One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  Until he reach the rocks. He had to edge down about ten meters to where Gorski had left the canoe. They figured using the road one last time was one time too many. Flynn dropped Loup off his shoulders and slipped him into the canoe, and then he angled it out and pushed away and got in. The current pulled them away. Flynn kept low, his eye on the rocky river bank. They drifted and drifted, and he saw no one appear, until he thought maybe he did, but the dark consumed the forest behind and the image was gone.

  After a couple of minutes Flynn took the paddle and steered the craft closer to the shore, until he saw the lights of the village. He angled in further still and saw the small landing beach, where the tourists ended their afternoon adventures. For a moment he feared he was going to float right by on the flow, until a hand grabbed the bow of the boat and he felt a sudden deceleration and he saw Gorski, standing in the water, with a smile on his face.

  Thierry practiced in his mind what he would say. Over and over as they drove back from the caves. They had seen nothing, and when Thierry had called the house one of the upstairs guys had said Loup had stormed out in a rage.

  A rage wasn’t the half of it. When Thierry learned that Loup had been taken, he didn’t wonder if he would ever work again. He wondered if he would ever breathe again. The guard tried to give him an explanation but he put his hand up, not wanting to hear it.

  He found Delacourt on the steps outside. His face was a mess of blood and snot. He didn’t ask about it because he didn’t care. He pointed at Delacourt and told him to follow. Then walked down beyond the barn in silence except for the wheezing coming out of Delacourt.

  “I asked you to do one thing,” said Thierry. “Wear him like a shirt.”

  Delacourt pointed at his own face.

  “Oui, but—”

  Thierry shot him right through his already bloody nose.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Loup woke up with a start and pain shooting through his eyeballs. He battered his eyelids and focused, and saw the bottle of smelling salts being put on a table by a dark-haired guy. The guy stood taller than his actual height, as if he worked on his posture, and he slipped off his jacket and slowly rolled up his sleeves.

  “Bonsoir, Monsieur Loup,” said the guy.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the ghost of Christmas past, or the devil, or something like that.”

  Loup shook his head.

  “This is not about the horses.”

  “No, Monsieur Loup. This is not about the horses. This is about something else.”

  Suddenly Loup couldn’t see. Someone—another someone—had put a bag over his head. It scratched like hessian.

  “Where are we going?”

  He wasn’t answered. Instead he fell backward, as if his chair had tipped, and with a thunk the chair hit something to alleviate the fall. And then suddenly, Loup was under water. His entire being was consumed by liquid. He felt it plunge down his throat like boiling rapids, and fill his lungs and his guts and his brain. He was gagging but with no effect. He was going to drown. He tore at the binds that held his hands behind the chair but he lacked the strength. He felt his body convulse. Was this how life ended?

  Then he was up but not free, and he sucked against the hessian bag and drew in more water and little air. And then he threw up, inside the bag. It had been a hell of a day and he had not eaten much, which kept the volume down but the acid high, and it burned against his skin.

  And then suddenly there was light. The bag was lifted from his head and he gasped for the beloved and illusive oxygen. Big lungfuls of it that were interrupted only by more spasms and dry retching. He collected himself, at least a bit, and looked at the man in the rolled up sleeves. He leaned against a work bench. There were tools on the wall. Perhaps a mechanic’s workshop, or a farm.

  “Now, Monsieur Loup. I am going to ask you some questions. You are going to answer them. If I think you are lying, or you are being less than forthright, what just happened to you will happen again. And again. And again. Do I make myself clear.”

  “Who are—”

  The bag was pulled over his head and he dropped again, and the water and panic and acid and bile and convulsions all came once more. Then after what felt like eons, he was back up, and the bag was removed, and he was breathing, if only just.

  “Do I make myself clear?” asked the man.

  Loup nodded, he thought. He wasn’t sure if his motor control was everything it could be.

  “Tell me about the eight.”

  The man crouched down in front of Loup. He looked into Loup’s eyes and Loup looked back and saw nothing. No emotion, no hatred. Nothing.

  “The eight,” Monsieur Loup.

  For a moment his brain was a funk, and then the question became clearer. The eight. Loup knew of the eight. He knew more than most. He knew the truth, he knew the lies.

  “The eight is nothing.”

  Bag, falling, water. Convulsion, light.

  “Once again,” said the man. “The eight.”

  “The eight is a fairy tale.”

  “It kills real people. That’s no fairy tale.”

  “It’s a legend.”

  “What’s the reality?”

  “The reality is less. And more.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  Bag, falling, water. Then lifted and gasping and then back into the water. And up and then down again. And then light.

  “We can do this all night. All week, if we have to.”

  “No, no more.”

  “Just a little more.”

  Loup felt the bag slip over his head.

  “We don’t want to fatigue him too much,” said Gorski.

  “I know,” replied Flynn. “There’s no ideology here. Nothing to break through. He just needs motivation.”

  “David just called.”

