Presence of Mine Enemies

by Stephen England

  “‘Soon’? So he wasn’t at any of the sites you raided?”

  “Non.”

  Brunet seemed to consider his words for a long moment, then asked, “Our intelligence indicates that Belkaïd has an older sister, Ghaniyah, living there in Liège. Have you taken her into custody?”

  Danloy suppressed a curse with a mighty effort, running a hand across the lower half of his face. “She’s gone as well—when they bolted from the city two nights ago, we had to mobilize all available assets, and we pulled her surveillance team to join in the effort. By the time we returned. . .she was gone.”

  5:34 P.M.

  The apartment in Anderlecht

  Brussels, Belgium

  “The French officer is dead, executed by the members of the cell he had infiltrated. Somehow, they believe our actions compromised his cover.” It had been all he could do to control his reaction to the news, Jan Vertens thought, burying his head in his hands as he sank into the cushions of the couch, his mind still screaming out against the reality.

  Of what he had done. Of the consequences of what he had done. Deadly consequences, the like of which could never be undone.

  And then had come the video—an hour or two later, streamed to them from their counterparts in Paris. The gruesome footage, the stuff of every intelligence officer’s worst nightmares in this War on Terror.

  And he had been responsible for it.

  There was no way he could live with that, the middle-aged man told himself, tears spilling from his eyes to run down his cheeks as he reached up to wipe them away angrily. Futilely.

  And yet what could he possibly have expected? He had known what Belkaïd would do with the information—there was no way he could claim ignorance. Or innocence.

  He might as well have taken that knife and cut the Frenchman’s head off himself. The blood was on his hands, all the same.

  He opened his eyes to look at the Walther P99Q lying on the low table in front of the couch. The gun he had carried in his final years as a police officer.

  After transitioning to the VSSE, he’d sought and secured permission to own the weapon. To protect himself, he’d said, against anyone from his days on the street who might want revenge.

  It was loaded now—nine rounds of 9mm Parabellum in the magazine, another in the chamber. Rana would be home soon, bringing Youssef with her from his after-school football practice.

  A sad, bitter smile crossed his face as he thought of them—of how he had betrayed them, as much as any of his fellow officers. Their life together had been so perfect, would have been perfect, if only he hadn’t been such a fool.

  But there was only one thing he could do now, even knowing it offered no atonement. Knowing it would only bring them more pain. But perhaps no one would ever need to know why. And there was that.

  He reached forward, picking up the Walther in a hand that was now trembling almost uncontrollably—his fingers feeling wooden, lifeless as he raised the weapon, placing its muzzle in his mouth. Biting down as if to steel his resolve—the taste of metal against his tongue.

  His thumb, pressing tremulously against the trigger. Taking up slack.

  A moment later, a single gunshot shattered the silence of the empty apartment.

  Chapter 31

  5:31 A.M., Central European Summer Time, August 4th

  Marseille-Fos Port

  Marseille, France

  The container ship loomed large in the night, riding at anchor within the breakwater, dwarfing the men standing on the pier beside it.

  Grigoriy Stepanovich Kolesnikov smiled to himself, hands resting easily on his hips as he looked up the steep sides of the Enrico Delgada.

  She—for his grandfather had been a sailor in the Red Fleet, and had lived long enough to impress upon a young Grigoriy that all ships were “she”—was officially registered in Liberia, but he had it on good authority that her owning corporation was nothing but a shell, with the actual owners residing in St. Petersburg.

  And her next port of call was supposed to have been Latakia, on the Syrian coast.

  “My business associates and I,” he began, raising his voice above the whining and gnashing of the crane’s gears in the air high above him as he glanced over at the harbour master, “are grateful for your cooperation, Monsieur Delacroix.”

  The Frenchman nodded nervously, not meeting Kolesnikov’s eyes as the crane slowly lifted the single container from the deck of the Enrico Delgada, the heavy container seeming to tremble and sway in the night above them, as it moved back over the pier, toward the waiting flatbed semi-trailer. He knew what was at stake here. Or thought he did.

  The FSB officer smiled in amusement, knowing the truth. The harbour master had no idea.

  “It would not have been impossible for us to pay import duties,” he added smoothly, as if to salve the man’s conscience, “but it seemed so much simpler to pay you.”

  Another quick nod. “You have seen to everything, haven’t you? The cameras?”

  “Bien sûr.” Of course. “It will all be taken care of, monsieur.”

  “Good,” Kolesnikov smiled, a predatory glint in his eyes. He didn’t need to know the details of how it would be done, only that it would be. And it wasn’t the first time Moscow had done business with Monsieur Delacroix. He was theirs, whether he knew it or not. “Any misunderstanding would have been. . .regrettable.”

  Message sent. He leaned back, watching as the crane brought the container into position high above the semi, lowering it with a steady hum that echoed out over the water. Unlike the man beside him, he knew what it contained.

  Arms. Weapons and explosives, originally intended to arm pro-Assad militia fighters in Syria, to assist them in finishing off the last remnants of the rebellion.

  Now diverted here—at least one container of the shipment. It was far more armament than Gamal Belkaïd had requested. Far too much, really, for any one cell—but there would be others. Of that Kolesnikov was sure.

