by Brad Taylor
He ignored them, not wanting to do business in view of anyone entering the Métro. He walked a block and turned in to an open-air market, the only Caucasian to be found. Shouting in French, two of the men followed him, as he knew they would.
Their persistence would earn his business this day.
Getting to the center of the market, surrounded on all sides by people hawking goods, he turned and waved them forward. They sprinted to him, both fighting for his attention. And his money. He said, “You speak English?”
The smaller one, holding a Galaxy, said, “Yes. Good phone. Unlocked.”
The thief manipulated the touch screen, showing a multitude of apps and that they functioned.
Braden said, “Does it have a SIM card?”
“Yes! It work right now!”
The taller one, with an iPhone 5s, blurted, “My phone real. His is junk. Fake.” He began the showmanship dance, flipping through apps left and right. Braden ignored the iPhone, focusing on the Galaxy thief. “Dial someone. Right now.”
The boy began to do so, and the iPhone thief became agitated, pushing the Galaxy away and saying, “My phone real! Unlocked. You hook to your service.”
Braden needed both but only the Wi-Fi capability of the iPhone. He cared not at all that it wasn’t hooked to a cellular service. He said, “How much?”
The iPhone thief said, “Two hundred euro.”
Braden didn’t even bother to haggle, not concerned about the cost. “Okay. I’ll take it.”
The Galaxy thief became irate, believing he’d lost the sale in the time he was dialing. He shouted, “His won’t work. Listen! Listen!”
He held the phone up to Braden’s ear, a ringtone coming through. A man answered in French, and Braden hung up, saying, “I’ll take yours as well.”
He pocketed both phones, letting the little thieves scamper off with a smile. He left the market, walking east, deeper into the neighborhood of Goutte d’Or, a lone Caucasian in a sea of Africans. He passed two gendarmes, both looking at him curiously, and he understood why.
Unlike England, which worked to prevent localized concentrations of indigenous populations and attempted to force immigrants to integrate, France had specific pockets that—if it weren’t for the distinctive French architecture—could be mistaken for a different country. Goutte d’Or was one such area.
Since the Algerian War, it was known as the place for African immigrants. Originally full of Algerian expats who fled the troubles of their home country in the ’50s and ’60s, it had spread to include people from all over Africa. Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, and others, they all came here—illegally or otherwise.
As a Caucasian, Braden had raised the gendarmes’ interest, because he was either lost or clearly looking for something shady. He opted to appear lost, knowing that if they had any idea what he was truly planning, they would have done much more than stare at him.
His brother Seamus had called him in Brussels the night before, agitated and asking if the Serbs were ready to execute their jewelry heist. Originally having told Braden he’d have a five-day preparatory window, Seamus now wanted the operation conducted immediately. He’d asked if it could be done.
Braden had said, “Maybe. But it’ll be something like two days. One, I need to establish the trap. Two, the Serbs are going to want at least a day for a final look-see.”
“I thought you said the explosives were ready?”
“They’re staged but not primed. That’s the easy part. The Serbs are harder. Ratko Illic is no joke. You know his two men haven’t contacted him in twenty-four hours? He’s asking why, and I have no fucking idea what to tell him. He’s liable to go off.”
Seamus told him what had transpired, ending with “I have no idea about his men either, but that’s just another reason we need to move.”
Braden was shocked at the revelations. Shocked and scared. He said, “Seamus, suppose he needs those two men? Ratko may kill me if I demand this. He’ll blame me.”
“He needs you. Aren’t you the getaway? The break from the Serbs? I thought they were worried about getting caught with the jewels. Interpol is all over their ass. Didn’t they expect to get pulled in as a matter of course after the robbery?”
“Yeah, that’s true, but I’m not sure if that’ll be enough. He might just put a bullet in my head for the trouble and call the whole thing off. These guys are clannish. You’ve never worked with them, but they’re scary.”
Seamus said, “That won’t happen. They’ve put too much time into this. How long have they worked it?”
“Two months. Two that I’ve been involved with, anyway.”
“That’s nothing compared to what we’ve done. They’ve given us six months of work, with aircraft, boats, reconnaissance, and everything else. They won’t throw that away. They want the diamonds.”
Braden said nothing, running the ramifications of what Seamus was asking.
Seamus said, “You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here. Okay, Seamus, I’ll give it a try.”
Braden had gone to the extended-stay hotel the Serbs were occupying in Brussels, the living room full of corkboards, each one with a selection of pictures of their target in Paris, the note cards above the photos delineating a specific activity. Response times for police, traffic patterns throughout the day, tourist pedestrian flows, the rotations of the guards manning each door. Everything involving the assault. Even the glare of the sun on the surveillance cameras.
The Pink Panthers conducted operations timed to the nanosecond, utilizing intelligence that would make any Special Forces team proud. The surveillance video later would look random, with the Panthers overwhelming the security by brute force, but the preparation belied the technique. It was why they’d been so successful.
Braden heard Ratko on the phone.
—“So it’s there? Inside?”
—“Doesn’t matter where they put that fucker at night. It’ll be on display during the day. We’re good.”
