“Why don’t you just call the cops yourself and ask? Or the DGSI?”
“I’ll try, but they’re up to their necks, and they don’t know me, and I don’t speak French. And, the thing is, he may not even be in the system yet. He probably wasn’t carrying ID.”
“What about the DGSE?”
“I’ll try, I promise.” But Shafer had never been posted to Paris. His last decent DGSE contact had retired fifteen years before and died six months later of lung cancer. The French and their Gauloises.
“So what do I tell the police?”
“Same song, different key. He’s American, his family’s worried he’s been arrested, you work for an American law firm in Paris—”
“And I don’t speak French?”
“All you need to know is if they have him. If you strike out all those places—last stop, there’s a prison in Villepinte—”
“A prison? They just arrested him. He’d be at a station for sure—”
“They may want him in a higher-security facility.”
“Because they think he plays for Team Jihad?”
“It’s possible.”
“What am I into here, Ellis.” Not a question. Coyle knew.
—
FOR THE REST of the morning Shafer waited as Coyle worked his way through the target list. After each stop Coyle checked in to tell Shafer what he’d found, or, more accurately, hadn’t. The garage hadn’t been touched. The hospitals took a while, but eventually Coyle found the right people to ask. Wells wasn’t in either one. The motorcycle wasn’t at the hotel. No one answered when Coyle knocked on the door to Wells’s room.
As Coyle ticked off the alternatives, Shafer found himself increasingly sure that a police or counterterror unit had run across Wells and snatched him up. He called the DGSE, the Police Nationale headquarters, and the Ministry of the Interior. The mid-level officers on the other end of the line didn’t even bother to hide their indifference. We are very busy, Mr. Shafer . . . This man, if he has no identification, we can’t confirm his identity, you understand . . . You’re coming to Paris tomorrow for the funeral? Good, we sort out the problem then . . .
The cables from Paris explained exactly why the French had no time for Shafer this day: DGSE SOURCES REPORT SECOND STRIKE MAY BE IMMINENT . . . ISLAMIC STATE POSSIBLY TARGETING TUESDAY FUNERAL WITH LARGE-SCALE SUICIDE-STYLE ATTACKS . . . The NSA reported picking up identical text messages on a dozen phones it had targeted, BROTHERS GATHER FOR PRAYER SERVICE . . .
Shafer hadn’t believed the jihadis would throw themselves into the maw of security that would surround the funeral. But Wells had disagreed. Maybe he was right. Maybe the jihadis thought they could break through somehow. Or maybe they didn’t care how many men they lost because they knew an attack on this funeral would receive worldwide attention.
Coyle called from the police station in Sevran. “Nothing. The prison or the station in Villepinte next, you think?”
“Prison first. The station will be open all night.”
“All right.”
Then nothing. The minutes turned into an hour, the hour turned into a second hour. Shafer busied himself by putting the documentation he’d need to convince the French that both he and Wells were who they claimed to be and getting retroactive clearance for Coyle’s mission from the ambassador.
But by 2 p.m. in Virginia, he couldn’t escape the realization that Coyle had vanished, too. The banlieues were turning into the Bermuda Triangle. The only reasonable explanation was that Coyle’s questions about Wells had triggered the prison guards’ suspicions and they’d hauled him inside.
Shafer hoped so anyway. Because otherwise he had no idea what had happened. And without Wells, he had less than no chance to stop whatever Raouf Bourgua planned for tomorrow.
27
PARIS
NOTRE-DAME DE BONNE-NOUVELLE lay inside a natural urban perimeter, a triangle about one hundred meters per side formed by three streets that by Paris standards ran straight and true: Rue Poissonnière to the west, the Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle to the north, and Rue de Cléry, which connected them.
The Interior Ministry announced Monday that only people who lived inside the zone could enter or leave on Tuesday. No parking would be permitted in the triangle beginning at midnight. After 7 a.m. only emergency vehicles would be allowed to use the roads inside. The mayor of Paris “strongly encouraged” stores and businesses in the zone to close for the day. “Normal operations will be impossible.”
The area closest to the church faced even tighter restrictions. Rue de la Lune and Rue Beauregard, which ran past Bonne-Nouvelle, would be open only to residents on foot on Tuesday but closed even to them after 10 a.m. Essentially, the people who lived within a block of the church would have to stay in their apartments during the funeral. The police promised temporary shelter for residents who were too infirm to leave on their own and feared being trapped.
To patrol the perimeter, the Interior Ministry was deploying seven hundred officers from the CRS, France’s infamously tough riot police. A hundred and thirty officers from the GIGN would provide security for the church itself. The GIGN was the most highly trained police detachment in France, the equivalent of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, with its own helicopters, snipers, and bomb squads.
The security wouldn’t end at the perimeter. No trucks or vans would be permitted within fifty meters of its edges. The police at those outer checkpoints had orders to shoot to kill any driver who disobeyed.
Meanwhile, the French army had moved two companies of light infantry to the grounds of the Hôpital Saint-Louis, a mile east of the church. An entire infantry regiment, twelve hundred soldiers with helicopter support, waited at the Stade de France, four miles northeast. They would do double duty as a quick-reaction force for the church and an anti-riot unit in case of trouble in the banlieues in the other direction.
