Only a small brass plaque marked the office of Groupe TransEuroTech SA, on the third floor of a limestone building on the avenue Marceau in the eighth arrondissement. The plaque, mounted on the stone to the left of the front door, was but one of seven brass plaques bearing the names of law firms and other small companies, and as such it attracted little attention.
The office of TransEuroTech never received unscheduled visitors, but anyone who happened to pass by the third floor would see nothing out of the ordinary: a young male receptionist sitting behind a glass teller’s window made of a bullet-resistant polycarbonate material that looked like plain glass. Behind him, a small, bare room furnished with a few molded-plastic chairs, and a single door to the interior offices.
No one would, of course, realize that the receptionist was actually an armed and experienced ex-commando, or see the concealed surveillance cameras, the passive infrared motion detectors, the balanced magnetic switches embedded in every door.
The conference room deep inside the offices was actually a room within a room: a module separated from the surrounding concrete walls by foot-thick rubber blocks that kept all vibrations (specifically human speech) from transferring out. Immediately adjacent to the conference module was a permanent installation of antennae constantly searching for HF, UHF, VHF, and microwave transmissions—any attempt, that is, to listen in on the discussions held within the room. Attached to the antennae was a spectrum analyzer programmed to check across the spectrum for any anomalies.
At one end of a coffin-shaped mahogany conference table sat two men. Their conversation was protected against interception by both white-noise generators and a “babble tape,” which sounded like the yammer of a crowded bar at happy hour. Anyone somehow able to bypass the elaborate
security and listen in would be unable to separate the words of the two men at the table from the background noise.
The older of the two was speaking on a sterile telephone, a flat black box of Swiss manufacture. He was a pasty-faced, worried-looking man in his mid-fifties with gold-framed glasses, a soft jowly face, oily skin, and receding hair dyed an unnatural russet. His name was Paul Marquand, and he was a vice president of security for the Corporation. Marquand had come to the Corporation by a route common to corporate-security directors of international businesses: he had spent time in the French infantry, was forced out for wild behavior and joined the French Foreign Legion, later moving to the U.S., where he’d worked as a strikebreaker for a mining company before he was hired to do corporate security for a multinational firm.
Marquand spoke rapidly, quietly, and then hung up the phone.
“Vienna Sector is disturbed,” Marquand told the man beside him, a dark-haired, olive-skinned Frenchman some twenty years younger named Jean-Luc Passard. “The American survived the propane accident in St. Gallen.” He added darkly, “There can be no more errors. Not after the Bahnhofplatz debacle.”
“It was not your decision to assign the American soldier,” Jean-Luc said softly.
“Of course not, but neither did I object. The logic was persuasive: he’d spent time in proximity to the subject and could pick the face out of a crowd in a matter of seconds. No matter how often a stranger is shown a photograph, he could never move as quickly or as reliably as someone who has known the target personally.”
“We’ve now mobilized the very best,” Passard said. “With the Architect on the case, it will not be long before the mess is eliminated completely.”
“His perfectionism leads to persistence,” Marquand observed. “Still the pampered American is not to be underestimated.”
“The marvel is that he is still alive, the amateur,” Passard agreed. “Being a fitness freak does not give one survival skills.” He snorted and spoke mockingly in heavily accented English: “He doesn’t know the jungle. He knows the jungle gym.”
“All the same,” Marquand said, “there is such a thing as beginner’s luck.”
“He is no longer a beginner,” Passard observed.
The elderly, well-dressed American emerged from the gate, walking stiffly and slowly, clutching a carry-on bag. He searched the crowd until he saw a uniformed limousine driver holding up a little sign with his name on it.
The old man gave a wave of acknowledgment, and the driver, accompanied by a woman in a white nurse’s uniform, hurried up to him. The driver took the American’s bag, and the nurse said, “How was your flight, sir?” She spoke in English with an Austrian-German accent.
The man grumbled, “I despise traveling. I can’t tolerate it anymore.”
The nurse escorted him through the crowds and to the street immediately outside, where a black Daimler limousine was parked. She helped him into the interior, which was equipped with the standard appurtenances—phone, TV, and bar. Tucked unobtrusively into one corner was an array of emergency medical equipment, including a small oxygen tank, hoses and face mask, defibrillator paddles, and IV tubes.
“Well, sir,” the nurse said once he was settled in the deeply cushioned leather seat, “the ride is not long at all, sir.”
The old man grunted, reclined the seat back, and closed his eyes.
“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable,” the nurse said.