“How did it go sideways?”
“That’s what I want you to find out,” Armstrong said. “Here’s what I know so far. Bonner picked up intel that a French mercenary group contacted a British smuggler about an early morning trip across the Channel. We’re talking low priority stuff. No red flags. The French group is called Le Milieu.”
Noble shook his head. “Never heard of them.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “They’re a French organized crime outfit. They were suspects in a witness intimidation case a few years back, a few disappearances, but nothing major. French police never managed to indict them. This is the first time they’ve even come to the attention of American intelligence agencies.”
“Stepping up their game,” Noble commented.
Armstrong nodded. “Bonner put together a surveillance team of independent contractors and went to check out the boat, tail the French group, see what they were bringing into the country. Routine surveillance. Samantha Gunn, who was not even a part of the operation, showed up and started shooting. She hit Frank in the head, he died on the scene. Sam escaped.”
“What do we know about the contractors?”
“Three of our best agents. Two Americans. One French. The leader’s name is David Grey. All three have been on the Company payroll for ten years or more. They’re top-notch when it comes to covert surveillance, clandestine entry, and intelligence gathering. They’ve spent most of their time in the European theater, but all three have some time in the Middle East as well. These guys know their way around a fight.”
“They’re the ones who called it in?” Noble asked.
“Right. They represent our boots on the ground.”
“You buy their version of events?” Noble asked.
Armstrong paused to consider that and shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe. Grey is either telling the truth or making the whole thing up, and Gunn isn’t talking to anybody. Either way, Bonner is dead, the French are asking questions and the president wants answers. I’m afraid if Grey and his team catch up to her first, Gunn will be dead before she has a chance to tell her side of the story. That’s why I came to you. I figure you’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”
Noble leaned back in the seat and crossed his arms. “Why am I not hearing this from Burke?”
“He’s part of the team at Langley tracking her down. This is the second time one of his recruits went off the reservation. First you, now Sam. It doesn’t look good. The only way to prove he didn’t have a hand in this is to help bring her in. Maybe I’m a complete fool, but I figure with Burke on one side of the search and you on the other, Sam has a better than average chance of coming home alive.”
“Where’s Wizard in all of this?”
“Laid up in the hospital,” Armstrong said. “Needed to have a valve stint replaced. Coughlin is running the Directorate of Operations.”
“He going to pull through?” Noble asked.
“I don’t know,” Armstrong admitted. “I think so.”
Noble closed his eyes and exhaled. Burke was a good man, even if he did look the other way when the CIA hung Noble out to dry. He’d also helped Noble track down Torres’ killer. He didn’t deserve to get blacklisted and he was too old to do anything else.
Armstrong cleared her throat, pulling Noble out of his reverie. She said, “I need an answer, Noble. Can you find Sam and bring her in before Grey and his team get to her?”
“I can try.”
“Then pack a bag.”
“When does my plane leave?”
“Soon as we get to the airport,” Armstrong told him. “I’ve got a private jet fueled and waiting.”
“I’ll need equipment…”
“Duc put together all the gear he thought you might find useful. All you need are clothes.”
Noble glanced out the window at the former Navy SEAL. He stood on the dock, arms crossed over his barrel chest, looking at nothing but seeing everything.
“Any chance I could take Duc?”
Armstrong grinned and shook her head.
Chapter Fourteen
Half an hour later, Noble stood on the tarmac at Clearwater International Airport. He had changed into a dark gray windbreaker with plenty of pockets, a good pair of hiking boots, and added a Kimber Ultra Carry chambered in .45 ACP. A Cessna Citation X waited on the runway. Twin Rolls-Royce AE 3007C1 engines sucked wind, screaming out one long song. Runway lights reflected in the sleek white fuselage. The Citation is one of the world’s fastest planes and would get him to Paris in a little over four hours. A lifetime, Noble thought. This thing might be over in four hours. Sam had the entire strength of the Central Intelligence Agency hunting her. He frowned. Hang in there, Sam.
Behind him, a black Lincoln Town Car idled. Duc had buzzed several yellow lights and ran two reds while Armstrong briefed Noble on the situation. They stood with him on the runway. Armstrong handed him a thick file held together with a rubber band and an iPhone. “It’s unlisted and untraceable, preprogramed with my direct number. Keep in mind, I won’t know who’s listening in on my end, so use it sparingly. Once you land in Paris, there won’t be much, if anything, I can do for you. From here on out, consider yourself full dark.”
Noble pocketed the phone and nodded. He knew the drill. He was off the reservation, a pilgrim in unholy land. If he got into trouble, there would be no rescue party. That part didn’t bother him. He had been doing it so long now it felt natural. He was worried about what came after. Assuming he got to Sam first, then what? She was a wanted fugitive with a murder hanging around her neck. Finding her was the easy part. If he wanted to clear her name, assuming she was innocent, he’d have to unravel what happened in France over the last forty-eight hours.
Armstrong stuck out a hand and Noble took it. She had a surprisingly firm grip. Her mouth worked into a tight smile. “Good luck.”
Duc handed him a simple leather messenger bag. “Stay frosty.”
