“Of course I do. You can count on me.”
Drexler looked across the desk at Azzam’s thin, awkward smile, and he thought he would be having a lot of nightmares about that face in the days and weeks to come.
* * *
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Drexler left the president’s office a minute later with carte blanche to do whatever he wanted in Europe. There wasn’t much further left to fall for Azzam, reputation-wise or sanction-wise, so if Syrian intelligence agents were caught on a street in France, it would hardly make much difference, diplomatically speaking.
Drexler was pleased that the president had done just exactly what he wanted him to do, and his plan was already meeting with success. The one snag was the fact that he would have Syrian intelligence officers with him in Paris every step of the way, but, he told himself, he’d find a way around this problem. Things would have been so much easier if the damn ISIS gunmen had simply managed to shoot Bianca Medina the previous evening, and there was no denying that the next few days would be dangerous for Drexler, but he was a man who was accustomed to adversity, and accustomed to surviving, and even thriving, in danger.
He left the president’s wing of the palace and began walking to the first lady’s wing. She’d be there, waiting for him, wanting to know what her husband had told him. He told himself he’d fuck her before he said a word, to demonstrate that he retained some power in the relationship outside the bedroom, even if it was just making her wait to hear his news.
CHAPTER 21
Vincent Voland himself drove Court to the safe house outside the city, leaving first the traffic and lights of Paris and then the modern highway to the south before taking a side road through the countryside.
At eleven p.m. they passed by the tiny hamlet of Vaumurier, and soon afterward Court saw a road sign for La Brosse. Before they reached the village, however, Voland turned the Citro?n into a narrow gravel drive all but hidden by thick woods.
The driveway wound through the trees for a quarter mile before it passed a long greenhouse illuminated only by the vehicle’s headlights. Court tried to peer into the black beyond the illumination, but he didn’t see any hint of the main house until they were within a hundred feet of it. It seemed to be a large structure, but there was no electric lighting outside, and either the windows were all covered or there was no power running to the property at all.
As Voland slowed the vehicle over loose stones, a single light flipped on at a side door of the house, next to the gravel parking circle. Under it a man in a brown leather jacket stood with a pump shotgun hanging from a sling over his shoulder. The wall behind him was covered in ivy, and the stone building looked like a large and well-built farmhouse.
A motion light flipped on, and Court saw two other security men standing around in the dark outside. One had an old Uzi, and the other wore a pistol in a shoulder holster.
As Voland parked the Citro?n, Court looked over what he could see of the grounds and the farmhouse. “This is too big to be private property owned by the FSEU. This looks like some kind of government safe house.”
Voland pulled the parking brake and turned off the ignition. “Government property, but not government run. My consulting firm rented it from DGSI through a front company, and we, in turn, have loaned it out to the Halabys’ organization.”
“French intel is all over this op. When are you going to tell me that you’ve been lying and this whole thing is government sanctioned?”
Voland surprised Court by laughing at this. “Perhaps you have forgotten, but less than twenty-four hours ago a large cell of ISIS terrorists from Belgium perpetrated an attack in France that led to a great number of deaths. If you think the French government knew about the ISIS attack in advance and then simply allowed it to take place in central Paris, then you’ve been watching too many bad movies. No, monsieur, that was me alone, and one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in my career.”
Voland sounded sure of himself, but Court harbored suspicions nonetheless.
He followed the older man through the side door, past the bearded man with the shotgun. Once inside, Court found the building to be a well-kept, medium-sized farmhouse, stately but certainly not garish. The lights were on, but every window had thick blackout curtains drawn.
Rima and Tarek Halaby stood in the kitchen by the stove, but the middle-aged couple approached Court warmly as soon as he entered. Court could still see the strain on Rima’s face, but she had some of the color back she’d lost earlier in the day when three men died right in front of her. She hugged Court, a Western act that turned into a somewhat awkward gesture considering the fact that Court just stood there with his hands to his sides and his eyebrows so furrowed they almost touched. Both of the Halabys thanked him again for saving their lives earlier in the day, and Rima poured him tea.
Court ignored the tea. “I’d like to talk to Bianca, in private.”
“Why privately?” Rima asked, suddenly on guard.
“Because I want her to tell me where her kid is. And I think she might do it if I can get her to trust me.”
“Does this mean you will go and rescue the child?” There was obvious hopefulness in Tarek’s voice.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
* * *
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Rima led Court into the kitchen, then through a doorway off it. Down a flight of wooden stairs adorned with a tattered red rug that looked like it predated the reign of Napoleon, Court found himself in a large and well-stocked wine cellar. Rima nodded to a young guard with a beard and a ponytail sitting at a table between two heavy wooden doors. The man looked at Court suspiciously, then stood and produced an old brass key on a big ring. The young man said something to Rima in Arabic, but Court’s command of the language was rudimentary, so he didn’t understand.
Rima turned to him. “He wants to know if you have a gun or a mobile phone. We can’t let Bianca have access to either for the obvious reasons.”
Court wanted to tell her that Bianca wasn’t going to get his gun or his phone off him, but instead he obliged. He pulled out his Glock and laid it on the table next to the door, then pulled out his phone and put it down next to the gun.
Both the guard and the co-director of the resistance organization were satisfied, so the key went into the lock.
Court cleared his throat, and both Syrians looked back to him.
The American lifted his right foot and rested it on the table’s edge, reached down to his ankle, and pulled a stainless steel snub-nosed .38 pistol out of its holster. This he put on the table next to his primary weapon. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a second, and then a third phone. These he put on the table, as well.
A folding knife came out of his waistband, and he tossed this next to the phones.
Court eyed the man in the ponytail. “On the first day of sentry school they teach you not to use the honor system.”
Rima said, “This is my nephew, Firas. He’s a schoolteacher by trade.”
“Tell him he shouldn’t quit his day job,” Court said, but Rima did not translate.
Court turned back to the heavy wooden door and Firas opened it.
* * *
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