I HUGGED THE GROUND expecting to be shot.
Suddenly he turned away from the bog and passed on the other side of the great oak.
I stepped out of his way, a twig snapping under my foot but he didn’t notice. As he passed I smelled the wine, the sour livestock odor, saw his bulky overcoated form against moonlight on a tree. An older guy, drunk, stumbling through the forest with a rifle trying to poach a deer.
Now I’d lost the two joggers with backpacks. Failed at one of the simplest rules of the tradecraft we’d learned so well.
Rule One: Never lose contact with your target.
Rule Two: Always obey Rule One.
With a crackle of brush my poacher wandered on, his headlamp flitting among the trunks. I stood breathing silently, listening to the forest.
“French dickhead,” said a voice ten feet in front of me. “I almost shot him.”
“Aye,” said the other. “Me too.”
The first voice sounded vaguely familiar; I tried to remember when I’d heard it before.
Had they seen me? If they had, why hadn’t they killed me? Had they thought the poacher was me?
Blood kept running into my eyes; I couldn’t see, wasn’t sure where they were. One made a long raucous snuffle and spat, coughed and spat again, and I hoped maybe he was sick.
If they both had guns I was not going to win a fight. So I had to stay unseen till they moved on. But if one of them discovered me I had to kill him fast then the other. Almost impossible. I couldn’t even tell how far he was behind me, which way he was facing. And I had to keep the knife in my right hand so I could kill him if he shot me, before I died.
Unless it was a head shot. One that drops you right away.
“Sha’ tafh!” the other sighed, in Arabic. This is bullshit.
“Speak French, asshole,” the first said. The voice tantalizing now, nearly familiar. He turned to my left ... I tried to think is he right-handed; then he’d have his pistol in his right hand, on the far side of me.
To take him from behind I had to grab his gun hand with my right hand and stick the knife so deep into his throat he couldn’t scream – though he’d surely try, in those last nanoseconds, and to yank the knife away as the blood spurted out and he writhed around to fire the pistol I’d been unable to grip.
But why kill him, when I didn’t yet know what they were up to?
My heart was beating so hard and fast I was sure he’d hear it. Or feel the heat of my muscles, smell my sweat, anger and fear.
I eased nearer, switched the knife to my left hand, at the level of his larynx, blade inward.
He turned away, as if seeing in the darkness, his soles sucking at the wet ground. “We’re late,” he called. “Hurry!”
I thought I knew that voice now. The one who’d said, eight years ago, You’ll never escape me.
Mustafa?
Fury surged through me. Kill him.
Why was he here? Where was he going?
I followed them, silent as I could. Waiting for a chance to strike.
—
THEY RAN on through the darkness in and out of clearings bathed in moonlight back to darkness again, always in that slow, easy stride.
If it was Mustafa. I kept reminding myself, you can’t kill him.
A horrible stench blinded me, knocked my breath away.
Skunk. Gasping and rubbing my eyes I tumbled backwards, scrambled away, halted, trying not to breathe the choking smell. Why hadn’t it sprayed them?
Through burning eyes I saw the little white and black bastard coming after me, still pissed off. Maybe it was a she and I’d bumped her nest or whatever they have. I stumbled away, fearing I’d be sprayed again or that that Mustafa and his buddy would shoot me.
My eyes were seared, I couldn’t breathe. Glanced back, but the skunk hadn’t followed.
I’ve been Maced a few times but it was never like this. Mustafa and the other guy had to have heard my gasps – why didn’t they shoot?
I caught up to them again, their shadows flitting through the trees. They picked up a narrow path and I followed, keeping my distance, knife in my hand, aware of their guns. And that I couldn’t get close, stinking of skunk.
Would they shoot at a skunk, to drive it away?
Or was it good camouflage? Like the Sioux hunters dressed in wolf skins to get near the buffalo, because buffalo were used to wolves wandering near them?
They ran out into a little low-grass clearing flanked by tall firs with a dirt road at the far side. I halted at the edge of the trees. Now maybe I could circle and get them.
Kill the other one, then take the one I thought was Mustafa down and torture him till he said where Mack and Gisèle were.
Then kill him. If it was Mustafa.
Two dark shapes slid out of the darkness toward them. “Seven minutes late!” one whispered angrily.
“Ran into a hunter. Slowed us down,” the one I thought was Mustafa snapped.
“Except for that,” the other gasped, “we were on pace.”
“Not good enough.” This voice was an older man’s, authoritative. “Not good.”
“That’s why we do these trial runs, Abu,” the Mustafa one panted. “To know for sure how much time it takes ...” He’d called the older man “Abu,” a term of respect.
They turned toward the dirt road, still talking, voices rising and falling harshly.
Now there were four. Even if only two had guns, I couldn’t get them all. Mack and Gisèle were beyond my reach again.
I circled ahead, staying in the trees. They were still talking, but I couldn’t hear.
They headed for a glimmer of glass and metal that became a long, low silhouette which I thought was a black or dark blue sedan. They stored the backpacks in the trunk and got in.
I caught the plate number before they accelerated away, with a 77 for the Seine et Marne Département. Fontainebleau? Avon?
If it was Mustafa, what was he doing in Fontainebleau with another guy from the moving company that hacked Thierry’s accounts? Why go jogging at night in Fontainebleau Forest and meet two guys in a car with local plates who berated them for being late? What was in the backpacks?
