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Authors: Patrick Robinson

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“It sounds to me as if the destruction of the oil fields is several times more important than everything else put together,” said Admiral Pires. “Just imagine. The lifeblood of the people suddenly gone. An entire nation, the majority of whom can never even remember poverty, suddenly facing the fact they could all be back on camels. No oil, no wealth, no more prosperity. I think the nation would go into shock.”

“That’s Prince Nasir’s view entirely,” said Savary. “He thinks the armed forces will have no will to fight. Who for? A penniless king no longer able to pay them?”

“More like a dead, penniless king,” said Admiral Pires. “Because if this goes ahead, the Saudis will plainly rally to the cause of the Crown Prince. Especially if he promises to end the patronage of the royal princes and to put the country back together. Let’s face it, he’s the military’s only hope.”

“That is all true,” said Jobert. “The collapse of the Saudi economy would be an earth-shaking experience. But there still has to be an armed attack to subdue the Army and the Air Force, then to capture the main palaces in Riyadh and take out the King and his principal ministers. In the end, you always have to win it on the ground.”

“According to Prince Nasir,” said Savary, “the feeling against the King is so strong, the people are so angry, they would rally to the cause of
anyone
who could lead them to victory over the royal family. And Crown Prince Nasir is extremely popular.”

“Which leaves us with two tasks,” said Admiral Pires. “Number one, to get into the King Khalid Air Base and either take or destroy it. Then, almost simultaneously, to capture Riyadh and remove the King of Saudi Arabia from office.”

General Jobert smiled. “One thing, Admiral. Taking the air base needs to be so decisive it will cause the entire military city at Khamis Mushayt to cave in, and then cause the other three military cities to decide there is nothing left to fight for.”

“With Prince Nasir on the television appealing for calm, assuring everyone he has everything under control, it just might work,” said Admiral Pires. “Just so long as the collapse of the oil industry has the shattering effect we think it will.”

“The thing is,” suggested Savary, “this whole operation has to look like a totally Arab matter. It will simply appear that the Crown Prince has pulled off a palace coup d’état. For the good of the people. And that may be an end to it. It just so happens that Prince Nasir chose France to help his country get back on its feet. America does not enjoy sole rights to everything it wants, you know.”

“So long as no one gets caught, eh?” muttered the General.

“Precisely that,” responded the Admiral. “So long as no Frenchman is ever discovered anywhere near the action.”

“And who, precisely, does the President have in mind for an operation like this?” asked the General.

“Oh, he’s never even thought about that,” said Savary. “He just wants to know if we think it is possible. At this stage no more.”

“Do you have the feeling that if we say yes he will start thinking about it very, very quickly?”

“I do,” replied Savary. “And we may as well have a few answers. So let me ask a question: King Khalid Air Base—who goes in, us or an Arab force?”

“Oh, that would have to be a French assault force,” said the General. “I doubt anyone except us, the Brits, the Americans, or the Israelis could possibly pull that off…but it seems so incongruous to have a French force, out there on its own, attacking that Saudi air base.”

“There would have to be some Arab involvement,” offered Admiral Pires. “Maybe a 2/IC, or a couple of locals, men who understand command and may know the terrain, and speak Arabic.”

“I see that,” said Savary. “I see it very clearly. We could provide the force, if we approve the plan. But Prince Nasir will have to provide some leadership or, at worse, some high-level advice.”

“I don’t know that any Arab army has the kind of man we are looking for,” said the Admiral. “We need a skilled Special Forces operator with a sound knowledge of high explosives, close combat fighting, and making detailed plans.”

“I don’t think they have anyone to fill that bill,” said the General. “And anyway, how the hell do we get in there? We can’t suddenly drop sixty parachutists into Saudi Arabia. Too high a risk.”

“Then they’d have to come in by sea,” said Admiral Pires. “But it would be difficult by submarine. The SDV holds only a half-dozen. A ferry service like that would take hours and hours. And they couldn’t swim in. Too far. Too dangerous.”

“That’s the kind of problem that gets solved by an Arab who knows the territory,” said Admiral Pires. “And understands what’s required. The kind of Arab who probably doesn’t exist.”

“I know of one,” said Savary.

“Oh? Who?” asked General Jobert.