Noble slung the bag over his shoulder and climbed the steps to the waiting aircraft. The pilot met him at the hatch. He was dressed in khakis and a leather bomber jacket, looking like a character in a post WWII adventure film. He even had the five o’clock shadow. “Where to, buddy?”
“Charles De Gaulle and step on it,” Noble told him.
“Buckle up.” The pilot worked the door controls and the stairs started up with a mechanical whir. “There’s a bar at the back. Water, booze, snacks. It’s self-serve.”
The interior was all calfskin leather and blonde wood. Tiny lamps illuminated the tables. Noble collected two bottles of water from the minibar, then settled into a seat and pulled the rubber band off the folder. A thin red stripe on the cover indicated it was eyes only. The stairs closed with a soft sucking noise. The pilot gave Noble a thumbs-up and then disappeared into the cockpit. There was more than enough room to stretch out and get some sleep, but Noble chose to study the file instead. He couldn’t get through it all before Paris, but he could familiarize himself with the key players and maybe get some insight into what happened.
As he thumbed through the pages, the Cessna taxied onto the runway and the engines built to a fevered pitch. The gleaming white missile started forward, slow and hoggish at first, then picking up speed. Noble felt himself pushed into the leather seatback, then the jet left the runway and the sound of the tires fell away. Only the sound of the twin engines remained as the craft climbed and leveled out.
The file was packed with mission logs dating back six months. It was four and a half inches of tiny, single spaced, reading. The dead officer, Frank Bonner, had been, by all accounts, a straight shooter. He played by the rules and kept his nose clean. He had made his bones in Iraq and Afghanistan during the troop withdraw. Afterwards he took over Paris Branch. Nothing in his file raised any red flags.
Grey and his crew were freelancers. It would surprise a lot of people to know most of the actual spy work being done for the CIA these days was third party. The Company hire
d mercenaries and private intelligence outfits. They paid through shell companies so the American government could deny any involvement. Most were guys just like Noble; military experience, no family to speak of, no connections, no jobs, no direction in life. They were efficient and, more importantly, expendable. That was bad news for Sam. These guys had no allegiance to the Company, or the United States for that matter.
Noble spread their pictures out on the table in front of him, three black and white head shots. He picked up the photo of Grey, the ring leader. Noble chewed the inside of one cheek. None of these guys worked directly for the Company, so their jackets weren’t complete, but they weren’t raising any red flags either. In fact, the only person with a blemish on her record was Sam.
She had been running an illegal intel gathering op against Helen Rhodes during the presidential campaign. Noble didn’t need the after action report to know who laid in that operation. He had lived the other side of it. He picked up Sam’s black and white. With his other hand, he twisted the cap off a water bottle and took a swig. Beyond the rain streaked windows lay an unbroken field of utter black. Noble gazed at her picture and said, “What did you get yourself into, Sam?”
Armstrong stood on the edge of the tarmac and watched the Cessna lift off. The jet screamed as it left the runway, leaving behind twin streaks of nebulous gray streamers. The landing gear folded up and the running lights dwindled to tiny red blips in the dark sky. The roar faded away to a tiny hiss on the edge of hearing. Armstrong reached in her breast pocket for a thin cigar. Duc flicked a lighter and held it out for her. His eyes followed the jet’s trail. When it was out of sight to his younger, sharper eyes, he turned and opened the back door. Armstrong clamped the smoke between her teeth and dialed a number on her cell before climbing into the back seat.
Burke picked up on the first ring. “Is our boy in?”
“He’s on board,” Armstrong spoke around the cigar. “Now let’s hope he can find Sam before anyone else.”
Duc shut the door and circled the front bumper. He got the car started and motored across the tarmac to a runway on the other side of the airport where a second jet waited to ferry them back to Virginia.
“The only way we’re going to untangle this mess is throw a wild card into the mix,” Burke said.
Armstrong buzzed down her window and tapped ash. “That’s a pretty good description for Noble. Can we trust him to bring her in?”
There was a pause on the other end and then Burke said, “We’re about to find out.”
Chapter Fifteen
David Grey and his team worked out of the top floor of a nondescript apartment on the northwest corner of Pont Neuf. Arched windows looked out across the steel gray waters of the Seine. The Company owned the building and the floors below were kept empty, used occasionally as safe houses or black sites. It gave Paris branch the ability to work without worrying about who might be underneath, listening in on their conversations.
The seventh-floor command post trapped a whiff of the ever-present smell of sewage which dominates Paris. It wasn’t so bad in winter. Summer was unbearable. With no central heat, all three men were bundled in thick sweaters. Mugs of coffee sat cooling on their work stations. Computers clustered around a large server in the center of the room, along with a communications array bristling with antennae. From here, they could tap into the video feed of any traffic camera in France but they still hadn’t managed to locate Sam or Duval.
LeBeau, a native Frenchman, sat with headphones covering one ear, listening in on the various police and emergency channels. He puffed on one cigarette and had another tucked behind his ear. Preston muttered to himself while he worked. Grey was hunched over a terminal, checking hotel registries for any of Gunn’s known cover identities and watching the surveillance feed in front of her Paris apartment in case she tried to go home.
