by Rachel Lynch
The car stopped outside the mansion and the driver got out, opening Grant’s door for him. He climbed from his seat and the heat hit him like the inside of an oven. The main door of the house opened and Grant was received by a chunky male in a dark suit. When he’d first been employed, Grant had been given a tour of the company by Jean-Luc Bisset, the family’s personal security head. Grant, an Englishman, had found the Frenchman decidedly aloof, and their relationship got off to an awkward start. Khalil’s family security was made up of 90 per cent locally employed staff and the rest were, like him, Europeans who’d served in the military for their country. Grant questioned what experience Jean-Luc had, if any, and settled on the fact, found out later, that he’d been under the wing of Khalil forever: a hanger-on with no formal training. But his boss had affection for him, and Grant was the newcomer.
Jean-Luc was a man of few words, which no doubt complimented his hard-man image to those ignorant of what personal security actually involved. Grant had seen plenty of the type before. He’d winced at many of the routines and procedures he’d witnessed since starting with AlGaz, but he couldn’t simply barge in and trash the system: he had to get Khalil’s ear first. Perhaps that time had come.
He was ushered quickly through the house, and he took in the decor and opulence afforded to a residence of this quality. It was a style that one saw only in magazines, with crystal fireplaces, animal-skin rugs, vast polished tables, panes of glass the size of his whole room at the Marriott and stunning works of art. A huge portrait of a dignified gentleman in traditional Berber dress caught his eye.
They walked past a laundry room and two maids were busy sorting and folding, in silence. They didn’t make eye contact. Finally, he was shown into a massive office suite facing the ocean, framed by the biggest single windowpane Grant had ever seen. The first voice he’d heard in an hour spoke quietly in English on the telephone. It was Khalil himself.
Grant waited. The man who’d escorted him left the room and closed the door gently. He’d noticed that the first time he’d met Khalil; that he liked hush, and Grant enjoyed the respite from the cacophony of noise that accompanied his usual work. Compared to repeating himself in English and French, with a little Arabic, in an attempt to make himself understood in a sandstorm, this place was a haven of peace and tranquillity, and Grant understood why Khalil preferred it to his office downtown. But the serenity emanated from the man, not the other way around. There was something about Khalil Dalmani that commanded equilibrium.
‘Mr Tennyson,’ Khalil said, finishing his phone call and standing up to greet him. ‘Welcome to my home.’
Grant took the offered hand and tried to work out the mettle of the man before him. His son, along with a trusted member of the household, was missing, but here was a man who appeared cool, collected and in charge. He waited.
‘Please sit down.’
‘Sir,’ Grant said. ‘I was sorry to hear about your son.’
Khalil grimaced and nodded sternly. ‘Thank you, Mr Tennyson. May I call you Grant?’
‘Sure, you pay my wages,’ Grant said.
‘Good. I accept your sympathy, but what I want is your experience.’
Grant sat down on the sofa offered to him, and Khalil sat next to him in an armchair with a laptop in hand. The arrangement felt casual, but Grant knew better than that. He watched his boss; he wore casual trousers and a crisp white shirt, which looked expensive, and his dark skin contrasted in a way that white men could only wish for: the guy looked minted. But then, he was.
‘I’ve brought you here because I want you to find my son.’
Grant waited.
‘I’ve got everything you need in these files. They’ve been compiled by the National Central Bureau of Interpol, here in Algiers.’
Khalil handed over the laptop as he spoke. Grant wondered if the kidnap of a regular civilian would attract the attention of Interpol so quickly. He knew enough about the organisation, with their HQ in Lyon, France, to know that international kidnappings were taken seriously; however, he was also under no illusion that Khalil had them on board quicker than most, through the local arm based in Algiers.
‘Is Interpol handling the investigation, sir?’ he asked.
‘Yes. My son has been placed on a yellow notice, and bureaus all over the world have been notified.’
Grant appreciated the political gravitas of Hakim’s disappearance. After all, his father was one of the wealthiest men in the world and had important trade links with Europe.