“He’s the Commander in Chief of Hamas. Name of Gen. Ravi Rashood. From what I hear, he’s ex–British SAS. He could do it. The Americans think he’s pulled off some terrible stuff these last few years. He could take the air base.”

“But would he?” wondered the General. “Why would he?”

“Because he’s a fanatical Muslim fundamentalist,” replied Savary. “And he hates the Americans, and he wants them out of the Middle East forever. And he knows that without Saudi support and Saudi oil they would have to go. I think you’d find General Rashood more than willing to talk, but I think you’d have to pay him, and Hamas, for the privilege of his involvement.”

“Hmm,” said the General. “Interesting.”

“And now,” continued Savary, “For the biggest question of all…who commands the Saudi mob in Riyadh? Who recruits, organizes, arms, and rallies thousands of citizens who hate the King, but have no idea what to do?”

“I know one thing,” said Admiral Pires. “You need a top-class soldier for that. And top-class soldiers become well known to many people. In all of France, it might be impossible to find such a man, who had the right qualifications and a properly low profile. Those kinds of leaders become public figures. And one sight of this man, leading an attack on the Saudi royal family, would end all of our chances of anonymity.”

“You speak wisely, Admiral,” said Savary. “But there must be someone. A trained fighter somewhere who has been in combat yet has not reached the highest rank. Someone who has perhaps retired in recent years. Someone who would perhaps consider undertaking such an operation for, say, ten million U.S. dollars. Enough to allow him to live his life free of all financial worries.”

All three men grew silent. Savary seemed to be at a loss, but the two military men pondered the problem, each of them running their minds back over a working lifetime in the armed services.

Eventually, surprisingly, it was Savary who spoke up. “There was such a man, you know, who worked for my organization, Secret Service, the DGSE. I never met him, because he was mostly based in Africa, rose to be deputy regional director of a large area—northern, sub-Saharan, and western Africa. He operated out of Dakar.”

“Did he have combat experience?” asked the General.

“And how,” replied Savary. “I believe he started off in the Foreign Legion. And I think he distinguished himself in Chad, that battle against the rebels at Oum Chalouba, 1986. He was decorated as quite a young officer for conspicuous bravery. I’m not sure what he did after that, but he definitely joined the Special Forces.”

“Do you remember his name?” asked Michel Jobert.

“Yes. He was Moroccan by birth. Gamoudi. Jacques Gamoudi. Had some kind of a nickname, which for the moment escapes me.”

General Jobert ruminated. “Yes, Gamoudi. I think I’ve heard that name. He was involved with COS, after his service in the Legion. But I can’t remember precisely what he did.”

Jobert walked over to a computer desk at the far end of his office and keyed in the information he had. “This ought to come up with something,” he said. “It’s an amazing piece of software, gives detailed biographies of all French serving officers of the past twenty-five years.”

They waited while the computer buzzed and whined. Then the screen brightened. “Here he is,” said the General quietly. “Jacques Gamoudi, born 1964 in the village of Asni, in the High Atlas Mountains. Son of a goatherd who doubled as a mountain guide.”

“Hell, that’s a big step. Moroccan farm boy to a commission in the Foreign Legion before he was twenty-two.” Admiral Pires was baffled. “Those guys can’t usually speak French.”

“Looks like he had some kind of sponsor. Man called Laforge, former Major in the French Parachute Regiment. He was wounded in Algeria, 1961, medically discharged. Then he and his wife bought some kind of hotel in the village, and young Gamoudi worked there. Looks like Laforge helped him join the Legion.

“Jesus. There’s a copy of his original application form, Bureau de Recrutement de la Légion Etrangère, Quartier Vienot, 13400 Aubagne. That’s fifteen miles from Marseille. He went down there a few weeks later, in 1981, passed his physical tests, and signed on for five years.”

“You’re right,” said the Admiral. “That’s a hell of a piece of software.”

“Any sign of his nickname?” asked Savary. “I’d know it if I’d heard it.”

“Can’t see it,” said Michel Jobert, scrolling down the computer pages. “Hey, wait a minute, this could be it. Does Le Chasseur sound familiar? There’s a bunch of mercenaries he led in some very fierce fighting in North Africa. According to this, they always called him Le Chasseur.”

