Rex Dalton Thriller series Boxset 2

by J C Ryan

  She put her hand to her mouth. “He was one of them? In Vietnam?”

  “Yes, he was the one who shot Digger.”

  She paled and nodded.

  “Okay, I think it’s time to get your brother on the phone and let him know we’ll be there soon.” She dug in the pocket of his utility vest and got the satphone out.

  When she’d done so, she asked, “What are you going to do with them, Rex?” Her tone was fearful.

  Her tone made Rex wonder if she thought he might want to kill them and leave them buried among her brother’s grapevines. “I’ve been thinking about it, and don’t worry, I won’t kill them. I have some questions for them, and then we’ll turn them over to the authorities.”

  Just then, a loud moan from the back interrupted her answer and annoyed her instantaneously. She turned around in the seat and spoke sharply. “Shut up, he told you!”

  Rex grinned to himself. She was much tougher than he’d have thought a month or so ago when he met her. He admired that. She’d need to be, to raise a child as a single mother and fulfill her role as a deputy minister in the French government.

  Rex turned his thoughts to what he could do to secure her a measure of peace and quiet in which to enjoy her baby and return to her career. And it didn’t take him long to conclude for that to happen, this shit from the Russians had to end now. That thought led him to a firm decision. He was going to have a chat with these hoodlums before he handed them over to the French authorities. Then, once he got the information out of them about who gave them their instructions, he was going to Russia, or wherever the culprit was, and have a chat with him or her as well. The only person he wouldn’t touch, although he would have dearly loved to do so, was the Russian President. Rex had no desire to go down in history as the man who started World War III by roughing up or killing the Russian President.

  He knew all too well that once the goons were in the hands of the French authorities, he would have no access to them, and he would get no answers. Therefore, the time to get those answers was now, as soon as he got them to Bert’s estate. After he had what he wanted, he’d ask Bert to call Lucien and arrange to have them picked up and put into custody.

  The Russian government would, of course, immediately kick up a racket about their citizens and would probably spin it so that it would sound as if they were attacked in Switzerland, of course, ‘without any provocation’, and abducted to France. Although everyone in the car knew the truth, Rex knew only he and Margot would tell the truth. But neither of them could come out and do it. She, because she’d already hedged the truth to buy some time and couldn’t afford to be in the public eye again so soon, and he, because he didn’t dare appear in the public eye at all.

  It pained him to admit it, but Aguillard would have no choice but to let these assholes go, and they’d probably be back in Russia within a few days.

  Chapter 60

  Lyon, France

  HALF AN HOUR later, Bert and his wife, Adele, met them in front of the farmhouse. Bert laughed as he picked his sister up and swung her around, setting her on her feet for a big hug when she laughed. “It’s so good to see you!” they exclaimed in unison, and then the round of hugging started again before it was Adele’s turn, after which Rex was introduced to Adele.

  Rex then let Digger out of the car, and Bert caught sight of him. “This must be the famous Digger that my sister has told me so much about!”

  Rex grinned and made the introductions. Digger winced a bit when he sat down and lifted his paw to ‘shake’, but he made no sound.

  With a big smile, Bert shook the offered paw and then his brow wrinkled. “He’s hurt. How…”

  By that time, Rex had crossed to the car again and opened the tailgate. “We need a place to keep these guys secure, and I’d like a bit of time with them, in private.”

  Fortunately, Margot and Adele were standing in front of the car, so, Adele didn’t see the cargo in the back. Bert asked Adele to take Margot into the house, and when the women were a few paces away, he motioned to Rex to follow him to a different cellar than the one he’d used to talk with Rex the first time they’d met. This one had little open space and was fortified with rough-hewn wood beams to brace the low ceiling. Rex assumed there was something heavy above, full wine-barrels, maybe. The cellar was chock-full of them, resting on cross-beams and stacked two high on their sides, maybe sixty or more in the space. “Will this do?” he asked.

  “Perfect,” Rex said. “If you don’t mind, I could use a hand getting them down here and secured to these support beams.”

  “Precisely what I had in mind,” Bert answered.

  It was close to midnight when the Russians were all inside the cellar and Rex asked Bert to leave him alone with the captives. Rex thought perhaps Bert might not have the stomach to witness the interrogation, which suited him just fine, and besides, he didn’t care to have witnesses.

  “I’ll let you know when I’m done,” he said. “I reckon our conversation will take about two hours, and then you’ll have to call Lucien and get him to send DGSI agents to pick them up.”

  The General Directorate for Internal Security, DGSI was tasked with counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, and the surveillance of potential threats on French territory, in other words, the French equivalent of the American FBI.

  ***

  INSIDE THE HOUSE, while Rex was busy with his prisoners, Bert and Adele questioned Margot about her health and wellbeing, what had happened to her over the past few weeks, and eventually the inevitable question, “Who is this Rowan Donnelly?”

  Margot couldn’t really answer that question, because she didn’t know. She’d already discarded his cover story that he was a history teacher. She had more than enough reason to believe he was some kind of specially-trained black ops operative, and Digger was a trained military dog. Maybe someday, say in thirty or forty years, he’d explain. In the meantime, she had learned that her questions wouldn’t be answered, so she no longer asked them. What she did know was that she didn’t care what his real name or his history was and that she had, over the last few days, come to realization that she loved him.