‘You’re booked on a jet to Paris in an hour. Your accommodation is arranged and your budget details are all in there. I’ve many contacts in France and I’m trusting you to use them as you see fit. I read your CV carefully before I employed you, and I should have made you head of my personal security when I had the chance. I’m now paying for that mistake.’
‘You don’t trust Jean-Luc?’
‘You’re direct, and I like that about you. Continue to ask all the questions you need to. I do trust him. Both our fathers fought on the same side in the revolution. His passed away last year and Jean-Luc took it badly. His cancer, some said, was a result of working in mining all his adult life.’
‘Your mines?’ Grant asked.
Khalil nodded.
‘So it’s plausible that he blames AlGaz for that?’
‘That’s your new job, to find out,’ Khalil replied.
‘He’s a Frenchman?’ Grant asked.
‘His father was Algerian, he has a French mother.’
‘She’s still alive?’
‘Yes, and living in Lyon. The address is in there,’ Khalil said, pointing to the laptop.
‘Do you trust your son?’
‘Yes. But if you prove me wrong during your inquiries, I’ll accept it. Hakim is a studious boy. No businessman, but he’s possessed with an academic intelligence I never had, and he applies himself. If he was planning to betray me, he could have easily done so without the drama.’
‘Good point. Enemies?’
‘You must know the answer to that, Grant. I sent him back to Paris early because I thought he’d be safer there. It was a last-minute change of plan. How wrong I was.’
It was the first sign of emotion that Khalil had shown. He got up and faced the glass wall. Grant followed his gaze to the ocean.
‘Did you suspect some kind of threat?’ Grant asked.
‘It was Jean-Luc who informed me that his men talked much about offers of bribes they received for information about the whereabouts of my family at specific times,’ Khalil said.
‘And? Were they investigated?’
‘Jean-Luc took care of it,’ Khalil said. His head bowed a little and Grant recognised the gesture as one of a man who has made a terrible mistake and bears that weight on his shoulders. He blamed himself, like any parent would.
‘So no details of actual plans or any names to work with?’ Grant wanted to be clear about the extent of Jean-Luc’s incompetence.
‘No. I did have a request from an old associate, but it’s nothing, really.’
Grant found the statement vague.
‘When?’
‘Around three weeks ago.’
‘Who?’
Khalil sighed. ‘Fawaz bin Nabil. He’s—’
‘I know who he is. I’ve just spent three weeks on your perimeter. His name comes up a lot. He’s your commercial equivalent in Morocco, though perhaps more interested in profit that doesn’t have to be declared. How was he your associate?’
‘Our fathers started out in business together, but Fawaz and I parted company over technical disagreements.’ Khalil coughed.
‘You mean the morality of dealing drugs and arms? You look surprised. It’s no secret who Fawaz is. What did he want?’
‘He wanted to use my ships between Algiers and Marseilles. I said no.’
Grant let this sink in. Khalil faced back towards the glass.
‘I’d like to be coming with you, but my head is not clear and my heart bur
ns with rage. I need to be here to protect my wife and my other two sons. Part of your job is reviewing my personal security arrangements to look for holes. It’s clear that somebody betrayed me. My jet flies at very short notice, and Jean-Luc arranged everything – the pilots, the transport and the itinerary.’
‘Even old loyalties can be broken. There are a couple of people I trust out in the field looking after your perimeter. They should be transferred here. You need a tight group around you, but if you’re so sure that it was an inside job, then you should be coming to Paris with me. You’re not safe here.’
‘But if they were after the whole family, they’d have taken us together.’
‘Not necessarily. With Hakim gone, you’re vulnerable because you won’t expect another hit. You’re nervous now, so you’ll make mistakes. More importantly, you said it yourself, you don’t know who you can trust.’
‘What about Taziri and the boys?’
‘Bring them. I’ll make sure you have a team in Paris.’
Khalil made a phone call, and, even in Arabic, Grant knew it was to his wife. The tone, the familiarity and the sighing made that clear. He hung up.
