Covert One 3 - The Paris Option Read Online Free PDF Page A

understanding, he reached out a protesting hand. “Captain?”
    “Sorry, son. But I need those notes.” Before the research assistant could speak again, could even move, Captain Darius Bonnard clamped the pillow around the back of his head, pushed the silenced muzzle against his temple, and pulled the trigger. There was a popping sound. Blood, tissue, and pieces of skull exploded into the pillow. The bullet burned itself through and lodged in the plaster wall.
    Still using the pillow to protect the room from blood, Captain Bonnard supported the corpse to the bed. He laid the body out, the pillow beneath the head, and removed the silencer from the gun. He dropped the silencer into his pocket and pressed the gun into Jean-Luc's left hand. As soon as he arranged the pillow just so, he put his hand over Jean-Luc's and squeezed the trigger once more. The noise was thunderous, shocking in the tiny room, even to Captain Bonnard, who was expecting it.
    This was a rough waterfront area, but still the sound of a gunshot would attract attention. He had little time. First he checked the pillow. The second shot had been perfect, going through so closely to the first hole that it looked like one large perforation. And now there would be powder burns on Jean-Luc's hand to satisfy the medical examiner that he, distraught over the loss of his beloved Dr. Chambord, had committed suicide.
    Moving quickly, the captain found a notepad with indentations that indicated writing on the previous sheet. From the wastebasket he seized the single crumpled paper and pushed it and the notepad into his uniform pocket without taking the time to decipher either. He checked under the bed and under every other piece of old furniture. There was no closet. He dug the first bullet out of the wall and moved a battered bureau six inches to the left to hide the hole.
    As he snatched up Jean-Luc's briefcase, the rise-and-fall scream of a police siren began in the distance. His heart palpitating with the rush of adrenaline, he analyzed the sound. Oui, it was heading here. With his usual control, he forced his careful gaze to survey the room once more. At last, satisfied that he had missed nothing, he opened the door. As Captain Bonnard vanished into the gloom of the upstairs hall, the police car screeched to a stop in front of the rooming house.

Covert One 3 - The Paris Option

Chapter Three
    Paris, France Tuesday, May 6
    The C-17 cargo jet that had left Buckley Air Force Base near Denver on Monday for a previously scheduled pole route to Munich carried a single passenger whose name appeared nowhere on its personnel roster or manifest. The big jet made an unscheduled stop in Paris in the dark at 0600 hours Tuesday, ostensibly to pick up a package that was needed in Munich. A U.S. Air Force staff car met the cargo jet, and a man in the uniform of a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel carried a sealed metal box, which was empty, onboard. He stayed there. But when the aircraft flew off some fifteen minutes later, the nonexistent passenger was no longer aboard.
    Not long afterward, the same staff car stopped a second time, now at the side entrance to a detached building at Charles de Gaulle International Airport just north of Paris. The vehicle's back door opened, and a tall man, also wearing the uniform of a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, emerged. It was Jon Smith. Trim, athletic, somewhere in his early forties, he looked military through and through. He had a high-planed face, and his dark hair, a little longer than usual, was worn neatly smooth under his army cap. As he stood up, his navy blue eyes surveyed all around.
    There was nothing particularly unusual about him as he finally walked to the building in the quiet hours before dawn, just another army officer, carrying an overnight bag and an IBM Thinkpad in a heavy-duty aluminum case. A half hour later, Smith emerged again, out of uniform. This time he was wearing the casual clothes he favoreda tweed jacket, blue cotton