The Hit List (36 page)

scause whatever happens we're going to need to an OP or possibly two OPs on the rooftops. If lone could get this Dragunov up there and a clear line of fire it could just swing things if scomes on top.' that case, I should go,' Leon said. 'I'm not a shot than Chris and Terry but I'm pretty sure I'm a better climber. Anyone firing an unsilenced 3n from the roofs around there is going to have ppear very fast indeed.' i how do you think the rest of us should deploy?' t's hash that one out later. But we're agreed we I the three Uzis and the Dragunov?' link so, aren't we?'

have body-armour,' said Schafa. at do you think?' Leon asked Slater, ling bulky,' said Slater. 'It'll show in the street 1 the PvDB that we're ready for trouble. It'll just te things.'

I'the end they settled for 'second chance' vests. t, much less bulky and heavy than conventional ckets, incorporated a layer of Kevlar-over'trauma-packs'. The Kevlar slowed the bullets , while the Perspex panels dispersed their impact. I go down, but with any luck you wouldn't die. had half a dozen of these in a packing-case.

365

The Hit List

None showed signs of having taken bullets, but all were sweat-marked and had the sour smell of fear and stress about them.

'We'll take three,' said Leon.

On the way back to the hotel, he dropped Slater off at the Rue de Lappe. Pulling on his gloves and undoing Pasquale's front door with keys stolen from the apartment earlier, Slater checked the drug-dealer's condition.

Pasquale was half-awake, and feeling very sorry for himself indeed. His wrists were badly chafed from the plasticuffs and a strong smell of urine rose from his bed. Seeing Skter he narrowed his eyes, as if struggling to remember in what context he had met the former SAS man.

'English, yes?'

Slater nodded.

'Please, English. Taking off the handcuffs. Je vais . .. I want to vomit, please.'

'Wait,' said Slater, leaving the room.

When he returned it was with a tumbler, a carafe of water, and a fresh bottle of malt whisky. Pasquale, who had thrown up on his pillow while Slater was out of the room, groaned at the sight of them.

'It's called the hair of the dog that bit,' said Slater, his eyes watering at the ammoniac stench.

'Please,' said Pasquale. 'I piss, OK? Toilette?'

'I'm sure you piss OK,' said Slater grimly. 'But first you drink OK. It'll make you feel better.'

366

Chris Ryan

^Ignoring Pasquale's groans, he mixed a half-pint of ay whisky and water. Casually, he unholstered and

eked the Sig Sauer. 'Drink,' he ordered. I'Hesitandy, Pasquale drank.

pWatching him, Slater saw the alcohol take icdiate effect. Colour returned to the sallow cheeks the nauseated look was replaced by an expression ired relief.

It's better,' admitted Pasquale, struggling to a sitting ition. 'Please, English. I need to piss.' lAnother glass,' ordered Slater.

iy you do this?' asked Pasquale miserably. Jecause I don't like people who sell drugs,' said st. 'Comprenez?' lasquale shrugged. Ten minutes and a half-bottle r, he slumped into unconsciousness again. As Slater ched, his bladder voided itself copiously into the Short of shooting him, Slater thought, which Id lead to more complications than the man was i, he couldn't do much more to shut him up. hitside, with 40,000 francs' worth of unlicensed jonry in the back of the car, Leon was glad to get ing again. Pointing the nose of the Mercedes tiwards, he joined the traffic on the Boulevard rchais, and twenty-five minutes later pulled up Rue de la Goutte d'Or in Barbes. ic area was unlike anywhere else in the city. As jng-time home of Paris's immigrant community -- and West Africans for the most part - it offered ady mixture of the tawdry and the exotic.

367

The Hit List

Marabouts, or West African ju-ju men, handed out cards advertising their services. Overfilled immigrant hostels spilled their robed Togolais and Beninois occupants on to garish, neon-lit pavements. Hairdressers' shops offering elaborate braided coiffures stood cheek by jowl with halal butchers, couscous joints and small mosques. From the cafes came the click of dominoes. There was the murmur of many languages.

Leaving Slater in charge of the car, Leon set off on foot to find a hotel in which the team could base itself.

A quarter of an hour later he was back. 'I've booked three twin rooms in the Hotel Aissa, a couple of streets away,' he told Slater. 'It's not the Ritz but it's out of the way and no one's likely to be asking questions. I played the heavy, paying up front with a fat wad of cash, so they'll almost certainly assume we're here on drug-business.'

