Echo of War (9 page)

“Looks like something fell out of the tree,” Cahil murmured.

“Hope it's worth it,” Tanner replied. “I'd hate to get mugged for nothing.”

The Germans joined ranks before them. “How do you know Stephan?” one of them said in heavily accented English. He wore a black, waist-length leather coat and a green turtleneck. His compatriots stood with their hands deep in their coat pockets.

Probably not guns,
Tanner thought.
Knives,
then.

“
Pardon
?”
Tanner replied in French.

“Your French is like shit. Who are you? How do you know Stephan?”

Tanner switched to English. “I should ask you the same question.”

“No, you shouldn't. Answer me.” The man took a step forward. His hands, clenched into fists, hung at his sides. His knuckles were crisscrossed with scars.
Streetftghter,
Tanner thought.

The other Germans were spreading out, flanking them.

“I said, who are you?” the man repeated.

Tanner smiled at him, shook his head. “Go to hell.”

The fist came up startlingly fast, arcing toward Tanner's head in a roundhouse punch. Tanner ducked it and stepped forward, snapping a short jab into the man's solar plexus. The man let out a gasp, but closed in and clamped a hand on the back of Tanner's neck, drawing him in. To his left, Briggs saw a pair of the men rushing toward Cahil.

Tanner's assailant drew back his head, snapped it forward. Tanner turned his face, took the butt on his cheekbone, and felt the skin split. Warm blood gushed down his face. The butt had been delivered with expertise; had it found its mark, Tanner's teeth would've been sheared off at the gumline.

Tanner stomped down, driving his heel into the man's foot, then swung a tight uppercut that caught the man on the point of the chin. As he stumbled backward, Tanner shoved him into the next man. They collapsed together in a heap. A few feet away, Cahil had one of his men on the ground as another German rushed him from behind. Tanner saw the man's hand arcing down, saw a glint of steel in the light.

“Knife!” Tanner called. Cahil glanced up, started moving to meet the assault.

Tanner's attackers had recovered and were closing again. The one in the leather jacket held a knife in his fist, the blade angled low. His partner circled left. As though exhausted, Tanner let his arms droop. The first man rushed in, knife slashing up and across. Briggs straightened, let the blade sweep past, then grasped the man's fist in both of his and twisted hard. The wrist bones snapped, sounding like walnut shells crushed under a boot. The man cried out. The knife clattered on the cobblestones. Tanner kicked it away and kept twisting the wrist, walking the man around and blocking his partner's advance.

From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow rushing toward him. He turned, instantly realized the German was too close, and readied himself for the blow.

“Hey!” came a voice. The German paused, looked over his shoulder.

As though levitating, a steel garbage can rose into the air above the man's head, stopped for a moment, then slammed down. Even as the man fell, the can-wielding figure barreled through him and charged Cahil's second assailant. Cahil backpedaled as the can crashed down onto the man's head, knocking him to his knees, where he teetered for a moment before toppling over.

Chest heaving, the mystery man dropped the mangled can and turned to face them. It was their blond-haired companion from the TGV. He grinned at them. “Hope you don't mind the interruption, but it looked like you could use some help. No offense, of course.” His English was American.

Tanner smiled back. “None taken.”

“Good. Now: Why don't you tell me who the hell you are, and why you're looking for Susanna Vetsch.”

FBI headquarters,
Washington,
D.C.

At ten a.m., Oliver got the Word: a fingerprint match. The fax was on its way from Quantico. He called McBride at the Root house then spent twenty minutes bending paper clips and sipping cold coffee as McBride drove over.

Joe appeared in the doorway, panting, his hair disheveled. “Well?”

Oliver jerked his head toward the fax machine where a lone sheet of paper sat in the tray.

“You haven't looked at it?”

“Waiting for you.”

“I applaud your self-discipline, Collin, but read the damned thing. Jesus, you're killing me.”

Oliver sprang from his chair, snatched the fax from the tray, scanned it. He shook his head in disbelief. “I never thought I'd say this, but there's one good thing that came from nine-eleven.”

“Huh?”

Oliver handed over the fax. McBride read. The match had come from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, one of the first changes the FBI and the Office of Homeland Security had lobbied for was an integration of IAFIS at both the state and federal levels. Agencies that had before kept their own in-house fingerprint database joined IAFIS. Of these, the INS maintained a watch list of countries with known links to terrorist groups.

The man who had rented the van and bought the Stone-walkers was named Hekuran Selmani, a twenty-two-year old Albanian national who'd entered the country on a work visa three months earlier.

“Shit,” McBride said.

Oliver nodded. “Took the word right out of my mouth.”

