One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  “I know the War Cross. In honor of those who fought with the allies, 1939-1945. You say the town won it?”

  “Oui, monsieur. You see, people forget. They want to believe that being paid well and having a nice car comes without cost. That freedom is free. It is not. Not then, not now, not ever.” The old man took a long, deep breath. “But you know this, oui?”

  Flynn nodded. “The refugees in your barn.”

  “The resistance lives on, monsieur. I hide those who would be persecuted for no other reason than they stand between evil men and their brass ring. They are not deserving of this because of where they were born. Today the armies march through Aleppo. Once upon a time they marched through Paris. So I do as Marcel Demia did for me and my family. Nothing more.”

  “And how does Jean Loup fit into this?”

  Pepard sighed. “Man is man. Once it was kings and kingdoms. Then it was nation states, presidents as kings. Now the corporation is king. They buy power and control. They dictate what you eat and where you live and how many jobs there are to go around. The news you watch and the healthcare you have access to. Like the kings of old, eventually they come to believe that their vision of the world is superior, as if they are gods. And we the people? We accept it. We are separated and lonely and unfulfilled but somehow we believe we are better off. And then the king offers us trinkets in return for our souls, and we think it the bargain of the century.”

  “Do you have any clue what is happening in his factory? In the refugee center?”

  “Monsieur, I am a simple farmer.”

  “Monsieur Pepard, you are the resistance.”

  The old man smiled for the first time, and then it was gone.

  “I am sure they will tell you it is for the good of France. But the king only does what is good for the nation when that action is also good for the king. And when it is not good for the king? Well, let them eat cake. Let me ask you Monsieur Flynn, if it is all so pure, why does he need to buy silence?”

  “Exactly my thinking.”

  “I tell you this. The Loup family has been in this area for three hundred years. I never met them and I never paid them any care. They had lives apart from mine, and that was fine with me. But now? He injects acid into the veins of my village. He forgets our past. He forgets with whom it is that he is dealing. It is time to remind him. What can I do for you?”

  “Right now. I need something from your freezer.” He told Pepard what he wanted. “And does that tractor in your shed go?”

  The old man took a plastic tub out of his freezer and placed it on the table. “She’s a temperamental old bird, but she runs.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Flynn arrived back at the refugee center on Monsieur Pepard’s old cherry red tractor. He pulled a small trailer that was nothing more than a wooden platform on wheels. On the trailer was the spare tire for the bus.

  “You can’t bring that in here,” said the guard at the boom gate.

  “You want to help me carry it?” said Gorski, who was perched on the side step of the tractor.

  “You can’t roll it?”

  “I can. I just can’t guarantee it will go in a straight line. If you don’t mind your little guard house getting smashed by an out of control bus tire them I’m okay with it.”

  The guard raised the boom gate, and the second guard opened the wire gate. Flynn drove the tractor across the courtyard such that it was diagonal across the space. Then he and Gorski pulled the big tire off the trailer and dropped it to the ground, and rolled it to the gate that led to the side service yard. They had to wait for a guard to come and unlock it, and then they rolled the tire inside. The guard closed the gate behind them and told them to call out when they were ready to leave.

  They changed the tire. It was harder and dirtier than they anticipated. They loosened the large lug nuts on the wheel and then used the hydraulic jack from the baggage hold to lift the bus up. Then they pulled the old tire off and put the new one on, and then tightened the nuts and dropped the jack back down. Both men were sweating by the time they finished despite the cold temperature. Flynn wiped his face with a sleeve and covered himself in grease. Then he called out to the courtyard.

  The guard ambled over, unlocked the gate and took a look at Flynn.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Those things are huge. You mind if I wash myself?”

  The guard looked around Flynn and saw Gorski putting the equipment back into the hold.

  “Him, too?”

  “No. I do all the hard work, you know?”

  The guard nodded like he knew. He let Flynn step through and then pushed the gate closed again. Then he took Flynn back in through the reception and into the room with the woman behind the desk. She asked about the phone and he said he left it in the bus, so the guard gave him a light pat down and opened the door to the corridor.

  “Don’t take too long, I don’t want to stand here all day.”

  Flynn pushed at the door to the bathroom. “I’ll find you outside, if you want. You’ll need to open the gate for us anyway.”

  The guard nodded like that was a better plan than standing outside the toilet like a loose end. He walked back toward the lobby.

  “Don’t take too long anyway.”

  “Quick as a flash.”

  Flynn ran inside and wiped his face with water and paper towel. He figured it wouldn’t look right if he came out just as dirty as he had been going in. Once his face was clean he opened the door and stuck his head out into the corridor. No one was there. He stepped across the corridor and gently opened the door to the cafeteria.

  The room wasn’t empty. There was a group of women at the far end, sitting in a circle, talking and laughing. Perhaps the single women, or the married women taking some time out while their husbands played with the kids. Flynn looked across the room to the door on the other side that led into the courtyard. Unlike the door he was behind, the courtyard door had glass in it. He had watched children play and men smoke through it. He looked through it now. Into the courtyard. He saw Elyse.

