City of War (50 page)

The Pinzes had their lights off, but I could make out two men sitting on the bumper of one, smoking. As we turned toward them, they got up and started waving their arms and shouting.
“Non! Non!”

We ignored them and beached the Aquascans on a small apron of sand. The men came charging toward us like they were heading into a bar fight. Without a word, Eddie stepped into the lead guy and slammed him in the face with his Colt. It sounded like a hammer going through a ripe peach—the gelatinous mashing of nose followed by the hard crunch of teeth.

The guy grabbed his face with both hands, blood running between his fingers. He went to his knees, then fell forward in the dirt, motionless. Just for good measure, Eddie kicked him a couple of times in the ribs. The kicks were over the top, and I probably should have stopped him, but I didn’t.

The other trucker’s attitude changed immediately. He stopped and shut up. Julien approached him and asked in French how many more there were. “Just two,” the man replied. “With the barge.” Then Julien hit him so hard and so fast I didn’t see it coming. The man went down, but not out. Julien looked down and said calmly, “Learn to drive, motherfucker.”

We taped them together inside one of the trucks, locked it and threw the keys in the river. Then we unloaded the boats and dressed quickly in our ops gear. I checked to make sure Eddie remembered how to operate the night-vision goggles and reminded him not to have them on when the fireworks began.

“How about giving me a little credit, boss,” he said irritatedly. “I don’t think I’m going to need them anyway. Where I’m from, you can’t see at night, a gator eats your ass before you’re five.”

A couple of minutes later, he tied our Aquascan to his
and headed upstream to find a place where he could see the ridgeline. Julien and I got in the remaining Pinz, and I jammed it into gear and headed up the steep incline, our left side all but scraping rock and the other barely hanging on the edge. If all went well, we’d signal Eddie from the top, and he’d be waiting for us by the time we got down to the river. If that didn’t happen, as soon as he saw the fireworks begin downstream, he’d head back to the bridge and wait for us there. Not a Good Housekeeping-approved egress, but all we had.

The mud in the pass wasn’t an impediment to the Pinz. We blew through it at 35mph, and I turned off the headlights as soon as I saw the crescent moon peeking through the exit slit at the other end. Sometimes, the fate of missions hangs on the smallest of decisions—and luck. This was one of those times. Had I left the headlights on, their natural low angle would have kept me from seeing Julien’s BMW sitting in the middle of the road. But backlit by the moon, its silhouette registered a half second before I would have slammed into it.

I jerked the Pinz right and felt that side start to come up. I wrestled the wheel into the roll and jammed the accelerator to the floor. We spun once in the wet slop, then slid back across the pavement to the other shoulder, where I finally brought us to a stop forty yards later, facing the wrong direction.

More angry at myself than anyone else, I dropped the Pinz into gear and headed back. We’d almost died before we’d even gotten to the dance, and it was my fault for allowing my brain to model the road as empty as it had been the only other time I’d driven it. Then I’d compounded my mistake by expecting the BMW to be waiting on the other side of the pass, not stopped in the middle of the fucking road in the fucking dark.

As I pulled alongside the car, I could see three shapes sitting inside. Julien got out of the Pinz and hurried to the
driver’s side window. He kept his voice low, but I could tell he was reaming somebody out. When he got back in, he said, “Alain apologizes.”

We exited the pass, and I looked up at the fortress. Lights burned along the length of the wall, and several windows in the tower were illuminated. From this distance, I couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean anything.

Julien and I put on our night-vision goggles and, instead of following the paved road, turned right and started overland, the twin chain-link fences on our left. Eddie had overflown the property on his way back from Bastia and reported that about a quarter of a mile in, the barrier turned uphill. It was rough going, and as the ground steepened, the left side of the Pinz rode higher and higher. Finally, the fences took the awaited 90° turn, and we went with them.

“It doesn’t seem to make sense,” said Julien. “Why go to all the trouble to build this then leave one side of the place exposed?” asked Julien.

“Technology and cost,” I said. “Once people cover the obvious with cameras and sensors, they assume the show is enough. In the army, we used to train by penetrating secure facilities, and we always got in. Always.”

