Agent in Place

Tarek Halaby’s hand reached under his safari jacket and touched something unfamiliar there, and it occurred to him, not for the first time today, that he had never fired a gun in his life. All his time in Syria, surrounded by armed rebels and more than once within shouting distance of regime forces or ISIS terrorists, and he’d never taken to arming himself. He was a doctor, not a soldier.

But now he had a Walther P99 jammed into his corduroy pants, and an extra magazine in the pocket of the safari coat. Vincent Voland had offered the weapon a few hours earlier as they waited for the cavalry to arrive in the form of the four ex-members of the French Foreign Legion, and when Tarek at first demurred, Voland countered that the only thing between Syrian assassins and Bianca Medina were five over-the-hill ex–Syrian soldiers, none of whom had any special forces or advanced combat training; a nephew of his wife who taught high school physics; and a sixty-five-year-old former French spook who’d only used a weapon in anger once in his life, over thirty-five years earlier in Lebanon.

And, Voland had added, he’d missed that target in Lebanon.

When this realization sank in, Tarek took the pistol from Voland, along with five minutes’ instruction on how to shoot it and reload it and a promise from the Frenchman that he wouldn’t mention anything about the weapon to Rima Halaby, because Tarek doubted his wife would approve of him carrying a firearm as a matter of safety.

Now that the security men were here, Tarek wondered if he should hand the gun back, but only for a moment, and then he changed his mind. He didn’t know these men any better than he knew this man Sebastian Drexler that Voland kept mentioning with a bizarre combination of revulsion and awe.

Tarek would keep an eye on these men just the same as he would anyone else with the potential to put this operation in jeopardy.

The SUV doors opened and four men climbed out. They carried short-barreled submachine guns, already slung on their shoulders, and large packs on their backs. To Tarek they all appeared to be in their fifties, and two of the four men were quite obviously overweight.

They looked nothing like the American contract killer he’d been working with, and Tarek found himself disappointed.

Voland spoke softly to Tarek as the men hefted bags out of the rear of the SUV. Clearly he recognized what Tarek was thinking. “It’s been a few years since I’ve seen them, but they are a team that works together all over the world. They have quite a good reputation. Don’t worry . . . they will handle themselves.”

From his comment Tarek thought Voland seemed worried about the men’s appearance himself.

Voland stepped forward and met the men in the middle of the parking circle, greeting them with warm and familiar handshakes, and with pats on the back he walked one of the men back over to the Syrian. The Frenchman said, “Dr. Halaby, I present to you Monsieur Paul Boyer.” Tarek shook the hand of a heavy-set man with a trim gray beard and thin combed-over hair.

Boyer spoke with a French accent. “I and my men are at your service, Doctor. We’d like to be set up by nightfall, so perhaps we can do our formal introductions later.”

“Bien s?r, Monsieur Boyer.”

All four men passed into the house; the three associates of Boyer never even looked up as they walked by Tarek.

Halaby turned again to Voland, but the Frenchman spoke before the Syrian doctor could air his concerns. “Boyer is French, a former major in the French Foreign Legion. The others are Campbell from Scotland, Laghari from India, and Novak from Hungary. All Legionnaires.”

Tarek said, “Four men, Vincent? I hope it’s enough.”

Voland smiled. “If Drexler finds this house, he’ll have backup, for sure. But remember, he’s working for Shakira, not Ahmed, so he can’t use resources from the Syrian government. He’ll have some local cops, like the two you met in your apartment, and they’ll be cut down before they get within one hundred meters of Mademoiselle Medina.”

Tarek felt a little better with this reminder.

Voland said, “Now, let’s see where Boyer positions his men, so we can move your men to provide the best additional coverage.”

The men returned to the house to speak with the FSEU security staff. Another night was coming, and despite Voland’s confidence, with the darkness came danger.

* * *

? ? ?

On the far side of the house, Rima Halaby descended the stairs that led to the wine cellar. She’d taken to checking on Bianca twice a day, spending an hour with her, gently reminding the beautiful model that all was not lost, since the American was surely somewhere right now looking to get himself into Syria.

At the bottom of the stairs she looked across the length of the large wine cellar and saw Firas, and when she did, she sighed. He had been down here all the previous night, and all day long, so when she saw him slumped over the tiny wine table she did not get angry. As long as the door to Bianca’s room was closed and locked, Rima saw no problem with her nephew taking brief naps throughout the day.

As she walked across the concrete floor, her footfalls echoed in the room, and she expected Firas to stir. When he did not, she called to him.

“I brought a sleeping bag down here yesterday, Firas. Why don’t you use it and get some rest?”

The young schoolteacher did not move.

“Firas? How is our guest?”

The young man did stir now, but he just moved his arm a little on the table, and in so doing, he knocked a wineglass onto the floor, shattering it. Rima was surprised by this, but doubly so when she saw a second glass, half filled with red wine, on the table.

She raced the rest of the way across the small room, and now she saw the two empty bottles on the floor.

“Firas!” she shouted, and her nephew sat up, ramrod straight, but he was disoriented, confused.

Clearly, he was drunk.

Now she moved to the door to the guest quarters, put her hand on the latch, and tested it.

To her dismay, the door opened, and to her horror, the room was empty. She ran through the narrow room to the bathroom; the door was open and it was unoccupied.

Now she ran back into the wine cellar, over to the storeroom adjacent to Medina’s quarters. She threw this door open, hoping against hope she’d see the model in here, but instead she just saw racks of cleaning solvents, mops, furniture polish, and other housekeeping supplies.

“Firas!” she shouted again. “Where did she go?”

Back in the wine cellar, Firas was standing now on wobbly legs, but he wasn’t responsive to his aunt’s question.

Rima didn’t have her phone on her, nor did she have a radio. It occurred to her that she wouldn’t know the code to use Firas’s iPhone, and this was something they should have organized before an emergency. She ran over to her nephew, opened up his jacket, and checked to see if his gun was still there.

To her relief Bianca had not disarmed him. Rima yanked the weapon from his pants, spun away, and raced up the wooden steps as fast as she could. She didn’t know if the gun had a safety on it, though it hardly mattered because she wasn’t going to shoot Bianca. It was a tool for bluffing, but she knew it would only work for that if she found her prisoner.

* * *

? ? ?

Bianca Medina opened the door from the hearth room that led out to the stone patio at the back of the home. Beyond the manicured lawn, a forest of hard woods looked dark and foreboding now as dusk set in, but she knew she had a much better chance of disappearing out there in the dark, so she fought against her fear and steeled herself to make a run for it.

She had grown more and more worried with each passing hour that Ahmed would simply kill Jamal back in Damascus, even if the American did his best to get there before he could do it. Bianca had spent the last three days thinking of nothing but her son, his predicament, and her utter inability to do anything to help him. She was his mother, and she found it unacceptable to just sit there in a tiny room off a wine cellar thousands of miles away from where her baby was in mortal danger.

So she’d decided to act with the tools available to her. Beauty, charm, intelligence, and a mother’s ceaseless tenacity to protect her child.

And one more thing . . . the ability to drink most men under the table, assisted by the fact she’d been drinking wine heavily since her midteens.

She’d knocked on the door to ask Firas for a glass of wine from the cellar, and within ten minutes of him obliging her, they were drinking Bordeaux together. She’d asked him about his life and his family, and she’d learned that he was the nephew of Rima and Tarek, and he’d lost two cousins in the war: the Halabys’ adult children.