by AJ Stewart
There was nothing to jump onto. The third building was on the cross street. He looked along its length for some kind of hold. A downspout or a ledge. There was nothing. It didn’t rain enough to justify spouting or downpipes. He was two stories up. Not a massive drop. Unlikely to kill him, unless he landed on his head. But the potential for sprained ankles or even broken bones was high. And busted legs would not aid his mission. He looked around again and decided there was no plan A. Plan B wasn’t looking good either.
Then plan C pulled up below him.
The white Highlander drove down the cross street and stopped right below him. He saw Yusuf stick his head out the window and look up. Fontaine didn’t wait for any further invitation. He dropped the duffel to the ground and then he turned around with his go pack on his back and dropped down the side of the building, hanging by his fingers. Then he pushed away like he was going to perform a chin-up, flicking his hips back and letting go and dropping with a thud onto the roof of the SUV. He put a large uneven dent into the roof. He didn’t care. It wasn’t his car. He didn’t even know who actually owned it. A decent kick from inside the cabin, lying across the back seat, would probably set it right.
Fontaine slipped off the roof and landed on the road. He grabbed the duffel, opened the rear door and got in and lay across the seat.
“Merci, Yusuf.”
“No problems, sayidi.”
“How many?”
“Three cars, sayidi. Two front, one back.”
“Which direction did Dennison head?”
“No direction, sayidi. He is stopped at the corner, watching.”
Fontaine nodded. I’ll enjoy watching you go down. And he was.
Yusuf pulled a tight K-turn and then turned right down the street that was two streets behind the hotel. He went two blocks and cut right again, stopping at a corner of the street that led back up to the hotel’s entrance. Fontaine told Yusuf to watch and he slipped out of the vehicle and into the store they were parked beside.
The store owner recognized him. Fontaine asked for the phone and put some cash down on the counter. The man brought the phone out from the back room as he had before and he plugged it into the jack. He tapped it to confirm a connection and then stepped out of the store to watch what was happening on the street.
Fontaine grabbed a small notebook from his pack and flicked to a page. He picked up the receiver and held it between his shoulder and chin. Held the notebook open with one hand and dialed with the other. The call was answered on the second ring.
“PAS International,” said the English woman on the line.
“Michel Petard,” he said. He heard the electronic clunk of his call being put on hold while the woman found the name and matched it to an extension and then rerouted the call. PAS International wasn’t the biggest private security company in the Middle East, but they worked with more French companies than any other. PAS had originally stood for protect and serve, but was colloquially known as prosper and score. French companies had done well in Iraq under the Saddam regime, but they had lost a lot of ground after the French government refused to participate in the US-led invasion. PAS was based in London but its biggest office was now in Paris. It had been hired by many French companies to protect their interests not only against insurgents but also against what they saw as an overzealous US military. All was fair in love and war.
The phone clunked again as if a jack was manually being inserted into a plug to route the call. Then he heard a familiar voice.
“Petard.”
“Michel, c’est Jacques Fontaine.”
“Fontaine? It’s been a long time, my friend.”
“Oui, too long.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Iraq.”
“Really? Did you leave the Legion? I didn’t hear anything.”
“No. I’m still in. I don’t have much time. I have a code noir on my hands.”
He heard the man on the other end draw a breath. “What do you need?”
“It’s a big ask.”
“Nothing is too big. You know that. Tell me.”
“I have a shipping container. I need it to get to the 2e REP base in Gabon.”
“Gabon? We don’t have a lot of flights that way.”
“I told you it was a big ask.”
“Pas de problème. I can have it gone this afternoon. To whom?”
“Just send it,” said Fontaine. “It’s better you don’t know.”
“Code noir.”
“Exactement.”
Fontaine told his old officer where to find the truck that Gorecki would leave, and then promised to keep in touch, which they both knew they would not do. Not after a code black. Fontaine dropped the receiver to cut the call and lifted it again and put it back under his chin. He flipped through his book. Called another number in a far away place on the Atlantic coast of Africa.
The call was answered in French. The 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment held a permanent base in the West African country ever since Gabon’s independence from France in 1960. It was one of the more stable places in the region, with a small population density and handsome petroleum reserves. Fontaine knew that the same oil companies that PAS protected in Iraq would ensure PAS was on the ground in Gabon as well. Flights to West Africa might not be common but such a flight wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Fontaine asked for another colleague. Unlike Petard, this one was not French, was not an officer, but was still very much a Legionnaire. And this part wasn’t a task for an officer. Like any military organization, the NCOs in the Legion didn’t give the orders but they ran the show.
“Casper,” said the gravel voice that told of several packets a day of Gauloises cigarettes.
“Casper, c’est Jacques Fontaine.”
“Fontaine, my brother. What dung heap are you calling from?”
“Iraq, my friend. And I need something. Code noir.”
“Code noir? What do you need?”
“I have a shipping container headed for Gabon today from Basra, Iraq. I need it to get lost.”
“How lost?”
“Very lost.”
“D’accord. It’s done.”
“Merci, mon ami.”
“It’s nothing. Be safe.”