“That’s him,” said Savary, thoughtfully. “Jacques Gamoudi, Le Chasseur.” He flattened his right hand, and drew it across his throat. Which was a fair indication of the reputation of Colonel Gamoudi—Le Chasseur, the Hunter.

 

ONE MONTH LATER, EARLY JUNE
2009

The trouble with Le Chasseur was he had essentially vanished into the crisp, thin air around the high peaks of the Pyrenees, somewhere up near the little town of Cauterets, which sat in the mountains 3,000 feet above sea level, hemmed in by 8,000-foot summits. Snowy Cauterets was normally the first French Pyrenean ski station to open and the last to close.

It was common knowledge that Col. Jacques Gamoudi had taken early retirement from the Army and headed with his family to the Pyrenees, where he hoped to set himself up as a mountain guide and expedition leader, as his father had done before him, in faraway Morocco.

Indeed an inspired piece of guesswork by Gaston Savary had brought him, in company with Michel Jobert, to the town of Castelnaudaray, thirty-five miles southeast of Toulouse, where Le Chasseur’s military career had begun. Quartier Lapasset, home of the Foreign Legion’s training regiment, was in Castelnaudaray, and the young Gamoudi had spent four months there as a recruit.

Savary and the Colonel had made extensive inquiries, and not without some success. But there were no details, only that Jacques Gamoudi, with his wife, Giselle, and two sons, now aged around eleven and thirteen, had headed east into the mountains, maybe four years previously, and had not been seen since—though a veteran Legionnaire Colonel thought he had heard that the family had settled near Cauterets.

And now their staff car was winding its way through the spectacular range of mountains that divided France from Spain. They took no driver: Savary himself was at the wheel.

Things had moved forward in the month since first they discussed the operation in Saudi Arabia. But now the pressure was on, directly from the President of France. Their mission was simple: find Col. Jacques Gamoudi. Savary was beginning to wish he had never suggested the man’s name in the first place. Not only were they lost, but it was growing dark, they had no hotel reservation, and, generally speaking, they had no idea where they were going.

Cauterets had seemed a reasonable plan. They had run southwest from Toulouse for more than 100 miles into ever higher ground. Now they were driving through steep passes south of Soulom, climbing all the while, up past rugged, treeless peaks.

“This road ends at Cauterets,” said the General helpfully.

“So does the world, I shouldn’t be surprised,” replied Savary, faintly irritably, as he stared ahead at the darkening mountains. “God knows how we’ll ever find this character.”

“Oh, let’s not be negative,” said the General. “I doubt there are that many mountain guides in the area. And they’ll all know one another.”

“You’d need to be a mountain guide to live up here,” said Savary, who was a Parisian to the tips of his well-polished loafers.

“Shouldn’t be surprised if the whole population were mountain guides.”

General Jobert chuckled. Twenty minutes later, now in the pitch dark, they ran past a sign that said, at last,
CAUTERETS
. And there before them was the brightly lit resort town with its cheerful hotels, bars, and restaurants.

They drove on down Route 920 and swung into the Place Marechal Foch. Right ahead of them were the lights of the Hotel-Restaurant Cesar. Simultaneously, both men exclaimed, more or less word-perfect, “This’ll do for us.”

Anxious to disembark after the long journey, they heaved their bags out of the car and found their way to reception, where they booked a couple of rooms and a table for two in the hotel’s surprisingly crowded dining room.

Twenty minutes later, a few minutes before ten o’clock, they were dining in the best restaurant in Cauterets, with crisp white tablecloths and napkins and an excellent selection of regional wines.

Savary chose a Chateau de Rousse from the historic Jurançon district, southwest of the town of Pau, which was located about thirty-five miles to the north of Cauterets. The General looked at the label, which mentioned Pau, and he wondered if that might be their next stop—since Jacques Gamoudi had completed his specialist parachute training for the Foreign Legion right there in Pau before embarking for peacekeeping duties in Beirut.
Let’s face it,
he thought,
we have precious little to go on.

Between courses, Savary tried an elementary check of the phone book, but there was no Jacques Gamoudi. There was no Gamoudi whatsoever. If Le Chasseur was living up there in the mountains, he was probably using another name.