Given his nationality, the chances were good Selmani was a terrorist affiliate, and given how long he'd been in the country he and his cohorts had likely come here with the Root kidnapping in mind.
But why
?
McBride wondered for the hundredth time.
Why Jonathan Root
?

“We gotta get these guys before it gets any uglier,” Oliver said. “Is there an address listed?”

“Westphalia.”

Oliver reached for the phone.

Westphalia was twelve miles from Downtown Washington. Selmani's apartment building, a three-story house that had been converted into a quadplex, was on Brown Station Road across from the Oak Grove Electrical Substation.

An hour after Oliver started making calls, he and McBride pulled into the substation's parking lot followed by an evidence response team van. Already waiting were three squad cars from the Prince Georges County Sheriff's Department and a rapid-response team from the FBI's Hostage Rescue Unit. Grim faced and all-business, they milled around the van, donning body armor and checking weapons. The sheriff's deputies stood off to the side, arms folded. McBride read their collective expression:
Federal prima donnas.

Whatever the perception, McBride knew the HRT was universally respected as one of the finest tactical units in the country, if not the world. They trained hard and knew their business. The last thing any criminal wanted to see was an HRT team crashing through the door.

Oliver got out and started toward the group. His cell phone rang. “Oliver.” He listened for a few moments, then hung up He took off his sunglasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“What, Collin?” McBride asked.

“The fourth guard from the Roots'—the college kid—he died a few minutes ago.”

“Ah, man.”

Oliver took a deep breath, muttered “Okay, okay,” then walked over to the sheriff, shook his hand, and exchanged a few words. McBride collected a pair of blue windbreakers with “FBI” emblazoned on their backs. He handed one to Oliver who donned it and then turned to the HRT.

“I know you guys already had a look at the quad's blueprints, so here's the scoop: We're looking for a single suspect, adult male, white, aged twenty-two,” he said, passing out photos of Selmani. “The subject is a foreign national. His grasp of English may or may not be tenuous. According to the subject's landlord, he hasn't been on the premises for five days. Don't count on that. Assume he's there; assume he's armed—and though it's unlikely, assume he has a hostage.”

“Who're we talking about?” asked the team's commander, a fortyish man named Gene Scanlon.

“Have you been reading the papers?”

Scanlon thought for a moment, then groaned. “Aw, jeez. Root?”

“The CIA guy?” another said.

“That's the one,” Oliver replied. “The landlord will meet us on Brown and lead us to the quadplex. We'll be entering through an alley behind the apartment; there are no windows facing the alley. We've confirmed the rest of the occupants are gone. Selmani's apartment is the first unit on the second floor.

“We've got keys, so we're gonna go in quiet. If Selmani is gone, the HRT will withdraw and clear the area while myself and these agents execute the search warrant. We're hoping to find evidence that'll lead us to him. Failing that, we'll set up surveillance on the off chance he returns.

“Finally—and this is crucial—if Selmani's in the apartment, we need him alive,” Oliver said. “He may be the key to recovering the hostage.”

“And if he's disagreeable?” one of the HRT men asked.

“Do you really need me to answer that?”

“Guess not.”

“Right now, he's our only suspect. Get him alive if you can, but get him.”

Following the directions of the Quad's landlord, an elderly Mexican man, who sat in the van's passenger seat, the convoy rolled down the alley and coasted to a stop at the back door. The landlord handed the keys to Oliver then hurried down the alley, feet crunching on the gravel, and disappeared around the corner. Sheriff's cars had taken up stations at either end of the alley.

Oliver nodded to Scanlon, who led his team through the back door. Oliver and McBride followed. Inside was a cramped foyer. Linoleum stairs led upward. Oliver turned to McBride.

“You want to wait here? I'll call you once it's clear.”

“You don't have to tell me twice. Last time I touched a gun was at the county fair.”

“Water balloon game?”

McBride nodded, and Oliver muttered, “I hate those things. Thanks, Joe. If you got killed it would really ruin my day.”

McBride chuckled. “Me, too.”

Oliver crept up the stairs. The team's four-man entry train was already in position, crouched single file against the wall, each man's hand on the next's shoulder, weapons held at ready low. Behind them, two team members stood in reserve.

Lying on his belly before Selmani's door, an HRT man slipped a fiberscope camera into a slit he'd cut in the carpet. He studied the monitor for thirty seconds, then gave a thumbs-up over his shoulder. Scanlon crept forward and slipped the key into the lock. He paused, then looked down at the camera man. Another thumbs-up. Scanlon motioned him clear, waited for him to join the reserve, then hand signaled to the team,
Prepare to enter,

Oliver drew his Smith & Wesson 10mm, flicked off the safety, and tucked it against his thigh.