Fontaine replaced the handset, stepped back out into the street and slipped into the rear of the SUV. The storeowner looked at him.
“Bourbon?” asked the storeowner.
“No,” said Fontaine.
The storeowner nodded. “Good.” He took a last look down the street and stepped back into his store. Fontaine got into the rear of the Highlander, sat up between the seats and looked down the street. He saw the Humvees in front of the hotel, parked at haphazard angles. A team of three MPs stood outside waiting. Three outside, three front entry and three rear entry. It was a serious number of men for one arrest. He watched as the front entry team walked back out. Only two men. Perhaps one had gone up onto the roof. One of them went to his vehicle and picked up a radio. Spoke something to someone. Then dropped the radio and shook his head to the others.
No dice.
“Down,” said Yusuf.
Fontaine dropped to the seat and waited. Heard a vehicle drive by. Not a big diesel Humvee. The high whine of an army jeep with the accelerator pushed to the floor.
“That’s was him, sayidi. He was watching.”
“Follow, Yusuf. Don’t lose him.”
Yusuf didn’t lose him. Fontaine sat up but stayed low, arms against the seats in front, leaning forward. He watched the jeep. It looked for a moment like it might return to Camp Bravo, but then he banked around and headed for the airport. It was possible that he had a code noir of his own. That if Fontaine wasn’t arrested by the MPs then Dennison was ordered to get out. There were plenty of army transports available. He could be in Germany before nightfall. It would be inconvenient but not a disaster. Fontaine could pick up the trail again. Dennison was in the US Army, and the army left a paper trail that was the envy
of bureaucracies the world over.
But Dennison didn’t get on an aircraft. He pulled into a warehouse precinct southeast of the airport road. It was exactly where Fontaine had told Gorecki to take the real shipment. He kept his eyes open for them and considered the possibility that their comms had been compromised and that Dennison was going for the real container. They followed the jeep onto the dirt concourse and around behind a prefabricated steel warehouse. It looked new. The sort of thing oil company engineers might knock up to facilitate their equipment transport. Dennison pulled the jeep in behind a truck. Yusuf slowed a hundred meters back.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Fontaine.
Yusuf nodded and pulled the Highlander in behind the warehouse and then cut back across the wide concourse. He turned left and drove three hundred meters and then turned a wide U and stopped by the roadside. Sixty seconds later the truck rumbled out the gate. It was a Navistar 5000-MV, riding high on its wheels. It was too much truck for the load. The container was considerably lighter than the original. But Dennison wasn’t bothered with the tares and grosses and load capacities. He turned to the north and the truck spewed black smoke into the sky as he accelerated away.
“Keep your distance,” said Fontaine. “We know which direction he’s going.”
Bandy felt sick. The sun beat down on the rooftop and bounced off it like a convection oven. He had discarded the blanket. It was too damn hot. But his hat provided little protection. He sweated and drank what water he had and sweated it all out again. But he waited. And Fontaine returned. Just after the American. It looked less like confrontation and more like collusion. Bandy watched the American leave, and then shortly thereafter a team of Dutch MPs arrived. NATO troops. They split up and stormed the hotel from front and back. Then they came back out. Without Fontaine. Bandy watched for two hours more as MPs wandered in and out, did a cursory perimeter sweep and then regathered again in front of the hotel. It told Bandy what he didn’t want to know.
Fontaine was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There was a good deal of traffic on Route 1 to Baghdad. There were military transports and Humvees. There were more private trucks. Ten-ton tray trucks with bales and loads covered with tarpaulins. There were enough Toyota SUVs to start a dealership. But Dennison’s semitrailer was the biggest thing on the road. It was easy to keep an eye on. Much of the traffic drove fast. There didn’t appear to be any kind of speed limit. The big rig had a massive engine and a light load but Dennison kept his speed moderate and steady.
Fontaine crawled into the front seat as they drove north. They drove a good four hours. It was a straight shot to Baghdad.
But Dennison didn’t take a straight shot. They passed a sign for the city of Alexandria to the west. Dennison followed the sign off the main highway.
“Where’s he going?” Fontaine asked himself.
“Maybe he is taking the Karbala road. It is less busy,” said Yusuf.
“But doesn’t that road join up with Route 1 in about half an hour?”
“Yes, it does.”
“So this is a detour.”
Fontaine thought back to his meeting with Major Bradshaw. The satellite photos. Farmland to the east, desolate lunaresque landscape to the center and west. A barren area between Baghdad and Karbala. Bradshaw had called it the Bermuda Rectangle.
Dennison was hiding.
They banked around Alexandria and then turned back to the south. They crossed the Euphrates near Musayib and then headed back to the north and west onto smaller poorly maintained roads that had suffered during battles for Alexandria in ’03 but hadn’t been considered a priority to repair by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Suddenly the farms disappeared as if bursting through a portal onto another planet. This was the lunar landscape that Fontaine had seen in the satellite images. It was desert. There was no other word for it. Sand as far as the eye could see. Not dunes like the poster image of the Sahara. This was just flat, hard land, as if someone had decreed that life had no business here. Despite the air-conditioning in the SUV, Fontaine felt the temperature rise.
