins. “Happy to have that out of the way. Let’s move on. Do we have any further communication from the contractor? I’d like to read the full transcript.”
The identity of contractors was kept secret for purposes of compartmentalization and plausible denial. One department vetted them. Another hired them. The head of station or equivalent in rank monitored their activity.
“Did the contractor speak with this man, Gerald Rosenfeld?” she asked, studying the hard copy.
“Not that we know,” said McGee. “The contractor broke off pursuit after the police arrived at Rosenfeld’s residence.”
“You have an address?” she asked. “Might be worth a visit.”
“As a rule, we avoid getting involved in local law enforcement matters,” said McGee.
“This is hardly local,” said Elkins. “Any other time, I’d concur. But as you know . . .” She let the words die off as she glanced in Baker’s direction.
“I’ve known Don a minute,” said McGee. “I think it’s safe to read him in.”
“Hold on,” said Elkins. “First tell me if you did that check on the safe houses.”
“Three are in use,” said McGee. “Two have been occupied for several weeks. One was reserved last night.”
“By whom?”
“Rita Campbell. Field officer.”
“One of yours?”
“She’s out of Berlin,” said McGee.
“You’re kidding!” said Baker.
“What is it?” said Elkins.
“Jane McCall’s in Berlin.”
“Who’s Jane McCall?” asked Elkins.
“His daughter,” said Baker. “Jane Dekker McCall. He calls her Jaycee.”
“I don’t give a crap what he calls her,” said Elkins. “Get her on the line.”
McGee contacted his assistant and asked him to find Jane McCall. He came back momentarily and reported that she was away on business and that he had left a message for her to call back immediately.
Elkins didn’t like the answer, but for the moment there was nothing to be done. “Do we have eyes on the site?” she asked.
“Of course,” said McGee.
“What are you waiting for?” demanded Elkins. “He might be there right now.”
Ten minutes later, Elkins stood next to Baker and McGee in the subterranean ops center. They were staring at a multiplex of screens broadcasting a live feed from every camera inside the safe house at 55 Rue du Bac.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s there presently,” said McGee.
“What about earlier?” said Elkins. “If his daughter reserved it, you can be damned well sure he showed up.”
“The security system shows that someone entered the premises at 12:02 last night,” said McGee. “They left at 12:56, returned at 5:15 this morning, and left an hour ago.”
“That’s him,” said Elkins.
McGee instructed the tech to rewind the images to just before midnight.
At 12:02, a figure entered the apartment. He closed the door, then turned on the lights. Hello, Mac Dekker.
There was a dome camera in every room, and Elkins followed him into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. The cameras were color and high-def, and though she didn’t want to watch, she couldn’t help herself. Damn him. The bastard was in better shape than he was twenty years ago.
“What are you waiting for?” asked McGee, giving her a look. “See if he uses a washcloth?”
“I want to see what he does before he goes out again,” said Elkins, eyes on the screen.
“I’ll bet you do,” said McGee.
Elkins chose to ignore the gibe. Several minutes later, her diligence was rewarded. Mac sat at the kitchen table, a flip phone or “burner” in hand. “Sound?” she asked.
“Negative,” said McGee.
“Wi-Fi?”
“Sure.”
“See if he logged on and, if so, if we can track his browsing.”
A moment later, a tech said that no one had logged on to the Wi-Fi network in question.
“Do better than that,” said Elkins.
“We can geo-source the phone he’s using,” said the tech. “Need to plug in our best GPS coordinates for the address. Run all the numbers we find against location-history data gathered by all our captive search engines. Give me a minute.”
Eliza had a sudden memory of the last time she’d seen Dekker. A week after their tryst, if that was the right word. A chance encounter, Dekker leaving the ambassador’s residence in the Green Zone as she was entering. She blinked and felt as if she were there once again.
“Mac.” His name escaped her mouth before she could stop it.
“Thought you were long gone,” he said, pulling up, putting his hands on his hips to take a good look at her.