One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  “How do you know that?”

  “Journalists aren’t the only ones who ask questions. But we also know, that it goes to some pretty interesting places—foreign places—delivering cargo that it collects from here in Ambérieu.”

  “That’s why the girls come here regardless,” said Gorski. “He’s shipping them out together, from his little base.”

  “On a cargo plane?” said Elyse.

  “The thing about the Avro? It’s commonly used for light cargo, but it’s also a short haul passenger jet. You just have to install seats. And it’s even designed with the flexibility to do that very easily, on a flight by flight basis.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Elyse.

  “It’s a hell of a story.”

  “If it’s all true. So what do we do?”

  “Loup’s people are going to be on the alert. They’ll know now that we weren’t the real delivery guys, and they’ll know they are short one or two refugees. And even if the guy from the infirmary can’t talk, they’ve probably linked it to you, Elyse.”

  “How?”

  “There were cameras in the refugee center. Maybe the other staff at the center didn’t recognize you up close and under a scarf, but if they’re smart they’ll have the towns people ID the two escapees. That’s what I’d do."

  They heard the steps on the back porch. Flynn froze. Then they heard the voice.

  “It is me. Betesh.”

  Flynn breathed out and stood to open the kitchen door.

  “I am done,” said Betesh.

  “Monsieur Betesh, merci. Now you should be with the others.”

  “Monsieur Flynn. My wife and daughter are still in this place. If you have a plan, I can help you.”

  “It’s best if you go to the others. These are dangerous people.”

  “My home is a war zone, Monsieur Flynn. Chemical weapons are being used on my people. My family is being held captive for reasons I do not understand. I do not care about dangerous people, Monsieur Flynn. They should be very concerned about me.”

  Flynn nodded. He didn’t figure he was going to talk Betesh out of it, and he understood why. Flynn wouldn’t have gone off to hide, either.

  “Okay, Monsieur Betesh. I’m sure I can use you.”

  Betesh nodded his thanks and stepped inside.

  “So what do we do?” asked Betesh.

  “Yeah, John,” said Elyse. “Where do we start?”

  Flynn looked out the glass pane in the door at the darkened fields beyond. The goats and cattle were silent.

  “First, we thin the herd.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The first of the team arrived on foot. It was pre-dawn, and the feeling was that a covert operation was better than all sirens blazing. Two men came in from the road and hugged the side of the driveway. Ahead was a farmhouse, cold and dark. No wisps of smoke coming from the chimney. There were several outbuildings beside the driveway, solid stone structures. The two men broke right and moved in behind the outbuildings. They found a disused field, and the detritus of a farming life. Old broken pallets, a cattle trailer, a rusted plow. There was another building across the small field, hidden by thick trees and hedgerow from the road, with an animal pen in front. One of the men whispered into his radio what they saw, and that they were moving to the farthest building.

  The second team of two stepped across to the opposite side of the driveway, and hugged the fence line as they moved toward the rear of the house. At the rear corner they saw a small paved patio. One man waited while the other jogged to the fence that separated the residential yard from the field beyond, and then he broke right and made his way to the other side of the house. Then he too waited.

  The third team left the Chevrolet Suburban last, and got to the driveway when the others were already in place. They moved along the front of the outbuildings, careful of their steps on the gravel that had been pressed into the dirt below it over many years. There were two main structures on the driveway other than the house. The two men stood either side of the wide doors on the first building. Like most such doors in the area, these were not locked, so the team leader pulled one open slightly and the other man slipped inside. Then the team leader followed.

  The shed was pitch black inside. The dawn would break shortly, but the stone walls kept it at bay for now. The team leader flicked on a flashlight and moved it across the room. There was an old Peugeot van covered in dust. It looked like it hadn’t run in years. He moved the light to the next vehicle. And he smiled. He liked being right. And he would make sure that Thierry knew it too, when he called him later with the good news. It had taken all night, and a few house calls to a few friends in the village, but he was smart and he had worked it out.

  The guys who broke out the refugees had somehow faked a flat tire on the bus, and then returned the next day with a spare, carried on a tractor.

  A cherry red tractor.

  Tractor paint wasn’t like car paint. They weren’t designer items. They were utilitarian and the colors they came in were the colors they came in. The manufacturers knew that, and they knew that no farmer was going to waste money on repainting a tractor. So the colors became like branding. The most popular tractor in France was the American brand, John Deere. They all came in the same green color. The second highest-selling was the blue New Holland. Then Claas, another variation on green. Red was a less-common color on French farms. Most often it was an old International Harvester. Which narrowed the field. The team leader had spent the night asking: Who owns a red tractor. There were three names that came up several times. But only one of those names had refused to enjoy the benefits of Monsieur Loup’s philanthropy.

  Monsieur Pepard.

  Now the team leader stood in the dark looking at a cherry red tractor. The other man moved deeper into the shed and found a platform trailer attached to the rear. As described by the guards at the detention center. The team leader put his radio to his mouth.

  “Two, this is leader. We have a visual on the tractor. Clear your building. Three, hold your position.”

