"Relax. You've been working with one of my young apprentices. He's just a wannabe. That's why it's just text and no video."

"Okay, that's supposed to enlighten me . . . how?"

"You're thinking too hard. You just keep working with the electronic me, and the NSA will be happy. Meantime, I'll also be here, and we'll set up some encryption of our own."

"I wish I knew what the hell you're talking about."

"Put away that big brain and just close your eyes and ride the wave. . . ."

The door opened and in walked Hansen and Ames. Neither of them was surprised to see the operations manager, further confusing Gillespie.

"Are you working out of a room here or somewhere else?" Hansen asked Moreau.

"I've got a room here."

"Wait a minute. You knew about this?" asked Gillespie.

Hansen shrugged. "I should've called you. Relax."

Gillespie folded her hands over her chest. "Okay, I'm listening."

Hansen spelled it all out for her, and then Moreau added, "Are you comfortable with this arrangement, or would you like to call Grim and suggest an alternate plan?"

Gillespie thought for a moment. Capturing Sam Fisher was hard enough. Now they were expected to put on a front, so that Kovac and his cronies didn't know exactly what they were doing, because the deputy director, it seemed, was bent on dismantling Third Echelon--at least according to Moreau.

"The plan sounds fine, sir," said Gillespie.

Moreau widened his eyes. "Glad we have your approval."

Valentina and Noboru entered, and Noboru wheeled in a hotel luggage cart piled high with black duffel bags.

For the next five minutes they took an inventory of all the gear--suits, rifles, pistols, and a host of other toys--until Hansen looked up at Moreau and asked, "No trifocals? They're on the list."

"Are you kidding me?" cried Moreau. "They didn't pack them?"

Hansen shook his head. "We got the NV binoculars but no goggles."

"The geeks back in shipping must've screwed up again," Moreau said with a heavy sigh. "We'll do without them for now. I have a feeling we'll be doing more hiding in plain sight than anything else. Try walking down the boulevard wearing trifocals and notgetting noticed."

"All right," said Hansen. "But see if they can overnight them to us."

Moreau nodded. "Leave that to me."

Gillespie detected a slight tremor in Moreau's voice . . . very odd. The ops manager then added that they were maintaining surveillance of Boutin's apartment via satellite to ensure that the old man was home when they came knocking. Boutin had left only once to do some grocery shopping; otherwise, they were certain he was home.

LATERin the day, Ames volunteered to call room service and order lunch. The others were unaware that his call was received by a field operative working for Deputy Director Kovac. This operative, a man known only by the code name Stingray, was Ames's cutout so that he could safely pass information back to the deputy director. Ames placed the order, saying, "Yes, there are five of us. . . . Oh, wait a minute, I forgot Moreau's here. Make that six drinks."

Stingray got the message, and within five minutes Kovac would know that Mr. Louis Moreau was in Reims, and that he and Grim were attempting to thwart the director's information-gathering efforts. That Grim and Moreau still had no idea that Ames was a mole on the Splinter Cell team was a testament to Ames's first-class tradecraft. They could pick on him all they wanted. They could hate him as much as they wanted.

Because when it was all over, Fisher would be dead, and Moreau, Grim, and the rest of them would be locked up. Ames would be the only man standing, and he and the deputy director would rebuild Third Echelon. Eventually, Ames would ascend to his rightful place as director of all operations.

DRESSEDin civilian clothes, including mock turtleneck shirts to conceal their SVTs, Hansen and the others left the hotel, bound for Boutin's apartment. Moreau remained at the hotel to monitor the open channel and the satellite feeds. It was 10:46 P.M. on Hansen's OPSAT as they left the hotel's parking garage.

They drove both rental cars to rue de Thillois, a street a few hundred yards southeast of Boutin's apartment. A slight chill hung in the air as they parked, waited a few moments, then exited the vehicles, moving swiftly onto the empty street.

While Noboru and Gillespie approached from the north, gaining access past the fences to take up positions in the trees, Hansen, Valentina, and Ames would enter from the south, through the passage Saint-Jacques.

They reached the gate, and Valentina got to work on the lock while Ames patched into the security network and turned off the motion sensors.

Keeping to the long shadows near the wall, they slipped into the passage, and Ames did a wholly impressive job of silently climbing his way into the old tree just to its north so he could cover the north side of the courtyard and the gate entrance.

Hansen motioned for Valentina to halt. He took several long breaths to calm his nerves, then whispered in his SVT, "Nathan? Kim?"

NOBORUwas covering the north-south entrance to the courtyard directly opposite Boutin's apartment. He had already found a particularly large branch on which to set up and was scanning the area with his NV binoculars when Hansen called. He checked in and listened to Kim do likewise. She was in much closer, having glided up like a wraith to the left side of the apartment building's main entrance and found good purchase in a tree right there. In Noboru's humble opinion, no one could approach the operational area without being detected.

And while they didn't have the luxury of thermal scans, Moreau's satellite feeds could detect anyone approaching from outside their bubble.

Noboru glanced over at the old church, just visible through all the leaf cover, and for a moment, he thought he saw a shadow creeping across the ancient stone wall. In fact, he had. Hansen and Valentina were approaching Boutin's place and had donned their balaclavas.

HANSENchecked his OPSAT once more: 11:14. He put Valentina to work on the main door, and then, on the periphery, he spotted something--a perfectly straight silhouette, unnatural against nature's curves. He shifted over, leaned down, and there it was: a cell phone, the prepaid type, leaning against the wall, its antenna sprouting up between some weeds. He glanced back at Valentina as she finished with the lock. He motioned for her to step back; then he lifted the doormat and found a tremble sensor, the kind from a vehicle's antitheft GPS tracker. A tiny, almost invisible wire snaked from the sensor back to the cell phone.

Hansen cursed and stage-whispered, "Let's move. He already knows we're out here!"

The old forger was a clever bastard, having jury-rigged his own personal alarm system to back up the building's standard security. He must've assumed someone would be coming to visit, someone who knew how to bypass the gate and door, and that deeply troubled Hansen. He withdrew his SC pistol loaded with anesthetic darts, and Valentina did likewise as he announced to the others that they were moving in.