by Mark Greaney
“Calm down, man,” Drexler said. “I told you there might be an event at seven Rue Tronchet. I wanted you to be ready to check it out immediately if something happened.”
“It was ISIS! It was a major fucking ISIS operation! Are you with ISIS? Mon dieu, am I with ISIS?”
“Get a hold of yourself. Don’t be so dramatic. Of course I’m not with ISIS, and neither are you. You and I have worked together for some time, you know that. I’m just someone who hears things, and I heard something. I didn’t know if it was true or not. Just relax, and tell me what you know.”
“I’m outside the hotel now, but I went in as soon as I got here. Man, it was a fucking bloodbath in that suite. Bodies everywhere. Blood. Scorched walls, bullet holes, broken glass. It looked like a damned—”
“But the girl? I heard she is missing.”
Sauvage said nothing at first, then replied softly. “I’m out, man. We all are. We didn’t sign up for any of—”
Drexler butted in. “No, Henri, you aren’t out. You and your boys are in, and you’re in thick. Give me what I want, or this goes bad for you very quickly.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Only because you are making me do so. We can resolve all this quickly, you can earn more money than your sad government job will pay you in years, and then we can all move on.”
When Sauvage hesitated, Drexler said, “Or I go to your employers and reveal the other operations you’ve been a part of over the past two years.”
Sauvage hesitated a little more, but he finally did give Drexler the information he wanted. “The girl is gone. Nobody knows where she is.”
“Who took her?”
“One man. All alone.”
Drexler looked down at the satellite phone in his hand, a look of shock on his face. “One of her bodyguards?”
“Non. They are all dead at the scene. Whoever took her was someone not associated with her trip, or with the hotel. Everyone else—dead or alive—is accounted for.”
“What about CCTV?”
“The kidnapper was a pro. He avoided the hotel cameras; we figure he must have come in from the roof. We checked neighborhood traffic cameras, and that’s how we know we are dealing with a single man. We see the girl being walked along at a fast pace by a lone individual. This guy didn’t look like an ISIS terrorist. White, about one meter eighty in height, with a beard and dark clothing. They were heading north on foot, but we haven’t determined where they went yet.”
Drexler thought a moment. “Whoever did this has been following her during her trip to Paris.”
“We didn’t see anyone, but we are considering this possibility and are looking into it. We’ve reviewed recordings of cameras here at seven Rue Tronchet and nothing has turned up, but I have Foss and Allard checking with restaurants, clothing stores, and other venues she visited while in town. We’re tapping into CCTV networks now, and I’m hoping we’ll get something in the next hour.”
Drexler said, “Check for traffic tickets around venues she’s visited.”
Sauvage replied coolly. “I don’t know who you really are, Eric, but you know I’m a cop. No need to tell me my job.”
The Swiss asset working for the Syrian first lady replied, “You know enough about who I am. I’m the man paying your wage. Do as I fucking say.”
A pause, then, “Oui, monsieur.”
“The ISIS man who was captured. Is he talking?”
“No. He’s got grenade fragments in him; he probably won’t survive the night.”
Drexler hoped he didn’t. He was no use to the operation any longer, and he had failed in his task.
The French captain added, “Like I said, we’ll try to have something within the hour.”
“Call me back in fifteen. Find me intel about the man who took her!”
“But—”
“Fifteen,” Drexler repeated, then hung up the phone.
CHAPTER 12
After Bianca Medina revealed the existence of her son, Tarek and Rima Halaby left the bedroom where the interrogation was taking place, following Vincent Voland back up the hall to the living room of the warehouse apartment. They did not speak during the walk up the hall, not until they had shut the door to the living room and locked it, and not until Rima sat at the kitchen table and placed her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes as she spoke.
“How did we not know about the child?”
Tarek was angry, defensive. He paced the room. “No one knew. In fact, she could be lying because she doesn’t want to help us. Just a ruse to get her back to Syria.”
Rima looked up at her husband. “You saw her, same as me. Was that woman lying to us?”
Tarek stopped. His shoulders sagged. “No.”
“She was absolutely panicked,” Rima said. “The baby is real. Her predicament is real.”
Tarek looked to Voland, now seated at the kitchen table across from Rima. “Monsieur Voland, this is something your contacts should have known.”
The Frenchman shook his head. “I am your man in Europe. Yes, we identified Bianca as being Ahmed’s mistress, but that was from electronic eavesdropping. I told you from the beginning that we do not have an agent in place in Damascus. Your organization has more contacts inside Syria than I do.”
Rima said, “The question is, what do we do now?”
Tarek replied, “Assuming this is true, it’s going to be difficult to get this woman to work for our cause. She will see anything she does against Azzam as a direct threat to her child. He knows, presumably, where his baby is, after all. She goes public to reveal the Tehran meeting, and Ahmed could harm the baby as retribution.”
Voland said, “Certainly as long as her baby is in Syria, she will not willingly give us information. But the one thing we must not do is let that woman return to Damascus. Our operation to take her worked beautifully. We have come too far to turn back now. We will find a way to exploit this.”
