His potential was recognized when he passed selection for the Groupement des commandos parachutistes. These commandos were tasked with covert operations against terrorists and enemies of the state. After fifteen years he left the Legion following an incident in Mali and was recruited by the French Counter-Intelligence Service, Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure. His language skills and contacts from God knew how many nationalities from his time in the Legion made him a valuable asset as a freelancer. He and others like him are expert hunters of men.
Two years later he came home when a joint operation in Africa brought him into contact with an MI6 agent he had previously worked with. Maguire used him because the agent had been Jeremy Carter. It was a suitable arrangement that kept British hands clean. Then a job went wrong when a client’s family were killed after ignoring the asset’s instructions; following that, he disappeared. Cooperation between French and British intelligence services gave Maguire information that tracked him down through an intermediary legionnaire in Castelnaudary, near the Legion’s induction training depot. Only he knew where the man was. By the time Maguire finished his account and she closed the dossier, Abbie knew she was being sent to a remote place that harboured tribal men whose loyalty to each other could not be challenged by outsiders. To fetch a trained killer.
*
Abbie swung the car off the main route south, trying to conjure up an image of the man in the skimpy intelligence dossier. There had been no official name, and no address shown, not even a country where he might be residing. Maguire insisted he was in France and when she found him all she had to do was tell him what had happened in London. He would know what to do. Uncertainty and trepidation had mingled within her when she sat opposite Maguire and they persisted now as she switched on the car’s windscreen wipers against a rain flurry. How would she recognize him? she had asked.
Maguire had taken the folder back and explained it was likely he had changed his appearance since Maguire had last used him. If she ever got close and he agreed to see her she might be surprised to find that he was no stereotypical shaven-head thug with scarred knuckles. He was intelligent and well read. But, he insisted, she must not let his quiet demeanour fool her. She was to ask only for the Englishman.
8
The smooth-surfaced road purred beneath the car’s wheels as Abbie drove through Castelnaudary heading south-east on the D33, Route de Pexiora. After a couple of miles, she drove on to a slip road signposted ‘Quartier Capitaine Danjou’. It would soon be dark and it had been a full-on day since the events in London earlier that morning but she wanted to see the training camp where men with dreams or a desire to escape from their past went to find a new life. She stopped outside the camp gates and the sign denoting that she had arrived at ‘Légion Étrangère Quartier Capitaine Danjou’. A hundred metres beyond the open camp gates a concrete sentry box sat between the entrance and exit barriers. There was nothing about the low-rise buildings that suggested the torturous regime that lay waiting for new recruits. Beyond the gates and low buildings, she saw the fringe of the parade ground where squads of men dressed in pressed khaki with red epaulettes and white kepis were led, six abreast, by a military band marching at an almost hypnotically slow pace. A sentry appeared and began walking towards her stationary car. She smiled and waved at the grim-faced legionnaire and turned the car back towards the town. Before she found the guesthouse and a place to eat she needed to find her contact.
She parked beneath the trees in a nearby parking area and walked down the narrow Rue Gambetta where she found the small tabac next to an estate agent’s window smothered with photographs detailing properties for sale. The windows above the shopfront were closed with weather-beaten wooden shutters. As she entered the small shop she smelt the pungent scent of tobacco mingling with the tantalizing aroma of confectionary. It brought back childhood memories of a corner shop, long gone since her neighbourhood had been gentrified. A woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow and asked how she might help. Abbie asked to speak to the owner. The less said the better. Abbie presumed the woman was the shop assistant and not the owner’s wife as she had no wedding rings on her finger. She muttered for Abbie to wait, went behind a bead curtain and called. A tall muscular man with cropped hair and a beaky nose came through the curtain. He wore a black round-neck sweater over his jeans. Was he the owner? Abbie didn’t think he looked like someone who ran a tabac; he was too cool – as if he didn’t give a damn about anything. He seemed to sense that Abbie was not there to buy a packet of Gauloises and dismissed the woman. The bead curtain swished behind her as she left and Abbie saw a tattoo peek out from the man’s sweater: two glaring eyes and the open beak of a bird of prey.
