Into the Crossfire Read online

  But Sam was a tough guy. He liked challenges.

  A corner of his mouth tilted upward.

  Mostly because he always won.

  Grand Port Maritime

  Marseilles, France

  June 28

  Jean-Paul Simonet, an aging, lowly clerk in the back office of the Port of Marseilles, knew the shipping company Vega Maritime Transport well. It was a small one, running only three ships, if that’s what you could call the rust buckets flying Liberian flags that plied the seas in its name. The company’s ships were known among the port staff for cutting safety corners, sailing understaffed, even smuggling in crates of contraband goods. Cigarettes. Twice, arms shipments. Once, packets of white powder.

  Which meant there was always money to get port authorities to look the other way.

  The shipping company was owned by a consortium of shady dealers who would close the company down and disappear in a heartbeat if one of their rust buckets ever caused an accident.

  Today, the Marie Claire was in port. The Marie Claire’s crew had changed numerous times over the years. It currently had a Turkish captain and crew from twenty different countries, and it was on its last legs. Somewhere, in some office in some third-world country, a group of men around a table had decided that they could wring some more profit out of these rickety single-hulled ships, reckoning that if they stopped paying for maintenance, they could run the ship until every last penny could be squeezed out of it, and when it was no longer seaworthy, it could be scuttled at night in the middle of the ocean, out of sight of surveillance satellites, and they could collect the insurance money.

  Profit all around.

  Simonet’s boss, that merde Boisier, always looked the other way when Vega Maritime’s ships came into port.

  Simonet had no loyalty to the Port Authority. He was underpaid, was a year from retirement, and was heart-broken over the loss of his family. He didn’t give a shit one way or the other.

  He got the trickle-down effect from Boisier—ten cartons of Marlboros, a box of men’s sweaters made in China, once a dozen bottles of Glenfiddich. He knew it was nothing compared to what Boisier pulled in to look the other way, to not raise a fuss over any safety inadequacies and to expedite the shipping company’s passage through Marseilles. That con Boisier drove a brand-new Mercedes S class on a civil servant’s salary. Simonet drove a fifteen-year-old Citroen.

  The way of the world was right there.

  Taking care of the Vega Maritime shipments was Boisier’s concern, but he wasn’t here today. A violent case of the grippe, Simonet had heard. Served le con right.

  The only thing was, expediting the company’s ship’s transit through the port was now his concern. The captain of the Marie Claire had failed to file an F–45 and Simonet had to go out to collect it because the captain wasn’t responding to his cell phone. Without the form, the next port of call wouldn’t accept the ship.

  It was the hottest day of the year so far, with 100 percent humidity. It was almost half a kilometer from Simonet’s air-conditioned office in the customs house to the bulk terminal where the stinking, rusty Marie Claire was waiting. For a moment, Simonet was tempted to just let it go. Fuck it. Fuck them. He could have a heart attack walking half a kilometer along the dock in the broiling sun, unless he could grab one of the electric carts the fonctionnaires used.

  But if he didn’t go, Boisier would miss out on his bribe and take it out on him. Boisier was a master of bureaucratic rules and could make Simonet’s life miserable in any number of ways. Simonet was retiring in December, all he wanted was to keep his head down. So, okay, he’d make the trek out to the end of the dock, make sure the captain filled out the form and come back. He’d let Boisier know what he’d done. Boisier could pick up his bribe next time around and he’d better be grateful to Simonet.

  Simonet only found a cart about a hundred meters from where the Marie Claire was moored. He stopped the cart on the dockside and looked up with disgust at the Marie Claire. It was a miracle she hadn’t already sunk under the weight of the rust. She was scheduled to sail out at 1600 hours. Her entire crew should have been on deck, preparing the ship for departure, but Simonet couldn’t see a soul.

  Merde, he was going to have to do this the hard way. Grumbling to himself, he walked up the broad gangplank, looking around when he reached the deck. He was aft, near the forecastle, and completely alone on deck.

