This is tougher than five star Sudoku, Maccabee realized as she translated the latest Sumerian message at her hotel room desk.
The new message was longer and complicated, too complicated for her jet-lagged brain. She needed to snap her synapses back to life before she met Donovan and Jean de Waha downstairs in the Amigo Bar in a little while.
Yawning, she stretched her arms and legs, then put on her running shorts, T-shirt and Nikes and began jogging in place. The plush Persian carpet felt good on her feet.
Jogging over to the window, she looked down on the tiny shops below. Tourists window-shopped. Children ate french fries smothered with mayonnaise. People shuffled down narrow cobblestone streets that their ancestors had shuffled down for centuries.
She jogged faster and looked across the street into some business offices where men and women hunched over their desktop computers. Her eyes were drawn to a dimly lit office directly opposite her. A tall man faced her. He held something long and black in his arms. He raised it up to his eye and aimed it directly at her.
A rifle!
She jumped to the side, waiting for the bullet to shatter the glass.
Nothing!
He’s waiting for me to appear again…
Her heart pounding, she peeked through the side of the curtain. He was still aiming right at her! But now she noticed the barrel was much thicker than a rifle.
My God – a rocket launcher!
As she turned to run, the man pulled something out of the barrel… and the air rushed from her lungs.
He unraveled a wall poster.
She leaned against the wall, catching her breath. Death By Mailing Tube!
She felt foolish. Clearly, her imagination was still hyperventilating thanks to her father’s murder and her attacker in the apartment. She told herself to relax! Hotel security was everywhere, she was registered as Antoine Charbonneau, and her guard, Theo, big enough to go bear hunting with a switch, sat right outside in the hall.
She ran hard for another fifteen minutes, then showered, dressed and went downstairs to meet Donovan and Jean de Waha in the Amigo Bar.
* * *
Donovan saw businessmen spin their barstools and look toward the door. Then he saw why: Maccabee. She walked toward their table, her white cotton dress hugging long tan legs worthy of lingerie commercial. Her hair, full and lustrous, gleamed like black silk in the soft overhead lighting.
Donovan was shocked by her transformation. At the funeral home her eyes had been red and puffy from crying, her cheeks pale and drawn. Now, she was composed and well… very attractive.
“Maccabee, meet Jean de Waha,” Donovan said, “Jean is Director of Belgium’s Sûreté de l’État, sort of Belgium’s version of the CIA and FBI. He’s also my old friend.”
“All true,” de Waha said, “except for the ‘old’ and ‘friend’ parts.”
Maccabee smiled and introduced herself. “Je suis très heureux de faire votre connaissance, Monsieur de Waha.”
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle, and I’m happy to meet you,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her excellent French.
The waiter appeared and she ordered a white wine.
“What’s that?” she asked pointing to a small square piece of electronic equipment on the table.
“An electronic barrier. Keeps the nasty people from hearing our conversation.”
“Those noisy car dealers also help,” Donovan said.
“You speak French as though you lived in Paris,” de Waha said.
“I did during my father’s sabbatical at the Sorbonne. I was twelve. I attended the Lycee Internationale in Paris.”
“Excellent school system,” de Waha said, “despite the fact that my idiot cousin runs it.”
Maccabee laughed as the waiter served her wine.
“So how’s the new Sumerian message coming along?” Donovan asked, hoping it might reveal vital information on the G8 attack.
“It’s long and complicated. Later tonight, I’ll receive some pictographs and logograms by e-mail. With them, I hope to have the message translated by early tomorrow morning or maybe sooner.”
As she talked, Donovan noticed again how she had matured into a poised and beautiful young woman.
De Waha checked his watch. “Time for dinner. We have reservations at an excellent restaurant near the Grand Place.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Place.”
“You will in sixty seconds.”
They walked outside and the crisp night air felt refreshing on Donovan’s face. As they strolled down the narrow cobblestone street, he noticed Maccabee checking the five men walking beside the black Suburban following them.
“They’re ours,” Donovan said.
She looked relieved, but Donovan sensed she was still anxious over the attack in her apartment.
A few feet later, they stepped into the Grand Place square. Donovan watched Maccabee stop and stare like a kid at Disneyworld, just as millions of visitors before her had done. Her gaze moved from one ancient, enchanting, illuminated, gold-leaf-trimmed building to another.
“Did I just walk into the Middle Ages?”
“Yep,” Donovan said.
“Jean, c’est magnifique!”
“Merci.”
As they walked across the square’s worn cobblestones, Donovan couldn’t stop the flood of memories. Sunday strolls with Emma and little Tish on these same cobblestones. Tish bending down to talk to the parrots at the Sunday bird market. Emma buying red tulips on flower day. His stomach ached at the memories.
They stopped in front of the huge Hôtel de Ville, the largest building on the square, its illuminated spire rising three hundred feet into the night sky.
“The Hôtel de Ville is our Town Hall,” de Waha said. “It was here before Columbus discovered America.”
“So was Jean!” Donovan said, backing away before de Waha could elbow him.
“See the doors,” de Waha said.
“They’re enormous,” Maccabee said.
“But look – they’re off-center to the left. The architect was so angry when he saw how off-center they were, he climbed the tower and leapt to his death right on the stones where you’re standing.”
Maccabee took a step back. “Didn’t anyone try to stop him?”
“Going up, yes. Coming down, no.”
Donovan heard hammering. He turned and saw that carpenters were finishing up the G8 grandstand at the far end of the square. The stand was surrounded by guards holding Belgian FAL automatic rifles. He knew the grandstand would be guarded non-stop until the eight leaders stepped onto it for the ceremony.
But what if Stahl was one of the carpenters? And what if he’d made grandstand boards with explosives? Donovan knew that C4 or PETN explosives could be molded to look like everything from wood planks to toothpaste to Barbie Dolls. He told himself to relax. Guards and Hazmat teams would be scrutinizing and using dogs and sophisticated machines to sniff the grandstand tonight and tomorrow.
They walked over to the restaurant, Aux Armes de Bruxelles, and enjoyed a marvelous meal of lobster bisque, roasted lamb and crepes Suzette. As Donovan finished eating, he remembered something he’d almost forgotten: some of the best French cuisine in the world is in Brussels.
Back in the Amigo Hotel, they squeezed through media crews in the lobby and went up to de Waha’s suite. There, they picked up folders for their meeting with the G8 national security directors.
Donovan asked Maccabee to come along and show the directors a sample of Sumerian pictograph writing in case they’d seen similar messages.
* * *
Benoit Broutafache, a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man, sat in the Amigo lobby typing on his laptop, posing as a reporter. He watched Maccabee and the two men weave through the crowded lobby and enter an elevator.
Broutafache flipped open his cell phone and dialed.
In Manhattan, Nikko Nikolin picked up.
“She’s here!”
“Where?”
“At the Amigo Hotel with Rourke and the Belgian guy.”
“Can you get to her?”
“I can get to anybody.”
“Our friend will be pleased.
“I’ll be pleased with the rest of my fee.”
“Half was wired to your Belize account an hour ago.”
“I know.”
“The rest on completion.”
Broutafache hung up, felt the custom-made plastic Glock in his pocket. The hotel’s metal detector had failed to detect the weapon because he’d put the gun’s only metal part, the small thin firing pin, on his key chain between several similar looking small thin toy golf clubs. The security guard didn’t even notice the difference when he passed the key chain through the metal detector.
Broutafache closed his laptop, stood and checked Maccabee’s room number again.
Then he walked toward the hotel’s back stairwell.