Scanlon turned the knob and pushed open the door.

With only the sound of shuffling feet, the train charged into the room and fanned out. Ten seconds passed, then: “Clear … clear … clear … all clear.”

One of the HRT men poked his head out the door. “Nobody home.”

Oliver, McBride and the four techs from the ERT stood in the hallway while the team searched the apartment for bombs and booby traps. Once done, they filed out and Oliver's team went in. Scanlon lingered in the doorway. “It's a flophouse,” he said. “No telephone, no TV. He probably just needed a mail drop, someplace to crash. Need anything else, Collin?”

“No thanks, Gene. Tell the guys thanks, will ya?”

“Yep.”

Hekuran Selmani's apartment was a two-room affair with a half bath, yellowing wallpaper, and warped hardwood floors. The living room contained four couch cushions, a small transistor radio, and a stack of newspapers in one corner. In the bedroom they found a bare mattress on the floor, a telephone book, and a loose-leaf notebook. The bathroom smelled of stale urine and toothpaste. The shower curtain, black with mold, hung stiffly from the rod.

“This guy was here on an operation,” Oliver declared. “He didn't bother getting comfortable.”

“Agreed,” McBride said.

Oliver turned to the ERT: “Dust everything. Get hair, fibers, piss splatters—all of it.”

As the ERT went about its business, Oliver and McBride paged through the notebook in the bedroom. Most of the sheets were covered in random scribbles: grocery lists, phone numbers. Similarly, the dog-eared telephone book was tattooed with doodles, but nothing else.

Oliver said, “I can picture him sitting here: killing time, waiting for the call.”

Kneeling beside the mattress, McBride studied the notebook, flipping pages with a gloved index finger. “If he was a scrounger, he's probably got a storage locker somewhere,” he said. He was about to turn another page when something caught his eye. He lifted the notebook up to the overhead light. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Get me some print powder.”

Oliver went into the living room and returned with a vial. McBride laid the notebook on the floor, uncapped the vial, and sprinkled some powder onto the page. Using the tips of his fingers he jiggled the notebook back and forth, spreading the dust into every corner, then gently blew off the surplus. He lifted the notebook to the light again. In the center of the page was a ghostly scribble:

Bob 7.5 . 9

Oliver knelt beside McBride and peered at it. “What the hell is that?”

“Not sure,” McBride replied. “But I've got an idea.”

St Malo,
France

“Never mind,” the stranger told Tanner. “Not here.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it to Tanner. “Your cheek is bleeding.”

The stranger knelt beside one of the unconscious Germans, pulled back his sleeve, studied the skin briefly, then dropped the arm and started frisking him. Tanner and Cahil searched the others but found nothing—no IDs, no credit cards, no paperwork. A few feet away, the man whose wrist Tanner had broken groaned and began crawling away. The stranger placed a foot between the man's shoulder blades and shoved him down.

“
Bewegen Sie nicht
!”
he ordered. He heel-kicked the man in the back of the head and he went limp.

In the distance came the wail of police sirens.

“Follow me,” the stranger said, and took off jogging.

Tanner and Cahil exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed.

He led them southeast through the streets, moving confidently through the alleys and empty courtyards. Twice they ducked into the shadows as police cars swept past, blue strobes flashing. After twenty minutes' travel they reached the Hotel du Louvre on Rue des Marins.

He led them through a back entrance and down the hall to his room. Once inside, he tossed the keys onto the credenza, opened the liquor cabinet, and poured himself two fingers of bourbon, took a gulp. He dropped into an armchair beside the window. “Help yourself,” he said.

“No, thanks,” Tanner replied.

In better light, Tanner realized their rescuer's hair was not blond, but white. The man was in his mid-forties. His face showed a week's worth of stubble and his eyes were bloodshot. As he lifted the glass to his lips, his hand trembled. Whoever their rescuer was, he was on the edge of exhaustion.

“The truth is,” the man said, “you didn't look like you needed help, but I figured what the hell. It seemed like the thing to do.” He gave a weak, almost manic, chuckle. “Sit down, sit down.”

Tanner and Cahil sat on the edge of the bed.

“So, who the hell are you?” the man asked.

“We're friends of Susanna's,” Tanner replied.

“Not just friends. Friends would've talked to the police, friends don't wander around Paris's nastiest neighborhood; friends don't serve themselves up to four German knuckle-draggers hoping to find a lead. Friends, maybe, but that ain't all you are. You're on the job, aren't you?”

“After a fashion.”

“Yeah, who? DEA? Nah, you don't look it.”

