Covert One 3 - The Paris Option Read Online Free PDF

shirt, tan cotton trousers, and a trench coat. He also wore a hidden canvas holster under his sports jacket, and in it was his 9mm Sig Sauer.
    He walked briskly across the tarmac and moved with other passengers through de Gaulle customs, where, because of his U.S. Army identification, he was waved through without a search. A private limousine was waiting, back door open. Smith climbed in, refusing to let his limo driver handle either his suitcase or his laptop.
    The city of Paris was known for its joie de vivre in all things, including driving. For instance, a horn was for communication: A long blast meant disgustget out of my way. A tap was a friendly warning. Several taps were a jaunty greeting, especially if they were rhythmic. And speed, deftness, and a devil-may-care attitude were necessary, particularly among the world atlas of drivers who manned the city's numerous taxi and limo fleets. Smith's driver was an American with a heavy foot, which was just fine with Smith. He wanted to get to the hospital to see Marty.
    As the limo hurtled south on the boulevard Peacute;ripheacute;rique around the crowded city, Smith was tense. In Colorado he had successfully handed off his research into molecular circuits. He regretted having had to do it, but it was necessary. On the long flight to France, he had called ahead to check again on Marty's condition. There had been no improvement, but at least there had been no decline either. He had also made other phone calls, this time to colleagues in Tokyo, Berlin, Sydney, Brussels, and London, tactfully sounding them out about their progress in developing molecular computers. But all were cagey, hoping to be first.
    After filtering for that, he had gotten the sense that none was close to success. All commented on the sad death of Emile Chambord but without mentioning his project. It seemed to Smith that they were as uninformed as he had been.
    The driver turned the limo off onto the avenue de la Porte de Segrave;vres and soon arrived at the eight-hundred-bed European Hospital Georges Pompidou. A glistening monument to modern architecture with curved walls and a glassy facade, it rose like a giant layered Luden's cough drop, directly across the street from the Parc Andreacute; Citron. Carrying his luggage. Smith paid the driver and entered the hospital's glass-topped, marble-lined galleria. He took off his sunglasses, slid them into his pocket, and gazed around.
    The galleria was so cavernousmore than two football fields in lengththat palm trees swayed in the internal breeze. The hospital was nearly brand-new, having opened just a couple of years ago amid official fanfare that it was the hospital of the future. As Smith headed toward an information desk, he noted department-store-style escalators that led up to patients' rooms on the floors above, bright arrows pointing to the operating theaters, and, infusing the air, a light scent reminiscent of Johnson's Lemon Wax.
    Speaking perfect French, he asked for directions to the intensive care unit where Marty was being treated, and he took the escalator up. There was a subdued bustle as shifts changed and nurses, technicians, clerical help, and orderlies came and left. It was all done smoothly, quietly, and only the most experienced eye would have noticed the exchanges that signaled the handing off of responsibilities.
    One of the theories that made this model hospital different was that services were clustered in groups, so that the specialist went to the patient, rather than the reverse. Entering patients arrived at any one of twenty-two different reception points, where they were met by personal hostesses, who guided them to their private rooms. There a computer was positioned at the foot of each bed, case notes existed in cyberspace, and, if surgery were necessary, robots often conducted parts of it. The enormous hospital even boasted swimming pools, health clubs, and cafeacute;s.
    Beyond the desk that fronted the ICU, two gendarmes stood