  This was strange, and slightly eerie. Ship decks just before departure were hives of activity. Time was money, and docking at the harbor unnecessarily was expensive.

  Simonet walked along the side of the ship, next to the huge containers that filled the mid-ship line. Doubtless there were double the number of containers belowdecks.

  He finally reached the stern section, the radar tower and stack rising high above him. He still had not seen anybody. Simonet eyed the ladder leading up to the bridge and the chart room with loathing. It was steaming hot and this was way beyond the call of duty. Fuck Boisier.

  But then again, Boisier definitely had the ability to make his life truly miserable in the remaining six months on the job. With a huge sigh, Simonet started climbing and was dripping with sweat and feeling faint by the time he got to the chart room, where most captains spent their time while docked.

  Empty. Merde.

  It was perfectly pointless calling out, because of the noise of the overhead cranes. He’d simply have to go through the ship looking for the captain.

  Simonet found the ladder down into the hold and scurried down it, welcoming the slightly cooler temperature belowdecks. There was some noise at the end of a long corridor and he followed it, making no attempt to soften his footsteps. Men’s voices, low and sonorous, concentrating on a task. He heard the sounds of hammers striking metal. Probably trying to repair the rust bucket themselves, without calling in the shipyard crew.

  Simonet reached the end of the corridor—and froze. He took in at a glance a scene that sent ice through his veins, understanding it instantly. Heart thudding with fear, he backed slowly away, the form fluttering unnoticed to the deck.

  He couldn’t be seen! These men were heartless, utterly ruthless. Unworthy of the name of human beings. They didn’t hesitate to massacre women and children. A low-level clerk was nothing to them.

  Where he’d walked down the corridor without any attempt at quiet, he now flattened himself against the bulkhead, wishing he could simply melt into it, through it.

  Oh God, he had to get out without being seen.

  The longer he stayed, the greater were his chances of being discovered. Simonet moved as fast as he could back down the corridor, throwing frantic glances behind him. The men he’d seen were armed. He was totally defenseless in this steel corridor, an unmissable target. He had no idea what kind of noise he was making because he couldn’t hear anything above the thudding of his heart in his ears.

  By some miracle, by the grace of God, Simonet managed to make it up on deck and down off the ship without being seen. He found the electric cart where he’d left it, and ten minutes later, he was locking his office door behind him, sweating profusely, gulping in air, totally terrorized.

  Oh God, oh God.

  This was ten million times worse than cigarettes or contraband goods or even cocaine. This was terrorism. This was what had taken his two daughters, Hélène and Josiane, on that terrible day in Madrid. March 11, 2004. Nine hundred and eleven days after 9/11. The day his world ended.

  He could still remember frantically calling the French Embassy in Madrid because his two daughters, his two treasures, were visiting Madrid, thinking—my two darlings will call me and tell me they’ve been out shopping or visiting a museum or flirting with handsome young Spanish men.

  But it wasn’t to be. Josiane and Hélène had been on the train coming into Atocha Station, and had been blown apart. Someone had pressed a detonating device that turned human beings into human hamburger, including his beloved daughters.

  Simonet had travelled to
Madrid and brought his daughters home in body bags that contained small body parts instead of bodies. And he’d come home to a wife whose broken heart had simply given out during the night.

  The jihadists had cost him everything he held dear, everything he had in the world, and he made it his business to study everything about them. He bought books, read magazine and newspaper articles, watched Al Jazeera, attended night courses on the history of Islam. Over the past few years, he’d become an expert on Islamic terrorism.

  So Jean-Paul Simonet had understood immediately the significance of what he’d seen in the hold of the Marie Claire. If he closed his eyes, he could see it as if he were right there again, standing terrified and quaking in the doorway.

  Ten crew members working on the door to a secret cavity that had been cut out of one of the holds. Simonet could see into the cavity, see the air mattresses, the stock of bottles of mineral water and several large canisters with the black-and-yellow international biohazard sign.

