Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (25 page)

Less than twenty minutes ago, Aisha had left Fournier and Chris in front of Café de Flore. Now she was seated at a tiny bar in a corner bistro in another neighborhood, staring into a snifter of eighty-proof cognac. “Courage in a bottle,” they called it in the old black-and-white movies that she used to love watching with her little sister.

She’d left the two men with the excuse that she needed to gas up her scooter. On the way back from the fuel station, she pulled over on a side street. There was a parking space almost directly in front of a small café and bar where no one knew her and where she was unlikely to run into anyone on the team. Inside, the place was empty except for the owner.

She’d ordered the cognac, craving the alcohol, a cigarette, and something stronger. She thought her head might explode.

She lifted the snifter and quickly drank half the cognac. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then she finished the rest, sucking back the last burning drops.

She stood to walk to the bistro’s small, very basic bathroom. Inside,
with the door locked, she pulled out her phone to dial the number she’d memorized. Her heartbeat was bolting by the fifth ring. Then she heard a click as someone picked up.

She began speaking urgently in Arabic.

“It’s me, calling like you said.”

But she cut herself off, realizing she’d reached a mailbox. No message, not even a recorded greeting, just a beep to begin recording.

“Merde.”
She froze. Took a breath. Began again in Arabic. “I have information, but you know I need proof that she’s alive before I do anything else. Call me back on this phone in the next ten minutes. Let me speak to her. I’ll know if you’ve hurt her.”

She ended the call and then fell back against the wall, where she slowly slid to the floor. What if she had dialed the wrong number? Each time she wondered that, but they had always called back.

Yesterday, they had let her talk for ten or fifteen seconds to Yasmin, but her sister had been crying so hard she only managed to repeat over and over, “Aisha.”

She had tried her best to comfort and cajole and promise it would be all right, even as she’d cut into the palms of her hands with her fingernails.

And now the phone rang, startling her so much she almost dropped it before she managed to answer. “Yasmin?” she said almost frantically.

“Not this time, we don’t have time for games today.” It was a man speaking in muffled Arabic. “You can talk to your sister, but you need to give me your information first. If you don’t you will never see her again—we will kill her. Tell me what you’ve got and you can speak with her.”

In the background she heard a woman cry out. Was it Yasmin?

Again the man spoke to Aisha in Arabic. “If you want to keep her alive, call the other number and tell us what you know.”

He disconnected.

Aisha’s heart and thoughts raced. They were lying! Yasmin might
be sick or dead. But what if her sister was alive and they killed her now because Aisha hesitated too long?

How many seconds had passed?

She dialed with fingers so unsteady she had to stop and restart.

Please, God . . .

On the third try she reached the machine again, at least she heard the click this time.

Forgive me . . .

Again she began to speak in Arabic. “It’s me. She’s going to Venice today—she’s flying out right now from CDG. I did my side, now hold up your side of the bargain. Let my sister go free. You promised. Please . . .”

Only at the very end did her voice crack, betraying her true emotions.

She dropped the phone and it fell to the floor with a clatter. Her body contracted and she leaned deep over the toilet, retching violently.

When the sickness passed, she splashed her face with water from the small sink.

She picked up the phone and stared at it. Why didn’t the man call back?

She heard the whispering echo of Yasmin’s voice in her head.

She pressed redial. It was the only number she had for the terrorists.

But this time the phone rang and rang. There was no answer, no voice mail, nothing.

A shock bolted through her body as she heard the short buzzing ring. She pushed “answer,” even as she realized it was not the phone ringing but her work cell.

She stared blankly at the message, saw the emergency code alerting Team Viper to return to the safe house immediately.

What have I done?

Minus only Vanessa and Aisha, the members of Team Viper sat tensely around the safe-house conference table. All of them, including David Khoury, had been urgently summoned and their eyes were now locked on the primary monitor.

Six fighters in camouflage uniform converged on a stone farmhouse, exchanging gunfire with at least one shooter inside. As two of the men moved toward the door, the footage froze on screen.

