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Chapter 1

The

The source of his amusement was a story just told hi hi of March 22, 1990, from his office to his apartment

It concerned a ue in the Space Research Corporation offices at rue de Stalle, a woarded as a real vaay The deception appealed to the man’s lavatorial sense of humor

The pair had left the offices in the Brussels suburb of Uccle, Belgiuon She had, soen because he was such a rotten driver, she feared he would end up killing himself

It was only a ten-minute drive fro of the three-building Cheridreu complex off rue François Folie, but they stopped halfway there at a baker’s shop Both went inside, he to buy a loaf of his favorite pain de caneThere was rain in the wind; they bowed their heads, failing to notice the car that followed behind them

Nothing strange in that Neither was trained in tradecraft; the unmarked car with its two dark-jowled occupants had been following the scientist for weeks, never losing hi; and he had not seen them Others had, but he did not know

E from the shop just in front of the cemetery, he tossed his loaf into the back seat and climbed aboard to complete the journey to his home At ten lass doors of the apart, set fifteen meters back from the street She offered to come up with him, to see hiirlfriend Helene and did not wish the feood friend, keeping him company while he was in Brussels and his as in Canada

He climbed out of the car, the collar of his belted trench coat turned up as ever, and hefted onto his shoulder the big black canvas bag that hardly ever left hirams and contained a mass of papers: scientific papers, projects, calculations, and data The scientist distrusted safes and thought illogically that all the details of his latest projects were safer hanging from his shoulder

The last Monique saw of her e over one shoulder, the loaf under the other arh the doors and the self-locking plate glass swing closed behind him Then she drove off

The scientist lived on the sixth floor of the eight-story building Two elevators ran up the back wall of the building, encircled by the stairs, with a fire door on each landing He took one of thehts of the lobby ca his keys, leaning against the weight of his bag, and clutching his loaf, he turned left and left again across the russet-brown carpet and tried to fit his key into the lock of his apartment door

The killer had been waiting on the other side of the elevator shaft, which jutted into the dimly lit lobby

He ca his silenced 765- to prevent the ejected cartridges fro all over the carpet

Five shots, fired froe into the back of the head and neck, were ainst his door and slithered to the carpet The gunman did not bother to check; there was no need He had done this before, practicing on prisoners, and he knew his as done He ran lightly down the six fligh

ts of stairs, out of the back of the building, across the tree-studded gardens, and into the waiting car In an hour he was inside his country’s eium

Helene arrived five ht her lover had had a heart attack In a panic she let herself in and called the paramedics Then she realized his own doctor lived in the sa, and she summoned him as well The paramedics arrived first

One of the doard The man’s hand came away covered in blood Minutes later, he and the doctor pronounced the victim quite dead The only other occupant of the four flats on that floor ca to a classical concert and heard nothing behind her solid ti, very discreet

The enius, gun designer to the world, and more latterly armorer for Saddam Hussein of Iraq

In the afteran to happen all over Europe

In Brussels, Belgian counterintelligence admitted that for some months Bull had been followed on an al two men of swarthy, eastern Mediterranean appearance

On April 11, British Custoht sections of huge steel pipes, beautifully forged and es at each end, drilled to take powerful nuts and bolts The triumphant officers announced that these tubes were not intended for a petroche and the export certificates, but were parts of a great gun barrel designed by Gerry Bull and destined for Iraq The farce of the Supergun was born, and it would run and run, revealing double-dealing, the stealthy paws of several intelligence agencies, a mass of bureaucratic ineptitude, and some political chicanery

Within weeks, bits of the Supergun began popping up all over Europe On April 23, Turkey announced it had stopped a Hungarian truck carrying a single ten-un The same day, Greek officials seized another truck with steel parts and held the hapless British driver for several weeks as an accomplice In May the Italians intercepted seventy-five tons of parts, while a further fifteen tons were confiscated at the Fucine works, near Rome The latter were of a titaniuun, as were more bits and pieces yielded by a warehouse at Brescia, in northern Italy

The Germans came in, with discoveries at Frankfurt and Bremerhaven, also identified as parts of the by noorld-faun

In fact, Gerry Bull had placed the orders for his brainchild skillfully and well The tubes forland by two fireht intercepted in April 1990 were the last of fifty-two sections, enough toand with an unbelievable one- a projectile the size of a cylindrical telephone booth

The trunnions or supports came from Greece, the pipes, pumps, and valves that formed the recoil mechanism from Switzerland and Italy, the breech block froium In all, seven countries were involved as contractors, and none knew quite what they were