It was common knowledge that Col. Jacques Gamoudi had taken early retirement from the Army and headed with his family to the Pyrenees, where he hoped to set himself up as a mountain guide and expedition leader, as his father had done before him, in faraway Morocco.
Indeed an inspired piece of guesswork by Gaston Savary had brought him, in company with Michel Jobert, to the town of Castelnaudaray, thirty-five miles southeast of Toulouse, where Le Chasseur’s military career had begun. Quartier Lapasset, home of the Foreign Legion’s training regiment, was in Castelnaudaray, and the young Gamoudi had spent four months there as a recruit.
Savary and the Colonel had made extensive inquiries, and not without some success. But there were no details, only that Jacques Gamoudi, with his wife, Giselle, and two sons, now aged around eleven and thirteen, had headed east into the mountains, maybe four years previously, and had not been seen since — though a veteran Legionnaire Colonel thought he had heard that the family had settled near Cauterets.
And now their staff car was winding its way through the spectacular range of mountains that divided France from Spain. They took no driver: Savary himself was at the wheel.
Things had moved forward in the month since first they discussed the operation in Saudi Arabia. But now the pressure was on, directly from the President of France. Their mission was simple: find Col. Jacques Gamoudi. Savary was beginning to wish he had never suggested the man’s name in the first place. Not only were they lost, but it was growing dark, they had no hotel reservation, and, generally speaking, they had no idea where they were going.
Cauterets had seemed a reasonable plan. They had run southwest from Toulouse for more than 100 miles into ever higher ground. Now they were driving through steep passes south of Soulom, climbing all the while, up past rugged, treeless peaks.
“This road ends at Cauterets,” said the General helpfully.
“So does the world, I shouldn’t be surprised,” replied Savary, faintly irritably, as he stared ahead at the darkening mountains. “God knows how we’ll ever find this character.”
“Oh, let’s not be negative,” said the General. “I doubt there are that many mountain guides in the area. And they’ll all know one another.”
“You’d need to be a mountain guide to live up here,” said Savary, who was a Parisian to the tips of his well-polished loafers.
“Shouldn’t be surprised if the whole population were mountain guides.”
General Jobert chuckled. Twenty minutes later, now in the pitch dark, they ran past a sign that said, at last, CAUTERETS. And there before them was the brightly lit resort town with its cheerful hotels, bars, and restaurants.
They drove on down Route 920 and swung into the Place Marechal Foch. Right ahead of them were the lights of the Hotel-Restaurant Cesar. Simultaneously, both men exclaimed, more or less word-perfect, “This’ll do for us.”
Anxious to disembark after the long journey, they heaved their bags out of the car and found their way to reception, where they booked a couple of rooms and a table for two in the hotel’s surprisingly crowded dining room.
Twenty minutes later, a few minutes before ten o’clock, they were dining in the best restaurant in Cauterets, with crisp white tablecloths and napkins and an excellent selection of regional wines.
Savary chose a Chateau de Rousse from the historic Jurançon district, southwest of the town of Pau, which was located about thirty-five miles to the north of Cauterets. The General looked at the label, which mentioned Pau, and he wondered if that might be their next stop — since Jacques Gamoudi had completed his specialist parachute training for the Foreign Legion right there in Pau before embarking for peacekeeping duties in Beirut. Let’s face it, he thought, we have precious little to go on.
Between courses, Savary tried an elementary check of the phone book, but there was no Jacques Gamoudi. There was no Gamoudi whatsoever. If Le Chasseur was living up there in the mountains, he was probably using another name.
“You know, I’ve never asked you, Michel, but what was Colonel Gamoudi actually doing for the Special Forces after he left the Foreign Legion?”
“Well, he had a glowing service report,” said the General. “And he quickly made the First Marine Parachute Regiment. He was recommended for a commission, which is a considerably more difficult task than a similar rank in the Foreign Legion. So he went to the French Military Academy at St. Cyr.
