by Ian Walkley
Three months later, with Khalid stripped of his title and exiled to Qatar to avoid a politically sensitive trial, Muna was found guilty of adultery and incitement to murder, and taken to Deera Square in Riyadh. There, she was buried up to her breasts with her hands tied. Enthusiastic male volunteers threw stones for almost an hour, the process stopped several times to allow a doctor to check her condition, until finally she was declared dead.
~ * ~
Khalid shook off the awful memories and got out of bed. He went outside, calming himself by breathing in the cool, early morning air. He always kept his anger close. As he walked, Khalid uttered the pledge he’d made on the day he’d heard of Muna’s death. He would punish those who took Muna from him and forced him into exile, and while he was at it, he would reap revenge for all of the injustices the Saudi regime and its Wahhabi mullahs had inflicted on his people. No matter what the consequences, no matter what the cost.
~ * ~
25
Mac’s cabbie from Charles De Gaulle Airport into Paris was playing a CD with an upbeat fusion of African folk and jazz-rock, which he explained was Mbalax, Senegalese dance music. He was from Dakar, he said, and had once helped one of the teams in the Paris to Dakar Rally. But Mac’s thoughts were elsewhere. He wondered if his Paris contact, Jogesh Khoury, had managed to glean any intel about The Frenchman.
Mac checked his messages as they drove. His mother was the only call still unanswered. He checked his watch. Midnight in Paris would make it six p.m. in Boston. He didn’t want to interrupt dinner, so he put the phone in his jacket pocket. In any case, he knew what the call would be about. Susan’s new baby. Nick had gotten the family that he’d been denied.
Then he realised that ASTA could be tracking his phone. He was supposed to have gone with the others on the flight to Montreal. He smiled as he imagined Wisebaum’s livid face when he realised his loose cannon was missing. He switched off the phone and removed the battery. This was not ASTA business.
Turning off the Boulevard Périphérique, the cabbie drove past burger joints, ice creameries and crêperies along Boulevard de Clichy. At this late hour, many were closed, but the streets outside the less salubrious clubs and bars throbbed with humanity in its many forms: drug-addled regulars, migrant strippers, curious tourists, locals at a stag party. An ambulance raced past, siren screaming, its flashing lights reflecting off the gray stone buildings as it sped through Place Pigalle and past the Moulin Rouge. Beyond Place Pigalle, pharmacies and medical clinics assumed prominence over restaurants and cafés. Clubs with names showing a little creative flair, such as Sextasy and Fantasm, gave way to generic labels like Sex Shop and Strip Bar. Clever advertising was irrelevant to those too desperate to care.
Mac knew the area well enough to find the meeting place and told the driver to pull over beside a souvenir store displaying tobacco accessories and Eiffel towers. Across the cobbled lane was a pizzeria where two familiar figures were stuffing their faces with large slices of floppy pizza.
He set the sports bag containing his gear beside the table and clapped Scotty on his broad back, grasping his hand firmly, and then shook Jogesh Khoury’s hand before sitting down at the round table. “So, how was the reception from your SAS Commander back at Hereford, Scotty?”
Scotty drank a mouthful of Coke. “The Colonel wasn’t at all happy about our little Mexican rammy, laddie. Six weeks fucking leave without pay for my sins. So I’m not here for the love. I need a distraction. And to be bloody honest, I need the cash. Janice is hounding me. She’s taken up with some photocopier salesman from Leeds, and I think he’s spendin’ her money. I give her more than I have to for Sandra. Jesus, lad, I don’t think I can afford another bloomin’ girlfriend as well as a broken marriage. What’s the friggin’ world coming to?”
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Scotty.”
“Ach, fuck it, lad. You saved my bacon often enough. I’m always a sucker for action. The other lads in the team feel the same, you should know.”
“Here. This might ease the pain.” He handed them each a bank deposit receipt—seven thousand pounds for Scotty and fifteen thousand euros for Jog. It had used up all his sign-on bonus plus some savings, but Mac had no qualms about that.
“You sure about this, Mac?” Scotty folded the receipt with his thickset fingers and put it in his wallet and grinned. “Thanks. You’ve made a Scotsman very happy. Jog was telling me you guys have been climbing together.”
“We’ve been twice since we met six years ago,” Mac said. He’d met Jog when his Delta team was tasked with assassinating a leading member of the Taliban vacationing with his family in Paris. Jog had arranged the driver of the getaway car, an untraceable sniper rifle, and bullets, and helped out with surveillance.
“You’d be welcome to join us,” Jog said. “We’re climbing Arequipa in July. In Peru.”
“Sure. A pack mule would be handy down there,” added Mac, referring to Scotty’s renowned strength and endurance.
Scotty flicked him the finger.
The monobrow above Jog’s aquiline nose rose in amusement. “Assuming Claudette lets me go. Now we have the baby.” The tough-love wrinkles beside his eyes betrayed Jog’s jovial nature. The former officer in Lebanese Intelligence had established himself as a fixer after meeting Claudette, a Parisian with whom he’d fallen in love as they trekked Nanga Parbat.
