I had bought one-hundred metres of rope, thinking it would be more than enough, but I was nearing the end. The slope became even steeper and my feet scrabbled for purchase. With all the snow, I couldn’t see the rock face properly and I kept dislodging stones. There was a clang; one of the stones had hit something metal. I stopped, listened. Nothing. I continued. Then I saw it. Not more than ten metres below was the back of a Land Cruiser lying at a crazy angle. I recognised the Marseilles plates. It was Denis’. I carefully lowered myself down to him.
The Land Cruiser was wedged in between a small stand of trees. The bonnet was pointing straight down to the valley below. And, if it could be any worse, the cliff dropped away sharply just below. I guessed there were another hundred metres down a sheer face to the valley bottom. Careful not to touch the Cruiser, I moved off to one side and descended far enough to see into the cab. The door on the driver side was pierced with what were unmistakeably bullet holes. Inside the cab, lying on the dashboard, was a body. My heart sank. From my position I couldn’t see much more than that it was a man. I carefully edged closer to get a better look. I was terrified of even touching the Cruiser. It’s position was so precarious that the slightest movement might dislodge it.
The man groaned. ‘Denis?’
His head turned slowly to see where the call had come from. But the way he was lying prevented him from seeing me. ‘Noah?’ The voice was weak, no more than the rustling of leaves, but it was unmistakeably Denis.’
‘Oui. C’est moi.’
‘Where the fuck ‘ave you been? I’ve been waiting here for days.’ It was all bravado. He was obviously very weak. Another day would have killed him. I needed to get him out of there as soon as possible.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Do you mind if I tell you later? I would like to go ‘ome now.’
He had a point. ‘Can you climb out?’ I asked.
‘Do you think if I could climb out I would still be lying ‘ere?’
I hadn’t foreseen an actual rescue on that descent; but it was clear that I couldn’t leave him there for long. It was a miracle that the Cruiser hadn’t plummeted to the bottom. To emphasise the urgency, there was a low groan, the sound of wood splintering; the Cruiser lurched a few centimetres towards the river below.
I had limited gear with me. I needed to get him out fast. I tied myself off on the rope, stopped for a moment to think. Getting him out of the Cruiser was the biggest risk. Any movement might send the thing crashing to the valley floor with Denis in it. He would not survive. But once I had him out, our problems were far from over. The choices were to lower him, which would be the easiest. But I had no idea if the rope was long enough. If it didn’t reach all the way to the bottom he would be left dangling and I wouldn’t have a rope to get myself out of trouble. Up was the only way out.
Going up meant that I would have to somehow get him onto my back and then climb the rope using the ascendeurs. I didn’t relish the task. Getting him securely on to my back wouldn’t be easy.
I wound a prussic loop around my rope to act as an anchor. I clipped a sling to that and stretched it out to see how far it reached. Not far enough. I only had one more sling and I needed that to tie around Denis. Without Denis’ help, it just wasn’t going to happen.
‘Sorry mate. I’m going to have to get help.’
There was an imperceptible shrug. I knew that I was probably condemning him to death. I didn’t think that the Cruiser would remain in its precarious position for very long. But I knew that if I did try to pull him out that I would certainly kill him, and probably myself too. I took off my jacket and carefully pushed it through the open window, laid it on top of him as best I could. I undid the prussic loop, clipped the ascendeurs to the rope and slowly jumared my way back up to the Audi.
Despite not having my jacket I didn’t feel the cold, didn’t even notice snowy branches slapping me as I forced my way back up. I worked like an automaton: slid one ascendeur up as far as I could reach, put all my weight on that, then slid the other up to meet it, put my foot in the loop hanging from it, stood, slid the first as far up as I could reach....
I was still a few meters from the top when I saw that the Audi was gone. I worked harder, climbed the last bit of rope as fast as my pounding heart would allow. When I reached the empty road I had to stand bent over, hands on knees for a few moments just to catch my breath. Where the Audi had been parked were only tyre tracks. I tried to figure out what might have happened; but my brain was mush from the effort. I straightened up and stared blankly down the road towards la Bollène-Vésubie.
