Chapter 17
Paris, France
20 September 2003
Jerome woke up to a ripping headache. It felt like a nail was being pushed through the right side of his head, just behind the ear. He groaned as he remembered the events on the rubbish tip in Nairobi. He opened his eyes and closed them again.
The light was too bright.
Where was he?
He heard a beep. He opened his right eye and saw a medical machine with lots of buttons, flashing lights and tubes.
A hospital.
He sighed and turned onto his side, but something was tugging at his arms. He tried again, this time carefully moving his arms so as not to tangle the tubes that fed into them.
He blinked. There, sitting on a chair in front of him, was Anne Gaillac, dressed in a long black coat. She’d visibly aged, with deeper wrinkles on her forehead and white short-cut hair, but she still had that sparkle in her eyes.
She spoke in French. ‘Bonjour, Jerome. Welcome to the Hôpital Salpêtrière. I see you got yourself into a small spot of bother again?’ She winked.
Jerome tried to rise onto his elbows, but then collapsed back into the bed with a moan. His head felt like it was about to explode. Still, he smiled weakly. Anne being here was good news.
‘Mostly because of information you fed me,’ he said. ‘And you? Still brainwashing your Sciences Po students against the global capitalist system?’
‘Didn’t I tell you to be careful with those NGO types?’ Anne stroked her chin in a way he’d seen hundreds of times before. ‘They’re a dangerous bunch.’
He tried to smile again, but gave up. A surge of pain gripped his stomach.
‘What did they do to you?’ she asked. ‘You look in a terrible state.’
A nurse had just come in, small and plump and ugly with a large nose and double chin.
‘Punctured stomach,’ the nurse said. ‘Needed a five hour operation to fix. And a cracked skull. The doctors say he was lucky to survive.’ She checked a few graphs on the machine.
‘What else do they say?’ Anne asked. ‘Does he need more operations?
‘No idea.’ The nurse looked at her with a bored look. ‘You’ll have to ask them.’
Anne glared at her. The nurse got the message and left.
‘Damn,’ Jerome groaned. ‘I wanted morphine.’
‘What happened?’
Jerome took a deep breath. ‘This guy from UA called Harry and his thugs lured me to Kibera to beat me up. They thought the locals would finish me off, but miscalculated. Some of the kids from a youth group intervened and took me to hospital.’
‘That was lucky. D’you mean Harry Steeler?’
‘Yes, why?’ He gasped and rolled onto his side. ‘Can you call the nurse again? I really need some morphine.’
Anne went into the corridor and called out. No-one came, so she popped back into the room.
‘I’ll look for a nurse,’ she said. ‘I need the toilet anyway. I’ll just be a few minutes.’
Jerome stared at the white wall in front of him. He had indeed been lucky. After Harry, Patrick and Maxine had left him in the waste tip, he’d expected the young men gathering around him to loot him and leave him to die. He’d heard such horrific stories about what happened in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, where murders and rapes happened on a daily basis. Instead, two of them had carefully extracted the metal bar from his stomach and gently picked him up. He’d passed out and woken up here.
The door to his room creaked open.
‘Anne, did you find the nurse?’ Jerome said.
No reply, just footsteps.
‘Anne?’
‘It’s not Anne,’ said a strangely familiar voice. ‘It’s someone else. Someone who cares for you deeply.’
Harry’s sneering face filled Jerome’s field of vision. Jerome groaned and tried to move back, but he was too weak and the tubes in his arms were getting all tied up. His heart was racing and his mouth felt like talcum. This couldn’t be true. It must be a nightmare. He shook his head to wake up.
No.
It was real.
How had Harry found him here?
‘Harry…’ he whispered. ‘What…’
Harry leant so close he was nearly touching Jerome with his nose and glasses. He had a cold look in his eyes. Like a predator. His breath stank of booze and cigarettes.
‘So, Sablon,’ he hissed. ‘Looks like you were fortunate. Won’t be so easy this time round.’
‘It’s too late,’ Jerome muttered. ‘I have evidence. It’ll be out soon.’