Mac reached over for a slice of pepperoni. “So, what have you got for me? You reckon you have the goods on The Frenchman, Jog?”
“Oh, yes. I believe this is the man. But first, a little gift...” Underneath the table Jog passed Mac a paper bag.
Peering down, Mac opened the bag slightly and could see a Walther P99 with a noise suppressor and spare magazine. Not his usual weapon, but easy to conceal, and he was pleased to find it fully loaded with sixteen rounds. Every Special Ops unit needed its fixers—people who provided logistical support in specific and remote locations, whether it be gaining the right approvals or providing weapons or casual help for watching people or disposing of them. Fixers were deniable and expendable. Being a Muslim had been a disadvantage at first, but was now Jog’s selling point.
“You mind?” Mac helped himself to another slice of pepperoni. “Any sign of Sophia or Danni?”
Jog shook his head.
“So what makes you think this is our guy?”
“Emil Bladelescu isn’t French. This is why I didn’t connect the dots at first. But then I find out that outside France they call him The Frenchman. Here, he’s called ‘Blade’. Likes to cut up his enemies, sometimes even his friends. Blade supplies girls from Eastern Europe to strip joints and sex clubs. But recently he opened his own place, the Rumy Bar. This has caused a few hairs to ruffle...”
“Feathers.”
“Pardon, monsieur?”
“Feathers to ruffle.”
“D’accord. The club owners who used to source their girls through him tried to persuade him not to open the Rumy Bar. Now he’s taken the crème-de-la-crème of the girls and they’re not happy. Most of his girls are from Eastern Europe, but we visited his club and he has Western girls as well as Asians and Easterners.” Jog pointed down the street where, above a striped blue, red and yellow brick façade, a neon sign flashed intermittently with the words Rumy Bar. It was located above an adult products shop called Dildos R Us. The windows upstairs had been bricked up.
Scotty licked the tomato sauce off his fingers. “One of Jog’s boys and me went in last night for a gander. The lap dancers are young and anxious to please. They almost insist that customers go all the way for extra cash, which they hand to the boss. I was offered drugs. Cost us a small fortune to get out of the place.”
“So what about Sophia and Danni?”
Jog lit up a cigarette. “He might have sold them. We believe he recruits girls by offering them jobs in Paris. They think they’ll be able to send money home and get a chance at a better life. Once they’re here, they are locked up, threatened, and turned into wh
ores. Once they’ve lost their earning potential, they’re cut loose. They might work the streets or... some of these operations just bury the bodies. Cuts down costs and keeps the trade hidden.”
“So, do we have a green light for tonight?”
Jog laughed. “Bien sûr, mon ami. However, it will take more than three men with pistols.”
“How much?”
“Another ten thousand.”
“That’s a lot of money...” It would break further into his savings, but that didn’t matter. “Okay. If you’ve organised it for tonight, let’s do it. Who knows what they’re doing to those girls.”
“I thought you might say that,” Jog said. “My men are on standby.”
Scotty lay a Google Earth image on the table. It showed a building that was very different from the Rumy Bar. “Let us tell you about where they take the girls after work...”
~ * ~
26
It was almost two in the morning when they arrived at Jog’s assembly point, set up inside an old abandoned warehouse not far from where Emil, The Frenchman, was keeping his girls. There were four others already there, dressed in gear similar to that worn by the French Police RAID team—helmets, body armour, and black coveralls with POLICE emblazoned on the back—swarming around a Peugeot Boxer van, choosing their weapons. Most looked in their late forties or early fifties, but only one had a spreading bulge that suggested he enjoyed his beer and croissants. Then again, he moved as well as the others. A second van contained all manner of equipment they might need for the planned incursion. Nearby, a Caterpillar bulldozer was sitting on a trailer parked next to a bus.
A full-size headshot of The Frenchman, Emil Bladelescu, was taped to a wall and Mac studied it to memorise the face. Next to it was a Google Earth enlargement of the target premises, a three-story whitewashed brick building with metal bars welded across its shuttered windows. The building was surrounded by a corrugated metal fence three metres high, with two strands of barbed wire above it. One fence bordered the banks of the Saint-Denis Canal. A possible escape route for those inside.
Even though he knew Jog was good, Mac was astounded at the level of preparation. “Jesus, you knew I was serious, didn’t you,” he said as he looked around and smiled.
“I know Sophia is special to you, so this is more than just any mission. I only hope we find them in time. But I think Scotty has a sound plan.” Jog took him over to meet the team. Gaston and Jean-Claude were ex-DGSE Commandos, Marcel was a retired Foreign Legionnaire, and Yanis was one of Jog’s former colleagues from Beirut.
“This is your operation, Scotty,” Mac said, pulling on black coveralls, body armour and a utility belt. At the weapons van, he swapped the Walther for a Glock, which was more familiar, and loaded up a Benelli shotgun. “So, guys, how many are we up against?”
“From what we know, there are seven or eight,” Yanis said, clipping a magazine onto a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle. “Schmidt’s watching the premises as we speak.”
