Presence of Mine Enemies
Page 58
He had tried to cover his tracks, Césaire realized, envisioning the scene all too clearly in his head. Tried and failed.
“I don’t need an explanation,” Brunet responded, resting a hand briefly on the technical officer’s shoulder. Looking down into his eyes. “I need results. Get to work. Albert—flash Leseur. Tell her the attack was to be today, have her put her people on alert.”
9:01 P.M.
Saint-Denis
Paris, France
It should have taken barely thirty minutes to drive from the forest to the stadium, on a normal day. But this was no normal day—the district around the Stade de France choked with traffic—and they were still on the other side of the Seine, having driven farther toward Le Bourget than strictly necessary, in order to approach the stadium from the east.
Harry leaned back in the driver’s seat, glancing at the GPS mounted to the windshield, giving him the van’s updated ETA on their target. 7:13.
This was going to cut it close, even on flight time, if they waited to launch until they were in position. . .giving the quadcopters barely ten minutes of battery power left when they reached the stadium.
A part of him hoped they didn’t make it—that they came crashing down, out of power, somewhere short of the target.
But he knew better than to harbor such thoughts. Hope was a mirage, a phantasm clung to by those who couldn’t bring themselves to face the truth.
The truth of what he was going to have to do—to set this right. His hand slipped from the steering wheel to his lap, feeling the bulge of the knife tucked into his waistband, on his left side, beneath the jacket. The compact CZ, in its holster on his right.
The pistol would have been more certain—but he had no suppressor for it. . .a last resort, at best. Particularly in these initial moments. It would have to be the knife.
His gaze shifted to the rear-view mirror, taking in the sight of Nora, sitting behind him on the bench seats lining each side of the back of the utility van—a tasbih in her hands, the beads running self-consciously through her fingers as she recited the names of God beneath her breath. Who had taught her that?
Reza, most likely. As Reza had taught her everything—rescuing her, nurturing her. Giving her life new meaning, new purpose in the wake of loss.
Bringing her down a path that would lead to the loss of it all.
“This is our turn,” Faouzi announced from his position at the laptop, clearly keeping track of their progress himself as Harry swung the utility van out into heavy traffic on the Rue Francis de Pressensé, a tree-shaded street choked with vehicles. “Only half a kilometer or so to the river.”
Almost there. He glimpsed a smile cross Nora’s face at the words, trying and failing to answer it with one of his own. Knowing that it was almost time.
And that he would have to kill her first.
9:09 P.M.
The Stade de France
Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis
“Understood,” Marion Leseur responded, the phone pressed against her ear as she made her way through the back corridors of the stadium. “Oui. Certainement. I am on my way to him now.”
Another moment’s pause, as she listened. “Can you give me nothing more specific, Anaïs? He is going to want specifics.”
“I have given you all I have,” she heard Brunet respond, “and I know it’s not much. It is even possible that the compromise of our officer may have caused them to scrap their plans altogether. This could all be for nothing—but we cannot rely on that. I will keep you apprised of any further developments.”
“Merci,” Leseur returned shortly, spying one of her men near the door of the presidential box as she returned the phone to the inner pocket of her suit. “We may have a potential threat against our principal—pass the word to your men and be prepared to move out. I will need to speak with the President.”
9:11 P.M.
Out on the pitch of the Stade de France, Kylian Mbappé sent the ball flying toward the opposing team’s goal with a precisely-executed scissor kick, the sweat on the footballer’s dark face visible as he ran, the roar of the crowd drowning out all else. . .
Chapter 37
9:15 P.M.
Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint Denis
“We have arrived,” Harry heard Faouzi announce into his radio, a glance into the rear-view mirror showing him the Algerian’s face as he pulled the white utility van to a stop along the side of the Rue de Brennus, beneath the shade of an elm—the very edge of the circular stadium roof just visible in the distance, like a glimpse of an alien craft come in for a landing.
Aryn, Yassin, and their driver had—according to their earlier transmission—reached their destination farther north along the Rue de l’Olympisme nearly five minutes before.
Reached it, and begun waiting. Timing, coordination was everything—the lesson drilled into them over the course of the previous week.
“Oui. Initiating. . .taking the vehicle off autopilot, programming a new course, heading one-four-nine.”
In his mind’s eye, Harry could see Aryn running through the same procedure. . .both UAVs coming out of their programmed orbit—moving south at a lumbering, burdened seventy kilometers an hour.
It had begun.
He pushed open the door of the van, and stepped out onto the pavement—the knife enclosed in his fist as he scanned his surroundings for a brief moment, marking the positions of nearby pedestrians, passing cars. Knowing that his zipped-up jacket, the bulk of the explosive vest beneath, made him conspicuous in the August heat.
Time was precious. In more ways than one.
A few short, hurried steps and he was at the back of the van, giving a short rap against the back door panel. All clear.
