by Mark Greaney
Tarek added, “He’s lying! There is no one here but him.”
“He’s not lying. He’s a cold, calculating individual, but he has survived this long in his work by always acting from positions of strength. He wouldn’t walk in unarmed unless he really did have the unbeatable hand. And he says his mission now is to bring her back alive to Damascus.”
Rima said, “This is insane! We sent the American to rescue the child in Damascus, and he is doing so as we speak. And now you want to give the mother back to Azzam?”
Voland put his hands up. “We know the American is going alone into a fortified building in the middle of Syria. We certainly don’t know he’s getting out of there, and we certainly don’t know he’s going to make it out of Damascus and all the way to Jordan.”
Tarek said, “You are saying that even though the American has more going against him than we do, you still want us to give up?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what I see as the only rational choice.”
The Halabys went into another room to speak in privacy, but quickly they returned to Voland. Tarek said, “Speaking for myself and my wife, we owe it to our nation, and to the American who is risking everything to help us. We will not surrender.”
Voland looked down at the floor a moment. “You are making a mistake that will likely get us all killed. Nevertheless . . . I will respect your wishes. I will go tell Drexler he will remain our prisoner and we will fight to defend the Spaniard.”
CHAPTER 45
Court took the stairs in Bianca Medina’s villa slowly because he could hear talking in the living room, just out of view behind him. Two men in idle conversation; Court picked up something about someone named Sayed, but that was all he understood.
On his way to the stairs he’d passed a guard sleeping soundly in a tiled alcove and moved within five feet of him in the dark hallway. At the top of the stairs he found an empty hallway that went to the left and right and then turned to form the arms of the U of the home. He went to the right first, because Bianca had said the baby’s room was there, right next to her own. Peeking around the corner, he could see a man sitting in a chair at the end of the hall near a door. It was so dark in the hallway Court could not be sure if the man was awake or asleep at thirty feet away, but he could see that the man was wearing a similar dark suit to the one Court had taken off the man he’d killed downstairs.
He went to the other side of the second floor and looked up the hall there, but there were no guarded doors, so he decided the baby was probably being held behind the first door. He returned to the corner and thought about what he needed to do.
There was no getting around that guard; this he knew. He only hoped he could kill him quietly.
Court touched the knife under his jacket, checking its placement, took a calming breath, and stepped around the corner. He began walking purposefully up the hall. He just had to hope his clothing and the dim light would disguise him until it was too late for the sentry in the chair to stop him.
He continued on, his hands idly at his sides, closing on the guard by the door. He was still twenty feet away when the man shifted and said, “Salam.” Hi.
“Salam,” Court replied, trying to use the same low voice he’d heard from the man who owned the suit he now wore.
At fifteen feet the man sat up in the chair and said something else. He spoke in a whisper, which was good news for Court because it meant the other guards in the house would not hear anything, and it also meant someone was likely sleeping on the other side of the door behind him.
When Court did not respond, the man said, “Sayed?” and then he sat up even straighter, suddenly on alert.
“Nem,” Yes, Court replied, slowing the man’s decision making a fraction of a second. But then the man began to stand, and he reached into his jacket.
Court closed the remaining eight feet in two quick steps and shoved his left hand over the man’s mouth, and with his right hand he sank the long fixed-blade knife he’d taken from Walid’s trunk hilt-deep into the Alawi guard’s solar plexus.
The Syrian’s legs gave out in two seconds, and his struggling stopped after a few seconds more.
Court slid him down the wall, back into his chair. He pulled the knife out and leaned the man’s head back against the wall.
Other than a brief and muffled gasp and some scuffling of leather shoes on a tiled hallway floor, the killing had barely made a sound.
* * *
• • •
There had always been a chance that even if Azzam did not move his baby from Bianca’s home in the Western Villas section of Damascus’s Mezzeh district, he would, at least, move the room the baby was being kept in. It would have been a simple security measure designed to slow anyone who came after the child, at least long enough for them to be spotted by security in the house.
But when Court finally got to the room at the end of the hall where Bianca said he would find the baby’s room, he opened the door and found a baby lying in a crib, and a mattress on the floor next to it with a girl sleeping soundly on it.
Court closed the door behind him and moved slowly across the bedroom. The rugs on the tile floor made it easy to keep his footfalls silent. All his senses were tuned to high, still focusing on any noises from other parts of the villa.
In seconds he was on his knees next to the mattress, inches away from the sleeping au pair.
Court could think of absolutely no way to do this without scaring the living shit out of this poor girl, which served no purpose here. Intimidation was an effective means of gaining compliance, he well knew, but in this situation he needed more than compliance; he needed Yasmin to become his partner in crime, and for this he wanted to earn her trust.
And that was going to be hard considering the fact that her first impressions of him were going to be as some sort of monster leering over her in her bed at night.
He placed a hand over her mouth, knelt over her face, and pressed down.
Her eyes opened slowly, then popped wide when she saw the strange man in the low light above her. He placed a finger over his own lips.
