“Well I have, so listen to me. Through the hills east of Latakia, through Masyaf, across Hama, down around Homs, and south through the northern suburbs of Damascus, blown to rubble by the regime but still full of rebels. The entire route could be crawling with roving terrorists and marauders, popping out at every turn. You probably won’t need all this ammo, but if you do, you’ll bloody well wish you had it.”
Court thought the guy was exaggerating, but the voice of his former CIA trainer slipped into his mind again, telling him there was virtually never such a thing as too much ammunition. Court scooped up three of the five mags, crammed them into pockets in his cargo pants, then lumbered for the door.
* * *
? ? ?
The convoy prepping to make the run to Damascus was a multinational affair. Court and Saunders were the only Westerners and the only foreign mercs in the group, but there were two nearly new GAZ light military transport trucks containing a dozen or so armed Russian soldiers, two Russian-made ZIL-131 Syrian Arab Army trucks with what appeared to be about twenty young infantrymen, and the four Desert Hawks Brigade soldiers who’d been caravanning along with Court and Saunders.
There was also a black Land Rover with three Arabs in civilian clothes. Court nodded towards the men and asked Saunders who they were.
Saunders himself gave them a curious eye. “Probably Mook.”
“Mook?” Court asked, although he knew.
“Mukhabarat. Syrian intel. I have a meeting with the Russians and Syrians at the lead vehicle. Maybe I’ll find out, but I’m not gonna ask about them. You stay here with the Hawks.”
Saunders went forward to talk to the leaders of each group represented, and he returned a few minutes later. “Right. Those blokes in suits are definitely Mook; they’ll be riding right in front of us in the middle of the formation. The SAA will take the front and the rear of the convoy. The two Russian trucks will travel together behind the lead vehicle. We leave in five mikes.”
Even though he wasn’t a security contractor, Court knew vehicle operations in high-threat areas better than most. “What’s our plan? If we come upon a downed vehicle, or a firefight going on in the road, do we assist?”
“Negative. You and me are being paid by the Hawks, so our job is to get down to the base in Babbila and do what we’re told. We aren’t being paid to fight it out with rebels along the highway. We’ll let some other poor bugger do that. If the Russians and the SAA don’t stop, we don’t stop. If they do stop . . . well, I will make the decision on whether we keep going or stick with the convoy.”
Court said, “Seven light vehicles, forty-five men, and one mounted machine gun might scare off a small unit of adversaries, but anything larger might see us as an opportunity.”
Saunders rolled his eyes. “Off the bleedin’ bird less than an hour and you’re tellin’ me how to roll, is that it, Wade?”
“Hey,” Court said. “You’re labor, just like me. Remember?”
Saunders spit on the dusty asphalt. “We won’t be the only vehicles on the road, so the trick is just to make ourselves a harder target than the other sons of bitches out there, so the bad guys shoot somebody else.”
“That’s our plan?”
Saunders donned his body armor, pulled his rifle out of the floorboard of the pickup, racked a round into the chamber, then checked to make sure the safety was engaged. “I told you, Wade. We’re gonna get shot at today. Might as well sit back and enjoy the lovely weather till it ’appens.” He headed around to the driver’s seat.
There was nothing Court could do but slip on his sunglasses, climb into the passenger side of the pickup, hold his old Kalashnikov at the ready, and begin scanning his sector.
It was going to be a long afternoon, he could feel it.
CHAPTER 28
French Judicial Police Captain Henri Sauvage drove south out of Paris in an early-afternoon rain shower. He had a lot on his mind, but he pushed it away as much as possible to focus on the task of the moment.
Ahead on his right, halfway through a wooded area that covered a square kilometer, a gravel driveway wound back into the woods. Sauvage didn’t slow his two-door Renault as he approached it, but he peered intently up the drive while passing, doing his best to take in every detail.
And when it was behind him he kept driving. Traffic was steady, and it occurred to him he might not find a place to turn around to head back for a while. Still, his job was not to go back; at least it wasn’t yet.