  And the guard who had her by the arm.

  Elyse saw Flynn as the guard pulled her away from the door. He pushed her up against the wall and then pulled her arm behind her back. Then he shoved her forward and marched her across the courtyard, away from Flynn.

  Flynn didn’t think about the fact that the plan had gone to hell. Getting out should have been easier than getting in. That had always been his working assumption. Now it just got a lot harder. That’s how plans were. He pulled a piece of plastic from his pocket. It was small tag that was attached to a goats ear for identification. He had pocketed a handful of them from the cabinet in Monsieur Pepard’s barn. Flynn slipped the tab across the strike plate so the door wouldn’t lock behind him. Then he closed the door and strode across the cafeteria toward the courtyard. As he moved he glanced at the food service area. Women were in there cleaning, but there weren’t paying any attention to the dining room. Flynn hit the courtyard door and pushed through. The men smoking in the courtyard turned to him with surprise, he suspected more at his pace than anything. He ran across the courtyard toward a door that was closing slowly on an automatic mechanism.

  He lunged and wedged his foot into the door and then pulled it open. The room inside looked like an infirmary. There was an examination table and a sink and a locked mini-fridge. Then a further door. Flynn pulled it open and found a short corridor about a quarter of the width of the infirmary room. The other three-quarters of the width was given over to small rooms, like isolation rooms.

  Or cells.

  The guard shoved someone inside one of the cells and then made to close the door behind them. He saw Flynn.

  “Who are you?”

  “What happened,” Flynn said. He spoke loud and firm as if he were in charge.

  “What? I’m calling it in,” the guard said, reaching for his radio.

  “Good, call it in.” Flynn spoke but he didn’t stop moving.
He was angled like he was going to look inside the cell but he moved dead straight at the guard.

  The guard pulled the radio from his hip and lifted it. He didn’t push the button to talk because he dropped the radio when Flynn punched him full on in the throat. The guard gasped and gagged all at once, and every system he had went into emergency mode as his trachea collapsed under Flynn’s massive impact.

  In one swift motion Flynn pulled the closing door open and swung the guard into the small space.

  “Move,” he told Elyse, and despite her surprise she did what he said. She stepped out of the cell and Flynn stepped in. He punched the guard again, this time in the face, his nose exploding like a ketchup bottle shot by a rifle round. The guard fell back onto the bed that was a mattress on a concrete base built into the wall. Flynn glanced around. Concrete, cinderblock, linoleum. Solid. Soundproof, to a point.

  Flynn pulled off the keycard clipped to the guard’s belt and strode out of the cell. He pushed the door closed, tested that it was locked, and then picked up the radio.

  “Let’s go,” he said, leading the way.

  “Is he okay?” Elyse asked as she ran behind Flynn.

  “He won’t be joining any choirs. What happened?”

  “He recognized me, from the village.”

  “Did he call it in?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Flynn moved into the infirmary and waited for Elyse to come through, and then he closed and locked the door. He stepped around her and checked the door out into the courtyard. The men were still there, smoking and looking in Flynn’s direction. But no guards.

  “Grab hold of my coat, don’t let go.”

  He dashed out into the courtyard and felt the tug of Elyse’s hand on his coat. As he reached the men, they parted, and one spoke in Arabic.

  “What do you think you are doing?”

  Flynn didn’t stop to answer. He kept moving toward the cafeteria. As he reached the door he saw the man appear from the side. He clenched his fist.

  “Monsieur Flynn,” said the man.

  “Betesh,” said Flynn, relaxing his fist.

  “What happened?”

  “We have to go, right now.”

  “I cannot. My wife, my sister.”

  “They’re not here, Betesh.”

  “Actually,” said Elyse, “they might be.”

  “What?” asked Flynn. “Where?”

  “The third wing,” she said.

  “Yes, yes,” said Betesh.

  “What the hell is the third wing?”

  “I’ll explain later,” said Elyse. “But there’s another area. One we can’t go into. There are people there no one has seen.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Flynn.

  “Oui,” said Elyse.

  Flynn looked at Betesh.

  “Please,” he said.

  Flynn thought about the guard in the cell. He might start shouting any second, or he might never talk again. Flynn would have bet on somewhere in between. So he was going to struggle to raise the alarm through three locked doors and solid concrete. But a medic might wander in, or another guard wonder where the other guy had gone. Flynn turned to Elyse.

  “Go through that door,” he said pointing through the cafeteria. “There’s a corridor. Go left, right to the end. Out the door. Gorski is there. Okay?”

  Elyse looked dazed and confused.

  “Okay?” he repeated.

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Flynn pulled the door open and pushed Elyse through it. Then he took off with Monsieur Betesh toward the third wing.

  Chapter Thirty

  They left the courtyard and Betesh pointed to a corridor to the right of them.

  “Women and children,” he said, moving straight ahead. He opened the next door. There was another corridor on the right.

  “Men,” said Betesh.

  They reached another door. This one was locked.

  “The others.”