“Écoute, s’il vous plaît, mademoiselle.” Please listen, miss. He continued in French. “I have been sent by Bianca. I am not going to hurt you, but we must not make any noise. Do you understand me?”
A tear formed in and rolled from each eye. She blinked. And then she nodded.
Court kept the hand in place. “Bianca is safe in France, but she will not be returning. Shakira Azzam has tried to kill her, and she will try again if Bianca returns to Syria. We have come to retrieve Jamal so he can be with his mother.” There was just Court, there was no “we,” but when he’d worked out what he’d say to the nanny, he’d decided there was a greater chance she would buy into this entire improbable escapade if she thought there were more people involved with the getaway.
Court took a moment to listen for sounds in the house, and then he continued in French, speaking softly and quickly. “I am taking Jamal now. Bianca wants you to come with him for your own safety, no other reason. But no one will make you do this. You can stay right here if you want to, but she is worried Ahmed will become angry when he finds the baby gone, so Bianca thinks it would be best for you if you came with us.”
The girl just stared at Court with wide, frightened eyes.
“Do you understand me?”
She nodded.
Court decided he needed to be more explicit. “I have a gun. As I said, I won’t hurt you, and I won’t hurt Jamal, but I will kill anyone else who gets in my way.”
Yasmin began nodding emphatically under Court’s hand.
“You want to leave tonight?”
Another nod.
“Good. I am going to take my hand off your mouth. Please don’t make any noise, because if you do, you will be in danger from those who will come.”
As soon as he
took his hand away, Yasmin did speak. She kept her voice in a whisper. “Please speak slower, monsieur. Your French . . . it is not so good. How do I know Bianca really sent you?”
Court ignored the slight because he knew she was right. He slowed down a little. “She told me to remind you of the day Jamal was born when it was just the three of you in the room at the hospital, and you sang to him. Bianca told you that you have a beautiful voice, and she asked you to sing to him every day. You promised you would. She wants to know if you’ve been keeping your promise while she’s been away.”
Yasmin nodded slowly.
“As soon as we’re out of here you can talk to her; she’s waiting for me to call and tell her I have you and the boy.”
Yasmin closed her eyes and nodded, still lying there in the bed. She was terrified, Court knew, but she would also know by now there was no way she could stop him from taking the child, and there was also no way she was going to remain behind if he did so.
“You need to get dressed. You will only take your clothes, and things you need for the baby on the trip.”
“How long is the trip?”
Good question, thought Court. He gave her the optimal version. “We will travel tonight to the Jordanian border and slip over before dawn.” And then he added, “But I don’t know what happens immediately on the other side of the border, so bring enough food, diapers, and clothing for him in case we are delayed.”
“Okay.”
Now Court said, “I have a car, but it is several blocks away. Do you have a vehicle?”
She shook her head no. “Bianca has a Range Rover. It’s out front. The keys are in the kitchen.”
Court nodded.
“But,” she asked, confusion on her face, “why don’t the others just pick us up?”
“What others?”
“The other people helping you.”
Oh, yeah. All those guys, Court thought. “They’re out there, but we have to do this part alone.” He meant they were way out there, as in France, but he didn’t get specific.
She nodded again. “So you can really kill ten men?”
Court cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“There are ten men in the house.”
“You mean . . . right now?”
“Oui. Since Ahmed came the day before yesterday. He doubled the guard.”
Bianca had told him five. He’d killed two already, a third man walked the grounds, and a fourth sat on the roof. He’d seen a fifth in the alcove near the stairs, and he’d heard two men talking in the living room.
That was seven. Court wondered if there could really be three more armed men in the house he didn’t know about.
“Where do the guards congregate at this time of the night?” he asked the girl.
“Usually a group of them sit in the living room and watch TV or look at their phones. I have to get the keys and Jamal’s formula out of the kitchen; it’s right next to the living room.”
“Formula?”
Yasmin blinked in surprise at this. “Food.”
Court just stared at her.
“It’s what a baby eats,” she said.
Court nodded his head. “Right. There’s no formula here?”
She went over to a small refrigerator in the room and looked inside. She pulled out one bottle. “It’s not very much. Two feedings at most.”
Court cocked his head. “Two feedings . . . what’s that, about a day?”
Yasmin looked at the stranger with confusion. “A day? No . . . three or four hours, maybe.”
“Shit,” Court said, looking at the tiny human lying asleep in the crib. “Can you get his formula at night without the guards being suspicious?”
Again she gave him a funny look. “I do it all night, every night. Do you know anything about infants?”
“Look . . . until we get to Paris, the baby is your department. I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Oui. I think that would be best for Jamal.”
CHAPTER 46
Vincent Voland opened the door to the hearth room and was surprised by what he saw. Sebastian Drexler stood in the middle of the room talking to Boyer, and the former Legionnaire wore his submachine gun hanging down over his back, not pointed at the prisoner.
Voland said, “What is going on here?”
