by Tom Clancy
“Maybe so.”
Moments later, a Renault van passed Clark and Chavez’s position; it slowed at the target building and then pulled to the front door and stopped.
“Maybe not,” said Chavez now, and he readied his camera on the monopod, focused it on the area of light near the back door.
A minute later, a man exited the lobby of the building, walked directly to the light on the wall by the door, and unscrewed the bare bulb. The entire scene went dark.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Chavez.
Clark kept his eyes on his thermal binoculars, and they picked up the white-hot silhouette of the man who’d unscrewed the lightbulb as he walked down to the street and shook the hand of the driver of the Renault. He then spoke into a mobile phone, and soon four more ethereal silhouettes appeared from the back door of the dark building.
Chavez had given up on his camera for now, and instead he held a thermal monocular up to his eye. He saw the ghostly white figures exiting the building, and could tell they were four men, and he could see they pulled rolling bags and carried briefcases.
“Can you ID Rokki?” Chavez asked.
“Not positively through these thermal optics,” said Clark. What he could discern, although just barely, was that the four men with the luggage all wore suits and ties.
The driver of the van and the man who’d unscrewed the lightbulb helped the four travelers get their bags into the back of the vehicle. The interior light came on as they opened the tailgate. It wasn’t enough light for long-range camera work, but the two Americans were able to get a better look at the men and their luggage.
“Is that Louis Vuitton?” Chavez asked, his eyes peering through his camera’s high-powered lens.
“I wouldn’t know,” admitted Clark.
“Patsy made me look at handbags for two hours in London once. I’m pretty sure that’s the same design. Even Louis Vuitton handbags can run over a grand; can’t imagine how much those big rolling suitcases go for.”
The four men climbed efficiently into the van. They moved like a team as they found their seats and shut the door, extinguishing the lights.
“The tallest guy looks like he could be Hosni Rokki, but I can’t be certain,” Clark said.
“Whoever they are, they look like they’re heading back to Charles de Gaulle.”
“Maybe,” said Clark. “But it seems odd Hosni would fly into town just to meet up with three guys, then fly right back out. I think something else is going on.”
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Chavez said, “This time of night there is no way we can tail them without being compromised. If these jokers are any good, they are going to spot us. It’s a shame we don’t have any more vehicles to split up the coverage.”
Clark looked ahead to the entrance of the parking lot where Chavez had noticed the surveillance team during his recon. “Maybe we do. If the French have a fixed surveillance operation around the target, then I’m willing to bet they have a mobile surveillance operation ready to go. Maybe we can just piggyback on them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m thinking we can stay back, away from the target, and do our best to pick out the vehicles following him. If we can manage to stay behind the DCRI backing car, we can follow the target without being spotted.”
“So we tail the tail.”
“Right. You up for it?”
Ding Chavez just nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
The Renault van with the driver and the four men in suits turned around in the street and began heading back in Chavez and Clark’s direction. The Americans sat patiently as the vehicle passed. They did not start their vehicle; instead they just packed up their gear and waited for the van to turn left some seventy-five yards behind them.
Both men knew what to expect next.
“Here we go,” said Chavez calmly. “Let’s see who’s working the night shift at DCRI.”
For a moment all was still on the dark street, until one by one the headlights of three vehicles lit up the night. An ancient four-door Toyota in the parking lot of the building ahead and to the right of Clark and Chavez’s position, a black Subaru station wagon facing their position but on the other side of the street and a good hundred yards past Rokki’s abandoned flat, and a white Citroën mini-truck that faced the apartment forty yards past Clark and Chavez. One after the next, all three vehicles pulled out into the street and turned down three different roads, all toward the south.
Seconds after this, the beige Citroën with the black couple pulled into view, made a left and then a right, and headed off in the direction of all the other cars.
When it was dark and quiet again, Clark still did not start the Ford; he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment.
Ding was confused by this at first, but then it dawned on him. “That looked pretty bush league for French intelligence. They wouldn’t have all left together like that unless they were trying to draw out countersurveillance. There’s one more out here somewhere.”
“Yep,” said Clark. “There is a trigger vehicle. Somebody who has eyes on this street right now.” He paused. “Where would you be, Ding?”
“Easy. I like that parking garage that I walked through. If I could get in and out without too much fuss, I’d plant my trigger car on the second level so I could see the street and Rokki’s building.”
Just then, some thirty seconds after the last surveillance vehicle disappeared from the dark road, headlights lit up the second level of the parking garage, right where Ding and John were looking. It was a four-door sedan; neither of the Americans could see more than the hood and windshield and the glowing lights as the car backed up, turned around, and then headed down the ramp to the exit that led out to the boulevard.
John Clark started his engine and then pulled out into the street.
“Good call,” Chavez said.
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.”
“Roger that.”
9
They caught up to the beige Citroën and stayed several car lengths behind it after determining it to be the backing car, the vehicle trailing behind the lead of the mobile surveillance unit. The Citroën would be in radio contact with the rest of the detail, and all the follow vehicles would move in and out of formation to change out the command vehicle, the name given to the vehicle directly tailing the target. Other cars and trucks would be racing ahead on side streets so they could naturally fill in the slots of the running box surveillance.