Ratko hung up the phone and saw Braden. He said, “Looks like the necklace is in place. But the gendarmes have increased their patrols in the area because of it. A week’s worth of extra vigilance like we expected. You know what that means, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Your diversion had better be good. It had better consume them.”
“Ratko, we need to talk.”
The man rose up from the couch, a brute standing over six feet, covered in coarse black hair. “Yes. We do. I still cannot contact the men I sent on your fool’s errand.”
Braden felt more than heard the two other men in the room stand. Closing in on him.
He said, “I don’t know about your men, but I had a call from Seamus. You need to execute as soon as possible. We have to do the diversion now, or we lose the leverage of it.”
Ratko moved to the board, studying the different cards. He said, “You know why I helped you? You understand how much this necklace is worth?”
“No. I mean, yes, I know why you helped, but I have no idea about the necklace. I don’t want to know about the necklace. My payment is your help. You’ve done that, and I’ll take the necklace to you as you asked. After the operation.”
Ratko turned to him and smiled. A grin like a ferret, all teeth and no joy. “I don’t like being played. I have put a great deal of effort into this operation, including securing your hostages.” He tapped the map of the target with a knife, saying, “This will be our biggest success ever, but I won’t take the risk if I have a weak link.” He pointed the knife at Braden. “My men have worked for me a long time. Some since the Bosnian War, fighting with the Arkan’s Tigers. I trust them. You, not so much.”
Braden knew well the name of the paramilitary group that fought in Bosnia. Their cruelty was legendary. He was unsure if the mention was designed to instill fear or even if it was true. Ratko looke
d too young to have fought in Bosnia, but age could be deceptive.
Braden said, “I understand a soldier’s code just like your men. I am not a weak link. I don’t know what happened to the two you sent, but the fact remains that they found a penetration. Someone is tracking our other operation, which puts yours in jeopardy. The diversion has to go now. If you want the Paris gendarmes looking somewhere else, then you need to do the robbery soon.”
Braden sensed the other two men in the room taking positions to his left and right and knew he was within a breath of Serb punishment.
Ratko said, “You take but never give. I have provided more for you than you have ever offered in return. And I’m done with that.”
Braden sidled to the left, putting his back to a wall. Knowing that any sign of weakness would end in punishment, he steeled himself and said, “Ratko, all of that was predicated on this robbery. Your payoff was my help in transporting the necklace across the border and getting rid of the police presence. You need us. You need the police to look somewhere else. We’re set. We just need to execute sooner than we thought.”
Ratko stared at him, his marble eyes reminding Braden of the pigs from the farm of his youth. Braden remained steady, holding but not challenging Ratko’s gaze in return. Showing strength but not arrogance.
Ratko hissed, spun the blade in his hand, and stabbed it into a picture of the target. He said, “We will execute. But you had better fulfill your end.”
Braden nodded, not letting the relief show.
Ratko flicked his head at the men beside Braden, and they moved away. He said, “You know the price of failure?”
Braden nodded again.
Ratko smiled his ferret grin. “No. You don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. I promise, if you cross me, you will.”
Braden had left the room in a rush, clomping down the stairs of the hotel, followed by the two men, both as stoic as if they’d been made of granite.
Twenty-four hours later and a country away, the memory still made him tremble. He would be glad when his relationship with Ratko and the other Serbs was done.
33
Alexander Palmer heard Kurt’s words and exploded. “Have you lost your fucking mind? Ireland? Who gave you authority to start operating in Ireland? You cannot execute operations without the expressed consent of the Oversight Council. What the hell are you doing?”
Kurt went instinctively to military attention, back ramrod straight and hands to his sides. He said, “Pike was not on a Taskforce mission. He was working for me, as a friend. You guys cut him free. He was helping me find my niece. Someone I consider my daughter. And yes, I gave him some help.” He turned his head and glared at Palmer. “You want to fire me for that, then do it. But you’d better be ready to bury the vice president’s son.”
Palmer stood up, the anger on his face spilling out. He said, “You sanctimonious son of a bitch, nobody gives a shit about your niece. We have bigger issues here than your personal problems. Nicholas Seacrest could be divulging secrets right this minute.”
Kurt broke his stance, advancing on Palmer with his fists balled, the violence barely contained. In a low hiss he said, “Fuck you and your bigger issues. This isn’t about intelligence, and my niece means more to me than the vice president’s son. More than all of those people.”
Palmer stood his ground, his legs shaking, the fear evident on his face. Kurt reached him and President Warren said, “Stop!”
Kurt held up, glaring at Palmer. Wanting to rip his throat out.
President Warren said, “This is getting us nowhere. Quit the childish dick contest.”
Kurt glanced at him, and the president repeated, “Quit it. Right now.”
Kurt backed down, turning away and muttering under his breath.
Palmer breathed out, then said, “Kurt, hey, those words were poorly chosen. I’m sorry. Sorry about your niece, and sorry I said what I did. But you can’t freelance like this. You know that.”
Accepting the apology in the spirit it was given, Kurt said, “Then don’t make me freelance anymore. Let’s bring it to the Council. Pike’s onto something here. Get him Taskforce assets. Get Knuckles there.”
