Death and Conspiracy

by Seeley James

  After the shock that I knew his name wore off, he tucked a card in my pocket and pushed me out of his ambulance.

  The king-guy stood directly in front of me. The short, bald guy kept back a yard, his piercing eyes never leaving mine. Pavard’s officers kept a loose circle around us, as much to keep the press and onlookers away as to keep me from running.

  “You are in France for what purpose?” the king-guy asked.

  “To kill bad guys,” I said.

  “You are going to IDC, yes?” the Hugo asked.

  “Sorry, Hugo, I don’t know what IDC means.” I stole another glance at the Café de la Mairie. No Jenny.

  He ignored my use of his name. “You have been in contact with IBÖ?”

  He and the bald guy leaned in forming a tight triangle with me.

  I said, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Come now, Mr. Stearne. We know you are connected with Identitäre Bewegung Österreich.”

  “That German or something?”

  “Austrian. Perhaps you know them in English as Identitarian Movement Austria.”

  I tossed my hands up. “You looked me up. You know my record. You’ve reviewed the church video, which means you know I saved fifty lives in there.” I pointed at the cathedral. “You’re testing me for some reason. Why not just talk to me?”

  The bald guy turned away to hide a smile growing across his face.

  “I am asking questions,” Hugo said in a commanding voice. “You are answering. Are you contacting Free Origins, Birth Right, or Fair Heritage while you are in Paris?”

  “I’m done answering questions.” I used my commanding voice. “I want a lawyer.”

  Uh. Dude. Mercury leaned around the Frenchman. This is France, not the USA. There is no ‘I wanna lawyer’ trick. They can question you for three days before giving you food and water. And this guy is ready to go there.

  “You are working for Sabel Security, yes?” Hugo asked. He and his sidekick backed up a step, giving us all a little air.

  “I’m on vacation,” I answered.

  “And you are the specialist of security for Pia Sabel, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she sends you to Europe for the Identity Defense Conference, oui?” His slip into French indicated his annoyance with my reluctant answers.

  “No.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned back. “Do enlighten me, Mr. Stearne. Why did Ms. Sabel send her chief of operations special to Paris?”

  His accent was getting thicker. He pronounced special as spess-ee-ahl and Paris as Par-ee. Must have been very annoyed with me.

  “She liked how I handled a recent operation and gifted me a little romantic getaway with my girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?” His eyes narrowed. “Her name is …?”

  “Jenny Jenkins.” I scanned the café for her again. No Jenny. I sighed.

  “Jenny Jenkins? A most familiar name.” Hugo looked pensive and scratched his chin. Then he wagged his finger at me. “Ah. The recent controversy of the American president? She murdered a man, oui? She is the woman pardoned under questionable circumstances. This Jenny Jenkins?”

  “Yeah.” I ran my fingers through my hair. It didn’t feel good when people brought up her past. I mean, ever since she stuck a pistol in a guy’s eye socket and pulled the trigger, everybody thinks she’s gone bad.

  Hugo turned to the bald guy, who shrugged.

  “Look, if you’re not going to give me a medal, then I’m outta here.”

  I hooked a finger in my jacket and tossed it over my shoulder. With a push off my back foot, I started forward.

  And stepped directly into Hugo’s hand.

  “Why do you make assumptions that we have reviewed your record?” he asked.

  “You’re a high-ranking GIGN officer, or something close to it. You brought a CIA guy from the embassy with you.” I gave the bald guy a nod; he scowled right back at me. “You have the video on that tablet in your hand. You offered to show Pavard, but he refused to question you because of your rank. Pavard had me released right away. That means you know what went down in the church. If I cared, I’d ask about your interest in all those things you asked me about. But I don’t. So, may I go—sir?”

  Hugo stared at me, still pressing his hand in my chest while he thought about what I’d said. “How do you know Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale, GIGN?”