The Audi had already rounded the bend and was less than a hundred metres away when I managed to drag myself from the fugue and focus properly. It was Nadia. She was alone. She pulled up next to me, asked anxiously, ‘What happened? Was it Denis?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were gone so long, I went for help.’
‘Help?’ I was still trying to organise my thoughts.
‘Yes. Louis is on his way with his team.’
‘Louis?’ She still wasn’t making any sense.
‘Oui. You remember. Louis who sold you the climbing equipment. He is the leader of the mountain rescue team. He is just behind me. Is he all right?’
‘Who?’
‘Denis.’ Her voice was shrill.
The clouds cleared. ‘Yes... No.... He’s alive, but he’s in a bad way.’
Just then Louis arrived in an old Citroën H van. He parked it behind the Audi and jumped out with two tough looking farmer types. They were all in their climbing gear. While Louis came over to talk to us, the others began offloading all the gear from the truck and laying it out. They were clearly very practised: professional.
‘Did you find him?’ Louis asked.
‘Yes. But we’re going to need more help.’
Louis raised his eyebrows. He clearly thought that he could handle anything. I explained, ‘The Land Cruiser is halfway down the face. The only things between it and the bottom are a few thin trees. Just touching it could send it over. We need to stabilise the Cruiser first. Is there a tow truck in town?’
Louis understood; without another word to me he used his cell phone to call a mechanic from town. While we waited for his arrival I explained exactly what I had seen.
‘Shouldn’t we get an ambulance?’ I asked.
‘There isn’t one in town.’ Louis explained. ‘Pierre and André are trained paramedics. It will be better if we take him to the hospital ourselves.’
Louis’ friends clearly didn’t trust the trees as belay points. The valley echoed with the clank of metal on metal as they drove two long steel stakes into the ground for anchors. By the time they had set up the belay, the tow truck arrived. It manoeuvred into position close to the edge and the driver began reeling out a length of cable from a winch at the back. Pierre and André clipped themselves onto their ropes and were soon abseiling down to the cruiser. Pierre clipped the end of the cable to his harness and took it down with him.
I couldn’t just stand there and watch; my rope was still secured to the trees, so I attached my descendeur again and followed them down. Without my jacket, the cold was starting to bite. Unencumbered by the cable, I caught the others before they reached the Cruiser. It was still there, defying gravity.
Pierre tied himself off just short of the Cruiser. There was a shackle at the end of the cable; he was struggling to undo it, his thick mittens making his efforts clumsy. I tied myself off too, whipped my gloves off and shoved them into my pants’ pocket. I swung across to him and took the cable. The Cruiser groaned and shifted uncomfortably. I undid the shackle carefully. Handed the cable back and looked for a suitable place to secure it.
There was a tow point behind the rear bumper. I slipped the shackle through that, grabbed the cable, slipped it through.
While I was threading the securing pin and before I had managed to screw it into place, André opened the front door of the cruiser; it began to slide.
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I shouted, ‘Non!’ but it was too late. The Cruiser slid inexorably downwards. Without the securing pin in place, the shackle could not hold the load; it began to bend. I had no choice but to let go. There was a terminal grinding and shrieking of metal. And then the Cruiser was gone. It arced out for a moment, curved, smashed into the face. As it slammed into the rock it began to break up, each impact flinging shards of plastic and metal into the air.
Finally, it slammed into the rocks at the bottom and was still. I stared at the wreckage in horror. Denis was gone.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that André was dangling from his rope at an odd angle. There was something hanging from him, something large, ungainly: limp. It took a few moments to work out that the object hanging from him was Denis. There was a climbing sling around his shoulders, clipped to André’s harness. It was slowly sliding up Denis’ body, pushing his arms up. It wouldn’t be long before he fell out. André was struggling to grab him, but the weight on his harness was making it difficult to get a good grip on Denis.
