One hundred meters to the east, Sebastian Drexler adjusted the night vision optics over his eyes and moved along with the rest of the Syrian commando force.
He’d been on special forces raids in a half dozen African and Middle Eastern countries over his career, usually without night vision, but always with a weapon and surrounded by paramilitary forces that rushed through the desert, jungle, urban center, or grassy plains towards some objective. From this expertise he’d determined that these Syrians were unquestionably well trained. Even with the fuzzy, two-dimensional image afforded by the night vision, they were able to negotiate their way adroitly through the thick flora, they kept their separation from one another, and they advanced on the target location in near-complete silence.
Five more Syrians would be making their way through the woods around the southern end of the property, with the objective of hitting the farmhouse on the front side. The communications team, along with Sauvage, was also ready to move vehicles around to the front of the house or even to provide a follow-on attacking force if the situation called for it.
Drexler struggled to keep up with the Syrian commandos, but he knew he needed to exert his authority over all aspects of this operation. Malik was the epitome of an alpha male, and if Drexler backed off at all, Malik would walk all over him. If that happened, he’d lose his chance at achieving his true objective here.
He did not want or need a large battle this evening. Too much noise would bring a lot of law enforcement, and that would make flying out of Paris tomorrow difficult if not impossible. If he could get out of here with the woman without this turning into a loud and flashy massacre, then he could more easily get out of France and get to Serbia, where he’d eventually be free of the Syrian GIS men and have the time, space, and opportunity he needed to take care of Bianca Medina.
* * *
? ? ?
After moving through the trees for ten minutes, Malik called a halt over his radio, and the line of men stopped as one. Malik and Drexler picked their way forward carefully until they came to the edge of the woods.
Sebastian Drexler saw the back of the French country estate now. It was completely enshrouded in darkness, with the windows blacked out and all the external lighting extinguished. But even though it was sprinkling and overcast, the house could not hide from the night vision goggles, which pulled the tiny amount of ambient light from the stars above and enhanced it. The home appeared as a large, barely distinguishable green haze, but soon movement caught the attention of Malik and Drexler both. A pair of men stood on a patio; they held short-barreled weapons and shifted from one foot to another, bored and unaware of the danger in the woods one hundred meters from their position.
As Drexler looked on, a white-haired man stepped outside and spoke with the two guards for a moment.
Drexler reached over to Malik. “Hand me your five-power night vision binoculars.”
Malik did so, and Drexler swiveled his unenhanced goggles up on his forehead so he could bring the binos to his eyes.
He looked at the white-haired man for some time through the night vision binoculars. Slowly, a smile widened on Drexler’s face. “Vincent Voland is here.”
“Yes. We know.” Malik looked at Drexler. “You two know each other?”
“We’ve never met, but I know who he is. An ex–French intelligence man, both foreign and domestic. He’s been after me for years. Tonight he’ll get his wish to see me up close. Doubtful the event will go as he had dreamed it might.”
Malik took the binos back and looked through them himself. “He won’t see you up close. We’re not here for you to participate in some old feud. We’re here to rescue the girl, and then we leave.”
“Believe me, I know exactly why we are here,” Drexler replied.
Malik took his eyes out of his binoculars and looked at Drexler, but he made no reply. He looked again through the night vision. After a few seconds, the silver-haired man by the pool turned and stepped back into the house.
Malik radioed his communications team and ordered them to begin jamming operations in the area. He then brought two members of his team forward and whispered to Drexler, “I’m sending a pair of men closer to eliminate the rear sentries silently. They’ll use knives. We need to be ready to advance quickly when this is done.”
“How are your men going to get across one hundred meters of open ground? It’s dark, but it’s not that dark.”
“They’ll low-crawl. It will take a half hour, and I’ll have sharpshooters ready to drop the guards if my men are spotted. That will not happen quietly, so in that case, we need to be prepared to attack the house from right here.”
Drexler didn’t want to attack the Syrian expat safe house from here; it would be noisy and exponentially more dangerous to do so. And he knew a gunfight would bring authorities into the area, and that could waylay his plan to reach Bianca Medina.
But the fact that Vincent Voland was at the property now gave him a new idea.
He said, “No. Tell your men to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For me to negotiate the terms of Voland’s surrender.”
Drexler removed the holstered Beretta from inside his jacket and put it down on the ground. He removed the revolver from his ankle and the extra magazines and a folding knife from his jacket. He took off his night vision goggles and stacked them with the other items. He then pulled out a tiny tactical flashlight from his pocket. Turning it on, he stood and began walking across the back lawn alone.
Malik called out to him in a whisper. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Drexler ignored him.
CHAPTER 39
Court had wanted high ground that would give him a good view of the movements inside Bianca Medina’s walled property, and he found it by heading up a hill to the east of her neighborhood, entering the open parking lot of a pool and fountain supply store, and climbing the wall of the building by using hand-and footholds afforded by a stone planter, a PVC pipe protecting electrical wiring, and a wooden sign.
Court was a nimble climber, and in seconds he was kneeling on the roof, Walid’s binos in his hands, looking some four hundred yards down the hill. Past a mosque, past an upscale pizza parlor, and past several other private homes, he could see right into the gated rear grounds of Bianca’s walled property. From his vantage point there were areas within her property he could not see, but the entire back half of the compound—including a tiled swimming pool, the garden around it, and the back windows of the large, two-story home—was in view.
The villa had Mediterranean architecture and was built in a U-court shape, with wings extending back perpendicularly to the main house on both sides, a courtyard in the center, and a high wall in back that closed off the courtyard.
There was no question that it was a nice residence, but considering that the man paying the bills for the place was the most powerful and wealthy man in the nation, it wasn’t all that ostentatious. All around in the neighborhood were dozens of properties of similar size and luxury.
Court knew that Ahmed crafted everything towards Shakira not finding out about Bianca and the baby, so even though Bianca had been living in plain sight here, Ahmed wasn’t going to have her living in a home so grandiose it invited special scrutiny from the neighbors.
Through his glass Court saw a single guard on the flat roof of the villa sitting on a chair on the eastern side and facing the street in front of the property and the short circular driveway to it. The large court area in back seemed to be unguarded, but Court suspected there would be cameras and motion detectors.
After a minute of searching he saw a patrolling guard with a flashlight and a short-barreled weapon with a folded wire stock walking slowly around the grounds.