by Mark Greaney
But he’d go along with the plan tonight, and continue with the plan until Malik and his men left the operation behind so that Drexler could be alone with Bianca. At that point he would kill her and fake his own death at the same time, thereby slipping out of Shakira’s grasp.
He anticipated sitting in a secluded cabin in the Swiss Alps within two or three days with a bottle of schnapps, his operation complete and his ties to Syria behind him, and he found it humorous that the dangerous assassin Malik would be left to answer for everything that went wrong on this entire operation.
Drexler climbed out of his Mercedes and saw Malik standing apart from his men and the five sedans, ready for a quick private meeting with the Swiss intelligence agent. As Drexler began walking over to the Syrian operative, it occurred to him that perhaps he should be worried that he and Malik were operating at cross purposes. He knew all about Malik’s background. A former special forces soldier, he’d been recruited into the military intelligence service, then trained in assassination and demolitions in Iran by Iranian Quds Force commandos. After this he was sent to live in Europe under non-official cover, but he was handled by a senior Mukhabarat officer at the Syrian embassy in Paris. He and the thirteen men he commanded—all former military intelligence paramilitary officers trained in spycraft—were used by the Syrian regime, either here in France or anywhere in Europe where there was a need for dangerous covert operations.
Drexler himself had employed Malik’s talents to assassinate men and women in Paris, Berlin, and Brussels over the past two years.
This op in Paris put Drexler in a precarious position, to be sure. He’d love to terminate Bianca Medina the second he saw her, but he imagined it would be difficult if not impossible to kill her during the raid; he couldn’t let Malik or one of his men catch him in the act.
But even though bringing along the raid team of Syrian commandos hadn’t been Drexler’s idea—Ahmed Azzam himself had ordered the deployment of the European-based Syrian paramilitary assets—he assumed it would have been impossible to get to the woman at all without the added guns.
Drexler walked up to the Syrian commando team leader, the man who knew him only by his code name Eric. They did not shake hands. Instead, Malik held out a Beretta PT92 pistol encased in a leather holster. The Swiss operative took it, checked to make certain it was loaded and there was a round in the chamber, then tucked it into his waistband. He extended his hand again, and Malik gave him a silver snub-nosed revolver in an ankle holster. Drexler checked to make certain this weapon was loaded as well, and strapped it on his ankle. He also took the three extra loaded magazines for the Beretta and slipped them in the back pocket of his dark jeans.
Malik also gave Drexler a soft-armor Kevlar vest, capable of stopping handgun and submachine-gun rounds. The Swiss man had requested all these items from the Syrian, and Malik had come through.
As Drexler took off his jacket and donned his body armor, he saw the front passenger side of the white sedan open and a man unfold from the seat. He recognized Henri Sauvage instantly, because although they had never met in person, Drexler had been at first cultivating and then employing the police captain for two full years now, and the man’s image, as well as his CV, were well known to him.
As Sauvage began walking towards them through the warehouse, with one of Malik’s operatives close behind him, Drexler whispered to Malik, lest his voice echo, “He’s been disarmed, I assume.”
“Of course. And I’ve had a man with him constantly since this morning. He’s told no one about tonight.”
Malik had briefed Drexler by phone earlier about Sauvage’s actions over the past few days. The man clearly wasn’t in this for the money anymore. He was in this because of the fourteen men with guns standing around. It was a suboptimal influence mechanism for an intelligence officer to use over an agent, but Drexler hoped he wouldn’t need the man’s compliance for much longer. He figured he only needed to keep Sauvage around until they had the woman in pocket, and then he would be just as expendable as his three dead confederates.
Sauvage stopped in front of Drexler and Malik, but his focus was on the new man at the warehouse. “You’re Eric, I take it.”
Drexler extended a hand. “At your service.”
Drexler could see the rage on the Frenchman’s face, so he withdrew the hand.
Sauvage said, “To hell with you. To hell with every last one of you. You killed my partner. I’m not doing anything else for your fucked-up cause.”
Drexler noted that Henri Sauvage had grown a spine since Malik had told him he was surly but utterly docile. “This is a difficult time and I understand your anger. Let’s just get through this evening and, as long as we achieve our objective, your obligation to us will be fulfilled.”
Sauvage lit a cigarette now. “You don’t hear so well, do you?”
Drexler sighed. “I hear the words. But I see into your soul. You want to live through this. Listen, mon amie. Your only job tonight is to stay behind the action, in case we don’t get the woman. Tonight you will be safe, and sequestered from both danger and compromise. But I will require your presence.”
Sauvage stared the man down for a long moment, then looked away with resignation. “Do I have a choice?”
“Everyone has a choice, but I think you would prefer doing what we ask rather than choosing what’s behind the other door.”
The Frenchman blew smoke into the night. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”
“Of course,” Drexler said. “We will raid that property, but you will remain on the perimeter. In the event Mademoiselle Medina is not on the premises, we’ll have to start back at square one, and we will need a high-ranking police officer here in the city for that. But if she’s there, and if we get her, tomorrow you can wake up wealthy and safe, knowing you’re finished working for me.”
