by Mark Greaney
“I know. But I also know you are a crafty man. I am sure you have a plan to get back into Europe. False papers, identities.”
“The problem is the fingerprint scanners at immigration controls. They are damn difficult to defeat.”
Shakira rolled her eyes. “You can lie to others, Sebastian, but I know men like you. You have a plan to run from Syria if your fortunes should change for you here. There is a way around the scanners, and you know it. If you want more money, we can talk about more money.”
“It’s not a question of money.” He stood and crossed the room to her, standing closer than any other man would dare. “I would never run from you.”
She looked away, an expression of indifference or insecurity, he could not tell.
He suspected it was the latter, disguised to look like the former.
Drexler said, “There is a way into Europe. Yes. But it will be dangerous.”
“Then that means you and I both have been endangered by the failure of your operation tonight.”
Drexler ignored the comment and stayed on mission. “The team in Paris will continue to work to find out what happened tonight, and I’ll look into the possibility of going to France myself.”
“When you do, when you find her . . . torture her,” Shakira demanded. “For me. There should be a price above death for her treachery.”
Sebastian smiled a little. “Of course.”
Shakira glared at Drexler for several seconds, still furious about the evening’s turn of events, then looked back out at the moonlit landscape. Far in the distance, easily fifteen kilometers to the east, two flashes of light erupted near each other, just seconds apart. Shakira presumed she was watching an aerial bombardment, perhaps Russian fighters targeting the rebel stronghold of Misraba, just outside the city. She said, “My husband can’t know that I know about the boy, and he can’t know I am involved in Paris.”
Drexler said, “That goes without saying. And if he thought for an instant I was involved in any of this, I’d be shot without a moment’s hesitation.”
She said, “Ever since we met, our fates have rested in each other’s hands. If I go down, you go down. And if you fail in your tasks”—she looked back over her shoulder—“you know I’ll have you killed.”
Drexler bowed to her. “Then I should begin preparations immediately.”
Shakira put a gentle hand on his arm now. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” She kissed him, and he kissed her back. “How will you get into Europe?”
Drexler smiled at her in the dark apartment now. “I will wait for your husband to ask me to go on his behalf.”
He left Shakira standing there, alone, convinced she must have misheard him.
Shakira stayed at the window, watched another pair of bombs strike targets too far away to identify, then returned to the plush sitting area near the TV.
Soon she leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, tears formed in her eyes, and the wrath in her heart burned like acid.
* * *
• • •
In the first ten years of their marriage, Shakira and Ahmed al-Azzam had two children, both daughters. Azzam had demanded a son from his wife, so it was to Shakira’s great relief when she bore her husband a male heir shortly before her fortieth birthday. Ahmed Azzam could have chosen any woman in his nation to replace Shakira as first lady, and only when her son, Hosni, came into the picture did she finally feel secure in her place.
Having a male heir was paramount for Ahmed Azzam. There would be an election someday for Ahmed’s successor, but just as had been the case when Ahmed took the reins from his deceased father, the election would have only one candidate. When Shakira presented her husband with a son, everyone in the nation knew the palace would belong to the al-Azzams for another fifty years at the very least.
Shakira had felt secure for the first years after her son’s birth, but when he was five years old a routine medical checkup revealed an inoperable brain tumor, and Hosni died before his sixth birthday.
Ahmed was inconsolable about his son, but beyond mere grief was the realization that his wife was now forty-five, and even for the elite of the nation, five years of war had depleted the medical capabilities inside Syria.
They tried for another year to have a baby, and when they did conceive, the Azzams’ happiness was short-lived. Doctors confirmed she was pregnant with a baby girl, and the pregnancy was terminated soon after.
Ahmed was only fifty-two, so Shakira felt they would remain in the palace for decades to come. The two of them had decided that Ahmed’s thirteen-year-old nephew, the son of his younger sister, would someday carry on the Azzam dynasty, but neither the boy nor the parents of the heir apparent had any notion of this.
Shakira had been a crucial colleague to Ahmed in the palace, if not a true emotional partner, and she’d been the backbone of the Sunni coalition that fought on the regime’s behalf in the war, so Shakira felt safe in her place there. But all the security she felt faded away when Shakira found out that the woman her husband was bedding here in Damascus had secretly produced a male offspring, and he had given the boy the name Jamal, the name of Ahmed’s own father, the former leader of Syria.
Shakira did not begrudge Ahmed the affair itself. She’d been sleeping with the Swiss intelligence officer who worked in the palace since shortly after they met. But the anger that welled in her the instant she’d learned Ahmed had a son with Bianca Medina had only grown in the last few months, and she’d been plotting her next move for all this time. Shakira did not think for a moment that her cold and calculating husband would have allowed his mistress to become pregnant, much less to bring a child to term, unless he had plans for the woman and the child. Children were inconvenient, especially when born out of wedlock to national leaders in the Middle East, and Shakira knew her husband would have had Bianca killed the second he found out she was with child unless his goal had been to replace his wife and make his own child the third generation of Azzam to rule the nation.