  “You guys handle terrorist attacks like this one and the intelligence on the groups that sponsor them,” I said to impress him. It didn’t work. He waited for an answer to his question. “We studied your handling of the Air France 8969 hijacking in Ranger School. Takes some balls to mount an operation like that and stick the landing.”

  Confusion twisted Hugo’s face. He turned to the bald guy and said something in French. The bald guy answered him in flawless French. Hugo faced me again.

  “Ah, ‘stick the landing’ is a good thing.” He gave me the faintest smile of all time. “We are releasing you into the custody of your embassy representative. You are not to leave Paris until our investigation is complete.”

  “What?” My voice goes high when I’m pissed. “Turning me over to the CIA instead of thanking me? What is this?”

  “This—” he moved his hand to my shoulder and squeezed the way my dad does when he’s proud of me “—is a favor you will do for France. And it is your only alternative to being Pavard’s guest for several days. Your embassy’s representative will explain.”

  With a more genuine smile and a twinkle in his eye, he walked away, leaving me face-to-face with a pissed-off bald guy.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’m Zack Ames, agricultural attaché for the Foreign Agriculture Service.” He put out a hand while trying to drill a hole in my head with his gaze.

  “Agriculture? Really?” I looked at his hand without reciprocating. His name brought a memory of him back to the surface. Even though we’d never met, I knew about Zack Ames. “You’re CIA. Why are you here?”

  He tightened up his eyes and mouth and spoke through clenched teeth. “Agricultural attaché.”

  “Sticking with it, huh? OK, test question. I take the corn head off my combine and put on the draper. Why?” I leaned over him. At six-one, I had enough height to cast a shadow on his face. The physical menace didn’t intimidate him in the least.

  But the question did. He stammered.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” I said. “It’s late September when I change the heads.”

  He stuttered but couldn’t come up with anything.

  “Time’s up.” I stuck a finger in his chest and pushed him back a step. “Corn heads are used to harvest corn. Drapers are used for wheat. If you’d ever set foot on a farm, you’d know that. Agricultural attaché, my ass. You analyze terrorist threats as a liaison to the GIGN. You knew this shooting was about to happen, and were supposed to stop it, but you blew it.”

  “What makes you say that?” His face betrayed him. I’d nailed it.

  “Not ready to level with me? Want to debate Case versus Deere?” I waited while he considered bluffing his way through. “They’re the Chevy and Ford of farm equipment.”

  “Look.” Ames huffed and glanced away. “Your record’s impressive. You’ve got a Distinguished Service Cross and a bunch of Bronze Stars from your time with the Rangers, so I’m going to tell you the truth. But this goes nowhere. Nowhere. Not to Pia Sabel. Not even Jenny Jenkins. Got me?”

  I glanced at the café. My waiter stood by my table, looking at the things I’d left behind. “Talk to me while we walk.”

  “Wait a second.” He lifted his chin as if daring me to punch him. “You’re in my custody. We’re going where I want.”

  “You want a cup of coffee, Zack.” I crossed the street. My memory of Zack Ames returned to me in bits and pieces until I stitched it all together.

  “First, you have to level with me.” He trotted to catch up. “Have you heard of the Identitarian Movement?”

>   “No.” I waved to the waiter. He spotted me and smiled.

  Ames stopped talking as we neared my old table. I ordered coffees and croissants for both of us. God only knows how the French live on a single pastry for breakfast. Maybe that’s why they’re all thin. I looked around. No one nearby had a belly hanging over their belt. Huh.

  I sat down and checked my phone. Nothing from Jenny.

  I looked at Ames. “Tell me about this identity thing, or I jump bail on you.”

  There was a text from Ms. Sabel. She asked what happened. It was five in the morning back in Washington, DC. I guessed her life-long insomnia had not improved in my absence. Her sixth sense for trouble hadn’t dulled, either. I texted back about taking down a couple terrorists before breakfast. I put the phone down and rolled my hand for the short guy to start talking.

  Zack Ames said, “There are a bunch of small, right-wing political parties in the European Union. They’ve been moving ever further to the right over the last three to four years. They’re xenophobes who want to retreat into a Balkanized economy circa 1912. Brexit is the mainstream version. All of that is just political opinion, neither right nor wrong.

