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  Court was only using the guard’s suit for camo in the dark now; there was no pretense of him actually looking like a member of the security unit here in the house since over his shoulder he wore a blue backpack full of diapers, the bottle, and other baby-related odds and ends, and Yasmin carried the child in her arms and remained tight against Court’s back.

  At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and listened carefully. He could hear the sounds of slow and steady breathing from the living room. After fifteen seconds he turned to Yasmin, gave her a nod, and put his hands out to hold the baby. She refused to hand over the child at first, but Court took her by the arm and glared at her. He figured there was less chance Yasmin would alert the guards if she was worried about the kid, so he decided to use Jamal as insurance.

  Finally she handed the sleeping baby to Court, who took him awkwardly, then brought him into his chest, hoping like hell he didn’t wake up.

  Yasmin walked into the living room silently, then into the kitchen, out of Court’s view. He worried for a few seconds about what she might really be doing, but soon he relaxed when he heard the sound of a refrigerator opening, and then the soft rattle of bottles.

  One of the men in the living room spoke, and Court took the baby in his left arm so he could wrap his grip around the pistol at his waist.

  Yasmin replied to the man, but it was a quick, relaxed exchange that did not worry Court at all from its tone, although he could not understand the words.

  He looked down at Jamal now and put his right hand on the top of the baby’s wispy black curls. So, you’re the little troublemaker, he thought.

  Yasmin returned to the stairs an instant later, put four full bottles in the backpack over Court’s shoulder, handed him the car keys, and took the baby back in her arms. She clutched the tail of Court’s suit coat again, and the three of them began walking down the hall.

  They passed the man in the alcove; Court had the long knife in his hand clutched close to his chest where Yasmin couldn’t see it, ready to launch himself on the guard if he showed any alarm at all, but the sentry remained soundly asleep.

  He did not kill the man, but he knew the man had not exactly been spared. Court figured all the guards in this building would be executed as soon as Azzam found out about the kidnapping.

  They entered the spare bedroom where Court had killed the first guard, and he headed over to the keypad in the dark. Yasmin stayed on his heels, just as he’d ordered, but now Court could hear the baby stirring. It was just soft noises, so he was not too concerned yet. He remained concentrated on his exfiltration.

  Court leaned close to Yasmin. “I hope you know the alarm code.”

  “Of course. They changed it when Bianca disappeared.” She told it to Court. He recognized that disarming the system would, no doubt, alert anyone in the house near a keypad, but there was no other way out.

  He reached up to deactivate the alarm, but then he stopped and turned to the bathroom.

  He had an idea.

  First he gave Yasmin the backpack, and she struggled to put it on and handle the baby at the same time. Jamal lifted his head and looked around a little, and he gave off a soft cry. Court left the two of them at the glass door and went into the bathroom, where he scooped the dead man in the Desert Hawks uniform out of the bathtub and hefted him into a fireman’s carry.

  When he returned to the bedroom Yasmin gasped audibly, and Court shushed her. She looked in shock at the man slumped on the stranger’s shoulder.

  Court had decided that if he could get out of here with the body undetected it might look, for a short time, anyhow, like this guard had been involved in the kidnapping of Jamal. Anything that would buy him some time as he left the city would increase his chances of success in getting to the Jordanian border.

  Court went back to the keypad, struggling to carry the man, but he did stop to whisper at Yasmin. “It’s okay. He’s just asleep.”

  It was a lie, but she was stressed, and now the baby was almost fully awake in her hands. He’d do anything he could to keep his two new cohorts from freaking out.

  He looked out onto the back patio of the home and searched for the patrolling guard’s flashlight. He didn’t see it, which meant the guard carrying it would be in the front of the property now, or else making his way on one of the walkways on either side, out of Court’s vision. This was good as far as getting out of the building, but since he needed to get the girl, the baby, and the body in the car in the front drive, he hoped like hell the guard would be strolling around back to the west just as they moved around the house to the east.

  But he didn’t think for a second he’d get that lucky.

  He took a step back from the door and drew his SIG pistol from its holster on his hip. He gave Yasmin the car keys and told her to deactivate the home alarm, and then to be ready to move fast on his heels. When they got to the Range Rover she was to use the keyless entry so Court could dump the body . . . he corrected himself, the sleeping guard, in the back. Then Yasmin was to get in the backseat with the baby, crawl down to the floorboard, and cover herself and the child with the backpack.

  He made her repeat everything, and then the baby started to cry.

  “What the hell is wrong with it?” Court asked in an angry whisper.

  “It? He’s hungry.”

  “For God’s sake, not now. We’ve got to go.”

  She turned and deactivated the alarm, then opened the sliding glass door, and Court shot out, moving as fast as he possibly could while holding a 170-pound dead man on his back.

  Past the patio furniture, a right turn into a small arched passage that led to the northern side of the property, then another right turn towards the front and the driveway there. Court swept his pistol left and right, looking for any threats ahead as they walked along a lighted footpath.

  He had no idea where the guard with the flashlight was, but he knew he needed to be certain he saw the man’s light before the man’s light saw him.

