by Gary Haynes
After checking in with HQ at Levallois-Perret, Paris, and saying that he felt they had the wrong location, he’d been ordered to make sure. He’d risked calling the local gendarmes, and had asked them to feign a casual passport-checking exercise, the law demanding that all nationals and visitors had to prove their identity if asked.
When HQ had scrutinized the names that had been emailed through, he’d gotten a call to say the men were all bona-fide computer-inkjet salesmen from Marseilles, who were on a team-building retreat. They were going to have some downtime in Paris before flying home.
But half an hour later, he’d taken another call on his smartphone, and this time the news had been positive. The Normandy connection that Crane had filled him in on was crucial. On the strength of that, he’d rung Crane a few seconds after coming off the phone with HQ.
Philippe had told him that the DCRI had gotten a tip-off that something had gone down in Abu Dhabi. The source was a suspicious caporal-chef, who’d decided that national security overrode personal ambition, although the DCRI had asked that his unofficial smoking break be overlooked. The info had led to a search of the flight records. When the destination of the French Air Force transport plane had become known, the base’s CCTV cameras had been checked. They had shown a civilian van.
After Crane’s reference to Évreux had been factored in, the plate had been picked up by a traffic-monitoring camera as the van had left the capital en route to Normandy. Following an external search of chateaux within a thirty-mile radius by unmarked police cars, they had found one that might fit the bill. Men on the gate. Razor-wire. CCTV cameras. It was only twelve miles south from the chateau they had under surveillance. Finally, Philippe had given Crane the directions for a new rendezvous point where Tom should meet him.
Philippe had already agreed to meet up with Tom after the initial call from Crane, who’d asked him a special favour and had promised that the head of the secretary’s protective detail wouldn’t interfere. He was a loyal man, and deserved to be there when she got out. If it weren’t for him, Crane said, they would never have known where she was. Besides, the DS special agent knew something that could ensure her identity. Following the most recent call from Philippe, Crane had phoned Tom.
By this time, Tom, Lester and Karen had reached the outskirts of Évreux. Crane told Tom that the chateau had been checked out by the DCRI already. That was the bad news. The good news was that the French had found a chateau where she might be. But due to logistical considerations and the fact that it could be another dead end, no roadblocks had been set up as yet. The gendarmes were searching for other potential sites as he spoke. Then he told Tom the new location, saying that only the three DCRI operatives had arrived there so far.
“You can meet up with the DCRI at an intersection about a half-mile from the chateau,” Crane said. “The road that passes due west by the chateau forks a hundred metres from the end of the perimeter wall. The left-hand road leads to a copse of trees with a rest stop about twenty metres beyond that.”
“Thanks,” Tom said.
“But listen to me, Tom. When you get there, you wait with the DCRI operatives, you hear? If no other sites are found and it turns out to be the right place, French Special Forces will go in.”
“What’s their ETA?” Tom asked.
“An hour, give or take.”
Tom turned to Karen and gave her the details. After checking out satellite maps on her laptop, she said that the rest stop wasn’t too far away. She gave Lester the location of both the chateau and the rest stop and he punched them into the Land Rover’s sat-nav.
Twenty minutes later, Lester drove Tom through the narrow lanes near Évreux, the ancient oak trees overlapping above them and making it dark enough to warrant the headlights being on. Karen had been left a few miles back with the equipment, sitting in a field beyond a rusted gate that hung off its hinges by a piece of frayed rope. Tom had told her that if anything went wrong, she should call Vice Admiral Theodore Birch, the head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in DC, and had given her the number to ring. He’d said to tell him everything, then hand-deliver a note he had sealed in a manila envelope, which stated everything else that she didn’t know.
Lester stopped the van at the entrance to a farm track that ran the length of a field where cows grazed. He slipped out and Tom got into the driver’s seat, his mind fixed on finding the secretary and taking her home. He could sense that the next ten minutes or so would be vital in achieving that aim. After remaining at the track while he’d watched the second hand on his watch tick away for three minutes, he drove off. He figured he’d reach the rendezvous point in less than sixty seconds.
