He shrugged. Despondent now.
She leaned forward to him with a conspiratorial look. “We’re in this together, Sebastian. We need to find a way to get rid of Bianca.”
The Swiss man looked at her like she was crazy. “How does that help you? If you kill his lover, you think that will make you safe?”
“He can’t know I did it, but once she’s gone, then I’ll be secure. You don’t know Ahmed. He is in love with this girl. Foolish, reckless love. He is too insulated now to ever find anyone else. The Russians want stability in his regime, and that means me in the palace, smoothing things over with the Sunnis. Ahmed will fight the Russians over his infatuation with that Spanish bitch, but he won’t go back to the drawing board if something happens to her.”
Drexler, resigned to his fate, began working for Shakira Azzam. But try as he might, he was not able to discover the location of the child. Bianca owned a home in Mezzeh 86, directly south of the palace, but it was locked and darkened now. Wherever she and her child were being kept, it was likely someplace ultra secret Azzam had set up for her.
And for Shakira’s part, she knew she could never kill Medina in Syria. Ahmed would learn of her involvement, and that would spell disaster for her. But when Drexler found out that Ahmed Azzam’s lover would be traveling to France, he helped Shakira concoct a scheme to co-opt ISIS into killing her, by framing her as the concubine of the emir of Kuwait, sworn enemies of the Islamic State.
* * *
? ? ?
Drexler had been sitting in his palace office, brooding over the events of the past two years, when the encrypted voice app on his mobile phone rang. He snatched it up, although he knew what he would hear.
“Oui?”
As expected, it was Henri Sauvage on the other line. “Eric? Something’s happened.”
Drexler listened to the police captain for several minutes without reply as he reported the deaths of Allard and Foss.
Sauvage closed his report by saying, “No video of the incident, but the police officers on the scene say this man, this American . . . he’s something else.”
“Keep working on finding Medina,” Drexler instructed.
“Dammit, man! This is big. Two of my men are dead, and French intelligence is working with the FSEU!”
“Wait. French intelligence? What do you mean by that?”
“A guy was rooting around the Thirty-Six this afternoon, asking questions about Foss and Allard. I didn’t know who he was, but my superiors gave him the run of the place. After he left I found out he was a recently retired internal security spook.”
“Name?” Drexler asked.
“Guys like that don’t drop names, Eric.”
Drexler thought a moment. “Answer me this. Was he midsixties, short with wavy silver hair, a faux highborn act but chewed fingernails?”
A pause. “You know him?”
“His name is Vincent Voland. I’ve never met him . . . but I know him well.”
“Listen,” Sauvage replied. “I didn’t sign on for street battles and dead cops and old spymasters rooting around my office. I don’t want any part of any of this anymore.”
Neither did Drexler. But although he found himself sympathetic to Sauvage’s sentiment, he knew he needed the man’s compliance.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Henri, and we both know why.” Just as Shakira had something on Drexler that she could use to doom him, Drexler had something on Sauvage. Evidence of all the crimes he’d committed on Syria’s behalf. The little stuff at first, the bigger stuff in the middle . . . and then the events of the past twenty-four hours.
No . . . Drexler knew Sauvage was in his back pocket. The Swiss agent said, “I’m coming up. Find Bianca Medina before I get there.”
“But—”
Drexler hung up the phone. Just then his assistant spoke over the speakerphone on his desk.
“Mr. Drexler?”
“Yes?”
“Sir . . . the president’s office called. President Azzam would like to speak with you privately this evening. Eleven p.m. in his office.”
Although his heart began hammering inside his chest, for the first time that day, Sebastian Drexler smiled.
CHAPTER 19
Sixty-five-year-old Vincent Voland breathed the vapor of the rainy evening, walking alone along the wet cobblestones as he approached the lighted sign of Tentazioni, an intimate Italian restaurant at the top of a steep and narrow lane in Montmartre. The restaurant was nearly empty at ten p.m., but tonight’s meeting was set for this venue, at this time.
Tarek Halaby had called Voland just after his and his wife’s encounter with the two Police Judiciaire officers working for Syrian interests. He’d explained how the American had shown up minutes before the attack, then again during the attack, and about how he’d saved them both. Tarek then demanded a face-to-face meeting tonight, leaving it to Voland to determine the time and the place, and the Frenchman had picked this restaurant because of its small size, the visibility afforded by its windows, and its intimate atmosphere.
Voland knew Tentazioni well; he would sense immediately if anyone here did not belong, and he could then simply snake off down one of the nearby side streets and alleys and disappear.
The Halabys themselves weren’t particularly safe in Paris now, but Voland felt this locale would be quiet enough where they could get in and get out without encountering police or other interested parties.
The silver-haired Frenchman stopped in a wide patch of misty darkness, just down the Rue Lepic from the restaurant, far enough from the lights and tourists of the Sacré-Coeur up the hill to the east. As he stood there he looked into the windows of the little Italian eatery. There were just a few tables occupied, but Voland did not see either of the Halabys yet.
This surprised him. The Syrian couple knew next to nothing about tradecraft, so he didn’t give them credit for the play of showing up late for a meet to scout the location from afar.
He backed into the darkness along the sidewalk next to a simple storefront undergoing construction and looked down to his phone to dial Tarek on a secure voice app. But just as he lit up the screen, he felt the cold tip of a pistol’s suppressor touch him at the base of his skull. He flinched, then immediately froze, afraid to make any movement that would cause the person at the other end of the weapon to pull the trigger.
He spoke softly in the dark, still afraid to alarm whoever had a gun to his neck. Softly he said, “D’ou vien-vous?” Where did you come from?
The reply was delivered in English. “From somewhere in your past.”
Voland closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the fear, because he understood instantly what was happening. The Gray Man had him at gunpoint and, perhaps even more importantly, the Gray Man had him figured out.
He responded softly, lest he excite the man who held his life in his hands. “The Halabys told you how to find me?”
“They owed me a favor.”
“Oui . . . they certainly did. I heard about what you did to earn that favor. Two dead PJ investigators. By your hand, I assume?”
“My hand? No. By the weapon pressed against your spine.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Let’s go.”
“Where are we go—”
A rough hand grabbed Voland by the shoulder and yanked him backwards.
* * *
? ? ?
Court directed the man off the street and into the old building undergoing remodeling. Here he pushed Voland up to a wall that smelled like fresh plaster and stale rainwater, and he fished through the man’s raincoat. He pulled out his wallet while keeping the man pinned to the wall with the pistol pressed hard against his forehead.
As he fumbled with the wallet, he said, “I probably don’t need to tell you that I can pull the trigger before you can grab the gun.”
“Non, monsieur, you do not need to tell me a thing about your abilities.”
Court looked into the man’s eyes at this, then went back to his work. He one-handed the wallet open and held it close to his face so he could read it in the golden glow of filtered streetlight. “Vincent Voland. That’s your real name?”
“It is. I thought you knew who I was.”
“Only in the general sense. You are French intelligence, you think you know something about me, and you hired me through my cutout in Monte Carlo because, in your estimation, I was the only guy out there who could have pulled off last night while those ISIS shitheads were attacking.”
“I am not French intelligence, currently. But I was.”
“And what do you do now, Monsieur Voland?”
“I am a private consultant.”
“Yeah?” Court leaned close, menacing. “Well, I’d say I’m in need of some consultation right about now.”
The older man was nervous—Court could see the tells even in the low light—but Voland affected a little smile. “I am not currently seeking new clients.”
“Too busy leading Rima and Tarek to their deaths?”