One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  “Shall we get them off?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The refugees!”

  Flynn looked at the bus and then at Elyse. She wore loose olive trousers and a heavy coat.

  “No,” he said. “They’re coming with us.”

  “What are you talking about? I thought you brought them here to rescue them.”

  “We need them, Elyse. Without them, we don’t get into the detention compound.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious. Right now they are legitimate refugees. That might not be great, but if they run, then they’ll just be illegal. They’ll get sent home, for sure. You know that’s true.”

  “So we’re going to send them into the very place I can’t even get access to? How does that help.”

  “It helps because you’re going with them.”

  Elyse’s mouth dropped open and she glanced at the bus and then back at Flynn.

  “How?”

  “You’re going to get on the bus with them. And I’m going to drive you right in.”

  “You don’t think they know who’s coming?”

  “I’m sure they know how many. But the bus is short one girl, remember?”

  Elyse hesitated. Thinking it through. Flynn could see her eyes moving as she processed all the scenarios. Except she couldn’t process all the scenarios because even a supercomputer couldn’t do that. It wasn’t possible to process the unknown. And there was plenty left unknown. But there was also plenty Flynn knew. And more he would learn.

  “That might work,” Elyse said.

  “You need to get a headscarf,” Flynn said. “To look the part.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “I bet someone in there does.” Flynn turned to the barn already holding Syrian refugees. Elyse nodded and ran.

  Flynn slipped into the baggage hold and grabbed hold of the spare tire. It was heavy and covered in dust. He pulled at it, centimeter by centimeter, then he got a handhold on the wheel itself, and he pulled harder. Once he had it half out he started spinning it around one way and then the other, until it reached the tipping point and gravity took control, and the tire fell out of the hold and onto the ground. Flynn kept the tire upright and wheeled it into the barn.

  When he came back out he slammed the hatch door closed again. As he did, he heard an engine and turned to see the minivan pulling into the driveway. Gorski pulled forward of the bus and skidded to a stop beside the farmhouse.

  “Everything okay?” asked Flynn.

  “No problems,” said Gorski.

  “And the guys?”

  “They won’t be a problem, either.”

  Gorski told Flynn the little he knew, about the buyer and and the choosing or the not choosing.

  “And they said they brought the girls back here with the others if they didn’t get chosen?” asked Flynn.

  “What do your people say? No autopsy, no foul?”

  “I grew up mostly in Belgium. No one said that. But what happened if the girl got chosen?”

  “She fly. That’s what he said. She fly.”

  “Fly where?”

  “I don’t know, and the guy’s English wasn’t that great.”

  “They spoke English?”

  “Better than his French. They were Russians.”

  “Were?”

  Gorski took Flynn’s eye. “Were. Now what?”

  Flynn said nothing. He thought. About actions taken or not taken. And his years in command had taught him that the middle of an operation was not the time for post mission analysis. What he focused on was the word fly. And then he thought about the entry point at the detention center. And the vehicles that arrived. A bus and a van. The same day but never together.

  “We’re taking them in, you and me. To get Elyse in. We leave, she stays. She needs time to see the inside.”

  “And then?”

  “We go back and get her.”

  “Two incursions? Not optimal.”

  “Nothing ever is.”

  “And not easy.”

  “But not hard,” said Flynn.

  “What about the girl,” Gorski said, nodding at the minivan.

  “She stays here for now. With the others. The numbers have to match.”

  Elyse returned wearing a scarf in the traditional Syrian style. Gorski took her to the minivan and together they collected the young girl. They walked past Flynn as they took her to the barn housing the hidden refugees. He stopped in his tracks.

  She was beautiful. That wasn’t even the word. She was stunning. Frightened and confused and stunning despite it all. Dark hair fell over strong cheeks, and her eyes were the piercing blue of alpine lakes. Her skin was flawless and radiant. She was going to become an incredibly attractive woman. But right now, she was a girl. A very pretty girl, but a girl, nevertheless. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

  Flynn watched Elyse lead her away and he saw Gorski nodding to him. I know, he was saying. I know.

  He brushed the girl’s face from his mind and pulled out his Glauca B1 knife. Flicked it open and strode to the rear of the bus and slashed at the tire. The knife was sharp enough to pierce the body of a car, but the vulcanized rubber was tougher going. He slashed again and again, working up a steam until finally he plunged the knife deep into the rubber, and then pulled it out and heard the same hiss.

  “Working something out there?” asked Gorski.

  Flynn stood and wiped his brow. “Maybe. Just part of the plan.”

  When Elyse returned, Monsieur Betesh was with her.

  “Monsiuer Betesh has an offer,” she said.

  “A request,” said Betesh.

  “What is it, monsieur?” asked Flynn.

  “You are going inside, aren’t you?”

  “We’re going to try.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “Monsieur Betesh, I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  “Monsieur Flynn, my wife and daughter are in that facility. And I can help you. These are my people. Very few of them speak French. I can speak for them.”

