Now, the former colonel walked to Balan and crouched down. He said, "Water? Food?" Middleton believed in respectful, measured interrogation.
There was no point in psychologically--let alone physically--abusing prisoners. That was, he'd learned, counterproductive.
"I want nothing from you people." He gave a faint sneer.
Middleton glanced up once more into the hills above the beach. He saw the white van again. Or perhaps it was another one. It was about a half-mile away, parked. There was glare on the windshield. He didn't know if anybody was inside or not. Perhaps it had no connection to Balan. But Middleton was suspicious. He called to one of the French troops. "Please, could you go check that van out?"
The man squinted. "It's just one van of many I've seen. They're very common here."
"If you don't mind."
"It is wise to separate our forces?"
"Please," Middleton said patiently.
The French officer shrugged and climbed onto his motorcycle and roared up the beach road.
Tesla's phone rang. She answered, then announced, "It's Interpol. They're going to brief me about Balan."
She turned away and jotted notes as she listened.
Middleton said to his prisoner. "Kavi, we know you were sent here to kidnap or kill me. And we know it was Devras Sikari who ordered it. Those are the facts and they're not in dispute. Now, you're going to jail for a long time. There's nothing that's going to change that. But I can make sure that the prison you go to is tolerable or is hell on earth."
"You can do to me what you want. You are all--"
"Shhh," Middleton said amiably. "I'm not interested in speeches. It's a waste of your time and it annoys me. Now, what I want to know is how can we find him? Sikari?"
"I don't know where he is." The man laughed. "And if I did, you'd never get the information out of me." He glanced down at his hands, cuffed in front of him and chained to a waist shackle that Wetherby had carefully locked around him. Middleton thought at first that he was going to complain about the handcuffs but, no, he was simply staring fondly at a wide copper bracelet on his wrist.
Balan's eyes shown fiercely as he continued. "You don't have any idea who you're dealing with. You're not worthy to even stand in his shadow. You'll see, though. You'll see."
Middleton wondered about this. Did he mean something specific? Or were the words just empty posturing?
He asked more questions, but the prisoner proved no more cooperative.
Middleton's radio cracked. The French soldier was calling to report that he'd found no one in the van. He was checking the registration. He signed off.
Maybe it was nothing. He thought of the officer's comment about dividing the forces. He looked around and saw no one on the beach.
Balan's phone, which sat in Middleton's pocket, rang. He pulled it out. On the screen: Nombre Inconnu. He said to Balan, "You're going to answer it. If it's Sikari, tell him you're a prisoner and I want to negotiate." He handed the phone to Petey Wetherby, "Let him talk. Tell me exactly what he says."
"Sure, Colonel." Wetherby did so.
The prisoner said something in Hindi.
"He's saying a greeting," Wetherby said to Middleton as he retreated. "It's the normal way to answer the phone in--"
Then a huge orange fireball erupted next to Balan's ear. A deafening crack of an explosion.
Knocked to his knees, Middleton squinted away the stinging dust and smoke and realized that much of the prisoner's neck and shoulder was gone, and blood was spraying in random patterns on the sand. Petey Wetherby's arm was missing as well, blown into tiny bits. Wide eyed, the soldier gripped the wound and fell to his knees as his spurting blood pooled with Balan's.
"No," Tesla cried, running forward and ripping off her belt to make a tourniquet for Wetherby. But the bomb in the phone had been so powerful that there was not enough arm left to bind.
Middleton shouted to the other French officer, "Call for backup. And medical!"
Connie Carson paid no attention to the torn-apart bodies. She grabbed the MP-5 again and did exactly the right thing, crouching into a classic defensive shooting position, sweeping the gun in the direction from which attackers might come. Lespasse snatched up a pistol and covered the south side of the beach. The other NATO soldier, holding his .45, covered the north.
Then from the hills came the sound of gunshots.
Middleton knew exactly what happened. The accomplice had slipped out of the van to spy on them, then made the phone call and, when the phone was near Balan's head, had detonated the bomb in the phone, then returned to the van and killed the French officer.