A cloud crossed Harry’s face. ‘I don’t think so. We know you too well. And we know your friends. Don’t do anything stupid, or you’ll all suffer.’
‘You won’t get away with this.’
‘You’re so naive. You should know by now not to fool around with me. I never forgive and I never forget.’
Harry reached into his jacket. Jerome recoiled.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Who are you?’ said the nurse from earlier on.
Harry took his hand out of his jacket, straightened up and smiled. ‘I’m an old friend of Jerome’s. Came to see how he’s doing. Good to see he’s recovering. Aren’t you, Jerome?’ He patted Jerome’s head, then turned to the nurse again. ‘How long will he have to stay in here?’
‘A few days, maybe longer. Depends how fast he recovers.’
Jerome tried to say something, but Harry interrupted him. ‘Take it easy, Jerome. You need to rest. I’ll see you soon.’ He nodded to the nurse. ‘Lucky Jerome, having such a good-looking nurse.’
She blushed as he brushed past her and out of the door. Jerome’s heart was pounding and his headache was stronger than ever as he screamed inwardly in frustration.
The nurse looked at him quizzically. ‘That was a bit of a lightning visit from your friend. Can’t say he stayed for long.’
‘Which friend?’ asked Anne, who was just re-entering the room.
‘The man who just left. With the round glasses and grey beard. You must have crossed him.’
‘I didn’t notice,’ Anne snapped, making the nurse flinch. ‘Which way did he go?’
‘That way, towards the stairs.’
‘It’s Harry,’ Jerome yelled after her. ‘Get the bastard.’
Chapter 18
Paris, France
20 September 2003
Harry turned to the driver and grinned. ‘Laurent, I’ve found the son of a bitch.’
Laurent was a tall and tough-looking man, with short cropped hair, a broken nose and a constant frown. They were driving through a back street, away from the hospital.
‘D’you finish him off?’ Laurent said in a heavy French accent.
‘I got interrupted.’
‘Great. So now he knows you’re here. Won’t he talk?’
‘More like the opposite. He’s too freaked out and in a terrible state.’
‘What we gonna do now? Come back again and bump him off in the hospital? Sounds risky.’
Harry shook his head, annoyed at Laurent’s attitude. ‘We’ll wait. He won’t feel safe in there anymore. He’ll try to leave as soon as he can. We’ll follow him. Then we’ll get him. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’
‘What about his friends, like the guys from Agence France Presse who got him out of Kenya? They’re well connected.’
‘Don’t you worry about them.’
Laurent shrugged. ‘Okay then.’
They were nearing Gare d’Austerlitz, stuck in the mad traffic that brought Paris to a stand-still every morning at rush hour. Harry stroked his beard. He’d only arrived in Paris from Cape Town at 5am, yet he felt like he’d been here for days. Horns were beeping and tempers were flaring, but that made no difference to Harry. It looked like he would be able to gain respect again in Edward’s eyes by sorting out the problem with that troublemaker Jerome. Edward might come across as a ruthless bastard at times, but he was still the most powerful person in Harr
y’s life: able to make or break his career on a whim and even, if he so wished, able to get him into serious trouble. Yet Harry felt an intense sense of loyalty towards Edward. The man had charisma and charm. He was everything Harry wanted to be.
Harry scanned the street. Within seconds, he’d spotted them: the smartly dressed executive in the pinstriped suit descending into the underground metro station; the elegant mother in designer sportswear with jet black shoulder-length hair power-walking with her buggy; the young couple embracing against a wall.
It was such a typical Parisian scene.
But not for long.
Harry leant forward to look in his wing mirror. ‘We’ve got a tail. Two cars behind. The grey Citroen.’
There was a red Peugeot right behind them with a young woman with rectangular glasses at the wheel. She was leaning out the window, smoking a cigarette. Behind her was a light grey Citroen whose driver he couldn’t see from his angle.
Laurent squinted into the rear-view mirror. ‘I know the guy driving it. I worked with him at Interpol in Lyon.’
