He tossed it to Shafer, went back to the body, pulled a Belgian passport and identity card that both looked real. Beji Nounes. The name meant nothing. Wells patted down the corpse once more, then went to the car to search the passenger.
—
SHAFER STEPPED into the garage, flipped on the lights. The shoe boxes were stacked neatly on racks against the walls. Beside the racks, open cardboard boxes whose labels showed they’d once held fans and heaters. Beside them, more open packages, these for short-range radio gear. Shafer didn’t see anything fancy or military-grade. Everything was off the shelf. Against the other wall, two whiteboards, both nearly new, both wiped blank. Something planned here. Something built here. Bombs? But the dogs would have found those.
At the back of the garage, an area Bourgua seemed to have used as an office, with a desk and a couple of old-school ledgers. Shafer turned for it.
—
COYLE TUGGED at a little black roller suitcase that lay on the Mazda’s back seat that the crash had pinned tight. Wells joined him. Together, they pulled it free, its side ripping open. Coyle looted it, tossing out plain white T-shirts, socks, leather sandals.
Wells climbed into the driver’s seat, ignoring the bits of bone and muscle embedded in its gray cloth, and reached for the dead man beside him.
“John!” Real urgency in Coyle’s voice. He held a paper bag. “Look.”
—
SHAFER REACHED the back. The desk was simple, four metal legs and a top, a single drawer underneath. Shafer tugged at it without much hope. It opened.
Inside, a picture frame.
He turned it over.
A black-and-white photograph of Mecca in the 1980s. It wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone.
Except Shafer. He’d seen it before. In a conference room at the Islamic Center of Northern Virginia.
—
IN THE BAG, two glass ampules.
Wells pulled them out. Brown glass with a powder-blue label. Atropine Sulfate Inj. 1 mg 1 ml.
Atropine. Nerve gas antidote.
All at once, Wells understood.
He turned, ran for the garage, just as Shafer emerged, arms flapping, holding what looked like a picture frame.
“John.”
“Ellis. I know—” Wells held up the ampules.
“I got the mole.”
Here Wells thought he had the big news. “What?”
Shafer raised the picture. “Bourgua was in Mecca, thirty years ago, same time as a imam in Virginia that Walter Crompond knows. That’s the connection. How the mole feeds Daesh. It’s Crompond. It has to be.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“What’s the plan?”
Wells held up the atropine capsules. “Nerve gas.”
—
SHAFER STARED at the ampules, putting everything together. “In the church. They attack. Everyone shelters. I saw empty boxes of short-range radio gear in there. Crompond triggers from inside.”
The enormity of what Walter Crompond and the Islamic State were about to do silenced them both.
—
THEN the first sirens sounded.
“Call down there,” Wells said.
“Call who? They’re blocking mobiles within a kilometer of Bonne-Nouvelle. No car bombs, s’il vous plaît. Anyway, no way can Bourgua’s men get inside. Crompond’s what matters.”
“Maybe wait for the local cops?” Coyle said.
“With this in the street? At best, they’ll take us in until they sort it out, and we don’t have time. Crompond’s set to land at Le Bourget around nine forty-five, ten minutes from now, he’s got an escort, he’ll be at the church by ten-fifteen, and, once he’s inside, it’s too late.”
“Ludlow—”
“You think he’ll take a call from me? He hates my guts.”
Shafer was right about that, too. Wells thought about the geography, realized they had only one play.
It wasn’t the church.
“Get the Remington,” Wells said to Coyle. “We’re going next door.”
“What?”
Wells nodded at the van parked in front of the plumbing store, with its cheery faucet logo. “Even if we have to shoot somebody. We need a ride.”
30
PARIS
LE BOURGET was one of the busiest private airports in the world, with eight separate terminals for private jets. But the super-rich were staying away from Paris this morning. With no traffic in its way, the CIA’s Gulfstream landed ten minutes early. By 9:40, it had reached the edge of the arrival apron.