Interesting,
Tanner thought. The tone of the question sounded exclusionary.
He's not DEA,
either.
Who then
?
“We know her father,” Briggs said. “He's worried about her.”

The man gave another chuckle. “Yeah? Well, he can join the club. What do I call you? No, forget it … I don't wanna know.” He took another gulp of bourbon. “You can call me Jim. Okay, so we're all looking for Susanna. How'd you end up here?”

“Something we found in Susanna's apartment. What about you?”

“I picked you up in the Pigalle.” Jim noted Cahil's frown and said, “Don't feel bad. I've been here for two years. I've learned how to blend in. I'd been staking out her neighborhood, seeing if she'd turn up. Instead, you guys did. It was the only lead I'd gotten for a week, so I followed you.”

“You already had a hotel here,” Cahil stated.

“Susanna had mentioned St Malo before, so I came here last week, but couldn't find her. I hopped the TGV back to Paris. I had something I wanted to try.”

“What?” Tanner asked.

“Nope. Your turn. You guys are damned resourceful for concerned friends. What's your story.”

Tanner thought it over. It seemed unlikely they knew anything Jim didn't. Maybe some good faith on their part would break down the wall.

He gave Jim the same pitch he'd given Slavin: Susanna's assignment with the FCI, her alias, her code name, the flurry of coded radio traffic between Paris and Washington around the time of her disappearance. “And now I'm getting the feeling she wasn't DEA.”

“I didn't say that”

“You implied it”

“Big leap.”

“It's all we've got Look, we don't know where she is, you don't know where she is. Maybe between the three of us, we can do what none of us has been able to do alone.”

Jim exhaled heavily, then tugged at his lip with his thumb and index finger. He got up, refilled his glass, and plopped back down in the chair. “Jesus, I'm tired. You know? Really tired.”

“I can see that,” Tanner replied. “Jim, sometimes you've got to trust somebody—sometimes you've got to make that leap. That's what I'm asking you to do.” Tanner waited until Jim met his gaze. “You can trust us.”

Jim squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Okay … yeah, okay. I guess you could say I'm her … supervisor.”

Closer,
Tanner thought, then went with a hunch: “Case officer, you mean.” Jim simply stared at him.
He's CIA
.
..
a goddamned CIA case officer.
They had stumbled into a CIA operation buried within a DEA operation.
Wheels within wheels.
Briggs said, “Are you telling me Susanna was moonlighting?”

“Yeah. For a good cause, believe me. You have no idea.”

“Give me an idea.”

“You know who those four Germans were?”

Cahil said, “Cohorts of Stephan's?”

“Jesus, how'd you—”

“A couple friends we met in the Pigalle.”

“Yeah, I saw them: Trixie and Sabine. Susanna mentioned them a couple of times.”

“What about the Germans?” Tanner asked. “What were you looking for under his sleeve?”

“A tattoo—a wolf's head superimposed on a parachute canopy. You know it?”

“I know it. Spetsialnoye Nazranie.”

Jim nodded. “Spetsnaz.”

Cahil groaned. “Oh, boy.”

Spetsnaz soldiers—literally, “troops of special purpose”—were the cream of the Russian special forces community. Trained and commanded by the GRU, the intelligence branch of the General Staff, Spetsnaz were trained in weapons handling, tracking and camouflage, surveillance techniques, hand-to-hand combat, sabotage and demolitions, prisoner interrogation, and combat swimming. Tanner had encountered his share of Spetsnaz on both friendly and unfriendly terms. Of the two, he preferred the former. They were superbly trained, ruthless, and dedicated.

In the early eighties there had been rumors that the GRU, anticipating a major ground war in Europe, had started expanding the Spetsnaz program and were recruiting soldiers from all corners of the Soviet bloc for inclusion in divisions that had thus far been restricted to native Russian troops.

If the mystery man named Stephan and the four Germans from the Black Boar were Spetsnaz, Tanner's search had just taken a disturbing tack. What in god's name had Susanna gotten herself into?

“All four—five, including Stephan—are from the same unit,” Jim said.

“Present tense?” Cahil asked.

“Past. They're freelance now.”

“Maybe you better tell us the whole story,” Tanner said.

“Right. It started about ten months ago. Susanna was on a—”

Behind Jim, the window shade bulged inward slightly. Tanner caught the scent of cigarette smoke. Backlit by the streetlamps, a man-shaped silhouette filled the shade.

Cahil saw it: “Light!”

Tanner leapt forward, reached for the table lamp.

Jim looked around. “What's—”

There was a deafening roar. The shade blew inward. The lamp exploded. Tanner dove for the ground. The back of Jim's head dissolved in a halo of blood. His face frozen in an expression of confusion, Jim toppled face-first onto the carpet.