Sauvage shrugged. Drexler had obviously appeased him somewhat by his words. He said, “She’s there. Along with at least five or six men.”
Drexler smiled and looked at Malik. “Then my colleague and his associates should have no problems. Malik . . . consider this your show now.”
The curly-haired Syrian waved to the five vehicles running their engines nearby. “We will board the cars and move to the predeployment locations. A member of the communications team will be dropped off on the north side of the FSEU safe house to disable the landline, and the other communications men will go to the west side, along with you, Monsieur Sauvage, for jamming operations. The assault team will infiltrate the woods on the south and western sides of the property by means of a private farmland access road that runs through it.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven p.m. We will leave now to be in position to raid the home at midnight. Let’s go.”
Drexler, Sauvage, and Malik, along with the commandos standing around, climbed into the sedans, and all sixteen men rolled out of the warehouse and into the rain moments later. Other than Henri Sauvage, they were all armed, and other than Sebastian Drexler, they all thought they were on their way to rescue a woman for the purpose of returning her to Syria.
CHAPTER 35
In the center of the upbeat and raucous second floor of Bar 80 in Old Town Damascus, Court Gentry sat at a table made up of silent and dour men with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a half-empty bottle of Old Bushmills in the center of it. Court wasn’t drinking much himself; instead he focused his attention on a group of a half dozen young local men chatting up a gaggle of beautiful girls in their twenties at a table near the stairwell. The girls were only mildly amused by the attention, but the men seemed sure they were striking gold with their conversational skills.
Court had been on the hunt for a cell phone that would suit his needs for the last twenty minutes, which was why he had homed in on this particular group. He saw phones in the purses, hands, or pockets of everyone there, or on the table itself, and he recognized that if
one of the men or women let their guard down, the table was close enough to the door to the stairwell that he thought he could push by, palm a device into his hand, and then slip away undetected.
But for now, he saw no obvious easy marks, so he kept scanning.
* * *
• • •
The evening wore on, the crowd thickened, and the men at Court’s table kept drinking, though still, other than the Desert Hawks major, none of them appeared to be much affected by the alcohol. Walid was completely smashed now, and clearly he was an angry drunk, because he was telling Saunders a story in Arabic that involved the vast majority of curses Court knew in the language. The tale involved some battle he claimed to have taken part in, Court could tell, but he ignored the conversation and instead kept his head on a swivel, monitoring the actions of more than twenty people in the room. He looked at each person when they checked their phones, and he registered what kind of device they had. Court knew he could employ any phone in a pinch, simply by speaking in cached terms to Vincent Voland, but Bianca was going to have to pass over her physical home address, and Court would rather she didn’t do that in the clear. No, he’d much prefer that the phone he grabbed had some sort of encrypted service on board so he could communicate freely. He knew all about the pros and cons of different common voice and text services, and he tried to profile the men and women in the bar to focus on those he deemed most likely to have such a service on their phone.
Court knew he also needed to know if the phone had an automatic lock screen. If so, he’d need one that had a passcode and not a thumbprint reader, and he’d need to determine the passcode, and this had led to more than one near miss in the past half hour.
Looking again at the table near the stairwell, he noticed a physically fit Arab man in his midtwenties in the group, and not only did he have a phone in a back pocket, but Court also noticed the unmistakable printing of a handgun slipped in his waistband in the small of his back under his formfitting shirt.
As Court looked on, the young man pulled out his phone and tapped in a four-digit code to unlock it. Court had long ago made a parlor game out of deciphering keypad entries by others through the process of their finger or thumb movements, and through this acquired skill he determined that the code on the iPhone was either 9191 or 8181.
He couldn’t be certain till he tapped it out himself on the lock screen, but he was sure enough to give it a shot if the opportunity came.
The man looked at his phone for a few seconds, holding it with one hand while he drank a beer with the other, then locked the screen and put it down on the table.
One of the young Syrian’s friends called him over to the bar to help him carry drinks back for the ladies. He stood up and began making his way through the crowd of people there, leaving his phone near the corner of the table.
Court knew this was the best opportunity he was going to get. He stood up and walked across the room, blading himself to get through the crowd quickly, and slid the phone off the table with one hand without breaking stride.
The dozen others sitting or standing close by never even noticed him pass.
* * *
• • •
Court had planned on going down to the downstairs bathroom to look over the phone, but he saw that the stairwell led up as well as down, so he headed upstairs. Seconds later he found himself on the roof of the two-story building, standing alone next to a large water tank. He figured he had no more than one or two minutes tops before the owner missed his phone, so he knew he had to work quickly.
The first thing he noticed about the device was that the owner was a member of a military unit. The screensaver was a photo of the young man in fatigues carrying an RPK machine gun and standing in front of a T-72 tank. The symbol on the man’s uniform in the photo was a tiger, which told Court he was probably a member of the Tiger Forces, the regime special forces unit. This also explained the pistol under the man’s shirt.