  Flynn considered the idea. He didn’t need a translator. Both he and Gorski spoke passable Arabic. But the man was correct that they were his people. And his family. Flynn would have done the same. Nothing less.

  “What if your family don’t turn out to be there?”

  “Then I lose nothing. But I know they are there. I know it in my heart. Please, monsieur. I beg you.”

  “All right, monsieur. We’ll take you in.”

  Betesh bowed with his palms together. “Bless you, monsieur. My family is in your debt.”

  Flynn told Gorski to find the passenger manifest on the bus and see if there was a single male they could swap out for Betesh. Then he took Elyse into the barn and showed her a small box that he had taken from his pack.

  “They’ll search you when we get in, I’m sure of it. But I’ll get this to you.” He showed her what to do and she thanked him. Flynn then removed everything he didn’t need from his pack, and left the items on his cot in the barn. He and Elyse then walked out and he opened the door to the bus, and she stepped up inside. She stood to allow a man to pass by her as he disembarked. Then she pulled the scarf across her face and moved the along the aisle until she found a seat. No one said a word. They looked nervous and unsure. At least she would look the part in that regard.

  Monsieur Betesh got on board and took the other man’s place, and Gorski took the man back to the other refugees in the barn. Flynn got back into the bus and took the driver’s seat. He fired up the engine and waited. When Gorski came out he got into Elyse’s rental and drove out first. Then Flynn headed out of the driveway and pulled away toward Saint-Suliac-de-Bugey.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Flynn slowed the bus in front of the refugee detention center. The damaged tire gave up its thumping as the bus slowed, but because Flynn hadn’t damaged the front tires, the steering held firm.

  A candy-stripe
d boom gate lay across the entrance. A uniformed man in the gatehouse slid his window open so Flynn did the same, and looked down at the man.

  “Who are you?”

  “Beaumont,” said Flynn, thinking of Jean Loup’s college buddy.

  “Where’s Canard?”

  Flynn smiled. He had checked the ID of the bus drivers. One was called Canard. “Food poisoning.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Maybe it’s code for hangover.”

  The guard grinned and shook his head, and then he hit a button inside his gatehouse and the boom gate raised. Flynn pressed the accelerator and moved slowly forward. Built into the bitumen under the boom was a set of dragon’s teeth, designed to rip his tires to shreds if he tried to drive across them the wrong way. Forward was the right way. He crept over them and then stopped short of a tall wire gate with another set of dragon’s teeth, this time pointing straight at his three good tires. In his side mirror he saw the boom gate drop back down.

  Now they were committed.

  Another gatehouse window opened and another guard spoke to him. He had the same conversation about food poisoning and hangovers and got the same grin. Maybe Canard was some kind of alcoholic after all. The guard asked for the passenger manifest and Flynn handed it over, and the guard checked it and then handed it to another guy who stepped out of the gatehouse and strode across the front of the bus. Flynn hit the button and the door opened and the guard stepped up into the bus.

  He looked like a rent-a-cop. Too skinny to be of any real value in a fight, but okay to operate a radio and call for help. He had attached the manifest to a clipboard, and he looked down the aisle of the bus with barely masked hostility. Then he glanced at Gorski, who had gotten on the bus just short of the center and was sitting in the front row.

  “Where’s Flavet?” asked the guard.

  “Who the hell’s Flavet?” said Gorski.

  “The guy you’re standing in for.”

  “I’m here for Trubisky,” Gorski replied, using the name Flynn had given him from the co-driver’s ID.

  The guy frowned and then nodded. He looked at his clipboard and then back at Gorski.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere before,” said the guard.

  Flynn gripped the wheel tight. It was the first flaw in the plan. Probably the first of many. Winning battles was very much about planning and strategy, but it was more about planning what to do when the strategy went out the window. Flynn and Gorski had been to the village. On a Sunday and a Monday. Plus a walk around with Elyse. That made three times. Three opportunities for someone who lived in the village but worked at the detention center to see them and remember them. And then there was Elyse. She was known there. Known to be a journalist, and shunned because of it. Flynn felt the plan unraveling.

  “Of course you’ve seen me before,” said Gorski. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to fill in for Trubisky.”

  The guard raised an eyebrow but nothing more, and then he moved into the aisle. He didn’t take roll call. These people didn’t speak a word of French, and he wouldn’t have known a positive response in their guttural language if he heard it. Instead he counted the men, and he counted the women, and then he counted the boys and then the girls. He wandered back to Gorski.

  “The numbers add up,” said the guard.

  “No kidding.”

  “Siminov didn’t take anyone?”

  “Who the hell is Siminov?” asked Gorski. “Is there something wrong with your memory?”

  “Petrov, then.”

  “Petrov didn’t show.”

  “He didn’t show?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “How long did you wait?” asked the guard.

  “We don’t wait. He’s there or he’s not there. Not my problem.”

  “The buyer’s people won’t like that.”

  “Hey, you see anyone on here they’d really want anyway?”

  The guard swept his eyes across the passengers and shook his head.

  “Let’s check below,” he said.