  Back at the structure out near the hedgerow, the team that had arrived first stepped over the fence that delineated a pen out front of the barn. The ground underfoot was soft and they moved slowly toward the barn. As the first man reached the door he heard the first sound. A loud maaaa. He stopped. It hadn’t come from the barn, but rather the field. It was a goat. Although he couldn’t see light from his position, he figured the dawn was coming and the livestock was waking. Which meant they should move fast. It also told him what he was standing in front of. An enclosure for goats.

  The door was low and wide, and he pulled it open with a creak. He moved quicker. If someone was inside they knew he was there now. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, his flashlight on in an instant. He swung the light from side to side.

  No goats. No people. Nothing. The barn was empty. Straw covered the concrete floor. The space looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. The men moved out into the pen.

  Then the first man saw the flash of movement, like someone running across in front of the pen.

  “Halt!” he called, lifting his assault rifle to his shoulder. “Who are you.”

  “Don’t hurt me,” said the voice from the darkness. The hedgerow absorbed all noise so the voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  “Come out, now.”

  “You have a gun.”

  “I won’t hurt you. Come out now.”

  No reply. Then a rustle in the leaves as if the person was moving.

  “Stay where you are!”

  Nothing.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am a refugee from war. I seek asylum.”

  “Come out, now.”

  Then the man heard from his radio: “Two, come in? Are you clear?”

  “Negative, leader. We have audible on a person. No visual. He says he’s a refugee.”

  “We don’t need the damned refugees.”
<
br />   “Wait leader.”

  The man watched the end of the pen. An image appeared in the darkness, possibly the refugee.

  “Stop!” He aimed his weapon.

  The second of the two men took up his radio. “Leader, we have visual on a refugee.”

  Then the voice in the darkness said, “I know you work for Loup. I know you have my family. I’m going to tell everyone.”

  “Leader, the refugee mentioned Loup. He claims he will tell everyone,” the second man said.

  “Tell everyone what?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  The the figure in the darkness moved. He was running.

  “He’s running, leader.”

  “Take him out. Take him out now!”

  The first man still had his rifle up and aimed at where he thought the movement was, so he fired. A triple burst of fire, and then another. The suppressor on his rifle kept the shot from ringing out across the fields, and the hedgerow ate the rest.

  Gorski fired from where he lay against the fence beyond the far end of the pen. His rifle poked through the slats just above ground level so he shot upward. He hit the first man, the one who had fired at Betesh, through the chin. He was gone. Gorski then saw the second man turned his weapon. He didn’t bring it to his shoulder. He didn’t have time. He had seen the muzzle flash from Gorski’s rifle, so he fired from the hip.

  A triple burst exploded dirt into the air about two meters from Gorski’s position. He didn’t wait for it to get closer. He fired once, right at the top of the guy’s chest. Then he dropped the rifle and jumped the fence and ran. He had his Beretta in his hand as he sprinted toward the second man. Just to make sure.

  He pointed his sidearm at the man on the ground and stood on the rifle’s barrel so it didn’t come back up at him. Then he dropped down. He couldn’t see any entry wound in the man’s chest. He thumped the man’s chest and felt kevlar, but the man didn’t move. It was as if he were playing dead.

  Then Gorski realized he wasn’t playing. In the darkness he had aimed high, and the round had gone straight through the man’s open mouth. Gorski left him and checked the other guy, a more obvious wound, the bottom half of face having been removed. Gorski ran back to grab his rifle.

  The team leader thought he heard suppressed rifle shots, but from his position inside the shed he couldn’t be sure.

  “Two, what is your status?”

  Then he heard a grunt and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor of the shed.

  “Raymond,” he said to his partner. “Raymond?”

  There was no response. The team leader didn’t wait for one. He dashed out of the shed and toward the farmhouse. The dawn was breaking and he saw the second outbuilding, a barn with doors wide open. He ran inside. It was darker, but he pressed himself to the wall and moved in. On one side he saw stalls for holding horses. Not the clean, steel versions that Monsieur Loup had, but old wooden things. He stepped across the dirt floor and looked over the first stall, leading with his rifle. He saw the movement and heard the muffled sound. He was decisive. That was why he was the team leader.

  He fired a triple burst into the stall and swung away, awaiting return fire. None came. The stall was silent. He quickly glanced back into the stall. The light coming in didn’t do much, but it was enough to see the body lying in the straw. He moved on. Swung his rifle into the next stall. He saw the outline of the person, crouched in the corner. He didn’t wait to be fired upon. He put three rounds into the person hiding there. Then he moved deeper into the barn. The next stall was empty. Then the space opened up to a large area at the rear. The floor was concrete and there was something up against the wall. He pressed his back to the wood and reached out and felt for what it was. Metal frames and springs. Beds, maybe. He survey the rear of the barn and found no more people hiding like dogs. He stayed against the wall and moved back toward the door, toward the growing light of the dawn.