‘Taziri is packing. I’ll get the boys myself,’ Khalil said.
‘No you won’t, sir – I will. Delay my plane, I’ll be back in half an hour. Phone the school and send them my iris recognition.’
Khalil nodded.
‘Where do you normally stay in Paris?’ Grant asked.
‘The Ritz.’
‘Call them yourself. Keep all of your staff here on full pay and conditions. The house should run as normal.’
‘Here.’ Khalil passed Grant a key fob from his pocket. It felt heavy in Grant’s hand and he recognised the wings of Bentley.
‘It’s in the second garage – I’ll walk you there. The house fobs are in the glove compartment.’
As they left the office, Grant heard a woman’s voice. She was arguing with someone. Khalil winced. Peace was something that the Dalmani family would not find again until their son was found.
Chapter 6
Just outside the Moroccan city of Fez, in a small village populated mainly by farmers, a man sat outside a two-storey stone building. One road dissected the settlement, and, under that, passed the river Fez. The city itself was the crossroads of Morocco and saw trade pass from south to north, east to west, in a never-ending criss-cross of goods coming and going, being sold and bought; the pulse by which the sprawling urbanisation had drawn air for thirteen centuries.
The roads in the city were tarmacadam of course, but here, in the suburbs, which was more like a rural wasteland, the paths were sandy and made of shifting dust, and the houses were simple and stone. Square, with a rooftop terrace, they kept residents cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The man, though, preferred to sit outside. It was the best position to be in to get paid every month. If he was nowhere to be seen, then how did they know he did his job? He sat on an old sofa pulled up to a metal table. On the table were all the things he needed to strip, clean, oil and reassemble the items laid before him. Nobody came to the village unless they came to pick up the goods produced in the factory inside the home he guarded. That was the same day he got paid. His job was to make sure that no one stole the commodities inside.
Not that anyone would. They’d be imbeciles to try.
He squinted in the afternoon sun, and a cigarette hung from his mouth as he worked. The array of objects before him was, to him, a vision of beauty, because only if one respected the equipment would it perform to the correct standard. Out here in the sand and heat, fine dust stuck to anything, like a whore to a prince’s leg. He had to go easy on the oil else all his efforts would be for nothing.
Two 9mm Glock pistols sat side by side, next to three Sig Sauer semi-automatics. Next to that, laid neatly, was an AK-47, a newly acquired AK-74, an American M4 carbine, and – his pride and joy – a Heckler & Koch MP5. There was an old and trusty Russian Dragunov sniper rifle too, and it sat there like a loyal dog, having accompanied its master on many missions.
He began with the smaller weapons, taking one of the Sigs and pulling back the upper case to check that it was empty. Next, he removed the two pins holding the casing in place over the barrel, revealing the mechanism inside. He removed the barrel and inspected the firing pin. He blew a few times, but the sand was stuck to the carbon deposits, and he swept the surfaces with a small wire brush. Happy, he pulled a lightly oiled flannelette through the barrel. He oiled the railings and wiped the spring, pulling the trigger as he did so, to test how smooth the weapon would be in its action now it’d had someone take good care of it. He got these weapons in all the time and they were in all kinds of states of shit. Someone nicknamed him Dirty Harry years ago, and it had stuck. Though, sadly, he’d never managed to get his hands on a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum.
The larger weapons took longer to clean and put back together because they had longer and thicker elements, and it was worth taking out the firing pin and the trigger. That’s why the AK-47 was so popular – in fact, the bestselling gun in history – because it was so basic. Put it in the hands of an eight-year-old and they’ll figure it out, so that’s what they did.
Cleaning guns was like listening to music to Dirty Harry. He worked methodically and smiled occasionally when he managed to get some carbon off a barrel without removing the matt paint, leaving a shine that would glint in the sun.