‘Before they kicked you out?’ It was half meant as a joke, but Laurent didn’t respond, showing that it was still a touchy subject. Harry had heard that Laurent’s dismissal from Interpol earlier this year had been messy. Nobody really knew what had happened and Laurent rarely spoke about it. Harry made a mental note to investigate it further: he needed to know as much as possible about the men he hired.
Laurent looked again in the rear-view mirror. ‘Name is Patrique Lacroix. A tough one.’ He looked quickly away. ‘Damn. I caught his eye.’
‘I expect that cretin Jerome alerted them.’
‘Or they picked up your trail at the airport.’
‘No chance. I came in on a different passport with a new identity. No. They were watching us at the hospital. That woman in the car park.’
Ahead of them, the lights went from red to green and back to red, with nobody moving. There were so many cars stuck in the junction that it was total gridlock.
‘Over there: leaning against the wall.’ Harry nodded to the right. ‘That couple. They kiss, then they stop and look over.’
‘Amateurs.’
Harry looked to the left. ‘That man there, in the sharp-dressed suit, who just came out of the metro. Just a few minutes ago he was going down. They’re trying to corner us.’
The man in the suit walked towards the woman with the push-chair. She kissed him on both cheeks in typical Parisian-style. The man put a phone to his ear.
‘He’s checking everything’s in place. We need to get out of here,’ Harry said as he hunched his shoulders and twisted towards the car door. ‘When I say so, we’re going to get out of the car and into the metro. We’ll take it to Gare du Nord. Then we’ll take the Eurostar to London, sort those things out, and come back here and finish off that pesky journalist. Got it?’
‘Right.’
Harry felt a tingle of excitement. He touched the Beretta and the grenade in the inside pockets of his jacket. It felt good to have them so close.
Laurent leant over to pick up his black rucksack from the back seat of the car.
Then Harry said: ‘Now!’
They swung open their doors and walked through the stationary traffic towards the metro. The cars behind beeped their horns and a driver leaned out of his window to shout at them. The man in the suit spun away and swore into his phone. The woman rummaged around in the back of her push-chair.
Harry grabbed Laurent’s arm. ‘She’s got a gun.’
Laurent quickened his pace. Behind them, the woman cried out in French, ‘Stop, police!’
Harry spat over his shoulder. They ran down the steps into the metro. They sprinted down the corridor. Laurent smashed into an old woman, sending her sprawling. A group of young men cried out, then started swearing at them as they raced past.
They ran down a stairway. They jumped onto a metro just as the doors were closing. The other passengers looked at them blankly, clearly mistaking them for ordinary commuters who were rushing for the train. Harry turned round. Their pursuers were running along the platform as the metro pulled away, desperately looking in the carriages for them.
One of them spotted them. He yelled and sprinted along, banging on the door to the carriage. Harry grinned. The passengers closest to him gave him a worried look. The metro rumbled into the tunnel, leaving their pursuers waving their arms and shouting on the platform.
Harry and Laurent changed metro lines several times, waiting around to make sure they weren’t being followed. Eventually, they got to Gare du Nord. They ran up the steps to the train station. Harry slowed down. Right in front were three soldiers with sub-machineguns who were looking the other way. Harry had forgotten how tight security had got in Paris since the War on Terror had started. Armed soldiers patrolled every major train station.
They forced themselves to walk calmly past the soldiers, towards the exit ahead of them. Just as they got there, they came face to face with the couple they’d seen kissing earlier on.
Harry reacted first, punching the man’s jaw so hard he heard a satisfying crack. The man’s head whipped back. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
The woman pulled out a gun.
Harry grabbed her wrist, twisting it and forcing her round. He had her arm in a lock behind her back. He forced her to drop her weapon and bend forward.
‘Bitch,’ Harry said. ‘Think you can mess with us?’
He twisted her even more violently. Her arm popped out of her shoulder joint. She screamed. Harry kept twisting, dragging her round. He felt sinews and muscles rip.
