First Thrill

by Steve Richer

  The leader reached forward and pulled his hostage to his feet again. They really need to work on their communication skills, the CSE agent couldn’t help thinking.

  “Empty your pockets,” he commanded in French.

  Jeff complied, putting his passport, wallet, and money on the table. He never thought he would ever be this glad to have followed instructions and left his own cards at home. The man inspected the IDs and pocketed the money. He motioned for Jeff to sit. The chair was facing away from the table and it made Jeff feel naked, vulnerable.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a student.” Jeff responded in French, remembering the manual. If you know your captor’s language, use it.

  “There are no university cards in your wallet.”

  “Classes haven’t started yet, I’m set to begin a doctorate at the Sorbonne in the fall.”

  “Where’s your student visa?”

  “It should be stamped in the passport.” Jeff had omitted to verify this fact.

  “How do you pay for your studies?”

  “Back in Canada, I had student loans. Now I’m living on the money my grandmother left me when she died.”

  “It’s a gold card, she must have been worth a lot.”

  “They give gold cards to everyone now. My banker told me I’d get more respect abroad if I had one. You can have it if you want to.”

  Please buy something with it, jerkoff.

  Jeff stared at him with every ounce of courage he had, but he had the feeling it wouldn’t be enough and the other man knew it.

  Chapter 15

  The terrorist – for that was what he had to be – snarled. He was still very much in control.

  “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think you can trick me into giving away our position?”

  “Of course not. I was just offering the card to you.”

  “Why? You think I couldn’t get one on my own?”

  “No, I told you they give it to anyone now.”

  “So now I’m just anyone?”

  Big mouth again. Shit.

  “Uh, no, I…”

  “I’m not just anyone! I’m the person who’s going to save this planet! This is the group that will sacrifice itself so you can live in a clean environment!”

  The man was breathing hard and spat as he shouted.

  Jeff didn’t see any harm in it and wiped the saliva off his face. The terrorist saw it differently. He lunged forward and grabbed Jeff by his shirt. He lifted him to his feet and threw him against the wall.

  “Are you defying me?”

  “No.”

  “If I spit in your face you shut up and enjoy it.”

  He summoned whatever was in the back of his throat and spewed out a huge glob of saliva in Jeff’s face. It was so viscous that he thought it might have been actual mucus. The gob began descending from his cheek; it would be touching his mouth in a few seconds.

  “Do you want to wipe it off now?” the leader continued.

  Jeff shook his head. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he wanted to beat the man to death. Never had he felt such hate toward someone. One’s humiliation had to be paid in kind.

  The leader let him go and motioned for him to sit back down. Jeff titled his head as he sat and the blob ran past his mouth following the contour of his upper lip. It made him want to barf.

  “What is it that’s threatening the environment that you feel so strongly about?” Jeff asked, trying to get a constructive conversation going.

  The spit fell off his chin and landed on his shirt.

  “There’s water pollution, toxic waste dumping, destruction of the rain forest, poaching of endangered species, smog, the greenhouse effect, global warming, melting icebergs, oil spills, the list is endless.”

  Again, Jeff spoke without thinking. “This is the kind of boat that pollutes oceans, isn’t?”

  The man tensed up for an instant. Should he bash his face in? He relaxed and smiled, there was no need to kill him at the moment. There would be plenty of time for that later.

  “A necessary evil. But what you want to know is why you’re here. Right?”

  “I think we’re entitled to know, yes.”

  “You’re here because the world doesn’t want to listen. You’re here because time and time again we’ve made demands to our government and we were ignored. To save the planet you need to speak a language that will be understood. We will kill you all if the government refuses to do the right thing. I hope your government will be able to influence mine.”

  “I hope so to.”

  “Yes. And there are others out there ready to continue my work. Together we will teach governments of the world the word respect.”

  Jeff was interrogated about what he knew of the people he was jailed with and ten minutes later he was escorted back to the stateroom.

  He made sure to observe everything he could. They turned left upon exiting the mess hall and they walked for about fifty feet. They then made another left and climbed up two flights on the narrow staircase.

  Perhaps this could be a good escape; he was out of sight from the rifleman for a few seconds. No, he wouldn’t know what to do afterwards.

  One thing was now clear in Jeff’s mind though, if these terrorists had given the government an ultimatum, negotiations had to be under way. That meant a special operations team somewhere was preparing in case these negotiations failed.

  Death had never been closer but at least there was hope. He had to spread it to his fellow hostages.

  After lunch, Ledoux had retired to his study again, much to his wife’s discontent who couldn’t wait to go out to play a tennis match. The number he dialed was once again overseas, only more to the north this time.

  Hingle was buttering toasts when he picked up. “Yeah?”

  “Do you need me to say who’s calling?” The French accent was unmistakable.

  “I was just about to call you.”

  Thanks for saving me the long distance, Hingle almost added.

  “Are we set? Has phase one been completed?”