There were three men, just as Crane had said there would be, their hands clasping stubby Heckler & Koch MP7A1 sub-machine guns fixed with suppressors, extended magazines and EOTech holographic day-sights. They were dressed in black fatigues, standing in front of a dark-blue Citroën van with tinted windows.
Tom steered the Land Rover into the leaf-strewn rest stop. As he got out the man he took for the trio’s leader stepped forward, a man well over six feet tall with a thin mouth like a snake’s.
“Mr Dupree?”
“Oui, je suis Monsieur Dupree.”
“Parlez-vous français?”
“Oui, je fais.”
They proceeded to speak in French.
“You’re a foreign national. I’m afraid I will have to escort you to a hotel until this is over.”
A set-up, then, Tom thought. He caught a glimpse of a French Foreign Legion tattoo on the well-muscled forearm of one of the men on the right, a green-and-red triangle containing the grenade emblem. He was a stocky guy all over, with sandy hair and ruddy cheeks.
“Did Crane send you?” he asked Snake Lips. He figured the only person who knew he was going to be there was Crane, and that he’d betrayed him. These guys weren’t DCRI operatives. They were mercenaries.
“I don’t know anyone called Crane.”
“No, ‘course you don’t.”
Snake Lips grinned.
“How about Peter Swiss?” Tom turned to the guy with the tattoo. “He’s one of you, 2nd Rep.”
The man shook his head.
“Is my French not good enough?” Tom asked.
“Your French is good,” Snake Lips said. “But that doesn’t change anything.”
“You came from the chateau, right.” Tom guessed that Crane had gotten these guys to take out the DCRI operatives.
Snake Lips smiled, revealing a gold molar. “On your knees. Hands behind your head, if you please, Mr Dupree.”
Tom assumed the position on the ground.
84.
The tattooed man walked forward, flex-cuffs in his hand. As he bent down to restrain Tom his head jerked back, a spout of blood ejecting from his left temple. Tom sprang up and flung himself at Snake Lips, just as the second man, who’d turned in the direction of the suppressed discharge, was hit in the neck. He collapsed to his knees, his hand grasping his shattered carotid artery, as blood gushed over his fingers.
Tom had hit Snake Lips in the solar plexus with his forehead, winding him and pushing him backwards. As the Frenchman fumbled for his MP7, Tom launched himself into the air. He brought his knee up and simultaneously clasped the man’s head in his hands, pulling his face down onto his rising lower thigh. His thigh impacted Snake Lips’ nose with a loud crunch, and Tom knew the bone had shattered. As he collapsed sideways Tom finished the Frenchman off with a hook to the jaw. Snake Lips hit the ground in a twisting motion, groaning. Tom stooped down and pulled the gun strap over the man’s head before slinging the weapon over his shoulder. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
He crouched back down again. “Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked, quietly.
“Yes,” Snake Lips grunted, face up in the dirt and leaves.
“You wanna live?”
“Yes.”
“Good answer.”
Lester stepped out from behind an ivy-clothed tr
ee trunk. A suppressed Marine sniper rifle, the bolt-action M40A5, with a scout sniper day-scope, held before his chest, the strap still wrapped around his left forearm.
Looking over, Tom said, “Nice shooting.”
“Old habits,” Lester replied, his face showing no emotion.
“Our French friend here would like to stay alive.”
“He better be a talkative Frenchy, then.”
“I don’t think there are any other kind,” Tom said.
They half carried the injured man into the surrounding undergrowth, and onto the edge of an evergreen forest about thirty metres from the rest stop. Lester secured him to a tree with a length of rope, the man’s head lolling to one side, the blood still falling in clots from his broken nose.
“You do that so you ain’t the only ugly one?” Lester said to Tom, gesturing to the man’s broken nose.