President Warren flipped to the second page of the report and said, “But you reported that Knuckles had found a connection. The ferry trip ticket was tied to some Somalis who came from Paris. And your Taskforce penetration of French immigration says they’ve returned there.”
Kurt sighed and said, “Yes. That’s what we know, but we can’t find a couple of Somalis in the city of Paris. We’ve got nothing. Pike has a lead.”
“You mean Pike has a lead to your niece.”
“Well, yeah, but she’s tied to the VP. I don’t understand this Somalia connection, but Pike’s onto something real. It’s in Ireland, and it’s not about torturing these guys for information.”
Palmer said, “Maybe. Maybe not. We know an Islamic group has the hostages. Knuckles has now confirmed it’s Somali. Al-Shabaab. We don’t know where they are, but we now know who they are. Might be Paris, might be Mali, but they sure as shit aren’t in Ireland. That would be the last place they’d go.”
Kurt said, “Sir, I don’t buy that Islamic crap. You think a bunch of Somalis straight out of the Stone Age could do this? Shit, there’s no way they could even track someone on Okinawa, much less kidnap them. There’s something else going on here.”
President Warren said, “Because you want it to be that way? For your niece? Or because you have some evidence?”
Kurt balled his fists up again, this time in frustration, and said, “It’s the same damn thing.”
President Warren had looked at him with sympathy and said, “Kurt, I understand where you’re coming from, but I have to play the intelligence as I see it. I’ll let you freelance Pike. No word to the Council. But Knuckles is going to follow the trail where it goes.”
Now, sitting with his cup of black coffee surrounded by twentysomethings whose greatest problem was figuring out which blend to buy, he was about to go through the same pain again. With his sister.
He glanced at his watch one more time, wondering if she was even going to show. He pulled out his cell phone to call and saw her walking at a fast pace up to the door. She entered, and he waved. She ignored the line and marched right up to his table, sitting across from him.
In the harsh fluorescent light, she looked aged. As if someone had taken a picture of her two days ago, then put it through software manipulation to show how she would appear in twenty years. She looked lost.
She said, “So you have something? Tell me you have something. The police over there are still giving me the stone wall.”
He steeled himself and said, “Kathy, I have a thin lead, and I’m exploring it, but you have to understand that it might go nowhere.”
“Exploring it? What does that mean? You sound like you’re looking for oil.”
He told her what he’d found, leaving out all aspects of the vice president’s son and the Serbian connection, washing it all into a date with a ghost who he was trying to find. When he was done, she sagged into her chair and began to cry.
He reached across and rubbed her arm, saying, “Hey, it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s something. We’re going forward.”
She snapped back and said, “Bullshit! You’re doing nothing. I knew you would do nothing from that first phone call. You’re sitting here on your ass while she gets gang-raped or sold into slavery.” She broke down again and began sobbing into her hands, the patrons around them looking on in concern.
Kurt let the barbs fall and said, “Kathy, that’s not true. Yes, I’m here, but it’s only because I’ve sent someone better than me. I have a man over there. He’s looking right now.”
A bitter look on her face, she spat out, “Better than you. Sure. I get it.”
He nodded, a soothing gesture. “Y
es. Better than me.”
He saw a glimmer of hope, quickly dissolved by the pain of her fear. She said, “Kylie always talked about you being some great hunter of terrorists. I knew that was bullshit, but she thought you were saving the world. I guess she was wrong.”
“No. She wasn’t wrong. She just misconstrued how I hunt. I will find her.”
The hope returned to her eyes, as much as she tried to prevent it. She said, “Who? Who do you have looking?”
He clasped her hand in both of his and said, “I can’t give you his name, but he’s the best man I have.”
She sniffled and said, “Is he good enough? Will he bring her home?”
Kurt smiled, intending to show warmth. What came out was the grin of a shark. “Trust me, he’s a predator. His target is the man who took her. And he has never failed me.”
34
I failed to see the exit from the roundabout in time and swerved, trying to make it. I reached the lane and caused a flurry of honking horns. Apparently, it wasn’t a one-way road, and I was driving head-on into traffic.
Jennifer barked, “Pike!” and threw her hands onto the dash. I swerved back into the roundabout and said, “What the hell? The road’s painted with white stripes.”
The GPS said, “Recalculating” in a female Irish voice, and I expected it to follow up with a “dumbass.”
I circled around again and said, “Look, it’s Big Ben . . .”
Jennifer, not getting my movie reference, said, “Are you crazy?”
Now knowing how Chevy Chase felt, I said, “This driving on the wrong side of the road is killing me.”
She turned to the window and said, “Some world traveler. Maybe when Knuckles gets here we can survive the roads.”
I whipped into the correct exit and said, “He’s not coming.”
“What? I thought you’d told Kurt what we’d found?”
“I did. But Knuckles has apparently found a connection with the ferry ticket. We’re still on our own. Which, honestly, I don’t care about. Easier to do what I want without some command from eight thousand miles away telling me what my left and right limits are.”