Boyer said, “Look, Vincent . . . This isn’t our cause. When you hired us, you said an agent not aligned with the Syrian embassy might come with some bent French police officers to try to take the woman back. You definitely didn’t say anything about tier-one Syrian government paramilitaries being involved. We’re surrounded, and it’s suicide to hold our ground. I’ve made a deal with Drexler, and I’ve ordered my men to lower our weapons.”
Voland nodded solemnly. “I understand, Paul. You may consider yourself and your men released from duty.”
Tarek Halaby had entered from the kitchen, and he’d heard this. He looked at Voland like he’d lost his mind. “What? What are you saying? We agreed we would not surrender!”
Voland turned to the Syrian doctor. “And that was the wrong decision even when we did have four top-level security men on our side. Now . . . there is absolutely no chance.”
Tarek Halaby pulled the radio off his belt, triggered the mic, and spoke into it in Arabic. “The Legionnaires have surrendered! For Syria, we will never give in to—”
Vincent Voland pulled the Walther pistol out from under his jacket and held it to Tarek Halaby’s right temple. “I’m so sorry, Doctor, this is not what I want. I am doing this for your own good. For your wife, as well. Put the radio down.”
Tarek lowered the radio to his side, but at the same time he turned his head slowly to the Frenchman. “Bastard!”
Voland said, “I am saving your life with this gun, Tarek.” He turned to Boyer now. “Let them in.”
Boyer stepped to the door of the hearth room and opened it. On the other side, Malik and three of his men stood there, dressed in black, their short-barreled rifles at the ready. Novak was with them, too, but he had already been disarmed.
Clearly Drexler had convinced Novak and Boyer to allow the Syrians to advance up to the building while Voland was talking to the Halabys.
The men in black flooded into the room, but as they did so, Tarek Halaby swept his walkie-talkie up and into Vincent Voland’s pistol, knocking it away from his temple.
He reached down with his other hand and grabbed his own gun out of his belt, and he began raising it towards the Syrians.
Malik shot Tarek Halaby twice through the heart at a range of ten feet.
The fifty-five-year-old Syrian doctor stumbled backwards, then fell onto the cold tile floor as Syrian government commandos flooded through the room, racing for the door to the kitchen. Boyer was disarmed, as well as Voland, and Sebastian Drexler was handed Voland’s pistol.
Boyer immediately radioed his two men at the front driveway and told them to leave the property.
While this was going on, Drexler took Vincent Voland by the arm. “Where is Medina?”
Voland did not reply. He just stared down at Tarek Halaby’s dead body, tears forming in his eyes.
“Tell me and you walk out right now! Don’t tell me and I shoot you dead!”
Voland replied with, “Promise me you won’t hurt Rima Halaby!”
“If she’s as foolish as her husband, I will make no promises.” He repeated, “Where is Bianca Medina?”
“Off the kitchen there is a stairwell that leads down to a wine cellar. In the back of it are two doors. One leads to storage, the other to a servant’s quarters. She’s in the servant’s quarters, the door on the right. She’s locked in. You will not hurt a hair on her head!”
Malik and his men had already moved as a team to the door that led to the kitchen. Drexler gave Voland a menacing look and waved the pis
tol in his hand. “Why would I hurt Mademoiselle Medina? I only want to return her to her home.”
Voland understood that there was a dynamic here between Malik and Drexler. The Syrian did not know that the Swiss intelligence officer had been, initially at least, planning on killing Medina. Voland only had to tell Malik about Drexler’s work for Shakira with the ISIS cell, and there was a chance the Syrian would shoot Drexler here on the spot. But there was also a chance he would not and, Voland knew, Drexler would shoot him immediately for incriminating him.
So Voland said nothing.
Malik called from the door to the kitchen. “How many Free Syria Exile personnel are on the property?”
“Other than Rima and Tarek, six more.”
Drexler said, “Bon. You and the Legionnaires may leave now, just walk away. After tonight you no longer work for FSEU. If you work at all . . . you work for me.”
Voland did not reply; he just looked down at the floor.
Drexler took the barrel of his pistol, put it under the older man’s chin, and pushed up, lifting Voland’s face up to meet his own. The men made eye contact.
“Say it,” Drexler said. “Who do you work for?”
“I . . . I work for you, Monsieur Drexler.”
The Swiss agent pulled the pistol away and holstered it. “Go.”
Vincent Voland looked back down, and he did not lift his eyes from the floor as he followed Boyer and Novak towards the back door.
Voland had only made it a few steps when the man at the front of the first commando at the door to the kitchen opened the latch and pulled the door open, his gun high.
Instantly the first man in the stack was shot through the head. He fell back into the hearth room, while his teammates returned fire. In seconds all the Syrian GIS men began pouring forward through the doorway, guns blazing, as they assaulted the house.
CHAPTER 47
The baby remained sound asleep as Yasmin followed behind Court through the hallway, past the dead guard in the chair. The American had told the young Syrian woman to keep her face tight into his back and to hold on to his suit coat so he could know where she was at all times, but he had no idea if she was complying with his wishes.