The Predators

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘And there really is no need for you to be there,’ said the perfectly prepared Hillary, who’d returned from the residency in another freshly pressed Action Woman safari outfit, jungle green like the first. ‘I’ll be there when Mary Beth is brought out.’

  Having suffered what, wondered Claudine: the woman was talking like a Hollywood movie.

  McBride said: ‘My authority might be needed on the ground. You stay and take the call.’ His attempts were getting weaker.

  ‘It’s you the Galan woman’s negotiated with up till now. Not me,’ Hillary pointed out. ‘You insisted on talking to her all the time, remember.’

  It wasn’t until people began leaving the building for the NATO base and the waiting helicopters that McBride finally capitulated, personally demanding from both Harding and Rampling that the radio and telephone link from the mobile communications centre that Kurt Volker was going to monitor at the embassy remain permanently open for him to get a minute-by-minute account.

  ‘I’ll give Mary Beth your love,’ Hillary threw over her shoulder to her husband as she left.

  ‘Bitch!’ said McBride to the empty doorway, and for the first time Claudine thought that if Mary Beth existed in anything like this level of tension between her parents it would not have been difficult for Félicité Galan to insinuate herself into the child’s feelings.

  Hans Doorn was a prematurely balding, complacently fat man of thirty who had inherited Namur’s most prestigious estate agency, along with its chairmanship, upon the death of his father and in whose comfortably settled, uneventful life nothing disturbing had ever occurred. The totally unannounced 7 a.m. doorstep arrival of the Belgian Justice Minister, a Europol commissioner and an assortment of field investigators was so unbelievable that it took Ulieff several minutes – and Rampling’s and Harding’s CIA and FBI shields – to convince the man he wasn’t the victim of an elaborate practical joke. It took him even longer to recognize the photograph of the sharp-featured, elegant woman that was thrust at him as Félicité Galan, who’d rented for the weekend one of their most imposing country properties – a château, no less – just outside the city near St Marc. She was, suggested Doorn, the sort of cultured and sophisticated person with whom his agency most liked to do business. Miet Ulieff s terse explanation of why they were there caused the night-shirted Doorn the biggest shock of all.

  By seven twenty, dressed and no longer complacent, he was in their discreet convoy on his way into the city to provide photographs, floor plans and every other known detail of the château to a demanding Paul Harding.

  Even while he was doing that the helicopters that had carried those in charge of the investigation and the ambassador’s wife from the Belgian capital made a high, reconnaissance pass over the identified mansion, which was set in expansive woodland almost two kilometres from the only public thoroughfare, a minor country road. From the air there was no sign of movement around the house, which was hardly surprising so early, nor of Pieter Lascelles’ Jaguar – or any other vehicle – which was less easily understandable, although the house plans showed extensive stabling converted into garages. They only risked one over-flight but managed to expose forty frames of high speed, high density film.

  Ulieff commandeered the office of the local police chief, a nervous man who stuttered and didn’t bathe often enough, as autocratically as he had taken over Poncellet’s in Brussels, but sensibly deferred to local knowledge. Both the policeman and the mayor, who’d dressed in formal black, doubted that any surprise daylight assault could be made upon the château, an opinion quickly confirmed by the arrival of the aerial photographs which showed the outer boundaries thickly wooded but the area between the coppices and the turreted building totally open, in places for more than a hectare.

  ‘Helicopters would give us an element of surprise,’ suggested Blake, drawing upon his Northern Ireland experience.