I released my descendeur and rappelled down to them. I secured myself, grabbed Denis’ arms, held them down, preventing him from falling out the sling. Pierre joined us and before long we had Denis secured. He was unconscious, cold, probably hypothermic. André used his cell phone to call Louis and soon a stretcher came bumping down on the end of a rope. I helped André and Pierre strap Denis to the stretcher. Pierre and I climbed back up, leaving André to control the stretcher during its ascent.
Denis was severely hypothermic; Nadia was hysterical. I took charge of her while Pierre and André started work on Denis. I put Nadia in the back seat of the Audi, calmed her down, quietly reassured her that Denis was going to be okay, while constantly checking to see if he was.
It didn’t look good at first. His skin was a pale shade of blue. By the time he was cocooned in a space blanket he was starting to mumble and vainly trying to get up. His mutterings were very weak; André had to put his ear to Denis’ mouth to listen.
‘What’s he saying?’ I asked.
‘He says something about killing the fucking bastards.’ He looked at Nadia, ‘Sorry Cherie, but that’s what he said.’
She could see the question on my face, nodded almost imperceptibly, ‘If he is cursing he will be fine.’
We drove in convoy slowly back to Roquebillière, to Nadia’s apartment behind the hotel. Once we had put him in her bed with a couple of hot water bottles for company, we left Nadia sitting vigil and the rest of us went to the bar for a few well-earned beers.
Chapter 61
It was three days before Denis was well enough to leave the apartment. During that time, Nadia and I did a little digging. Our first call was to theAmical Sapeurs Pompiers du Mans on Rue Saint Julien, Madame Aubert’s guesthouse.
A wizened Madame Aubert ushered us into her chintz living room. The curtains were drawn as if to shield from prying eyes, or to provide cover for hers. We sat down in the gloom like supplicants at a séance.
‘Cherchez vous des hommes qui ont attaqué Denis?’
‘ Oui. Do you still have their registration card? ’
‘Mais oui.’ She conjured the card from her blouse as if it had been there all the time, just waiting for me to ask for it. She allowed me to examine it. There were three names on the card, Andria and Paulu Peretti, and Petru Santini. The address was in Marseilles: Second Arrondisement.
‘The address is false of course.’
‘You are sure?’ Nadia asked.
‘Of course. I checked.’
Nadia looked crestfallen, but Madame Aubertwas playing her cards close to her chest.‘But I know where you can find them.’
She got the response she was after, ‘Where?’ we both asked at the same time.
‘They talked a lot about Le Melo-Man on Rue Glandèves, near the Old Port.’
Nadia turned to me, ‘Do you know this place?’
‘No. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Marseilles, but I’m sure Denis will know.’
When I went down for breakfast on the fourth day, I found Denis sitting in the breakfast room, nursing a bowl of coffee. He was weak, but raring to go.
‘You feeling better?’
‘Like a prostitute after her sixth client. But I couldn’t stay in bed any more. And you, what ‘ave you been doing?’
‘Shagging your sister.’ It’s a good thing he was still weak or I might have not survived. I ignored his withering stare, ‘Of course I wouldn’t…’
His expression didn’t change. He would kill me if I did shag his sister but was offended that I didn’t want to. I was fucked either way. I changed the subject.
‘We managed to find out about those men.’
‘Yes?’
‘They’re from Marseilles.’
‘Marseilles?’
‘Yes, and the landlady where they were staying heard them talking. They hang out at a place calledLe Melo-Man in Marseilles, near the Old Port. She says we’ll find them there.
‘Very well. If they ‘angout there, they areLa Brise de Mer.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You ‘aven’t ‘eard of them?’
‘No.’
‘It is a Corsican gang, based in Marseilles these days. Mostly small-time stuff, protection, prostitution and pills; but sometimes they get involved in bank robberies…’
‘…and murder.’
‘Oui. Fortunately for us they are amateurs. ‘As she spoken to theles flics?’
‘No.’
