Read Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor for Free Online Page A

inside a long time. Al Queda is a criminal conspiracy, which means it is composed of extremely paranoid people who don't trust any outsider. Ergo, he's not an outsider. Four, there hasn't been a leak from inside the DGSE, which means that the agent isn't being handled routinely, by the usual professional staff. He's being handled from the very top, perhaps even by Rodet himself."
    "If all that's true," Sarah mused, "how do the agent and handler communicate?"
    "That is precisely what I want to know," Jake Grafton shot back. "I want you to help me find out."
    Grafton talked for another minute or two about logistics. Finally he said good-bye to Sarah, and she got up and left. Didn't even glance at me. When the door closed, I was alone with Grafton.
    "I take it you and Sarah aren't getting along very well these days," he said.
    "You noticed, eh?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "Well, you know the course of true love. There are bumps and potholes in the road."
    "She going to shoot you or start amputating parts?"
    I tried to smile. "I hope not."
    "I'm going to need some serious help on this job," he said, looking me straight in the eyes.
    "I'm on the shit list after that adventure last year," I replied. "I've been told to stay out of trouble or else."
    Grafton's eyebrows knitted. "How come you're still working for this outfit, anyway? A year ago you were talking about taking a banana boat south."
    "You know my tale of woe. They have me by the balls. The statute of limitations still has a couple of years to run." Grafton
    knew I was referring to the felony theft charge that was shelved when I joined the agency. The fuzz didn't catch me, you understand; my partner ratted on me. Same difference, I suppose, but a guy has to keep the record straight.
    "In the Navy we didn't have people quite so firmly in our grasp," he said with a straight face.
    I snorted. "Don't give me that bullshit. Sounds as if you intend to jam Rodet's nuts into a vise and crank until he screams. That's his problem, not mine. Just what, precisely, do you want from me?"
    Grafton picked up a pencil and twirled it between his fingers. "For starters, I want you to bug his flat in town and his house in the country. We'll set up listening posts."
    I admitted those chores were in my area of expertise. "Then I want you to turn traitor. I want you to walk into DGSE headquarters and offer to sell them the Intelink."
    Okay, I am an idiot—I admit it. I accepted another assignment working for Jake Grafton! I could be on my way to fun in the sun in Iraq this very minute. God damn!
    Grafton kept talking. "You and your girlfriend, Sarah Houston, are looking to make a fresh start, which would go a lot better if you had a couple million tax-free euros in your jeans. You'll give them Intelink-S first, as proof of your bona fides. When the money is in your bank account, you'll give them Intelink-C." Intelink-S was a network, a government Internet, if you will, which contained information classified secret. Intelink-C was the top secret network whereby the United States and its closest allies, Britain, Australia, and Canada, shared intelligence. "You have got to be kidding!" 1 m not.
    "In the first place, I don't have an access code to any level of Intelink. I have never had an access code."
    "I do."
    "They change it every week. Rodet isn't going to buy a week's
    subscription."             ^
    "He is going to buy the fact that Sarah helped design these networks, that she's foolishly fallen for a swine like you, that at your insistence she installed a trapdoor, and that you will sell him the key."
    I thought about it. "NSA would never let Rodet peek. Ever."
    "That's true, of course. We don't even want Monsieur Rodet to know the type of information that is really on Intelink-S, so we've created a parallel, fake Intelink-S. It will look good enough to fool the French, we think. That's what we're going to give Rodet access to. He'll never see the real Intelink-S, and we'll have hooked and boated him