  They turned around the northeastern corner, and the silver SUV was right there in the drive, just ten yards away. The baby began to squeal just as Yasmin popped the tailgate on the vehicle, and as Court moved around the back to dump the body inside, he saw the flashlight’s beam across the front driveway sweeping towards the noise there.

  Court heaved the body off his shoulder and down into the back of the Range Rover, spun towards the light to his left, and fired off four rounds.

  The flashlight spun in the air and fell onto a narrow strip of grass between the walkway to the front door and the driveway. Behind it a body lay still on the path.

  Court swung his pistol towards the roof now, aimed at the area where the man had been sitting, and saw he did not have a line of sight from this angle. Just as he was about to head for the driver’s-side door of the silver Range Rover, a man stood up with a rifle, almost directly in the sights of Court’s pistol. Court fired a single round, hitting the man high on the top of his head above his left eye and knocking him back and out of view.

  Court climbed behind the wheel, fired up the engine, and slammed the SUV in reverse. He spun around to make sure Yasmin was in the back, and she was, but with the shooting and her panic she’d neglected to close the door behind her.

  He smashed through the gate at the end of the drive and reversed into the street.

  Men began pouring out through the front door of Bianca’s villa now, running towards the Range Rover and shouting, but Court ignored them, hoping like hell these guys knew better than to start slinging lead at a car carrying the son of their president.

  The crack of a pistol told him he’d neglected to consider that these guys just might be unaware the kid had been kidnapped at all. All they were sure of at the moment was that someone was trying to steal Bianca’s car.

  Shit.

  More pistols snapped off and glass shattered behind Court; he threw the
transmission into drive and floored the accelerator.

  “Stay down!”

  CHAPTER 48

  The gun battle inside the farmhouse southwest of Paris turned against the Syrian expat rebels and in favor of the Syrian government commandos the moment Malik and his remaining men linked up with the squad that had assaulted from the front of the building. Malik had left one of his team in the kitchen to cover the stairs to the wine cellar for the purpose of trapping Bianca Medina down in a hole, while he and his unified team fought their way through the ground floor and then up the stairs, where three of the six remaining Syrian guard force members had set up a hasty block. After being bogged down there for a couple of minutes, one of Malik’s commandos threw a pair of grenades over the blockage, killing the surviving Syrians, and then the team raced up the stairs on their hunt to find and kill all the remaining FSEU gunmen, one by one.

  And as the commandos working for Ahmed Azzam cleared the big farmhouse, Sebastian Drexler waited in the kitchen with Voland’s pistol in his hand, just feet away from the lone paramilitary left guarding the stairwell. Drexler listened to the broadcasts over the radio announcing the positions of Malik and the rest of the team, and he fantasized about shooting this one GIS man in the back of the head, strolling down the stairs, and dispatching Medina, but he saw no way to do this without running the risk of Malik finding out about it. Further, he didn’t know what he would encounter once he got downstairs, and he assumed Medina would be protected. He needed Malik’s men just to get to the girl, and there was no way he could do it without them.

  No . . . Medina was safe from Drexler, at least for now.

  After five minutes, Malik announced a cease-fire over the radio, proclaiming the two main levels of the property clear. He’d lost three of the ten commandos who had raided the home, and three more were walking wounded, but these men he positioned in upstairs windows to keep an eye out for police.

  Then all his attention turned to his preparations to assault the wine cellar. As Drexler watched, Malik stacked his team up by the door in the kitchen that led down to the lower level. The breach man opened the door, then peered around the corner, shining the light on his P90 submachine gun down the darkened stairs.

  Drexler called softly over to Malik. “Have you encountered a middle-aged woman with red hair?”

  Malik shook his head but kept his eyes on the stairwell as the first man prepared to descend.

  Drexler moved up close behind the stack of men and shouted out, startling the gunmen. “Rima Halaby! If you are down there, you need to come up now! You have no chance!”

  Malik looked back angrily at Drexler, but then a voice called out. “I’m coming up! I am unarmed!”

  Drexler spoke to Malik now. “You are not to harm her if she complies with your orders.”

  Malik reluctantly relayed this order to his men, and they stepped back into the kitchen but kept their weapons high on the doorway.

  When Halaby did not appear at the top of the stairs after thirty seconds, Drexler called to her again. A few seconds later she did appear, however, and she shut the door behind her. She was grabbed by a Syrian, spun around, and pushed roughly up to a wall. She was frisked by a second man, while the rest of the unit re-formed at the door, ready to descend.

  Malik spoke to her in Arabic. “Anyone else down there other than Medina?”

  Rima spoke with her face against the wall. “I wish to make a statement.”

  All eyes turned to her. Drexler said, “You can say whatever you want once we have Bianca. Is she still locked in the back room on the right?”

  Rima shrugged off the hands on her and turned to face all the men in the room. With a brave gaze she looked to Drexler. “You are Eric.”

  “I am.”

  “And Monsieur Voland told you where Bianca was being held?”

  “Yes.”

  “My husband. Is he dead?”