  Flynn moved toward the barn. He had counted all six men coming onto the property. He was confident that Gorski had taken care of the two who went out to the goat enclosure, where the refugees had been before they had moved to another farm, one that didn’t own a red tractor. He had downed one more behind the tractor. His Glauca B1 knife did the job as close to silent as possible. Flynn would have preferred to not kill these men. But they had set the terms of engagement, and so had Loup. The gloves were off. He stopped by the entrance to the barn and crouched low. It was a universal truth that predators searched the land at the approximate height of their prey. If the man in the barn were hunting rabbits, Flynn would have been in a bad position. But he was hunting humans, and his eyes would be looking for a center of mass four feet up. Flynn slipped out his Beretta 9mm. He was more used to the Glock, but Gorski had Berettas in the arsenal under his farmhouse in Poland, and in the end a gun was a gun.

  The team leader crouched low. He wanted to present as small a target as possible. He had a plan. He was getting off this farm. Their big American vehicle was out on the road and he had the keys. Once there he would radio his remaining men. If they responded, he would rendezvous. If they didn’t, he was gone. He pressed up against the first stall just before the open door. He could see the farmhouse, still dark inside. There was no movement in that direction. The team leader knew one of his men had died in the shed that was between him and the exit through the driveway. He would cut between the barn and shed and then go across the field, beyond the hedgerow. Then he would make his way to the road. He held his gun in two hands, balanced on the balls of his feet, and swung low around the doorway.

  Flynn’s Beretta was pointed right at the guy’s forehead when he finished spinning around out of the barn. Unfortunately, the guy’s pistol was pointing back at Flynn. For a moment they stayed in position, crouched low, guns aimed at each other.

  “Put the gun down,” said the guy.

  “You first.”

  “No. You just killed one of my men.”

  “Your guys fired first.”

  “Then we stay here until one of us falls over.”

  Or one of us shoots, Flynn thought. “I’m going to stand up.”

  They stood together like some kind of ballet, slowly rising from their squatting positions, neither man’s weapon wavering.

  “Now what?” said the team leader.

  “Now you tell me why Jean Loup is sending deadly force to a local farm.”

  “You broke into a government facility.”

  “So where are the police?”

  “I’m going to count to three. You must drop your weapon.”

  “Or what?”

  “Un,” said the team leader.

  Flynn didn’t anticipate the count getting all the way to trois. Someone was going to fire first.

  Then Flynn saw Monsieur Betesh appear from the barn. In a fluid movement that suggested a reasonable degree of knowledge on the subject, Betesh threw one arm around the man’s neck, while simultaneously putting his other hand on the rear of his head and with an audible crunch, cracking the man’s back just where his spine met his brain stem.

  The man dropped to the dirt and Flynn was left pointing his gun at Betesh. He slowly lowered it and looked at the Syrian.

  “I told you,” said Betesh. “I can be helpful to you.”

  “I’ll be sure to remember that. I thought I told you to hide.”

  “I did. By the way, he killed the two bus drivers,” Betesh said, spitting on the fallen man.

  Flynn glanced at the farmhouse. “Stay here.”

  He ran across to the front steps and saw Gorski appear from behind the barn. He pointed and ran around the back of the house. Flynn pushed the lever and stepped in through the front door. The house was still and cold. Flynn moved into the kitchen and crouched low behind the table. The kitchen door onto the patio was open. Then Flynn heard the dull thud of a suppressed round followed by someone hitting the patio.

  Gorski appeared at the kitchen door. Flynn waved and then stood. Together they swept
the house. The lower level consisted of the kitchen, a utility room and the living room. They found nothing and moved upstairs. Elyse was in the first bedroom.

  With a gun to her head.

  The guy had a grip on her throat and his sidearm at her temple. Flynn swept into the room with his weapon pointed at the guy’s head. He was close, but it was still a risky shot. The fitted suppressor didn’t affect the accuracy as long as the added barrel weight was allowed for. But Flynn didn’t like the target size.

  Gorski did. He moved into the room and stayed right by the door. Now the guy was facing two flanks, and he was open on Gorski’s side.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  They didn’t. The guy did. He tried to pull Elyse more between him and Gorski, and found that opened up the shot for Flynn, so he pulled her back the other way.

  Too far. He exposed his side to Gorski who shot him in the back of the neck. The impact spun him to face Gorski, who put a second round into his right eye. The guy fell back against an armoire and Flynn left forward to catch Elyse as she fell forward.

  Flynn grabbed her and ran her out of the room, down the stairs and sat her at the kitchen table.

  “Is that guy dead?” she asked.

  “Oui,” said Flynn.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No.”

  “What about the others?”

  “They’re all down, but we’ll do a sweep and check.”

  Gorski reached the kitchen and looked at Elyse.

  “You okay?”

  “You killed that man.”

  “I did. You’re prettier than he was.”

  She didn’t laugh but she didn’t say anything.

  “Monsieur Pepard?” Flynn asked.

  “He’s on the toilet,” said Gorski.

  “Is he ill?”

  “He’s sitting there, reading the paper.”

  Flynn shook his head and smiled.