In all, the French would have more than a thousand police officers within two hundred meters of the church, and that didn’t include the soldiers in reserve, or another two hundred or so bodyguards and security officers from the CIA, MI6, and the rest, inside the perimeter. Standard military doctrine held that attacking forces should be three times as large as the defense they hoped to breach. According to that math, the Puma needed at least four thousand jihadis, an impossibility. A force that size would be obvious from miles away and required professional military command and control.
In reality, the Puma had his Quiet Men and another fifty jihadis. Eighty-six men in all. Some were known to the French and might be arrested on their way. No matter. The extra jihadis knew nothing but where they were supposed to meet. Once they did arrive, they would simply serve as foot soldiers.
In its own way, the plan was straightforward. The jihadis would attack a few minutes before the funeral was set to start. The timing would be easy to synchronize. Every news channel in the world would carry the ceremony live. As the final and most important dignitaries were still entering, twenty men and a bomb-loaded van would attack from the south, trying to reach the Rue Beauregard and the back of the church.
Simultaneously, another thirty men and another van would hit the checkpoint north of the Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle on the Rue d’Hauteville. Their goal would be to cross the boulevard to a short pedestrian walkway that led directly to the front of the church.
Four men who were already in a hotel inside the perimeter, would come up Rue de la Lune on foot from the west. The last group of jihadis and the third van would attack from the Plaza Saint-Denis, to the northeast.
The Puma didn’t expect any of the explosive-filled vans would get through the outer perimeter. The CRS cops would block all the intersections with their own big vans and Renault Sherpas, and they would shoot to kill as soon as his drivers refused to stop. No matter, as long as the explosions caused confusion and did enough damage to let even a few of the jihadis through
.
Once they broke the outer perimeter, and the scope of the attack became clear, with men coming from every direction, the GIGN and the bodyguards would utter three magic words. Shelter in place. With its thick, nearly windowless stone walls, Bonne-Nouvelle would seem to be the safest place for the dignitaries to wait out the attack. No one would fear an attack from inside. The Paris police had locked down the church even before the Interior Ministry announced it would be used. Dozens of bomb-sniffing dogs had been through it. So the GIGN officers and bodyguards would herd everyone into the church.
The attack and the dozens of new people coming through the front door would lead to massive confusion. And as they streamed inside, the mole would trigger the ventilators. Even after the sarin claimed its first victims, the people in the church wouldn’t understand what was happening. In the chaos, some would imagine the new arrivals had brought the poison with them. Others would realize the truth. But even then they’d have to fight their way out while the GIGN officers were trying to push others in through the single door in front.
How long would it take those officers to sort out the truth, put on their chemical weapons respirators, and begin to evacuate the people inside? Two minutes? Three? Five? Even two would be long enough for most of the men and women inside Bonne-Nouvelle to get a few breaths of sarin. Five minutes would be enough to kill all but the luckiest.
By the time the officers entered, the church would be a house of the dead. The President of France, Prime Minister of Germany, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, chief of MI6, a hundred others. Dead, dying, gravely wounded. A terrorist attack without parallel. The West would have no choice but to bring its armies into Syria and Iraq.
This time, the men of the Islamic State would be ready for them. Crusader blood would stain the desert red. The war between the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb would be joined in earnest.
Shelter in place.
28
MIDAIR, OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
ON THE GULFSTREAM from Langley, Crompond kept to himself. The others didn’t bother him. He knew that they knew he’d been friendly with Antoine Martin in Iraq. No doubt they assumed he was taking Martin’s death hard.
In his own way he was. He hadn’t anticipated how these hours would feel, this between time. Knowing the tidal wave was tumbling toward them. Knowing he’d set it in motion. He’d killed Martin as surely as if he’d thrown the grenade. Martin’s son, too. An innocent.
What of it? The drones killed innocents all the time, though the agency pretended otherwise. Somehow, the bombing only confirmed his choice. If he walked away now, he would have sacrificed Damien Martin for nothing. Winners never quit . . . And the ease with which the jihadis had pulled off the attack sawed off Crompond’s fear that nothing would happen after he pressed the button. If these guys said the sarin was ready, it was ready.
He wanted nothing more than to land in Paris. Reach the church. Be done. The key fob seared his fingertips whenever he touched it, yet he had to fight the urge to take it out and play with it.
He looked up to see Ludlow walking down the aisle toward him.
“You okay, Walter?”
A pained smile. “Been better.”
Ludlow squatted beside him. “Ever play tennis with Martin? Over in the Green Zone? Heard he was great.”
“Once. I couldn’t compete. He started taking it easy. He told me he wasn’t, but I knew he was. A gentleman. I told him to play for real. He stomped me.” Then I gave his address to the Islamic State so they could blow up his limo. That’ll learn ’im.
“You know what kills me, Walter?”
You’ll find out what kills you soon enough. Crompond with two conversations going. Best keep the one in his head separate from the one on his tongue. “What’s that?”
“It was so avoidable. If he’d just taken his security seriously.”
