Diamondhead (52 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-
“My next call.”
“Well, speak to the First Marine Parachute Infantry. And then tell them to get back to us. The guys can share a helicopter. What is it? ’Bout 220 miles to Saint-Malo?”
“Yeah. ’Bout that. One and a half hours’ flying time.”
“Tell Saint-Malo we’ll be there by one thirty.”
Paul Ravel called COS and explained the circumstances. They said they’d send over a military doctor who could provide an expert opinion on the method of killing. Yes, they’d pick up the DGSE guy en route. They’d land on the Saint-Malo police HQ roof.
“Good luck,” said Paul Ravel. “It’s sloping. Tell ’em to stick it on the beach.”
The duty officer at COS chuckled. And said, “Don’t worry, sir. We’ve landed in a lot tougher places than Saint-Malo
plage!
We’ll get there.”
plage!
We’ll get there.”
Detective Inspector Ravel exited the cruiser and saw the final ambulance on its way out of Val André. Then he began to organize a house-to-house search for the missing killer, detailing as many as twenty police officers to operate road by road, but to start at the one where the Mercedes had been found.
He took two assistants with him and decided to concentrate on the question of transportation. There were few buses and no trains. No cars had been reported stolen, and that meant the suspect either had acquired one or was still in the vicinity. He could not possibly have tried to hire a taxi.
By this time there were several police cars parked near the beach, and the DI took one of them and drove through the village in search of a garage. He pulled up outside Laporte Auto, the only establishment of its kind for several miles, and asked to speak to the proprietor.
M. Laporte sensed trouble, and he was not about to delve deeper into it. Yes, very early this morning, around seven o’clock, there had been a customer in the garage, bought a dark blue Peugeot for cash. Yes, he seemed to be in a very great hurry, and wanted the car immediately. Yes, the registration documents were accurately completed, and yes, he, Monsieur Laporte, had seen the man’s passport and license.
And did he have copies of the documents?
Absolutement.
In fact, he still had the originals, personally signed by the purchaser. Right here,
Gunther Marc Roche, 18 rue de Basle, Geneva, Switzerland.
The registration number of the car was also written down, plain as day.
Absolutement.
In fact, he still had the originals, personally signed by the purchaser. Right here,
Gunther Marc Roche, 18 rue de Basle, Geneva, Switzerland.
The registration number of the car was also written down, plain as day.
“And what kind of a man was he?” asked Paul Ravel.
“He was tall. A powerful-looking man with long curly hair and a big black beard. Spoke in a strange accent; wore gloves all the time.”
“Was the accent European?”
“It might have been. But it sounded more like a black man to me, and this person was white.”
“Not Swiss—I mean German Swiss?”
“Not really. But he didn’t say much. He just wanted to get the car paid for, and be on his way. He ripped me off sixty-two euros for petrol.”
“But he paid for the car in banknotes, right?”
“Yes, he did. And I think he had a lot of them.”
“Be careful with all that money lying around,” said Ravel. “And if he happens to come back, call me at once.”
“Okay, sir. But what has he done?”
“He’s wanted for murder.”
Monsieur Laporte stood wide-eyed as he watched the two policemen drive away, back to join their two dozen colleagues down at the beach. Once there, they switched on their onboard police computer and pulled up the background on the Swiss hijacker. Paul Ravel stared with some satisfaction at the screen. Big. Curly haired. Black beard. It tallied with M. Laporte’s description. That was good. So was the new address. No one had that.
But the innate detective in the heart of Paul Ravel knew it was all bad. Because by seven thirty this morning the Swiss suspect was out of here, in a nice, reliable French car. That was almost six hours ago, and there was still no national alert to apprehend him.
Paul hit the button to the Brittany Headquarters and relayed the car’s make and registration number. He understood that if the car had been making a steady 60 kilometers per hour, it could be darn nearly 300 kilometers away. That’s 200 miles. He could already be in Paris, probably without the car. This wasn’t just bad, it was actually diabolical.
Before he signed off, he added, “The suspicion that this man may be attempting to assassinate Henri Foche has become very real. Suggest extra vigilance in the Saint-Nazaire area where the Gaullist leader is due to speak tomorrow afternoon.”
Paul’s cell phone suddenly rang, and it was the station sergeant in Saint-Malo to say, “Sir, we have been informed by Rennes of your promotion. And everyone here congratulates you. This call is just to confirm that we will not be sending another detective inspector to join you in the investigation, because Monsieur Savary advised against it.”
“Thank you, Freddie,” said Paul. “See you later.”
By the time he replaced the cell phone in his pocket, every police department in France was on the lookout for the dark blue Peugeot, but they were too late. Much too late.
The only break came at around one o’clock that afternoon when a Citroën, displaying the Peugeot’s license plates, was pulled over on the N12, just north of Dinan. Since the numbers tallied precisely with the registration officially recorded in Monsieur Laporte’s garage, the police assumed the make of car they had been given was inaccurate. And more to the point, they assumed the two plumbers driving it were guilty of some heinous crime.
The airwaves rippled with confusion. The plumbers were not believed. In fact, they were arrested and taken into the police department in Dinan, where they were questioned until it became obvious to everyone that their plates had been stolen. And that the dark blue Peugeot was at this moment charging through France bearing the Citroën’s plates, with a possible assassin hunched over the wheel.