‘Oui?’
Abbie dragged her eyes away from the raptor’s glare back to the man. His eyes were as hard as the raptor’s. ‘I wish to speak to the Englishman.’
The man’s gaze snapped past her to the street. It took only a second to see she was alone. He asked where she was staying; she told him the name of her modest lodgings and he nodded: a dip of the head that said the conversation was already over. Awkwardly, Abbie turned at the door. ‘It’s about London,’ she said.
He made no acknowledgement and when she closed the door behind her and looked over her shoulder the hard-looking man had gone and the woman was back behind the counter. By the time she had found her room, showered and eaten at a small bistro, it was eleven o’clock. She slid gratefully beneath the crisp white sheets and blankets. A mere fourteen hours had passed since a man had been murdered, another kidnapped and a boy had gone missing.
Abbie was so tired she fell asleep without turning off the bedside light.
*
When she awoke and dressed she saw a note had been pushed beneath the door. It gave her instructions to drive north off the A61 towards the Montagne Noire and head for the town of Mazamet on the D road. Five kilometres south of that commune was a small unmarked gravelled road on the right next to a ruined stone barn. That road led into the foothills. Abbie checked the route on her mobile. It was under two hours away. No town or hamlet was named on the instructions as to where she might meet the Englishman. She phoned Maguire and confirmed contact with the intermediary. The man they sought was close.
He had assured her her phone signal would be tracked, but as she turned off the road at the ruined building an hour and a half later and drove through the forests she lost the signal. Driving deeper into the foothills she felt the rugged countryside press in on her. This was a wilderness in which it would be all too easy to disappear. As she turned a corner and saw four rough-looking men loitering next to a parked pickup truck, rifles and shotguns slung on their shoulders, the first real sense of fear overcame the tingle of excitement she’d felt before. The bearded men looked like brigands, reminding her of pictures she had seen of partisans who’d fought in the war. A couple of hunting dogs barked as she slowed the car. The men watched her approach. Then one of them stepped forward and gestured her to stop in front of him. The wild man bent his face down to the window and tapped gently on the glass with a nicotine-stained finger whose nail hadn’t seen soap and water for a while. She lowered the window, feeling the thudding beat of her heart. He grinned.
‘Young lady, do not be frightened. You are safe here.’ He looked down the road from where she had travelled. ‘We like to make sure you were not followed. Please, go ahead. It is not far now.’ His gentle voice belied his appearance. She almost gushed her thanks but nodded instead, just a little too vigorously. He smiled again and stepped back.
After a couple of kilometres, the narrow track widened into a hamlet of houses with dwellings scattered either side. There was a bar next to small shop. As Abbie stopped the car, wondering where to park, a woman came out of the shop and strode across to her. ‘The man you are looking for is at the end of the village at the school’s playing fields.’
Abbie thanked her. The whole village must have known she was coming. There had been no sign nami
ng the village and an unkind thought lurched into her mind. Perhaps these people were the French equivalent of hillbillies or outcasts from society who chose to live a survivalist lifestyle. So what? she told herself. She knew what it meant not to fit into mainstream society. Having a Sikh father and a Scottish mother, schooldays had been a challenge, and when she became an adult speaking with a south London accent people often didn’t know how to place her. She sounded rough, looked beautiful and had a keen questioning mind, which confounded others’ preconceived ideas.
Following the woman’s directions she passed a small village school. A kilometre on, the road led to where a sports field spread itself across a plateau, a broad expanse between the rising forests. Two groups of young schoolchildren were being coached on the pitch, one group being versed in attack, the other in defence. The two teachers were lean, muscled men, athletic-looking. Scruffier perhaps than the teachers of her childhood, with their stubbled faces. A casually dressed man about the age of the one she was meant to meet sat in a chair next to the old-fashioned wooden pavilion. His mop of hair fell into his face as he bent his head, reading the book in his lap. Abbie glanced around. A whistle blew. The coaches looked her way and then ignored her. The book-reader raised his head as she approached. He even looks like an Englishman, she thought.
