He understood the chilling implications of what the French Lieutenant was saying. “I don’t know.”
“Think about it. I’ll be in touch with you.” The Lieutenant told one of the other GIGN men, “Take care of these two,” and hurried out of the APC. Rat followed him. He walked out into the street and looked at his men tearing up the warehouse. He took a deep breath. “We’re done here,” he said to Rat in English.
“This won’t be easy, but we’re closing in on them.”
“A black plumbing van and three other blue Peugeot vans, unmarked. We’ll find them.”
“Good work.” Rat watched the activity. The French counterterrorist group knew what it was doing. “I’m heading to the airport anyway, in case anyone escapes or we don’t have them all. I want to be there during the air show.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Can’t hurt.”
“Let me know if you get them all.”
“You still have that same cell phone number?”
Rat nodded.
“I’ll call you.”
Stovic awoke with his stomach in turmoil. He skipped his usual morning run and ordered “café Americain and deux croissants” from room service, which appeared at his door in five minutes. As he devoured the second croissant there was a knock on the door. His heart jumped as he stood in the middle of the room in his boxer shorts. He felt completely defenseless. The knock came again. He went to the door and opened it, and it was Bean. “Hey,” Stovic said as he stepped away from the door and let him in.
Bean was already in his Blue Angel flight suit, looking perfect. “Nice of you to get up.” He looked around the messy room. “You going to the air show in your boxers?”
“Yeah. The new look—Blue Angel boxers—except they aren’t blue.”
Bean studied Stovic’s face. He noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the generally disheveled appearance. He hadn’t shaved. “You doing okay? You and I need to talk about anything? Cause you don’t look so good. What did you do last night?”
“If I told you you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Nah. It was just a dream anyway.”
“We’ve got the new flares loaded on all the planes.”
“That was my job!” Stovic said, concerned.
“They called you, you were nowhere to be found. The Boss almost sent out the whole gendarme force to find you. I told him it was okay, you went to see Rat, and you’d be back, no problem. He told me to report to him when you returned. I guess you didn’t see me sitting in the hall when you came back.”
“You were sitting in the hallway?”
“Yeah. Trying to stay awake, which I didn’t do. I was sleeping like a baby, but you guys were so loud, and the gendarmes were so concerned, I woke right up. Reported to the Boss and went back to bed. Anyway, we got the new flares. The ones that are supposed to work against a Stinger.”
“Hallelujah,” Stovic said, a great weight lifting from his shoulders. He felt for the first time as if he might make it through the air show unscathed. “How much time do we have?”
“Caravan leaves in one hour. You need to get your ass in gear.”
“Roger that.” He turned toward the bathroom. “Hey, Bean, thanks for sticking by me. I know you were sort of out there by yourself.”
“No, I wasn’t. You’d be there if it was one of us. You really think we’d walk away from one of our own?”
“I know it was talked about.”
“We’re all behind you, Animal. All of us. No exceptions. You’ve got to know that.”
“Thanks, Bean.”
“Let’s just hope we’re all making the right decision.”
* * *
Ismael turned off the heat in the van. He was tired, and his eyes were beginning to feel raw. In spite of his intention to get plenty of rest the night before, he had been unable to sleep. He was more anxious than he expected as he drove through the deserted streets of northern Paris, then onto the auto-routes, then off.
He pulled into an all-night gas station, one of the few he had seen, and stopped next to a pump. He turned off the engine and leaned his head back against the headrest. Coffee, he thought. He needed coffee—the largest cup he could find. He sat up, rubbed his bearded face, and looked around for anything unusual before getting out of the van. He climbed out and put his prepaid, anonymous gas card into the slot in the pump. He placed the nozzle into the neck of the filler tube.
“So, brother,” he heard a voice say from directly behind him. One foot behind him, so close that the mere existence of the voice gave him chills. He turned slowly, expecting the worst. He looked into the face of the man who had spoken and recognized him instantly. He was thrilled to see him but petrified at the same time. Ismael replied, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking out for you.”
“What for?”
“Your friends, they mean well, but I have known of Madani for a very long time. He is not smart. His entire plan here was weak, and now he has paid the price.”
“What do you mean?”
“After you left the warehouse, he led them to it. He was being followed. The French broke in, Madani was killed, and others were captured.”
“That is impossible! That warehouse was known to no one!” Ismael said.
“They now undoubtedly have a description of your van and are looking all over for you. They are rolling up Madani’s entire operation.”
Ismael replaced the nozzle on the pump and the cap on the van. He stood looking at Salam. “How do you know all this?”
“I have had the warehouse watched day and night. They saw what just happened.”
“And how did you know where the warehouse was?”
“Ismael,” he said in a tone of disappointment, a how-could-you-doubt-me tone, “who do you think delivered the Stinger missile?”
Ismael’s mind raced. “What now?”
“You will be dead in thirty minutes unless we get rid of that van. I am just around the corner. You will follow me, move everything of importance into another van I have for you. You must change everything.”