Rima’s forehead furrowed. “How?”
The Frenchman held his hands up on the table. “The baby changes nothing. We encourage Mademoiselle Medina to go public with details of her Tehran trip.”
“And by ‘encourage,’ you mean . . . torture?”
Voland shrugged in a uniquely French way, shoulders high to his ears with his head dropping into his neck like a turtle. “Not at first. Yes, of course we must consider enhanced interrogation techniques, methods that will be uncomfortable to her, mostly psychologically, but somewhat physically, as well. But we begin gently, and only adopt the more extreme measures if forced to do so.”
Rima stood up from the table and paced the living room now. “We want her help. We need her help.”
“And we will get it.” Voland said it coolly, as if his enhanced interrogation techniques caused him no personal stress at all.
“But . . . we aren’t torturers,” the redheaded woman replied.
Voland motioned to the back bedroom. “Madame, let us not forget who that is sitting in there. Medina is having an affair with Ahmed al-Azzam. A man responsible for five hundred thousand deaths in seven years. While your nation was burning to the ground, while your friends . . . your . . . your family members were dying, she was living the high life in Damascus, enjoying the finest foods, and sleeping with the Monster of the Middle East.”
Rima snapped back. “Don’t you dare lecture me on the crimes of Ahmed Azzam! Tarek and I are well aware. No one here in Paris needs to remind me of the situation on the ground there.”
“But of course,” Voland said with an apologetic bow. “I merely state that no measure that will happen to Medina by my hand will approach the misery faced by the dead, wounded, and displaced. We can’t squander this opportunity because we don’t have the stomachs to go forward.” And then he shrugged again. “Neither of you needs to be around when my people and I interrogate Mademoiselle Medina.”
Tarek said, “If you torture her, you will get lies, obfuscations. She won’t comply.”
“I can see through lies. We make her tell us things we know as if we do not know them. When I am satisfied we are getting the truth, we reach for that which we do not have.” When neither of the Halabys spoke, Voland asked, “What other choice is there?”
Rima was adamant. “I will not allow you to torture that woman. No matter who she is sleeping with. I don’t believe that’s the best option.”
“Then tell me another!” Voland shouted. When she did not answer, he turned to her husband. “Clearly, Doctor, your wife does not have the fortitude for our mission. We have one opportunity to exploit the president’s mistress, and Rima will not allow us to adopt the measures we need to—”
“My wife and I speak with one voice, Monsieur Voland. The woman is not to be harmed.”
Rima and Tarek reached for each other’s hands and held them across the table.
Voland leaned forward. “Well, then. I suppose we should just let her go. Call her a taxi. Wish her a bon voyage on her flight back home to the arms of Azzam.”
Rima repeated herself: “We will not turn into the monsters we are fighting against!”
Tarek interrupted. “Maybe if we show her evidence about Azzam’s crimes, perhaps over time, this will help persuade her.”
Rima shook her head. “Impossible. She cares only for her child, as any mother would. Look. We have connections to the rebels in Damascus. They can retrieve the child and bring him up here.”
Voland shook his head. “The rebels won’t get within a kilometer of the president’s son, wherever he is. These men you speak of haven’t even been able to attack a two-man guard post outside the city library without suffering losses. Sending them for the child would be a disaster.”
Tarek thought for a moment. “There is another way. We can send someone with real skill to get the baby. To bring him up here. Then we will earn her compliance. With both Medina and her son here, she will be motivated to speak out against Azzam.”
Vincent Voland and Rima Halaby both looked at Tarek in confusion. Voland asked, “And whom do you suggest we ask to go to Syria?”
“The American asset. You told us he was one of the best in the world at this sort of thing. Obviously the work he did tonight proved you to be correct.”
The Frenchman shook his head. “My dear doctor. The American asset is brilliant, true, but that’s the problem. What you need to find is a fool, because what you are proposing, going into Syria to take the child of the president, is a fool’s errand.”
Tarek countered, “Rima and I have other contacts in Damascus, inside the medical community mostly, who would assist him if we asked.”
Voland wasn’t buying it. “Untrained contacts. Listen to me. As I told you before, this American is at the top of his trade. He knows what he is doing. His work tonight was stellar, but one man cannot possibly accomplish what we would need in order to bring that child out of Syria. Plus, the American will have already destroyed the phone he used in tonight’s operation. I found him via a special secret clearinghouse for people of his . . . talents, and I could reach out in the same manner as before, but there is no guarantee he will be checking in with the middleman for days, weeks, or months. I have no other way to get in contact with him in the meantime.”
Rima added, “Tarek, you said he told you he would not work with us again after what happened tonight. That bridge is burned.”
Tarek replied, “Perhaps he won’t work with us, but we can ask.”
The silver-haired Frenchman took a few slow breaths. He did not hide the fact that he thought he was dealing with fools. “Again, we have no way of reaching him.”
“I have a way,” said Tarek.
Voland cocked his head and turned in his chair to the older man. “How?”
“We owe him a lot of money. He said if we didn’t pay by dawn, he’d come find us.” With a little shrug he said, “We simply do not pay him.”