  Hingle was about to retort when he heard a two-beat tone in his ear. “Hold on, I got another call.” He hit the button. “Yeah?”

  “It’s me, boss.” It was Julian Farris’s voice.

  “What is it? You’re not at the office, are you?”

  “No, I’m in a phone booth. Did you see that thing in the news, that terrorist kidnapping in Paris?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  He spread marmalade over one of his toasts.

  “CSE’s going wild over it. Word is we had an agent on a mission in Paris and he was taken in that thing.”

  “No shit.” He took the first bite of his breakfast.

  “Nothing’s confirmed, you know how it is. They’re handling it like a crisis situation though.”

  “You think the agent was there about our guy in Paris?”

  “I don’t know, could be, there’s no way for me to know. I’m just relaying what I picked up.”

  “All right, thanks.” He got rid of him and returned to Ledoux. “You still there?”

  “Yes,” Ledoux said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Maybe. CSE had an agent in Paris over the weekend. I’m sure it’s nothing, but there’s always the chance he was there for you.”

  “Oh mon dieu…” his voice trailed off.

  “Yeah. Don’t lose sleep over it, there’s no way they can know. But take extra precautions. Have a guy come to your house to sweep it for bugs, use landlines, public phones, watch out for tails. Nobody’s gonna piss on our parade.”

  “So it is still on?”

  “That’s right. Call your guy, we’re all meeting in Bermuda tomorrow as planned.”

  He hung up. He was nervous, no matter how calm he had appeared to Ledoux. If CSE knew what they were up to, things could get ugly. Hingle was aware of the capabilities of the Communications Security Establishment and they could prove to be a worthy adversary. They could force
him to take lives.

  He was prepared for it.

  Chapter 16

  There had been a number of occurrences in Bellamy’s career when a change of a country’s policy would have made his job easier.

  It had exasperated him every time, but his job was to find ways to circumvent those problems. It reminded him of that Apollo 13 movie where engineers had to filter air using a piss hose and a tube sock. If he’d wanted to join the space program, he’d be in an office with a lot more windows. The current problem was worse and he was ready to chop heads.

  The terrorists’ demands had been relayed almost twelve hours ago and very little progress had been made. France was set to conduct nuclear experiments at its Mururoa test site in the South Pacific in less than twenty-four hours. All the leading environmental political action groups had protested and there had been strong opposition from Western leaders as well. France had no intention of backing down.

  The group that called themselves the Front Environnemental Européen had decided to play the game their way. Not only had they kidnapped people from a variety of countries, but they had killed people. The message was that they were to be taken seriously.

  An hour of research among newspaper records had sufficed to identify the instigator. The man was Eric Aumont, a Belgian national who had cut his teeth in the French Foreign Legion. He had been kicked out of Greenpeace a year ago for his violent tendencies and had formed his own environmental brigade.

  Bellamy was at his desk studying the files when the phone rang.

  “French police found the truck the people were abducted in on an empty road west of Paris.” Terry Raper’s voice had lost its energy. She was very tired.

  That meant they had changed vehicles at that point, Bellamy concluded.

  “Did their lab go over it yet?”

  “We have better than that. One of the cops that worked the crime scene lives nearby, he has to take this road every day to go home. He said he drove by in the early evening, around seven. There was another truck parked there. A truck outfitted with a container.”

  “Container? What kind of container?”

  “Freight, the kind they use to ship cargo. They’re checking trains, ports, they’ve set up roadblocks everywhere through France.”

  “Wonderful, keep me posted.”

  The French government had never been against negotiating with terrorists, at least secretly. They were infamous for it, Bellamy knew. French money often made its way into terrorists’ coffers in order to claim a public victory. But their nuclear sovereignty was such a touchy issue that they wouldn’t budge on this. Other avenues were explored.

  The Foreign Affairs Minister still pressed the French authorities to remain open to discussions, but his job was virtually useless. The matter was essentially military now. There was no question a rescue operation was to take place as soon as the terrorists would be located.

  The situation now boiled down to a simple query: who was going to do it?

  Lines of communications were open between Canada, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Algeria, Luxembourg, and Italy. There was no doubt the British had the most experienced special ops team out of the lot, but it would all depend on where the terrorist would be found. Bellamy secretly wished the FEE would be discovered in hiding in the US as they had fantastic counterterrorism strike forces.

  The Deputy Director of G Group cursed under his breath. He wanted to throw everything off his desk like frustrated actors did in movies. But that involved cleaning up and he had no time to waste on that. How come they never showed the actors picking their stuff up afterwards?

  Bellamy wanted Riley back, but there was very little he could do about it. His crisis operation center was nothing more than an observation post and it was sending him to the brink of madness.

  Aumont couldn’t believe his break. He felt like a lumberjack having just given that providential blow that would allow the tree to fall on its own. His eyes narrowed, his face getting closer to Simon’s. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure he isn’t who he says he is. He knows too much about kidnappings and terrorism.”