‘ Bon. ’
‘So what now?’ I asked.
‘We need to go visiting.’ He scratched his head. ‘Unfortunately my guns are at the bottom of a Swiss lake. We needles clarions. I will have to ask for some favours.’
After breakfast Denis went off to make the necessary calls and I went to my room to pack. I guessed we would not be staying long in Roquebillière no matter what Denis’ condition was. He was all fired up and out for revenge.
When I got to the Audi with all my stuff, Denis was already there. He was weak, Nadia had to help him with his bag. But there was an inner resilience that, I knew, would see him through almost anything. Nadia was tearful when we left. I expected that. She hadn’t seen her brother for a long time; but when she hugged me just a little longer and a little tighter than normal, I realised that there might be more than one reason for the tears. Just as well we were leaving; I’d taken a liking to her too.
We wound down the Vésubie Gorge amidst the crags and snow-covered peaks of the Maritime Alps towards Nice. While I drove, Denis told me what had happened on the mountain.
‘After I got the call from your office, I left for Prague straight away.’
‘Ten days ago?’ I said.
‘Oui. Not far out of town, I saw I was being followed.’
‘The Corsicans?’
‘Bien sûr. But I did not know it then. Just after La Bollène-Vésubie, on that straight, they came past me. As they came level, they started shooting. I was not expecting that. I swerved, lost control, went over the edge.
‘When the Cruiser came to a ‘alt I tried to get out, but every time I moved it felt like it would go all the way over.’
‘So you just waited there for seven days, without food, water?’
‘I managed to get some snow through the window. There was nothing else I could do.’
I shook my head. ‘You must have shat yourself.’
He shrugged,‘Oui. But I knew you would save me. He smiled, slapped me on the shoulder. I knew that was all the thanks I’d get.
After Denis had phoned his contacts to arrange the meeting, he curled up and went to sleep, leaving me to drive on to our first stop: Aubagne. The town is only twenty minutes drive outside Marseilles and the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion.
I woke Denis as we entered Aubagne, followed his directions to Avenue les Goums.
‘We are meeting them at the ‘Ong Kong Restaurant. You know it?’ Denis asked.
; I nodded. Hong Kong Restaurant was a popular eatery for off-duty Legionnaires. It served the best Vietnamese food in Aubagne.
One of the Legion’s great defeats (there were some victories, but the ethos was always to celebrate the defeats) was at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. It was before my time. The battle was revered only slightly less than Camerone, the original and defining defeat where Captain Danjou held out in a small farmhouse in Mexico against thousands. The few survivors, having run out of ammunition, fixed bayonets and charged, cementing the Legion tradition of fighting to the last man and never surrendering.
There were still a few veterans of Dien Bien Phu who had not yet been retired to the Legion’s farm at Puyloubier; the two we met in the restaurant were probably the last of them.
We parked on the opposite side of the road. The restaurant hadn’t changed. The gaudy pink exterior was a little dirtier than I remembered; the grubby sign had lost the ‘H’ in ‘Hong.’ Spelling out Denis’ version of its name. The pink metal shutters were firmly shut. The place looked deserted. But Denis didn’t hesitate; I followed, rang the bell; we waited.
After a short while the shutters began to clank up, stopped halfway. We had to bend over almost double to go into the gloomy restaurant leaving us silhouetted against the glare of the snow outside. Familiar oriental odours. It was dark inside. My eyes were still adjusting to the gloom when someone closed the shutter again, leaving us in total darkness. A neon light flickered on, lit the stark interior. The room was as I remembered it: narrow, tiled floors, Spartan chairs and tables,‘Joyeux Anniversaire’ hanging dejectedly against one wall. Even that hadn’t changed.
The shutter operator brushed past us, scuttled away, left us with two burly men sitting at a table towards the rear. They were both in civvies, but the brush cuts and military demeanours gave them away as Legionnaires. I recognised both of them, both chief corporals, both had served longer than I’d been alive, both nearing retirement. They didn’t get up.
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 30