“You know, I’ve never asked you, Michel, but what was Colonel Gamoudi actually doing for the Special Forces after he left the Foreign Legion?”

“Well, he had a glowing service report,” said the General. “And he quickly made the First Marine Parachute Regiment. He was recommended for a commission, which is a considerably more difficult task than a similar rank in the Foreign Legion. So he went to the French Military Academy at St. Cyr.

“From there he went to the Central African Republic, and made Major at an incredibly young age. He commanded his squadron in a highly dangerous long-term reconnaissance operation. That led to the successful evacuation of 3,000 French civilians and a crushing defeat of that particularly vicious rebel movement, the FACA.

“They decorated him again, and then he was invited to join the Secret Service, which he did. In June 1999 he masterminded the rescue of the U.S. Ambassador from the Congo. The French Special Ops team went with the diplomat to the Gabon, but Colonel Gamoudi stayed behind and directed the remaining French troops, the ones who had done the fighting.

“He earned his nickname in the murky world of North African politics, where regional conflict was rife and rebellions frequent. He was always in the thick of it, frequently commanding ex–French and Legionnaire officers who were fighting as mercenaries, and protecting French oil interests, and private French companies with involvement in the diamond industry. They say he was even involved in a truly daring plot to assassinate the President of Côte d’Ivoire five years ago.” The General hesitated briefly, before adding, “Jacques Gamoudi always seemed particularly at home in a Muslim environment. And I’m telling you, one way and another, he was one hell of a soldier.”

“I imagine it can take its toll, a life like that,” said Savary. “In that god-awful climate. Always watching your back, always concerned for those who rely on you…”

“No doubt,” said the General. “I understand many people were most surprised when he turned his back on the army. But he was, apparently, disenchanted. And wanted nothing more to do with it.”

“It’s often that way with very brave men,” mused Savary, sipping his Château de Rousse. “They seem to wake up one morning and wonder why they are doing so much more than everyone else, for the same basic salary. He might be a hard man to turn around. Unless we have a lot of money.”

“We do have a lot of money. And I assure you, the President and his royal cohort from the Saudi desert will not hesitate to spend it, if we believe this is the right man to take Riyadh.” The General put three photographs on the table. “Take another good look at these, Gaston, because I think he might even deny who he is when we find him.”


If
we find him,” said the Secret Service Chief. “If we find him.”

 

By now it was a little after 11
P.M
. And as they left the dining room, the General asked the headwaiter if he had heard of a man named Jacques Gamoudi. Col. Jacques Gamoudi. He was greeted with the blankest of Gallic looks. So the General showed him the photographs, but the response was the same. It was a pattern that would be repeated with the concierge, the receptionist, and indeed the hotel’s owner. No one had ever met Le Chasseur.

The following morning was bright and warm. Under cloudless skies they made their way up to the cable cars that linked Cauterets to the Cirque du Lys, a skier’s paradise with its twenty-three runs covering twenty-five miles of fast downhill slopes. Not in June of course. But the cable car loading station was a regular starting point for mountain guides, and a gathering place for walkers and climbers from all over Europe.

For two hours, Savary and the General stood beneath the great peaks, mingling with the guides, asking the question, showing the photographs, watching for the slightest sign of deceit or secrecy. But there was none. Le Chasseur had surely vanished, if indeed the Legionnaire in Castelnaudaray had been correct. By lunchtime the two searchers were pretty certain the Legionnaire had been mistaken.

There were just a few hikers gathering now, and they appeared not to have a guide who would walk with them. At least not an adult one. There was a boy, of about fourteen, showing them a map, but that was all.

It was virtually a last-ditch effort, but as the hikers moved off, Savary walked over to the boy who was still folding up his map. His ten-euro tip was still in his hand.

Savary wished him
“Bonjour”
and showed him the photographs. Without hesitation the boy exclaimed, “Hey, that’s a good picture of Monsieur Hooks.”

“Monsieur who?” said Savary.

“Hooks. He’s a mountain guide, lives over in a tiny little place called Heas, right up in the mountains, far above Gedre. That’s him. Definitely. The man in your picture.”

“Do you know his first name?”

“No, no. He’s Monsieur Hooks. No one calls him by his first name.”

“Has he lived there a long time?”

