He’d talked his way out of that one—eventually—but he was enough of an old hand to know. Sooner or later, the day came that you couldn’t talk your way through.
And that day was the day of your death.
9:53 A.M.
Rue Hors-Château
Liège, Belgium
“What do you mean?” Harry stared across the room back at Belkaïd, time itself seeming to slow down. His fingers tightening imperceptibly around the hilt of the switchblade, certain in this moment that the Algerian was himself armed. He must be.
Could he cross the room in the time it would take the older man to draw and fire? Probably. Plunge the knife in deep, finding the heart beneath layers of fat and muscle. But the consequences for failure. . .
“Do you take me for a fool?” Belkaïd snarled, contempt filling his voice. “Perhaps you do. I warned you that I had sources within the Belgian security services—that if you were a plant, I would know.”
Someone had talked, Harry thought, knowing in this moment that he was a dead man. The DGSE had disregarded his warning—shared intelligence once more with their counterparts in Brussels. And it was going to be the death of him.
“I heard from my sources an hour ago,” the older man continued, not waiting for a response, “and you know what they told me? They told me that I am being placed under surveillance. Now! Of all times.”
“Are you serious?” Harry exclaimed incredulously, seizing his opportunity. The classic playbook, old as time. Admit nothing. Deny everything. Go on the attack. “Is this some kind of joke? I killed a man for you, Gamal. A man who by Islamic law did not deserve to die, and I shot him dead to prove myself to you—to cement our alliance. To ensure that this attack could go forward. Would I have done that—would I have killed a man if I were a plant, an officer of the kaffir security services?”
Doubt. Written clear in Belkaïd’s eyes. Drive it home. “You knew it was a test any Western spy would fail—that’s why you gave it to me. We both knew that. And I didn’t fail. And now you want to question my loyalty—why? Because you’ve been told that the police are placing you under surveillance? You are a criminal, Gamal. Stop acting so paranoid—this is a part of the game, you know this.”
“But why now? I’ve conducted my business affairs in this country for years, I’ve been investigated many times. But this—this is different.” There was still skepticism in the man’s voice, but he had his attention now, he was listening—open to being talked down.
“Think about it,” Harry replied, folding the blade of the knife back into its hilt—dropping it casually into his lap. The halves of the apple, poised nearly forgotten in his left hand. “You’ve seen it on the news—there’s nothing there the last couple days except the explosion. They know we’re here now. They’re going to put eyes on any criminal who might be involved—anyone big enough to supply the needs of the righteous. You, my brother, are.”
Chapter 26
5:09 P.M.
DGSE Headquarters
Paris, France
“Is there no way we can move officers into position to cover Césaire at the meeting?” Anaïs Brunet asked, looking up from her notes. The faces which looked back at her were haggard—weary. Most of them hadn’t left the crisis room for hours.
She had just returned from her own office a few minutes before. There were other tasks she had to handle as director—other operations in play, as all-consuming as this had seemed to be, the last few days.
“It’s a risk,” Godard replied, pursing his lips into a thin line. “We have other officers in the area—moved them in from Brussels to support the operation this morning. But when it comes to putting them on the streets, we have to move cautiously—the caller warned us that if we sent more than a single officer to the meeting, he would know. That might easily have been a bluff, but the question: are we prepared to take the risk that it’s not?”
And the answer to that was no, as Brunet knew as well as anyone else at the table. The pressures of their timeline didn’t permit anything which might scuttle this meet even before it began. They might not be given another chance.
But it had to be asked. “What are the odds, Albert? In your professional opinion.”
“That’s very hard to say. The location he’s chosen. . .its access is very limited.” He threw up a map of the area on the big screen, showing the location of the Pont de Fragnée, sitting just to the south of a triangular-shaped peninsula, jutting out like a dagger into the Meuse. “You can reach the site by either crossing the bridge itself from the west, the Pont Gramme from the north, or the Pont de Fétinne from the northeast. Otherwise, you’re coming straight up the Quai Gloesener from the south. It’s all much too exposed—our officers would have to be placed too far out to reach Césaire if a problem were to develop.”
It felt as though that were by design, Brunet thought, shaking her head. Unable to lose the feeling that something was wrong here. Very wrong.
“Ultimately, the caller was right,” Godard continued. “Give us a week? We could probably do this. Twenty-four hours? Not a chance. And he knows it.”
“All right then. How long will we have sat coverage?”
That was their remaining trump card—their only way to surveil the meeting without putting officers in the streets or petitioning the Belgians to allow a drone to be put up in their airspace.
“The satellite will arrive on-station in an hour twenty—just shortly before Césaire will be due to arrive at the bridge. The window will remain open for forty minutes thereafter. We should be able to see anyone coming and going there on the southeast bank of Meuse. If anything goes wrong—we’ll know.”
Too late. But they would know.
“All right,” she said, knowing that it lay with her to make the final call. “Send him in.”
