Ahead on his right, halfway through a wooded area that covered a square kilometer, a gravel driveway wound back into the woods. Sauvage didn’t slow his two-door Renault as he approached it, but he peered intently up the drive while passing, doing his best to take in every detail.
And when it was behind him he kept driving. Traffic was steady, and it occurred to him he might not find a place to turn around to head back for a while. Still, his job was not to go back; at least it wasn’t yet.
And he hoped like hell he wouldn’t be given that order by the Syrians who controlled him.
He took out his phone and placed a call. As soon as he heard the call go through, he spoke. “The gate is closed at the entrance. No one is in sight.”
“Good,” came the reply. A kilometer behind him, the Syrian asset he knew as Malik sat in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen Touran van, and he drove down the same road Sauvage drove on. Sauvage could hear him relay his message to the men in the vehicle with him in Arabic.
“What do I do now?” Sauvage asked into the phone.
“We’ll pass by the property in thirty seconds. Then we’ll meet you in Saint-Forget on the Rue de la Motte.”
Sauvage thought Malik’s French pronunciation was horrendous, but he didn’t say so. Still, he had done what was asked of him today, so the Frenchman did push back a little into the phone. “Why do you need me? I told you what I found out about the property, I led you here. Just let me go home.”
“Rue de la Motte. Ten minutes.” The phone call ended.
Henri Sauvage tossed his phone down into the passenger seat and shouted curses to himself. He had gone to Foss’s funeral two hours earlier and would be attending Allard’s the following day. Andre Clement’s body had not yet turned up, but since Sauvage saw him die, he knew it wouldn’t be long at all before he’d be going to his partner’s funeral, as well. And as bad as Sauvage’s mood was now, he figured by the time he hugged Clement’s children at his graveside, he’d be ready to kill himself for everything he’d gotten his friend involved with.
The thought of saying to hell with it all and killing himself, thereby outsmarting Eric and the Syrians manipulating him, did have a moment’s appeal to him. But then he thought better of it. No . . . he wasn’t going to kill himself. He was going to be a good little bitch for Eric; he would do what he was told, make his money, and then take his family and get the fuck out of here.
The best revenge was a life well lived, and he told himself he owed it to his dead friends to enjoy himself on their behalf. He was being paid a lot of money to find Bianca Medina, and he was reasonably certain he had done just that.
He’d spend it well.
* * *
? ? ?
Ten minutes later, Sauvage leaned against the hood of his car parked at a flower market in the town of Saint-Forget. The Volkswagen van pulled up and the sliding back door opened.
Sauvage just stood there. “Non. I’m not getting back in that van.”
Malik rolled his eyes. “Of course you are, man, because if you don’t, we shoot you right now.”
He heard the shick-shick sound of a pistol’s slide being racked in the darkness of the van, and his fantasy of retaining some control over his life melted away in an instant.
Sauvage climbed into the vehicle.
The van pulled out of the flower market parking lot and Sauvage sat on the bare floor against the wall, facing two of Malik’s men. The plastic tarp had been removed, which should have made Sauvage feel better, but he figured these men would shoot him and just hose out the back if it came down to it.
Malik himself climbed out of the passenger seat and into the back, squatting down in front of the French police captain. “Tell me how you know the woman is being held at that property.”
“Everyone has been looking for the Halabys since my colleagues were found dead in their flat. A team at La Crim has spent a hundred man-hours watching videos of the Free Syria Exile Union, and they have identified thirteen key members of the outfit. They tracked the phones of all these men and women, and physically surveilled some of them, but so far they haven’t found any connection to here.”
“So?”
“I did find a connection. I expanded my search to family members of the Halabys. A nephew of Rima was geotracked to this estate last night, and he is still inside. I arrived here at five thirty this morning, and shortly after seven a.m., a European man in his sixties pulled in. I took a photo of him, blew it up so I could see it, and determined I was looking at Vincent Voland, former intelligence official and currently employed by the Halabys.”
Malik was impressed. “So . . . he’s in there right now?”
“Yes. Along with two men who look very much like Syrians. Not the nephew I’d originally targeted, so apparently there are more people in that house.”
“What do you know about the residence?”
“I know nothing, which means I know a lot.”
“Elaborate.”
“The property is registered to a shell corporation in the Cook Islands. Any research into the ownership, who is living there, what goes on there, just dead-ends.”
“And to you this means . . .”
“It means it’s either owned by a business with an interest in hiding its physical property, or it’s some sort of a DGSE or DGSI safe house. The fact that Voland is here leads me to the latter assumption. He’s officially retired from the government, but my assumption is he’s working with the FSEU while retaining contacts in French intelligence.”
Sauvage could see the worry in Malik’s eyes, and this relaxed him. Thank God the Syrian realized they were all in over their heads. Sauvage pressed. “That’s right. The French government might be involved. Are you guys really going to roll into that estate with your guns out, ready to make off with that woman?”
Malik did not answer. Instead he asked, “How long until the police find this place?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Eric will not like that response.”
Sauvage sighed. “Je ne sais pas.” I don’t know. “There’s no surveillance on the place by us, yet, no chatter about it around La Crim, but it’s just a matter of time before someone connects the dots. If there are other members of FSEU here, and the federal police are investigating them, then either my people at La Crim or the federal police will find their way here, sooner or later.”
Malik said, “Eric has communicated with us. He will be here tonight.”
Sauvage said, “And then what will you do?”
“I’ll do whatever Eric orders me to do. Same as you, if you are smart.”
“I was brought into this for intelligence, surveillance.”
Malik said, “And I’m sure that will remain your main role. But we will need you close by.”
Sauvage shrugged. “Just call me when he gets here and I will—”
“No.” The van stopped. The door opened. As before, the driver had gone in a circle, and they were now back at Sauvage’s car in the parking lot of the flower market. “One of my men will accompany you until Eric arrives.”
“For what purpose?”
“I see how scared you are. Your attendance this evening is required. We would not want you running off.”
“Of course I’m scared! I’m not a killer. Not an accessory to murder, either.”
“Interesting. Eric tells me you are one of his best.”
Sauvage closed his eyes. “I didn’t want any of this.”
“Did you want this?”
Sauvage opened his eyes. Malik held a rolled-up wad of euros the size of a grapefruit.
“The fuck is that? I have an account in Cyprus where I—”
“Walking-around money. From Eric. A way to show our gratitude, and perhaps an easier way to help you get out of town when this is over. Tonight.”
Sauvage took the money. He always took the money.
CHAPTER 29