Agent in Place Read online

  CHAPTER 51

  While Vincent Voland continued marching purposefully along the driveway towards the road, two full kilometers west of him a woman stumbled through a large field waist high with barley. She caught her tennis shoe on a plow track and tumbled to the ground, then struggled slowly back to her feet. She was exhausted; her hands, arms, and face were covered in cuts and bruises, and she was soaking wet, both from the rain and from the creek she’d fallen into in the woods behind her.

  Bianca Medina whipped her long black hair out of her eyes with a shake of her head as she pushed on.

  Thirty-five minutes earlier Rima had unlocked the door to Bianca’s room and told her that she and Tarek wanted her to run. Ahmed’s men had arrived with a man working for Shakira, Rima had explained, and while this meant they didn’t know what would happen to her if she was caught, as far as the Halabys were concerned, she needed to get out of the house and into the woods. Rima told her to hide there till either she or her husband came for her later, and to reveal herself only if she heard Rima’s or Tarek’s voice.

  The Frenchman, Monsieur Voland, was no longer to be trusted, Rima had hurriedly told her without providing any explanation.

  Rima remained in the wine cellar as Bianca ran with Firas up to the kitchen, and then he, too, stayed behind, holding his gun on the door to the hearth room, as Bianca raced upstairs following Rima’s instructions. She saw several FSEU guards at the top of the stairs, all checking their weapons and making a hasty blockade there from pieces of furniture, but she ran past them, heading over to a bedroom on the northern side of the house. She opened a window and climbed out, then hung down in the darkness, covered from the back by the long side of the farmhouse and partially covered to the front by the long greenhouse that blocked anyone in the drive from seeing her. She dropped down into the wet grass and entered the long, narrow greenhouse so she wouldn’t be seen by anyone at the front of the property.

  On the far side of the greenhouse she stayed low, ran along the lawn there with long fast strides, then entered the woods on the northern side of the property, running as fast as her long, athletic legs would take her.

  She estimated she made it three hundred meters or so, where she found a place to both hide and get out of the rain in the form of the wide trunk of a toppled oak. She sat there for ten minutes; for much of the time she listened to the pops of gunfire, and then all was still. Around the time she’d expected to hear Rima’s voice calling to her, she saw a faint glow through the trees in the distance. Minutes after that came the sirens of fire trucks and police cars.

  Even before Bianca left the wine cellar she’d seen Rima pulling plastic bottles of turpentine out of the storage room. She hadn’t known what she was up to at the time, but as the roof of the farmhouse caught fire and the glow through the trees increased, casting terrifying shadows all around her, she realized what had happened.

  Rima had been trying to cover Bianca’s tracks, to make it look like she’d been killed in the fire. Bianca also realized, although she did not know how she knew, that Rima and Tarek were now dead.

  She waited another ten minutes, and then she decided she needed to run again. No one was coming to help her, she could feel it.

  So she moved out through the dark woods, fell into the creek, and cut herself so many times she’d stopped reacting to each new individual pain. She broke out into the barley field and then saw a road in the distance, and she pushed on.

  Bianca had a plan as to what she would do now. She would get to the road, find a phone, call her friends with the fashion designer that invited her to France, and they would come and pick her up. Of course she knew she would need a story for where she had been since the ISIS attack three nights earlier, but for now all she wanted to do was get away from there.

  As soon as she came to the road, a car’s headlights appeared from the southwest and she waved at it frantically, standing by the side of the little road and shivering.

  The white car slowed and pulled over.

  Utterly exhausted, Bianca all but collapsed on the passenger-side door as she leaned into the window.

  In the front passenger seat was a Caucasian man in his forties, a cigarette in his hand. After a moment he rolled down his window. In French she said, “Thank God, monsieur. Please, I need help!”

  The man just gaped at her, a dumbfounded look on his face. He said nothing, made no movement, just sat there holding his cigarette and staring.