As they drove, the two Americans kept their eyes peeled, just in case there were more units in the French security detail around or behind them that they didn’t ID at the target location.
For several blocks they suspected a brown bread truck was involved in the tail. It wove through traffic and seemed to mirror the movements of the beige Citroën, but John and Ding ultimately ruled it out when it pulled up to a large commercial bakery and parked in a loading bay.
They also had their eyes on a black Suzuki motorcycle, driven by a man in a black leather outfit and black helmet. Bikes were great for surveillance work on congested streets, and although there were other motorcycles on the road, they’d first noticed this Suzuki a few minutes after leaving the target location. They couldn’t be sure, but both men decided they’d keep track of the black bike.
After no more than five minutes on the road, Chavez and Clark had their answer to the question of whether or not the target was headed to Charles de Gaulle Airport when the chase car continued on south past the Autoroute du Nord.
“CDG is the other way,” said Clark. “We’re heading into town.”
“You’re doing pretty good for a blind squirrel.”
Clark nodded, then noticed the Citroën sedan pulling ahead. “Looks like the backing car is rotating up.”
Seconds later the white mini-truck appeared ahead of them from a side street. It was now the backing vehicle of the mobile fleet, so Clark and Chavez followed it.
The black Suzuki di
d not move around in the surveillance formation, it just stayed a bit ahead of John and Ding as it headed into Paris. This ruled it out as part of the DCRI unit.
A steady rain began to fall as the procession reached Paris proper, passing into the Eighteenth Arrondissement. They turned to the east once, then took another turn that led them due south. Clark flipped the Ford Galaxy’s windshield wipers to their highest setting so he and Chavez could get the clearest look through the rainy night at the taillights of the car ahead. Within minutes the mini-truck increased its speed and disappeared into the night, but not before a black Honda four-door pulled out of the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant and headed in the same direction as Clark and Chavez.
“Must be the car from the parking garage,” Chavez said.
Clark nodded appreciatively. “This detail is damn good. If we didn’t know they were here, we’d never spot them.”
“Yeah, but it’s going to tighten up for them, and for us, as we get deeper into the city. Wish we had a clue where Rokki was heading.”
Just then, as if on cue, the Honda four-door slowed behind a Mercedes that pulled out of a private garage below a luxury apartment building. John was in the left lane, and it was clear ahead of him except for the black Suzuki, so he calmly switched lanes to put himself a few cars directly behind the Honda, so he wouldn’t have to pass him. But upon doing this, he noticed the black Suzuki had pulled into traffic behind the Honda as well. It was an obvious move to stay behind the DCRI backing vehicle.
Both men, their minds wired to pick up on tradecraft much more subtle than a maneuver like this, noticed the Suzuki’s action. Chavez said, “Shit, that bike is with the follow team.”
“And that guy isn’t half as slick as his buddies,” said Clark.
“You think he’s spotted us?”
“No. He may be looking for guys behind Rokki to see if Rokki has countersurveillance vehicles, but we’ve got to be a quarter-mile back. We should be good.”
They passed into the Ninth Arrondissement, and the backing car of the surveillance detail changed three times in quick succession. As Chavez had said, with more intersections and stop signs to cut down the distance between the follow team and the target, and more buildings and cars to obstruct the follow team’s line of sight, the surveillance crew was having to work harder and harder to stay in position behind their target without being spotted. It seemed like all the chase vehicles were scrambling, with the exception of the Suzuki. He stayed just ahead of Clark and Chavez as if fixed behind the backing cars.
There are three types of countersurveillance: technical, passive, and active. Technical countersurveillance meant, normally, electronic means such as the target using radio scanners to listen for short-range radio traffic from a surveillance detail. It was the most rare form of countersurveillance, as encrypted digital radios were the norm these days, and picking up transmissions was nearly impossible without special equipment and a good deal of time.
Passive countersurveillance was the easiest to employ, as it required nothing more than the target’s eyes and knowledge of what kinds of cars and methods would be used against them. The Renault target vehicle would be employing passive countersurveillance measures, as it was certainly full of men with their eyes peeled for a tail. But passive was also the easiest to defeat, because a large surveillance fleet could move their vehicles around in a pattern that meant no one vehicle would spend much time close enough to be spotted.
Active countersurveillance meant just that: performing some action to draw out any surveillance tail. If the Renault pulled to the side of the road quickly, any followers would have to either stop or drive on by, possibly compromising their mission. If the Renault started going down quiet side streets or alleys or driving through parking lots, any followers would have to reveal themselves to stay with the target.
But neither of these active measures were the worst-case scenario for a following force. No, the worst-case scenario was exactly what happened to the DCRI unit Clark and Chavez tailed right as they passed into the Eighth Arrondissement.
