“What street are you on?”
The street signs were in Arabic and English, and Court rolled past an intersection with his eyes on the signs. “I’m on Fawaz al Laham.”
“There is a checkpoint on Fawaz al Laham where it turns into Omar bin Abdulaziz!”
Court made another turn to the south that took him down a quiet street with tall apartment buildings on both sides. He gave her the name and she said, “No checkpoints, but that won’t get you to my house. I live in Mezzeh district in the Western Villas neighborhood. You’ll have to turn around.”
“Shit. Okay, I’m going to keep picking my way west, and I’ll tell you what I see. Get Voland to pull up a map on a computer or a phone, and you can talk me to your neighborhood.”
In under a minute Voland relayed that he had his computer open to an interactive map. “All right,” Bianca said, “I am ready. The good news is I know where the checkpoints are, but the bad news is that to get into my neighborhood, you have to pass a guard shack and gates. I live on Zaid bin al-Khattab, number thirty-six.”
Bianca was adamant that he should not drive all the way into her neighborhood. She claimed there would be a large checkpoint and security officers patrolling in a truck within a few blocks of where she lived, so she convinced him to go to a less active neighborhood a kilometer away and use the night to his advantage to close on the property.
She spent several minutes giving relative details of her home, and while she talked Court listened, but he also focused on avoiding any roadblocks, busy intersections where he might be spotted, or major thoroughfares.
It was slow going, but he kept heading to the west.
Minutes later he found a place to park up a hill from her home. Over the sound of a snoring Walid, Court asked Bianca more questions about the walls, windows, guards, neighbors, vehicles on the street, and police and military presence in the area. He committed it all to memory and tried to think of any possible information he might need in the next couple hours.
When Court had exhausted all his questions about the property, the personnel, and the area around it, he changed focus. “Tell me about your situation there.”
“I’m still in the room in the basement, but Rima is coming down and talking to me two times a day.”
Court imagined there was some indoctrination or deprogramming going on during those talks, but he didn’t bring it up.
“How many guards does Voland have around you?”
“I have no idea. I saw some European men today, two or three of them, but there might be more. They had guns.”
He wished he knew more about just what Voland and the Halabys were doing to protect Bianca, but he had no time to dig into the matter further.
Court said, “Tell me something that only you and Yasmin know so I can establish to her that you sent me.”
Bianca thought of something, told Court, then said, “If she refuses to go with you, call me and I’ll talk to her.”
Court had no illusions that he would be able to make phone calls while in the house confronting Yasmin; he had to just hope like hell he could convince her to comply. If not he figured he’d tie and gag her, throw her in a closet, and leave her for the security men to sort out the next morning.
Bianca said, “Good luck. Please hug and kiss Jamal for me when you see him and tell him his mommy misses him.”
“This ain’t the movies.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Let me talk to Voland.”
Court expected Voland to come back on the line, but instead Rima Halaby’s voice crackled over the connection. “Sir, I know you don’t want to use any of my connections, but I must give you the name of someone there in the city who can be a great help to you if you have any difficulties.”
“You don’t know that this person is not compromised.”
“He’s been living in the capital for years while helping us move aid to the rebels from abroad. If his actions were known to the authorities, there is no chance he wouldn’t have been thrown in Saydnaya Prison long ago.
“He is a surgeon at a regime hospital. He spends his days saving the lives and limbs of young soldiers, but he knows what’s going on in other parts of the nation, and he refuses to turn his back on any Syrian in need. He’s helped relief agencies get supplies into the war zones in the north, and he’s saved thousands of lives by his actions. He is a good man . . . and if you tell him we sent you, he will help you in any way he can.” She then gave him the address and phone number of the doctor. Court had to commit both to memory.
“Are you in contact with him?” Court asked.
Rima replied, “I haven’t spoken to him directly in two years. But I am able to get messages to him.”
“Do not reach out to him about me. If I get desperate, I’ll know where to find him.”
Court spoke with Voland a moment more, and then he hung up.
* * *
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In the dark parking garage he went through Walid’s car quickly. He found the backpack the major had put his uniform in when he changed into civilian clothes outside Bar 80, and while Walid was a much thicker man than Court, Court knew the uniform would give him at least a momentary advantage when walking through Bianca Medina’s neighborhood. He quickly dressed in the Hawks Brigade uniform and put his own boots back on, leaving Walid’s boots in the trunk of the Hyundai.
In the trunk he also found Walid’s emergency bag, set up for if the major was caught off base during a terror attack or civil strife. It was filled with food, water, and medical supplies, as well as other items.
From the bag Court took a pair of binoculars, a flashlight, and a long but cheaply built fixed-blade knife in a sheath.
Then he went around to the passenger side and pulled Walid himself out of the car. He tied the unconscious man’s hands behind his back with rope pulled from the emergency bag, then hogtied his hands to his ankles and gagged him. Court then dragged and hefted the big man from the passenger seat and rolled him into the trunk of the car.
He closed the trunk lid on the major, put the extra items into the uniform backpack, and threw it onto his shoulder.
At one a.m. he began walking off through the neighborhood.
CHAPTER 38
Captain Henri Sauvage wanted to smoke, but the Syrian communications team working around him forbade it. The tension was high here on the dark wet country road in the center of the woods, so Sauvage didn’t know how he was going to survive without a cigarette. But he didn’t press the issue; the Syrians were dangerous-looking men with intense, angry demeanors, their hands never far away from the submachine guns under their leather jackets or the small hooked knives in the sheaths near their belt buckles.
The two men here with Sauvage were tasked with using the big heavy jamming equipment in the car to kill the cell phone and Internet traffic in the area. Another man was on a telephone pole on the northern side of the property, waiting for the cue from Malik to cut the hard lines into the house.
In front of Sauvage six more men, all dressed in dark clothing, moved off through the thick trees, separating as they walked through the rainy night. Drexler was at the center of the group, picking through the foliage next to Malik, and both men were easy to distinguish because, unlike the others, they wielded pistols.
When they fully disappeared from view through the dark and the woods, Sauvage leaned back against the white sedan. As the two Syrians worked on laptops on the hood, the Frenchman’s only job was to sit here and wait.
Sauvage told himself this would all be over soon, but he didn’t really believe it.
This event was going to be big and loud, he was certain. An outcome that involved him staying both alive and out of prison was getting harder and harder to imagine.
* * *
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