  Harding shook his head. ‘Doorn’s room plans are to describe the house to potential renters or buyers. The place was built over three hundred years ago and is honeycombed with escape passages and underground tunnels. When he first showed it to Félicité, five months ago, she asked particularly to see them: said she was interested in medieval architecture and the precautions people took for their safety all those years ago.’ He looked uncomfortably to the ambassador’s wife. ‘There are also some original dungeons and oublier wells. For the unfamiliar oublier means forget: oublier wells or holes were pits, sometimes bottomless, in which people who weren’t wanted any more were dropped and never seen again. Renters think crap like that is cute, apparently. Félicité spent a lot of time looking at it all, as part of her historical tour.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Rampling, who’d shared the interview with the realtor. He indicated the photographs. ‘There’s a gatehouse that isn’t visible through the trees in any of these photographs and according to Doorn can’t be seen from the outside road either. It’s around the first bend in the drive. There’ll obviously be someone there, checking arrivals. We wouldn’t even clear the trees before they were warned, inside. OK, so we go in a different way. There isn’t one that isn’t wide open, for hundreds of yards. All they’d have to do is see us coming – which they will – to lock and bar the doors. Which according to Doorn are about a foot thick. By the time we got past them there wouldn’t be a person in the place.’

  ‘Surely all you’ve got to do is guard the tunnel and passage exits?’ protested Hillary McBride.

  ‘We could if we knew where they all were,’ agreed Harding. ‘Doorn told me of three and we’ve already got them covered but he thinks there’re more. He says there’re no reliable maps and that he doesn’t know of the existence of any.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ said Hillary. She was ignored.

  ‘The local legend is that some of the escape routes lead into the cave systems,’ offered the local police chief. ‘And that there are a lot of ancient skeletons at the bottom of the oublier wells. It’s supposed to be haunted, of course.’

  ‘If we know the entrances to three passages why can’t we go in along them?’ persisted the woman.

  ‘We’re trying that,’ sighed Harding. ‘The people who built the château thought of it, too. According to Doorn the doors are iron-ribbed on the inside and secured by iron crossbars, as well as by locks. The idea is to get out but not to get in.’

  ‘There are no cars. Not even Lascelles’ Jaguar,’ said Blake. ‘The party obviously hasn’t started but maybe Félicité hasn’t arrived with Mary Beth yet, either.’

  ‘Telephone!’ demanded Hillary. ‘If someone answers say it was a wrong number. At least we’d know someone was inside.’

  This time Blake didn’t ignore the woman. Instead he looked at her, head to one side, and said: ‘We couldn’t get away with a wrong number excuse: she’s been told for days by Smet we’re getting closer and closer. That’s been her buzz. But a genuine call could work …’

  ‘Doorn’s office is five minutes away,’ anticipated Harding. ‘I left Ritchie with him.’

  The FBI man brought the estate agent running in four, although the man arrived breathless. He kept breathing heavily as Harding talked, long after he should have recovered.

  ‘I don’t think I can do it!’ he pleaded.

  ‘You will,’ insisted Harding. ‘You’re the best realtor in town. She knows that. You take trouble over your clients. She knows that, too. She told you she didn’t want any of the staff which are normally available. You’re doing your job. You’re calling to see if she’s changed her mind about that: there are people you could send in at an hour’s notice. You want to know if everything’s all right or if there are any problems that need sorting out. If there’s a drain or a john that’s blocked or a fuse that’s blown anywhere, we’re in.’

  ‘And if there’s no reply, I’m going to become your assistant,’ announced Blake. ‘You’ve got the right to get past anyone at the gatehouse. She wouldn’t panic if it was you, with someone else from the agency. She�
��d open the door. Which is all I’d need.’

  ‘Why bother with the phone at all?’ demanded Ulieff. ‘Why don’t one of you go up with Doorn?’

  ‘She was adamant she wanted privacy,’ said Doorn anxiously. ‘Repeated over and over again that she didn’t want any staff. I promised to leave her entirely alone.’

  ‘By yourself it could be explained away: the diligent realtor,’ Harding reluctantly conceded. ‘A stranger would make her suspicious.’

  ‘I think it’s worth a chance,’ said Rampling carelessly.

  ‘Isn’t chance what we’re trying to avoid?’ said Sanglier.

  ‘We can’t just sit here, doing nothing!’ said Hillary.

  Blake said: ‘I think I should go up with Doorn. I could wear a wire: you’d know the minute I was through the door. Be right behind me.’