“From there he went to the Central African Republic, and made Major at an incredibly young age. He commanded his squadron in a highly dangerous long-term reconnaissance operation. That led to the successful evacuation of 3,000 French civilians and a crushing defeat of that particularly vicious rebel movement, the FACA.
“They decorated him again, and then he was invited to join the Secret Service, which he did. In June 1999 he masterminded the rescue of the U.S. Ambassador from the Congo. The French Special Ops team went with the diplomat to the Gabon, but Colonel Gamoudi stayed behind and directed the remaining French troops, the ones who had done the fighting.
“He earned his nickname in the murky world of North African politics, where regional conflict was rife and rebellions frequent. He was always in the thick of it, frequently commanding ex — French and Legionnaire officers who were fighting as mercenaries, and protecting French oil interests, and private French companies with involvement in the diamond industry. They say he was even involved in a truly daring plot to assassinate the President of Côte d’Ivoire five years ago.” The General hesitated briefly, before adding, “Jacques Gamoudi always seemed particularly at home in a Muslim environment. And I’m telling you, one way and another, he was one hell of a soldier.”
“I imagine it can take its toll, a life like that,” said Savary. “In that god-awful climate. Always watching your back, always concerned for those who rely on you…”
“No doubt,” said the General. “I understand many people were most surprised when he turned his back on the army. But he was, apparently, disenchanted. And wanted nothing more to do with it.”
“It’s often that way with very brave men,” mused Savary, sipping his Château de Rousse. “They seem to wake up one morning and wonder why they are doing so much more than everyone else, for the same basic salary. He might be a hard man to turn around. Unless we have a lot of money.”
“We do have a lot of money. And I assure you, the President and his royal cohort from the Saudi desert will not hesitate to spend it, if we believe this is the right man to take Riyadh.” The General put three photographs on the table. “Take another good look at these, Gaston, because I think he might even deny who he is when we find him.”
“If we find him,” said the Secret Service Chief. “If we find him.”
By now it was a little after 11 P.M. And as they left the dining room, the General asked the headwaiter if he had heard of a man named Jacques Gamoudi. Col. Jacques Gamoudi. He was greeted with the blankest of Gallic looks. So the General showed him the photographs, but the response was the same. It was a pattern that would be repeated with the concierge, the receptionist, and indeed the hotel’s owner. No one had ever met Le Chasseur.
The following morning was bright and warm. Under cloudless skies they made their way up to the cable cars that linked Cauterets to the Cirque du Lys, a skier’s paradise with its twenty-three runs covering twenty-five miles of fast downhill slopes. Not in June of course. But the cable car loading station was a regular starting point for mountain guides, and a gathering place for walkers and climbers from all over Europe.
For two hours, Savary and the General stood beneath the great peaks, mingling with the guides, asking the question, showing the photographs, watching for the slightest sign of deceit or secrecy. But there was none. Le Chasseur had surely vanished, if indeed the Legionnaire in Castelnaudaray had been correct. By lunchtime the two searchers were pretty certain the Legionnaire had been mistaken.
There were just a few hikers gathering now, and they appeared not to have a guide who would walk wi
th them. At least not an adult one. There was a boy, of about fourteen, showing them a map, but that was all.
It was virtually a last-ditch effort, but as the hikers moved off, Savary walked over to the boy who was still folding up his map. His ten-euro tip was still in his hand.
Savary wished him “Bonjour” and showed him the photographs. Without hesitation the boy exclaimed, “Hey, that’s a good picture of Monsieur Hooks.”
“Monsieur who?” said Savary.
“Hooks. He’s a mountain guide, lives over in a tiny little place called Heas, right up in the mountains, far above Gedre. That’s him. Definitely. The man in your picture.”
“Do you know his first name?”
“No, no. He’s Monsieur Hooks. No one calls him by his first name.”
“Has he lived there a long time?”
“Not too long. But I remember when he came. I was ten, and I was in Monsieur Lamont’s class. I used to live over at Gedre, and my school went on a few expeditions to the mountains around the Cirque de Troumouse. Monsieur Hooks was always our guide. He takes all the school parties up there.”