‘Hello,’ she said in English.
The man met her gaze but didn’t move from the chair. Placing a finger to mark his page, he closed the book and looked up at her. He was handsome, slender, his tanned face glowing in the sunlight. Blue eyes studying her. ‘Hello, yourself,’ he answered, definitely English, though she couldn’t quite place the accent. She settled for southern England, the inflections altered slightly by living in France.
‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ she said, feeling clumsy, over-formal. A bit too Dr Livingstone, I presume. ‘My name is Abnash Khalsa.’
‘Abnash,’ he repeated, raising his eyebrows with a questioning look. ‘Don’t know that one.’
‘Everyone calls me Abbie.’
He smiled. ‘Then why should I be any different? Abbie it is. You meet the blokes on the road? The ones who look like a bunch of bloody outlaws, which I’d say they are but not to their face. They’re tough, not rough.’
‘Yes, I… Look,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I’m not too sure how to go about this...’ She faltered. ‘I have something very important to discuss.’
She was suddenly aware of one of the coaches from the pitch standing near her. He must have approached from her blind side. He was lean-muscled, about six-three or -four, with a few days’ stubble on a weather-beaten face. The loose-sleeved T-shirt did little to disguise his impressive physique. He looked like a trained athlete, one who would feel at home on any field of conflict, whether a rugby pitch or a battle zone. He spoke in French. ‘Have you had lunch?’ he asked her.
‘Er… no. No, I haven’t,’ she answered, just as fluently. The man bent and with effortless strength gathered up the book-reader, lifting him into his arms. ‘Come on, Sammy, stop chatting up the hired help,’ he said in English. He looked directly at her. ‘I’m the man you’ve come to see,’ he said. ‘I’m Raglan.’
9
Back at the hamlet, once Raglan had taken his friend Sammy out of one of the cars and lowered him into a wheelchair, Abbie realized for the first time that there were boardwalks connecting the houses and the bar, and ramps had been fitted so that the wheelchair-bound veteran had unfettered access. It looked like a town from a Wild West film. The bar turned out to be more like a clubhouse diner with a dozen scattered tables covered with chequered plastic tablecloths. Men and women were already seated, including the tough-looking men who had stopped her on the road. There was no sign of their weapons. Carafes of red wine stood on every table and the plat du jour was ratatouille with chunks of fresh bread.
Raglan sat opposite her at one table. She quickly explained events in London. Raglan remained silent until she had finished and then asked about the boy, and the kidnapped man’s wife and daughter. She confirmed the mother and daughter were safe and under guard. Her urgency and agitation contrasted with his calmness. He poured her a glass of wine and encouraged her to have some food. There was no point trying to get back to London in a hurry. There were only two flights a day and they needed to eat. It was a practical assessment of the situation and she realized that he was correct. The food smelt good and the women who served it flitted back and forth to the kitchen where a brutal-looking hulk of a man was clearly the chef. Raglan caught her stare.
‘He’s South African. He served with me in the Legion – as did all the men here. They are all veterans.’
She looked more closely at the various pictures and military insignia framed on the walls of the diner. Squads of men in posed photographs, heavily laden paratroopers freefalling from the rear of transport aircraft, some images taken during combat, in rugged terrain. Incongruously, the atmosphere in the room was more like a village hall social than a gathering of tough war veterans. She had never been in the company of soldiers before, apart from Maguire, who she knew had commanded British special forces before he came over to the Service. These men had obviously known deprivation in the field and done their fair share of killing, but there was no sense of bravado among them, and some of the women who shared their meal had young children with them who were not yet old enough for school. It felt like an extended family. She finished the last of her wine. It was good and added to her sense of well-being.