“Not too long. But I remember when he came. I was ten, and I was in Monsieur Lamont’s class. I used to live over at Gedre, and my school went on a few expeditions to the mountains around the Cirque de Troumouse. Monsieur Hooks was always our guide. He takes all the school parties up there.”

“Where exactly did you say he lives?”

“Heas, it’s called. But it just a few houses with a shop and a church. You go south from Gedre. It’s on the map, on the way to the highest mountains around here. But you could go right past without noticing the village.”

Savary thanked the boy and gave him another ten-euro note. Two hours later he and General Jobert were driving along a slow, winding mountain road approaching the small town of Gedre along the tumbling Gavarnie River.

There was only one road out of the town, heading south toward the Spanish border, back into the highest peaks. Savary gassed up the car and noted the signpost, which said: Cirque de Troumouse. Underneath it was written, Heas 6km.

This was another mountain road even more twisting than the last. All around were great craggy escarpments, hardly any trees. It was grandeur rather than beauty. And this little road would eventually become almost a spiral as it headed up into the astonishing ten-kilometer wall of mountains that formed the Cirque de Troumouse.

Heas was the last stop before the big climb. The traffic to see the views was such that the French had shrewdly made the last part a toll road up to the edge of the Cirque, in the time-honored Gallic tradition of always making a buck when the chance was there.

Gaston Savary and General Jobert pulled into the village a little before three o’clock in the afternoon. They inquired at a shop about Monsieur Hooks and were told, politely, that he had gone into the mountains that morning with a coach load of schoolchildren and their teachers. He usually returned to Heas at around 4
P.M
. Meanwhile they could certainly talk to Madame Hooks, who had just gone to meet the school bus from Gedre, and would certainly be home in a few minutes…four houses up the street, on the left. Number eight.

Savary thanked the shopkeeper and bought a couple of bottles of orange juice. He and Jobert sat on a wall outside in the sunlight and drank them, waiting for a lady with two children to come up the hill toward them.

They did not have to wait long. A slender, pretty woman, late thirties, appeared almost immediately, laughing with two young boys. General Jobert stepped forward with a cheerful smile. “Madame Hooks?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said carefully. “I am Madame Hooks.”

“Well, I am very sorry to startle you. But my colleague, Monsieur Savary, and I have come a very long way to see your husband on a most urgent matter.”

“What about?” she said. “You are looking for a guide through these mountains?”

“Not exactly,” said the General. “But we have something to tell him that he will most certainly find interesting.”

Madame Hooks appraised the two men, noting their excellent manners, their well-cut clothes and polished shoes, and indeed the big Citroën government car parked outside the shop. Every sense told her that these were men from the military, but she chose not to betray her thoughts. However, she knew better than to antagonize such people, so she said quickly, “Please come up to the house, and we will have some coffee…this is our son Jean-Pierre and this is Andre.”

The General held out his hand in greeting. “And this,” he said, “is a very important man from Paris: Monsieur Gaston Savary.”

They walked up yet another hill, about fifty yards, and entered through a gate into a small walled garden, which surrounded a white stone house with a red-tiled roof, a classic French Pyrenean building.

The living room was also classic French country style, large with a heavy wooden dining table at one end and a sitting area around an enormous brick fireplace at the other. The kitchen was separate, through a beamed archway, and all the furniture was of a high quality. There were some very beautiful rugs, possibly North African in origin, spread over the oak floorboards. A large framed photograph of Monsieur Hooks and his new bride, taken in 1993, was hanging on the wall beside the kitchen. General Jobert noted instantly that Monsieur Hooks had been married in the dress uniform of the First Marine Parachute Infantry regiment.

Madame Hooks took the boys into the kitchen. When she emerged, she was carrying a tray of four mugs, three of them full, plus a coffeepot. She asked the two men to call her Giselle. “Jacques will not be long,” she said. “That school bus he’s on is supposed to be back in Gedre by four o’clock.”

She was correct in that. Four minutes later, the door opened and Monsieur Jacques Hooks, a medium-size, bearded man, not one ounce overweight, walked inside. He was wearing leather work boots, suede shorts, and a T-shirt, with a green rucksack over his shoulder. Jammed into his wide studded belt was a large sheathed knife.

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