A Hostile State

by Adrian Magson

  Exiting a hot contact area is not always as easy as it might seem; it can be filled with danger from back-up units or other emergency powers, all conspiring by chance to muddy the water. If the call has gone out that there’s been a firefight, and there’s no clear source of the threat, police and security lines tend to coincide in a rush to check the surrounding area to see who might be in play.

  With the rash of extremist events occurring around the globe, it doesn’t take much to get counter-terrorism departments involved almost as a matter of course, even if the problem turns out to be purely criminal. The anti-terrorist net spreads wide, immediately tapping into all available sources for potential names and claims. By its very nature, any reaction is a beat or two behind the clock, running down informants, seeking out local mouthpieces and finding out who might be the obvious suspects. That surge of activity often brings in whoever happens to be in the area, like stray fish in a wide net.

  Like Lindsay and me.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she said, huddling against the car door. She looked pale and drawn, not surprisingly shaken by what had happened. I guessed that would last a while. Internal CIA staff are not trained to deal with armed assaults against themselves or buildings, and although she’d been quick to pick up the Beretta and loose off a few rounds, I figured she was now experiencing the residual effects of the action and not feeling too cool about it.

  ‘Somewhere busy,’ I said. We were about twenty miles out of the main Paris suburbs on a quiet section of road between villages. I was juggling ideas about where to go to ground. It was clear that whatever forces were after us were not short of daring or resources, and as we’d just witnessed, that would probably hold true just as much in a busy city like Paris as it would somewhere relatively quiet like Épernon. The main difference was, as long as we remained out of the spotlight, a big city would make it harder for them to locate us.

  What I didn’t know was how much more damage the opposition would take before they gave it up as a lost cause … or they got lucky. So far they had lost well over half a dozen people, either killed or out of action. But did that mean they would grow more or less determined to finish the job? I had no idea.

  ‘We need to eat,’ I said, easing the car between a couple of large trucks. Hunger when stressed was a fast way to have the body running down, sapping energy and focus. We also needed to get rid of the rental. With no rear window and several holes in the back, we were unlikely to get far now before someone called it in or we ran into a cop. And with the obvious bullet damage it would eventually be no ordinary traffic cop, but a no-messing unit with muscle and manpower.

  I spotted a sign for a town called St-Rémy and turned towards it. We got close to the centre and I pulled into a side street, grabbing our stuff and leaving the car. If we were lucky it would be picked up by a local chop-shop, if such a thing existed around here. If not the local cops would have a field day figuring out who had been through a small shooting war. I couldn’t help that my DNA and prints were all over it; some things you can’t cover up. If they looked hard enough, they’d find plenty, although how far they got to finding me would depend how keen they were.

  I stopped at a retro-style food van selling sandwiches, open rolls and pizzas and bought us enough to keep us going along with fruit juice and water and a bag to carry it in. It wasn’t haute cuisine but would keep us mobile and alert for a good few hours yet.

  The St-Rémy station was on the RER rapid transit or Réseau Express Régional commuter line which crossed Paris through to the north-east. I bought tickets and we had a short wait for the next train. We used the time to have a clean-up in the washroom and make ourselves look a little more respectable, including me cleaning out some stray bits of rear-window glass from Lindsay’s hair and washing a slight cut on her cheek. I also swept the area for signs of surveillance or cops. After the shooting in Épernon it was possible the local cops would have put out a bulletin for unusual activity throughout the region, to include roads and rail stations in and out of the capital.

  The train wasn’t busy, with a mere handful of travellers heading towards the city. The interior smelled of stale deodorant or cleanser and the musky aroma of work clothes and seat fabric seemed to fit our mood. Neither of us felt like talking, which was fine by me, so we ate instead. Whatever we had to say would likely sound too interesting if anyone overheard us, and any good citizen would be on the phone to the police within minutes. The silence also gave me time to formulate where we were going and what we were going to do.

  As we drew out of the station I felt a measure of relief that we were on the move. Having to stand still when every instinct tells you to get out of an area as quickly as possible is never good on the nerves. Our alternative would have been to keep going in the brutalized rental car, but that would have been a case of diminishing returns; sooner or later we’d have been caught in a net with no way out.

  That feeling of relief didn’t last long enough. After a mile or so the train slowed and inched along the track, the click-clicking of the wheels serving to taunt me with the idea that we were just pawns in a game and nothing we did was going to get us along any faster. A number of men in a work gang were standing by the side of the track, although they didn’t look too unhappy at the interruption. As I turned to look at what they were working on, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye from the connecting door to the next carriage.

  Lindsay, who was sitting across from me, saw it, too. ‘There’s a man watching us,’ she said quietly, staring out of the window and yawning. ‘I think he got on the train after us.’

  Damn. It was either the watcher I’d spotted in Épernon or someone he’d pointed after us. I’d been so focussed on where we were heading I’d lost sight for a moment of checking the people around us.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Just staring … oh, hang on – he’s using a cellphone.’

  I told myself it could be nothing. Another bored traveller eyeing up a pretty girl – Lindsay – the way guys in Latin countries do. For most it’s harmless eyeballing in the hopes of getting a smile in return. But maybe not this time.

