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. I mwarming up to this. Just wait.First off,Anatoly ID d the doctor in JoeFlynn s old photos.FranoisSisson.Turns out Sisson wasa real doctor over here until hebecame one of the operativesin Tyler Wynn s old CIAnetwork.Ready for this?Franois Sisson turned up ona slab in a Paris morgue theday after helping Wynn playhis death scene for us. Poison? Let s call it lead poisoning.One slug behind his ear. I m still waiting for thegood news, she said. Sounds to me like you gotyour George Smiley jolliesthen hit a dead end. In Paris, yes.But thingsare a bit different down herein Nice. Heat looked at her watch; itwould be just past noon inFrance. What the hell are you doing in Nice? Talking to you from myroom at the Hotel Negresco.Want to know why? Because Ijust came from a meeting at abeach club called Castel Plage.It s up the Promenade desAnglais between here and LeChteau.By the way, that sFrench for Rook, I know whatchteau is French for.Spit itout. OK, you ready for this? Ijust had brunch with noneother than your elusive Syriansecurity attach, FariqKuzbari. Nikki set her pen down andjust listened.Rook explainedthat, after his meeting by theSeine, he hopped theovernight high-speed train toNice, where the Syriansecurity man had agreed tomeet him.He dropped his bag at the Negresco and thenwalked the promenade alongthe bay to the Castel Plage,where Kuzbari waited for himat a secluded table on thebeachside patio. You know,Fariq s a lot nicer guy whenhis men aren t holding gunson you. Rook. Sorry. He paused and, inthe background, she heard theoutdoor sounds of Nice: seabirds; motor bikes; a cruiseship s horn.She wished shewere there. Kuzbari told methat your mother was notspying on him while she wastutoring his kids. And you just believethat? I m only telling you whatthe man said, and the man saidif anyone would know he wasbeing spied on, it would behe.But Kuzbari did tell me something, and it s big.Remember that week the PIsaid your mom spent at thatconference center in theBerkshires with Kuzbari andhis family? Nikki remembered it verywell from Joe Flynn s 1999surveillance report.Andrecently, when the Syrian andhis security goons accostedher on the street in SoHo, shemade sure to ask him about it. I remember Kuzbari wasmore concerned aboutdenying any hanky-panky.What did he tell you? He said he went to theBerkshires for a symposiumon limiting weapons of massdestruction, and that whenyour mom wasn t giving hiskids piano lessons, she wasspending an inordinateamount of time with anotherattendee. Heat picked up her penagain. Who? Dr.Ari Weiss. A jolt of adrenaline shotthrough Heat.Wide awakenow, she paced her livingroom floor. Remember thatname? asked Rook.She did.Of course it lived in her notesfrom a few weeks ago, butlike most things she tookdown, the facts wereburnished in her memory, and the movement of pen acrosspaper only helped hermemorialize them.Right before her murder,Ari Weiss had been thehouseguest of anotherprominent family her mothertutored.Nikki had assumedher mom was spying on them,but Rook s information castthings in an entirely differentlight.It s possible her motherhad worked her way into that home so she could snoop onthe houseguest, Ari. This isbig, she said. Yeah.Just too bad youcan t talk to him. When his name came upthree weeks ago, Heat andRook had discovered that Dr.Ari Weiss had died of a blooddisorder.But Nikki feltenergized now and wasn tgiving up.There still might bea way to get more information about the dead doctor.Evenwhile she paced, she waslooking through her notes forthe number of the personwhose family Ari had stayedwith.Maybe he would knowif Weiss had any connection toTyler Wynn or hisaccomplices.Then, to makesure the sound of her gratitudefor the new lead carried acrossthe Atlantic, she repeated, Hey, Rook? This is very big. Thanks.It s kind of awhirlwind.I haven t evenbeen to bed since I left NewYork, but I feel so pumped. Well ya done good.ThisKuzbari stuff is a coup.He sso hard to pin down, how didyou manage to make contact? Professional courtesy, Iguess.You know, the spyquid pro quo.Like mostMideast governments, Syria sheading for the rocks, and I think he s trying to make nicewith our intelligence in casehe needs an escape hatch. Nikki stopped pacing. Don t you mean Russianintelligence? I thought Kij setthis up. Sounds of traffic anda distinctly European sirenrose up and filled Rook s longpause. Who set this up foryou?& You there? During his hesitation sheheard a female voice she recognized in the background
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