A moment passed, then two—irreplaceable seconds ticking by, his palms growing slick with sweat. Fingers clenching and unclenching around the hilt of the knife. Come on.
Just as he was about to reach up and wrench the door open, he heard the scrape of metal against metal—felt the door being pushed outward, Nora’s face appearing in the opening.
She smiled, a wan, nervous smile—handing him the cut-down, short-barreled AK-103 he was to conceal under his jacket.
“Keep it,” Harry replied shortly, catching her off-guard. “Take my hand.”
Tucking the rifle against her side, she accepted his hand to help her down from the van, moving hesitantly in the heavy vest. There was something in her eyes. . .something of hesitation—was she having second thoughts? A change of heart?
But there was no time. No chance for repentance. Those exits passed, for all of them, so very long ago.
His right hand coming up, moving fast—even as she relinquished her hold on his left, turning to close the door behind her.
Her eyes opening wide in surprise, her lips parting in a scream that would never be uttered as the knife went in, deep into her neck, his hand clamped over her mouth as he slammed her back into the door of the van with his own body, driving the blade home. His left hand wrapping around the AK’s receiver, controlling the weapon.
Bright red arterial blood spurting out over his hand, the sleeve of his jacket.
Nora’s eyes, only inches away from his own—filled with shock and fear, her face distorting in agony as she struggled beneath him, growing weaker with every passing second—the life draining from their depths. Forgive me.
“What’s going on?” he heard Faouzi demand, clearly having heard the sound of the struggle. Footsteps, against the bare metal of the van’s floor—moving the few short steps to the door.
He moved to withdraw the blade from her neck, the flesh seeking to close around it—to hold it fast—even as the opposite door came open, the Algerian crouched in the opening, shock playing across his face.
Out of time. The knife refused to give, the shock in Faouzi’s eyes changing to anger—his hand moving toward his gun.
Harry brought the Kalashnikov up in his left hand, slamming it butt-first into the older man’s face.
His hand seizing hold of the door, levering himself into the back of the van just as the Algerian rose, reaching out for the headset he had taken off at the sound of the struggle, left abandoned on the laptop keyboard.
Attempting to scream a warning.
Harry’s hand closed around the headset’s cord, ripping it out of the laptop’s USB port even as Faouzi reached it, the tip of his knife raking along the man’s forearm.
The Algerian screamed, a sound full of pain and hate, lashing out, heedless of the knife—driving Harry back against the side of the van—neither man able to stand aright in the confines of the vehicle.
“All that time,” he spat, taking advantage of the opening to hammer home another punishing blow to Harry’s ribs, “you were one of them.”
9:17 P.M.
The Stade de France
“Look,” President Denis Albéric began, taking Leseur’s arm and guiding her away from the group, to a quieter corner of the room, “I comprehend your position, Marion. And I appreciate your concern for my welfare. But this is an important night for me—look around you, at these people. All of them, are important to me. Do you understand?”
There had to have been at least fifty people in the massive skybox, Commissaire Leseur thought, her eyes following the direction of Albéric’s gesture. Not counting the serving-staff or her own security personnel, strategically positioned throughout the room.
There had been fifty-five names on the guest list, all of them carefully vetted by her people. CEOs, foreign diplomats—high-ranking members of Albéric’s government, even a few députés from the opposition.
All of them milling around—talking, sipping champagne, sparing only the occasional glance at the game proceeding on the pitch below. The game wasn’t why any of them were here, it was about the prestige of being here.
“Oui,” she nodded briefly, resigning herself to his decision. He wasn’t going to be moved now, any more than he had been in the debates leading up to this night.
And perhaps it was all for the best—the windows of the skybox itself were constructed of heavy, impact-resistant glass that would stop most anything short of an artillery shell. Her guards, posted at every exit.
He was likely as secure here as he could be anywhere else. “I understand.”
9:18 P.M.
Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis
One of them. The words seemed to ring, over and again through his head as he struggled to keep his feet—pain shooting through his body, the impact reawakening the wounds he had suffered on the docks of Aberdeen.
The wounds which had nearly taken his life, which had brought him to this place. Here, at the end of it all.
One of them. One of the Western security services. Of the police. Of those who had crippled the Algerian’s son.
He could smell the hate, the thirst for vengeance, on the man’s breath as he closed in—recognized that deadly passion. So familiar. So destructive, as he had learned to his own sorrow. His head was swimming with pain, his brain refusing to process what was happening. But he still had the knife. Some elusive part of his subconscious clinging to it, like a drowning man to a scrap of wood.
“You betrayed all of us, didn’t you?” the Algerian demanded, his face only inches away from Harry’s, eyes filled with anguish and rage as he forced the knife hand back, fighting to control it—that deadly blade glittering in the fading rays of sun streaming in through the front windshield of the van, falling upon the faces of the struggling men.