  The FEE leader pulled away and strolled to the unarmed escort standing next to the door. He whispered something into his ear and the man left the room.

  “Why do you help us by saying this? Are you feeding me false information?”

  “I have no reason to help you, the man who just left shot my wife last night. But I fear Tremblay might hold something back and that could get the rest of us killed. I don’t want anyone to die, especially those of us who don’t deserve it.”

  “Is that all you want?”

  “I want food, I want more comfort, I want to get the hell out of here!”

  “I’ll see what I can do about the first one.”

  Jeff almost wet his pants when the door was yanked open and the goons dragged him out for the second time.

  His stomach tied itself in a knot when instead of turning left they turned right and stepped outside. He jerked his head toward the path he should have taken and spotted a wire running along the wall.

  “Regarde en avant!” his escort shouted, twisting Jeff’s head back into a forward position.

  They walked outside for about ten feet until they encountered a staircase that led down. Jeff’s mind was racing.

  He could twist his body around and send his escort toward the rifleman; luckily the other gunman hadn’t shown up this time. During the confusion he would have a perfect opportunity to jump off the boat.

  But what then?

  Would he be able to swim long enough to reach land or another ship? Hell, would he be able to swim far enough from the vessel to avoid being pulled under by the screws’ torque? He wouldn’t be five feet away that a hail of gunfire would stop him in his tracks, he concluded. If this were to work, he would have to kill the two men.

  He doubted he could disarm the terrorist, and even if he could, Jeff knew he wouldn’t be able to shoot either one of them. He didn’t fear death, yes, but he wasn’t about to inflict it on others. In his book, God was the only one licensed to kill.

  No, he decided. He couldn’t escape. He went down two decks and before long he was back in the mess hall.

  When he saw Simon, he understood. His specialized knowledge had given the bastards a bargaining tool. Had he been that transparent? He had only tried to help the hostages, tried to give them hope. Was he going to get shot for it? Would he be tortured?

  “Are you a cop?” Aumont asked.

  “What? No, I told you, I’m a student.”

  “Simon says you’re not.”

  “Oh well, if Simon says so then it must be true. Did you check with the Sorbonne before accusing me?”

  “If I check and they don’t have your name, I’m right. If they heard of you that means you’re more than a cop. It means you’re a government agent.”

  “No, it means I’m telling the truth!”

  “Not with your knowledge.”

  “I read a book! I read a fucking book!” Jeff was frustrated and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. “Everything I know I read in books, that’s what I do, I’m a goddamn student!”

  “Whom do you work for?” Aumont screamed.

  “No one. Who do you work for?”

  Aumont took a step closer and punched Jeff in the gut. While he was doubled over, he kneed him in the face

  It was the first time Jeff had been struck deliberately from an act of violence. He had been hit a number of times playing football and hockey in his peewee days, but never with such strength. His lip was split and he could taste blood.

  He picked up his glasses from the floor and was thankful they didn’t break, apart from a lens falling out. He straightened up and put the lens back in place.

  “I won’t push this further, it doesn’t matter. In nine hours, at eleven tonight, we start killing hostages. You will be the first.”

  Chapter 17

  Rosa Salinas was up early like every Sunday
. While she usually hurried to get herself ready for church, today she was too much of a nervous wreck, even though she had never needed God’s help more.

  She had not slept a wink but she wasn’t tired. She was acting on stress and instincts alone. She looked out her window at the Bay of Campeche, in the Gulf of Mexico, and began to cry.

  She hadn’t really approved of her husband becoming a sailor, especially this early in their marriage. But they needed the money and with the baby on the way they had to make sacrifices. Her mother had offered to help out, but they had decided they weren’t going to take any handouts. Before they tied the knot, they had resolved that they were ready to live off of love and water if necessary.

  According to her husband’s itinerary, he was supposed to be in Cherbourg yesterday. He called her on his mobile phone every time he docked. His voice alone could give her enough strength for another week.

  Yesterday he hadn’t called.

  It was their anniversary and he hadn’t called. She had called, though, and had gotten no answer. She tried again this morning and again struck out. That was enough.

  She called her husband’s company here in Veracruz and related what had happened. The secretary rolled his eyes at what he heard; he never understood women’s hysterics. He transferred her to a manager who assured her that the ship’s captain still reported on time every day.

  He encouraged her to call her husband back the next day when he’d be in Hamburg. With a wife as nagging as this, no wonder he doesn’t want to talk to her, the man thought with a smirk. She hung up being even more upset.

  Who was left to call? The police? She had nothing to lose. She dialed the number of the local office of the Policia Federal Preventiva. The officer she was handed to sounded young and perky.

  “How can I help you?” officer Toledo asked.

  “It’s my husband, he was supposed to call and he didn’t and I’m afraid something happened to him.” She had trouble keeping herself from crying.