Fournier stood a few feet back from the monitor, saying, “I’ll be briefing you on what I know from the commander of a French special forces team at this point. You’re looking at footage taken when our team went in less than an hour ago. Obviously, these were exigent circumstances and the op was top-secret. They moved on our intelligence obtained from the analysis of the True Jihad videos and on intel from several vital assets. One enemy combatant was killed in a firefight with our forces. We don’t have an identification yet, but we’re working on it, although I will tell you that he doesn’t appear to have any obvious scars.

“It appears that a hostage died, too, although we don’t know if she
was killed during the op, just prior to the op, or if she had already been dead for some period of time when our guys got inside. A medical team is on the way from Paris to this estate, which is located about one hundred twenty kilometers northwest of Paris. Apparently it was supposed to be uninhabited except for an elderly caretaker. He is being questioned by team members now. We will have regular updates. Questions?”

Khoury lifted his hand but he didn’t wait to ask, “Will you confirm the hostage was a female?”

Fournier nodded grimly. “Female, early twenties, but that’s all I’ve got at this time.”

Chris stepped up looking pale and exhausted. “Most of you know Vanessa isn’t here because she’s following up a lead. But has anyone seen Aisha? For obvious reasons, it’s vital that we keep tabs on everyone.”

Khoury signaled Chris with a nod. “I’ll see if I can track down Aisha.”

His fingers slid across the face of his cell phone resting in his lap. He was worried because it wasn’t like Aisha not to respond to an urgent summons or at least check in, but she’d mentioned to him that she was meeting with an asset, so . . .

He was worried about Vanessa, too. He didn’t like the jittery feeling that had come over him. He ran his fingers automatically over the keys to send another text to Vanessa:
Check in with me the minute you arrive.

Inside the international terminal at Istanbul Atatürk Airport, he stood between ornamental palm trees and next to a pillar decorated with a tourist poster showing Turkish landmarks and, incongruously, the slogan: “Fly me to the moon.”

He held his phone in his right hand, waiting. He felt strange traveling without the case after being attached to it for so long.

When his phone chirped he saw the Snapchat icon. His eyes narrowed as he clicked to view the image: a young blond woman, mid-to-late twenties, pretty in a natural way, a candid shot taken on the street in Paris. He read the brief message just as the photograph dissolved, erasing itself. He had to hand it to the twentysomething app developers. They had no idea they were part of Jesus’s plan to rid the world of nonbelievers.

And thanks to YouTube and Twitter almost everyone in the Western world had seen all the True Jihad videos by now; they’d had more than three million hits. The point was to inflame emotions, to frighten, to confuse.

He slid his phone into his jacket pocket, already scanning the list
of departures. Turkish Airlines had a nonstop flight leaving in forty minutes, at 0425 hours. As he covered the short distance to the closest Turkish Airlines counter, he pulled out his wallet and the ticket that he’d booked earlier for London.

His special watch was inside his pocket. He stepped up to the counter and set the ticket on it. He smiled shyly, addressing the woman in polite Turkish, asking if it would be possible to add a stopover in Venice.
Unexpected business has come up.

Only later did he receive the message that French special forces had killed the final member of his team and, apparently, the hostage.

The hard-shot clap of an engine backfire brought Khoury up short. He’d walked less than two blocks from the safe house. He tensed, glancing around as the offending vehicle turned a corner and disappeared.

Someone called his name.

Just two meters from him, Aisha stepped out of a doorway. She was clutching her worn leather bomber jacket tightly to her. Her hair had come loose from her braid. She seemed hollowed out, and he caught the faint sour scent of her sweat.

He could only describe the expression on her face with one word: stricken.

“Aisha, what’s wrong? Where were you? They killed the hostage—”

“I know. I did
quelque chose de mal
—” She stammered, shifting into Arabic, confessing. “I told them about Vanessa, that she’s going to Venice.”

“Who did you tell?” Khoury gripped her shoulders, his fingers digging into leather to the flesh of her arms.

“You’re hurting me.” Aisha pulled away. The blood had drained from her face. She looked ill.