  “The Avro. It’s on it’s way from Orly. He says it will be here in an hour.”

  “All right, good cop.”

  Flynn stepped away behind the cattle trough full of water and let Gorski take over.

  “Monsieur Loup, I am sorry about that.”

  “Where’s the other guy?”

  “Taking a break. This is hard, I know it. So we have to take lots of breaks. You know, in case it goes on for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “You know, a few days. My friend you were talking to before, his record is ten.”

  “Days?”

  “Oui. He some serious stamina. But you, Monsieur. Let us not get into that. Let me help you.”

  “How?”

  “You tell me something, maybe I can help you?”

  “About the eight?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re a myth.”

  “Monsieur, I’m trying to help.”

  “No, I mean it. It’s not a thing. It’s an idea. Like the mafia. Everybody has an idea of what the mafia is, but there’s no actual group. You know? They don’t hold meetings or have business cards.”

  “Actually they do.”

  “No, that’s people’s idea of the mafia. You get into loan sharking, then you are in the mafia. But who else is in it? You know your group, but not beyond that. There’s no membership.”

  “So, you’re saying that you could be in the eight and not know who else is in the eight?”

  “Right.”

  “So how do you know if you’re are in it yourself?”

  Loup took a breath that clearly hurt. His throat had been burned by his own stomach acid. Gorski didn’t care. He waited.

  “Somebody asked me.”

  “To join this mystical fairy tale group?”

  “No. It was put in more pragmatic terms.”

  Gorski watched him swallow. He could see the turmoil in his mind. He was as thirsty as he had every been, but he was afraid to ask for a drink. Too much of a good thing.

  “Who approached you?”

  “My sponsor.”

  “So you do know someone
in it.”

  “I don’t know everyone, is what I meant. It’s hard. To explain. The strength comes from not knowing.”

  “How many do you know?”

  “Two. We never know more than two.”

  “Like a terrorist cell?” asked Gorski.

  “We are not terrorists. We keep the world free.”

  “That’s an ideological question, monsieur. What about the girls you have in your refugee center. The one’s no one knows about. Are they free?”

  “Freedom comes at a cost.”

  “I don’t see you paying anything?”

  “I pay. I pay everyday.”

  “What? Like a tax, a membership fee?”

  “No.”

  Gorski sat back and watch Loup. He saw something new. Something he hadn’t seen. He nodded Flynn over, and Flynn came and leaned against the same work bench and watched the tear fall down Jean Loup’s cheek.

  “What did you pay?”

  Loup dropped his head.

  “My father.”

  “What about him?”

  “They killed him.”

  Flynn and Gorski watched Loup for the signs, the tells, the giveaways of a lie. They saw none. He was either the best liar in the history of the world, or he was telling the truth.

  “What happened?” asked Gorski.

  “He refused them. My father was a good man, a better man than me. They approached, he refused. He didn’t do back room deals, or favors for friends in high places. He did business. If his price was better, he won the business. If not, he lost it. So he refused them. And they blew up his helicopter.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because at his funeral, they approached me.”

  “And you said yes.”

  “They’re argument was more compelling.”

  “You haven’t done badly out of it,” said Flynn.

  Loup seemed to have not noticed Flynn coming back, and he pressed his back against his chair to get as far away as he could.

  “I made my bargain. I sold my soul. I’ve lived with it everyday.”

  “Tough gig,” said Flynn. “So who else do you know. Who are the two?”

  “I can’t.”

  Flynn sprang forward violently and stopped inches from Loup’s face. “I am going to dunk you like a biscuit, over and over, until you scream for mercy, and then I’m going to let you rest and then I’m going to do it all over again. And then you’re going to tell me what I need to know, and then I’m going to do it all over again, just for the spite of it.”

  Flynn grabbed the hessian bag from the back of the chair and flicked it out like a magician’s handkerchief.

  “No, please. I’ll tell you.”

  “Name one?”

  Loup gave him a name.

  “Name two.”

  Loup gave him a second name. Flynn stood and glanced at Gorski. One name they knew. Oddly, one name they didn’t.

  “Now what? You kill me?”

  “No, Monsieur Loup. Now we take you to your aircraft.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  They washed Loup’s face and combed his hair. He looked like he had been on an all weekend bender, but he wore no physical marks. Flynn dried Loup’s shirt with a hair dryer and then took his coat from the door knob where he had hung it.

  Loup watched them with suspicion the entire time, waiting for the trap, the last surprise. One more dip in the cattle trough. It didn’t come. Gorski flicked the lights off and they walked out into total darkness. Then a spot of light as the interior lamp came on when Gorski opened the passenger door of the Chevy Suburban. He helped Loup get in, and then walked around and got in the driver’s seat. Flynn slipped in behind Gorski.

  They drove along quiet rural roads, the only light coming from the headlights of the SUV.

  “This is a hell of a big car for rural France,” said Flynn. “Where’d you get it?”

  “It was a gift, from the chairman of General Motors.”

  “Is he?”

