the balcony. He angled the slats open a fraction wider and looked down at the dark street. He stood there motionless as the pulsing night sounds of the city drifted up from belowthe rumble of heavy traffic on the Gran Via, voices calling from windows down to the street, the slam of a car door, a drunk's serenade, a guitar's liquid chords.
Peter left the window and sank onto the sofa, relieved. "False alarmI think."
"What's wrong?" Randi asked.
"I thought I heard an odd sound from the street. It's something I've run across a few times before and learned rather quickly to heed."
"I didn't hear anything unusual," Jon said.
"You're not meant to, my boy. It's a blowing sound, with a tiny whistle at the center. It seems to be far away, the call of a weak whippoorwill, that simply fades away. In reality, it's a muted whistle no one actually hears. Resembles a random night soundthe wind, an animal turning in sleep, the earth itself creaking as if it really were set in a three-pronged nest. I heard it more than once in northern Iran on the border of the old Soviet Union's central Asian republics, and in the 1980s I heard it in Afghanistan during that barbarous blowup. It's a signal used by the central Asian Muslim tribes. Rather close to night signals your Iroquois and Apache used."
"The Crescent Shield?" Jon asked.
"Could be. But there was no answer to the call. Since I didn't hear it a second time, I was probably mistaken."
"How often have you been wrong on a matter like that, Peter?" Jon said.
The ring of the telephone made them jump. Jon grabbed the receiver.
Fred Klein's voice said, "We got everything back online, but the computer warfare specialists tell us that all the electronic encryption codes may have been cracked, so no one's to use any electronic communication until further notice. Nothing that goes through the air either, because that would be easy for them to tap into. Meanwhile, they're changing all the codes and developing emergency measures to protect them better. We've told them we think there's a DNA computer out there, and they've got to do more than try. Why Madrid? What did you find in Toledo?"
Without preamble, Jon reported, "The Black Flame was a hired front. The Crescent Shield seems to be the real power behind everything. And Emile Chambord is alive. Unfortunately, the Crescent Shield has both him and his daughter and the DNA computer."
There was a stunned silence. Klein said, "You saw Chambord? How do you know about the computer?"
"I saw and talked to both Chambord and his daughter. The computer wasn't at that site."
"Chambord alive explains how quickly they got the machine working, and makes the worldwide danger a hell of a lot worse. Especially if they have the daughter, too. They'll use her to control him."
"Yeah," Jon said.
Another silence. Klein said, "You should've killed Chambord, Colonel."
"The DNA computer wasn't there, Fred. I tried for the save, to get him out of there alive so he could build one for us to fight back. How do we know what they've forced Chambord to tell them? Maybe enough for another scientist to duplicate his work."
"What if you don't get a second chance, Jon? What if we don't find him or the machine in time?"
"We will."
"That's what I tell the president. But we both know there are no miracles, and the next time will be harder."
It was Jon's turn to be silent. Then, "I made a judgment call. That's what you pay me for. If in my judgment I can't pull Chambord out, or destroy the computer, I'll kill him. That make you happy?"
Klein's voice was as flat and hard as poured concrete. "Can I count on you, Colonel? Or do I have to send someone else?"
"There's no one else who knows what I know. Not in the beginning, and especially not now."
If the phone had been a television phone, they would have been staring each other down. Finally there was a slow outlet of breath in the far-off Pentagon. "Tell me about this Crescent Shield. Never heard of them."
"That's because they're newer and have stayed out of sight," Jon told him, repeating what Randi had said. "They're pan-Islamic, apparently pulled together for this specific attack by a man named Mauritania. He's"
"I know who he is, Jon. Only too well. Part Arab, part Berber, and with rage over the fate of his poor country and its starving people to add to his endemic Muslim and