  ‘The place has got twenty bedrooms alone!’ pointed out Harding. ‘There are ten rooms on the ground floor and that’s not counting the kitchen and servant accommodation. Or whatever the hell’s below ground apart from the storerooms and dungeons and holes that people disappear in which aren’t even on the plans we’ve got here!’

  ‘Somebody make a decision!’ demanded Hillary and everyone looked at Henri Sanglier.

  No! thought Sanglier, although not in answer to the choice. Whatever decision he made could ruin his grand exit triumph from Europol. Couldn’t do that. It was going to be his electoral launch. Why wasn’t Claudine Carter here! He couldn’t call her: show his indecision.

  ‘It’s an operational judgement,’ prompted Ulieff.

  Bastard! thought Sanglier. Still almost three hours before the woman’s deadline expired. Something – anything – could happen in three hours. There’d be a reason to speak to Claudine Carter before then. Sanglier said: ‘We phone.’

  Félicité answered.

  Even Claudine was affected by the sense of isolation. It was physical within the embassy – with only McBride, Harrison and Rosetti with her in the ambassador’s study, Volker moving between there and the radio room – and actual over their link with the mobile communication centre. Duncan McCulloch was maintaining voice contact from a tree-shielded track off the Namur to Gembloux road close enough to the St Marc turn-off to monitor the passage of cars with French and Dutch registrations, with the number of Lascelles’ Jaguar the highest priority. As irrationally as everyone else, Claudine had expected the verbatim two-way exchange of Smet’s bugged telephone. What they were getting was McCulloch’s overall commentary on what was happening, comprehensive in itself but devoid of any back-and-forth discussion essential for the special pictures Claudine had to draw.

  Without the closely defined maps of the area from which they were working at Namur there was no way for the five of them in the embassy to follow the dispersal of Belgians, Europol officers and Americans around the château, although Claudine visualized the same encirclement they’d imposed around the very centre of Brussels trying to scan Félicité’s phone calls. They even had to imagine the impossibility of approaching unseen the towered château and it was only when Claudine impatiently spoke herself to McCulloch that she realized he was in turn relaying decisions being reached not on the ground, which she’d imagined, but in Namur, twenty-five kilometres away.

  While they were speaking McCulloch hurriedly broke away for a muffled conversation with Namur, returning to her just as quickly. ‘Félicité’s inside! They had the agent call the château and she answered …’ He broke away again for another mumbled conversation before coming back to her. ‘A car with French licence plates has just turned off on the St Marc road. I’m sure it had a kid in it … and there’s another just behind, Dutch car with two guys inside … They’re starting to arrive.’

  ‘When are we going in?’ demanded Claudine.

  ‘They haven’t decided how.’

  ‘Tell Namur I’m calling them.’

  ‘Will there be other children?’

  ‘Yes, darling.’

  ‘Dressed like this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s silly.’

  ‘It’s a fairy castle, isn’t it?’

  ‘Were the other children taken like me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are they going back home?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what the party’s for. Because you’re all going home. But we’re going to play games first.’

  ‘What sort of games?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Are you dressing up?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘In those funny masks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do anything bad to me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I won’t love you, if you do.’

  ‘Don’t say that: not that you don’t love me.’

  ‘Then don’t hurt me.’

  Claudine listened, astonished, to Peter Blake, cutting him off before he finished. ‘Peter! They don’t know each other! That’s what Smet said: how they protect each other! If a lot of strangers are going in, your only problem is the gatehouse.’

  And by then that had been minimized.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  At last they moved from Namur to where the communication centre had been established, along the Gembloux road. Although the cars were obviously unmarked they still staged their arrival to avoid the appearance of a convoy to any participant on his way to the château.

  Blake, Harding and Rampling were in the lead car, anxious to reach the electronics expert whose scanner had picked up the mobile conversation from the gatehouse to the château at the first arrival, the Citroën with the French registration.