“Talk to me.”

“They said they have Yasmin, my sister, but now she’s dead—”

“Jesus,” Khoury whispered with dawning horror—was it possible that the dead hostage was Aisha’s sister?

Aisha was talking fast, almost babbling. “The man called me right before I went to Amsterdam, and I came to you, I was going to tell you that night, but something stopped me.”

Khoury’s mind raced with calculations, but he tried not to show it. He stepped closer to Aisha, hoping to calm her like he would a child, softening his voice and his touch. He was half afraid she would fall apart completely. “We’re going to figure this out.” He needed to get word to Chris, get Aisha to a safe place, that was the first priority.

“Please,” Aisha said now, “Yasmin isn’t normal, she isn’t like other adults. She’s like a child.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She needs me, Dawood.”

“We don’t know anything for certain, not yet,” Khoury said. He suddenly realized what she’d told him: The terrorists knew Vanessa was going to Venice.

Aisha swayed and Khoury caught her just as her knees buckled. He held her against his chest. The rain started again, just a few drops, but he barely felt them.

—

“I’M HERE, AISHA.
Let’s go inside where we can sort this out.” He eased her back toward the direction of the safe house, glad they would reach it in minutes.

As they walked, Aisha kept talking, her voice low, almost inaudible at times. “He gave me a number to call. He said I must do exactly as he said or they would kill—” Her voice broke.

“We need to do everything we can to help Yasmin. You need to
keep it together, do you understand?” With his hands on her shoulders, he pushed her to arm’s length to look intently into her eyes. He wouldn’t let Aisha fall apart. Not now.

She nodded slowly, running her tongue over dry, chapped lips. “I know the number. I told them I had to know she was alive. I know they will kill her otherwise. He said to call and tell him whenever Team Viper made a big move, and to tell him when Vanessa went anywhere.”

“He knows Vanessa by name?” Khoury asked.

Dazed, Aisha shook her head. “No. He said the blond girl, call if the American blond girl made some move.”

They were almost halfway back to the safe house now and Khoury could barely stop himself from pushing Aisha to move faster.

But now she slipped away from his grip. “I’m sorry, Dawood,” she said, backing away from him.

Alarmed, he reached out slowly with both arms, trying not to spook her.

She broke into a run. He started after her, but she had a lead and was fast and she turned the corner.

When he reached it, she was gone.

He didn’t go after her, but he was already pulling out his phone. He pressed autodial for Vanessa and left a message on her voice mail. He was certain she had turned off her phone and would use it only in case of an emergency.

He checked his watch. If her flight had departed on time, she was already on the ground in Italy. Too late to send someone to catch her at the gate.

He was about to call Chris when he spotted a lone taxi dropping a fare half a block away. He took off at a sprint, flagging the driver.

When the cab was moving, Khoury caught Chris at the safe house and quickly brought him up to speed on Aisha. Chris said he would alert Fournier, the COS Paris, and the DDO. They could contact
Italian authorities, but both men knew it was the middle of Carnevale in Venice and getting any extra help from them would be impossible.

Next he booked his flight: Alitalia leaving CDG at 1555 hours and arriving at VCE at 1735. Since no one in Venice ate dinner before eight, he’d have plenty of time to get from Venice Marco Polo Airport to the island and find Vanessa even if he had to check every five-star restaurant. Who would have ever guessed that Charles Janek’s taste for only the best would turn out to be a form of GPS?

But there was something else on his mind: an encounter yesterday with Aisha just after the daily briefing. Outside the safe house, they had almost collided.

“Dawood.” She used his Lebanese given name, speaking softly. “I need to talk to you, please . . .” Her large eyes were reddened and watery, but he’d chosen not to believe she’d been crying.

“Let’s find time tomorrow,” he’d told her, moving to the door.

Now, as the streets of Paris passed in a blur, he pictured her face at that moment: The look in her eyes could only be described as despair.

“Tomorrow,” she had said, turning away abruptly. “I look forward to it.”

He couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if he had stopped to talk to her.