  But the driver’s-side door opened, and a young dark-haired man launched out of it. He ran around to her, helped her into the backseat, and then knelt down in the open door, looking her over.

  It was then she realized the man held a walkie-talkie in his hand. He brought it to his mouth, and he spoke in Arabic. “This is Number Twelve; I’m on the D91, west of the property. I have the subject! I repeat, I have the subject! She appears to be unharmed.”

  Bianca blinked hard, then harder still.

  Over the radio a voice in Arabic said, “What? You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir. She came running out of the field right in front of my car, Allah be praised. I’m taking her to the warehouse now.”

  The man lowered the walkie-talkie and smiled at her. “Madam, I am with the Syrian embassy. We have rescued you, sister! We will get you out of here and, inshallah, back to Damascus where you will be safe from all harm. I promise I will protect you with my life.”

  Bianca collapsed to her side in the backseat of the car and began sobbing uncontrollably.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Syrian commando ordered Henri Sauvage to drive, and he remained in back with the woman, ready to cover her with his own body if there was any danger. The young man was almost euphoric, and Bianca, it appeared to Sauvage by looking in the rearview, seemed utterly despondent.

  But Sauvage was thinking about himself, and he realized he had just helped the Syrians grab a missing Spanish national out here in the French countryside, and he, a captain in the Judicial Police, was the guy driving the getaway vehicle. He’d go to prison for life for this, which meant he’d want a bonus from Eric, for damn sure.

  And he’d want to get the fuck away from France, probably for the rest of his life, as soon as this was over.

  The Syrians had what they’d come for now, so he saw the light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in days, and he told himself he just might survive this, after all.

  CHAPTER 52

  Thirty-four-year-old Dr. Shawkat Saddiqi parked his Nissan Sentra in the reserved space in front of his apartment building and turned off the engine. He sat there a moment with his eyes closed.

  It was three a.m.

  He’d worked a twelve-hour shift in the ER of Al-Fayhaa Hospital that had turned into a fifteen-hour shift when the nine wounded occupants of a bus bombing were brought in shortly before he was due to get off work at midnight. He’d performed surgery on three of them himself, and saved two lives.

  But he wasn’t happy, he wasn’t proud of his work. No . . . now at three a.m., he was just fucking spent.

  He climbed out of his vehicle and walked along the sidewalk towards the back entrance of his building. He was surprised to hear footsteps behind him at this time of the night, but not worried. This was an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Al Midan, in the center of Damascus. This part of the city had been spared much of the war, at least the physical scars of it, anyway.

  The emotional scars? No one in this city was immune from those, just as almost no one in this city was blameless from responsibility for the carnage.

  Saddiqi arrived at the door and reached forward with his key, but a voice behind him called out softly.

  “Shawkat Saddiqi?” The doctor turned around.

  In front of him on the pathway stood a man with a beard wearing a wrinkled dark suit. Standing behind him was a small young girl wearing a chador and a lo
ng-sleeve cotton shirt with black warm-up pants and a blue backpack. He didn’t notice at first, but quickly he realized she held an infant in her arms.

  Saddiqi might have been nervous to be accosted in a dark parking lot at this time of the morning, but there was nothing threatening about the group in front of him at all.

  “As salaam aleikum,” Peace be unto you, Saddiqi said, touching his hand to his heart. It was a polite greeting, but he fought a little disappointment inwardly. He was not unaccustomed to people showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night. It usually meant he wouldn’t be feeling the coolness of his pillow any time soon, and he desperately needed rest.

  “Wa aleikum salaam,” And peace be upon you, replied both the man and the woman simultaneously.

  Saddiqi looked them over for any obvious injuries. He saw some blood on the collar of the man’s shirt. “How can I—”

  The man said, “Do you speak English?”

  Saddiqi’s guard went up, but he wasn’t sure why. In Arabic he replied, “Who are you?”

  The man continued, still in English. “Doctor . . . I’ve been sent by Rima Halaby. It is a dire emergency.”

  Saddiqi turned away.