Tom smiled.
After walking back to the rest stop, he and Lester carried the two corpses into the forest. Stripping them down to their underwear, they hid the bodies among nettles and long grasses. They picked up their fatigues and weapons, and walked over to where Snake Lips was tethered, squatting down either side of him.
Tom grabbed the man’s cheeks with his hand, pushed his head back against the gnarled trunk roughly. “My friend here is going to work on you if you go dumb on us. Understand?”
“Yes,” the man said, his eyes rolling as if concussed.
“Let’s keep it short and painless and you’ll survive this. You have my word. And my word is good. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Tom leaned in close. “Is the Secretary of State still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do they intend to kill her today?”
Snake Lips nodded, dimly.
Tom slapped his face. “Stay with me. When?”
“Half an hour or less.”
Jesus, Tom thought. They’d brought the timeframe forward by more than four hours. “How many men are guarding her?”
“Nine.”
“Be specific.”
“Two on the gate. The other seven are dispersed inside. One is a tech.”
“At the chateau close by?”
He nodded.
“Weapons?” Tom asked, grabbing the man’s jaw and jerking it up ninety degrees.
“Same as me. MP7s.”
“Where is she in the chateau?”
“Basement cell.”
“Locked?” Tom asked, staring into the man’s eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who has the key?”
The man closed his eyes, clearly feigning unconsciousness. Tom jabbed his finger into the pressure point under the Adam’s apple, where the trachea passed just below the surface of the skin. Snake Lips began spluttering and shook his head.
“Proctor,” he croaked.
Tom let go of him. “Proctor. An American?”
“English.”
“Where are the DCRI operatives?”
“Dead.”
“Whose orders?” Tom asked, readying himself to inflict more pain. But it wasn’t necessary.
“Proctor’s,” Snake Lips replied.
“How did he know they’d be here?”
“I don’t know. I swear.”
Tom believed him. “You did good,” he said, patting Snake Lips on the shoulder. “You’ll live.”
“You mean it?”
“I mean it.”
He sighed long and hard. “Merci.”
“But if you’re lying, my friend will come back and give you a double tap. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Don’t forget that now, Frenchy,” Lester said.
Tom and Lester stood up and began to undress. They changed into the fatigues and walked back to the Land Rover, the dead men’s MP7s over their shoulders.
“You drive the van,” Tom said to Lester.
“You okay, Tom?”
“The CIA man I mentioned told me where to hook up with the French,” Tom said, referring to Crane.
“He did?”
“The only person who could’ve turned this rotten is him. He thinks I’m working alone, so they were only expecting me.”
“You figure he’s some kinda double agent?” Lester asked.
“I’m not sure what he is. But I now know he’s not to be trusted. And, Lester–”
“Don’t say it. Just between us.”
“Thanks, man.”
Driving back to where Karen was waiting with the equipment, Tom rang Birch on his hands-free. He told him what had just transpired and how Crane had to have set him up. “He’s a traitor, sir. I don’t know who else in the CIA might be involved, so I suggest we keep it in the DS.”
“I don’t get it. Crane called in French Special Forces. No question,” Birch said.
“I guess he was covering his ass. He knows they won’t get here in time.”
“They will, Tom. I’m sure of that.”
“I …”
“What is it, Tom?”
“She’ll be dead by then.”
“I’m telling you not to do anything by yourself. You could endanger Lyric’s life. And if you do, I won’t be able to save you. That’s a direct order, Agent. Stand down.”
“Yes, sir.”
But given the reduced timeframe, Tom knew he had to act.
He spent the next five minutes putting together a simple rescue plan. He was glad that Lester had pushed to show them how to use the weapons, because, apart from sounding seriously effective, they were of the disabling variety rather than lethal, and there was no way of knowing whether or not the secretary’s location inside the chateau had changed.
85.
