32
Braden McKee stepped off the Métro at the Chateau Rouge stop, the people swirling around him all of African descent. He walked up the stairs toward rue Doudeauville and was swarmed by several young men surreptitiously flashing smartphones for sale from the palms of their hands. Samsung Galaxies, iPhones, HTC Droids, each man vied for his attention with a different flavor.
He ignored them, not wanting to do business in view of anyone entering the Métro. He walked a block and turned in to an open-air market, the only Caucasian to be found. Shouting in French, two of the men followed him, as he knew they would.
Their persistence would earn his business this day.
Getting to the center of the market, surrounded on all sides by people hawking goods, he turned and waved them forward. They sprinted to him, both fighting for his attention. And his money. He said, “You speak English?”
The smaller one, holding a Galaxy, said, “Yes. Good phone. Unlocked.”
The thief manipulated the touch screen, showing a multitude of apps and that they functioned.
Braden said, “Does it have a SIM card?”
“Yes! It work right now!”
The taller one, with an iPhone 5s, blurted, “My phone real. His is junk. Fake.” He began the showmanship dance, flipping through apps left and right. Braden ignored the iPhone, focusing on the Galaxy thief. “Dial someone. Right now.”
The boy began to do so, and the iPhone thief became agitated, pushing the Galaxy away and saying, “My phone real! Unlocked. You hook to your service.”
Braden needed both but only the Wi-Fi capability of the iPhone. He cared not at all that it wasn’t hooked to a cellular service. He said, “How much?”
The iPhone thief said, “Two hundred euro.”
Braden didn’t even bother to haggle, not concerned about the cost. “Okay. I’ll take it.”
The Galaxy thief became irate, believing he’d lost the sale in the time he was dialing. He shouted, “His won’t work. Listen! Listen!”
He held the phone up to Braden’s ear, a ringtone coming through. A man answered in French, and Braden hung up, saying, “I’ll take yours as well.”
He pocketed both phones, letting the little thieves scamper off with a smile. He left the market, walking east, deeper into the neighborhood of Goutte d’Or, a lone Caucasian in a sea of Africans. He passed two gendarmes, both looking at him curiously, and he understood why.
Unlike England, which worked to prevent localized concentrations of indigenous populations and attempted to force immigrants to integrate, France had specific pockets that—if it weren’t for the distinctive French architecture—could be mistaken for a different country. Goutte d’Or was one such area.
Since the Algerian War, it was known as the place for African immigrants. Originally full of Algerian expats who fled the troubles of their home country in the ’50s and ’60s, it had spread to include people from all over Africa. Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, and others, they all came here—illegally or otherwise.
As a Caucasian, Braden had raised the gendarmes’ interest, because he was either lost or clearly looking for something shady. He opted to appear lost, knowing that if they had any idea what he was truly planning, they would have done much more than stare at him.
His brother Seamus had called him in Brussels the night before, agitated and asking if the Serbs were ready to execute their jewelry heist. Originally having told Braden he’d have a five-day preparatory window, Seamus now wanted the operation conducted immediately. He’d asked if it could be done.
Braden had said, “Maybe. But it’ll be something like two days. One, I need to establish the trap. Two, the Serbs are going to want at least a day for a final look-see.”
“I thought you said the explosives were ready?”
“They’re staged but not primed. That’s the easy part. The Serbs are harder. Ratko Illic is no joke. You know his two men haven’t contacted him in twenty-four hours? He’s asking why, and I have no fucking idea what to tell him. He’s liable to go off.”
Seamus told him what had transpired, ending with “I have no idea about his men either, but that’s just another reason we need to move.”
Braden was shocked at the revelations. Shocked and scared. He said, “Seamus, suppose he needs those two men? Ratko may kill me if I demand this. He’ll blame me.”
“He needs you. Aren’t you the getaway? The break from the Serbs? I thought they were worried about getting caught with the jewels. Interpol is all over their ass. Didn’t they expect to get pulled in as a matter of course after the robbery?”
“Yeah, that’s true, but I’m not sure if that’ll be enough. He might just put a bullet in my head for the trouble and call the whole thing off. These guys are clannish. You’ve never worked with them, but they’re scary.”
Seamus said, “That won’t happen. They’ve put too much time into this. How long have they worked it?”
“Two months. Two that I’ve been involved with, anyway.”
