by J C Ryan
“My fellow citizens,” he began. “It is my great joy to announce that a tragedy we all mourned only weeks ago has turned into jubilation. I know you were all deeply saddened to learn of it, as was I. Therefore, you will be happy to know that one of our own has been found, alive and well, the news of her death simply a grave error. Please join me in welcoming our own Margot Lemaire home!”
As he spoke, the crowd collectively held its breath until the name was revealed. There was a moment of stunned silence and then a roar of joy and approval went up that surely shook the rafters all over Paris. Maybe the Eiffel tower shook a little, as well.
Digger started barking until Rex quieted him with a firm command through the comms unit. It took several minutes for the President to quiet the crowd and tell them that Mademoiselle Lemaire was there in person.
On cue, Margot came out and walked up the stairs. Rex saw that she’d dyed her hair back to its natural color overnight. The short cut still looked good. He smiled when he thought, as far as I’m concerned, she would’ve looked good even with a buzz cut. He hoped the color it was now was just a rinse, so she could go blonde again when they got back to Geneva and into hiding.
She had gained the podium and was smiling at the crowd as they cheered. Rex noticed tears on the faces of nearby onlookers. It touched him how popular she was. Well, she deserved it. She was a wonderful woman, that was for sure.
The crowd quieted to hear Margot.
“Dear friends and countrymen. I am here to apologize, deeply and humbly, for the grief I inadvertently caused you and the President. It was never my intention to do so. Looking back at my actions now, I regret it. I acted without thinking about the angst my sudden disappearance might cause. Please accept my unreserved apology. As you know, President Aguillard’s campaign was an arduous one, taking place over such a short but intense time. As his campaign manager, I became extremely exhausted, and as his press secretary, the pressure only increased—to the point where I was advised by my physician to take a long vacation. I am still not recovered.
“Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty to tell you where I was for those weeks, and it is a simple explanation. I had the opportunity to take an ocean cruise on a yacht belonging to a friend of my family. A chance opportunity with a small window for acceptance. And what was most appealing of the trip was that I would be incommunicado for the entire duration. For all this time, I’ve been unaware of the storm that my disappearance created, and I’m so sorry that my impulsive decision cost anyone any measure of grief.
“And now, I must ask for your forbearance. President Aguillard has graciously accepted my resignation from my post, as I still need some private time to rest and recover—on doctor’s orders. My successor is quite capable. You will not miss me.” Here, she gave a brilliant smile as a protest went up from the crowd.
“Never fear. I will return to serve the Presidency and my country. I will have the opportunity to see you again, my friends. However, for now, I bid you au revoir.”
Shouts of “We love you, Margot!” and “Please don’t go!” went up from the crowd. A few “Return soon!” and “Vive la Lemaire!” shouts could be heard as Margot waved and left the podium and the stage and vanished into the shadows of the palace doors.
Aguillard stepped up to the podium again and said a few more words to rally the crowd and return them to the happy mood they’d enjoyed when they heard Margot was alive. He announced that when she was ready to return, there would be a place in government for her, though he would not ever overwork her again. The last was said with an air of rueful amusement, like a joke, and the crowd ate it up. When the President, too, left the stage and Margot’s successor announced that he would take a few questions, the crowd began to disperse.
Rex moved a little closer to monitor what was being asked and answered, but the press secretary was being quite circumspect, stating, “I don’t know. Let us please respect Mademoiselle’s privacy,” to most of the questions.
The journalists living in Aguillard’s pocket went to work immediately and stated that now everything made sense and that the whole episode just served as a lesson for everyone not to jump to conclusions. They also interviewed the president’s personal physician on TV, and he stated that although Mademoiselle Lemaire didn’t say so, it was quite possible that she was suffering from one of the debilitating conditions known as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. The only therapy was a healthy diet and lots of rest.
An hour or so after the press conference, Margot met Rex at a coffee shop near the palace. She’d changed clothes into a new outfit, complete with a large, floppy hat and big sunglasses to disguise her face. The best part, though, was the big pregnant belly protruding from her otherwise slender body. Rex grinned broadly as she walked up, kissed him in typical French style, on both cheeks, and sat down.
Digger wasn’t fooled by her disguise, he immediately moved next to her and rubbed his head against her arm. She laughed and scratched his ears and back.
“No one apart from Digger would recognize you in that,” Rex remarked. “You had a good idea, there.”
“I may as well get used to the look,” she said, smiling back at him. “It won’t be very long when I don’t need this prop for it.” She patted the ‘belly bump’ prop he’d found for her at a theatrical shop early that morning when she’d told him about her idea.
“I’ll bring the car around. I take it you want to go back to your uncle’s home?”
“Yes. Aunt Sophie insists that I spend the night. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“It’s entirely up to you. After all the excitement, maybe it’s a good idea. We can drive back to Geneva tomorrow.” He would have preferred to whisk her away back to Switzerland today, but it didn’t really matter. His reasoning was that the Russians were snookered, and the DGSE would not trouble her again. However, he’d still take precautions to keep her privacy, but he believed the threat to her safety was now moot.