Outside, the first quiet fingers of dawn were creeping over the rooftops of Paris while panic gathered in Grey’s gut. It felt like an angry rodent gnawing at the lining of his stomach, an ulcer in the making. Frank Bonner was dead and Duval was in the wind. If they didn’t locate him soon, all hell was going to break loose. It was only a matter of time before Langley learned Duval was in play.
“He could be half way to Montenegro by now,” Grey said, more to himself than anyone else. “Has anyone got anything?”
“Give me another minute or two,” Preston said. He was hammering keys with his brow bunched in concentration. His wide-set eyes were fixed on the screen in front of him. He nodded to himself. “Okay. Yeah. Take a look at this.”
Grey and LeBeau crowded around his terminal. He brought up video feed from Honfleur. Six surveillance cams were grouped on his screen. He pointed at a tramway stop that Grey recognized. “This is where they got on.” He pointed at another square in the bottom corner. “This is six blocks away. Watch as the train goes by. The back door has already been opened. If you look at this angle,” Preston pointed to another square, “you can see in the windows. The cars are all empty. So they had already jumped off by this point.” He brought up a street map and highlighted a section of track in red. “They got off the train somewhere between here and here. If we focus our search of surveillance feeds around this neighborhood, we should be able to pick them up and follow them to wherever they are now.”
“Good work.” Grey clapped his hands. He felt the vicious little rodent relax, but not completely. It wouldn’t let go entirely until Grey had Duval in his hands and Sam was on a slab at the morgue. “Get on it.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Grey looked at the number and groaned. He answered brusquely. “We’re working on it.”
“Are you any closer?”
“Preston narrowed down the section of track where they jumped from the train,” Grey said. “From there we should be able to follow them on traffic cams. It won’t be long now.”
“Well, you had better work fast.”
Grey said. “We’re doing everything we can.”
“Do more,” came the reply. “I just found out Armstrong sent a private contractor to Paris. He’s going to be landing in a few hours.”
The rodent went back, savaging his stomach lining in earnest. He switched the phone to his other ear and said, “Why would she do that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you think she knows?”
“She’s got a dead officer, another on the run, and a French mercenary group tied into the whole affair. She probably suspects you have more information than you’re sharing. She’s understandably suspicious.”
Grey cursed. He could practically feel the acid eating a hole through his belly. He’d need to have a doctor look at it, but that was a problem for another day. He said, “How do you want to proceed?”
“I want you to put Le Milieu onto the freelancer. This whole thing is their mess. They should help clean it up. He’s coming in on a private jet. Have them pick him up at the airport and find out what he knows.”
“Isn’t that going to look suspicious?”
“I think we’re a bit beyond that, don’t you? If that next Cipher Punk vault gets released, we are all going to burn. Put Le Milieu on the freelancer. They can put the screws to him and find out how much Armstrong knows, or suspects. When they’re done, make sure they dispose of the body. I want you to find Duval and make sure no one hears from Sam Gunn ever again. Maybe we can hang this whole affair around her neck and divert attention from us.”
Grey hung up the phone. Preston and LeBeau were watching him with raised eyebrows and questioning faces. He said, “We just got a whole new set of problems.”
Chapter Sixteen
The sky over Normandy was a dull gray. Sunlight struggled through a thick blanket of steely clouds that threatened more cold and rain. Sam and Duval sat in a café called L’Abri Normand on Rue du General de Gaulle. It had taken them nearly two hours last night to find a car without modern GPS. Between Sam’s twisted ankle and Duval’s asthma, it was a slow, tedious sea
rch. The stabbing pain in her ankle got so bad she had been forced to lean on Duval for support and he complained every step of the way. Finally, they had stumbled on an ‘03 Passat, only to discover it had less than a quarter tank. Sam didn’t dare stop for gas. Every filling station between France and Slovenia is wired with cameras and the Company would be checking every single one.
Over the past two decades, Western Europe had become a surveillance state. It’s impossible to go anywhere in Britain or the mainland without your face on camera.
By 9 a.m., a red fuel light forced them off the highway. The needle had been pointing to E for half an hour. They ditched the stolen Passat on a side street in a little town called Gaillon, leaving Sam’s tactical vest in the trunk.
The boulevards were a confusing tangle and the only thing exceptional about the village was a castle perched on a hilltop. Sam and Duval limped along until they found a secondhand shop, paid cash for a change of clothes, and then stopped for breakfast.
“You know the A13 would take us straight through Paris,” Duval was saying. Half a dozen tables crowded a cozy space filled with the warm smell of fresh bread and strong coffee. The heat was cranked up so high it was making Sam sleepy. She had been awake nearly twenty-four hours now and her thoughts were edged with the fog of exhaustion.
“That’s why we aren’t on it,” she told him. She picked up a shallow bowl filled with café au lait and sipped. The French take their morning coffee in bowls rather than mugs. Breakfast is toast, mostly used as a delivery system for sugary sweet jams.
Duval had a pub cap on and the collar of his coat turned up to obscure his face. He was on his second slice of brioche, slathered in butter and raspberry, and he kept shooting nervous glances at the wait staff. He spoke around a mouthful of food. “I don’t like this. Someone could recognize me.”
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