by James Phelan
The two of them shared a look, spoke to each other.
Fox passed Gammaldi the shotgun.
“Cover me—I’ll stay close to the house.”
Gammaldi nodded, settled the gun into his shoulder as Fox walked outside.
The taller figure turned to face him. A woman.
As they neared each other more detail emerged. She was a very attractive woman, long dark hair, porcelain skin, high cheekbones and bee-stung lips—the kind of face you’d see on the cover of French Vogue.
The guy at the car stood still, his jacket open, watching Fox, unflinching.
The woman closed the distance to Fox fast. Early thirties, big black Jackie O sunglasses, the lean body of a runner with a slight curve at the hips. Fox stopped and looked over his shoulder. At the window twenty metres back, Gammaldi’s face broke into a wide toothy grin. Fox cracked a smile in relief and turned back to the woman.
Slap! His face stung with the impact. Hard and powerful, like she’d had plenty of practice. He looked back at her, dumbfounded, rubbed his cheek, trying to figure out …
“That’s for driving like an idiot,” she said. She reached into her jacket.
Fox instinctively grabbed her wrist as it came out with something in her hand, but she shifted her stance in the same instant and flipped him onto his back, pinning him to the ground with a booted foot on his chest.
The wind knocked out of him, Fox traced his eyes up the line of her tight pants to her face. She took off her sunglasses, matched his gaze with striking blue eyes.
“Hey!” Gammaldi walked out of the house, shotgun loose in his hands but the message clear. Brujon remained at the other guy’s feet, who now had a black automatic pistol trained on Gammaldi’s right eye.
Fox looked back up at the woman as his breath came back. Sky blue almond-shaped eyes framed by long black eyelashes.
In her outstretched hand, pointed at his face, the black item she’d pulled out—an ID wallet.
“It’s all right, Al, stand down,” Fox called out. He heard the breech of the shotgun open. Still looking up from the ground, Fox noticed the hip holster at the front of the woman’s pelvis holding a compact service automatic. She lifted her foot off his chest and eased her hold on his wrist. “She’s a cop.”
17
HIGH OVER THE MED
Wind buffeted the manhole in the top of the fuselage as Hutchinson groped around for his dropped pistol in the dark cloud of smoke that was spreading from the grenade canisters. Babich had closed his eyes tight and held a deep breath before the gas reached him. The last thing Hutchinson saw before the smoke engulfed the cabin was Capel dropping his sidearm and making for an oxygen mask …
Hutchinson’s eyes were burning and his lungs were starting to fade—CS gas? No, he’d met that enough times at Quantico and in the field; this was a taste he was unfamiliar with. He felt someone crash past him—thought he saw the pilot’s door open. His Glock was somewhere on the floor, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open for more than a second and his fingers felt only empty carpet. Red-hot tears were streaming down his face and his nose was running, but there was no controlling it.
His hands, neck and face felt as though they were on fire, so searingly hot he imagined they were blistering.
The gas seemed to thin just a little—through squinted eyes he could make out what lay beyond the manhole; the interior of another aircraft above. There was nothing he could do. He felt paralysed, his arms and legs useless now, his head dizzy and almost too heavy to keep up. He vomited where he lay across two seats, began choking on it.
A pistol shot rang out. Then the unmistakable gurgling sound as someone’s throat was slit. A hot poker of pain, in and out of his thigh, then gone. Warm fluid washed over his leg. Something smashed into him, crushed his chest. It stopped his choking. He fought for air and Babich’s eyes, wide and bloodshot behind a gas mask’s visor, materialised above him for a second—then he was gone. Those smiling eyes, victorious, knowing. Hutchinson passed out.
18
HIGH OVER THE MED
“You’re a cop?” Gammaldi asked the woman in the driveway.
She flashed her holstered sidearm, the same make of SIG Fox had seen on the uniformed cops earlier that morning.
Gammaldi helped Fox to his feet.
“She’s smokin’!” he whispered. “I thought the French kissed in greeting: Did you hear that slap?”