  It was an American technician, a fat, bearded man named Marion Burr who wore a check shirt and cowboy boots and emerged from the vehicle smoking a small cigar. A Europol technician flown in that morning from The Hague took over the scanner inside the truck. Another FBI man replaced McCulloch.

  Burr’s accent was strongly Southern. ‘It’s a man, speaking French. Good job I come from good old Louisiana. We’ve counted fifteen through so far. He says different things at different times, with no reason why as far as I can see. Sometimes it’s “How does your garden grow?” Other times it’s “With silver bells and cockle shells.” And then there’s “pretty maids all in a row”, whatever the hell that all means.’

  ‘The rest of Félicité’s original nursery rhyme,’ identified Blake at once.

  ‘Jesus, what a sick, screwed-up bitch!’ said Harding.

  Blake disagreed. ‘No. It means something. It’s us who’re screwed unless we work out what it is.’

  ‘Who responds to the man in the gatehouse, male or female?’

  ‘A man,’ said Burr. ‘Always a man.’

  ‘The same man?’ pressed the CIA chief.

  Burr hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure? It’s important.’

  ‘Always the same man,’ insisted Burr.

  ‘And we got the first call, so it has to be Lascelles,’ said Harding. ‘Sneaky bastard hid his car away in a garage.’

  ‘Why are the phrases different?’ wondered Blake.

  Burr shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘What’s the response from the château?’ asked Blake. Behind him other cars began arriving. He moved to the side of the road to allow them to pass out of sight further along the tree-canopied track. Hillary McBride was in the last vehicle, with Ulieff and Sanglier.

  ‘Not much. “Thank you,” mostly. Sometimes just “I understand” or “That’s good.”’

  Ulieff, Sanglier and Hillary came up to join them.

  ‘What’s happening?’ demanded Sanglier. Things were moving of their own volition and he knew he’d made the right decision about telephoning the château from Namur. It was important to go on giving the impression of still being in operational charge.

  ‘We don’t know,’ replied Rampling, honestly but unhelpfully. At once he said: ‘It’s som
e sort of identification. It’s got to be.’

  ‘You’re not making sense,’ said Sanglier.

  Rampling shouldered his way past the man, towards the communications van close to which Burr and McCulloch stood. Inside, at McBride’s demand, McCulloch’s replacement increased the volume for the discussion to be relayed to Brussels.

  ‘Fifteen cars?’ he demanded.

  ‘Fifteen that made uncertain turns towards St Marc, as if they were strangers to the area looking for an unfamiliar address, and fifteen telephone intercepts,’ answered McCulloch, ahead of the other man with whom he’d shared the communication vehicle.

  Blake smiled doubtfully. ‘And each time you logged the registration, French or Dutch?’

  ‘To trace the identity of the owners,’ agreed the Texan.

  ‘And additionally those you think carried children?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the man, curiously. ‘Three, to my count.’

  Blake switched to the scanner technician. ‘And you recorded each line of the nursery rhyme against each arrival?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me see the sheets,’ demanded Blake. Around him everyone was quiet, no one understanding except Rampling. Blake didn’t have to go further than the first comparison. ‘The first car was a French-registered Citroën, possibly with a child.’ He looked at McCulloch. ‘There was a child.’ He went to Burr. ‘You didn’t tell us that sometimes there were two lines recited to the mansion. There’s two on that first message, but they’re not consecutive: between “How does your garden grow?” there’s a line missing before “And pretty maids all in a row.”’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded Hillary.

  Blake continued comparing the two record sheets for several minutes before looking up. ‘“How does your garden grow?” identifies the French group. “With silver bells and cockle shells” is the Dutch identification. “Pretty maids all in a row” designates cars carrying a child.’ He offered the papers generally. ‘It’s all there. Félicité knows she hasn’t got anyone coming. Lascelles has a count of his people. So has whoever’s organized the French. If the count doesn’t tally, they’ve got trouble.’