“Heads up!” Chavez shouted when he saw the DCRI’s Subaru station wagon pull too quickly to the side of the road, and then turn down a narrow alley. There was no reason for the backing car to make such a So mqui maneuver unless he’d just gotten a warning on his radio that the target vehicle had made a U-turn and was now racing back toward the trailing cars in the surveillance detail.
It was a dramatic security sweep that was not uncommon for a team heading toward a covert mission, but the Renault had tricked the DCRI by not using any other active measures before their U-turn, thereby lulling the followers into thinking the target wouldn’t try anything so extreme.
Clark and Chavez did not pull to the side of the road; there was no way they could manage that without compromising themselves to the DCRI team, if not to the target vehicle itself, whose headlights they now could see a hundred yards ahead.
“Just have to roll on by,” Clark said, and he did just that, keeping to the same lane, the same speed. He didn’t turn his head when the target vehicle passed; instead he just kept going, arriving at the Avenue Hoche and continuing southwest.
Chavez said, “Look who else kept going.” The black Suzuki motorcycle continued on, still in front of Clark and Chavez. “He had plenty of time to pull off before Rokki made it back this far if he’s got comms with the rest of the team.”
Clark nodded. “Unless he’s not with the French. He’s with Rokki. He was watching for a tail.”
“He’s URC?”
“Looks like it.”
“No way he missed the backing car pulling off.”
“No way at all. DCRI are burned.”
“Do you think DCRI will continue the follow?”
“They have at least five cars in the set, probably more. They’ll pull in the one or two that the Renault didn’t just pass, and they’ll try to tail him with that. We’ve got to figure Rokki and his guys are just about at their destination.”
A minute later, Clark and Chavez sat at an intersection on the wide Boulevard Champs-Élysées. They’d managed to allow the Renault van to slip back in front of them with the luck of a minor traffic accident that slowed the flow on the boulevard and a couple of red lights that stopped it cold. They avoided checking their rearview mirrors to look for the DCRI; they knew two men in a vehicle who kept checking their mirrors would likely be spotted by trained surveillance professionals.
The Renault turned off the Champs-Élysées, made a few more turns, and then found its way to the tree-lined Avenue George V. As the target vehicle slowed in front of them, Clark said, “Looks like we’re here.”
Chavez looked down to the GPS on his iPhone.
“Just up ahead on the right is the Four Seasons hotel.”
Clark whistled. “Four Seasons? That’s pretty swanky for a lieutenant in the URC and his three buds.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
The Renault van did, in fact, pull over just a few car lengths from the front of the luxurious hotel. Clark drove by as one man climbed out of the van and opened his umbrella, then began walking toward the entrance.
Clark made a right at the corner and then quickly pulled to the sidewalk. “Go check it out.”
“On it,” Ding said as he slid out of the passenger seat of the Galaxy minivan. He entered the hotel via an employee entrance.
Clark circled the block, and when Sock wid he returned, Chavez was standing in the rain by the employee entrance. He climbed back into the Galaxy. “One guy just checked in to one room. Reservation under the name Ibrahim. Two nights. I didn’t get the room number, but I heard the desk clerk call a porter and tell them to take them to their suite. The rest of the team is coming in right now. They have all the luggage we saw when they got in the van.”
“Were you able to ID Rokki?”
“Sure did. That was him with the umbrella. He spoke French. Bad French, but that’s the only kind I know.”
Clark and
Chavez drove off, west on the Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie. Clark shook his head in wonder. “So a URC gunman picks up three mutts and a bunch of gear in the ghetto and moves them straight into a suite at the Four Seasons.”
Chavez just shook his head. “A suite here must cost five grand a night. Can’t believe the URC is billeted here unless—”
Clark was nodding; his reply was distant: “Unless it’s part of an op.”
Chavez sighed. “These guys are about to go loud.”
“Within a day. The Seine-Saint-Denis safe house was a staging area. The Four Seasons is the mission. We don’t have much time.”
“Wish we had a better idea what their target was.”
“They can hit anything in Paris from here. We can tail them till the moment they act, but that’s too risky. Depending on what’s in those bags, Hosni Rokki could be planning to assassinate a high-profile VIP staying at the Four Seasons, rake the U.S. consulate with machine-gun fire, or blow up Notre Dame.”
“We can tip off the French.”
“Ding, if we had any idea who or what the target was, then we could alert the right people and have the target moved or the location shut down. But just telling the French cops that a group of shady bastards are in a particular suite at the Four Seasons? No… Think about it. They won’t want an incident, they won’t want to violate anyone’s rights, so they’ll make some gentle inquiries with the hotel—”
Ding finished the thought. “Meanwhile, these mutts run out with some det cord and Semtex and take out the Eiffel Tower and everyone in it.”
“You got it. DCRI is tailing them already. We have to work under the assumption that that is all the heat this cell of tangos is going to get for now.”
“So we take them down?”
Clark thought it over. “We haven’t had an opportunity like this since the Emir. Ryan says Rokki isn’t that big a deal by himself, but if he’s here doing a job for al Qahtani, you can bet he knows more about al Qahtani than we do.”
“You want to bag him?”