Read Covert One 3 - The Paris Option for Free Online

gauges of the monitors, and watched him, thinking all the way back to Council Bluffs and high school, where he and Marty had met and Jon's uncle had first diagnosed Marty's Asperger's Syndromehellip;to Sophia's murder and the Hades virus pandemic, when he had needed Marty's genius with all things electronic.
    He took Marty's hand and squeezed it. “Did you hear your doctor? He thinks you're going to be all right. Mart, can you hear me?” He waited, watching the still face. “What in God's name happened at the Pasteur, Mart? Were you helping Chambord develop his molecular computer?”
    Marty stirred, and his lips trembled as if he was trying to speak.
    Excited, Jon continued, “What is it? Tell me, Mart. Please! We both know you're never at a loss for words.” He paused, hoping, but when Marty made no other sign, he put an encouraging warmth in his voice and continued, “This is a hell of a way for us to meet again, Mart. But you know how it is, I need you. So here I am, asking you to lend me that extraordinary mind of yours once morehellip;.”
    Talking and reminiscing, he stayed with Marty an hour. He squeezed Marty's hand, rubbed his arms, massaged his feet. But it was only when he mentioned the Pasteur that Marty tried to rouse himself. Smith had just leaned back in the chair and stretched, deciding he had better get on with the investigation into Dr. Chambord's molecular computer, when a tall man in a hospital orderly's uniform appeared in the opening to Marty's cubicle.
    The man was dark, swarthy, with a huge black mustache. He was staring at Smith, his brown eyes hard and cold. Intelligent and deadly. And, in the split second when Smith's gaze and his connected, he seemed startled. The shock was in the bold eyes only briefly, and then, just before the man turned and hurried away, there seemed a hint of mischief or amusement or perhaps malicehellip;somehow familiar.
    That flitting sense of familiarity stopped Smith for a heartbeat, and then he was up and rushing after the orderly, snatching his Sig Sauer from its holster inside his jacket. It was not only the man's eyes and expression that had been wrong, but the way he had carried the folded linens, draped over his right arm. He could be hiding a weapon beneath. Was he there to kill Marty?
    Outside the ICU, all eyes were on Smith as he furiously burst through the large swinging doors, his trench coat flapping. Ahead, the orderly knocked people out of the way as he put on a burst of speed and tore off down the corridor, escaping.
    Pounding in pursuit, Smith shouted in French, “Stop that man! He's got a gun!”
    With that, all pretense was gone, and the orderly flourished a mini-submachine gun not much bigger than Smith's Sig Sauer. He turned, expertly trotting backward, and raised the terrorist weapon without panic or haste. He swung it back and forth as if to sweep the corridor clean. The fellow was a professional of some kind, letting the threat of his gun do the work without having to fire a shot.
    Screams erupted as nurses, doctors, and visitors dove to the floor, into doorways, and around corners.
    Smith hurled breakfast carts out of the way and thundered on. Ahead, the man rushed through a doorway and slammed the door. Smith kicked it in and raced past a terrified technician, through another door, and past a hot-therapy tank in which a naked man sat, the nurse hurriedly covering him with a towel.
    “Where is he?” Smith demanded. “Where did the orderly go!”
    The nurse pointed at one of three rooms, her face pasty with fear, and he heard a door bang shut in that direction. He tore onward, punched open the only door in that room, and skidded into another corridor. He looked left and right along the hallway, chrome bright in its newness. Terrified people had pressed themselves against the walls as they gazed right, as if a deadly tornado had just swept past, barely leaving them alive.
    Smith ran in the direction they stared, accelerating, while far down