Free Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor by Stephen Coonts Page A

reaction when you heard Rodet was buying stock in the Bank of Palestine?"
    Goldberg shifted his weight as he considered his answer. "My first reaction was that he had figured out another way to make money from other people's troubles. You see, Rodet's the son of a couple of schoolteachers. He wound up in the intelligence service and spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Then he married the daughter of a rich French merchant who sold hardware all over the Arab world. She was ten years older than he was. Maybe it was love, maybe it was money, but. . . when the passion cooled the father-in-law gave him a ton of money and the wife moved out. Then there's all this smoke rising from the Oil-for-Food debacle. Some folks say some of that money wound up in Rodet's pocket. I don't know if it did or not. In any event, when I heard about the bank stock, I thought that story might be true."
    "And now?"
    "Well, now I'm not so sure. It could be a slick smear."
    "Tell me about the Veghel conspiracy."
    "It was just another day, like any other. I was at the Conciergerie talking to Arnaud when a messenger or someone stuck his head into the room and said the director would like to see me. So I got up and trooped off behind the guy, leaving Arnaud sitting there."
    "Did he know why Rodet wanted to see you?"
    "Didn't act like he did, but these guys are pros. Who could say?"
    "So what happened?"
    "I went in to see Rodet and he shook hands, put me in a chair. Told me about the Veghel conspiracy, who they were, what they intended to do, when, and so on. What he didn't tell me was how he
    learned about all this. So that was the question I asked. Do I call the president right now, wake him up with this hot tip, do I send it to Washington flash immediate, or do I put it on the computer and let the bureaucracy grind it up for the in baskets?
    "And Rodet looked at me innocent as a lamb and said, 'I cannot tell you that.' Didn't feed me a line about secret sources or broken codes or any of that other bullshit. Just, 'I cannot tell you that.' Of course I decided it was gospel, and by God, that's the way it is turning out. Those raghead bastards were going to blow up Wall Street and everyone in it, including themselves."
    "Got any theories on how the DGSE found out about this group?" "I asked Arnaud that question again the next time I saw him, and he just stared at me. Didn't say a word." Goldberg shrugged.
    "I read your report. What I want to know is what you think. You've been talking to these people for years."
    "Four years." George Goldberg scratched his nose and eyed Jake Grafton thoughtfully. "I don't think the DGSE came by this info. Arnaud always tells me what the organization wants me to know. Rodet is the political guy. On the other hand, this was big. Really big. Maybe Rodet thought he should do this himself for political and PR reasons." "If the DGSE didn't come up with this information, how did
    Rodet get it?"
    Goldberg raised his hands. "Rodet has always been well informed about Middle Eastern terrorists—the radical imams, the financiers, bankers, sympathizers, possible targets, methods . .. We always thought he had people here and there who heard things and passed them along, the classic way to gather intelligence. French business-people roam the Arab world at will and they talk to the DGSE. On the other hand, the Veghel thing wasn't something someone overheard down at the mosque. One suspects someone inside the conspiracy or inside Al Queda passed the information to Rodet. In any event, he isn't saying anything to anyone about his sources."
    "You're saying that Henri Rodet may have a secret source inside Al Queda, one known only to him?"
    "That's a possibility. The most probable possibility, in my opinion. The Veghel stuff was hot—really hot." Goldberg shrugged. "You know as much as I do."
    "If you could construct that hypothesis, other people can, too."
    "They could," Goldberg agreed.
    "Washington has a name. They say the spy is a guy