  He put the key in the door lock and opened it. In heavily accented English he replied, “Please. Come inside.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ten minutes later Yasmin sat on a vinyl sofa in a small but tidy apartment on the fifth floor of the building. Jamal was in her lap, and he ate greedily from the bottle she fed him.

  Court and Shawkat Saddiqi sat at a small bar area in the apartment’s kitchen, just feet away from Yasmin. The doctor had already made tea for his guests, and he’d put out a plate of cookies and sweets that Yasmin politely declined. Court, on the other hand, dug shamelessly into a stack of cookies made of dates and flour because he hadn’t eaten all day.

  Saddiqi took out a first-aid kit he kept in a back room and began cleaning the wound on Court’s head. As he did this he asked, “So, how is Rima?”

  Court put down his cookie. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this. But she’s dead.”

  Saddiqi looked up from the bloody wound. “When?”

  “Rima gave me your name two hours ago. One hour ago she was killed.”

  “My God. What about Tarek?”

  “Tarek is dead, as well.”

  Saddiqi sighed and poured more antiseptic on a fresh cotton swab, and he went back to work. Court thought the man showed little emotion, and he tried to gauge Saddiqi’s relationship with the Halabys from his lack of reaction to hearing about their deaths, but he stopped himself. This guy was a trauma doc in Damascus. He must have seen death every hour of every day of his working life, so his internal meter of heartbreak and sadness must have been so off-kilter Court knew he couldn’t judge the man by how he acted.

  Saddiqi closed the torn flap of skin, holding it until the bleeding stopped. “The Halabys’ two children died last year. I assume you were aware.”

  “Yes. How did you know them?”

  “I was a couple years older than the kids, but their parents and my parents had been friends when we were children. We lost touch after they emigrated when the war began.

  “I had been helping the rebellion here in secret, treating wounded insurgents who showed up at my door. Someone who got out of the country told the Halabys that even though Dr. Saddiqi was working at a regime hospital in the capital, he could be trusted. Tarek reached out to me via encrypted chat, and we’ve shared information to help save lives.”

  Saddiqi added, “This is back when they were just involved with nonviolent aid.”

  Court said, “And then, somehow they became leaders of the insurgency.”

  Saddiqi used glue to seal the skin closed above Court’s ear. “Leaders? No. After their kids died, the only way they could sleep at night was to dream about killing Ahmed Azzam and his supporters. Two people in their fifties who’d spent thirty years saving lives learned to dream of taking lives. But now they are dead. All for nothing.”

  “No,” Court countered. “For something. But only if you can help us.”

  “The Halabys sent you to me. Why?”

  “This girl . . . and the baby. They need a place to stay. It might be a few days.”

  Saddiqi seemed surprised by the request. He’d obviously expected much more. “Of course. They are welcome in my home.”

  “There is something else. It might be that Yasmin doesn’t really want to be here.”

  Saddiqi stood up and looked over Court to the girl feeding the baby on the sofa behind him. “She seems okay.”

  “What she’s been through tonight has been a shock. People react in different ways. Trust me, I’ve seen it. She might be totally compliant now, and then wake up in the morning and try to throw herself out the window to get away.”

  Saddiqi had cleaned the blood from Court’s neck, and now he took off his gloves and threw them into the trash. As he did this, he looked again at Court. “You are asking me to hold a mother and her baby prisoner?”

  Court did not want to tell Dr. Saddiqi everything, but he realized he had no choice. “Sit down, Doctor.”

  Saddiqi did so. “In my profession, we tell people to sit down when we are about to give them very bad news.”

  “It’s the same in my profession. That baby? His name is Jamal.”

  “So?”

  “Lots of people name their boys Jamal around here, right?”

  “Of course. It is the given name of the man who ran the country for thirty years before his son took over.”

  “Right,” Court said. “But that boy? His father named him Jamal because his father’s name was Jamal.”

  “Who is the boy’s father?”

  Court shrugged. “Ahmed Azzam.”