  “I am sorry. He resisted.” He added, “He was brave, but foolish. Don’t be the same.”

  She looked on the kitchen floor now. There, lying near a heavy wooden table, was the body of Firas, her nephew. He had been the man who opened fire on the commandos as they breached the door from the hearth room, and he’d killed one of them before he himself was shot to death.

  Malik said, “No time for this. Let’s go.”

  The veins in Rima’s throat pulsated, and her face reddened, but she kept her shoulders back and her head high. “We have failed . . . but so have you.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Drexler.

  Rima said, “You won’t be returning to Syria with Bianca Medina. I killed her.”

  “You what?” He turned and looked at Malik, then gave him a nod, urging him to go down the stairs with his team.

  Malik instantly gave the order in Arabic to his team. The door was opened, and one by one they headed down the stairs in a tactical train, their weapons’ lights probing the darkness below. Malik himself joined the rear of the stack.

  He’d advanced just a few steps down before he smelled smoke.

  The breacher—the first man in the line—was already at the bottom of the stairs in the wine cellar. His voice crackled over the radio.

  “I’ve got smoke pouring out of both doors at the back of the—”

  Malik shouted down the stairs, ignoring the radio. “Get in there and get her out!”

  By the time the Syrian commandos arrived at the door on the right, the smoke in the wine cellar was choking them. The breacher put his hand on the iron door latch. Even through his gloves he felt the searing heat. He fought the pain, urged on again by his leader shouting from behind, and opened the door.

  Flames launched out into the fresh air of the wine cellar, nearly enveloping the men there. The inside of the bedroom was completely ablaze.

  Malik shouted over the radio, “Put the fire out! Find the woman! That’s an order!”

  But the door to the storeroom on the left burst open now, and flames roared out and traced along the wooden ceiling of the wine cellar, above the heads of all the men standing there. Fire spread in seconds to the wall tapestries and area rugs and licked across the wooden wine racks along the walls. None of the commandos had anything with which to put out a fire so large, and no one dared penetrate deeper into the room to enter the servant’s quarters where Medina was supposedly being held. Clearly large amounts of flammables had been ignited in both rooms, and the men knew if they did not evacuate instantly they could all be consumed by smoke and fire.

  Despite the direct orders to recover the woman, the commandos began pulling back to the stairwell. Malik himself tried to push past them and into the room, but in seconds, he, too, turned around and ran for the stairs.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sebastian Drexler stood at the top of the stairwell, saw the flames and the smoke, and listened to the frantic transmissions over his radio.

  While the men downstairs fought the outright terror that came with the realization that they’d failed their mission to recover the Spanish woman, Drexler fought the urge to grin from ear to ear because he could not believe his good fortune. Turning around into the kitchen, he met the stare of Rima Halaby.

  In French she said, “You wanted her dead, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Drexler had no idea if the Syrian holding Rima up against the wall spoke French, so he maintained his cover by saying, “Of course not!”

  “Voland told me you did.”

  “Voland has misjudged everything, and it has led to your husband’s death. But I will see that you are not harmed, as long as you do as I say.”

  Rima smiled. In Arabic she said, “What will Ahmed Azzam do to all of you now when he finds out you failed?”

  Malik was the last man up the stairs, smoke pouring from his clothing and gear. One of the commandos slammed the door shut, cutting off flames th
at had already swept to the top of the stairwell.

  Malik dropped to his knees, coughing and hacking for several seconds, but once he recovered, he stood and staggered over to Rima Halaby. He wrapped his hand around her throat. “What did you do?”

  Drexler turned to him. “Malik!”

  Rima looked into the eyes of the dark-haired commando leader. She laughed wildly. “I slit her throat in bed, poured turpentine on her body, and set it alight.”

  Malik shook his head. “Liar! You don’t have the stomach for—”

  “I’ve been a heart surgeon for almost thirty years! You think cutting living flesh is beyond my abilities? Are you a fool? I did her a favor. She’s better off dead than having to return to that monster you work for!”

  The man at the door to the wine cellar called out across the kitchen. “Sir! There is a lot of wood in this farmhouse. That fire is going to spread. We have to get out of here!”

  Malik put his hands in his curly hair now, on the verge of panic. Drexler could see that the man knew Medina’s death meant his own death, as well. He paced the room for a moment, in full view of his men.

  Then he looked at Rima again.

  Drexler sensed the thinking of the Syrian. He said, “We need Dr. Halaby. We take her back to Damascus. She is the one person who can corroborate the story of what happened to Medina.”

  As Drexler watched, Malik brushed his slung submachine gun behind his back, drew his pistol, and stormed over to Rima. He jammed the barrel of the weapon between her breasts.

  “Think, Malik!” Drexler shouted. “Don’t do it!”

  Rima whispered, “I die a proud daughter of Syria.”

  Malik fired once into Dr. Rima Halaby’s chest, knocking her back against the wall. She slid slowly down to the floor.

  Drexler shook his head in frustration. He didn’t care anything about the woman, but the Swiss operative wanted her to confirm to Shakira that Bianca was dead.