One by one, the agency’s top officers stepped out, where the Paris chief of station waited with three DGSE officials in somber black suits. Crompond saw an officer he’d known in Iraq, a friend of Martin’s. She was crying, not hiding her tears. She put her arms on his shoulders, kissed both cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Marianne.”
“Awful, Walter. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again. And Damien.”
“I know.”
“You’re coming to la piscine after, right?” The DGSE’s Paris headquarters was nicknamed la piscine, the swimming pool, because the French national swimming team had its training facility directly across the street.
“Of course.” A finger of humanity tugged at Crompond. A drowning man in the deep end, trying to take him down. He kicked the feeling away. At least we won’t have to sit through any bilingual meetings this afternoon.
“This way,” the chief of station said. The douane, the immigration office, was not even a hundred feet from the jet. “We’ll get your passports swiped, five minutes max. The convoy’s right outside.”
—
NINE FORTY-THREE, read the little digital clock in the van’s dashboard. Shafer drove, since Wells and Coyle couldn’t have passed even a cursory look from a cop. They hid in the cargo compartment with the plumbing store owner. They’d kidnapped him, bound his hands and feet with duct tape. No shortage of duct tape in the back of a plumber’s van. Wells had told him in Arabic that they wouldn’t hurt him. Still, he stared at them with miserable, terrified eyes. Fine by Wells. Miserable and terrified beat angry and looking to escape.
The cargo compartment didn’t have windows, but Wells heard sirens swoop by as Shafer turned onto the N370. After a few seconds, they faded. Lucky. After having seen Shafer on the Dulles highway, Wells didn’t like his odds in a chase. Suddenly Shafer laid on the horn, swerved right, then left.
“Ellis—”
“Want to get there?”
“What now?” Coyle said.
Wells liked this kid more by the minute. Blood on his shirt, but he was only thinking about the next move.
“This guy Crompond, he’s got to have the trigger.”
“Someplace he can reach it easily,” Shafer said. “Won’t want to be fumbling for it.”
“Might be small.”
“Yeah, but we’ll know it as soon as we see it. Not like they hid it in a smartphone or something. It’ll look like what it is.”
“So we’ve just get him to turn out his pockets,” Coyle said, his tone arch.
“No problem, right?” Shafer said. Without warning, the van braked hard enough to throw Wells and Coyle into the metal mesh that split the passenger compartment from the front seats. “Stupid traffic circles.”
“No accidents, Ellis. Please.”
—
UNLIKE CUSTOMHOUSES at regular commercial airports, this immigration area was windowed, a nod to the sensitivities of the super-rich who used Le Bourget. Through the front glass Crompond saw the convoy, police vans and motorcycles surrounding armored Yukons. The French were going all out on security today.
Perfect.
The immigration officer at the diplomatic/VIP desk, a fleshy woman in her forties, barely looked at the photo pages of th
e CIA officers’ passports before swiping them through.
Crompond was second to last in line, only Pushkin behind him. Then they’d be through. To the convoy, the church . . . where the world would hear what he had to say. He gave his passport to the agent. She swiped it, muttered a welcome, handed it back.
Behind him, Pushkin reached into the pocket of his suit. He came up with air, shook his head, patted down his other pockets. His expression was more irritated than panicked.
“Must have taken it out, left it in my seat back—I do that sometimes on long flights.” He smiled at the agent. “Can we just—”
“I’m sorry. This is necessary.”
“Go get it, Reg,” Ludlow said. “Come on.”
—
NINE FORTY-SEVEN. “Here we are, campers. Just about.” The van swung around one more traffic circle, and Wells glimpsed a runway fence through the windshield. “Any idea where they’ll be?”
Wells had googled a decent map of the airport on Shafer’s phone. “Make the first right, the immigration office is there. Let’s hope we see a whole bunch of Police Nationale and black SUVs.”
“When we get there—” Coyle said.
“Leave the shotgun. And take off your shirt now.”
“Because of the blood?”
“So they see we aren’t wearing vests.”