“Where exactly did you say he lives?”
“Heas, it’s called. But it just a few houses with a shop and a church. You go south from Gedre. It’s on the map, on the way to the highest mountains around here. But you could go right past without noticing the village.”
Savary thanked the boy and gave him another ten-euro note. Two hours later he and General Jobert were driving along a slow, winding mountain road approaching the small town of Gedre along the tumbling Gavarnie River.
There was only one road out of the town, heading south toward the Spanish border, back into the highest peaks. Savary gassed up the car and noted the signpost, which said: Cirque de Troumouse. Underneath it was written, Heas 6km.
This was another mountain road even more twisting than the last. All around were great craggy escarpments, hardly any trees. It was grandeur rather than beauty. And this little road would eventually become almost a spiral as it headed up into the astonishing ten-kilometer wall of mountains that formed the Cirque de Troumouse.
Heas was the last stop before the big climb. The traffic to see the views was such that the French had shrewdly made the last part a toll road up to the edge of the Cirque, in the time-honored Gallic tradition of always making a buck when the chance was there.
Gaston Savary and General Jobert pulled into the village a little before three o’clock in the afternoon. They inquired at a shop about Monsieur Hooks and were told, politely, that he had gone into the mountains that morning with a coach load of schoolchildren and their teachers. He usually returned to Heas at around 4 P.M. Meanwhile they could certainly talk to Madame Hooks, who had just gone to meet the school bus from Gedre, and would certainly be home in a few minutes…four houses up the street, on the left. Number eight.
Savary thanked the shopkeeper and bought a couple of bottles of orange juice. He and Jobert sat on a wall outside in the sunlight and drank them, waiting for a lady with two children to come up the hill toward them.
They did not have to wait long. A slender, pretty woman, late thirties, appeared almost immediately, laughing with two young boys. General Jobert stepped forward with a cheerful smile. “Madame Hooks?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said carefully. “I am Madame Hooks.”
“Well, I am very sorry to startle you. But my colleague, Monsieur Savary, and I have come a very long way to see your husband on a most urgent matter.”
“What about?” she said. “You are looking for a guide through these mountains?”
“Not exactly,” said the General. “But we have something to tell him that he will most certainly find interesting.”
Madame Hooks appraised the two men, noting their excellent manners, their well-cut clothes and polished shoes, and indeed the big Citroën government car parked outside the shop. Every sense told her that these were men from the military, but she chose not to betray her thoughts. However, she knew better than to antagonize such people, so she said quickly, “Please come up to the house, and we will have some coffee…this is our son Jean-Pierre and this is Andre.”
The General held out his hand in greeting. “And this,” he said, “is a very important man from Paris: Monsieur Gaston Savary.”
They walked up yet another hill, about fifty yards, and entered through a gate into a small walled garden, which surrounded a white stone house with a red-tiled roof, a classic French Pyrenean building.
The living room was also classic French country style, large with a heavy wooden dining table at one end and a sitting area around an enormous brick fireplace at the other. The kitchen was separate, through a beamed archway, and all the furniture was of a high quality. There were some very beautiful rugs, possibly North African in origin, spread over the oak floorboards. A large framed photograph of Monsieur Hooks and his new bride, taken in 1993, was hanging on the wall beside the kitchen. General Jobert noted instantly that Monsieur Hooks had been married in the dress uniform of the First Marine Parachute Infantry regiment.
Madame Hooks took the boys into the kitchen. When she emerged, she was carrying a tray of four mugs, three of them full, plus a coffeepot. She asked the two men to call her Giselle. “Jacques will not be long,” she said. “That school bus he’s on is supposed to be back in Gedre by four o’clock.”
She was correct in that. Four minutes later, the door opened and Monsieur Jacques Hooks, a medium-size, bearded man, not one ounce overweight, walked inside. He was wearing leather work boots, suede shorts, and a T-shirt, with a green rucksack over his shoulder. Jammed into his wide studded belt was a large sheathed knife.