  But after tonight, the hardest part—getting the weapons into the country—would be behind him.

  Then there would be time to simply. . .watch it all burn.

  6:03 A.M.

  The safehouse

  Ardennes Department, France

  “. . .Al-Ĥamdu Lillāhi Rabbi Al-`Ālamīna,” Harry whispered, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he stood in the living room of the safehouse, his prayer mat stretched out on the floor before him—hearing the voices of his brothers around him, repeating his words in rusty, halting Arabic. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Worlds.

  He thought of Ismail Bessimi in that moment, his mind drifting as he recited the opening chapter of the Qur’an from memory. The way the old imam had looked at him, that day in Leeds, reproaching him for his single-minded quest for vengeance. “Those who seek to take that which belongs to the Lord of worlds. . .do so at their peril.”

  And he’d been right, Harry thought, mouthing the words, “Ar-Raĥmāni Ar-Raĥīmi.Māliki Yawmi Ad-Dīni. . .”

  The Beneficent, the Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgment.

  But there had been another day. And he could remember the look in Bessimi’s eyes then, as he lay dying in the mud and gravel of a Leeds alley. “The time has come. . .for a hunter. Promise me you won’t fail.”

  Had he kept that promise? It was hard to know, looking back. Rahman had died at his hand, as had Tarik Abdul Muhammad. But was that success, or only another kind of failure? “Īyāka Na`budu Wa 'Īyāka Nasta`īnu. . .”

  Thee alone we worship, Thee alone we ask for help.

  It hadn’t felt like success, standing there that night on the docks, looking down at Tarik’s broken, lifeless corpse. And yet, the alternative. . .had been unthinkable. Much like now.

  “Ihdinā Aş-Şirāţa Al-Mustaqīma. . .”

  Show us the straight path.

  And he felt a strange intensity build within him as he repeated the words, realizing that it wasn’t just repetition, this time. That these words were a prayer.
A prayer he meant—like he had meant no prayer in a very long time.

  Show me.

  11:03 A.M.

  DGSE Headquarters

  Paris, France

  “Then you talk to him, Raoul,” Anaïs Brunet snapped back, her eyes flashing as she glared down the table at her counterpart from the DGSI. “You convince him that this is real, that he should take appropriate measures. Quoi? He isn’t listening to you either, is he?”

  Raoul Dubois didn’t flinch at the onslaught, merely shook his head in reply. He wasn’t. “Albéric believes that this is his duty, that this is his place, at the head of the Republic. That to shirk it would be—”

  “Politically disastrous,” Brunet observed shrewdly, not giving him an inch.

  Dubois responded with a Gallic shrug, his hands spread out before him. She had the feeling it was a gesture he had perfected over his decades as a government official. “That’s one interpretation of his decision, surely. But that’s unimportant, really. What matters is that he’s not going to adjust his schedule to accomodate your concerns—or mine.”

  “What can be done?” That was, after all, Dubois’ responsibility—not her own, at least on the short-term. Albéric’s trip to Rome was still a month and a half away, and he wasn’t scheduled to leave the borders of France before then. Within them. . .he was out of her jurisdiction.

  “I have spoken to Commissaire Leseur,” Dubois responded, referencing the head of the GSPR, the unit charged with the President’s physical security. “Suggested that she do her best to harden the security around the President’s public appearances.”

  “The Stade de France holds eighty thousand people, Raoul. How, precisely, does one ‘harden’ that?”

  “We will have to find a way.”

  11:57 A.M.

  Mont-de-Mans Air Base

  Landes Department, France

  “Ma cherie. . .” Sergeant Nathalie Jobert sighed heavily, the mobile phone cupped against her ear as she considered her next words. Raising a daughter had not gotten any easier over the years, particularly after Jean-Louis’ abrupt exit from their lives. Not that he had ever been much help.

  But now that Cécile was in her teens. . .she was so different than Nathalie had herself been at that age. Far more beautiful—she favored her father—and yet withdrawn. And no more willing to listen to her mother than most daughters. “Be careful around him,” she said finally. “I know you think he’s fond of you, but. . .you don’t know him well.”

  She could almost hear her daughter’s eyes rolling back in her head.

  “You don’t understand. Pierre and I—”

  A knock came at the door of Jobert’s temporary office in that moment—her daughter’s next words lost as she covered the receiver, calling out, “Oui?”

  “Commandant Coulon wishes to see you in his office. At once.”

  She acknowledged the order briefly, before turning her attention back to her daughter. “Cécile, I am going to have to call you back. I have to—”

  “Work.” The word came out bitter and sullen, but Nathalie chose to ignore the tone. A problem that would have to be dealt with, at another time.

  “Oui.”

  Five minutes later, she was standing before Commandant Maurice Coulon, the commanding officer of their small unit. A veteran of counter-insurgency operations in the Mahgreb, Coulon was a short fireplug of a man, shorter even than Jobert—but one glance at his face would have cured anyone of the inclination to underestimate him—a long white scar running the length of his cheek standing out pale against his swarthy cheek. A shrapnel wound, legacy of an insurgent mortar round which had burst far too close.