—
PUSHKIN JOGGED BACK, passport in hand. “Sorry, Chief.” The agent lifted her hand, reached out wordlessly, the gesture somehow communicating her disdain for this American. She swiped. “Merci.”
—
THE VAN was on airport grounds now, speeding down the access road that paralleled the D317.
“I see you,” Shafer muttered. “Jeez, think there’s enough cops?”
Through the mesh and the windshield, Wells saw. Police vans, sirens flashing, armored SUVs, motorcycles.
Shafer slowed, swung onto Avenue de l’Europe, the main access road—
“No.”
—
POLICE OFFICERS stepped into their vehicles, pulled doors shut. The lead van rolled forward, stopped, and the driver leaned out, looked back, yelled to the vehicles behind.
Then turned, looked ahead, to the van. He honked . . . air-horn loud and sounded his siren, his meaning clear: Move aside.
“Think they’ll light us up?”
“Might,” Wells said, thinking, yes.
“Sorry about this, boys.”
Shafer braked hard and swung the wheel right. The van turned sideways, rocked up on two wheels, rocked back down. The owner’s eyes were wide and terrified.
“You two,” Coyle said, with real admiration.
Even before the van settled, men outside screamed in French. Then the chaos of sirens and amplified voices began.
Wells clambered back, threw open the doors, found himself looking at a mostly empty parking lot, the airport’s buildings to his left. He jumped down. His hands pressed to his skull. French police in full Kevlar ran toward him with their H&Ks raised high, screaming. He sank to his knees.
“American! CIA!”
In front, Shafer opened his door, stepped out, held his arms high, passport in one hand, his CIA identification in the other. “Ne tirez pas, ne tirez pas!”
—
SITTING next to Ludlow in the lead Yukon, Crompond heard the shouts before he saw the van.
“CIA! CIA!” The voices American, and strangely familiar.
“Come on,” Crompond said. “Let’s go.”
“What’s going on?” Ludlow said to the driver.
—
THE YELLING hadn’t stopped, but it had settled. The cops circled around the van, slowly, keeping their distance, keeping the rifles on Wells and Coyle. One of them was more trigger-happy than the others, his rifle shaking notably. He’d be the one to pull the trigger.
Wells looked away from him, locked eyes with the officer beside him, a woman, small even under her armor, but calm. He nodded at the back of the van, empty except for the owner trembling in a corner.
“Nothing dangerous. See?”
“What is this? What is going on?” But she stepped closer. Wells knew they’d be okay.
—
“NE TIREZ PAS.” Shafer was on his knees, staring at three assault rifles, though only one would do the trick. Still holding his passport and ID over his head. For whatever reason, he could hear the van’s engine ticking to a stop above all the other noise.
“Please. I know the DCI’s here. Peter Ludlow. Give these to him. Please.”
The cops looked at one another and one shrugged—the gesture Gallic, somehow, even under all the armor—and reached down.
—
“ALL RIGHT,” Ludlow said. “Let’s move. Sort this out after.”
Crompond, not a prayerful man, found himself thanking God.
A French cop trotted over, holding something out. The driver reached for it. “Sir.” He handed the stuff back to Ludlow. A passport and identification. Ludlow looked at them, his confusion obvious.
“Walter? What in God’s name is Ellis Shafer doing here?”
A voice in Crompond’s head, Jane’s voice, whispering, shouting, You’ve lost, you’ve lost, you’ve lost . . .
EPILOGUE
AT EXACTLY 10:04 A.M. Paris time, the pool feeds the networks were using to cover the funeral cut to a bland Interior Ministry pressroom. A spokeswoman announced Antoine Martin’s wife had suddenly taken ill and asked for a short delay before the funeral began. “No questions, please.”
While the cameras were occupied, the GIGN evacuated the fifty or so mourners already inside Bonne-Nouvelle. Simultaneously, a French military chem/bioweapons response team suited up to scour the church. Its soldiers would find all four sarin ventilators within an hour.