Were these people the group Mustafa was working with? Who was this “Abu,” the older guy?
That they were doing this at ten-thirty at night meant whatever they were training for was probably going to happen at night. Like the mad ride following Abdel and his three companions from St. Denis to the Eiffel Tower.
Or was it just safer to practice at night, when few people would see?
But why here? When all the action was going to be in Paris?
Or was it?
Was it even Mustafa?
—
“MUSTAFA?” Anne nearly screamed when I called. “You think it was Mustafa? Holy shit, but you’re not sure?”
“I think.” I caught my breath. “But I’ve lost him.”
“You got the damn plate.”
She linked Tomàs and Thierry in. They were ecstatic. “You’re a genius!” Thierry uncharacteristically exclaimed.
“I’ve just run the plate,” Tomàs added. “It’s coming up now ... Belongs to a TV publicity company ...”
“TV?” Anne said. “What the Hell?”
“New Hope Productions. Based in Avon.”
“This is fantastic,” Thierry said, though he didn’t sound happy. “Why didn’t you call in for backup?”
“In the middle of the fucking forest?”
“We could’ve got the bastard.”
“If it was him,” I reminded him.
“We’ve got the plate,” Anne repeated.
“Pono,” he said, “you must stop doing this shit alone.”
“It’s the only way you guys won’t screw it up.”
“Get up here, fast.”
“I’ve got to get the Beast.”
“The what?”
“My car. That’s its name.”
“I don’t care what you call your damn car.”
“It’s DGSE’s car, anyway,” Anne cracked.
“Get it,” Thierry said. “And get up here.”
—
“JESUS YOU STINK!” Tomàs stepped back from his office door, away from me.
“So I’ve been told.” I ducked inside, wrapping myself in the blanket they’d given me downstairs, more to hold in the skunk odor than keep warm.
“What happened to your head?”
“Ran into a tree.”
Holding his breath, he came close to inspect my forehead. “You need to get it stitched.”
“That’s not all he needs to get stitched,” Anne snapped.
“We’ll do this fast,” he said to her, “so he can go home and shower.”
“I’m not sure I want him.”
“2016 Maserati.” Tomàs stayed behind his desk, as far from me as possible. Reluctantly he sat and plunked his elbows on the desk, clasped hands under his chin. “As you said, registered to New Hope Productions ... and, get this: which is run by Rachid Raqmi.”
Thierry stared. “Rachid fucking Raqmi? The president of the Muslim Anti-Discrimination Society?”
Tomàs smiled. “The same.”
I was exhausted, tried to think. “Let’s bring him in.”
“If we do, he’ll deny he picked up anyone in Fontainebleau tonight.” Thierry slapped palms on the desk. “Anyway, what if he did pick someone up – what’s the law against that?”
“He met this guy I think was Mustafa!”
“It’s your word against his.”
“Maybe someone,” Tomàs added, “was using his car? Or stole it?”
Anne squeezed my arm reassuringly. “There’ll be a shitstorm in the media if we accuse Rachid of anything ...”
“We ask him,” I answered, “why is he meeting up late at night with S-List guys?”
“We can’t prove it was Mustafa,” Thierry reminded me. “You said you’re not sure.”
“I couldn’t make him out in the dark. And the voice, how can I be sure? After all these years?”
“If it is and if we alert him,” Tomàs chimed in, “then the whole damn crowd will vanish, and the trail will go cold again.”
It was the same ancient question: when to pull the trigger?
“However,” Anne said, “this could be a major success –”
“Astounding,” Thierry added.
“– so let’s move carefully,” she went on. “Not blow it by making it public too soon.”
“This could explain,” Tomàs said, “why Rachid is orchestrating the campaign to allow former ISIS fighters back into France.”
“When they’re known terrorists?” I fumed. “And killed hundreds of thousands in Syria and Iraq?”
“He says they’ve disavowed violence, want to work for peaceful solutions. It’s the false face of the new Islam.”
Dizzy with fatigue, I looked for an empty chair but there wasn’t one. “He could maybe give us Mack and Gisèle? And you won’t grab him?”
“We’d get nothing from him. And he’s got tons of celebrity lawyers who will scream and clamor for our heads. The government won’t allow it.”
“We fly him to Casa. Maybe I can arrange it,” I said, thinking how to convince Harris. But that was impossible.
It was the opposite of where we’d been before. All along I’d wanted to follow people, wait and see where they took us. But DGSI/ DGSE had instead assaulted Yasmina’s place, and she blew herself up. They’d staked out Les Quatre Vents in Paris and spooked Mustafa.
And the next day Bruno got killed.
But would grabbing Rachid help save Mack and Gisèle, and get Mustafa?
Though now we thought there might be a Mustafa-Rachid connection. We just had to see where it took us. If, as I’d thought, the voice I’d heard was Mustafa.
“We’ll set up a 24/7 on Rachid,” Tomàs said, “get all his digital stuff, his phone. Then we decide.”
“If Mack and Gisèle die,” I said furiously, “and if we lose Mustafa, now will be the reason.”
“And if Rachid’s car was stolen?” Thierry reminded me. “If the guy you heard wasn’t Mustafa? Just some guy out running at night with a buddy? Training for a goddamn triathlon, something like that?”
Tomàs checked his watch. “It’s three-ten in the damn morning. Go home, both of you. Get some sleep.”
Anne scowled at me. “He’s sleeping in the shower.”