That France could not track down a lone female assassin in Paris was an embarrassment to the gendarmerie, a flash point for elected officials, and a source of consternation to the media. On receiving one text message from an unknown number, containing a simple street address, Baland found himself in a position to earn the admiration of them all.
As acting director of DGSI, he had considerable latitude in planning the raid on the flat in Monceau. For a target already proved to be dangerous, the standard response would have been to call in a highly trained tactical team from the national gendarmerie. That, however, would cede control of the outcome, something Baland could not allow. If his judgment was later questioned, he would say time was of the essence, and that they were dealing with but a lone female terrorist.
He commandeered a squad of six well-armed DGSI men, a unit gearing up for an unrelated raid on a Saint-Ouen drug den, and in two unmarked vans they sped through the night toward Monceau. They parked a block away, well out of sight, and Baland ordered his team to wait while he rendezvoused with the lead Mossad officer behind the walls of an adjacent building. The woman had been expecting him, and she assured DGSI’s senior officer that the place had been quiet since early evening. Baland thanked her for her help, then asked her to withdraw her surveillance unit.
He dispatched two members of his own squad to reconnoiter the building. They reached the same conclusions the Israelis had. There were two ways into the apartment: the main entrance in front, and a laddered fire escape in back that spanned all three floors. Baland separated one man and ordered him to stand watch at the fire escape, then disappointed him further by seizing his Heckler & Koch UMP submachine gun in exchange for his own more limited 9mm Sig Sauer.
Baland led the raiding party to the third-floor hallway, and when everyone agreed they had identified the right room, the team listened for a full two minutes. Hearing nothing, he signaled the go-ahead, and a man dressed in body armor came forward with a battering ram.
Baland was first through the breach, UMP at the ready. The tension of the moment was quick-lived, and not a shot was fired. The reasons were all too obvious, yet as a matter of procedure the flat was cleared. Within sixty seconds everyone stood at ease with their weapons at their sides. The worn furniture around them and tattered carpet under their feet went completely unnoticed, as did a vaguely sour smell that seemed infused into the air.
With his team beside him, Baland stood dumbfounded, looking helplessly at a ladder in the middle of the room. Eight feet above, at the top-floor unit’s ceiling, he saw the cutout frame of a skylight. Or at least where a skylight had once been. The plastic dome had been neatly removed, leaving Baland staring helplessly at a star-filled night sky.
* * *
The Israeli Air Force flies hundreds of jets, and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps a small airline of its own. Unfortunately, none of those aircraft were in Paris on that cold February night, so when Slaton arrived at Le Bourget Airport it was with instructions to proceed to a fixed-base operator on the east side of the airfield where a chartered Gulfstream was waiting.
The required formalities were undertaken in the flight department lounge. Slaton showed his forged passport to a young woman who’d been expecting him, signed two cursory documents, and without further ritual was led through a set of doors. Fifty yards of red carpet runner later he ascended the stairs of a sleek business jet. Every facet of the experience was smooth and well-practiced, and thirteen minutes after arriving at the FBO, Slaton was airborne. He sat alone in an oversized leather chair, six others going empty around him. Aside from two pilots on the flight deck, there was but one other person on board, a pleasant flight attendant who showed a keen interest in his wine preference.
It all required a mental shifting of gears, but that was something Slaton had grown accustomed to over the years. How many times had he surveilled a bomber’s den by day, then spent an evening tipping cocktails with diplomats on an embassy terrace? Mirroring his thoughts of two days ago, he wished there were some way to share these better moments with Christine and Davy.
“A Bordeaux perhaps?” the young woman asked, interrupting his musings.
It took no more than a smile, and the stemware on the teak table beside him came half full.
“How long is the flight to Tel Aviv?” he asked
“Three hours and fifty-two minutes,” replied the flight attendant, who was certainly French, and who’d introduced herself as Nicolette.
“That’s very precise.”
“Our clientele generally appreciate attention to detail.”
“I assure you, none more than I do.”