Little did he know how wrong he was about that.
Chapter 55
Moscow, Russia
VERY EARLY ON Tuesday morning, the day after the French news conference, Koslov was once again escorted to the Russian Presidential palace for what he believed was going to be the end of him as CEO of Russneft because he failed his President yet again.
He’d watched the news from France with growing unease as he came to the conclusion that with Margot Lemaire’s reappearance in France and her explanations, the battle for the pipeline was over—they lost. And he had no illusions that the failure would be pinned on him.
The thing was, he didn’t possess a criminal mind nor that of a detective or a spy. He had no idea how to run an operation such as had been expected of him by the President. He felt it was grossly unfair to expect him to do it. But then, he also knew that those defenses would have no effect on the President. He had no uncertainties that he was about to be handed his ass, and not on a silver platter.
However, in retrospect, he could kick himself for not doing enough to intercept the accursed woman before she reappeared on her own, in front of all of France, no less! Now he was certain he was headed for a Siberian ‘vacation’.
He hadn’t known the FSB agent, Ida, had been one of the President’s mistresses, though he should not have been surprised. It seemed many beautiful women in mother Russia, of whom Ida had been one, had enjoyed the favor of the President at one time or another.
The rumors…
He tore his thoughts away from such speculation. It would do him no good. To keep them away, he thought of the unfortunate agent who’d been brain-damaged by the unknown superagent. Ivor had been a professional boxer, he’d been told. There were those who said the brain damage was hardly noticeable now, as his brains had been scrambled already from a few hundred too many punches to the head. However, the doctors assured him that Ivor’s brains were in much worse condition now than before. But with a broken jaw, wired together to immobilize it, it would have been near impossible to be
certain whether he had sustained brain damage or not.
Koslov shivered when he found himself envying Ivor, but he had to admit, it would’ve been better to be a little brain-damaged than having to spend the rest of your life in the Siberian ice desert.
At least the other man he’d hired, code named Kudry, short for Kudryavyy, his nickname for his curly hair, had recovered sufficiently to serve as a go-between for hiring another team. He was to have brought them to meet Koslov today, but the presidential summons had interrupted that appointment. With luck, the President would accept Kudry’s efforts as progress. But luck had little to do with what went on in the President’s office, Koslov knew.
Twenty minutes after being escorted into the president’s office and not been asked to take a seat, once again, Koslov left counting himself among the luckiest people on the planet.
He breathed an audible sigh of relief. He’d dodged the bullet again and had one more chance. Just one handicap stood in his way. The President had flatly refused to lend him another FSB agent. “You got the last one killed,” he’d said, unfairly in Koslov’s opinion. “I cannot risk another, not the least because it cannot be known that I have a personal or governmental interest in Russneft, which, as you know, is privately held. You will do this on your own, or you will answer to me.”
As soon as Koslov got back to his own office, he summoned Kudry. The message instructed him to bring his new team. When they arrived, he gave them the assignment almost word-for-word as the President had given it to him.
“There is no time to waste. The target has surfaced in Paris, but her remarks at the press conference tell us she will once again disappear. This time, you must find her, and do so quickly and take her. I want her in custody no later than three days from now.”
Kudry tried to argue. “But sir, how are we to find her so quickly? And how will we spirit her across the border? This is a bigger job. We’ll need more money and more people.”
Koslov fixed him with his coldest expression. “You mismanaged the last assignment. You have this opportunity, and only this one, to rectify your ineptitude in Vietnam.
“Use your brains. Acquire the CCTV footage from Paris from yesterday and find out where she went after the press conference. Take her and bring her here by private aircraft. I will take care of the details for entry. Above all, keep in touch! I want a report every two hours, without fail. Is that understood?”
Kudry nodded, he was not a happy man. He saw the payment he’d received for the first mission evaporating as he was required to hire a hacker to gain access to the closed-circuit cameras in the French capital. While he waited for that to bear fruit, he’d sent three of his newly-hired men to Paris to be ready when he got the information about where Margot had gone after the press conference.
***
WITHIN HOURS OF the time he’d met with Koslov, Kudry had his first breakthrough. Margot had been spirited away in an official government vehicle from the press conference to the Hôtel de Matignon, the Prime Minister’s residence. Less than an hour after her arrival at the residence, a pregnant looking woman with a large, floppy hat, and big sunglasses left the property and got into a taxi.
Kudry’s hacker was able to trace the route of the taxi to a street café where this woman met with a man. The hacker had the wherewithal to zoom in on this man, and that’s when Kudry recognized the face of the man he’d hoped never to see again—the man who broke his ribs and nose and rendered him unconscious twice in less than five minutes. The same son of a bitch who’d permanently disabled his comrade, Ivor, condemned him to take his food through a straw for the next few months, and killed the woman who’d been leading their team. He refused to acknowledge that it had been his bullet. He’d been confused, his head ringing from the kick to his face, in pain, and disoriented; and all that, he laid at the unknown assailant’s door. He was expecting to also see the dog that almost ripped his hand off during the encounter in Vietnam on the images provided by the hacker but didn’t. He didn’t have time to ponder on that—he had to get to his team in Paris.
