One Last Scent of Jasmine (Boone's File Book 3)

by Dale Amidei

  Trembling with rage, Ritter shot her a look making her glad the big man was on her side. “So … now what?” he asked.

  Boone considered the question, and the possibilities, and made her own decision. She clenched her jaw. “Now we find out the rest. Let’s load his ass up.”

  She opened the hatch at the rear of the SUV. Ritter, the former Pararescue Jumper, had no problem shouldering Lambert’s limp, disarmed form for transport. The unconscious Frenchman was dumped in the cargo area, Ritter looking quite satisfied at his unresponsiveness before closing the hatch.

  “Where?” he asked.

  It’s past the close of business. No alpacas. Boone smiled a cold, businesslike smile. “Back to the office. It looks like Mister Lambert’s first day is going to be a long one.”

  “And possibly also his last,” Ritter growled. He seemed to accept her plan.

  Boone held the passenger door so he could climb into the back and keep an eye on their prisoner. Yes, Camille, she promised, I’m going to do my best to assure your first day is long indeed.

  Yameen al-Khobar reacted instantly upon seeing the incoming text message, keying the throat microphone to the discreet tactical radio of the kind they all wore. “Abort, abort, abort,” he rasped. “Stand down and withdraw immediately. The operation is cancelled.”

  Raising his binoculars again, he watched his men break position and begin a nonchalant retreat to the pair of vehicles parked outside of the target zone. A lone civilian SUV on the street passed between them. It continued up the avenue beyond the gated complex where his second target, Ritter’s black Lexus, should have appeared by now.

  Why did Lambert abort? The only explanation was something unforeseen having arisen, and the man had taken operational control. Al-Khobar knew field protocol demanded his French contact, the man on the inside, send a follow-up message as soon as was practical. A horrid thought then occurred to the Saudi. I might have made a mistake just now in replying to him.

  Al-Khobar put his own vehicle into gear and undertook a cautious approach of the area of interest from the next street over. Stopping at a point where he could scan between structures, Yameen looked for the Toyota he had seen pass through the ambush location. Damn. There they are.

  The little redheaded woman—her again—and a heavily armed Sean Ritter stood over Camille Lambert's supine form. He had been laid out beside the SUV which had stimulated the Saudi’s curiosity. Al-Khobar knew from his personal familiarity the American targeted was an extremely dangerous man, one who was now equipped for a serious fight and on the alert. The Frenchman is either dead or his prisoner. In either case, the rest of us need to get well away from Switzerland as soon as possible.

  His hand went to his throat mic once again. “Abort extended. I am ordering a full withdrawal. Implement your exfiltration plans. Confirm.”

  One after another, al-Khobar heard in his earpiece as the remaining members of his team confirmed the order for them to seek the fastest route out of the country. Yameen drove on, leaving the expensive neighborhood behind as he steered on a heading toward Geneva International. Recalling his sight of Lambert on the ground at Ritter’s feet brought on a twinge of professional regret. I am sorry, my friend. There is nothing we can do for you at this point.

  Ritter watched as Boone left her father’s Toyota parked at the rear service entrance, ducking down into the bowels of the office building to clear the path of their projected route. Lambert remained oblivious, breathing but unconscious.

  You’re lucky, you son of a bitch. I could have clipped your temple square on and watched your pilot’s lessons spill all over the sidewalk. Ritter, however, wanted just as badly as the General’s daughter to know what the French operative could tell them. It’s just a matter of getting everyone from here to there, as always.

  Boone returned, going to the rear of the SUV and springing the hatch. Ritter, leaning over the backseat, kept Lambert’s limp form from rolling out onto the ice and snow coating the asphalt of the service drive. “All clear. Let’s bring him in,” she suggested.

  “I can handle him. Let me get out,” the retired Lieutenant Colonel indicated.