  “No. He is not. Not that I know, anyway.”

  “Let me ask you one last thing,” said Flynn. “Answer or don’t, your call. What were you flying into Iraq in 2011?”

  “What do you mean? My logistics company?”

  “No, you personally. On your, what did you have then? A 737? Hell of an aircraft for a strip like Ambérieu.”

  Loup turned to Flynn.

  “Who are you?”

  “I was the guy on the other end. In Iraq.”

  The penny dropped, as did Loup’s jaw. “They said you were dead.”

  “They might be right. I might be a myth. A legend, of some description. So what were you flying into Iraq?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Loup.

  “It matters to me.”

  “It never came to anything. You’ll be glad to know that you put a real ratchet in the cogs.”

  “I did?”

  Loup nodded. “Things were happening in that part of the world. Big things. Global power changing things. And then like that, they didn’t happen. The world moved on.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Oui, monsieur. Just like that. That’s the difference between ideology and business. Ideology cannot by definition be pragmatic.”

  “And what are you flying out of the airfield now?”

  Loup shook his head. “Nothing. Trinkets. Small favors. French souvenirs.”

  They approached the airfield from the northwest, around past the retail stores and David the plane spotters apartment. Gorski pulled over just short of the street to David’s apartment, and got out.

  “I leave you here. Adios.”

  Flynn slipped out of the back and took over the wheel.

  “What are you doing?” asked Loup.

  “He had a plane to catch. As do you, oui?”

  Flynn drove around the airfield, past the darkened aero club and into the main gate of the base. There was a boom, but unlike the refugee center it was manual, and a kid who had probably been in the air force all of a month, recognized the car and pushed down on the counterweight and lifted the boom, and Flynn drove straight in and then stopped on the tarmac. He hit the button to lock the doors.

  “What are you doing?” said Loup.

  “Can’t be too careful.” Flynn looked around. The hangars were to his right, as was the Dassault Falcon 8X jet. Far to his left, at the end of the runway, was a dark-colored shipping container, sitting all alone.

  Flynn waited.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Be patient.”

  “My jet is just there,” said Loup. “You gave me your word.”

  “I know. You’re aircraft awaits.” Flynn pointed out of the windshield at the incoming landing lights. The BAE Avro RJ-100 touched down lightly and then hit the brakes and coasted to the end of the runway. The small aircraft stopped near the shipping container and then two men jumped out. One opened a cargo door at the rear of the aircraft and one ran toward the container.

  A third man that Flynn hadn’t seen came from behind the container. He had opened it and was carrying crates out of the steel box and setting them down on dollies. Once he had a good number on a dolly, the man from the aircraft pushed the dolly across to the cargo door, where he lifted the crates up to the other man inside the aircraft.

  “I get it now,” said Flynn.

  “Get what?” asked Loup.

  Flynn didn’t answer. He pulled the Suburban slowly forward until he was about fifty meters from the Avro. Then he opened the glove compartment and took out some binoculars.

  “What now?” asked Loup.

  “Take a look. Right between the shipping container and the aircraft.”

  “I see nothing.”

  “Look on the edge of the tarmac, where the grass starts.”

  “What is that?”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “It’s your friend. The one who was driving before.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He has a rifl
e.”

  “He does. I should tell you, he’s Russian. The Russians are the best snipers in the world, and he’s one of the best they ever had.”

  Loup lowered the glasses. “You’re going to shoot me now? This is all a ruse just to shoot me?”

  “No. He’s going to shoot you if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

  “You gave me your word.”

  “I did. And now I’m keeping it. Your aircraft is right there. Go to it. Walk nice and easy, and go to it. When you get to the crates, ask them to open one. They’ll do it, it’s your stuff. Take a look in one. See what you’re sending. And then get in your damn aircraft.”

  Loup frowned. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Do exactly that, then go home and rethink your life. Don’t do exactly that, and get a Russian sniper bullet through your head. Now get out.”

  Loup stepped from the Suburban. Then he moved forward, gingerly at first, and then faster, but not too fast. Nice and easy, the man had said. He walked across the tarmac. Then he got to the man wheeling the dolly, and the man almost saluted. He broke open a crate, and pulled the paper away. Loup picked up an RPG. A rocket propelled grenade launcher. Flynn’s working theory had been rifles. RPGs were pretty serious pieces of equipment for Nigerian and Angolan and Libyan oil barons. He was reconsidering his plan when Loup turned the RPG and aimed it at the Chevy Suburban.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Elyse couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Monsieur Betesh had delivered her in her rental car the spot Flynn had told her to be. She knocked on the door of the apartment and a youngish guy with a nice smile but a bad haircut opened up.

  “David?” she asked.

  He nodded but said nothing.

  David led Elyse up to the roof of his building, where she had a panoramic view of the small airfield.

  “What is all this stuff?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Receivers and dishes and stuff. I track air traffic. I know all about where Loup’s planes go, and when and for how long.”

  “Really?”