The vehicle squealed its tires again as it headed off.
Sauvage had a knife in his left boot, but it was found by one of the men on top of him now. He wondered at first if they were federal police or intelligence officials; that would make sense, of course, considering his peripheral involvement in an ISIS operation in Paris, but it certainly did not explain why they’d just executed Andre in cold blood.
But when he was pulled up into a seated position, pushed against the side wall of the van, he got a better look at the four men in the back with him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Sauvage asked, but he was pretty certain he knew now. They were all Arab. He assumed they were Syrian nationals, living in Europe but serving as either intelligence operatives or contract operatives for the Azzam regime.
These men had been sent by Eric, and they’d be killers, each and every one.
When he and his partners in his “side job” for the Syrians followed someone who soon disappeared, these were likely the boys who did the disappearing.
But there was a modicum of good news for Sauvage. These men hadn’t killed him yet, so even though he was sitting on a tarp that looked like it had been put there to catch his flying brain matter, he felt like he retained some ability to affect events.
All he had to do was talk to these guys and say exactly the right things, and he would be able to save his life.
The man closest to the front of the van wore a black turtleneck, and his black hair was curly, longer than the others. He was somewhere in his late thirties, and he wore a Beretta pistol in a black leather shoulder holster.
Sauvage could see a confidence and authority in the man’s face, and he decided this was the man to talk to. “Do you speak French?”
“Yes, you may call me Malik.” He said it in a commanding tone that convinced Sauvage he’d made the right decision to address him.
“All right, Malik. I take it you’re in charge?”
“Oui.”
“Why did you kill Andre?”
“He was planning on leaving town. We worried you were thinking about doing the same. We could not let either of you go.”
Sauvage leaned closer to the man and pushed some outrage into his voice, even though fear was the predominant emotion going through him right now. “I’ll ask it again. Why did you kill Andre?”
“Eric ordered us to sacrifice your partner to teach you a lesson.” Now Malik leaned in towards Sauvage and adopted a similar angry tone. “Have you learned that lesson, Captain Sauvage?”
The Frenchman leaned back against the wall of the van. They were driving around, making left and right turns, and Sauvage had no idea where they were heading.
“What the fuck do you guys want?”
“We want you to fulfill your responsibilities to us. Your work with the police will be crucial in the next days as we hunt for Bianca Medina. We need her alive, unharmed, and we need your help for this.”
“I can’t help you, man. She’s probably long gone from France.”
Malik shook his head. “No. The group that has her, the Free Syria Exile Union, is based here. They are being supported by a former French intelligence officer named Voland, who also lives here and has worked here much of his professional life. All signs point to the fact that they are still in the area.”
Sauvage said, “If you have all this information, what the hell do you need me for?”
Malik surprised Sauvage with a shrug. “I do not know. Eric has demanded we take you alive, encourage you not to try to run away, and give you something to do before he comes here himself.”
“Wait . . . Eric is coming here?”
“Tomorrow.”
“From . . . Syria?”
“I do not know where he is now.”
“And what is it I’m supposed to do?”
“Simple. Find the girl.”
Sauvage sighed. “Clement was holding a low-level operative in the FSEU at his farm near Versailles. This man, Ali Safra, didn’t seem to know anything when we questioned him the other day, but perhaps we could talk to him again.”
“No,” Malik said. “We just came from there. He knew nothing about where they are now.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he died without telling us, and it did not appear that he much wanted to die.”
That sank in for a moment. Sauvage slammed the back of his head against the wall of the van in frustration. He knew there would be no getting away from these men, and they wouldn’t leave till they had Bianca Medina in hand. He decided he’d better work with them to get this done fast so they could get out of his life of treason against his nation. “How many men do you have here in Paris?”
Malik did not answer, and when he did he equivocated. “I have enough.”
“Come on,” Sauvage said. “I need to know your manpower. We will have people to tail, locations to monitor. I have all the intel from the Police Judiciaire, but it’s only me now. I need help to cover known FSEU locations to find the woman.”
Still Malik did not speak. Sauvage could tell he wasn’t used to handing over information about his force. “Look, man. I don’t want to have to go to Eric and put you in the crosshairs—”
That did the trick. Even though Malik was in charge, it didn’t seem like he wanted to cross swords with Eric. “There are fourteen of us. All paramilitary and intel operations trained. We’ve been pulled from work all over the continent. This includes a three-man unit of communications specialists, with equipment capable of jamming mobile phones and Internet.”
“Fourteen.” Sauvage nodded. “That’s a lot of guns.”
“What is your plan to find the woman?” Malik asked.
Sauvage’s actual plan had been to run for his life, but he wasn’t going to tell Malik that. Instead he said, “I have gone back to images we have of Free Syria Exile Union personnel for the last few years. Public events, photos on social media, images captured by police or other cameras around the Halabys. From this we are identifying members who were associated with them back before they were involved with the rebellion itself. We can put tails on all the main players to see where they go, who they meet with.”
Malik said, “That could take time. We need to know where to go by the time Eric gets here.”
Sauvage cocked his head a little. “This guy, Eric. What’s his connection to Syria?”
“I do not know. What I do know is that he has the power to order assassinations on behalf of the regime. That’s enough for me to know to do what I’m told. If you are smart, this will be enough for you, too.”
The van began to slow; the door was opened on Sauvage’s right. Malik cocked his head towards the door. “That is all.” The vehicle jolted to a stop now. “We are giving you one chance to survive this, unlike your three associates. Find the woman, or find us someone who can lead us to the woman. Do it quickly, or Ahmed Azzam himself will order your death.”
Sauvage’s knees went weak, but he fought through the sensation, and he climbed out of the van. He found himself back in the parking garage, next to his Renault, and as the van rolled off, he saw that both Clement’s body and his vehicle had disappeared without a trace.
CHAPTER 24
Lars Klossner didn’t go anywhere without his bodyguards. It wasn’t that he was particularly paranoid by nature—no, it was that people actually were trying to kill him.