Ten minutes later Nicolette delivered a worthy Chateaubriand to go with his Bordeaux. She made an attempt at conversation, but he clearly had a lot on his mind, and she tactfully retreated behind the curtain of her galley. Slaton put the steak under his knife thinking about Aziz Uday and Zavier Baland and ISIS databases, but by the time he was done, with the lights of the Côte d’Azur passing beneath the wing, he had pushed it all aside. Nicolette removed his empty plate, and he looked down at the void that was the Mediterranean.
Slaton wondered what the best season was for cruising these waters. Fall, he guessed, after the human tide of August had receded, but before the Scandinavians came running from winter. October, perhaps. Eight months from now. He conjured a map in his mind and plotted a tentative passage from the Philippines. A run through the Malacca Strait, to begin, then across the southern Bay of Bengal. A watchful approach through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Then, finally … the sleepy Mediterranean in all its warmth and red-tiled charm.
Eight months.
Slaton reclined in the chair, and minutes later was sound asleep. It was not a consequence of the heavy meal or the wine, nor even the high cabin altitude. By resting now, he was preparing for the next day—a day, he was sure, that would put him in far less civilized conditions.
* * *
Anisa took control in the besieged Raqqa mosque that same night. Her first orders reflected a slight inversion of Chadeh’s instructions. They had to get a functional communications network up and running. Only when that was done could frontline units be instructed to search for Aziz Uday.
The first application to regain usefulness was an old version of FireChat, a wireless mesh network that required no internet connections. The messaging system was cumbersome and slow, and had gone unused for months, which was probably why it had been left untouched in the system-wide meltdown—what she increasingly saw as an act of sabotage by Uday.
Unfortunately, FireChat did not reach beyond Raqqa. If Uday had indeed run, he was likely farther afield. Anisa decided to employ one of their little-used high-power radios from the tallest rooftop in town. The German-made units were reliable, but came with one serious drawback—they acted like an electronic beacon to the eavesdroppers in the sky.
For a time Anisa was happy she’d been put in charge of things, but that sense of empowerment ebbed when Chadeh arrived and began watching her every move. The caliphate’s military chief was still seething, and he paced from one workstation to another—helpless to act himself, and not realizing the distraction his glowering presence was creating. Even less helpful were the four men dressed in black he’d brought along, all heavily armed and standing by the door.
And so it was, when the first useful information arrived, Anisa felt a massive wave of relief. A technician at the back of the room—a woman, she noted proudly—announced, “I have a message from the checkpoint near Suluk! They say Uday was seen running through the village. A squad is searching for him now.”
Chadeh ordered superfluously, “Tell them to find him! Stop at nothing!” He rushed to his security detail and whispered sharp instructions. Two of the men disappeared, sprinting out the door. Anisa was sure they’d been told to round up a battalion and join the hunt in Suluk, which was north of Raqqa near the dangerous Turkish border.
Everyone waited nervously for the next ten minutes, at which point another technician said, “I have another sighting.…” A long pause, then, “It’s in Hajin.”
This brought pause. Hajin was east, almost to the old Iraqi border.
A confused Chadeh hovered behind the young man. “One of them must be mistaken,” he said. This time he shouted his orders for everyone to hear, and one of the guards at the door ran off, having been dispatched to assemble a squad and get to Hajin as quickly as possible.
Anisa fired off a message to Suluk asking for an update. Strangely, she got a reply almost immediately. SEARCH STILL IN PROGRESS.
For fifteen minutes everyone waited. Then a third sighting was reported, this by an oil field security detachment outside Dayr az Zawr. Chadeh looked at the lone guard remaining at the door. He did not send the man running. Every spare soldier in Raqqa was already en route to the first two sightings.
Anisa felt an uneasy squirm in her gut. She sent a request for updates to both Suluk and Hajin. The replies were immediate and identical. SEARCH STILL IN PROGRESS.
Her innards went to full-blown seizure. Uday … he has done this. She sat frozen in place, a burqa-clad statue, as she wondered how to tell Chadeh they were busy chasing ghosts.