This was a nightmare.
Middleton was staring in shock at the carnage. Wetherby was now unconscious, his face white. Miraculously, Balan was still alive, though he was losing blood so fast he couldn't survive long.
The colonel crouched. "Tell me! Where is Sikari? Don't let any more innocents die."
The prisoner glanced at him once with fading eyes, then did something curious. He lifted his hands as far as the shackles would allow and bent down his head. He kissed the copper bracelet. Muttered a few words. And then went limp. He stopped breathing.
Middleton stared for a moment then glanced down at his feet and saw a tiny bit of cell phone.
A thought stabbed. He turned quickly to Lespasse, who stood at the printer next to Balan's computer. He cried, "JM, the computer! Hit the deck!"
The former soldier was programmed to follow orders instantly. He dove to the ground.
A second booby trap--inside the computer--exploded in an even larger ball of flame, showering the area with bits of plastic and metal shrapnel.
Connie Carson ran to him and helped him up, keeping her eye out for other attackers.
"You all right?" Middleton asked.
"I guess." Lespasse winced as he massaged his arm and neck. He joined the others.
Her voice choking, Tesla nodded at Wetherby. "He's gone."
Middleton was furious with himself. He should have anticipated the devices would be sabotaged. Now the cheerful, young officer was dead, all because of his carelessness . . .
But he didn't have time to dwell on the tragedy. He was looking at the hillside. The white van was speeding away. He glanced at Carlson, who was aiming the MP-5 at it. But the woman shook her head and lowered the gun. "Too far."
They'd give the information to the French but he knew that the van would soon be abandoned and the driver long gone.
And who was that partner?
The sour residue of chemical explosives smoke hung in the air and stung their mouths and noses.
Middleton then noticed Tesla, who was looking at Balan's shattered body. Something was on her mind, he could tell.
"What is it?"
"Something's odd here." She held up her notebook with her jottings from her conversation with the Interpol officer. "Kavi Balan's been with Sikari for years. He was his number-one triggerman, been on hundreds of jobs. Sikari was his mentor and he was grooming Balan for high places in his organization."
Nodding, Middleton said, "Sikari was so worried about us finding out something that he killed his favorite protege to keep him quiet?"
"Exactly."
"What is it, do you think?"
Lespasse said, "Might have a lead or two." He gathered up some sheets of paper he'd just printed out and that had flown to the ground when the computer detonated. "I managed to beat the pass code and print out three emails before it blew. Two of them are street addresses. One's in London, and one in Florida. Tampa."
Middleton looked them over. Were they residences? Offices? "What's the third email?"
The young man read, "Kavi, I am pleased that you like your present. Wear it forever for good fortune. When your project in the south of France is finished and you send me the information on the American, you must leave immediately. Time is very short. You recall what I have planned for the 'Village.' It has to happen soon--before we can move on. We only have a few w
eeks at the most. And be constantly aware of the Scorpion."
Lespasse looked up. "It's signed, DS."
Devras Sikari.
"Destroying an entire village?" Leonora Tesla whispered. "More ethnic cleansing?" She frowned. "And where is it? Kashmir?"
Middleton shrugged. "It could be anywhere. And it's in quotes. Almost as if it's a code word for something else altogether."
Lespasse said, "And what does he mean by 'before we can move on'?"
Carlson said, "Something we damn well better find out . . . And the Scorpion? Sounds like a person. But who?"
Many questions, no answers.
Tesla asked, "Should we call the powers that be?"
The Volunteers had no governmental authority. Their efforts had to be coordinated through the International Criminal Court, the European Union Force, NATO, the U.N. or local governments. Sometimes all of the above, and that took a lot of time and a lot of red tape.
Middleton was gazing at the body of young Petey Wetherby--the young man they'd gotten to know over the past few days. He recalled the times they'd laughed and drunk wine together, talked about sports and politics back in the States.
"We'll call 'em after we have Sikari handcuffed and in a plane headed for The Hague," Middleton muttered. He stabbed a finger at the sheets of dusty paper in Lespasse's hand. "Who wants Florida and who wants London?"