“What about the missile?”
“Leave it in the van.”
“What of Madani? He needs to know where I will be—”
“He is dead! And the others will be within the hour. You are the only one left. You will get your chance. Come quickly.” He signaled with his hand, and a man about Ismael’s height and age climbed into the plumbing van with a grin, gunned the motor, and rolled out of the gas station into the dark French morning.
* * *
Rat’s team gathered in the apartment they had rented for the week next to Le Bourget. Rat had been horrified at how easy it had been to rent an apartment for a week that had a view of Le Bourget and a balcony. Anyone else could have rented an apartment in the same building. They would never be seen until they stepped onto the balcony with a missile.
The sliding door was open letting in the cool morning air. It was still dark. There were twenty men, most dressed in casual civilian clothes, but some were in camouflage and others in flight suits and security uniforms.
Rat brought everyone up to date on the latest developments. They all had their assignments. He laid out the map of the airport and showed them the large tree he had chosen. It was tall enough so that he could see in several directions for a long way and wasn’t so full of foliage that he couldn’t see out.
Robby asked, “French know where you’re going to be?”
“Yeah. They know where each of us is going to be.”
Robby shook his head. “You’re taking that .50-caliber up in that tree? You’ll need a damned crane to get it up there.”
“It’s already there. Groomer built me a duck blind. He carried the Barrett up there. Don’t worry, I’ve got some other surprises too. You all set?”
They all nodded. One spoke. “Don’t you think they’ll get the rest of them? I mean you said that guy was singing. He told them about all the tru
cks.”
“He did. I hope they find them all. Makes our job really easy. Maybe we’ll be there just to watch a great air show. But we will be there. I never assume I’ve got it all figured out. That’s when you get blindsided.”
“Fair enough.”
“You going to keep everybody up on our discrete freq?”
“Yeah. Everybody got the comm plan?”
They nodded.
“I’m going to have a lot of comm coming in, so I may not hear you. We’re encrypted, so feel free to use my name. I’ve got a good view of pretty much the whole area, so if you need to call in my fire, do it. If it’s too dangerous, I’ll decide. If you need me, call me. If we need more help, the GIGN is here. I’ll be in touch with Marcel, but I don’t want to get in his way unless we need to.” He looked around the room. They were getting restless.
Groomer had noticed the sky was getting lighter in the east. “You sure you want to be in a tree shooting a .50 cal? The signature is enormous. You shoot once, they’ll all know where you are.”
Rat nodded. “If I were afraid of being seen, I wouldn’t be up there at all. But you’ve built a good blind and cleared shooting lines of sight to most areas. That’s all I need. And this will all happen in a few seconds, when they are ready to shoot. We’ll be hard-pressed to see them before then, but when they get ready to shoot, we’d better be ready to fire. When that happens, I don’t think their shooters will put down their missiles to try to get me. They may have others who are there to take care of people like me, but they’ll never reach me. My .50 cal has a lot more range than whatever they have.”
Groomer wasn’t so sure. “They may have snipers too, or RPGs, all kinds of things.”
Rat nodded. He had considered that. “It’s possible. There’s always some risk.” He stood. “It’s time,” Rat said. They all stood. “Everybody got their assignments?”
They nodded.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
The Emergency Committee at the Le Bourget command center had notified the governments of France and the United States. In spite of its best efforts and in spite of being close, they had not found everyone in the Algerian cell that was intent on shooting down the Blue Angels or at least disrupting the air show. It was their recommendation that they cancel the Blue Angels, and the heated discussion now ongoing was about whether to cancel the entire air show.
In Washington, the news had been received by all the members of the national security team. The reactions had been mixed. It was late at night, past midnight when they were awakened and warned of the impending disaster and the recommendation to cancel. They all thought of Sarah St. John, the one who had pushed it, the one who had insisted that this was the way to eliminate the growing Algerian threat, which almost certainly had the Algerian government behind it. They were tempted to rub her nose in it.
But the more St. John heard about Ismael Nezzar and his relationship with the murderous band that had fought a vicious civil war for control of the government, and the subtle way he’d walked away from that just to attend an American university, the more sure she was that he’d been sent to the United States to be here in case he was needed. The fact that his brother was involved in the event that caused him to be called on to act simply made his resurgence sweeter. She wasn’t at all surprised he was still at large on the eve of the air show. She had expected him to be.
She was fully dressed, and her driver was waiting. The President wanted everyone at the White House ASAP. She climbed into the limo. Brad Walker was sitting in the back waiting for her. They nodded to each other as the driver accelerated away from her Virginia home. The driver was thrilled to be driving in Washington without traffic. It made for a fifteen-minute trip instead of her usual forty-five minutes.
Walker handed her the latest intelligence reports, with Rat’s latest e-mail on the top. She looked at Walker surprised, then at the driver, whose eyes were on the road. She read by a small laserlike spotlight on a gooseneck suspended over her right shoulder as they drove through the gate to the White House. They climbed out, walked inside, and he headed to her office while she turned to go to the situation room to meet with the other members of the national security team. She knew she would be on the receiving end of this.