  Gorski got down and opened the hatches to the baggage hold and waited while the guard pushed the duffels and garbage bags around looking for who-knew-what. Then he nodded and Gorski closed the hatches and they both got back on board.

  “Pull forward,” he said, and he held onto a chrome bar for stability. The dragon’s teeth dropped into the asphalt and the tall gate slid open and Flynn moved forward.

  Now they were in a large courtyard. There was enough room to turn the bus around but nothing extra. Ahead was a large building. It looked like an administrative facility and it was the entire width of the compound, save a couple of meters of space to the walls on either side.

  The guard on the bus stepped down into the courtyard and was replaced by another guard who stood at the front of the bus and spoke to the passengers in Arabic.

  “Welcome to Camp Ambérieu. This will be your home for the next little while as your application for asylum is processed by the French Government. If you will follow me off the bus, we will get you oriented.”

  The man waved his hand for the passengers to follow, and he stepped down into the courtyard as they began getting up. Monsieur Betesh stood first. Then the other men followed. All the women waited. Betesh didn’t look at Flynn or Gorski as he stepped down. Once the men were off the bus, the women began standing, holding the hands of the children. Elyse stayed in the middle of the group, and like Betesh, made no eye contact with either Flynn or Gorski.

  The Arabic-speaking guard began telling the new arrivals about the procedure, about the rooms and activities they could do. He made it sound like holiday camp. Free French lessons, free medical care. A television and games room. He didn’t mention internet access. Flynn stopped listening when the guard who had first gotten on the bus stepped over.

  “As soon as they move inside you can turn around and go.”

  “We have a problem,” said Flynn. He stepped down from the bus and directed the guard to the tire that had been shredded on the drive over from the farm.

  “You can fit the spare and then go.”

  “We tried that already. The spare isn’t any better. We can get another tire in, but not this late in the day.”

  The guard looked frustrated. He was used to a process. Do this, then this, and then that. Variation from the process raised his blood pressure. Flynn had plenty of experience with people like that. When presented with a problem, what they really wanted was a solution. So Flynn found that the best way forward was to provide them with one.

  “We can pull it out of the way and come back tomorrow with a spare. What’s through that gate over there?”

  “The service area. You can’t get in the way of the deliveries.”

  “You expecting a delivery tonight?” Flynn suspected not. The villagers had no doubt delivered all the extra provisions that morning.

  The guard sighed and nodded. “Go on.”

  Flynn and Gorski pulled all the duffels and garbage bags out of the baggage hold, and lined them up for the refugees to collect. They didn’t collect them. A man dressed like a janitor came out with a large cart and filled it with their belongings, and then dragged the cart through a service door. The passengers went in through the main door of the facility.

  After the courtyard had emptied Flynn pulled the bus across the space and through the gate that the guard held open. He stopped in a tight yard not much wider than the bus. A white door with a keycard entry led into the building on one side. On the other side was the external wall to the complex. Flynn grabbed his pack and stepped down and locked the bus. He handed the keys to the guard as he came out of the gate.

  “You want to hold these, in case you need to move it?”

  The guard took the keys and said he would leave them in the gatehouse.

  “Is there somewhere we can wash up?”

  “Wash up?” asked the guard. “You don’t wash up here.”

  “Not normally,” said Flynn. “Nor
mally we leave on our bus and drive somewhere to do it. But our bus is dead in the water, so to speak. Come on, we’ve been driving for twenty-four hours straight.”

  The guard looked at Flynn and then at Gorski. Flynn was confident the guard could see the fatigue in their faces. After all, it was real. The guard finally shrugged as if life was too hard, and led them into the building.

  Inside the lobby looked like a mid-level business hotel, taupe walls and wood accents. The floor was the giveaway. It was linoleum. The refugees had been processed through a metal detector and were now sitting in the lobby as they waited to be checked over by a medical professional. Flynn noticed three doors with wire mesh embedded in the glass off the main lobby. They were closed but appeared to lead into corridors of what looked like hotel rooms.

  The guard bypassed the metal detector and hit a buzzer. A door opened and the guard led Flynn and Gorski into a small room off the lobby. This room was more like the reception area in a police station—a large desk with a small woman peering over the top, a line of plastic chairs against the walls.

  “She’ll just check your bag,” said the guard. “You have phones?”

  “In the bag,” said Flynn.

  Flynn tossed his pack up onto the desk and the woman frowned at him and then looked through it. She pulled out his flip phone and held it up like an archeologist holding an ancient artifact.

  “They still make those things?” asked the guard.

  The woman raised her eyebrows and put the phone on the desk.

  “You can get that back when you leave. What’s this?” She held up another electronic item.

  “It’s an iPod.”

  “Camera?”

  “No, it’s just plays music.”

  “Phone?”

  “No. Music. That’s it.”

  She tossed the iPod back in the pack and then looked at Gorski.

  “You?”

  Gorski handed her his burner phone. “No bag.”

  “Well this isn’t a resort. There’s paper towels in the bathroom but no robes and slippers.”

  The guard led them through another corridor past a locker room and then he stopped.