  “But a more sinister side developed around the immigration issue. There are legitimate arguments one can make about immigration based on how many new people a society can absorb. Racist views often creep into the arguments. Anti-immigration is not automatically racist. It’s often a concern about unemployment rates and financial burden. But the controversy gives cover to the more vehement racists. Some splinter groups gave up on democracy and openly advocate violence. The political parties distanced themselves from the violent factions a while back, stranding and isolating the outliers.

  “Not long ago, some of the more radical groups reached out to each other. But it’s been a shaky marriage because they hate everyone. The Greek splinter groups denigrated the Jews, Muslims, Asians, Blacks, and Italians. The Italians hate the same groups and include the French. The French include the Germans, and the Germans include the Spanish. And so it goes. About a year ago, they realized there was strength in a united front. They decided to form a union. The irony that they were advocating leaving the EU to form an EU of their own was lost on them.”

  “Idiots are a dime a dozen,” I said. “How’s that my problem?”

  “I’m getting to that.” Zack looked around to check for eavesdroppers.

  When he was satisfied, he said, “The danger began when they banded together to advocate violence against their common enemies. They attracted donations and amassed a significant fund from wealthy backers. A large meeting of the leaders and activists took place last year in Kraków. People came from all over the world. One guy left the meeting and shot up a synagogue. Another guy left and defaced a mosque.”

  “Sounds like some guys who need to be in jail. What’s Europol doing about it?”

  “They don’t have anything actionable.” Zack gave me an impatient glance. “Let me finish.”

  Our coffees and croissants arrived. Zack stopped talking while the waiter was near.

  When his idea of danger passed, Ames went on. “We didn’t get much intel on the meeting in Kraków. The new regime in Poland is not friendly to the US intel community. We know the Identitarians fought over strategy and split into three distinct groups. They were antagonistic toward each other. They fought in the streets and several young men were arrested. One attendee came to the authorities in Slovakia, disgusted with the more violent direction the groups were taking, and told them what was going on. But he’d left the sessions early and didn’t know the details. The Slovaks came to believe a large-scale attack had been planned at that meeting. They think it’s coming down soon. Maybe this month. Trouble is, we have no visibility into that community.”

  “You don’t know where to focus.” I finished my coffee. “Why do you believe the Slovaks?”

  “Because a large number of attendees went dark after Kraków.” Zack gave me a grave look. “Diego and Ace, the codenames used by the two guys you took down, were at that meeting. Those names won’t be released publicly. Keep them to yourself. After they left Poland, we tracked them for a while. Ace went back to his home in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Diego went back to Málaga, Spain. They dropped off the grid a couple weeks later. We think today was a test run for the main event. Ace and Diego are the tip of the iceberg. We think there’s an international group of radicalized racists out there hiding in plain sight. Ace and Diego weren’t the only ones to disappear last year—a total of sixty-eight of them from Kraków are smoke in the wind.”

  “You didn’t know these two guys left home until they resurfaced last week in Paris.” I put some jam on my croissant and took a big bite. Delicious.

  “Worse.” Zack sipped his coffee. “Facial recognition didn’t catch Ace until he reached Heathrow yesterday morning. He took the Chunnel to Paris in the afternoon. Diego showed up at Orly Airport about the same time.”

  “You knew they were in town. Why not arrest them?”

  “For what?” he asked. “We raised the alarm but didn’t know the target. And these guys were good. They arrived in Paris at rush hour, changed looks and clothes, walked in crowds with their heads down, and—”

  “You lost them quicker than Osama bin Laden.”

  “Hey, we found bin Laden.”

  “Ten years later.”

  He clenched his coffee mug and let out an angry breath. “What do you have against the Company, Stearne?”

  “Nine dead soldiers from botched intel.” I leaned in to make sure he felt my heat. “When you torture prisoners, they tell you whatever you want to hear. But that’s your problem. When you send men into battle based on your unconfirmed fiction, it becomes a crime.”