  And most terrifying of all, at least forty men, prostrate at prayers just inside the door. Forty men with shaheed jackets stacked on one side and lime green scarves around their shoulders, just waiting to become shaheed batal—martyr heroes.

  Terrorists. Headed for New York with bombs strapped around their torsos and access to radioactive material. Simonet’s fingers trembled as he fumbled for the phone, dropping the cordless receiver in his haste. His hands were slick with sweat, he could barely breathe around the terror in his chest. His fingers punched in 17, the emergency gendarmerie number, but he hung up almost immediately. This information was too important to be given to a telephone operator.

  His brother-in-law knew the Commissaire de Police. That’s it—he’d plead a headache and leave early. There would be suspicions if the police swarmed his office building, people would talk, his name would be known. If there was one thing Simonet knew, it was that these people were vicious. He didn’t have much to live for but by God, he didn’t want to die at the hands of these canailles.

  No, much better to leave early and go downtown to the Commissariat and speak with the Commissaire himself.

  Having a plan calmed him down a little, until he heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

  No one came to his office in the early afternoon. Were they coming for him? He stood, terrified, listening as the steps came closer, closer. Two sets, two men.

  The information! He had to get it out!

  His eyes fell on the list of files to be sent out for translation. Perfect. Simonet knew his way around computers and he knew steganography. Inside of five seconds he managed to hide the necessary information in a file. He pressed ENTER and turned at the sound of his door opening.

  Two men, one small and armed, the other huge and un-armed, burst into the room. The big one stepped forward and with a contemptuous twist of his big hands, snapped Simonet’s neck.

  The big man opened his hands and Simonet’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor. Simonet’s last thought had been of the thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans he had saved from attacks he hoped he had stopped.

  Chapter 3

  San Diego

  Nicole held up the eight-year-old Dior and the seven-year-old Narciso Rodriguez, one a flattering periwinkle blue, one a chic black. Blue, black, blue…she couldn’t decide.

  It was a very good thing that she hadn’t lost or gained weight over the past few years because there was no way she could now afford a new Dior or a new Rodriguez. Caring for her father ate up every spare dollar and then some.

  That was okay. She didn’t miss her heady days in Geneva—young, single and rich. She’d had those years, enjoyed them, and now they were over.

  She was a little less young now, still single and far from rich. Her life had changed beyond recognition. But she didn’t mind. It was worth scrambling to be able to take care of her father.

  Black, blue, black…

  It wasn’t like her to be so indecisive. And late. When was the last time she’d been late for anything, let alone a date? No, not a date—an appointment. An agreement. Dinner-out-as-thank-you-for-unlocking-her-door. Whatever—just not a date.

  And yet here she was, dithering about what she was going to wear, argh!

  This was so crazy. What was she doing, going out with a man she didn’t know? Had only exchanged a few words with? Would have crossed the street to avoid only yesterday?

  It had never even occurred to her that the lowlife she’d seen walking into and out of Reston Security might actually be the owner of the company. Clearly, security-company executives didn’t need to dress for success. Every time she’d seen the man in the corridor he looked like he was coming off a drunk—incredibly scruffy, pissed off and none too clean.

  As soon as she got off the phone with the hedge fund manager and her Russian experts, having happily negotiated an excellent contract, she’d checked out the website for Reston Security and had read the bio for Sam Reston. It was a long one. He was ex-military, a former SEAL, in fact. She remembered he said he’d been in the Navy. Well, that was modest of him. Being a SEAL was a little bit more than having spent some time in the Navy. SEALs were elite soldiers who underwent a gruelling selection process. As a soldier, Sam Reston had been the best of the best.

  He didn’t list his medals but there they were on his chest in the formal military photograph, for those who knew how to read them. Nicole was familiar with Special Forces. It was quite likely there were other medals in a shadowbox he would take to the grave with him for missions no one would ever know about, secret to the end of time.