Proctor flung open the door to the makeshift cell and saw the secretary lying asleep on the bed. He cracked his knuckles loudly. Startled, he saw her eyes flick open, her mouth drawing a sharp breath. But he couldn’t tell now whether she was afraid or curious.
“Time for the game to begin, missus,” he said, grinning.
“What game?”
“Come on, now, you’re an American. There’s only one game you know. Winner takes all.”
As he moved towards her, he saw her flinch. She had a right to, he thought. By the time he’d finished with her, she’d be wishing she were still drugged in a coffin. She raised a hand as he reached her. A half-hearted if defiant act. He grabbed her fingers, snapping them back. He registered the tears forming in her eyes with satisfaction.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she breathed.
“Because I can,” he replied. He clenched a massive fist. “If you relax, it won’t hurt as bad. If you fight it, I’ll get mad and hit harder.”
He saw a blur and felt the fingernails of her free hand rake across his neck, drawing blood.
Grabbing her wrist and pulling it down, he said, “You just made a big mistake.”
Knowing what was to come, he wanted to eradicate any spark of resistance and make her as docile as a lamb. Her last reaction had just confirmed that that was necessary.
86.
The security gate was wrought-iron and about four metres high, with a length of concertina razor-wire fastened along the top. The wire looked brand-new and Tom guessed that it’d been put in place by Proctor and his men, rather than being a permanent feature. Either side of the gate was a high wall, stone-built and encrusted with dull-green lichen. A few beech trees grew above it, their trunks rising from a grassy verge, which eased down to a flint-ridden pathway, but the branches had been cut back so that they didn’t overhang. Beyond the gate, an acre of well-maintained lawns was bisected by a pink-gravel roadway, which led up to the façade of the chateau. The chateau was three storeys high, built in the neo-classical style, with four pillars flanking the arched entranceway.
Two men stood in front of the gate dressed in woollen overcoats. Their hair was cropped, and they had granite faces like bouncers. They carried two-way radios. They chatted to one another and paced about to relieve the boredom.<
br />
“They’ll be concealing more than handguns under those coats,” Lester whispered.
Tom nodded.
They lay enveloped in bracken on the other side of the lane that ran past the gate parallel to the wall. Their faces were streaked with camouflage paint. Tom held a field-scope, Lester his suppressed Marine sniper rifle resting on a bi-pod.
“I can make out one CCTV camera,” Tom said, lowering the glass. “Likely to be more.”
The cloud was high, the sky still completely overcast, which was perfect weather as far as Tom was concerned. There was no danger of the lasers that Karen would use glinting in sunlight, which could alert the guards on the gate. He checked the time. They had twenty minutes to get in and rescue the secretary before the deadline, if what the Frenchman had said was true, although Tom didn’t have any good reason to doubt him.
He tapped Lester on the shoulder. “Time for your kickass weapons, buddy.”
They snaked backwards, using their elbows and knees, slow enough not to cause more than the slightest ripple in the undergrowth, although the cool breeze was adding a welcomed dimension to masking their movement. Once they were a few metres from the vantage point, they flipped over and low-crawled another twenty before straightening up in a small clearing beside a brown-coloured stream. Karen was kneeling there, an MI6 carbine fixed with the dazzler in her hands. The two cases with the rest of the equipment that Lester had shown her how to work at the airfield were placed either side of her, her backpack on her back. She wore a camouflage windbreaker and military boots.
Tom tucked the scope into his webbed belt and Lester bagged his rifle before lowering it onto the grass. Tom lifted out the tubes of the large sensor from its case and eased them into his green backpack. Lester took the sound system. As Karen raised herself up Tom and Lester picked up the Frenchmen’s MP7s with flash suppressors and, after checking the magazines, slung them over their shoulders. Lester handed Karen a Browning M1911 semi-auto, the stand-issue handgun of the US Marine Corps Special Operations Command.
“You only got seven rounds, but they’re .45 cartridges,” he said. “So if you meet a smart grizzly in the woods, he ain’t gonna wanna mix it with ya.”