  She didn’t tell them any of that. She just shrugged and said, “Digger introduced him to me in Vanuatu, and we became friends.”

  “Digger introduced you?” Adele asked with skepticism.

  Margot smiled and explained how it happened and how they became friends and how Rowan didn’t buy the story that she’d drowned and went looking for her and how he’d saved her in Vietnam and again now in Geneva.

  Adele had a twinkle in her eyes and winked when she said to Margot, “Sounds to me like the type of friend a girl can only dream about?”

  “You’ve got that right. But… I… well… let’s see what happens.” Margot was blushing, and Bert started laughing.

  “Well, Margie,” he knew she hated it when he called her that, “I guess you’re old enough now to… wait hang on for just one second… is he the…”

  “No Bert, if only it was him…”

  Chapter 61

  Lyon, France

  THREE OF THE prisoners were wide awake and perhaps anticipating their questioning, as they looked apprehensive. The man with the crushed larynx would need medical attention before the night was out, Rex thought. Curly was groggy and in severe pain. Rex assumed he’d be the one with the most information, and perhaps the one most willing to part with it, but interrogating him was going to be tricky—he couldn’t form intelligible speech.

  Rex returned to the car and got a notebook and pen out of his effects. Curly’s injuries notwithstanding, he clearly was the leader of this gang, and Rex intended to get answers. He returned to the cellar and asked a general question in perfect Russian. “Do any of you assholes know who sent you? Spit it out now, and you can avoid the pain of me beating it out of you.” It wasn’t an idle threat, and from the expressions on their faces, they knew it. But they shook their heads forlornly—they didn’t know, but they were all eyeing Curly.r />
  “So, he knows?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t know if Kudry knows, but he’s the one who hired us,” one of them said, and the others nodded.

  Kudry. Rex almost laughed out loud at that one. His actual nickname was the same in Russian as Rex had given him in Vietnam.

  Now he had no choice but to communicate with Curly, and he called Digger to come and ‘persuade’ Curly to cooperate. On the ride here, Digger had stiffened somewhat from his wounds. He walked slowly but purposefully toward Curly, stopped about one pace away from his feet, hackles up, growling, and showing his teeth.

  Rex would not have thought it possible for Curly to get any paler, but he did, turning several shades whiter as Digger stood snarling at him. “Mph, mph, mph,” he uttered.

  “You want me to call him off? Then you’d better find a way to answer my questions.” Rex untied Curly’s hands and let him slide to the ground, his back against the beam to which he’d been bound the moment before. He handed him the notebook and pen. “Who ordered you to abduct Margot Lemaire?”

  Curly shook his head violently, and then moaned from the pain. “Mph mph.”

  “Write it down, idiot. That’s why I gave you pen and paper. I won’t tell you again, start writing.”

  Curly seized the paper and pen and scribbled furiously, then held it out to Rex.

  Rex took it and read with difficulty the Cyrillic script. “Russneft? Is that what this says?”

  Curly nodded and gestured to have the paper returned to him. Several exchanges later, Rex had the information he needed, though it had taken nearly forty minutes to get what would have been easy to say in five or less.

  Fyodor Koslov, CEO of Russneft, the Russian gas company whose proposed pipeline would have been built through France to Paris if they’d had their way, was behind it. But behind that, Curly speculated, was the President of Russia himself. There were many rumors that he was a major shareholder in Russneft, although his shares were held through various front companies which he controlled through a labyrinth of other companies. Whether the gossip was true or not, it was known that the President wielded significant influence over Russneft’s dealings. However, it had been the CEO, Koslov, who hired him, paid him, and who threatened him with dire consequences if this second attempt failed. His last message was a plea to be kept in France, where at least he’d live, even if it were as a lifelong prisoner.

  “That isn’t my call,” Rex told him. “Take it up with the French. If it was my decision, you and your men would be fertilizer in the vineyards.”

  Curly’s puzzled frown was his only comment. He must have thought Rex was French, maybe part of a security team.

  With the information he wanted, he had no further use for the Russians. He went to the house, where he found Bert waiting up for him, and told him he could now make the call to Lucien.

  He asked Bert to also request Lucien to send in a DGSE cleanup team to come by and pick up the rental car, take it to Geneva, and clean up both it and the rented house, and return the car to the rental company.

  Finally, he asked Bert to also convey the message that a security detail for Margot be sent, as she would from now on be living on the farm—if he and Adele agreed.

  Bert and Adele didn’t have to consult each other, “Of course she will be staying with us,” Adele said. “We’d love it, and the children will be ecstatic to have their Aunt Margot around, not to mention their cousin when he or she arrives.”

  With all of the arrangements taken care of, Rex had one more request to make, and for that he took Bert aside and explained that he and Digger didn’t want to deal with any of the government agents when they arrive. They would want to stay out of sight.