  Boone braced her hip against Lambert’s body while Ritter exited, his carbine still hanging in plain sight. “Let me take that thing,” she offered. He handed her the weapon and moved to again shoulder Lambert in a fireman’s carry with little apparent effort. Reaching the building’s entrance door first, Boone held the panel as he brought the prisoner inside.

  “Downstairs. To the range,” she directed before turning to close the FJ's hatch door once more.

  “Good idea. Nice and soundproof,” he concurred.

  They descended the single flight of stairs, and again Boone handled the doorways until they were safely inside the firearms training enclosure. There, she grabbed a metal folding chair and took a container of cable ties from a nearby shelf of targets and supplies. Normally the ties were used to secure the detachable target holders to their overhead trolleys. But not so this evening.

  Walking halfway down the twenty-five-meter concrete shooting lane with Ritter close behind, Boone set up the chair in the middle of the space. Her Director deposited Lambert, now slowly recovering consciousness, onto the seat. Meanwhile, she busied herself strapping his arms and legs into position with the self-locking strips of heavy nylon. By the time the Frenchman’s eyes were again beginning to focus, he had been expertly and quite inextricably immobilized.

  Boone stood back, brushing her hands together before placing them on her hips as she evaluated her work. Looking just as satisfied, Ritter regarded their recovering Field Operations employee with her.

  “You seem to have an idea of where you’re going with this,” Sean observed.

  “Oh, yeah,” she replied. She turned to look at her boss as Lambert’s confused eyes darted around his new surroundings. “Sean, you’re nonessential to this process. Why don’t you leave this one to me?”

  Ritter shook his head, apparently amused by the expression on their subject’s face. “Not a chance, Doctor. I’m not a micromanager, but I like to think of myself as practicing hands-on leadership.”

  “What—” Lambert’s weary voice began.

  “Shut up, asshole. Not another fucking word,” Boone’s harsh and unyielding voice warned.

  Lambert’s mouth snapped shut. The look on his face was indeed as delicious as Ritter’s countenance suggested.

  She turned back to the former Air Force officer. “As I was saying, Sean, what’s about to happen is unpleasant and messy and illegal. My advice is for you to take no part in it. If you have other things to do, I will most certainly understand.”

  Ritter, now looking genuinely entertained, merely shook his head again. “Thanks, Doctor … but I’ve conducted enemy interrogations in the past.” He glanced from the Frenchman to her and then back again. “I seem to learn something from every one of them.”

  Lambert opened his mouth to frame some words but stopped as soon as Boone’s finger whipped in his direction. She tilted her head menacingly. “I meant it, Camille. Not another word. Not until I say.” She could tell he believed her. And it’s a damned good thing … because I’m being completely sincere right now.

  Chapter 17 - Return to Zero

  Boone began by inflicting a preliminary mental toll on their subject, Ritter perceived. He knew the tactic was one of the building blocks of a successful interrogation. Already, his military mind had ceased to consider Lambert as an employee. The helpless man sitting before them was now merely a practical challenge, one offering the chance to transition a willful human being into a willing conduit of useful information. We’ll do it her way.

  “Sean, keep Camille company while I gather a few things, will you? If he utters a word before I get back, break a bone below the neck.” She glanced at the increasingly concerned Frenchman. “I don’t care which one.”

  “You’re the boss,” Ritter quipped. Together, he and Lambert watched her disappear through the rang
e enclosure door and then the secondary panel leading to the basement corridor. He turned back toward Lambert, who seemed to be fairly bursting to speak. Ritter scowled and then put a finger to his lips. He pointed back toward the doors and shook his head, grimacing for effect. Message delivered. Vows of silence are expected all around, mon ami.

  Since it was going to be a wait without conversation, the Air Force veteran looked back at the firing line, seeing another way the two of them could pass the time. He turned, shedding his coat and jacket on the way to the shooting positions of the range. Hanging his items, Ritter selected a bull's-eye target of heavy card stock from the nearby shelves and walked to the middle lane … the one occupied by Lambert’s chair. He clipped the target to its carrier and with a whirring noise transported it away via the overhead line until it came to rest directly over the Frenchman’s head.