When they arrived, Slater saw what Leon had meant. The Aissa was an unprepossessing one-star flop-joint, and as they watched from the car a fat, middle-aged Arab in a leather-jacket stepped on to the pavement, adjusted his trousers, scratched his balls, hoisted himself into the driver's seat of the taxi parked at the kerb, and drove off. A minute later a bored looking prostitute strolled out, checked her watch, and took her place on the corner.

Parking where the taxi had been, the two men made their way into the hotel foyer carrying the anonymously cased weapons, their hiking jackets, and

368

Chris Ryan

sir overnight bags. Of the four men drinking minted and playing dominoes behind the counter none aked up, but the oldest slid three keys towards Leon pointed at the worn and narrow staircase.

rooms were small, smelt of spiced food, and re grouped together on the first floor. Slater and i moved their kit into the middle of the three. The i and ceilings were not thick, and from above them a muffled groaning and the creaking of jrings.

Glassy place!' remarked Slater, lowering the case ining the Dragunov to the greasy carpet and

the thin curtains closed, eon laughed. 'You said you wanted to see the real s! Why don't you get the rest of the Uzis in from r while I call the others?'

llpm the whole team was assembled except f, who was watching the front of the building in Lue de Coude from a nearby bar. Leon, it had i decided, armed with the Dragunov, would watch |foack of the building - there were more windows ; back than at the front. The kidnap and hostage would be carried out by Slater, Andreas and

le Slater and Leon had been buying weapons pacifying Miko Pasquale, Andreas had been ig out a discreet recce of the Rue de Coude. and Chris had not yet seen the place, and after

; into old clothes they set out with Leon. lie latest intelligence from Terry was that though

369

The Hit List

Branca had left the building earlier for a couple of hours, she had now returned. Terry's guess, having followed her as she trailed round the streets, dropped in and out of cafes and newsagents, smoked cigarettes and drank coffee, was that she had wanted a break from her RDB colleagues.

As they approached the Rue de Coude, Leon left Chris and Slater to recce the target area together and hurried ahead to search for an effective OP and lying up position. The three agreed to meet thirty minutes later.

As Leon slipped into the shadows, Chris slipped her arm through Slater's. She was wearing a polo shirt, jeans and_plimsolls, had a sweater knotted round her shoulders, dnd looked subtly, indefinably French.

'You look as if you were born here,' he told her. 'And I look like some dodgy geezer from Catford.'

Chris smiled. She had, Slater noticed, a really very attractive smile when she cared to deploy it. 'Disguise is in the mind,' she said, 'not in the trousers. Although you might pull your sleeves up your arms a bit, like these funky Frenchy loverboys do. And stick your cigarettes in your shirt-pocket this is a country with a soft-pack culture. And put your left hand in your pocket rather than letting it swing.'

'Like an ape.'

'You said it, not me. And for heaven's sake put your arm round me properly - you're not my father leading me up to the altar.'

370

Chris Ryan

)bediently, Slater hitched up his sleeves, pushed his hand into his pocket, and slipped his arm around slight, steely body. Beneath her cheap sweater he sld feel the stomach muscles working as she itered slowly along the pavement. Jow, having put your arm possessively around me rani anyone else off, you curl your lip and ignore altogether - yeah! That's the way! Now we're a ich couple!' Jt was never this complicated in the Regiment,'

observed wryly. Jo snogging during recon exercises, you mean?' fery little.'

ley walked in silence for a couple of minutes. The ith of the day had all but gone, fe'll get her out,' said Chris, reading Slater's its. 'One way and another we'll get her out.' could get very nasty,' Slater said. 'Those RDB thad an ail-the-way-to-hell look about them.' ie nodded. 'I know. But we're not exactly feats either. This is the place, isn't it?' le Rue de Coude was a narrow street with four ive-storey warehousing on one side and a series | garment-industry showrooms, all apparently it, on the other. The only sign of life among these frontages was the dimly lit portal of Chez i, which is where Slater guessed that Terry had led himself. Loitering on the corner for a ilent he and Chris scoped out the entrance to the ing, some fifty metres away, where they

371

The Hit List

suspected Eve was being held. As the others had reported, a fat little devil with horns and a forked tail had been stencilled in red spray-paint on to the front of the walk-up to the entrance. The door was new, and steel-framed. Slater flicked his eye upwards but the glance told him nothing; the roof was invisible from the corner of the street and the top floor almost invisible.