11:29 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus
McLean, Virginia
“. . .where top intelligence officials are scheduled to testify in the next week concerning the decision to prosecute the failed drone strike in the Sinai against Umar ibn Hassan. Here with us this morning to discuss the upcoming hearings, we have former CIA counterterrorism official and current contributor, Lucas Cordair. Good morning, Lucas.”
“Good morning, Nancy,” Lawrence Bell heard Cordair respond as he reached for the remote, favoring the image on-screen with a dour look in the split-second before it went dark.
He’d been a good man, in his day, but Bell had little use for those who went on to find a second career on the talking head circuit. Speculating about things they were no longer read in on, offering their opinion as an authority on events they no longer knew anything more about than the average American on the street.
It wasn’t a path he would ever have chosen for himself, no matter how good the money. Not that he was going to have such a choice.
The DNI frowned, adjusting the glasses on his nose as he leaned forward once more, going over his hand-written notes one more time, making sure they were all in order for the hearing—that there were no discrepancies, nothing that might trip him up in his upcoming testimony before Congress. Just days away, now.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Laurie?” his wife had asked before he’d headed out the door this very morning. “For it all to end—everything you’ve done, all the years you’ve been in Washington. . .to go out like this. It’s not right.”
And it wasn’t, he thought, a nauseous feeling seeming to settle in the pit of his stomach. The medication wearing off, once again—it didn’t seem to last nearly as long as it had when the doctor had first prescribed it, at the beginning of his treatment.
But they’d both been in Washington long enough to know that “right” had nothing to do with any of this. There was only what was necessary, and that was what he was prepared to do.
He smiled quietly, fighting back the nausea to focus on his work. She was the only one who had ever called him “Laurie”. . .
&
nbsp; 5:37 P.M. Central European Summer Time
Erasmus Station, Anderlecht
Brussels, Belgium
“We believe Gamal Belkaïd to have become involved in a terrorist plot of a nature yet to be ascertained. This marks a departure from what we had believed to be the exclusively criminal focus of his organization. . .”
Danloy’s words still rang in Jan Vertens’ ears as the Belgian intelligence officer disembarked from the metro train, finding himself swept up in the crowd of commuters moving quickly toward the station’s exits—toward home at the end of a long day at work.
He knew his face must have gone pale in that moment—hoped no one at the meeting had noticed, or at least that they would think it nothing more than the normal surprise one might feel at such news.
“What is our source for this new intelligence?” one of his branch supervisors had asked skeptically, directing her question to Danloy.
“The DGSE,” had been the administrateur général’s reply. “They have an officer inside Belkaïd’s organization, reporting back to them on the activities of this growing cell. But it’s not enough—we need our own eyes on this. The security of our own country is, after all, at stake.”
Vertens adjusted the strap of his messenger bag, making his way out toward his parked car—realizing his palms were slick with sweat. He would never have gotten involved with Belkaïd if he’d had the slightest idea that he was connected to terrorism, and yet now. . .he saw no way out.
If he had only waited until after the meeting to place the call. He could have feigned ignorance. But he had reacted, taken off-guard by the first word of the proposed surveillance—reaching out to contact his usual cut-out for the Algerian at the first opportunity.
And now he was trapped. He collapsed into the driver’s seat of his aging Renault, staring out through the windscreen back toward the station. Noting absently that it was in need of cleaning.
He knew Belkaïd would now expect him to call again with an update on the situation, giving his report on what had taken place at the meeting.
But this was different, now. This wasn’t about money anymore—petty crime, smuggled electronics. This was about life.
And death.
6:14 P.M.
The warehouse
Liège, Belgium
It could work, Harry reflected, staring thoughtfully at the large Guardian drone sitting there on the folding table in the center of the room. That was the problem.
“I’ll need to have the specifications of the Presidential skybox,” he said finally, glancing over at Belkaïd. “The materials used in its construction—the thickness of the glass. Once I have that, I’ll be able to appropriately size the charge. Assuming, of course, that the Russians come through for us, insh’allah.”
The truth was that there was no ballistic glass in the world that would withstand the direct application of plastique—but this might buy a little time. Perhaps even trip some alarms, if the French security services realized someone was making inquiries of such delicacy.
“Leave the Russians to me,” the older man replied grimly, favoring Harry with a penetrating look. Searching. He wasn’t in the clear just yet—he’d talked Belkaïd down, but the paranoia remained intact. Ever there, just beneath the surface.
He knew without looking at his watch that he should have already left for his meet on the banks of the Meuse. But there was no way to break away, not now—even if he’d wanted to. And he no longer did, not after the realization that the DGSE had disregarded his warnings—passed along the information from the call to their counterparts in Brussels. And, by extension, Belkaïd’s own agent-in-place.
It wasn’t that their help was any less essential. . .if anything, it was far more so after learning of the scope of the Algerian’s plans. But he couldn’t trust them to keep him alive—not now.