He wasn’t going to last long—not like this, Harry thought, fighting through the pain, struggling to think clearly as he fought back, resisting Faouzi’s attempts to wrest the knife from him. He’d underestimated the Algerian. . .or perhaps overestimated himself. Perhaps it would have even been better to have taken the proffered Captagon, the drugs coursing through the man’s body fueling his rage—giving him an undeniable edge.
Fighting to maintain his balance, Harry pulled his head back, smashing his forehead into the older man’s face—the impact leaving his head swirling, a curse breaking from Faouzi’s lips as he staggered back, taken off-guard. Leaving himself open.
Harry pushed himself off the side of the van, seizing the opportunity—the knife flickering out, into the Algerian’s side, its blade sinking deep into the man’s unguarded armpit, seeking the axillary artery.
Faouzi screamed in pain, a pain too sharp to be masked by the drugs. His eyes wide, blood flowing freely from the wound, staining his shirt as Harry pulled the knife back out, delivering a vicious elbow strike to the point of the man’s chin—rocking him back.
He went down—hard—crashing into the crude wooden platform, his outstretched arm knocking the laptop to the floor as he fell to lie motionless, seemingly unconscious. . .the only movement the steadily widening pool of blood issuing from the wound beneath his arm.
He would bleed out long before he ever woke up, Harry realized, breathing heavily as he staggered to one side—wiping the blade of the knife against the dark fabric of his jeans. Still alive.
It came as almost something of a shock—the realization of his own survival. His breath coming in huge gasps as he collapsed against the side of the van—forcing himself to focus, to work past the pain now throbbing through his body.
How long had the fight even lasted? It seemed like an eternity, and yet when he glanced at his watch, barely three minutes had elapsed since he had stepped from the driver’s seat of the van, since Nora. . .
Nora.
9:20 P.M.
Groslay
Eight kilometers north of the Stade de France
At six hundred feet ASL the pair of Guardian UAVs were almost undetectable from the ground—all but invisible against the darkening sky, spaced nearly seven hundred meters apart, the sound of their whirring rotors lost in the air as they moved south. Following their pre-programmed course toward Seine Saint-Denis and the Stade itself to the waypoint where, two kilometers out, their operators would once again resume direct control.
Seven minutes.
9:21 P.M.
Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis
Harry folded the knife back in upon itself, his gaze torn between the laptop lying by the floor by Faouzi’s body, offering control of the UAV. . .and the knowledge that she was still laying there, exposed in the street. A peril to him, in every passing moment.
Another six minutes, and the drones would reach their target, but the risk. . .
There was no choice.
He tucked the knife back into his pocket, pushing open the door to step back out once more into the gathering shadows of the Paris night. Cars passed, their lights reflecting off the side panels of the van, the noise of their engines nearly drowning out the laughter of pedestrians from just down the street, but if anyone had noticed the body of the woman huddled there in a heap at the rear of the white van. . .no one had cared.
Her face was pale in the twilight, eyes wide, her face still distorted in that mixture of agony and surprise which had been her last emotion on this earth. Her head lolling helplessly to one side as he slipped his hands underneath her arms—trying and failing to lift her, the dead weight too much for him in his exhaustion and pain.
You’re getting too old for this, a voice within reminded him. Hard truth. And then he saw them—a group of young men, moving down the sidewalk toward him from back in the direction of the Seine—dressed in footballer jerseys, their laughter giving them away in the semi-darkness.
Too close.
9:23 P.M.
DGSE Headquarters
Paris, France
“They’re planning an attack,” Césaire heard Daniel Mahrez’s voice announce for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last half hour. Over and over again, as the DGSE te
chnical officers worked with the recovered file, trying to restore the corrupted seconds of audio.
The voice of a dead man, crying out a warning from beyond the grave.
“. . .with weapons supplied by a. . .” Césaire’s head came up, a glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes, even as the audio faded once more to static. That was new.
If they could recover that much, perhaps. . .
“It’s set f. . .next Saturday, on the. . .”
The next word was there, but it was indistinct, almost lost in a haze of white noise—the technical officers skipping the audio back five seconds to listen again.
“It’s set f. . .next Saturday, on the St. . .”
Was it “Stud”? But that made no sense. “Quoi?” he heard one of the officers demand, equally puzzled—playing it back one more time.
And then he heard it, the sound of the word driving an icy dagger into his heart—his hand reaching out instinctively for the phone on the desk of the technical officer before him. Fearing it was perhaps already too late.
“Stade. . .”
Chapter 38
9:24 P.M.
Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis
“. . .c’est impossible. . .you’ll see. He’ll come through for us, always does. . .he needs to start soon, if he’s going to be of any use. . .”
Snatches of conversation, drifting through the open window of the utility van as Harry hunched down in the driver’s seat doing his best to remain inconspicuous as the group of football fans moved by, passing along the sidewalk on their way to the station. Hoping they wouldn’t have taken note of the van’s sudden movement, rolling backward in neutral until it concealed Nora’s body beneath its own.