Yusuf backed off. They could follow Dennison from the dust plume he was spraying into the sky, so they did. It wasn’t the kind of country a semitrailer was built for. Even an up-armored Navistar. Fontaine pondered their destination. It could be a hidden fuel depot. But the big truck would have large diesel tanks, 100- or even 150-gallon capacity. One either side of the cabin. Even allowing for the load weight and the extra mass of the additional armor protecting the rig, the truck would probably still get around four miles per gallon. The trip from Basra to Baghdad was five hundred kilometers, or 330 miles. Even with such poor mileage, the truck could do that trip without refueling. But the truck had come from Iran. It may have arrived tanks dry. And if Dennison had a supply stash out there, he would certainly prefer it to a military refueling station.
He looked up at the sky. It was white. Not blue. The sun burned so bright and reflected off the sand so hot that color was lost to him. Yet the sun was only about halfway back toward the western horizon. Still hours of daylight. Dennison would easily make it to Baghdad before nightfall. He’d have time to fuel the truck and get there in time to shower and shave and wander to the mess hall for dinner.
They drove for twenty-five minutes. Much slower going than on the highway. Then the dust plume banked right, as if taking a new road. They arrived at the junction of sorts a couple of minutes later. It wasn’t one road turning to another. It was more one track turning into a lesser track. The only real sign that it was a road at all were the twin tire tracks heading away.
Yusuf looked at Fontaine. Fontaine watched the plume in the distance. Watched it getting smaller as the truck roared away. Then it got smaller again. Then it seemed to thin out.
“He’s slowing down,” said Fontaine.
Yusuf nodded. Touched the accelerator and moved slow. North toward the dying plume of distant dust. Fontaine looked around. The ground was parched. Not that different from the track they were on. So no real reason to be on it.
“Let’s get off the road. Go east, then let’s come up at his location from the other side.”
Yusuf pulled out of the light ruts in the track and moved slowly across the desert. It was a bumpier ride, only by a matter of degrees. The ruts in the track had hard-packed the dirt into something of a smoother ride.
“How far from Baghdad would you say we are?”
Yusuf shrugged. “Maybe seventy kilometers?”
Close, but not too close. Right on the cusp of what Dennison might consider his territory. They crawled across the parched ground and came parallel to where the last of the dust plume was breaking and drifting away on the breeze. Fontaine took a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment and surveyed the area. Lots and lots of sand. Nothing but arid landscape. To the west it seemed endless. Nothing to see. Nothing to stand in the desert’s way. Nothing at all. Not even a semitrailer.
Dennison had disappeared.
He told Yusuf to wait. Give him an hour. If he didn’t come back, turn around and follow their tracks and get the hell away. Yusuf nodded but said nothing. Fontaine got out and opened the rear hatch and pulled out a set of body armor. A basic unit that didn’t cover the arms, but he wasn’t worried about arms. They didn’t house any organs. And they wouldn’t be the target of a sniper. Out in the middle of nowhere insurgents were his worry. Not Dennison. He was a desk jockey. A bad seed for sure, but he wanted others to do the truly dirty work. And whoever was doing that dirty work wasn’t here to help him. He followed the body armor with a helmet. It was an old US Army surplus advanced combat issue. He hoped it had truly been surplus, rather than preowned. But he wore it because it was the only shade he had. He longed for his kepi blanc with its long peak.
He marched toward the last of the plume. It was about a kilometer away. Three-fifths of a mile. At his standard marching pace he could do that in eight minutes. The terrain wasn’t perfectly flat. There
were subtle undulations that the satellite didn’t show. Peaks and troughs. From high point to low point, maybe the height of three men.
Fontaine kept low. It would slow him down, but not by much. He could march all day. And all the next day too, if he had to. That was something the Legion did well. They marched. They had troop transports and aircraft and all the modern ways of moving men from one location to another. But from the very first day of basic training he had marched. Every day. Sometimes a short pace around the parade ground at Aubagne. Sometimes days at a time through the Alps. By the time a Legionnaire completed his five-year contract marching had become part of his DNA.
He nearly didn’t see it. It was well hidden because for the most part Mother Nature had created it, and she did camouflage better than any army. In the lee of a low peak sat a building. It looked to have been partly consumed by the desert. But on further inspection, Fontaine decided it had been built that way. It was a square structure. Clay bricks. Two sides were covered by earth. Fontaine banked around wide and saw the front. It was a low, stocky building. A single glassless window and an opening where a door might be had there been a jamb for it to hang from.
He moved forward on hands and knees for a better look. For another angle. Walking into a dark building with only one entrance and only one exit didn’t fill Fontaine with joy. He moved around as far he could to get an angle on the fourth side. He could see it directly without progressing into the open. The twin tire tracks were to his left and banked around before him. It was a wide, flat approach. No cover. But from his position he could see that a structure had been added to the building’s fourth side. A lean-to. A canopy of corrugated iron. The iron was covered with more earth. Invisible to any eyes above. Fontaine glanced skyward as if he could see the satellites up there. Drifting across the sky like clockwork.