“That’s nothing compared to what we’ve done. They’ve given us six months of work, with aircraft, boats, reconnaissance, and everything else. They won’t throw that away. They want the diamonds.”
Braden said nothing, running the ramifications of what Seamus was asking.
Seamus said, “You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here. Okay, Seamus, I’ll give it a try.”
Braden had gone to the extended-stay hotel the Serbs were occupying in Brussels, the living room full of corkboards, each one with a selection of pictures of their target in Paris, the note cards above the photos delineating a specific activity. Response times for police, traffic patterns throughout the day, tourist pedestrian flows, the rotations of the guards manning each door. Everything involving the assault. Even the glare of the sun on the surveillance cameras.
The Pink Panthers conducted operations timed to the nanosecond, utilizing intelligence that would make any Special Forces team proud. The surveillance video later would look random, with the Panthers overwhelming the security by brute force, but the preparation belied the technique. It was why they’d been so successful.
Braden heard Ratko on the phone.
—“So it’s there? Inside?”
—“Doesn’t matter where they put that fucker at night. It’ll be on display during the day. We’re good.”
Ratko hung up the phone and saw Braden. He said, “Looks like the necklace is in place. But the gendarmes have increased their patrols in the area because of it. A week’s worth of extra vigilance like we expected. You know what that means, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Your diversion had better be good. It had better consume them.”
“Ratko, we need to talk.”
The man rose up from the couch, a brute standing over six feet, covered in coarse black hair. “Yes. We do. I still cannot contact the men I sent on your fool’s errand.”
Braden felt more than heard the two other men in the room stand. Closing in on him.
He said, “I don’t know about your men, but I had a call from Seamus. You need to execute as soon as possible. We have to do the diversion now, or we lose the leverage of it.”
Ratko moved to the board, studying the different cards. He said, “You know why I helped you? You understand how much this necklace is worth?”
“No. I mean, yes, I know why you helped, but I have no idea about the necklace. I don’t want to know about the necklace. My payment is your help. You’ve done that, and I’ll take the necklace to you as you asked. After the operation.”
Ratko turned to him and smiled. A grin like a ferret, all teeth and no joy. “I don’t like being played. I have put a great deal of effort into this operation, including securing your hostages.” He tapped the map of the target with a knife, saying, “This will be our biggest success ever, but I won’t take the risk if I have a weak link.” He pointed the knife at Braden. “My men have worked for me a long time. Some since the Bosnian War, fighting with the Arkan’s Tigers. I trust them. You, not so much.”
Braden knew well the name of the paramilitary group that fought in Bosnia. Their cruelty was legendary. He was unsure if the mention was designed to instill fear or even if it was true. Ratko looked too young to have fought in Bosnia, but age could be deceptive.
Braden said, “I understand a soldier’s code just like your men. I am not a weak link. I don’t know what happened to the two you sent, but the fact remains that they found a penetration. Someone is tracking our other operation, which puts yours in jeopardy. The diversion has to go now. If you want the Paris gendarmes looking somewhere else, then you need to do the robbery soon.”
Braden sensed the other two men in the room taking positions to his left and right and knew he was within a breath of Serb punishment.
Ratko said, “You take but never give. I have provided more for you than you have ever offered in return. And I’m done with that.”
Braden sidled to the left, putting his back to a wall. Knowing that any sign of weakness would end in punishment, he steeled himself and said, “Ratko, all of that was predicated on this robbery. Your payoff was my help in transporting the necklace across the border and getting rid of the police presence. You need us. You need the police to look somewhere else. We’re set. We just need to execute sooner than we thought.”
Ratko stared at him, his marble eyes reminding Braden of the pigs from the farm of his youth. Braden remained steady, holding but not challenging Ratko’s gaze in return. Showing strength but not arrogance.
Ratko hissed, spun the blade in his hand, and stabbed it into a picture of the target. He said, “We will execute. But you had better fulfill your end.”
Braden nodded, not letting the relief show.
Ratko flicked his head at the men beside Braden, and they moved away. He said, “You know the price of failure?”
Braden nodded again.
Ratko smiled his ferret grin. “No. You don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. I promise, if you cross me, you will.”
Braden had left the room in a rush, clomping down the stairs of the hotel, followed by the two men, both as stoic as if they’d been made of granite.
Twenty-four hours later and a country away, the memory still made him tremble. He would be glad when his relationship with Ratko and the other Serbs was done.