“Hear it,” Fox replied, rubbing his cheek. “I was on the—”
“Can we talk, inside?” the female cop asked, making it sound like an order.
“Please.” Fox dusted himself off as they moved indoors. Her partner stayed outside by the Peugeot, scanning the driveway and neighbouring fields.
Gammaldi put the shotgun and box of shells on the sideboard in the dining room.
“Zoe Ledoyen,” she said, her French accent both husky and no bullshit at the same time. “My partner is Vincent. We are officers with the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur.”
“What’s the ‘Reneregiment Interwerrier’?” Gammaldi asked, inspecting her ID wallet.
Two years ago Fox had dealt with their forerunner, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire of the French National Police, when he’d been working on a story involving a rightwing attempted coup here in France. They were as good as any specialist police agency in the world and they had the peculiar advantage of the French legal system which protected the cops and judiciary over the accused. He was sure that they weren’t in the habit of unnecessary house calls.
“The DCRI, Al,” Fox explained, holding Zoe’s gaze. “National Police directorate specialising in counter-intelligence and counterterrorism—a domestic intelligence agency, kinda like the FBI.”
Zoe nodded, “A fair comparison.”
He made the introductions and noticed Kate and Zoe measure each other up. They were the same height, up to Fox’s shoulders, but their appearances couldn’t be more different: Kate, in her summer dress, was relaxed; Zoe, in her Dior suit, was calculating and observing. Kate had bed hair and sleepy eyes, the other woman had a severe black ponytail and clear blue eyes accentuated by black ink and dark eyebrows shaped just so. It looked like he and Kate left one ‘stay indoors’ situation in the States and here they were probably about to do the same in another country. Whatever this cop said, he’d be leaving with his friends today.
“You’re looking for Renard?” Kate asked the cop.
“No,” Zoe smiled. “I came here to speak with Lachlan.”
“Please, take a seat,” Fox said. The four of them sat at the dining table. Fox checked out their female guest a bit closer. The French cop was probably in her late thirties but could pass for ten years younger.
“So, what do you want?” Kate asked. “I’m a lawyer and—”
“Yes, I know.” Zoe flicked through a few pages in a small black notepad. “But you are registered on the bars in New York and District of Columbia, jurisdictions a long way from here.”
The two women shared a look.
Zoe looked at Gammaldi. “You just made coffee?”
“Yeah,” he said, impressed she’d picked up the scent. “I’ll get you one.”
“Merci.”
Zoe ignored Kate and turned her attention to Fox as his friend ran to the kitchen. “And you are a reporter.”
Fox nodded. He bit his tongue, refrained from asking questions: Why had she followed him? How had she found them out here? How did she know about them?
“Specialising in?”
“Hot spots,” Fox said, dusting the remnants of gravel from the driveway off his sleeve. The cop outside, Vincent, was throwing the ball for Brujon, who kept bounding off and bringing it back with the same insane speed. Fox rubbed his face where she had left a red mark—no doubt French women had slapping down to a fine art. Sharp and painful, an exclamation and expletive not to be quickly forgotten.
“Hot spots…” Zoe
repeated. A small smile when his eyes met hers. She watched him closely. “Like here?”
“This … This is more of a vacation,” Fox replied. He picked at the edge of the antique timber table. He found it really hard to look this woman in the eyes. He knew it was bad to avoid a cop’s gaze—but with Kate sitting next to him he felt guilty just looking at her.
Gammaldi came back with the steaming coffee pot, placed it and the milk jug in front of Zoe, turned and got some clean cups from the sideboard.
“You can break that breech again, please,” she said to him. Her tone made him nod and he did as she asked before turning and placing the cups on the table and taking a seat at the other end, chastised.
“So,” Zoe said, pouring herself coffee. “You are not doing some investigative reporting work here?”
Fox shook his head. He looked at Kate, she smiled back with her eyes. La belle France.
