Patriot games - Tom Clancy [203]
"How did you arrange the satellite coverage?" Jack asked.
This answer came with a Gallic shrug. "A fortunate coincidence."
Right, Jack thought. Some coincidence. I just watched the instant-replay of the death of three or four people. Terrorists, he corrected himself. Except for the camp guards, who only helped terrorists. The timing could not have been an accident. The French wanted us to know that they were in counterterrorist operations for-real.
"Why am I here?"
"But you made this possible," Jean-Claude said. "It is my pleasure to give you the thanks of my country."
"What's going to happen to the people you captured?" Jack wanted to know.
"Do you know how many people they have assassinated? For those crimes they will answer. Justice, that will happen to them."
"You wanted to see a success, Jack," Cantor said. "You just did."
Ryan thought that one over. Removing the bodies of the camp guards told him how the operation would end. No one was supposed to know what had happened. Sure, some bullet holes were left behind, and a couple of bloodstains, but no bodies. The raiders had quite literally covered their tracks. The whole operation was "deniable." There was nothing left behind that would point to the French. In that sense it had been a perfect covert operation. And if that much effort had gone into making it so, then there was little reason to suspect that the Action-Directe people would ever face a jury. You wouldn't go to that much trouble and then go through the publicity of a trial, Ryan told himself. Goodbye, Francoise Theroux
I condemned these people to death, he realized finally. Just the one of them was enough to trouble his conscience. He remembered the police-style photograph he'd seen of her face and the fuzzy satellite image of a girl in a bikini.
"She's murdered at least three people," Cantor said, reading Jack's face.
"Professor Ryan, she has no heart, that one. No feelings. You must not be misled by her face," Jean-Claude advised. "They cannot all look like Hitler."
But that was only part of it, Ryan knew. Her looks merely brought into focus that hers was a human life whose term was now unnaturally limited. As she has limited those of others. Jack told himself. He admitted to himself that he would have no qualms at all if her name had been Sean Miller.
"Forgive me," he said. "It must be my romantic nature."
"But of course," the Frenchman said generously. "It is something to be regretted, but those people made their choice, Professor, not you. You have helped to avenge the lives of many innocent people, and you have saved those of people you will never know. There will be a formal note of thanks-a secret one, of course-for your assistance."
"Glad to help, Colonel," Cantor said. Hands were shaken all around, and Marty led Jack back to the headquarters building.
"I don't know that I want to see anything like that again," Ryan said in the corridor. "I mean, I don't want to know their faces. I mean-hell, I don't know what I mean. Maybe-it's just different when you're detached from it, you know? It was too much like watching a ball game on TV, but it wasn't a ball game. Who was that guy, anyway?"
"Jean-Claude's the head of the DGSE's Washington Station, and he was the liaison man. We got the first new picture of her a day and a half ago. They had the operation all ready to roll, and he got things going inside of six hours. Impressive performance."
"I imagine they wanted us to be impressed. They're not bringing 'em in, are they?"
"No. I seriously doubt those people are going back to France to stand trial. Remember the problem they had the last time they tried a public trial of Action-Directe members? The jurors started getting midnight phone calls, and the case got blown away. Maybe they don't want to put up with the hassle again." Cantor frowned. "Well, it's not our call to make. Their system isn't the same as ours. All we did was forward information to an ally."
"An American court could call that accessory to murder."
"Possibly," Cantor admitted. "Personally, I prefer what