Shakira could not let this happen, and the only way she could stop this, to save herself and her children from being cast from power, was to kill Bianca Medina. She didn’t believe Ahmed would throw his wife out of the palace if there was not both a mother and child to bring into the palace to replace her, so with Bianca dead, the baby would cease to be a threat to Shakira.
Then Shakira felt she could reassert herself by reminding Ahmed who truly ruled the presidential palace.
* * *
• • •
Sebastian Drexler was back in his office and thinking about his dangerous predicament at eight a.m. when his satellite phone rang. He snatched it up, hoping the caller was someone from his team working in Paris, and further hoping the caller had some actionable intelligence for him.
“Yes?”
“It’s Sauvage.”
“What have you learned?”
“We picked up the individual performing surveillance on Medina the day before yesterday.”
“Any resistance?”
“He came along. The kid’s name is Ali Safra. As I told you before, he’s a Syrian immigrant, a member of the Free Syria Exile Union.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s in the trunk of Clement’s car. He confirms he was tailing Bianca Medina in the city, but he doesn’t know anything about a larger mission other than surveillance and reporting. He did say there was a meeting yesterday morning at Père Lachaise Cemetery, where the head of the Free Syria Exile Union met with a foreign asset, but Safra says he wasn’t anywhere near that meeting. I think he’s telling the truth; he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy you’d involve in the center of your plans.”
“He’s an idiot?”
“Just an immigrant with a menial job. No connections to anyone other than those in the FSEU.”
“Who is the leader of the
Free Syria Exile Union?”
“According to the kid, it’s a husband and wife running it. They are surgeons here in Paris. Tarek and Rima Halaby. Mean anything to you?”
“Never heard of them. Have you run into them up there?”
“Negative, but we pulled their records from the EU crime database. They both have one arrest in Turkey for unlawful entry. Seems they got picked up crossing the border from Syria about three years ago.”
Drexler thought about this. “So they snuck over into Syria to help the rebels, and were grabbed coming back into Turkey.”
“Looks like it. What do you want me to do?”
“Find out where they are.”
“We have an address already. Here in Paris, on the Left Bank.”
“Do you think Medina might be held at their flat?”
“Doubt it,” Sauvage said. “It’s a nice place, right in the city center. And it’s their home address. They might be armed, they might have security, but this is no place to hold a captive.”
Drexler paused. He was about to up the ante in his relationship with his agents in the Paris police. “Hit it.”
A pause on Sauvage’s side now. Then, “What does that mean? ‘Hit it’?”
“Raid the location, be prepared for violence.”
“This is something you’ve never asked us to do.”
“You’re a cop. Isn’t that what cops do every day?”
Sauvage took his time, then said, “We can find a ruse to enter some other flat. Bring in some patrol officers to stand outside; make it look legitimate.”
“Send two of your men. Don’t go yourself. And this can’t be a straight police operation. We need to know where Medina is, and we won’t find out if the Halabys are in custody where we can’t get to them.”
“Pas problem, Monsieur. I’ll send Allard and Foss; they will question the Halabys on the premises. The other cops won’t know what they’re up to.” After a beat, Sauvage said, “We have not discussed compensation.”
Drexler replied, “All four of you will be paid double the agreed-upon amount.”
“Tres bien, for the raid on the Halabys. But what about the kid in the trunk?”
Drexler decided to push his luck, to see how far these men would go on this operation. “Make it where anyone looking for him never finds him.” After a pause, he said, “I’ll triple your compensation.”
“We aren’t assassins.”
Drexler decided he wouldn’t push harder. Not yet. The eyes and ears of Henri Sauvage in Paris were too crucial to this operation in light of last night’s disaster. He said, “Do you have a place you can keep him out of sight for a couple of days?”
“I have property outside the city. I can have Clement take him there and watch over him.” And then, “But I still demand triple for the operation. I’m no fool. I know you will be sending someone to eliminate him.”
“Fine. Have your men call me as soon as they have the Halabys. I can help with the interrogation of them over the phone.” He hung up and drummed his fingers on the desk. It was all the more crucial that he get to Paris now, considering it was obvious he did not have men there he could rely on to kill on his behalf.
CHAPTER 14
Drs. Tarek and Rima Halaby spent most of the early morning after the attack on Rue Tronchet with Bianca Medina at the Saint-Ouen safe house of the Free Syria Exile Union, but the young woman gave them no more useful information, and the interview brought a frustrated Vincent Voland no closer to his goal of convincing Bianca to go public with details of Azzam’s trip to Tehran to negotiate with the Iranians behind the backs of the Russians.
Voland agreed with the American’s assessment that Bianca Medina should be moved. There had been a lot of activity at the warehouse during the early-morning hours, and there was always a chance a local security camera or a busybody neighbor had picked up something that could lead police to the location. The Halabys had no doubt about the morality of their actions, but they were both well aware they were breaking a huge number of French laws in their virtuous pursuit of the overthrow of the leadership in Syria.