“Like I said, we came here for a holiday,” Fox replied. Kate rubbed her leg up against his under the table.
“So you are just tourists?” Zoe asked.
“What do you think we are? Terrorists?” Kate said.
Zoe narrowed her eyes at Kate and then took a sip from her coffee cup. The breeze picked up through the lace-curtained windows and Fox shifted in his seat.
“To tell you the truth, I came for the cheese,” said Gammaldi, holding up a torn piece of baguette with goats’ curd on it. “I think it was Charles de Gaulle who once remarked: ‘How could one describe a country which has 365 kinds of cheese?.’ Well, allow me: this is the second greatest country on Earth, no doubt.”
Zoe looked like she didn’t quite know how to take him.
Kate laughed beside Fox and it reminded him why he’d go anywhere with her. He pressed his foot against hers. She gave him a look he hadn’t seen in a while; unease showing through …
As Gammaldi went on about some Paris law concerning the price of baguettes that segued into a soliloquy for his love of all breads, Fox shifted in his seat. What did this Zoe woman want? The way she’d followed him, and was now sitting here … He knew she was measuring, analysing, assessing. Perhaps her department’s noses were out of joint that the FBI hadn’t contacted them? He’d find out, take whatever rap on the knuckles was coming, and then get her on her way. The sooner the better: if she knew about them, Babich’s network would, too.
“We just needed a change of scenery,” Fox said, interrupting his friend’s lament of sourdoughs.
“Somewhere like here,” Zoe gestured around, “the house of reporter Renard Rochefort?”
“He’s a good friend,” Fox replied.
Zoe nodded, glanced at her small black notepad again.
“You must trust him,” she said, absently, more a statement than a question.
Fox didn’t know how to reply—it seemed a strange comment—perhaps the FBI had contacted her? Perhaps Hutchinson had asked Zoe’s agency to keep an eye on them, despite Fox successfully arguing the point last week that they were safe from reprisals now that Babich was headed to trial. The FBI man knew as well as Fox did that Babich’s Umbra network held a grudge like a fatwa; until the person who decreed it renounced the order, you were a marked man. Well, Zoe’s agency could get in line.
“And where is Renard now?”
“Working,” Fox said. He checked his watch. “Driving still, I would imagine.”
“Working on…?”
“A story.”
“His or yours?”
“Like I said,” Fox said, leaning forwards and pouring himself coffee. “We’re here to relax. Surely everyone dreams of lazily feasting on food and wine somewhere in rural France?”
Zoe’s eyes narrowed and Fox knew Kate was watching him too. She knew he’d come here for a story, something with Renard that kept them talking late into the night, but neither she nor Gammaldi had bothered asking about it. She’d come to France, insisted on coming, and she’d been so happy to get away from the FBI that she’d never bothered to ask why or what for. She probably had her suspicions, but she’d let them slide. Now, from just a quick glance, Fox saw such questioning in her eyes, and he could tell that Zoe had picked up on it, too.
“So, back to Renard. You say he is still driving,” she said, looking up from her notes and giving Fox her full attention. “Do you know where he is headed?”
19
HIGH OVER THE MED
Hutchinson was heading to hell in a handbasket. He could hardly breathe since he’d regained consciousness and his eyes felt like they’d had petrol poured over them. His fingers started to move, then his head, and he could see that the gas had cleared from the cabin. It seemed like a dream. A bad dream, devoid of senses but for the palpable fear of the inevitable.
Sound came back. Howling, deafeningly loud as the aircraft flew with its new manhole cut into the top of the fuselage. He looked out the window, his eyes watery, and saw the sparkling blue-green Mediterranean below. By looking at the horizon he confirmed the unavoidable—he was going down.
“Shit!”
He jumped up out of the seat—and fell flat on his face. He rolled onto his back and examined his right leg; a large patch of deep crimson surrounded a bullet wound through the meat of his thigh. Babich had shot him—he suddenly remembered everything. He sat up in the aisle and leaned against a seat.
