State of Honour (24 page)

In the back of the VW, Karen monitored the signals from the GPS tracking device she’d placed under Swiss’s Range Rover at the warehouse, and ensured that the small acoustic super-sensor pickup placed there, too, was at its full capacity. An amplification up to 200x via the portable ten-watt RMS amplifier. Tom sat beside Lester, who was driving in heavy traffic now. They each had a small wireless earpiece, allowing them to hear any conversations in the Range Rover four cars ahead, travelling at no more than twenty miles per hour. Light rain began to fall, the tiny drops speckling the windshield. After the static had cleared, Swiss could be heard cursing their slow progress and shouting at the driver to pull off the highway and take a back-road route.

“You think this’ll work?” Lester asked, glancing at Tom.

“If it don’t, we’re screwed,” Tom replied.

“Won’t Swiss try to do a deal now?” Lester asked.

“I just hope he ain’t that shaken up.”

“Swiss is calling someone on his cell,” Karen said.

“Can you turn the volume up on that thing?” Tom asked, turning around.

“It’s on full already.”

“Are you double-crossing me? … Yes, I know you told me how that special agent got my man’s name. But I’ve just had a conversation with someone and I have a very bad feeling …”

Tom knew that Swiss was referring to him and Hawks, and the encounter Swiss had just had with his father. By the sound of it, he was talking to Hasni, and Hasni hadn’t attempted to cover anything up. But at least Hasni hadn’t lied about Hawks’s involvement.

“No, I won’t calm down. I took you at your word about that man’s son. But I warn you, if this goes bad, you’re coming down with me.”

Not Hasni, then, Tom thought.
That man’s son
was a reference to Hasni and Mahmood. So who is he talking to? he thought. Maybe Swiss wasn’t in direct contact with Hasni. Maybe Hasni had never met or talked with Swiss. Maybe the ISI had dealt only with Hawks, just as Hasni had told him when he’d held Mahmood at the lock-up. The only thing he did know for certain was that the person Swiss had just talked to had to be integral to the kidnapping. But there was no way he could find out who it was, at least not in the short term.

“Your father sure did spook him, Tom,” Lester said.

“He’s making another call,” said Karen. “He’s speaking in French.”

“What’s he saying, Tom?” Lester asked.

“He’s asking if everything is okay… He said they should ensure there’s twenty-four-hour security on the gate … That’s it.”

“Is everything all right, sir?”

It was a woman’s voice, with an Eastern European accent.

The bodyguard, Tom thought.

“Yes,”
Swiss said.

“The chateau is a good place,”
she said.

“Shut up!”
Swiss barked back.

“I’ve lost the signal,” Karen said.

Tom saw the Range Rover pull off the highway.

“You want me to follow them?” Lester asked.

“No. They’ll clock us.”

“What now, Tom?” Karen asked.

“Chateau in French means a manor house,” Tom said, taking out his earpiece.

“So she’s in France?” Karen asked.

“Could be, and it would make sense. Swiss was born there, after all,” Tom said, his mind racing around to find other connections.

“France is a big place,” said Lester. “The hell are we gonna find her there?”

“I’m on it,” said Karen.

“On what?” Lester asked.

“Chateaux owned by ADC or Swiss in France.”

“We did that already with the warehouse,” Lester said. “Something tells me that Swiss wouldn’t be dumb enough to keep the US Secretary of State at a chateau directly traceable to him or his business.”

“You’re right,” Tom said. “This guy is alotta things, but dumb he ain’t.”

He knew that there was a chance that Swiss would escape out of the country before they were able to get to the secretary. But he figured the man’s options would be limited and that he’d get what was coming to him sooner or later. He sure as hell couldn’t risk lifting him.

“I know what you said, Tom, but there has to be some kind of trail,” Karen said. “You can’t organize something like this without a trail.”

“Lester, you said you were seconded to the Legion,” Tom said.

“Yeah, for six months.”

“Do you have any contacts there?”

“Too long ago,” Lester replied, taking his left hand off the wheel and scratching his head.

“What are you thinking, Tom?” Karen asked.

“I dunno. It’s what you said about a trail. I’m missing something. Wait, the secretary could only be taken to France that quickly by air.”

“I know a guy who did a spell with the French Air Force in Lyon a couple months back, teaching airfield security systems. He’s a freelance consultant. We worked together in Afghanistan for a while,” Lester said.

“That’s good, Lester. Can you call him?”

“Sure. My bluetooth is in the glovebox there.”

Tom opened the glovebox and took out the hands-free headset, handing it to Lester.

“What you want me to say?”