Monsieur Hooks was surprised, but mannered. “Oh,” he said. “I was not expecting visitors. Bonjour, I’m Jacques Hooks.”
General Jobert was the first to his feet. “Bonjour,” he said, “I’m Michel Jobert, and this is my colleague Gaston Savary. We have come a very long way to see you.”
Monsieur Hooks seemed to freeze. His face was expressionless. “I don’t suppose there would be much point in hiding my true identity from you,” he said. “I’m assuming you are both from some branch of the military, but I should warn you right away, I am retired. I have a wife and family, as you already know. And I have no intention of leaving my little mountain paradise.”
Gaston Savary held out his hand. “Colonel Gamoudi, I’m honored to meet you,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I’m head of the French Secret Service. And General Jobert here is Commander in Chief of the First Marine Parachute Infantry…your old regiment.”
“I’m afraid I knew precisely who General Jobert was the moment I walked in,” said Jacques Gamoudi. “I do stay in touch with a few old friends. And I most certainly would recognize my commanding officer.” He smiled gently, poured himself some coffee, and shook his head. “It’s been a while now,” he said. “But we’re very happy here in the mountains. It’s a good place to bring up a family. Clean, lovely, no crime, friendly people.”
“How about that very large dagger you carry with you?” said Savary, chuckling. “You expecting trouble?”
Gamoudi laughed. “No, but I work in some pretty desolate places with some pretty helpless people. These mountains are just about the last refuge of the Pyrenean brown bear. And he’s big and dangerous. This hunting knife is my last line of defense.”
“I’m not sure even a knife that size would fend off a Pyrenean bear,” said Savary.
“That depends on how well you know how to use it,” replied Gamoudi. “Most of God’s creatures lose heart for a fight with a knife this big rammed into their left eye.”
Savary thus ascertained that the Colonel was right handed. He stared at the heavy forearms, the bull neck, and the wide, swarthy face. He noted the jagged scar below Gamoudi’s right ear, the tight military-cut hair, the straight back of his natural stance, the hard brown eyes. Ex — Foreign Legion, ex — Special Forces, ex-mercenary in North Africa. Parachutist. Combat fighter. What
the hell did I expect him to look like? Yves St. Laurent?
“Before we start to talk,” Gamoudi said, “I should perhaps explain that I am not hiding in any way. But in my line of business one is apt to make a few enemies, and so I changed my name. I thought it wiser not to return to Morocco, since I was in North Africa on behalf of the French Republic for so long. But I always wanted to live in France, and the mountains suit me well. I can make a good living up here, so I changed our name, and we just vanished into the mists. Giselle’s parents live in Pau.”
“Did you meet her during parachute training with the Legion?” asked the General.
“Very perceptive, sir. Matter of fact, yes, I did. I was twenty years old. She was only fifteen. I had to wait for her to grow up.”
“She waited for you,” said the General. “Nine years, according to that photograph.”
“You don’t miss much, sir, I’ll say that.”
“In our business, Jacques, we can’t afford to, eh?”
“You have that right, General.”
Both men smiled, almost shyly, that most fleeting sign of camaraderie among combat soldiers.
“Now perhaps you should explain to me why you have traced me to my mountain lair.”
“I will let Gaston outline for you the background to our visit. It involves a foreign country, and indeed the President of France…”
And for the next ten minutes the Secret Service Chief outlined the interior problems of Saudi Arabia, the prolific spending of the royal family, the monumental cost of that family, the deep unrest within the kingdom, the savage cuts in every family’s income from the oil, the offensive ties to the United States of America, the loss of the true Islamic religion in favor of the ideals of a different, godless world to the West.
Jacques Gamoudi nodded. One of four million Muslims resident in France, he still tried to obey the laws of the Koran, although it was difficult to attend a mosque up there in the mountains. But his parents had been devout in the teachings of the Prophet, and there was no question in the mind of Colonel Gamoudi: There is only one God. Allah is great.
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