Both his agents were down, Babich was nowhere to be seen, and the cockpit door was open. The pilot’s head tilted to the right at an awkward angle and the dangling left arm of the co-pilot hung lifelessly between the two men.
Hutchinson pushed the weapons case from the floor, revealing the medical kit below. In a minute he had tied a tourniquet and wrapped a compression bandage around his thigh; there wasn’t that much blood, although there was no exit wound. There wasn’t much pain yet either. He put a couple of Fentanyl lollipops in his shirt pocket, then dragged himself up to a standing position, light-headed and unsteady. All his muscles ached and he knew then that the gas had been a nerve agent.
Move.
Hutchinson dragged himself to Capel’s body, felt for a pulse on the side of his neck; he was gone. Brick’s neck was sliced wide open. No time for lingering.
He hobbled forward.
Both pilots were dead. The autopilot was on, but the altitude meter was slowly ticking down—they’d just passed through ten thousand feet. Nine-nine. Nine-eight. If the bleeding didn’t kill him, the crash would.
He no longer needed to worry about hypoxia—lack of oxygen—at this low altitude. He just had to worry about time.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” he said into the co-pilot’s headset, dangling by the floor. He flicked through channels—the radio had been shot to shit. “Mayday, Mayday…”
The altitude meter showed he was passing through 9,300 feet.
Emergency evac time.
Back in the cabin, he pulled out clothes from his overnight bag—took off his shirt and Kevlar vest, saw two nine-millimetre rounds had hit his chest—that’s why he could hardly breathe before—put on a thermal top, jumper and zip-up jacket. He added a life vest, then slipped on a parachute and buckled it up. He almost tripped over the satellite phone case.
Hurry.
He opened the case and powered up the phone. It had signal—one bar … then none … then one … He typed a text message and sent it through with the GPS read-out on the phone’s display screen, selected the ‘repeat until sent’ option. Sending, trying to send … Compared to the DoD sat phones, this thing was a dinosaur … Maybe it’d get through, though.
He blew the handle on the emergency door, the stairs sliding out and down into the fast-moving air. The morning sunlight on a brilliant sea. Probably sharks down there … Great.
He turned away and climbed down the stairs, facing towards the rungs, until his feet reached the last step, closed his eyes, said a prayer, and let go.
20
GIVERNY
Zoe was taking a call on her mobil
e phone, standing at the open front door, listening to the earpiece. Fox had told her where Renard was headed. It was no big secret, but if he had to guess he would say the cop didn’t believe him. When the call came she’d excused herself, and he started to get angry. Keep it cool, keep it controlled. If his old CO in the Navy had anything negative to say about him, it would have been that he was impatient when there was a job to be done; something Fox and his unit mates regarded as a positive in most situations. Defusing an underwater mine being one of the few exceptions.
Kate had gone into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee. She was standing at the old timber butcher’s block and he admired her curves. She looked so sexy in her summer dress, her hair loosely tied back. Worth fighting for. Fox remembered the night before when they’d made love with the summer breeze coming in the open window, her body fitting with his. She looked across at him—a second of reservation—then she smiled and went out of sight to the stove.
Zoe’s voice grew louder, but Fox’s high-school French was too crummy to pick up any of her conversation.
He stared absently into his empty cup. All his adult life he’d felt like a foreigner—first with his military postings and then chasing news stories around the globe. Would he ever find a place and time where he felt like he belonged? He’d moved around a lot as a kid as well, for his dad’s work, and then the military had been more of the same, until it just became habitual. Six months in one place was enough. Twelve months was a sentence. There was a constant hum in the back of his mind, an awareness that he had to make himself feel at home; as a native, you are at home, you don’t have to contemplate your being quite so much. Kate put the freshly percolated coffee on the table and gave him a look: What’s she doing here?
Fox’s return look implied: I don’t know, but I’ll hurry things up.
“What is terroir?” Gammaldi asked, entering the room with a bottle of wine from Renard’s pantry. He was peering at the label, thumbing off the dust.