“He didn’t like bodyguards.”
“Nobody likes bodyguards. I want to take a piss, I have to tell them so they can go in first. Stand next to me the whole time. At home, they hear everything. No way around it.” Ludlow paused. “Man, I hate them.”
“Hate? That seems like a strong word.”
“Sorry. I’m tired, too. Not the bodyguards. These guys. A year ago, my son showed me this black-and-white picture of a spray-painted banner. All caps. Know what it said?”
High on the list of stuff Crompond wouldn’t miss: Peter Ludlow’s rhetorical questions. “I do not.”
“STOP KILLING PEOPLE, YOU FUCKING TWATS. That’s about right. I mean, we’re professionals, we get the geopolitics, Sykes–Picot—whatever—but enough is enough. Stop killing people. Just stop.”
What about us, boss? When do we stop killing people?
“Get some rest, if you can,” Ludlow said. “Gonna be a long day tomorrow.” He turned away, wandered back down the aisle.
Crompond knew he couldn’t sleep. But when he closed his eyes, he did.
29
SEVRAN
WHEN the cops pulled off his hood, Wells found himself looking at yet another prison cell. This one was almost pristine, no graffiti, the toilet gleaming steel. A four-inch-square window set high in the exterior wall. A porthole of thick glass in the door, a slot for food trays down below. A standard iso cell, slightly bigger than most. Probably designed to hold two men, if necessary, though it had only one bed, a metal pallet welded to the wall.
He was becoming quite the expert on confinement.
They pushed him inside, slammed the door.
As their footsteps disappeared down the hall, Wells wondered how long Shafer might need to find him, pull him out. The drive from the N2 had lasted only a few minutes. He had to be in Sevran, or very close. A break. Shafer would start searching within hours. And the police stations around Sevran would be among the first places he would try to contact.
But the cops hadn’t processed him before they threw him in here. No photos, no prints. They hadn’t even asked basic biographical details. As far the French government was concerned, John Wells didn’t exist. Until he was in the system, Shafer would have no chance of finding him from four thousand miles away, much less convincing the police to release him.
Wells watched the windows brighten as the sun rose. Monday morning. The funeral was Tuesday at 11 a.m. Thirty hours, give or take. How many hours would he dribble away inside these blank walls? The Puma might even now be clearing the garage, erasing clues.
Later. A tray through the slot. An egg salad sandwich, orange juice in a plastic cup. Lunch. Lunch meant afternoon. Less than a day left. Wells wondered if he should attack the cell, tear the bed off the wall. Flood the toilet. Break the tray and cut himself with the shards. Anything to make them notice.
But they’d just throw him wherever they put troublesome prisoners. He reminded himself he was in France, not some dictatorship. These cops had to have rules on how long they could hold him incognito. Eventually they’d have to register him, let him make a phone call.
Eventually. Unless they’d suspended those protections for the state of emergency.
Later. The tiny windows darkening as the sun weakened. The cell door swung back, revealing two new officers. They wore deep-blue uniforms, handsome and simple, with big Police Nationale chevrons. Regular cops. Wells stood. The one nearer the door raised a hand: Stay back.
“Parle-tu français?”
“I do not.”
“Name?”
“John Wells.”
The officer pulled a notebook. “Spell, please. And date of birth.”
“Can I talk to a lawyer?”
“You’re American?”
“Yes.”
“A terrorist?”
“No. I have information. I need to speak to someone senior.” Wells hoped he sounded urgent. Not unhinged. “DGSI, DGSE, it doesn’t matter—”
“
What do you know about the DGSE? You helped kill the director?”
“Of course not. I used to work for the CIA.”
The cops conferred. “You know about a plot, an active plot? Better tell us—”
There was the rub. “Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
A sentence too late, Wells realized he should have lied. At least they would have brought someone more senior to talk to him, someone who might have understood. “There’s someone you need to look at. Here, in Sevran—”
“This is Villepinte.” The cop shook his head. Stop wasting my time. “Someone will come after the funeral. If you haven’t noticed, we’re a bit busy.”
After the funeral. Raouf Bourgua wouldn’t wait until after the funeral. “One call—please—”
The flic was already closing the door. Wells stood nose to porthole and watched his freedom walk down a plain white hall. He felt his frustration taking over, his fists clenching involuntarily.
He made himself sit before he did anything truly stupid. They’d asked his name and date of birth. He had to trust they’d done so because they planned to add him to a prisoner roster. Breaking his hand against the wall like some twenty-year-old frat boy wouldn’t help.
Just a soul whose intentions are good / Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood . . .
—
MINUTES LATER, the door opened. Wells found himself looking at Winston Coyle. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. Three big French cops shoved Coyle into the cell, slammed the door home.
Coyle looked at Wells. “You are trouble, my friend.”
“You only figured that out now.”
“I mentioned your name, they got all nice. Told me to come on back. Then this. I showed them my Marine ID. They didn’t care.”
“Quick to judge, these French.”
“Said they’d let me out as soon as they made some calls, but I think not. Anyway, I guess sooner or later I’ll get to tell your buddy I found you.”
The Prisoner Page 35