  Flynn used the guard’s keycard to unlock the door. He pulled at it but it didn’t come. It was heavy, like a fire door times ten. It would have withstood a bomb blast. The corridor ran ahead about five meters and then turned hard right. This corridor was like the others. Taupe walls, linoleum floors and brown doors. Flynn used the keycard on the first door. He opened it and stepped in. A woman lay on a bed. She wasn’t asleep. Her hands were behind her head and she was looking at the ceiling. Until Flynn stepped in. Her eyes turned to him.

  They were the most stunning eyes he had ever seen. Deep green like emeralds in a spotlight. She didn’t have a scarf on her head, and her black hair draped around her face like a frame. She was, without any doubt, one of the most beautiful women Flynn had ever seen. He knew such things were subjective. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, after all. But Flynn was confident that in a survey of a thousand random men, this young woman would get a thousand confirmations that she was breathtaking.

  A crease appeared above her nose as she questioned who they were and what they were going. Then Monsieur Betesh looked over Flynn’s shoulder.

  “No,” he said, pulling out of the room.

  Flynn followed him. He pulled the door closed and locked the stunning woman back in her tiny chamber, and he moved to the next room. He used the card again and opened the door and went in. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

  Two beds, one on each side of the small room. And on each bed, a stunningly beautiful woman. Different from the previous woman to be sure, but her equal in every way. Flynn felt his mouth drop open involuntarily. One of these women was younger than the others, maybe sixteen or eighteen. She shot up and pushed herself into the corner of the bed, recoiling into a ball.

  “No,” said Betesh.

  Flynn closed the door again. They couldn’t keep doing this all day. He hit the third door and used the keycard and opened it. He stepped in, expecting to find more of the same. He did. Two beds again, two women. One was a true beauty. Older than the others, maybe late twenties. She was the woman among girls. And she was every bit more attractive because of it. The second girl in the room looked similar to the girl from the bus, the one who had been taken to the minivan. The kind of young features that she hadn’t yet grown into but which, while pretty now, were going to become spectacular in the years ahead. But there was no doubt in Flynn’s mind that she couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old.

  “Yes,” said Betesh. “That’s them.”

  Flynn put his hand out and both women recoiled. The younger one pushed back into the corner like the girl in the previous room, and the older of the two started yelling.

  “La!” she yelled. “La!”

  Flynn tried to think. These women—hell, one was a girl—were clearly traumatized. He had no idea why they were here or what had happened to them, or the horrors they had seen, but he knew for sure that they weren’t getting out of the facility with a woman screaming no in Arabic at the top of her voice. He glanced back at Betesh.

  “They’re traumatized. We can’t get them out like this.”

  “They must come,” said Betesh. “Now!”

  Flynn could see the fear in Betesh’s eyes. He was desperate. Flynn had no idea what he had also been through, what he had thought about his family and their fate. He couldn’t have been sure they were even alive. And now that he knew they were here, the plan for getting them out was going to hell.

  As Betesh tried to reach out the older woman started flailing her hands and screaming even louder. Flynn moved. He pushed Betesh out of the room with one shove to the chest, and stepped out and slammed the door closed.

  Betesh went for the door again even though it was locked. Flynn pushed him back and pinned him to the wall.

  “I’m sorry, Betesh. We can’t get them out like this.” He dropped his voice and got in close. “I don’t know what has happened to them, but they’re traumatized. We try to get them out now, we’re all getting caught. We need to retreat and come up with a new plan. Do you hear me, monsieur? I
got you in once, I can do it again.”

  Flynn wasn’t sure if that was the truth, a hope or a flat out lie, but he knew they needed to get moving. The screaming had stopped but he couldn’t imagine it would go unnoticed. Monsieur Betesh relaxed under the pressure of Flynn’s arms. He nodded.

  “You are right,” he said. “You must go.”

  “We both have to go. Right now.”

  “No. I must stay. They are here. I must stay.”

  “You’ve been seen with me, monsieur. They’re going to put it together and you’ll be deported or jailed or worse. You need to come now. I will come up with a new plan. We’ll free them, I promise you.”

  Betesh looked in Flynn’s eyes. Perhaps he saw the truth, or the hope. He nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Flynn led. Betesh hesitated. He didn’t want to leave his family behind. Flynn understood that feeling. He wanted his family back every single day. But he kept moving. Forward momentum kept him alive, in more ways than one.

  They pushed out of the corridor of the third wing and back across to the courtyard. The men were still there but they made no move to do anything. Flynn didn’t assume that meant the men were on his side. He pushed into the cafeteria and ran across it and used the card to open the door into the corridor. Then he pointed Betesh to the door.

  “Go through that door. Gorski is there. I have to go this way.”

  Betesh nodded and took off for the side yard. Flynn took a deep breath and stepped through the door going the other way.

  The woman was still behind the massive desk and she looked down at him with disdain as she had before. Flynn nodded and kept walking. He pushed through into the lobby and then strode out into the courtyard. He caught the attention of the guard who had let them into the side yard.

  “You want to let us out?”

  “I thought I said be quick?”