—
EVEN BEFORE the announcement, the Puma feared something had gone wrong. Kassani hadn’t delivered the AKs and wasn’t answering his phone. Bourgua hoped Kassani’s vanishing act wasn’t related to the delay.
Then Agence France-Presse reported a shootout on Allée Richelieu in southern Sevran, and he knew.
He wondered if he should go ahead with the attack after the church reopened, knowing the French would be primed and ready, knowing it was doomed to fail. His men wouldn’t even breach the outer perimeter before they were cut down, every one.
And decided . . . he would.
Maybe Allah would smile on his men and they’d break through. Maybe the French hadn’t found the sarin and the mole could trigger it.
Anyway, what was his choice? If he was wrong, the attack had a chance. If he was right, he was already the most wanted man in all of Europe. No more Air Jordans for him either way.
So when the Interior Ministry thanked the people of Paris for their patience and said the funeral would go ahead at 3:30 that afternoon, Bourgua strapped on his vest. He didn’t believe for a moment that seventy-two virgins were in his future, but he was ready to die nonetheless.
—
TOO BAD FOR HIM, the French found him first. He’d used his burner phones and email heavily on the morning of the attacks. He didn’t have time to coordinate with all his lieutenants face-to-face. He didn’t expect anyone was watching him or would figure out his importance in time to matter. He would have been right if Wells hadn’t found Kassani and his phone, which had a dozen calls from Bourgua’s burners.
Once the NSA and DGSE had these numbers, the Puma was doomed. But even if he’d tossed that phone and all the others he was carrying, he wouldn’t have had a chance, not against facial recognition software and thousands of police and soldiers. He and his jihadis had surprise and the willingness to die on their side. Once they’d lost the former, the latter didn’t make much difference against the French advantages in manpower and technology.
At 2:35, Bourgua and his top
lieutenant walked on Boulevard de Strasbourg, a quarter mile northeast of the church. Strolling, really, trying to stay calm.
A GIGN sniper and DGSE officer lay side by side on the roof of Théâtre de l’Archipel.
“Je le vois,” the sniper said. “Quatre-vingt mètres.”
The DGSE officer murmured into his radio. Then: “Comme vous voulez.”
“Ça va.” The sniper drew one more breath, held it, squeezed the trigger.
—
A PERFECT HEADSHOT. The brain has no nerves, so aside from the briefest spasm of pain as his skull exploded, Bourgua never even felt himself die.
—
WELLS didn’t stay for the funeral.
“Ms. Martin would like to meet you,” Ludlow said around 2:45, after the French police passed word of Bourgua’s death. “The French president, too.”
“I need to get home.”
“What about Walter? Don’t you want a say?”
Already Duto and Ludlow were hinting they preferred to handle Crompond quietly. A one-car crash, an accident at the gun range, a pulmonary embolism. A tragedy. One that would leave Crompond’s family with his pension and insurance and name. And the agency and Duto free from the bad publicity of another crisis in Langley’s top ranks. American Traitor: CIA’s Counterterror Head Betrays Agency to the Islamic State . . .
Everyone would win, even Crompond. The greenest prosecutor couldn’t lose this case. Crompond was bound for the execution room or the living death of solitary at the federal Supermax in Colorado. Everyone except the truth and the public, and Duto hardly cared about those two.
“You’d rather not have me here for that conversation, believe me.”
“Fine,” Ludlow said. “If that’s what you want . . .”
So Wells hugged Shafer good-bye, and told Coyle that if he ever decided to stop being a pretty embassy Marine, the Farm would be waiting.
—
TEN HOURS LATER, a black SUV dropped him outside the farmhouse in North Conway. The lights were on against the gathering dark, and as Wells walked up the flagstone path, he heard Emmie’s voice tinkling. Tonka bolted to the window to see this stranger and then barked long and loud in recognition. Wells reached the porch as the door swung open and Emmie darted around her mother and came to him. He scooped her up, kissed her chocolate-smeared chin.
The Prisoner Page 37