There was shouting behind them. He spun half round to see the soldiers running over, cradling their sub-machineguns. The crowd scattered before them like pigeons.
They only had a few seconds to escape. Laurent snatched the woman’s gun from the floor and whacked her on the head with it. She slumped to the ground on top of her comrade.
Harry pulled out his Beretta. He shot the man and the woman twice each in the head. Their bodies shuddered. Blood and brain splattered all over the floor and onto Harry’s shoes. The sound of the shots echoed around the station building.
There was a sudden silence as people froze, as though time had stopped. Then there was shrieking, shouting and chaos as the already panicked crowd became a mass of running bodies. Mothers dragged their wailing children. A young man ran into the road and was hit by a van. A ticket inspector looked at the dead bodies and passed out.
Harry smiled: he loved causing chaos.
Laurent gaped at Harry. ‘What the—’
Harry ignored him. No time to explain. The soldiers were trying to push their way through the mass of people. Up on the first floor landing, three cops were running out of the Eurostar terminal and rushing down the stairs, fumbling for their guns in their holsters.
Harry ducked behind a pillar, pulling Laurent behind him. He peered round. The soldiers were searching for them. He took aim, fired twice, hitting one soldier in the arm and another in the leg. Both collapsed. The third responded with a volley of bullets, sending bits of cement flying everywhere as they hit the pillar.
Harry pulled back. Across the road, more cops were sprinting over, guns in hands.
‘They’re encircling us,’ Laurent said.
They ran behind another pillar just as a hail of lead flew through the air.
‘There.’ Harry pointed at a door. ‘Car park.’
He rolled, jumped to his feet and kicked the door open. Laurent was right behind him. The stairwell stank of piss. They leapt down the steps, four at a time. They crashed through the door to level -2.
‘You sure this is a good idea?’ Laurent said, gasping. ‘We’re trapped.’
The sound of running feet and shouting reverberated behind them. Laurent was right. It was risky down here.
Harry tapped Laurent on the shoulder. ‘Come on.’
They raced across the car park in the dim neon light. Harry hid in a parking space,
peering out from behind the concrete wall. Laurent crouched next to him.
The door to the car park crashed open. Three cops stepped out, crouching. Harry pulled the grenade from his pocket. He lobbed it over. He ducked behind the wall. An explosion tore through the car park. Acrid smoke filled the air, along with screams. Someone shouted for a medic.
This would stop them for now.
Harry sprinted towards the outside exit, Laurent right behind him. They ran up the ramp into an empty side street. Police sirens shrieked. Harry could feel adrenaline pump through him.
This was what it was all about.
They sprinted down another side street and hid in a dark doorway. Laurent ripped open his bag and threw some clothes to Harry.
‘Here,’ Laurent said. ‘Put these on quick.’
A dark blue riot police van raced past, then another and another. They probably thought it was a terrorist attack. They’d soon be cordoning off the area.
Harry yanked on a non-descript dark grey sweater and baggy trousers over his existing clothes, making him look fatter. Laurent handed him a cap with an unreadable logo.
‘Thanks.’ Harry looked at Laurent: he was dressed in similar attire but different colours. The blue sweater was a size too small, revealing Laurent’s bulging muscles.
Harry glanced down at his shoes. There was blood, hair and skin on them. He scraped them against the wall to clean them off.
They stepped out of the other entrance to the side street. They hailed a cab and ordered it to take them for a sightseeing drive around Paris while they figured out what to do next.
Harry leaned back in his seat.
He felt good. Real good.
How he missed the excitement of combat. This had made his mission much more difficult, but it was worth it. Interpol had been on his case for too long. This would teach them not to send a bunch of amateurs after him.
‘Why?’ Laurent whispered.
‘It was the only way. Leave no trace.’
Laurent shook his head in disgust.
‘This is war, Laurent,’ Harry said. ‘It’s not a walk in the park.’
‘Still—’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Harry raised his voice. The cab driver glanced in the rear-view mirror at them.
The Somali Doctrine Page 9