Proctor had landed the helicopter in a grass field opposite the small airfield, and had carried the secretary over to the metallic-black Ford Fusion parked in an adjacent lane. The helicopter had been situated behind a barn at the end of the chateau’s three-acre, ornate garden. Ostensibly, it was to be used to evacuate his men as soon as the secretary’s murder had been carried out.
After driving the short distance to the airfield, he saw the pilot and the co-pilot, whom Lester had hired, standing outside the business jet. They were drinking coffee poured from a stainless-steel Thermos. He heard the secretary reviving on the back seat, mumbling something that sounded like a prayer or some words from the Bible. He’d revived himself with what had been left of the smelling salts that he’d used on her. He wasn’t as badly injured as he’d made out after the Yank had eased off, but for a moment he’d actually thought he was going to die. And yet it had all fallen into place. The man just couldn’t do it, and apart from the money that he’d received from Swiss already, Brigadier Hasni had promised him twice as much again. That and his life.
The substitute pilots would be waiting in the hangar. A couple of Pakistanis. Not ISI operatives, but ex-Air Force down on their luck, who had driven the fifty miles from Paris once Major Durrani had texted him from the States, confirming that they had air transport.
He drove up to the parked jet and got out. The two flight crew looked at one another.
“There’s been a change of plans,” he said.
“The hell are you?” the co-pilot said, a thickset man with pallid skin and a bald head.
Proctor pulled out his handgun still fixed with a laser sight, together with an added suppressor, and poleaxed him with a head shot. The pilot, a younger man wearing shades, dropped his cup of coffee.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said.
The round hit him in the throat and he fell on top of the co-pilot. Proctor popped the trunk and heaved both men in before driving back to the hangar, as casually as a man about to go on vacation.
As he reached the hangar, its curved roof painted a dull green, two Pakistani men dressed as civilian pilots stepped out, looking a little too nervous for his liking. But there was nothing to stop the secretary being flown to Yemen where she’d be beheaded. Later than planned, given Tom Dupree’s interference. But late or not, if that didn’t go viral on the Internet, he didn’t know what would. Besides, the major would have dispatched Dupree and his black sidekick by now. She’d drive back to Paris in the Ford, where’d she take a scheduled flight to Islamabad, dumping all four bodies en route.
His cellphone rang, a number he didn’t recognize. He hesitated before taking the call.
“Brigadier Hasni has been assassinated in Islamabad,” a woman’s voice said.
“What the fuck…?Who is this?”
“A water lily,” the woman said, the agreed code for a friend.
“Okay.”
“You will proceed as planned,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Who killed him?”
“A Shia bitch.”
By the time Tom and Lester reached a small yew tree sunk into the hedge abutting the airfield, the jet was rising towards a mud-grey cloud miles in the distance. Tom cursed under his breath, slamming the butt of the MP7 into the tangle of bushes. With that, Lester slumped to the ground. Tom dropped the MP7 and crouched down beside him, cradling his head.
“I’m sorry, Tom.” Lester’s voice was wheezy and a sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He was struggling to find breath, his face contorting.
Tom put his hand over his friend’s wound, but the blood seeped between his fingers, black-red and pus-like. “Stay with me, Lester.”
Lester’s eyelids were fluttering and he was clearly close to unconsciousness. Tom knew that if he didn’t get his friend to a hospital soon, he’d bleed out. He pulled out his cell and called 112, the French equivalent of 911. He gave the operator their location and was told that a hospital-based ambulance would be on its way in less than five minutes. The ETA was thirty-five minutes.
After making Lester as comfortable as he could, covering his body with a blanket and giving him some water from a plastic bottle that was in the trunk of the Land Rover, Tom called Vice Admiral Birch and filled him in on the details. The head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security simply listened until Tom finished. Tom had expected him to bark a string of expletives down the cell before telling him to turn himself in to the US Embassy in Paris. To his surprise, he didn’t.
“I’ll divert the SEAL platoon,” Birch said, calmly, referring to the US Navy’s Sea, Air, Land Teams, and principal Special Operations Force since their inception in the Vietnam War. “You will wait there until they arrive.”
Tom had no idea what a SEAL team were doing on French soil. “What about the French?” he asked, more than a little fazed.
“POTUS pulled in a favour from his French counterpart. The SEALs were on a joint training exercise with the British SBS,” Birch said.
Tom knew the Special Boat Service was the Royal Navy’s Special Forces unit, made up almost entirely of Royal Marines.
“The SEALs were going to liaise with French Special Forces and help out,” Birch went on. “But they ain’t carrying weapons. The French President was worried about political fallout if they killed French citizens. I guess, after what you’ve just said, I better tell her that three of her DCRI operatives are dead.”
“Can we get them to intercept the jet?”
“It’ll be outside their airspace by now. And why would it land? Those onboard know we won’t order it shot down.”
“What about Crane?” Tom asked.
“He’s dead, too. Killed in Saudi Arabia while collecting his blood money from a bank.”
Tom was stunned by Birch’s statement, taking a few seconds to focus. “Blood money?”
“He turned a CIA asset over to the ISI.”
Tom couldn’t help feeling sad that Crane had turned out to be a traitor, despite his previous suspicions. He swallowed hard as he joined the dots. “What was his name, sir?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I’d like to know, that’s all.”
“Sandri Khan. Crane got half a million dollars for betraying him. Khan was the one who told us where Lyric was being held in Karachi. I guess that signed his death warrant.”
“Who killed Crane?”
“ISI,” Birch said. “So stick with the SEALs. They’re just about the only people you can trust right now.”
Tom clenched his teeth, feeling rotten. Khan had saved his life and Crane had turned him over to be murdered at the hands of butchers. At least I have an answer, he thought. But it all seemed irrelevant now, given that he’d failed to save the secretary’s life. He guessed she was on the way to Yemen, just as the ISI major had said. He sank to his knees, watching Lester cough up blood.