She was the last one there. A staffer closed the door behind her, and she took her seat. Hot coffee was in the pot in the middle of the table. She poured herself some.
President Kendrick looked tired and annoyed. “Well,” he began, “our worst case scenario is here. We have our Navy flight demonstration squadron in Paris ready to perform, and we know the terrorists are definitely in Paris. Sarah, I think you said you wanted to lure them there, to give us a chance to get them. Well, half of that has happened.” He looked directly at her, and she returned his gaze, nodding.
He went on. “We have received a recommendation from what is called the”—he looked down at his notes—“Emergency Committee, and thus from the French government. They say that they have identified many if not most of the terrorists from Algeria and may get them all tonight. But as of now they do not have them all, and they know for a fact that the terrorists have surface-to-air missiles, possibly including Stingers. They suggest that we cancel the Blue Angels. They are so concerned, in fact, that they are considering canceling the entire flight demonstration portion of the air show. They don’t see the benefit in having them fly. That’s their recommendation.
“So here we are in the middle of the night debating an air show. I frankly don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be discussing this. This looks like an easy decision to me.”
Stuntz jumped in at his first opportunity. He finally had his chance to torpedo his only rival. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “This whole thing is ridiculous. We have ways of getting to terrorists. We have counterterrorism teams. We have wonderful cooperation with the French counterterrorism people. We know where these people are—Paris—and we should leave it to the right people to get them. The Blue Angels are not a counterterrorism team, and frankly, using them as ‘bait’ was misguided and dangerous. I was against—”
“We know, Howard.”
“I don’t want to go on, Mr. President. I think we should just shut this thing down now.”
Others spoke, generally in support of Stuntz.
Finally St. John spoke. “You are all forgetting two things. First, there is another airplane flying at this air show.” They frowned. “The Joint Strike Fighter. It was agreed to let the Navy push the JSF into the air show agenda to increase sales to other countries who are less enthusiastic to cut the cost per airplane below the target level. Your department signed off on that, Howard. They’re there for a purpose. No one has ever thought that maybe the terrorists from Algeria could target the JSF. But they could. How would that look? So are you going to cancel that flight as well?”
Stuntz was thrown off, but not for long. “Sure. We’ll give a private demo to whoever wants them.”
“So getting the JSF, all the logistics, all the support, getting all the Admirals and VIPs to Paris, that was all for naught?” she asked.
“At this point, apparently so. Better than getting the plane shot down.”
“So you had considered it.”
“Sure,” he said.
“In any case,” St. John went on, “as you can see from the most recent intelligence reports, so far this operation using U.S. and French security and intelligence has been a success. They have indeed found the Algerians, they found their headquarters, they found their storage facility, and they know the identity and contents of the vans that are part of the conspiracy. They have captured members of the cell and have obtained very useful intelligence from them. I expect their warning is just an attempt to ensure we understand the risk we will be taking if we keep the air show on schedule.
“I believe that, with our help, they will find the rest of the terrorists, including Nezzar, before the air show starts. I think it would be counterproductive to canc
el it now. That would allow the terrorists to melt back into the city and escape, able to strike later, when we’re far less well prepared to deal with it.” She looked around the room with a pleading look on her face. “You all know how hard it is to get anywhere near a terrorist cell like this. When you get this close, you have to finish it. Yes, there is some risk. But it’s worth it. We have to stop them. If we let these Algerians slip away now—which they almost certainly will do if their target goes away—we’ll lose them. We can’t do that.
“The Blue Angels are military men. They are trained and expected to take risks. This risk is for the benefit of the country. We need to find any terrorist. It won’t get easier to find these men if we walk away from this. Do we really shy away from this challenge because we know they’re still coming at us? I say go right at them. We will win.”
“The Blue Angels are unarmed, Sarah,” Stuntz said.
She shook her head. “They have flares, and we have a lot of people in place who are very well armed. This is not an unequal fight. We will get these terrorists. We must. We can’t let them escape.”
President Kendrick waited for the others to speak. No one did. “Sorry, Sarah. I think in this situation, with such a large threat—I mean what if they shot an American jet into the crowd? It could kill thousands if not tens of thousands of people! We simply can’t risk that. Sorry, but I think it’s time to pull the plug. They should keep looking for the terrorists and do what they can, but I don’t see the point in giving these Algerians a big juicy target.” He turned to Stuntz. “Pull the plug on the JSF and the Blue Angels.”
Stuntz nodded.
They adjourned, and St. John joined back up with Walker, who had been waiting in her office. “Let’s go,” she said harshly as she walked quickly down the hallway. They went to her limo and got in. As she settled in and the driver started, she closed the glass. She turned slightly toward Walker. “Is sending one of those encrypted e-mails hard?”
The Shadows of Power Page 32