  I turned my head and gave him a quick glance. An ordinary looking guy, dressed in everyday casual clothes of a windcheater and jeans, clean-shaven with short cropped hair and long sideburns.

  Ordinary but not local. I’d bet my boots on it.

  The way he had the cellphone clamped to his ear without talking was the giveaway. His eyes had that fixed look that told me he wasn’t listening either, and had my every instinct kicking into top gear. Unless I was too keyed up and imagining things.

  Then he looked across, unable to resist it any longer, and locked eyes with me before quickly turning his head away again. That was it.

  We’d been tagged.

  The next stop was Courcelle-sur-Yvette. If we stayed on this train and the guy was in touch with mobile reinforcements, they would eventually take us at one of the upcoming stops. They had already demonstrated the fact that they were able to bring in men wherever they were required, and I had no doubt they would want to complete their mission before we arrived in the city proper, where escape after an assault would be a lot harder and fraught with danger.

  For us, whether cops or bad guys, the end would be the same.

  ‘Don’t look at or acknowledge me,’ I said softly, and handed her the bag of remaining sandwiches and drinks. ‘When the train stops we get off and you move ahead of me. Don’t wait for me but leave the station. I’ll be right behind you.’

  Lindsay bent to fiddle with a shoe lace and her voice floated up to me loaded with concern. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘That depends on him.’

  I could see the station coming up. It looked deserted and small, typical commuter-land territory, which was both good and bad. The fewer people around the better, in case we ran into trouble, but the area looked way more open and more difficult to run and hide than I’d have liked.
/>   But hell, you can only work with what you’ve got.

  The train stopped and the doors opened. Lindsay and I were the only ones getting off, with maybe a dozen or so climbing aboard. Unless the Russians were hiring elderly women with shopping bags and the rolling gait indicating bad knees, none of them looked like members of a hit squad.

  As we headed for the exit I caught a glimpse of the man from the next carriage stepping down and following. He still had the phone to his ear but was now looking animated and doing all the talking. We’d caught him off-guard and he was either issuing instructions or asking for back-up.

  As we reached the station building, which was small and brick-built, I slowed down and allowed Lindsay to move ahead of me. There was no ticket barrier and nobody asking to see proof of travel. In fact I couldn’t see any staff at all. Lindsay walked straight through and disappeared outside while I loitered by a brochure stand near the door and began to count down the time to his arrival.

  The train left the station and everything went quiet.

  Ten seconds. I heard the man’s footsteps approaching. I crouched to pick up a handful of local area tourist leaflets that had fallen to the floor. I had my backpack in my other hand with a firm grip on the straps.

  Seven seconds. His feet scuffed on the ground as he hurried to catch up. Maybe he’d figured we had a car waiting and had been ordered to intercept us. If so he might be armed and ready to fight.

  Five seconds. His shadow moved across the doorway to the platform. I could hear his breaths coming in short puffs. He was either nervous or out of condition. Hopefully the latter.

  One second. As he came through the doorway his eyes were fixed on the exit and Lindsay’s form out in the open ahead of him. He frowned momentarily and hesitated, no doubt wondering why there was only one figure, not two. It took him a moment to spot me, bent close to the floor, and his brain had to work hard to process what he’d expected to see compared with what was before him.

  It was all the edge I was going to get. I tossed the bunch of leaflets hard into his face. He yelped in surprise and instinctively raised one arm as they flared around him. I followed up fast, coming off the floor and swinging my backpack like a flail. He tried to block it but was reacting way too late and thrown off-balance by the leaflets.

  The weight of the two guns inside the backpack acted like a cudgel, striking him across the side of the head. As he grunted and dropped his phone, I followed up with a knuckle strike to the side of his neck. He went limp and hit the floor, out for the count.

  I checked his clothing but there was no sign of a weapon. Just my photo on his cellphone and some French documentation naming him as Marcel Duplessier with an address in Paris. It put him down as a local hire and a spotter not a fighter.

  I put the phone in my pocket and left the documentation where it was. Then I dragged him over to a bench and laid him out with his face against the wall and one arm bent across his head.

  With luck the first person to find him would take him for a drunk recovering after an all-night bender.

  Outside I found Lindsay approaching a man leaning against a grey Renault Mégane. He was tall and stick-thin, and by the fine features and high forehead I guessed his origins to be from Somalia in the Horn of Africa. He stepped away from the car, one hand behind his back, the other down by his side. Loose-limbed and relaxed, he looked harmless.

  But his eyes were focussed on me like twin coals, instantly assessing and wary.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Callahan called Andrews to his office and waited impatiently for the young researcher to arrive. What he was about to do would cause a furore if it got out, as he was about to by-pass internal security conventions and, essentially, spy on his colleagues. It was something he would never have countenanced before, simply because there would never have been a need for it. But to his mind this was justified. He was now fairly sure that he had details of a possible line in and out of the building, but knowing and having proof were two different things.

  The downside was he also figured that he was on a short leash, timewise. Broderick would not have forgotten their acrimonious encounter in the meeting, nor the outspoken way Callahan had protested at the treatment of Marc Portman. And, as evidenced by the silence from upstairs, so far Jason Sewell had shown no signs of doing anything to calm the rough waters swirling around him.