To the hacker, he said, “That’s the man that attacked us. He’s still protecting her. Keep at it, and find out where they went from that café. I’m on my way to Paris shortly.”
Chapter 56
Paris, France
IT WAS ABOUT five hours later, when Kudry joined his team in Paris and learned that the targets had gone from the street café back to the Prime Minister’s residence and apparently had spent the night there.
Further footage revealed that it was early on the morning after the press conference, the day when Kudry had arrived in Paris, that a white PEUGEOT 308 station wagon had left the Prime Minister’s residence. The footage was clear enough to show two people in the vehicle, but it was impossible to recognize their faces.
After a couple of hours of footage had been analyzed, they had a direction of travel for this vehicle—southeast, toward Margot Lemaire’s ancestral home of Lyon. Kudry contacted his street team and told the four of them to fly to Lyon and rent an SUV when they get there, drive out to Bert’s farm, and set up a surveillance post until he could get there.
Kudry spent another two hours going over more footage with the hacker and gave him more instructions before making a phone call to a contact who owned a private jet with the request to be flown to Lyon right away. He named his price and Kudry accepted.
By the time this is over, I’m going to be broke, but at least I might still be alive.
An hour later, they were in the air, headed for Lyon.
Half an hour into the flight, he received a call from one of the team members in Lyon. They had landed, rented an SUV as instructed, and had established a surveillance post but ascertained that there was no sign of the PEUGEOT, Lemaire, or her mysterious protector.
Kudry had a strong urge to punch something, but the only thing in reach was the instrument panel. He reckoned if he punched that, one of two things would happen; the plane would crash, killing him, or the pilot would shoot him on landing.
Kudry called the hacker and gave him the news and new instructions. “Go back to the CCTV records. Check every intersection with a major highway from the last place you saw that car. Keep me posted.”
Soon the hacker had a different story to tell. It seemed that the car hadn’t turned south at the turnoff for Lyon after all. It had continued, and there was a record of it crossing the Swiss border at an unguarded checkpoint about twenty minutes from Geneva. He also gave Kudry the registration number of the PEUGEOT, which he had finally managed to capture from the security cameras at the border.
Kudry negotiated with the pilot to change the flight plan and take him to a private airstrip near Geneva. Six hundred Euros later, he phoned his team in Lyon and told them where to meet him.
***
Geneva, Switzerland
BY THE TIME Kudry had joined his team at the private airstrip in Geneva, and they were all in the SUV, the hacker had provided him with more details about the PEUGEOT. It was owned by a car rental company on the outskirts of Geneva. It was rented to one Rowan Donnelly, and the deposit had been paid in cash.
“Let’s pay a visit to the rental agency and find out a bit more about who rented this car,” one of his men suggested.
“No, you idiot, we’ll phone them.” Kudry castigated.
Swiss rental agencies aren’t as security-conscious as Swiss banks—all it took was a call in which Kudry claimed to be a traffic cop checking on the legitimacy of the rental involved in a minor accident. The clerk at the agency, on request from the ‘police officer’ she was talking to, was glad to give the name and address and cellphone number of the person who’d rented the car so that the ‘officer’ could double check it against the information given by the driver. Her only concern was whether there was major damage to their vehicle. She was delighted when she was told the other car had gotten the worst of it.
Chapter 57
Geneva, Switzerland
REX, DIGGER, AND M
argot had arrived back home two hours earlier. He’d sent her to rest while he took Digger for a run. When he returned, she was still sleeping, so he called Rehka and gave her a report of the happenings of the past few days. Then he started dinner.
He was about to call Margot to the table when he got a call on his regular cell phone. It was a local number. He answered.
“Mr. Donnelly, we have had a police report that you were involved in an accident in our vehicle. You were asked to report it, but we are about to close for the evening. Please bring the car in for inspection first thing tomorrow morning. We will exchange it for a different car while we make any needed repairs.”
Rex was instantaneously alarmed. A police report? “I’m afraid there’s been some mistake,” he answered. “I have not been involved in an accident.”
“Sir, please do not compound your failure to report with noncompliance. There was no mistake about the license plate number.”
Rex went on full alert. “Did the officer give you the make and model of the car?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“And when was this report made?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“Okay,” Rex said. “Thank you for the call. I will be in first thing in the morning.”
He ended the call. “Margot!” he called out. “We’ve got a problem.”
***
MARGOT WAS WIDE awake and had a concerned look on her face when she joined him in the kitchen.
Rex quickly explained to her about the phone call he just had and that the only people that came to mind were the Russians. They were the only ones who could still have an interest in Margot’s whereabouts. He had no doubt that the woman at the rental agency would’ve given the ‘police’ his mobile number and address. Although, the address he gave them was of a hotel in the city, they would quickly find out it was a ruse. All that was needed to track him down was his cellphone. If the woman was correct in her estimate that she received the call from the ‘police’ about half an hour ago the caller would’ve had enough time to pinpoint their exact position in less than five minutes. By now, Rex was convinced it was the Russians, and they could be outside the house already.