  Saddiqi shook his head emphatically. “Ridiculous. Ahmed Azzam’s son is dead. It’s a secret, but Shakira took him to my hospital many times, and we all know—”

  Court shook his head now. “This isn’t Shakira’s boy, and Yasmin isn’t the mother, either.”

  It took a moment for the doctor to understand, but when he did he covered his face with his hands and muttered something in Arabic that sounded like a prayer. Finally he switched back to English. “Who is the mother?”

  “A Spanish woman who has a house here. She’s currently out of the country.”

  “And you brought Ahmed Azzam’s child here, to my flat. I assume people are looking for him.”

  “I’d say that’s a very safe assumption. I can promise you that no one tailed me to your place. The main danger is the girl. She is complying because she’s worried she’ll be blamed for this even if she somehow manages to get away. But who knows? Like I said, tomorrow she might have second thoughts.”

  “Again, sir. Do you think I just happen to be running a jail in the back of my flat?”

  “I didn’t have any other place to take her. I have to leave town . . . just for a few days.” Court looked off into the distance. “I think. I hope.” He looked up at the doctor. “If I don’t come back by Friday . . . then I’m dead, and you’re on your own.”

  “You aren’t making a good case for me helping.”

  “I hear you’ve been helping for seven years. You’ll help now, because that kid back there might just lead to the end of this war.”

  “How will the child end the war?”

  “Better if you don’t ask any questions.”

  Saddiqi rubbed his tired face again. After a long time he nodded, as if to himself, and said, “I have a neighbor. He is involved in the local resistance. He’s not a leader, but he is a good man, and I suppose he can watch over a girl and a baby for a couple of days in my apartment. If he can’t manage that, then I guess that means the resistance is useless.”

  “That’s good. How soon can he be here?”
r />   “I patched him up after he was shot two years ago. Since then he’s brought me other wounded fighters. If I need him, at any time, he will be here. I’ll call now.”

  Court told Dr. Saddiqi about his contact in France who was looking for a way to bring the girl and the baby out of the country. He gave Saddiqi Vincent Voland’s phone number.

  Saddiqi asked, “This Frenchman. Is he reliable?”

  “If he screws you or me over, then I will tear off his nuts and shove them down his throat. He knows this. I think he has all the motivation he needs to come through for us.”

  The doctor looked at Court a long time. Court broke the staring contest by glancing at his watch and standing up quickly. “I have to get to Babbila.”

  “What’s in Babbila?”

  “The Desert Hawks militia base. I’m sort of working for them at the moment.”

  Saddiqi seemed as stunned at this as Court had expected.

  “Long story,” Court explained. “It was my cover, and I wasn’t planning on using it again, but I’m going to need to find a way to get back in there like none of this happened.”

  “You shouldn’t be out on the streets. But I can go anywhere. I’ll drive you where you need to go as soon as my neighbor comes to watch the girl.”

  CHAPTER 53

  At the warehouse just off the grounds of Toussus-le-Noble general aviation airport, the Syrian commandos tended to their wounded, bagged their dead, and cleaned and reloaded their weapons.

  Bianca barely spoke a word as she was shown to her quarters, an area in the corner of the warehouse floor partitioned off with sheets hanging from ropes. Inside was a cot, a change of clothes, and a new pair of tennis shoes in her size. For the third time in the past week, people had given her clothes to change into, although it occurred to her that only the Lebanese fashion designer she’d come to Paris to model for had given her anything she much felt like wearing.

  As soon as she arrived Malik told her that President Azzam wanted to speak with her via sat phone, but she surprised everyone by saying she was just too tired and emotional to talk. She asked Malik to relay the message that, thanks be to God, she had been rescued and was unhurt, and she would speak with him in the morning. It was obvious to Bianca that Malik did not want to disappoint Azzam, but also clear he did not want to offend the woman who obviously held a special relationship with the president, so he reluctantly let it go and offered her canned food, which she declined, and bottled water that she took with her to her makeshift quarters.