It was steep but, with all six wheels of the Pinz engaged, climbable with only a minimum of backsliding. More difficult was the heavy underbrush and the occasional tree that would loom up. The brush disappeared as the trees became thicker, but a couple of times, we had to scrape our way between a pair of pines.

Finally, we reached the fifty-foot fortress wall, and I pulled the nose of the Pinz against it while Julien got out and chocked the wheels with rocks. I’d estimated our climbing angle at 30°, but here the ground was slightly flatter. The wall looked like it had seen better days, but it was hard not to be impressed with the size of the stone blocks that the anonymous builders had carried up the mountain centuries earlier.

I climbed onto the roof of the Pinz and engaged the aerial
ladder. It slid slowly up until all its sections were extended and I could bring it gently down against the stone. There was still a good twenty-foot gap between the last rung and the top of the wall, but that was acceptable. I nodded down to Julien, and he dialed his cell phone.

“Immédiatement,”
he whispered.

Julien and I walked along the wall to a spot where we could see past the trees and through the fence, and we took off our goggles to save battery life. Far below, the bright headlights of the BMW came barreling out of the pass and fishtailed along the fence, rap music booming from the radio. We saw it make the right turn where the wall intersected and disappear, but we could track its progress by watching the floodlights come on sequentially.

“Fast enough?” Julien asked.

I nodded. “We want Remi’s adrenaline pumping. Who’s in the car?”

“Alain, who works with me, and his friend, Guy. Playing you is Hassan, a Moroccan basketball player who keeps a place on the island. What if Remi doesn’t react?”

“He might not believe it, but he can’t ignore it. And everybody who doesn’t go with him to the gate will be huddled in front of the monitors, watching. I just hope your friends stay cool.”

“That’s not a problem, but just in case somebody from Bruzzi’s camp doesn’t, Alain’s father is a judge—a famous one.”

Suddenly, a dark, four-legged shape ran by on the other side of the fence. Then another and another. Six in all. A seventh, a heavily pregnant female, stopped and looked through the chain link. We locked eyes, and she seemed to want to challenge me, as if sensing I was responsible for her missing mate. She took a step forward, bared her sharklike teeth and cackled, the mottled black and brown hair of her neck expanding and contracting. Then pack instinct took over, and she turned and ran after the others.

“I hope the judge is famous enough,” Julien said softly.

We heard, then saw, the motorcycles racing down through the vineyard, only this time they were accompanied by two military-style Hummers.

I looked at Julien. “How do you say ‘Showtime’ in French?”

“Showtime.”

I went up the ladder first, uncoiled the grappling hook, swung it a couple of times for momentum and heaved it over the parapet. I pulled hard on the Beal rope, and it held, so I dropped it to Julien, who tied it off at the ladder base. I redonned my goggles, attached two ascenders to the line and went up—fast. It was only twenty feet, but I remember climbing as being easier. A few seconds later, Julien followed.

41

Knights Quarters and Zeus

We had landed on a guardwalk on top of a perimeter building. The main residence was about thirty yards across a large courtyard. With the moon, we had exceptional visibility and saw no one. We moved quickly to find a way down.

What you gain with night-vision equipment, you lose in peripheral and depth perception. The first indication that we weren’t alone wasn’t from something I saw but something I heard. Running feet on stone—bare feet.

We were making our way along a wall under a portico bordering the courtyard. Julien was out front. I reached out and grabbed his arm, and he froze in place. I stripped off my goggles and swept the area in the direction of the sound. There was a stairway directly across from us on the corresponding portico leading to a level below. Someone was coming up, fast. I motioned Julien down, and we flattened ourselves on the stone. The moon was behind us, so our side remained dark while the other caught the light.

A woman appeared on the stairs. Naked. And frantic.
Just as she reached the top, a man wearing a red
tortil
came up the steps behind her and hit her with his fist in the back of the head. She sprawled across the stone. He bent down and said something I couldn’t make out, then grabbed her arm, jerked her upright and pulled her back down the stairs. She was resisting a little, but most of the fight had gone out of her.