  Smiling, Ritter donned the protective earmuffs hanging beside the shooting position. He also drew his sidearm, a customized Browning pistol. He focused on his sight picture and not Lambert’s incredulous expression just below. His first shot went through the center of the middle ring of the target, and he could have sworn that had Lambert not been secured to the frame of his folding chair, the man would have jumped out of it.

  The 9mm must be loud as hell to a man sitting downrange in what is essentially a concrete box of a space. Sucks to be you, buddy. His next twelve rounds were placed just as carefully as his first while flecks and scraps of the disappearing bull's-eye drifted down onto the hapless man's head less than two feet below.

  Satisfied, Ritter changed magazines and reholstered, pulling off his earmuffs and retrieving his target via the line attached to the lane’s overhead motor. He heard Boone return, hauling a cart behind her, just as the now perforated piece of card stock arrived.

  “Nice shooting, Colonel,” she commented.

  “Thanks. I don’t get down here often enough,” he admitted. He plucked the target—now missing its X- and a good portion of its ten-ring—from the carrier. He noticed the floor underneath Lambert's chair had remained dry. Well, Ritter thought, I tried.

  Boone pulled the cart behind her as they returned to Lambert’s position. Their subject’s hands betrayed the slightest trembling—a good sign of progress. She noticed he also seemed positively eager to speak. “Camille … I don’t see any dislocated digits. You must have been a good boy while I was gone. You may speak now.”

  “I want to speak to my attorney,” the operative gritted without hesitation.

  Shaking her head, Boone smiled. “Oh, honey … I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. You’re not under arrest. We just want to have a conversation.”

  “Ask me anything,” he encouraged, staring at her cart with its contents largely consisting of medical supplies from the Field Operations stores.

  “Oh, I will, Camille, when the time comes.” She raised a finger. “Now let me guess your next question … ‘When is that?’ Well—” She extracted a large-gauge needle and a length of tubing from their sterile packaging, plucking as well an alcohol wipe from a box containing a hundred more. “—it will be once I’m damned sure you understand the consequences of untruth.” To Boone, the man strapped to the folding chair appeared absolutely and wonderfully miserable.

  “Whatever you are doing, it is unnecessary,” he whined.

  “Oh, but this is necessary, absolutely it is.” She held up a large, brown bottle and an equally sizable syringe. “This, Camille, is a solution of Citrate Phosphate Dextrose, which we ‘in the biz’ call CPD. It will be necessary to keep your blood from coagulating until such time as we choose to reintroduce it to your system.”

  “Wha—what?” the Frenchman stammered.

  “It’s technical, dear. It will be much easier to show you than to explain.” She looked at an openly amused Sean Ritter. “Colonel, I brought the video camera as well. Be a dear and set it up for me, focused on Camille’s shining face, would you?”

  “My pleasure,” her Director replied with a jubilant lilt to his voice.

  She knelt and hiked up a leg of Lambert’s trousers, pulling down his stocking afterward. “Nice muscle tone, Camille,” she said in admiration. She poked a finger into a large vein bulging out of the meat of his lower leg. Yes, you are the one.

  After affixing the large-gauge needle to the IV line, Boone tore open the alcohol wipe and then thoroughly scrubbed the skin of the insertion site, agitating it to the point where Lambert showed no reaction to the placement of the tap. A strip of wound tape held it in place, and she double-checked the sliding roller clamp just below which currently pinched the line closed. “Very good,” she said, pleased. “Camille, darling, you’re doing fantastic.”

  “Please stop this,” he begged. “Let me tell you—”

  “Shush … shush,” she said, cutting him off. “Save your strength. You might start feeling noticeably tired soon.” She drew a sufficient quantity of the CPD and injected it into a three-liter, sterile collection bag, afterward attaching to it the line running from Lambert’s leg. She then strung out the assembly and laid the bag on a cloth spread on the floor in front of him.