  He didn’t have the Marine high-and-tight she was so familiar with from Embassies around the world, but his hair in the picture was definitely military-short and he was clean shaven.

  The grim expression was the same, though. She’d been right. Take away the military trappings and he still looked like one dangerous dude. The kind of man she ordinarily wouldn’t speak to, let alone spend an evening with.

  But she’d given her word and that was that.

  Still, it looked like there was much more to Sam Reston than met the eye. The medals, for one.

  Nicole’s father had always drummed into her enormous respect for the US Armed Forces. Her father had served in places where often the US military was the only thing that stood between civilization and the abyss.

  The medals on Sam Reston’s very broad chest weren’t there for showing up on time or keeping his shoes and brightwork shined. They were medals of valor, for bravery under fire.

  She’d swallowed heavily as she perused his website, letting the facts filter in, changing perceptions.

  He’d been a very successful soldier and he was now a highly successful businessman.

  Not an angry drunk, after all.

  So she had to peel a layer of fear off the strong reactions she’d had to him every time their paths crossed in the Morrison Building’s hallway, which had been often. Sometimes she’d wondered if he had some kind of radar. More often than not, when she’d turned around from locking up her office door, there he had been, behind her, just closing the door of the company he worked for. His company, she now had to remember. He seemed to have been just behind her or just in front of her every single time she moved from the building. And every single time, her entire body had gone haywire.

  Every cell in her body had stood to attention in his presence. He often seemed to be going to the office when everyone else in the building was knocking off for the day. She’d been intensely aware of his presence even when he was behind her, as if she were made of iron filings and he were the lodestone.

  This morning, it was only paralyzing anxiety that had kept her from sensing him behind her. At all other times, she’d had a sixth sense for his presence.

  At the time, she’d thought it was fear. He looked so utterly frightening. Terrifying, actually.

  She’d never seen male power like that up close before. His muscles were long and lean, not bulging, and looked as if they were used, and
used hard instead of being for show, as most modern men’s muscles were nowadays. It was as if Sam Reston belonged to another race of man.

  Tougher, stronger, faster, bigger.

  A bell rang downstairs and Nicole started. Oh my God! It was seven and she still wasn’t dressed!

  Luckily, Manuela would be there to open the door, since her father couldn’t. It saved Nicole from having to run down the stairs in bra and panties with no makeup on and still-drying fingernails. Wouldn’t that be a way to greet Mr. Sam Reston, former US Navy SEAL?

  It wasn’t like her at all to run late for a date, but she’d been running late all day. She’d only made it back home half an hour ago, craving a long, cool shower, but her father had waylaid her when she got in. He was agitated about an article on the government’s response to the latest bombing in Indonesia.

  Her father had spent three years as ambassador to Indonesia and was infinitely better informed than the hapless State Department mouthpieces or the hacks who covered the press conference on the bombing.

  It was such a pity that his illness prevented him from sharing his experience and expertise. Nicole’s heart ached for him. He had been planning a rewarding retirement of lecturing, writing newspaper articles, starting up a diplomacy blog. Finally finishing that book on the diplomacy of the Medici he’d been writing forever. The sudden onset of cancer had shot those plans down.

  To Nicole, her father was the very embodiment of light and reason and goodness. The very best of humankind. She’d never seen him do or say a dishonorable thing. The world desperately needed men like him and yet his light would soon be snuffed out by illness. Even desperately ill, often in pain, he remained kind and considerate. Never complaining. It was breaking her heart.

  Nicholas Pearce had always been her hero. Tall and handsome and smart and affectionate, the very best. A wonderful husband and father. She’d grown up feeling her family was blessed. Then they lost her mother in a car crash and now he had stage-four brain cancer, diagnosed a year ago.

  That was when Nicole quit her job with the UN in Geneva to take care of him. It wasn’t easy, taking care of a severely ill man, but there was no question in her mind. He’d been a wonderful father to her all her life. Taking care of him in his time of need was a privilege.