Silence for a moment. Then in her sexy Texas drawl, Carlson said, "Not sure how good I'd fit in over in Piccadilly, don't y'all think? Damn, looks like I'm stuck with Tampa."
"You've got it. JM, you go with her. Nora, looks like you and I are packing bags for London."
Though what, or whom, they were searching for in either of those places was a complete mystery.
Lespasse was looking over the third email again. "Wonder what Sikari gave him as a present."
"I think I know." Middleton recalled Balan's curious last gesture--kissing the copper bracelet. With a napkin he carefully removed the jewelry from the man's wrist. He examined it closely, making sure not to dislodge any physical evidence that might be contained in the intricate etchings. Around the edge of green-streaked copper was delicate lettering, probably Sanskrit or Hindi. And on one side, where the bracelet swelled into an oval, was an exquisite carving of an elephant. The animal was lifting its trunk and spraying water into the sky, toward the sliver of a new moon.
Carlson drawled, "Guess it wasn't such good luck, after all."
"Maybe not for him," Harry Middleton said. "But it might be for us."
2
GAYLE LYNDS
Pierre Crane had spent months working toward this moment. It was odd that it would end on the outskirts of Paris, but then the investigation had been difficult and strange from the beginning.
It was 10 o'clock at night, the black sky winking with bright stars. As the taxi sped him along the Boulevard Bargue in Montfermeil, Crane stared out alertly. It was said the two Frances met here: To his left spread tidy prewar family homes with neat gardens and carefully painted black steel fences, while to the right was his destination--a public housing project of big apartment blocks 10 stories high, sheltering thousands of immigrants and their French-born children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The tenements were called Les Bosquets, "The Groves," evoking visions of lush natural beauty. But what Crane saw through his taxi window was an asphalt-and-concrete jungle awash with graffiti, broken sidewalks, thirsty weeds and deep shadows. This was the last stop before homelessness for those who could afford no other shelter, which helped to explain its unemployment rate perennially hovering around 50 percent.
The bleak scene only increased the oddity of Crane's presence: The man he was to meet was wealthy and powerful and about as likely to live in Les Bosquets as a nun in a Las Vegas whorehouse.
"Nous sommes ici," Crane told the driver in perfect French. His mother had been French, and he had spent many happy childhood summers with her family in the Champagne country around Reims.
The driver responded instantly, pulling to the curb and announcing the fare. He stuck out his hand. "S'il vous plait." The expression on his worried face said it all--he was ready to leave now.
Pierre Crane handed over euros and climbed out into the night. Thirty-eight years old, he was tall and gangly with pasty skin, dull brown hair, a large nose and a long neck. Teased as a child because of his physical appearance, and called "The Crane" behind his back by his colleagues (he enjoyed the fact that he knew that), he had developed a quick sense of humor and an appreciation for being underestimated. In service to both, he also held a black belt in karate, about which few people knew--and had for 20 years.
Dressed casually in khaki trousers and a nylon jacket zippered up against a cool autumn wind, Crane turned slightly on the sidewalk as the taxi squealed into traffic. Keeping his gaze neutral, he watched as a half-dozen teenage boys reversed direction and headed toward him through a pool of lamplight, snapping their fingers and doing a pimp walk to Algerian hip-hop music blaring from the boom box one carried on a heavily muscled shoulder.
As they drew closer, Crane bent his knees slightly, found his balance and let his empty hands drift down to his sides, fingers unfurled.
The youths appraised him with stony gazes, their bodies still rolling and dipping.
He shrugged, grinned and touched the snap-brim of his cap.
A few seconds of surprise showed in their dusky faces. Then their tension seemed to lessen. But as they passed him, a warning drifted back--"Go home Francais de souche!" The phrase literally meant "French with roots," slang for ethnic French.
He stared thoughtfully after them, the bulges in the hip pockets of their low-slung jeans revealing what he had suspected--they were carrying knives.