Court tapped 9191 onto the screen, and then he breathed a sigh of relief when the phone unlocked.
Court quickly scrolled through the apps on the smartphone, hoping there was no phone tracker software that could easily ping his location. To his relief he didn’t find anything that could easily pinpoint him once the man realized his phone had been lifted, but to be extra thorough he went into the settings and disabled all the geolocating services. This added another barrier between anyone looking for this cell phone and its current location.
Then he scrolled through the apps on board the phone and was pleased to see he’d chosen his target wisely. The young soldier had installed a common app called TextSecure. This, Court knew, would work for his needs. It allowed encrypted voice and texts, so he’d be able to call Voland without too much concern about the communications being intercepted.
Court locked the screen, then stepped to the edge of the roof at the back of the building and looked down. A dingy cobblestone alleyway ran east and west, and a row of garbage cans sat just across the lane. The second-to-last can was open, and it was full of garbage.
Court tossed the phone underhanded; it sailed down through the dark and landed in the open can.
When Court returned to the second-story bar area, he saw he’d not given the Syrian soldier enough credit. It was clear the militiaman was already looking around for his cell phone. Further, it was obvious he was pissed off about his loss, and already suspicious that the device had been stolen.
A large group moved around the room together searching for the phone, the young girls all but forgotten. The men looked under chairs and on the bar, but they also began stopping people walking near their table or confronting bar patrons at other tables.
Court knew how to read a crowd, and he saw that this situation could quickly take a dark turn.
Within seconds the Tiger Forces soldier missing his device began upping his aggression, yelling at the girls at a nearby table, grabbing a passing server by the arm, and sticking an accusatory finger in the face of a man smoking a hookah at a couch against the back wall.
Court had slipped by the action unnoticed and was back at his table as if nothing was going on around him.
Another man in the Syrian soldier’s group shouted at people over by the bar itself now, and another confronted both men and women at a table just next to where Court sat. The conversation was in Arabic and Court did not understand, but the tone was clearly hostile. The men spoke with the authority of military personnel, even though they were dressed for picking up girls and having an evening out with the guys, not in their uniforms.
The KWA men at Court’s table noticed the commotion going on around the loud nightclub, and they all watched passively. Walid was too drunk to notice at all, still telling a story to the table, although it seemed only Saunders spoke Arabic well enough to understand him, and Saunders clearly was not listening now.
Court tracked the owner of the missing mobile phone as he made his way around the room for five more minutes, treating each patron he spoke with more harshly than the last. Finally a woman near the stairwell pointed over in Court’s direction. She alone must have noticed him leave the room and then return. Immediately the soldier turned Court’s way and stormed over, grabbing two of his friends as he approached the table of mercenaries.
He loomed over Court and said something; Court understood Arabic well enough to pick out the words “phone” and “take,” but he pretended like he didn’t understand a word.
Walid stood up on slightly wobbly legs and talked to the man a moment, then turned and spoke to Saunders. Saunders, in turn, looked to Court. “This asshole wants to know if you nicked his mobile. Walid told him you’ve been sittin’ ’ere the whole time.” Saunders flashed a hint of doubt when he said this, but he did not question Court.
A couple other men at the table backed up the assertion. It was apparent to Court that no one at the table had seen him leave the room, with the poss
ible exception of Saunders, so there was no more suspicion on him than anyone else.
Walid and Saunders continued talking to the angry soldier, and Walid himself was getting pissed off about the exchange. The younger Syrian said something Court didn’t understand, and then Saunders turned back to Court. “Bloody hell. All these guys are Qiwat al Nimr. Tiger Forces.” Court knew that the man whose phone he’d taken had been a special forces soldier, but he hadn’t known that the other nine or ten guys with him were part of the same group. Saunders had explained earlier in the day that the Tiger Forces unit of the Syrian Arab Army were bitter rivals of the Desert Hawks Brigade.
For an instant Court was worried about this turn of events, but he wanted to slip away from the bar for a few minutes to call Paris, so it very quickly occurred to him that nothing would serve his purposes right now like a good old-fashioned bar fight.
That said, he had no illusions that if a brawl did kick off, it would be anything like a normal bar fight. There was one inebriated Desert Hawks major and five foreign mercenaries against ten or fifteen Tigers paramilitary men. He saw that at least one guy in the mix had a pistol. He doubted any of the mercs here with him were armed, and if Walid did have a piece, in his inebriated state he was probably more of a danger to himself than anyone else.
It was clear to Court that a fistfight in a bar in a nation as wrecked as Syria wouldn’t be the same as one in most other places. If it did come to blows around here, it probably would end with somebody getting killed.
And if a fight did start, it would help Court’s cover if it happened organically. If he just picked up a chair and threw it at the Syrians now to instigate action, everyone in the room would point him out after the fact, he would be the least likely in the room to slip away, and the suspicions that would arise from this would threaten his entire cover and his operation here.