“Ask him if the French Air Force has links with its Pakistani counterparts,” Tom said.

Lester checked his cellphone, steering with one hand again.

“How you doin’, man? It’s Lester… Listen up, that time you spent with the Frenchies, they have links with the Pakistanis? … Yeah, I know it’s a weird question, but did they? … Hold on a minute there, brother.”

Lester took off his headset. “He said the French are tight with the Pakistanis. The Pakistan Air Force used to be equipped with French-made Mirage III and Mirage 5 jet fighters.”

“Ask him if the French have any airbases in or near Pakistan,” Tom said.

“That it? I don’t wanna be cutting him off every few seconds. He’ll think I’m playing with him.”

“That’s it,” Tom said.

“Hey, man, this is weird, too. Those Frenchies have any bases in or near Pakistan? … Yeah, I’m serious … No, it ain’t a job … Thanks, man. Listen, I got a bottle of Jack with your name on it the next time you’re in DC. Good. Stay safe, you hear.” Lester removed the headset once more. “Put that back, willya, Tom?” he said, handing it to him.

“Well, what did he say?” Tom asked, taking it from him.

“Not in Pakistan. The closest is in Abu Dhabi.”

“That’s just across the Gulf of Oman from Southern Pakistan,” Karen said. “About five hundred miles. As you said, Tom, the secretary had to be taken to France by air. A military airbase could be a good option. Swiss could have insiders there.”

“Pull over,” Tom said, seeing a sign for a diner up ahead.

Over seven thousand miles away, Brigadier Hasni was at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia at House No.14, Hill Road, F-6/3, Islamabad, meeting with the ambassador, Rahul Al-Dhakheel. It was the early hours of the morning and both men hadn’t slept properly for two days.

The ambassador wore a blue suit and a pair of brown, tasselled loafers, preferring Western clothes to a dishdasha when he wasn’t on official visits. He sat on a padded armchair in a room with a marble floor and mahogany chests, the sealed windows covered by slatted blinds. As Hasni sat down opposite him on a leather sofa he noticed the Arab’s attentive eyes on him, so black that they appeared to be all irises, reflecting the bright artificial light eerily. Like an alien’s.

“I had a conversation with Swiss. Well, to be truthful, Brigadier, it was more a one-sided shouting match. I’m worried that he’s getting overly nervous,” the ambassador said.

“I have apologized for what happened. The American special agent was going to kill my son, Mahmood,” Hasni replied, referring to Tom Dupree.

“I know. I am grateful for your honesty. Swiss isn’t.”

“They have never understood us.”

The ambassador nodded. “I know you think we have been excessive by asking you to assist, but I’m sure it will turn out to be the right thing to have done,” he said. “The Americans will go to war with Iran and do the killing for us. Just as they did in Saddam’s Iraq. They can’t help themselves, you know.”

“Let us hope so.”

Agreeing to have the secretary kidnapped in Islamabad had been a huge gamble. Hasni knew the plan was in danger of breaking apart now. Swiss might speak out, if only to save his own skin. Even though he had never met the man or had a conversation with him, it was a fair assumption to make. But he also knew that Swiss and the ambassador’s business relationship was strong, Swiss’s company selling millions of dollars’ worth of arms to the ever-nervous Saudis.

“So, Brigadier. I can safely leave this in your capable hands, yes?”

Hasni was used to diplomats speaking indirectly, but he really didn’t know what the Arab was referring to. He was sure his face hadn’t shown any emotion, something his military father had trained him not to do in childhood. But he needed clarity. “Mr Ambassador, I’m not sure what you mean.”

The Arab grinned. “Forgive me. You must take care of the unbelievers.”

“All of them?”

“Indeed.”

“The same terms?” Hasni asked.

“Of course.”

Hasni nodded once. He understood now. As far as the minor players were concerned, he was already on it. But whether it was just a glitch or something worse, Swiss and those who knew too much would die as well now. No one would be left to talk. The alternative was to risk being found out. And he had a lot to answer for. Due to his political influence, together with the customary bribe, he’d persuaded the new Prime Minister to invite the Secretary of State to Islamabad at precisely the time the Arab had asked him to. But they had absolutely no intention of handing their nuclear weapons over to the US. It had been a ruse.

That act alone had bagged Hasni one million US dollars from the Saudi. After he’d ensured her abduction outside the children’s hospital and subsequent removal from the country, he’d gotten another million. Once he’d disposed of the Westerners, he now had the promise of the same amount again. Good money. Too good to pass up. Besides, it suited him for the US to go to war with Iran. The thought of those Shia lunatics invading south-west Pakistan and taking their natural resources was intolerable.