I motioned to Julien, and we rose and crossed the courtyard. From the top of the stairwell, we couldn’t see anything. It was at least fifty steps down, and whoever was there was out of sight. We descended slowly, keeping our backs against the wall, and when we reached the halfway point, the backs of two Les Executeurs came into view, their pants around their ankles as they prepared to rape an attractive ash blonde, who was on her hands and knees, sobbing. The woman looked up and stared directly at me, and I knew that if we didn’t move immediately, her eyes would give us away.

I took the guy on the right, and Julien hit the second rapist on the top of the head with the butt of his .45. He staggered, then fell. I grabbed the other man’s head in the crook of my elbow and jerked him up and onto my hip while I wrenched his neck well beyond its intended arc. There was an audible snap, and he instantly became dead weight. I let him drop.

The surviving man was stunned but had gotten to a sitting position and was fumbling at his bunched-up jeans, almost certainly looking for his knife. Julien found it for him, flicked it open, stuck it in his throat and pulled hard right. Blood erupted, and the man’s eyes went wide as he clutched at the wound with both hands. There was a loud gurgling sound, and his lips began to foam red. A few seconds later, he slumped over and died.

We were standing in a wide, pale stone room interspersed with graceful arched columns supporting a Gothic ceiling. Four corridors intersected at right angles, forming the shape of a cross and running off into darkness. The girl’s clothes
were in a pile near an upturned tray. Broken dishes and remnants of food were scattered about.

Julien helped the girl to her feet. She went to her clothes and began dressing. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Julien ignored her. “This is the Knights Quarters, right?” he asked in French.

She nodded. “But no knights, only prisoners.”

“Prisoners? How many?”

“Two now. Sometimes there more. I bring their food. The guards too. But tonight…” She stopped. Now dressed, she knelt and began picking up the broken dishes.

“Where are these prisoners?” I asked.

She pointed at the corridor behind me.

“Guards?”

She looked at the two bodies. The blood pool was still expanding. “Only Marto and Louis.”

“What do you want to do with her?” Julien asked me in English.

“My guess is she won’t be anxious to tell this story.” It was a dangerous move. One I would never have made in Delta, but I didn’t want to traumatize her any further. We left her and walked into the dark corridor, Maglites out, guns drawn.

If indeed knights had once lived here, they hadn’t been flashy ones. Each of the rooms was no bigger than a prison cell and furnished with only a crude wooden bed, a simple table and chair and bucket. Knighthood had probably gotten more romantic in the retelling.

We passed four rooms on each side, all empty, before seeing a light coming from under a door on the left. There was no lock, just a thick dead bolt that could only be engaged from the outside. A piece of hinged copper covered a slit no thicker than a paperback. I lowered it and looked in at an angle so as not to give anyone inside a target.

Tiziano Bruzzi’s unblinking eyes stared straight into mine.
Only the thickness of the door separated us, and his rancid breath filled the air. I could see beyond his narrow face that the light was coming from a screen-covered socket high on the wall. His bed had been overturned, the sheets torn to pieces. I closed the peephole and moved to the next cell.

As I reached it, a deep male voice called out in American-accented French, “If that’s you, Marto, you motherfucker, I need another blanket.”

I pulled down the copper plate, and again looked in from a safe angle. The cell was pitch dark, and suddenly, something wet came splashing through the slit, missing me but hitting the opposite wall and running down the door. Its smell left no doubt what it was, but since the occupant probably wasn’t going to have more urine for a while, I aimed the Maglite through the opening and swept the cell.

I knew it was going to be Truman York, but I was surprised by how fit he looked. Military straight, his six-foot frame was without paunch, his iron-gray hair neatly combed. Even his face was that of a man much younger than his sixty-five-plus years, the lines more character than age.

“Hello, Truman,” I said.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“A friend of Kim’s.”

He hesitated a moment. “Thank God. Open the fuckin’ door. I’m goin’ nuts in here.”

I wanted to ask him how Kim was, just to hear what he’d say. Down deep, I still didn’t want to believe that a father could be so twisted. But I replaced the copper plate without saying anything.