  “Have a seat, Sergeant,” he instructed, gesturing to a chair drawn up in front of his desk. “S’il vous plait.”

  “Merci.”

  “You’ll be leaving for Paris tomorrow,” he said, the announcement taking Jobert by surprise. “And taking Glatigny with you, along with your support team.”

  To say that the news was unexpected was an understatement. “Pour quoi, mon commandant?”

  “You and your team will be helping provide security at the Stade de France for the final qualifying match for the World Cup, at the request of the GSPR.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Le Groupe de sécurité de la présidence—”

  “Oui,” Coulon replied, cutting her short. “President Albéric will be attending the game. Help keep him safe.”

  12:09 P.M.

  VSSE Headquarters

  Brussels, Belgium

  “And there was no note?” Christian Donlay asked, looking up from the photos spread out on the desk before him, his face visibly pale.

  “Nee,” the police officer replied simply. “We found nothing that would give us any idea why Meneer Vertens would have committed suicide. But there seems little room for doubt that the wound was self-inflicted.”

  “You were there?” Donlay asked, only half-hearing the man as he stared down at the photos, seeing the distant, vacant stare in Jan Vertens’ lifeless eyes. In an intelligence service as small and close-knit as the VSSE, you knew everyone, and he had known Jan well. Or thought he did.

  “Ja. I was on the scene late last night.”

  “I appreciate you coming to make this report, Inspecteur,” Donlay said, taking a deep, trembling breath. “You have our thanks.”

  He waited until the police officer had left the office before he let it out, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he shuffled the photos together, covering up the ghastly wound where the bullet had blown out the back of Vertens’ head. First the explosion outside Liège, then the savage execution of the French officer, and now. . .this.

  Were they connected? Was any of it connected? And could they even begin to manage the fallout if they were. . .

  1:34 P.M.

  Ardennes Department

  France

  Show me the way. Harry’s thumbs moved carefully over the controller, his eyes fastened intently on the screen of the laptop as he guided the UAV through the trees, steadily increasing the throttle, edging in on the other quadcopter, being piloted by Driss.

  He knew the way now—perhaps he had known, all along. What he must do, if he was given the opening.

  And now there was no more waiting—the opening must be made. They would be leaving here in a few short hours, heading to a rendezvous with the Russians—to take delivery of the weapons, apparently.

  They might return here, they might not. A chance he couldn’t take. He cast a quick, sidelong glance at the young Moroccan, knowing he had to do this carefully—that there would be a video recording of whatever he did.

  He forced a smile to his face, a false laugh breaking from his lips as he hailed the younger man. “Want to race, habibi?”

  Driss looked back over his shoulder, taking his eyes off the screen for a long moment, even as Harry brought the quadcopter alongside. “I don’t know, man, I think we—”

  The high-pitched, grinding sound of rotors biting deep into plastic erupted suddenly from both sets of laptop speakers, Harry’s eyes darting back to the screen in feigned shock just in time to watch as his quadcopter staggered off-course, now uncontrollable—its video feed blurring as it fell, crashing to the forest floor below.

  A flurry of curses breaking from the young Moroccan’s lips confirming that his drone had suffered the same fate from the collision. “What were you thinking? You knew we needed to be careful, that we couldn’t—”

  “Allah reproaches my pride,” Harry said, looking over to meet Gamal Belkaïd’s eyes. “I was too hard on Aryn yesterday, and now God reminds me that such accidents could happen to anyone. I am sorry, brother.”

  He saw Aryn nod in acceptance, turned his attention back to Driss. “It was my fault, habibi. Come, let’s go retrieve our drones.”

  7:54 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “. . .in so doing, I believed that I was carrying out the orders I had been
given by DNI Bell.” Bernard Kranemeyer’s hand paused, fingers poised above the keyboard as he stared at the words on-screen, the prepared notes of his testimony before Congress. The lie.

  It was hard to think that that’s where this was going to end, in perjured testimony before the representatives of the people.

  The people. Kranemeyer leaned back in his chair, a reflective look in his dark eyes. It was unlikely that they would ever know the truth—even less likely that they would care if they did.

  But that was the weakness of democracy, wasn’t it? When the people no longer knew the truth. . .or cared to.

  And he would play his own part in keeping them from it. For better or worse.

  He had begun to type out the next sentence, the click of the keys resounding beneath his thick fingers, when the phone on his desk began to ring, insistently.

  “Kranemeyer,” he answered simply, resenting the intrusion on his thoughts. He needed to finish this—the hearings were almost upon them.

  “Sir, I need to speak with you,” Carter’s voice replied, alarm bells going off in Kranemeyer’s brain at the words. Ron knew better than to call him “sir.”

  “Yes? What is it, Ron? I’m in the middle of preparing my testimony.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this can’t wait. It’s about the video the French sent over yesterday.”

  “Yes, I saw it. Gruesome stuff, terribly hard to lose an officer like that—”

  “It’s not that—the DGSE asked us to run voice analysis, match against our databases.”

  “And?”

  “And we have a problem.”

  “I’ll be down.”

  2:03 P.M. Central European Summer Time

  Ardennes Department