TailSpin - Catherine Coulter [56]
“Anyway, Pierre’s a high-up liaison between the French National Police and our CIA. He’s arrogant and rather vain, but you’d expect that because he’s French, and over the years I just laughed at him when he’d go on and on about the superiority of the French. Blah blah blah, I’d tell him.
“Then, out of the blue, he called me, said he was in turmoil— that was his word—and he needed my help.
“Turns out it was about his son, Jean David, who, interestingly enough, was an American citizen, born unexpectedly three weeks early on vacation in Cape May, New Jersey, twenty-six years old, a Harvard graduate, very analytical, very bright, a nice guy, maybe even smarter than his old man, a strategic information analyst for the CIA, with a focus on the Middle East.
“Yeah, I can see you’re getting the picture here. About six months ago Jean David got involved with a young woman who said she was a graduate student and worked part-time for a charitable group funding education in the Middle East. Of course, the group was only a cover, and she was actually gathering money here in the U.S. for terrorist groups, and recruiting. She found the gold at the end of the rainbow in Jean David.
“It wouldn’t have been all that big a deal if Jean David had, for example, been a Maytag repairman, but since he was an analyst in the CIA, we’re talking a major problem for him.
“About a month and a half ago Jean David let her see some sensitive material pinpointing the whereabouts of some of our operatives in Pakistan—showing off, I guess, to impress her.
“The CIA realized they had a big-ass problem almost immediately, what with the murder of two operatives, and went on full alert. Jean David realized he was in deep trouble, so he told his father about the woman he’d met and fallen for.”
“Do you recall the name of this woman, Timothy?” Sherlock asked.
“It was something really sweet, like Mary—no, it was Anna. I don’t know her last name. Pierre didn’t know what to do. He came to me as a friend and in confidence to ask about the possibility of my defending his son legally from a psychi atric standpoint, maybe argue the boy was delusional or brain-washed and not legally responsible, and because he was worried about his son’s mental health. I told him that no psy chiatric diagnosis would keep Jean David out of prison in a case like this. I agreed to see him, of course, but only if Jean David confessed his crime to the authorities. Many operatives might still be in danger, and the authorities needed to know about the security breach. In fact, I told Pierre it was ethically impossible for me to keep it a secret under these circumstances and that I would tell the authorities if Jean David did not.”
TWENTY-TWO
MacLean paused, closed his eyes, and Sherlock asked, “What happened, Timothy?”
“Now I’ve got to speak about Jean David in the past tense. I can’t tell you how I hate that. You already know about his death, don’t you?”
“Yes. Tell us what happened.”
“All right. A week after I spoke to Pierre, Jean David drowned in a boating accident on the Potomac. Bad weather hit—a squall, I guess you’d call it, vicious winds whipping up the water. The bad weather was expected but still Jean David and his father went out fishing for striped bass. Pierre always believed you caught more fish in the middle of a high storm. They were heading back because the fog was coming in real thick when the rocking and rolling got to him, and he got real sick and vomited over the side of the boat. Then it gets sketchy. A speedboat evidently didn’t see them in the rain and fog and rammed right into them. Pierre was tossed overboard. Jean David jumped in to save his father. So did one of the guys from the other boat. They managed to save Pierre, but Jean David drowned. They searched and searched, but they couldn’t find his body.
“Pierre was distraught, and as sick as he was, he kept diving and searching, but it was