The Lazarus Vendetta - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,123

other man quipped. He moved into the small, dark foyer beyond, murmuring a polite greeting to the elderly woman who stood there waiting.

Jon Smith ducked into the apartment building himself, but not before casually removing a strip of duct tape the "old woman" had stuck there to prevent the door lock from engaging. He balled it up, shoved it into his coat pocket, and allowed the door to close gently behind him.

"That was a nice piece of lock picking," Smith complimented the bundled-up old lady standing beside Peter Howell.

Randi Russell grinned back at him. Beneath the disguise of wrinkles and lines that added forty years to her apparent age, her eyes were bright with nervous energy and excitement. "Well, I did graduate at the head of my class at the Farm," she said, referring to Camp Perry, the CIA training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia. "It's nice to know my time there wasn't a total waste."

"Where to now?" Smith asked.

She nodded toward a hallway leading out of the foyer. "Through

there," she said. "A central staircase runs all the way to the top. There are landings at each floor with doors leading to the separate flats."

"Any restless natives?" Peter wondered.

Randi shook her head. "Nope. There are lights showing under a few doors, but otherwise it's pretty quiet. And let's try to keep it that way, shall we, guys? I'd rather not spend the next twenty-four hours answering awkward questions down at the nearest Prefecture of Police."

With Randi in the lead, the trio made their way carefully up the stairs - moving quietly past landings cluttered with bicycles, baby strollers, and small two-wheeled shopping carts. Another locked door, this one at the very top, yielded quickly to her lock picks. They stepped through the door and out into a rooftop garden of the kind so beloved by Parisians - a miniature urban glade created by a maze of large clay pots filled with dwarf trees, shrubs, and flowering plants. They were at the rear of the apartment building, separated from the rue de Vigny by a row of tall soot-stained chimneys and a forest of radio and TV antennae.

This high up, the chill autumn breeze carried the muted sounds of the city to them - car horns honking on the boulevard Beaumarchais, the shrill whine of motor scooters racing through narrow streets, and laughter and music drifting out through the open door of a nightclub somewhere close by. The floodlit white domes of the Byzantine-inspired Sacre Coeur basilica gleamed to the north, set high on the crowded slopes of Mont-martre.

Smith moved carefully to the edge and looked down over an ornate wrought-iron railing. In the darkness far below he could just make out a row of trash bins crowding a narrow alley. The wall of another old building, also converted into a block of flats, rose vertically on the other side of that tiny lane. Patches of warm yellow lamplight showed through the cracks in closed shutters and drapes. He stepped back a few paces, rejoining Peter and Randi in the modest cover provided by the roof garden's trees and shrubs.

On their right loomed the shadowy mass of the Lazarus Movement's Paris headquarters. The two buildings were adjacent, but 18 rue de Vigny was one story higher. A twenty-foot-high blank wall of stone separated them from the steeply sloping roof of their goal.

"Right," Peter whispered, already kneeling down to open the first of their two duffel bags. He began handing out articles of clothing and gear. "Let's get started."

Moving quickly in the cold night air, the three began transforming themselves from ordinary-appearing civilians to fully equipped special operators. First, Randi started by tugging off the gray wig confining her own blond hair. Then she peeled away the specially crafted wrinkles and lines that had added decades to her appearance.

All of them shed their heavy coats, revealing high-necked black sweaters and black jeans. Dark-colored watch caps covered their hair. They blackened their faces and foreheads with camouflage sticks. Their street shoes came off and were replaced by climbing boots. Heavy leather gloves protected their hands. All three donned Kevlar body armor and followed that by shrugging into SAS-style assault vests and belting on holsters for their personal weapons - Smith's SIG-Sauer pistol, a Browning Hi-Power for Peter, and a 9mm Beretta for Randi. Next, they struggled into rappelling harnesses and slung bags containing coils of climbing rope over their shoulders.

Peter handed around an assortment of special equipment. Last of all, he gave