He’d risked his life so many times before, but if he died now. . .it would all be for nothing. Their chance of stopping this cell, dying right along with him. Belkaïd would simply move on, to another plot—another target.
Until he had finally obtained vengeance for Algiers. For all that had been done to him—to his family, nearly six decades ago. For all he could not remember.
“Mash’allah,” he heard Marwan breathe, the excitement—the fanaticism—clear in the younger man’s voice as he gazed at the drone on the table. Harry’s eyes darkening into steel-blue orbs as he watched him trace his hand over the large quad-copter’s body. If only the explosion had done its work. . .
He could have talked Reza down, but not Marwan, he could have—no, that was madness, he realized, recognizing that he had grown far too emotionally attached. He couldn’t have reasoned with the college student any more than he could reason with Yassin. Or Driss. Or Aryn. There was only one way this ended for all them, if he could bring himself to it.
Driss. He looked up to see the young Moroccan smile as Marwan continued speaking, “Your idea, brother—it was genius. There is no way they will be able to stop us.”
The French weren’t going to be able to save him now. To intervene, before it came to the end of this. It was up to him. And he was going to have to kill them all.
7:17 P.M.
Pont de Fragnée
Liège, Belgium
Thirty minutes late. Armand Césaire glanced at his watch for the second time in as many minutes, looking north and south along the Meuse.
There was no sign of his contact, no sign whatsoever. A few boats, proceeding up and down the river in the gathering twilight. Traffic, flowing across the Pont de Fragnée itself, just above his head.
But no foot traffic that he had been able to see—no one approaching the place where he waited, in the shadows of the bridge. It occurred to him to wish for a cigarette, something—anything—to pass the time, but Claire had cured him of that habit a couple decades before. Bad for his health, she had said. Like the rest of his life wasn’t?
He shook his head. The stress of this job would kill him long before tobacco ever got the chance. He had no illusions about that.
“What are you seeing?” a voice in his ear asked. Godard. A reminder that Paris was monitoring this situation. . .actively.
“Rien du tout,” he replied. Nothing at all. “There’s no sign of him.”
He heard a curse of frustration from the other end of the line, then Godard replied, “You only have another eight minutes before the satellite window closes. Once it’s gone, we can’t guarantee your safety.”
You couldn’t guarantee my safety before, you desk-bound fool, Césaire thought, shoving both hands in the pockets of his slacks he scanned the opposite riverbank once more.
“Once the window closes, you are to leave, Armand. Do you understand?”
“Oui. Certainement.”
8:03 P.M.
The hotel
Paris, France
Grigoriy Stepanovich Kolesnikov smiled, looking over the e-mail one final time before erasing it from the Drafts folder. It was on.
The meeting with Belkaïd had left him uncertain whether the trafficker actually intended to follow through, but he had. And he had a wish list.
And a target.
That latter, yet unknown, but judging from the equipment the Algerian had requested, it was going to be big. And it was going to happen here.
Kolesnikov picked up his glass of Pinot Noir and walked over to the window, pushing back the curtain with his free hand to stare out at the Parisian night. The thousand shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower, a flaming torch glistening high in the night sky. The City of Lights.
Burning so brightly but seeming, even yet, incapable of dispelling the darkness, slowly settling over it all.
And it seemed as though he could somehow make out the black flag of jihad in the darkness of the sky, out beyond the tower, the white lettering bearing its blasphemous boast. For there is no God but Allah. . .
He raised a hand to his chest, touching almost unconsciously the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir be
neath the fabric of his shirt. Forgive me.
But there was nothing to be forgiven, as his head knew, even if his heart at times wavered. His eyes darkening as he gazed out into the night, taking another sip of his wine.
This city had once been a center of the Christian faith, a beacon—shining as brightly as the garlands wreathing the Eiffel this night. Now? The West had crumbled into moral decay and an unbelief far more complete than the Communist state could ever have dreamed of.
They had been entrusted with the Word of God, with the protection of His church. They had failed, and in their failing, attempted to drag Russia down into the mire right along with them.
Now all that remained was to cleanse it with fire. To ensure that they could never again humiliate the Rodina as they had once. That Russia would once again be seen for what it was—the true defender of the faith, the world leader its history so richly deserved.
Fire. That’s what men like Belkaïd were. A torch, in the hands of those who wielded them. The French President had barely won re-election in a bruising campaign against his National Front opponent five months prior. After an attack of this scale, here in Paris. . .the government itself would be lucky to survive.
To the death of the Fifth Republic, Kolesnikov thought, raising his glass to the night in a mock toast. He drained the glass, reaching forward to close the curtains with a rough gesture as he turned back toward the bed and the laptop, waiting for him to begin encoding his report to Moscow.
It would all begin here.
Presence of Mine Enemies Page 42