The Arab’s right, he thought.

It was, after all, the definitive insurance policy against someone becoming a squealer. Yes, he thought, a clean shot between the eyes, just as he’d done to Sandri Khan. But not before the little shit had had all of his teeth removed with pliers. If the American special agent Tom Dupree had badly injured Mahmood, he would have ensured that Khan’s death had taken days.

Lester eased into the slip lane and drove slowly into the diner’s parking lot, which was surrounded on three sides by monkey-puzzle trees and large concrete pots brimming with goldenrods and Russian sage. The lot was crammed with trucks and cars whose owners, Tom guessed, preferred to drink coffee and eat burgers rather than watch their gas monitors drop as they crawled along the highway.

He quickened his pace across the tarmac with Lester and Karen to escape a downpour. In terms of motive, he could see that Swiss had one now. What his father had said about Swiss’s business making money out of a war had gotten him thinking. If the cuts bit as deep as his father said they would, Swiss’s business would lose billions. Men and women killed and died for a tiny fraction of that, he thought. If the secretary died, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, would die as well. America would go to war again.

After entering the diner, they sat at a window booth, the oblong table finished in blue Formica, a bunch of laminated menus in a red plastic holder. It was noisy and cramped, the place packed with families, truckers and suits. Karen opened up her laptop and began typing.

“So this is what we have,” Tom said, rubbing his eyes.

Karen stopped typing and looked up.

“She’s being held at a chateau,” Tom went on. “She was likely flown from Pakistan to a French military airbase in Abu Dhabi, and from there to a base in France. So for openers we’re looking for French military airbases located in France. I guess there’s maybe twenty-five sites.”

“Thirty-eight,” Karen said, her hands flying over her laptop again. “And we need to find out what military transport planes left the base in Abu Dhabi in the last forty-eight hours and landed at one of those sites. The base in Abu Dhabi is called Air Base 104 Al Dhafra.”

“And how do we do that?” Lester asked. “You can’t find that on your computer, right?” He scratched the top of head, his eyes squinting.

“Not in our current timeframe, no. But listen to this. CDAOA. That’s France’s Air Defence and Air Operations Command. It’s responsible for all air operations, both public and military. Based in Paris,” she said, reading from the screen. She looked up at Tom. “You make out you’re a high-ranking Air Force officer. You act arrogant. Some clerk will put you through to air-traffic control. The flight has to be cargo. It’s already happened. There is no security risk. The chances are they’ll tell you where the plane landed. Then we go from there.”

“You’re smart, Karen,” Tom said. “Real smart.”

Karen wrote a number down on a napkin and gave it to him.

A middle-aged waitress came over, her hands holding a pencil and pad. She wore thick glasses and had a bad perm, a mass of blonde frizz above her red forehead. “What can I get ya?” she asked, taking the menus from the holder and putting them down on the table before using her fingers to place them under their faces.

“As we’re here, we might as well get some hot chow,” Tom said. “I don’t know when we’ll eat again.”

They placed an order.

“I’ll make the call outside,” Tom said.

He got up, walked past the tables and booths to the automatic glass doors, the smell of fried food filling his nostrils. Sheltering from the rain underneath a concrete overhang, he made the call to the number that Karen had given him, speaking French. The woman operator put him through to a non-commissioned officer. It took Tom a few minutes of coaxing, badgering and veiled threats before the man confirmed that only one French military cargo plane had flown out of Air Base 104 Al Dhafra in the past forty-eight hours. It had landed at Évreux-Fauville Air Base, located about two miles east of the town of Évreux in Normandy, northern France. The base was home to two French tactical transport squadrons flying mostly cargo planes. Tom worked out the time-zone changes on the cell’s calculator. If the secretary had been held for a while in Southern Pakistan, it fitted well.

He jogged back to the booth, excusing himself to a big guy heading for the restroom and a waitress carrying several plates up her forearms. He sat down next to Lester. The food and coffee had arrived, and Lester was shovelling eggs into his mouth as if he were trying to break a record.

“And?” Karen said, holding up her palms.

“It worked. See what chateaux you can find near Évreux-Fauville Air Base, Normandy.”

“I gotta make a call, too,” Lester said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Who to?” Tom asked, his voice more abrupt and suspicious-sounding than he’d intended.

He glanced at Lester. He was staring hard at him.

“We all gonna sprout wings and fly across the Atlantic Ocean? Or maybe you think airport security will just turn a blind eye to the weapons I got in back of my van?”

“I’m sorry, man,” Tom said, bowing his head.

“After I sort that shit out, I’m gonna take a leak. You wanna watch, just in case I got a wire down there?”