A car approached, and Dirty Harry looked up. A Toyota Land Cruiser. He stopped what he was doing and took his cigarette out of his mouth. He stood up and went to the front of the table, covering the weapons with a cloth, but taking a newly clean and loaded Sig and sticking it into his belt at the back of his tunic.
Then he relaxed. He knew both the driver and the passenger, who was his regular contact, Abdul. He waved a greeting but still registered the extraordinary nature of the visit. The vehicle stopped, and the men got out. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries about the price of ammunition and the football season.
‘Can I offer you some tea?’ he asked the men. They accepted, and he went inside and barked some orders. He beckoned them to sit on the dilapidated sofa but they declined. He waited. Finally one of them spoke and told him that a shipment had been apprehended between Tangier and a beach near Gibraltar. Interpol had been conducting another of their operations and congratulated themselves on seizing ten kilos of heroin from a speedboat. It was a mere blip, but still, it was a loss.
‘The goods are needed earlier than expected. We have a new route and expect the transfer to take place tomorrow,’ Abdul said.
‘What? Tomorrow? We don’t have enough time!’ complained Dirty Harry.
‘Show me,’ said Abdul.
Dirty Harry pointed to the driver and told him to wait by the table as usual. He took Abdul inside. The darkness assaulted their wits, and it took time to acclimatise, not only to the dark, but to the air-conditioning and lack of desert dust. The room was one of two, the other one being upstairs, and it housed various stations, comprising machinery, computer screens and laboratory-style equipment.
‘What more needs doing? We can’t wait,’ Abdul said.
‘There are many delicate procedures that need finalising. The propellers, the landing gear, the motor, the transmitter – they’re all standard and easy to install once the software is downloaded, but that’s the thing, my friend. It takes time to perfect each individual profile.’
‘I know,’ said Abdul, ‘And you have until tomorrow at three o’clock. We need to drive them to Algiers.’
‘Algiers?’
‘Ah, here is the tea. Let’s drink it outside and you can show me your new toys, Dirty Harry.’
Chapter 7
Hakim tossed and turned fitfully, drifting between the conscious and dreaming world. His journey so far had been logged deep inside his brain as a result of his father paying a lot of money to have him instructed in certain skills that he thought he’d never need. At the time, he’d thought his fa
ther overprotective, foolish even, but that had all changed as they landed at Paris-Le Bourget Airport yesterday.
The flight had gone without a hitch until they were somewhere over the Mediterranean and Jean-Luc looked jumpy. Hakim only noticed because he usually held the demeanour of a Hollywood bodyguard: slick and in control. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why now, but he’d sent a message to Amélie by text, as if to assuage his confusion over Jean-Luc’s body language and the palpable shift in atmosphere inside the cabin. The fact that he was even aware of the bodyguard was unsettling to him, because usually he wasn’t. He’d tried to call his girlfriend, but Amélie hadn’t answered. He didn’t know what made him ask her to come to the airport, until it was too late. A hunch, a suspicion, a gut feeling, a flight of fancy? Father always told him never to ignore them.
But, by the time two men had boarded the plane at Paris-Le Bourget – a favourite destination for those who could afford private air travel, all thoughts of Jean-Luc’s odd behaviour had been forgotten once more. It was the busiest private jet terminal in the world, but Hakim had seen it a hundred times and didn’t bother to check the view outside as he got up to leave his leather seat. He’d been working on a thesis due in the following week. His thoughts were of dining at Le Jules Verne, in the Eiffel Tower, with Amélie. He never tired of the view. It was a little kitsch, because of its sentimentality, as the English students said, but everyone knew the English to be snobs of the worst order. The cliché of dining overlooking the city from the monument, in his opinion, was never out of taste, and his father agreed. In fact, that’s probably why he’d chosen it for last night: to remind him of the man who he knew he’d miss so much, as well as to celebrate being with Amélie again. Hakim loved summers in Algiers: the smell of the heat, the cicadas going crazy, the late sun disappearing into the sea, the freedom of his brothers jumping on him in the pool, his mother’s cooking and his labradors. But he also loved Paris.