After taking several hours to arrange the transfer, Voland and five of the security men of the Free Syria Exile Union headed to a second location, a country estate southwest of the city, while Tarek and Rima took a trusted forty-five-year-old former Syrian Army sergeant named Mustafa as personal protection and headed home, south through Paris towards their 6th Arrondissement apartment. Mustafa drove and kept his eye on the roads, and he insisted on escorting them into a shop as they stopped off for groceries.
At eleven fifteen a.m. they pulled into their busy central Paris neighborhood. Mustafa was vigilant, well aware of all the dangers, but along the last few blocks the Halabys themselves eyed passersby, looked at rooftops, and even flinched when a motorcycle raced closely by their Mercedes. They were on edge, but neither of them mentioned it to the other.
Both Tarek and Rima were ready to get home and get a few hours’ sleep. It looked like there would be days, if not weeks, of stresses ahead for them, but for the time being there wasn’t much the two surgeons and opposition organization leaders could do other than try to rest.
The Mercedes pulled up to the sidewalk outside their building. Tarek and Rima climbed out with their groceries, keyed in an electronic code by the door, then passed through a narrow entryway towards the stairs. Only when the door clicked shut did Mustafa pull back into traffic to park the car in the garage two blocks away, and only then did the Halabys breathe a sigh of relief.
They climbed one flight of stairs in their twenty-unit building, then walked down a long hall with windows overlooking a pedestrian-only passage below. The hallway made a right turn, then continued a few meters without windows, and here Tarek put the key in his door lock. They entered their second-floor apartment, shut and deadbolted the door behind them, then flipped on the lights in the entryway. He and Rima peeled themselves out of their raincoats, hung their umbrellas in a stand just inside the door, and headed together into the living room on their way to the kitchen.
And as one they stopped in the middle of the room. Rima dropped her plastic bag of groceries, and an apple rolled across the floor.
A man sat in the chair by the window in the corner, facing the entryway. A black pistol with a silencer attached rested on the side table next to him.
The large grandfather clock in the living room ticked off a pair of hollow seconds before Rima let out a soft gasp.
Tarek Halaby recognized the American. He wore a simple dark green cotton pullover and black jeans. His hands were folded in his lap, nowhere near the handgun on the table, but both of the Halabys recognized that the American’s confidence was born out of skill, not arrogance. He could get to that pistol before they could do a thing to stop him.
Rima spoke softly to her husband in Arabic now. “Well . . . That sure didn’t take long.”
The Halabys had expected to see the American, but not this soon. They’d gone against Vincent Voland’s wishes, and they had not sent the final payment to the numbered account maintained by the handler of their contract killer. It had been a gamble, but they’d wanted a face-to-face meeting with him.
Tarek cleared his throat to hide his nerves. In English he said, “I am thankful my plan to meet with you again has worked.”
“Some might call it your plan to commit suicide.”
“We just wanted to talk to you. I will, of course, forward the money to the account right away, while you watch. The funds are yours, regardless of the result of our conversation. Please just give us ten minutes to speak with you first. It is an absolute emergency.”
“I told you I wasn’t interested in anything you had to offer.”
“Five minutes,” Rima implored. “I beg of you. It’s a matter of utmost importance.”
The American sighed, then looked at his watch. “I’ll gi
ve you one minute. If I am interested in the conversation, I’ll give you another minute. If you are really fucking entertaining, you’ll get a third minute.” He motioned to the sofa in front of him. “Then I’m gone for good.”
Rima spoke as she and her husband sat down. “That’s just fine. Thank you.”
The man said, “Your driver . . . is he coming up here after he parks?”
Tarek nodded.
“Does he want to catch a bullet in the eye?”
Now Tarek winced. “No. Certainly not. We will tell him you are our guest. He will wait outside.”
Now the asset motioned to a pair of large framed photographs on the wall across the room. They were portraits, one of a man, one of a woman, and they both appeared to be in their mid- or late twenties. “Children?”
Rima nodded.
“Any chance they will pop in on Mom and Dad while I’m here?”
Tarek answered brusquely. “No. No chance at all.”
The American in the chair said, “All right. First, make the transfer.”
Tarek pulled his laptop from his bag and opened it, and within three minutes he had transferred the money into the account. While this was going on, Mustafa returned to the flat after parking the car and was surprised to see the stranger sitting with his principals. His left hand slipped inside his jacket, but Tarek held a hand up and assured the former Syrian soldier that everything was fine, and they sent him to wait in the hallway.
The American confirmed the wire transfer with his smartphone, then looked up at the couple. “The clock is ticking.”
Rima had sat still and quiet during the transfer, but now she smiled at the stranger in her living room. “What is your name, sir?”
The American chuckled now as he rolled his eyes. “You guys are too much.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is that not a question asked of men like you?”
“Call me whatever you want, doc, but you’ve got forty-five seconds to do it.”