“All right,” Scotty said, moving over to the map on the wall. “Let’s go over the plan and synchronise watches. We move at 0345 hours.”
~ * ~
Clouds hid the moon. Schmidt had smashed the nearby streetlights. Marcel manoeuvred the bulldozer alongside the canal and without pausing crashed through the rear gate. Mac hurled himself off before Marcel stopped the machine and sprinted across the yard to open the gate. Jog drove the van into the courtyard and the others piled out.
Strangely, there was nobody in the courtyard to defend the place. Emil’s men must feel very secure, or maybe they’d left. Or maybe they were busy with the women.
Mac raced back to the entrance of the building and fired the silenced pistol to shatter the lock. Yanis and Gaston smashed the door in with the rammer and he rolled a flash-bang inside. They stood back, blocking their ears and closing their eyes, as it exploded with the brilliance of a flare and a boom that would render anyone temporarily senseless.
Scotty led them inside and they split into two groups to sweep from the ground floor up. That way Emil and his men would be trapped. The plan was to secure the building first, then worry about the girls. They didn’t want chaos with panicked women running around getting shot. Their main objective was to take The Frenchman alive.
Mac crept left with Gaston and Yanis towards what smelled like the kitchen. He signalled stop while they listened. Nothing. He moved slowly into the room where burning gas on the stovetop made a low hiss. Food simmered in a large pot. Someone had been here moments before.
“They’re not far away,” Mac whispered, glancing in the pot. French onion soup.
“Gaston, watch our backs,” Mac said as they passed into a dining room with seating for about thirty people. The skin of his back started to prickle. He glanced left and right. Someone was close.
“Hola!” came a shout from behind as a door cracked open.
Mac twisted around, bringing up the shotgun, but as he did a second door burst open behind him.
“Back!” Gaston shouted.
Mac fired three times, hoping Gaston had the other guy covered. Too late. Bullets thumped into his back, propelling him forward. He sensed a blinding flash, followed by a velvety blackness and thousands of flashing stars.
~ * ~
Mac wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Seconds, maybe, or a couple of minutes. Where was he? What was that shooting? He became aware of someone kneeling beside him, calling from a distance.
“Mac? Mac? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he heard himself reply from what seemed like kilometres away. His head hurt like crazy, and his back. He sat up. “Where are they?”
“Both dead, mon ami,” Gaston said, leaning over him. “The body armour stopped their rounds or you would be also. Are you able to continue?”
He took several tentative breaths and stood up, ignoring the painful bruising in his back. “Let’s go.”
A burst of automatic fire came from somewhere else in the building, followed by a series of single shots and shotgun blasts. A brief silence. Then more shooting.
“Let’s take it slow.” He pressed the transmit button on the handheld. “Two reds down here. You guys okay?”
“Four reds down,” Scotty replied. “No sign of Emil. Going up to level one. You guys take two.”
They crept up the stairs to level two. It had a long corridor with doors off both sides, like a hotel. The doors were bolted on the outside and they ignored the panicky female voices behind them. Mac sprinted along the corridor, checking each door while the other two covered him. All were locked, making it unlikely there was anyone waiting inside to ambush them.
At the end of the corridor was a locked door under the stairs. Mac spotted wear on the carpet that showed a lot of foot traffic. While Gaston and Yanis kept guard, he fired the Benelli and the lock shattered. He pushed open the door. Inside was a spacious office with a solid, carved oak desk covered in papers and a notebook computer. A sizeable safe was built into the wall and there were two filing cabinets and an extensive bar.
“We’ve found The Frenchman’s office, Scotty,” he said on the radio.
“Copy that.”
He began to search the room when Yanis hissed like an irate football fan. He jabbed his finger towards the rear of the office, where a section of wall had begun to open. A small hatchway, about half the size of a normal door. It would have been almost impossible to detect if someone hadn’t been opening it.
Mac crouched behind a filing cabinet as the others took cover behind the desk. After a moment, the snub-nosed barrel of a submachine gun appeared, followed by the head and shoulders of a man. Not Emil.
“Just get the computer, leave everything else,” came a voice from behind the man.
Mac fired the Benelli. The top of the man’s head splattered the far wall and the body dropped, preventing the hatchway from being closed. There was return fire, then the body was dragged back inside and the hatch pulled shut. He fired again at the
hatch but the pellets had no effect.
“Damn it!” He turned to the other men. “Who’s got the Semtex?”
“In the equipment van,” yelled Yanis.
“Yanis, keep an eye on the hatch. Don’t let them get that computer. Gaston, guard the door. Wait here until the others arrive before you release any of the girls. I’ll try and stop them leaving.”
As he leapt down the stairs, he radioed Scotty to tell him what he was doing. He raced out the smashed rear gate and glanced around. If there was a tunnel it would most likely exit onto the banks of the canal. There seemed to be three possible places where an exit door could be disguised: a pile of rusting oil drums, a derelict graffiti-sprayed hut, and a pile of old car bodies. He darted behind the drams. After a few minutes, two men with pistols emerged from among the car bodies, checking the surroundings before scurrying along the bank towards him.