  When Andrews appeared outside his door he nodded for him to come in.

  ‘Can you get me internal CCTV footage of a specific area of this building – specifically the area around the communications staff?’

  ‘Sure. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?’

  ‘Gaps in our security set-up here. But that’s not for public consumption. I want you to focus on one area specifically.’

  Andrews looked interested. ‘Sure. I mean, yes, can do. Any dates or times? Only there’s a ton of continual footage of all areas and they don’t like to hold onto stuff for too long. If you can narrow it down for me it would help.’

  Callahan thought it over. ‘I’d like the last five days of run-time. That should be enough. Can you do it without anyone knowing?’

  If Andrews sensed this was going outside normal bounds he kept the thought to himself, but grinned. ‘Will do. I’ll get on it. Can I have the access codes down there?’

  Callahan nodded. ‘I’ll arrange it. But you tell anyone and I’ll have to kill you. How long will it take?’

  Andrews cocked his head and thought for a moment. ‘Thirty minutes? I’ll send you the links to the files.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Andrews disappeared and Callahan got down to work on another projected mission plan. It was more to keep a lid on his impatience than anything, since he was fairly sure he was unlikely to see it through. But he was damned if he was going to walk out of the building without an attempt to nail whoever was leaking information and threatening an asset’s life.

  True to his word, a fraction over half an hour later Andrews sent through a number of links to CCTV files of footage taken over the past few days.

  Callahan took just a few seconds to recognize that it would take too long for him to run through it; he wasn’t sufficiently tuned in to this kind of job. Jumping through vast amounts of video footage was a specialist business and he didn’t want to waste time or miss something vital.

  He picked up the phone and called Andrews. ‘Hey, Sparky – grab yourself a coffee and get to my office; I need your eyes on this.’

  While Andrews drove the system Callahan sat at his shoulder, checking the layout of the section on-screen and spotting familiar faces. With one eye on the timer at the bottom of the screen he was able to guide Andrews in jumping large gaps when the section would have been vacant or otherwise closed to outside access. He was also using a note of the times when he and Portman had exchanged text messages including location codes, beginning with the hours before the first attack on him in Lebanon.

  The screen appeared oddly unreal, with staff moving around the cubicles, some using their chairs to scoot between keyboards, screen and maps, or coming together in huddles before moving apart the way he’d seen them doing a thousand times before, a busy section doing what they were trained to do. It was like watching an ant farm, even more so when Andrews speeded up the film at Callahan’s direction. All these people, he thought, engaged in vital work that would never see the light of day, nor be discussed with anyone outside.

  Work that was now threatened by someone who’d been able to access information and get it out of the building.

  The days of footage streamed by, with familiar faces and figures zipping beneath the cameras, changing light patterns, the daily run of a busy section in motion. He rubbed his eyes at the unusual intensity of screen focus and began to wonder if he’d chosen an impossible task that might in the long run prove utterly fruitless.

  Then, on day three of the recordings, he saw a familiar figure come into view from the door to the stairway leading upstairs. A woman
. He watched for a while, impatient to move on and half tempted to give the exercise a miss and ask Andrews to put it aside. But something made him wait.

  The woman was clutching a sheaf of papers and moving from desk to desk, cubicle to cubicle, and either placing a sheet of paper on a desk if vacant or handing it directly to its occupant. Then she did a sharp turn and stopped outside a door in one wall. She appeared to knock, resting one hand against the wall to one side. Then she stepped closer to it before entering and disappearing from view.

  It was the door to Lindsay Citera’s comms room.

  Callahan sat forward, eyes on the door. When the woman emerged, pulling the door closed again, he found he’d been subconsciously counting off the seconds while they had been inside. Thirty-five. Half a minute to do … what? Drop a slip of paper onto a desk and leave?

  He got Andrews to go back to the earlier footage, counting off how long it had taken to pass out the papers to others. Some had been handed over directly if the occupant was there, others were placed on the vacant desks. Each delivery took somewhere between three to five seconds. Normal internal mail delivery speed, he realized … except that in this building most deliveries came via internal mail-messaging. The longest was six seconds and that was when someone by the tilt of their head posed a question. Mostly, though, the occupant looked up, nodded and went back to their work, too busy or disinclined to chit-chat.

  Eventually the woman walked back towards the stairs and disappeared off-camera.

  ‘Is that it?’ said Andrews, picking up by the subtle shift of Callahan’s body language that something on-screen had caught his attention.

  Callahan checked himself. He couldn’t risk saying anything yet in case he was way off target and allowing things to add up which actually did not. The woman had been handing out an information bulletin of some kind, but so what? What was there to be suspicious about?

  ‘Keep going,’ he said, and sat back while Andrews ran more footage.

  Thirty minutes later he’d seen enough. He thanked Andrews for his help then went down to the comms area and spoke to several staff members and scoured vacant desks, some of which had a collection of papers amassed over several days. Most of it consisted of updates related to current issues, country-specific news items or maps, training notes and reminders, staff-related matters and reminders about the need to remember security in and out of the building.