  “Now Camille, listen. This is important.” She knelt down. “A man, being physically fit such as yourself, can withstand losing only about two of the six liters of blood in his system.”

  Her subject seemed genuinely attentive in her estimation. “That will occur well before this bag is full. One liter will be about here,” she continued, indicating a projected rise on the top surface of the bag. “Two liters will be roughly here,” she informed him, her finger rising again. She stood, dusting off her hands. “And, as I said, you probably won’t need to worry about observing anything much beyond.”

  Glancing his way, Boone saw Ritter had completed setting up the camcorder on its tripod behind her. “The Colonel and I will take a break now, while you think about things to tell us. Be sure to give a shout when you’re ready. Remember, you have to be willing to tell the truth. Give us the truth, and I hang the bag and let you have your blood back. Lie to me once, and I lay it back onto the floor and walk away for the rest of your life.” Boone stopped smiling. “Then, once your heart has stopped, I will drain your blood back into your lifeless body, and we will find a nice, out-of-the-way spot in the Alps for you to stay until at least the next snowmelt.”

  Stepping forward, she reached for the roller clamp to start the flow from his vein. He struggled, watching her hand. “Please do not,” he pleaded, barely able to speak.

  Lambert's healthy venous flow started moving his blood through the polypropylene tubing even before she had regained her posture, a pool of dark, venous-red fluid spreading out before his eyes. Perfect. She turned to Ritter. “Shall we take our break, Colonel?”

  “After you, Doctor.”

  “Please don’t leave,” Lambert whimpered. He repeated himself twice more, louder each time, before the door to the range closed behind them. She saw Ritter look rearward through the panel's heavy, reinforced glass.

  “Boone, remind me to never, ever do anything to piss you off.” His serious, gray eyes locked on her a moment later. “So now what?”

  “We wait a bit. If I’m not wrong, his motivation as well as his pulse rate will increase with the level of fluid in his bag. We’ll be able to tell by the timbre of his screaming. It should be somewhere past the one-liter mark.”

  Ritter nodded. “Well, I’m going to hit the bathroom if we have some time then. Do you need a coffee or anything?”

  Boone smiled. “No, I’m fine. Thanks, though, Sean.”

  Her boss departed the range for the main corridor. Boone checked the digital clock above the range officer’s desk and sat down on the edge of the work surface, kicking her feet and waiting. I bet they never have this much fun at the Red Cross.

  How can I escape this? My God, what can I do? Lambert's eyes returned to the filling bag at his feet, the flow faster than he had imagined, much faster than his donating experiences in the French military.
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  The red-haired bitch has implanted a larger line than she realizes. She has miscalculated. Panic, in the absence of any applied resistance training, began to take hold. He felt his pulse rate rise and saw with horror the lively expansion of the collection bag was only quickening. An unsettled nausea began which defied his attempts to remain calm. Is this the level of one liter already? Does she know? Will I die here before she returns? The blood collection continued, and he felt a ripple in his cardiac rhythm only serving to exacerbate his perceived loss of control. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He became lightheaded and realized his visual field was constricting. Then, there arrived a rushing sound in his ears which only accelerated his alarmed reaction.

  “Boone!” he screamed. When nothing happened at the door to the range, he wailed again, only louder … and afterward a third time with all the strength he possessed.

  Finally, the door cracked open, and the petite redhead reappeared, carrying another folding chair and wheeling an IV stand in with her. Lambert, for the first time in minutes, felt some relief. She will not let me die. I will live. I will yet live.

  Boone picked his bag up carefully, rolling it so Lambert's blood stayed in contact with the line’s port. She hung it with just as much care and watched with satisfaction as the flow reversed. Lambert’s wide eyes were mesmerized by her every deliberate action.

  She stepped to the small camera nearby to begin taping and then unfolded and sat on the second chair. Directly across from him but out of camera range, she began, “Go ahead, Camille. You wanted to tell us a story.” So the recording audio pickup would not capture her warning, Boone only mouthed, Remember … no lies.

  Geneva International Airport