And he hoped like hell he wouldn’t be given that order by the Syrians who controlled him.
He took out his phone and placed a call. As soon as he heard the call go through, he spoke. “The gate is closed at the entrance. No one is in sight.”
“Good,” came the reply. A kilometer behind him, the Syrian asset he knew as Malik sat in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen Touran van, and he drove down the same road Sauvage drove on. Sauvage could hear him relay his message to the men in the vehicle with him in Arabic.
“What do I do now?” Sauvage asked into the phone.
“We’ll pass by the property in thirty seconds. Then we’ll meet you in Saint-Forget on the Rue de la Motte.”
Sauvage thought Malik’s French pronunciation was horrendous, but he didn’t say so. Still, he had done what was asked of him today, so the Frenchman did push back a little into the phone. “Why do you need me? I told you what I found out about the property, I led you here. Just let me go home.”
“Rue de la Motte. Ten minutes.” The phone call ended.
Henri Sauvage tossed his phone down into the passenger seat and shouted curses to himself. He had gone to Foss’s funeral two hours earlier and would be attending Allard’s the following day. Andre Clement’s body had not yet turned up, but since Sauvage saw him die, he knew it wouldn’t be long at all before he’d be going to his partner’s funeral, as well. And as bad as Sauvage’s mood was now, he figured by the time he hugged Clement’s children at his graveside, he’d be ready to kill himself for everything he’d gotten his friend involved with.
The thought of saying to hell with it all and killing himself, thereby outsmarting Eric and the Syrians manipulating him, did have a moment’s appeal to him. But then he thought better of it. No . . . he wasn’t going to kill himself. He was going to be a good little bitch for Eric; he would do what he was told, make his money, and then take his family and get the fuck out of here.
The best revenge was a life well lived, and he told himself he owed it to his dead friends to enjoy himself on their behalf. He was being paid a lot of money to find Bianca Medina, and he was reasonably certain he had done just that.
He’d spend it well.
* * *
? ? ?
Ten minutes later, Sauvage leaned against the hood of his car parked at a flower market in the town of Saint-Forget. The Volkswagen van pulled up and the sliding back door opened.
Sauvage just stood there. “Non. I’m not getting back in that van.”
Malik rolled his eyes. “Of course you are, man, because if you don’t, we shoot you right now.”
He heard the shick-shick sound of a pistol’s slide being racked in the darkness of the van, and his fantasy of retaining some control over his life melted away in an instant.
Sauvage climbed into the vehicle.
The van pulled out of the flower market parking lot and Sauvage sat on the bare floor against the wall, facing two of Malik’s men. The plastic tarp had been removed, which should have made Sauvage feel better, but he figured these men would shoot him and just hose out the back if it came down to it.
Malik himself climbed out of the passenger seat and into the back, squatting down in front of the French police captain. “Tell me how you know the woman is being held at that property.”
“Everyone has been looking for the Halabys since my colleagues were found dead in their flat. A team at La Crim has spent a hundred man-hours watching videos of the Free Syria Exile Union, and they have identified thirteen key members of the outfit. They tracked the phones of all these men and women, and physically surveilled some of them, but so far they haven’t found any connection to here.”
“So?”
“I did find a connection. I expanded my search to family members of the Halabys. A nephew of Rima was geotracked to this estate last night, and he is still inside. I arrived here at five thirty this morning, and shortly after seven a.m., a European man in his sixties pulled in. I took a photo of him, blew it up so I could see it, and determined I was looking at Vincent Voland, former intelligence official and currently employed by the Halabys.”
Malik was impressed. “So . . . he’s in there right now?”
“Yes. Along with two men who look very much like Syrians. Not the nephew I’d originally targeted, so apparently there are more people in that house.”
“What do you know about the residence?”
“I know nothing, which means I know a lot.”
“Elaborate.”
“The property is registered to a shell corporation in the Cook Islands. Any research into the ownership, who is living there, what goes on there, just dead-ends.”