“You okay?” Cahil called from the floor.

“Yeah, you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Tanner craned his neck upward. The window was empty.

From the street, voices began shouting.
“Faites attention
…
Au
secours,
police
!”

“We've gotta go, Briggs.”

Tanner thought he saw a brief flicker of movement in Jim's dead eyes, then nothing. The man was gone. Briggs tore his gaze away and looked around. Did we touch anything?”

“No, no, we're okay. Come on!”

Tanner pushed himself upright and ran for the door.

They left the way they'd come in, sprinted across the street and into the adjoining alley. As they came out the other end, a police car screeched around the corner and slowed beside them.

“Hotel Louvre!
Un homme avec un fusil
!”
Tanner yelled in French, pointing.

The officer in the passenger seat nodded and the car sped away.

They slowed their pace to a stroll and headed northwest toward the Bastion and Porte St. Pierre, one of the main gates on the seaward side. Once outside the gate, they walked to Chaussee Boulevard and hailed a taxi.

Tanner focused on putting some distance between themselves and the murder scene. He ordered the driver to take them to Quai Solidor a few miles down the coast. Once there, they walked five blocks to the ferry terminal, where they bought a pair of tickets for Dinard, St. Malo's sister city across the Rance Estuary. Forty minutes later they disembarked, walked downtown, and checked into a discount hostel.

With the door shut and locked behind them, Tanner plopped down on the bed, flipped open his cell phone, and dialed. It was shortly before ten P.M. in Washington. Oaken was awake, watching CNN.

He said, “You're up late, or is it early?”

“Feels like both,” Tanner replied. “I need a conference with you and Leland.”

“Now?”

“No, office.” What he had to report was best said over a secure line. “I'll find a pay phone and call you. How long do you need?”

“One hour.”

Tanner found the hostel's lobby deserted. The house phones were of the traditional European style, each an enclosed cubicle with a glass door. Tanner sat down on the bench, closed the door, then reached up and twisted loose the fluorescent bulb before it could sputter to life. He dialed the long-distance prefix, swiped his credit card, then waited through sixty seconds of clicks as the call was routed first to the U.S., then to Fort Meade, where Holystone's secure encrypted lines were maintained. There was a brief squelch as the call was electronically scrubbed. The line started ringing.

Dutcher answered: “Holystone.”

“It's me. Sorry for waking you.”

“No problem. I was tinkering.” Dutcher's hobby was restoring antique pocket watches.

“Which one?”

“German, circa 1750.”

“Sun and moon flyback?” Tanner asked.

“That's the one. Actually, you saved its life. I was about ready to take a hammer to it. What've you got?”

“A mystery,” Briggs replied, then recounted his and Cahil's movements since leaving Paris, ending with their meeting of the mysterious Jim and his murder. “I think Langley just lost one of its own.”

“You suspect the Germans?”

“Unless he had other involvements we don't know about. The timing is too coincidental.”

“Could they have followed you to the hotel?”

“When we left they were all semi-unconscious. They might have come around before the police got there, but they were in no shape for pursuit.”

“If so, it means they were on to Jim before you met him,” Oaken said.

“I agree,” said Dutcher. “Are you safe?”

“So far,” Tanner said. “We're going to move again after I hang up.”

“Good. I've got some calls to make. Give me ninety minutes, then call back.”

They left the hostel, hailed a taxi back to the TGV station and recovered their duffels.

In the distance, from within the walls of the
intramuros,
Tanner could still hear the warble of sirens. They saw no
gendarmie
in the station, however, which meant the authorities were still trying to sort out what had happened at the Hotel du Louvre and the Black Boar. A connection would be made, of course.

Petty crime in St. Malo was rare; assault and murder would set the town ablaze. While their departure from the hostel had been clean, the Black Boar was another matter. They had to assume their descriptions would soon be circulating. With any luck, one or all of the Germans would be detained for Jim's murder, perhaps averting a manhunt beyond St. Malo. Until that was confirmed, however, they would assume the worst.

As Cahil waited outside, Briggs went to the station's gift shop, bought a short-brimmed fedora and a pair of nonprescription reading glasses, then proceeded to the Avis counter. He rented a Renault using his backup credit card and passport, then proceeded to the car.

He pulled to the curb and Cahil climbed in. On the eastern horizon they could see the faint glow of sunlight. “Remember the panhandler from the train?” Cahil asked. “The girl?”

“Yes.”

“Look in your rearview mirror.”

Tanner did so. Standing at the curb, staring after them, was the magenta-haired girl. As Briggs watched, she turned away and walked back inside the station.