“Sacre bleu!” sighed Paul Ravel when the news was broken to him. “May I assume someone did update the nationwide search for the same car, just with different license plates?”
“Oh, sure,” said the station sergeant in the kind of world-weary tone that comes when you know there are about ten thousand dark blue Peugeots out there, and that license plates are not that easy to read accurately in the oncoming darkness.
“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,” muttered Paul Ravel. “I’d better call Pierre Savary.”
He punched in the same numbers that had located the Brittany police chief when they had first spoken. Pierre answered instantly. “Hello, Detective Inspector. What’s moving?”
“Too little, sir. We picked up the right license plates on a south-bound Citroën on the highway north of Dinan. Right plates, wrong car. Now we got two very angry plumbers in the Dinan station. Anyway, we now know the numbers on the Peugeot, so I hope we’ll get a breakthrough sometime this evening.”
“As the coast guard lost the fucking trawler, so my staff have lost the getaway car. Not a good day for us, eh, Paul?”
“Not really, sir. But we’ve still got chances. Every police officer in France is looking for that Peugeot.”
“Do you know the time, Paul?”
“Yessir. It’s one thirty.”
“That would be six hours since Monsieur Roche drove out of Val André. He could be a very long way away by now.”
“Yes, he could, sir. But I don’t think so. I think he’s somewhere along the road to Saint-Nazaire, biding his time, waiting for Monsieur Foche to arrive tomorrow afternoon.”
“I can’t disagree with that,” replied Savary. “Keep me posted.”
Paul switched off his cell phone and called for someone to drive him back the twenty miles to Saint-Malo. He arrived a little after two and asked to see the doctors from the French Special Forces as soon as they had completed their examination.
That had apparently not taken long. Both men, who had the military rank of colonel, were in agreement. The killer blow, which had killed both Marcel and Raymond, was a specialist neck break, as practiced, when absolutely necessary, by Britain’s SAS, the U.S. Navy SEALs, and the French First Marine Parachute Infantry.
“Does this mean the man we are seeking must have served in one of those military organizations?” asked Paul.
“About 80 percent certain, yes,” replied the doctor.
“How about the other 20?” said Paul.
“Well, I think the Israelis are capable of such extreme life-ending violence when necessary. But this stuff is really SAS, SEALs, and French First Marine. They train for this, and they’re complete experts. I should also say the action requires enormous strength. Just imagine how hard you need to twist a man’s neck with your bare hands to break it almost in half.”
“Could he have whacked them with something—maybe a rifle butt or something?”
“Out of the question,” said the doctor. “The necks of these men were snapped, using a method that would require them to be twisted first one way and then the other. One single twist would not have done it. This killer was a specialist—you can count on that. The abrasions behind the ears of the dead men confirm it.”
“So he was probably British, American, or French?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor. “I only mentioned the Israelis because we know there is a suspicion that the same man may be here to attack Henri Foche, and he has Middle Eastern connections.”
“How do you know that?” asked Paul Ravel, smiling.
“You will discover in your new position, we almost always know more than anyone else,” said the doctor.
“And how do you know this is my new position?”
“As above,” smiled the man from COS.
“I have another question I hope you can help me with,” said Paul Ravel. “I am disturbed by the way our killer decided to blind one of the two Frenchmen. Why would he bother?”
“That looks like a classic Special Forces reaction to an attack. It’s the quickest, most deadly form of response. Render your enemy instantly blind, and then kill him. It was the same with the other guy, Raymond. Looks like he pulled a gun on our killer, who disarmed him by snapping his right arm in two, before killing him.”
“So you believe Marcel and Raymond attacked him first?”
“Oh, no doubt, Inspector. And we also noticed the man with the broken arm had been kicked very severely in the balls. There’s still fantastic swelling.”
“And what does that mean?” asked Paul Ravel.
“I cannot be certain. But I will give you a professional opinion. Obviously, the man with the gun was leveling it at the Swiss hijacker, who reacted by breaking his arm and then slamming him in the balls with colossal force. That dropped attacker number one to the ground.
“By this time I’d say the second man had somewhat foolishly attacked to save his friend. He would have been no match for a trained Special Forces guy, who we both believe rammed his fingers into Marcel’s eyes, then killed him instantly with the neck break.”
“Jesus,” breathed Paul. “And then?”
“Well, he plainly could not let Raymond live, perhaps one day to talk and identify him. So he killed him by the same method, and dumped both bodies over the wall and onto the beach.”
“And who threw the gun over the wall?”
“No one. It just flew out of Raymond’s hand when the killer snapped his arm, probably right on the edge of the wall.”
“How the hell can you know all this—the reactions and methods of such men?”
“Well, Inspector, I used to be pretty good at it myself before I took up medical studies full-time.”
“You served in the First Marine Parachute Infantry?”
“We both did. They don’t recruit their doctors from just any old source, you know.”
“Plainly not,” laughed Paul. “And gentlemen, you have been extremely helpful. But one last thing—could a normal person have been taught to employ these tactics, perhaps by a friend who served in Special Forces?”
“Not a chance, sir. This stuff takes years to learn. And you really can only learn it by training endlessly with other such men. A normal person could not possibly have the strength, the skill, and above all the cold-blooded ruthlessness. Not to kill like that.”
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