  He put his hands up in surrender and shook his head several times while he gathered the guts to reply. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  I leaned back. “Let’s pretend the Zack Ames I traced seven years ago was a different guy. You were never at the CIA’s Cat’s Eye prison in Thailand. You didn’t transfer to Cobalt prison in Afghanistan. You weren’t the Zack Ames who provided intelligence gleaned from torture for the Battle of Wanat in Nuristan. You’re a different guy. OK. Let’s play your game that way. What do you want from me, Zack?”

  He composed himself. Enough time had passed to justify his war crimes in his head. He could probably pass a polygraph. He sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “We need to find out where the other sixty-five radicals went.”

  I turned over his words for the real meaning. Tracking terrorists was his job. Killing them was Hugo’s. I came along and saw something going down. I acted. Right place, right time. Hugo and Ames benefitted from my actions. But. How did that bring me into Ames’s world?

  “Why does the CIA want me?” I asked. “Don’t you have your own guys for that kind of work?”

  “We’re in a tight spot.” He shook his head with exasperation. “The last administration blew a lot of relationships and devalued the Company. Lots of good people left. We’re low on personnel and low on international relationships. You have a Distinguished Service Cross, which speaks volumes about your qualifications. You’re our best hope, Jacob.”

  “Hope for what?” I asked.

  Zack drank his coffee.

  Mercury pulled up a chair and straddled it. You don’t get it, brutha? He wants you on the inside.

  “Holy shit … You want me to infiltrate these guys?”

  Ames said, “A soldier like you could get into their inner circle.”

  Mercury said, What could possibly go wrong with a CIA undercover operation? Think of the institutional brilliance they bring to the party: The Bay of Pigs, the Shah of Iran, Allende in Chile, Noriega in Panama, the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo …

  “How the hell would I get into their inner circle?” I asked.

  “There’s a conference coming up. The one Hugo mentioned, the Identity Defense Conference. All three suspected groups from Kraków will be
there along with a thousand ordinary European and American citizens. There are probably twenty splinter groups among them, but the big three are Free Origins, Birth Right, and Fair Heritage. One of those groups is the one we’re interested in; we just don’t know which one. Our intel leads us to believe they’re in dire need of expertise. You get to know a couple of the leaders and sweet-talk—”

  “Whoa!” I nearly fell off my stool. “Expertise? The only thing I’m good at is killing people. You want me to teach potential terrorists how to kill innocent women and children?”

  “You don’t need to actually teach them.” He swirled his coffee in the cup and drained it. “Just get close enough to find out which ones are simply racists and which ones are bent on violence. Hugo’s GIGN, acting with local authorities, will move in and take them all down. We need you to uncover three things: which group is planning it, who’s in charge, and who or what Ross Gio is.”

  “No.”

  “That’s not the answer we want, Jacob.”

  We glared at each other. I gave him my soldier-stare, the one soldiers get after they’ve been in combat so many times they’re not sure if they’re dead or alive—and they don’t care. Usually, it puts a little fear in people, causes them to back off. Not Ames. He’d experienced his share of high-tension events in the clandestine world and held my gaze. But after a minute, he folded. He dropped his eyes to his croissant.

  “We hoped you would sense the importance of this mission,” he said. “Hugo didn’t want to play hardball. I warned him it would come to this.”

  “What, you’re going to toss me in jail?”

  “Worse. Some of the parishioners at Saint-Sulpice had the wrong impression of your actions. You and I know what went down, but they saw an assault rifle in your hand and two dead men. The ones who think you’re the monster will be released shortly. They’ll be allowed to address the press if they want. The others will be detained for further questioning. The press will not be kind to you, Jacob. You might even lose your job.”

  Mercury said, Nice guy, this Zack Ames. You should kick his ass into the street and push him under the first truck that comes along. No. On second thought, grab a 9-mil off one of those cops across the road and shoot him.