Voland raised an eyebrow. “This plan of yours will ensure that he sees you again . . . not that you will see him.”
Rima let go of her husband’s hand now and grasped him by the arm as the implications of what Voland was saying sank in.
Tarek said, “If we don’t pay, I’m sure he’ll reach out.”
Voland spoke with authority. “I’m sure he will, too. In fact, I’ve seen numerous crime scene photos showing what it looks like when this man ‘reaches out.’ Your plan to provoke a violent contract killer is disapproved.”
Halaby put his hand on his wife’s hand and pulled on it so she eased off the viselike hold on his arm. “We do not work for you. You work for us.”
“And I have provided you no greater service since our collaboration began than by suggesting you leave this American asset alone. Trust me and my interrogations of Bianca Medina. I will not use any measures that are violent. Only gently psychological pressure.” He smiled a little. “Give me time, and I will get you the results you seek.”
CHAPTER 13
At the New Shaab Presidential Palace on the hill overlooking western Damascus, the first lady sat in the near darkness of her private apartment, still watching the news from Paris, even though she knew the violence described by the reporters and the images of flashing lights did not translate to a successful conclusion to her mission there.
She looked at the clock and saw that Drexler had been gone for a half hour, but just then a gentle rap at her door announced his return. He let himself in again and sat down across from her in the sitting area. He didn’t bother trying to kiss her, and one look at him and the expression on his face made her even more certain that this evening that she had been so looking forward to had turned into a disaster.
“What is it?”
“My men in Paris tell me Bianca Medina was rescued from the attack this evening by a lone individual. Local traffic cameras recorded them running through the street north of the hotel. So far there is no information on where they might have gone.”
“This was one of her security team?”
Drexler shook his head. “The bodies of all five of the bodyguards accompanying Medina have been identified at the scene. No one knows who escaped with her from the suite . . . but we are already developing a working theory.”
“Tell me.”
“The day before yesterday, Medina and her bodyguards went to a fitting at a boutique on the Champs Élysées. A scooter was given a parking ticket across the street from the shop. The vehicle belongs to a Syrian immigrant, and by looking at traffic cameras my people have found this scooter, and the man on it, outside two more locations Medina visited during her time in Paris. We have determined, with a high degree of reliability, that he was conducting surveillance on Medina.”
“Who is he?” Shakira asked.
“The man who owns the scooter is a member of the Free Syria Exile Union. Are you familiar with them?”
Shakira cocked her head. “It’s an expatriate Sunni medical aid group allied with the insurgents. Why would a group of doctors and nurses be following Bianca?”
“The only conclusion I can make is they have transitioned into a more violent organization.”
Shakira rolled her eyes. “All the real rebels are dead, so now anyone thinks they can pick up the banner. Do you think this Syrian was the man who took Bianca Medina?”
Drexler shook his head. “Nothing in this twenty-two-year-old’s history makes me think he could have done all he would have had to do to get her out of that hotel. But his presence the other day near Medina lends credibility to the theory that the Free Syria Exile Union was involved. I have my people looking into the organization hard right now to see if we can learn anything actionable.”
Shakira Azzam lay back on the sofa and closed her eyes. After several seconds’ silence, her voice broke the stillness. “The fail
ure of your plan has created new dangers. What am I to make of your competence?”
Drexler remained calm. “You can release me from my duties whenever you wish, but just be aware what your options are. You wanted Medina killed by Daesh while she was in Europe. Not by my people. I merely complied with your wishes and passed on the information about her trip to the operational commanders of the Islamic State in Belgium. The information I gave them, that Bianca was the mistress of the emir of Kuwait, ensured that they’d make their attack. I don’t know what else I could have done other than gone up there to shoot her myself.”
Shakira said, “It had to be a group unaffiliated with us. If Ahmed had somehow found out she was assassinated by contract killers, he would have had his intelligence services investigate. There would be a chance the assets could be tracked back to you, or to me, and that would not do. We had to proceed in this manner.”
Drexler said, “Well, apparently someone else found out about the Belgian ISIS cell’s plan. And whoever it is who has her now might be learning things from her that we don’t want getting out to Western intelligence agencies.”
Shakira walked to the window. She looked out over the plains north of Damascus for a time. “Will she tell them about the child?”
Drexler replied. “Perhaps. Perhaps they already knew.”
The first lady of Syria spun back to her Swiss intelligence chief. “If the West finds out about her baby, and publicizes it, it won’t hurt Ahmed. It will hurt me. He’ll find a way to get her back to Syria, and then he will move me and my children out of the palace and move his Spaniard and his son in.”
Drexler looked at the floor. They’d had this conversation before. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. As long as she is alive she is a threat to me, and a threat to me is a threat to you. You must go to France and locate her. You must kill her, even if you have to do it yourself.”
Drexler ran a hand along the crease of his suit coat while he thought. “We’ve been through this already. My people in Paris can do the legwork there. As you are aware, there are reasons I am not at liberty to travel freely throughout Europe myself.”