Raglan poured more crimson wine into her glass and then one of the women brought two bowls of ratatouille to them with a smile for Abbie. ‘When we left the army some of us bought this place. I mean the whole village. It had been abandoned years before so we got it at a knockdown price. We all wanted a place where no one would ask too many questions about who we were and what we’d done and where we could still trust the people around us.’
She glanced at the motto on the wall. Legio Patria Nostra. It was an unambiguous statement: The Legion is our Home. Abbie felt the rush of being so close to fighting men and that, coupled with her hunger, was making her eat too quickly. It had been a long morning and her stomach growled. The food was delicious, so too the wine. Raglan refilled her glass again. She was about to refuse, thinking of the drive back, but she was on unfamiliar ground and didn’t want to come across as an ungrateful guest.
‘From what you’ve told me you’ve been on the go in trying circumstances,’ Raglan said. ‘And, as you said, you’re not an operational officer so you’re out of your comfort zone. The body needs fuel. Adrenaline can do that. Make you ravenous. Need to feed it. What is it you do for Maguire?’
So far she thought she had played it cool. Her brief was to listen because Raglan spoke several languages and if he used any of those she was familiar with then she could report back what Raglan was discussing with others. Forewarned and all that, Maguire had said.
‘I work in admin. It’s boring but I’m OK with that for now.’
Raglan seemed only mildly interested as he tore a piece of bread and mopped the sauce on his plate. ‘I wouldn’t have thought Maguire would send someone from bog-standard admin.’ He chewed thoughtfully. ‘What kind of admin?’
Her cover was flimsy – after all, she was only a messenger – but she’d known she was bound to be asked and Maguire had instructed her to be vague. She shrugged. ‘Data analysis,’ she lied. ‘That kind of thing. I was going to look at Carter’s computer at his house. That’s why I was there.’
Raglan wiped the plate clean with a piece of bread. The girl was flushed, two large glasses of wine before the meal arrived and another one during it had made her tipsy. He nodded as if he believed her. ‘I’ll phone Maguire and get a sitrep,’ he said. ‘We use satellite phones here. There are no landlines and there’s no chance of a mobile signal. We’re too far down the valley. Sammy’s got a spare room in his house across the road so I suggest you get a couple of hours’ kip and we’ll catch the evening flight. That OK with you?’
‘Look, I don’t want you feeling isolated here. Finish up and I’ll take you to my friends’ table. Talk to Sammy and his wife while I make the call. You’ve already met the other two with him on the road in. You feel OK with that for a while?’
‘Sure. I should really speak to Mr Maguire myself, though.’
‘Of course. I’ll arrange it.’
Raglan was old-school polite. He stood and pulled her chair away for her. She mumbled her thanks. None of the men she’d dated had ever done that, nor had they stood when she approached the table where they sat as did the ‘bandits’ when Raglan escorted her over.
‘You must excuse me,’ said Sammy, smiling at her. ‘I let the others do my legwork.’
Raglan made the introductions. Sammy’s wife’s name was Didianne and the two ‘wild’ men from the roadblock were Ansell and Baptiste. They made a fuss of her, with Didianne insisting she sit next to her so she could hear about London and the current trends in fashion and celebrity gossip. Ansell and Baptiste loudly proclaimed they wanted the privilege of having such a beautiful girl seated between them. By the time Abbie looked up after the effusive welcome, Raglan was gone.
The next hour passed quickly, and so too did the next. No one spoke of the Legion, or of war, or how Sammy became a paraplegic. No matter how often she slipped Raglan’s name into the conversation to learn more about the man they always gently guided her probing away. The men became more raucous, the room loud with laughter as personal insults were thrown back and forth with a teasing familiarity. The men paused, looked her way and raised their glasses in salutation as every other man stood and began singing. She recognized the words of their regimental song.
The Englishman - Raglan Series 01 (2020) Page 6