'Bad guy,' murmured Chris.

A distant figure was making its way down the pavement towards them from the direction of the warehouse building. Something about the man's bearing -- some tension or alertness atypical of the time of night, -- indicated that this was a patrolling RDB man. Casually, Slater swung Chris round to face him and lowered his mouth to hers. As their lips touched he felt her flinch, and clamp her mouth shut. Slater had not intended anything except to hide their faces from the passing RDB man but it was immediately clear to him that Chris was not enjoying herself. As the Serb disappeared and he lifted his face from hers, she gasped for breath and dragged her sleeve across her mouth. 'Sorry,' said Slater. 'It wasn't that bad, was it?'

She avoided his gaze. 'No, sorry, I ... I just wasn't expecting it. I know you weren't, um . . .' She shrugged, embarrassed. 'Did he stop and look at us?'

'I don't think so,' said Slater. 'No.'

Two streets further down Leon stepped from the shadows. He too had identified the patrolling Serb. He

372

Chris Ryan

also identified a potential OP and lying-up ion.

i a long shot,' he told them, indicating the multi car-park on his right, 'but it's easy to access, easy cape and evade from, and I couldn't ask for a field of fire. I'm going to take the Romak up ; the Mercedes.'

at about Terry?' asked Slater. 'Where's he going i at chucking out time?'

he picked the lock into one of those )oms opposite that building with the devil l where they've got Eve. Did it this morning -- so : has to slip in and go upstairs.' er nodded. He was beginning to get nervous the part he himself was expected to play. The H traces of adrenaline were beginning to seep into ioodstream. 'Shall we get back?' he asked. 'We ; be coming up to the moment when Branca gets aexpected phone-call.'

fe've got time yet,' said Leon grimly, glancing at atch. 'Let's go into the car-park and see if we can that flat. I've brought the binoculars.' minutes later, concealed behind the parapet, were looking across at the rear of the Rue de je. They were on the almost empty fifth level of r-park, and the top-floor flat was a little over es away. Chris held the binoculars, and ler they identified the half-dozen windows of at, most of which were illuminated but hung t industrial blinds. As they watched, a small frosted

373

The Hit List

window lit up, the upper half of a torso showed for a minute, and then the light went out again.

'That's the toilet,' said Chris. 'And that was an adult male. My guess would be that the other rooms are just open warehouse space. If those old seventies blinds are still up there, the interior won't have been converted.'

Slater nodded. 'The RDB guys probably class down on the floor in gonk-bags.'

Leon took the binoculars from Chris and searched the windows. 'If you have any problems,' he said, 'try and get the blinds open.'

He turned to Chris. 'No disrespect, but now that there's no heavy roof-climbing involved on this side, would ypu rather lie up here and let me go in with Neil and Andreas?'

Chris considered. 'I thought about that, and my feeling is that when we go in with Branca, the fact that there's another woman there might defuse things a little. We want them to feel that they've been outmanoeuvred, not challenged.'

Leon frowned.

'And the other thing,' Chris continued, 'is that you're certainly a faster runner than me. If you fire that unsilenced Dragunov you're going to have to move very quickly indeed.'

He nodded. 'I suppose so. I guess we should get back and get ready.'

They returned to the hotel as they had come: Leon alone, Slater and Chris arm in arm.

As they walked, Slater thought how differently this

374

Chris Ryan

ion would have been carried out by the lent. The police would have been on-side, for thing, and fibre-optic surveillance would have under way for twelve hours. The building's tectural specifications would have been consulted, would have been rehearsals in a mock-up of the louse, and an assault-team in gasmasks and full ective gear would be standing by with stun jdes ready to blow the entrances and storm the Every detail, every eventuality, every possible would have been considered and evaluated, tead, it was just the five of them and a stash of and quite possibly dodgy gear. Planning had If done on the run and the arrangements were -- to least - sketchy. Everything was reactive, last and makeshift. : perhaps, Slater mused, he had simply been spoilt ; his years with the SAS. Makeshift arrangements the Cadre had done pretty well so far, and an impressive amount of havoc for its size, ing the Serbian bodyguard to get the jump on Fanon-Khayat's apartment had been a bad he , and being bumped by the RDB in the forest en another, but one way and another they had ed to keep going.