  Bert didn’t require any further explanations. He remembered how easy it was for this man to overcome him the first time they met, and he’d seen the condition of the Russians when he helped him get them into the cellar. Those guys looked like they were in hand to hand combat with a pride of lions. He was stunned to learn that it was the work of one man and a dog. This man was a highly trained soldier of some kind—a man not to be messed with. Just like Margot, he knew this man and his dog were not ordinary globe trotters. He had no doubt Rowan had good reason to stay out of sight.

  “No problem. I’ll take you to the guesthouse, and you and Digger can get some sleep. I’ll take care of everything. We can discuss your plans after all the agents are gone. The guesthouse is about five hundred meters away, I’ll take you over there, let me just get the keys.”

  Within no more than twenty minutes after Bert had left them at the guesthouse, Rex was sleeping soundly in a comfortable bed, Digger by his side. But before he’d made ready for bed, he called Rehka. After the usual security checks and pleasantries, he had just one request. “I need everything you can get me on the CEO of a Russian company named Russneft.”

  Chapter 62

  Lyon, France

  DIGGER WOKE UP first, with a soft woof alerting Rex that someone was at the door of the guesthouse. Rex pulled on his pants, and while doing so he was glad to notice that Digger was moving a lot better than when they went to bed and remembered that Trevor once told him how much quicker dogs heal from their wounds than humans. He went to the door to find a beautiful little girl of about seven with big brown eyes and long dark hair, waiting for him to open it.

  She looked at Rex, then at Digger, smiled, and said importantly, “Mommy says you must come to breakfast.” She looked at Digger again and asked politely. “May I pet him?”

  Rex smiled. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that. Would you tell your mommy I’ll be there very soon? I just want to take a quick shower and get dressed.”

  She ignored Rex’s request and put out a confident hand for Digger to sniff, then scratched behind one of his ears, causing Digger to sink to his haunches and sigh in contentment. Rex left him outside with the little girl and took a hasty shower, put on fresh clothes from his backpack, and rejoined the child and Digger within five minutes.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her as she led him back to the main house.

  “Elise,” she replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Rowan.”

  “And his name?” She pointed to Digger who was a few yards ahead of them, nose on the ground sniffing out the new environment.

  “His name is Digger.” Rex spoke Digger’s name in English, though they’d been speaking French.

  “That’s a funny name. Why did you give him that name?”

  Rex enjoyed the child’s confident and inquisitive yet very polite mannerism and explained to her, in French, the literal meaning of the name, which had her laughing.

  “I hope he doesn’t dig up my mommy’s rose garden, he will be in a lot of trouble for that.”

  By then they were at a back door, and Elise reached for the knob. “Allow me, mademoiselle,” Rex said formally, opening the door for her and gesturing for her to enter while he bowed.

  Elise giggled and led the way.

  Rex found a warm family scene as Elise led him into the big farmhouse kitchen, where Bert, Adele, Margot, and a little boy of about four sat waiting for his arrival.

  “Please, go ahead and eat,” he said as he seated himself at an empty spot. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” He looked at his arm and realized that in the rush, he’d forgotten to put his watch on. “What time is it?”

  When he was told it was nine a.m., he was mortified. He hadn’t slept that late since he was a kid.

  He turned to Bert with a question in his eyes, and Bert answered it immediately. “Our guests have left,” he said, flicking his eyes toward Elise and the boy. “And everything else is as you asked.”

  Rex was hungry, and he thoroughly enjoyed the traditional French breakfast of croissants, tartine, a French bread sliced lengthwise with butter and jam on it, fruit juice, and café au lait, coffee with milk. “Thank you for breakfast, Adele. If you’ll excuse me, I have something to take care of before the day gets much older,” Rex said. “Ma
rgot, I’ll see you later?”

  “Sure. I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  Rex returned to the guesthouse and packed his backpack. His next task was to get hold of Rehka to hear what she had been able to find out about Fyodor Koslov.

  “As soon as I started hacking into Russneft’s files, they put a tracker on me, and I got out,” Rehka explained. “Their security is extremely tight. But in the end, I managed to break through and got the information without leaving a trace.”

  “Great work, Rehka. Thank you. Please send it over.”

  She went quiet for a moment, and then said, “On its way, you’ll have it momentarily.”

  Rex thanked her again, and as always, knowing he was going to get himself in harm’s way, she cautioned him to be careful.

  ***

  REX RETURNED TO the farmhouse and asked Margot to join him for a walk in the garden.

  Listening to his plan, she was horrified. “Rowan! You can’t do that. They’ll kill you. Please don’t do it. Please.”

  “Margot, this has to end, now. As long as they think they can act with impunity, they won’t stop. Think about it. They managed to find you in Vanuatu, Vietnam, and Geneva. They’ll find you here, and they will come again.”

  “But Uncle Lucien arranged for protection. I’m safe now. They won’t be able to come close to me again.”

  “Margot, I think this thing goes to the top of the Russian government. I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that the Russian President has a hand in this. They have the resources to get to you if they want to. And they will.”

  “Rowan! Don’t tell me you are going after the Russian President… that…”

  Rex took her hand and said, “No, Margot, I’m not that stupid. But with the information I got out of the men last night, I can go after Fyodor Koslov, the CEO of Russneft and get a confession out of him.” He didn’t tell her that the best information was produced by Rehka.