Feeling a chill, Crane reminded himself he had walked into more dicey situations than this. An investigative reporter for Reuters, he seldom talked about his successes, but back in the 1990s he had discovered vital information that helped lead to charges of war crimes against Radovan Karadzic, the alleged architect of Bosnia's holocaust. Later he uncovered the atrocity-filled Cosa Nostra background of a top Italian presidential candidate, creating headlines across Europe and sending the politician to prison. And last year, while working on a small story he had dug up a large prize--one of Saddam Hussein's secret caches of gold, despite having three mercenaries on his tail the whole time.
Remembering all of that, the journalist marched resolutely into Les Bosquets, his large feet eating up the distance among the towering maze of dilapidated cement tenements. Pole lamps were alight, the ones that were working. He watched women in hijabs and blousy clothing move languidly in and out of doorways, many holding babies. Radio news in Arabic chattered from an open window. High above, colorful desert robes were draped over balconies, ready to dry in the morning sun.
He sensed no danger, but still he slowed and looked around carefully. He knew he had made no mistake in the directions, but none of the buildings carried anything close to the number he needed.
He forged onward, heading toward the next corner. He turned it in time to see two youths with reckless faces negotiating a drug deal. Watching it from a front stoop was a man in a bushy black beard, who was openly cleaning a 9mm Beretta pistol. The man quickly shifted his gaze to Crane, his sharp brown eyes assessing, a hawk spotting potential prey.
Suddenly the scarred door of the facing building swung open, and three men in denim jeans and short-sleeved shirts swarmed out, cradling sub - machine guns. The weapons were Ingram Model 10s, short, compact and fitted with MAC suppressors, which reduced emergent gas velocity to subsonic level.
Pierre Crane froze.
The pair involved in the drug deal ran in opposite directions. The man with the Beretta vanished indoors. All that remained were the armed trio--and Crane.
As they stared at him, expressions grim, sweat slid down his spine. Hoping they were who he thought they might be, he said the Arabic words he had been told to say: "aaDetni aa'rab
ba." I've been bitten by a scorpion.
The man to his right nodded. "The Scorpion will see you now." The words were in English, and the voice was low. It was the correct response, which was all that mattered to Crane.
The guards hustled him safely up the steps and inside. The door closed with a loud thud, followed by the clicks of a battery of locks thrown into place. Clearly this was no ordinary tenement, and now the Scorpion's insistence that the meeting be held in Les Bosquets made sense: Crane had been warned to come alone, and by walking through the labyrinth of buildings to an address that did not exist, the Scorpion's people had had plenty of time to observe him and make certain he was not only by himself but had not been followed.
He inhaled and looked around. The foyer was old but clean, with a low ceiling. Standing in the middle of it was a fourth man, unarmed and of an entirely different sort.
"Monsieur Crane, you're late. I trust you had no trouble." The man was older, somewhere in his mid-50s, with an angular face, a yacht tan, and a halo of salt-gray hair, every strand in place. Crane studied the cut and fabric of his suit--charcoal gray silk with a 24-carat gold pinstripe, estimated cost $10,000. And the shoes--by Berlutti, in alligator with natural seams--at least $1,500. The tie was Hermes and worth $5,000. But it was the watch that held his attention--Patek Phillippe, $200,000, not a centime less.
Crane raised his gaze. "So I meet the Scorpion at last."
Bright blue eyes twinkled back at him. "You're a smart lad." The accent was lightly British, and his manner was casually noblesse oblige as he looked past Crane to his men. "Search him."
Crane knew the drill. He lifted his arms and spread his legs. No one spoke as a guard patted him down, then a second ran an airport-style wand over him. They were inspecting him not only for weapons but for any kind of recording devices, which was fine with Crane. Over the years he had developed an extraordinary memory not only for documents but also for conversations. Few people knew he had those talents either.
"He's clean," the man with the wand reported.
The Scorpion had been looking away. Now he focused on Crane again. "We'll take the elevator."
With two of the security men leading, they stepped into the elevator cage, followed by the last man who touched the button that sent them not up into the apartments, but downward.
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