Locked On Part 5

Both men, their minds wired to pick up on tradecraft much more subtle than a maneuver like this, noticed the Suzuki's action. Chavez said, "s.h.i.+t, that bike is with the follow team."

"And that guy isn't half as slick as his buddies," said Clark.

"You think he's spotted us?"

"No. He may be looking for guys behind Rokki to see if Rokki has countersurveillance vehicles, but we've got to be a quarter-mile back. We should be good."

They pa.s.sed into the Ninth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and the backing car of the surveillance detail changed three times in quick succession. As Chavez had said, with more intersections and stop signs to cut down the distance between the follow team and the target, and more buildings and cars to obstruct the follow team's line of sight, the surveillance crew was having to work harder and harder to stay in position behind their target without being spotted. It seemed like all the chase vehicles were scrambling, with the exception of the Suzuki. He stayed just ahead of Clark and Chavez as if fixed behind the backing cars.

There are three types of countersurveillance: technical, pa.s.sive, and active. Technical countersurveillance meant, normally, electronic means such as the target using radio scanners to listen for short-range radio traffic from a surveillance detail. It was the most rare form of countersurveillance, as encrypted digital radios were the norm these days, and picking up transmissions was nearly impossible without special equipment and a good deal of time.

Pa.s.sive countersurveillance was the easiest to employ, as it required nothing more than the target's eyes and knowledge of what kinds of cars and methods would be used against them. The Renault target vehicle would be employing pa.s.sive countersurveillance measures, as it was certainly full of men with their eyes peeled for a tail. But pa.s.sive was also the easiest to defeat, because a large surveillance fleet could move their vehicles around in a pattern that meant no one vehicle would spend much time close enough to be spotted.

Active countersurveillance meant just that: performing some action to draw out any surveillance tail. If the Renault pulled to the side of the road quickly, any followers would have to either stop or drive on by, possibly compromising their mission. If the Renault started going down quiet side streets or alleys or driving through parking lots, any followers would have to reveal themselves to stay with the target.

But neither of these active measures were the worst-case scenario for a following force. No, the worst-case scenario was exactly what happened to the DCRI unit Clark and Chavez tailed right as they pa.s.sed into the Eighth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.

"Heads up!" Chavez shouted when he saw the DCRI's Subaru station wagon pull too quickly to the side of the road, and then turn down a narrow alley. There was no reason for the backing car to make such a maneuver unless he'd just gotten a warning on his radio that the target vehicle had made a U-turn and was now racing back toward the trailing cars in the surveillance detail.

It was a dramatic security sweep that was not uncommon for a team heading toward a covert mission, but the Renault had tricked the DCRI by not using any other active measures before their U-turn, thereby lulling the followers into thinking the target wouldn't try anything so extreme.

Clark and Chavez did not pull to the side of the road; there was no way they could manage that without compromising themselves to the DCRI team, if not to the target vehicle itself, whose headlights they now could see a hundred yards ahead.

"Just have to roll on by," Clark said, and he did just that, keeping to the same lane, the same speed. He didn't turn his head when the target vehicle pa.s.sed; instead he just kept going, arriving at the Avenue Hoche and continuing southwest.

Chavez said, "Look who else kept going." The black Suzuki motorcycle continued on, still in front of Clark and Chavez. "He had plenty of time to pull off before Rokki made it back this far if he's got comms with the rest of the team."

Clark nodded. "Unless he's not with the French. He's with Rokki. He was watching for a tail."

"He's URC?"

"Looks like it."

"No way he missed the backing car pulling off."

"No way at all. DCRI are burned."

"Do you think DCRI will continue the follow?"

"They have at least five cars in the set, probably more. They'll pull in the one or two that the Renault didn't just pa.s.s, and they'll try to tail him with that. We've got to figure Rokki and his guys are just about at their destination."

A minute later, Clark and Chavez sat at an intersection on the wide Boulevard Champs-elysees. They'd managed to allow the Renault van to slip back in front of them with the luck of a minor traffic accident that slowed the flow on the boulevard and a couple of red lights that stopped it cold. They avoided checking their rearview mirrors to look for the DCRI; they knew two men in a vehicle who kept checking their mirrors would likely be spotted by trained surveillance professionals.

The Renault turned off the Champs-elysees, made a few more turns, and then found its way to the tree-lined Avenue George V. As the target vehicle slowed in front of them, Clark said, "Looks like we're here."

Chavez looked down to the GPS on his iPhone.

"Just up ahead on the right is the Four Seasons hotel."

Clark whistled. "Four Seasons? That's pretty sw.a.n.ky for a lieutenant in the URC and his three buds."

"Isn't it, though?"

The Renault van did, in fact, pull over just a few car lengths from the front of the luxurious hotel. Clark drove by as one man climbed out of the van and opened his umbrella, then began walking toward the entrance.

Clark made a right at the corner and then quickly pulled to the sidewalk. "Go check it out."

"On it," Ding said as he slid out of the pa.s.senger seat of the Galaxy minivan. He entered the hotel via an employee entrance.

Clark circled the block, and when he returned, Chavez was standing in the rain by the employee entrance. He climbed back into the Galaxy. "One guy just checked in to one room. Reservation under the name Ibrahim. Two nights. I didn't get the room number, but I heard the desk clerk call a porter and tell them to take them to their suite. The rest of the team is coming in right now. They have all the luggage we saw when they got in the van."

"Were you able to ID Rokki?"

"Sure did. That was him with the umbrella. He spoke French. Bad French, but that's the only kind I know."

Clark and Chavez drove off, west on the Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie. Clark shook his head in wonder. "So a URC gunman picks up three mutts and a bunch of gear in the ghetto and moves them straight into a suite at the Four Seasons."

Chavez just shook his head. "A suite here must cost five grand a night. Can't believe the URC is billeted here unless-"

Clark was nodding; his reply was distant: "Unless it's part of an op."

Chavez sighed. "These guys are about to go loud."

"Within a day. The Seine-Saint-Denis safe house was a staging area. The Four Seasons is the mission. We don't have much time."

"Wish we had a better idea what their target was."

"They can hit anything in Paris from here. We can tail them till the moment they act, but that's too risky. Depending on what's in those bags, Hosni Rokki could be planning to a.s.sa.s.sinate a high-profile VIP staying at the Four Seasons, rake the U.S. consulate with machine-gun fire, or blow up Notre Dame."

"We can tip off the French."

"Ding, if we had any idea who or what the target was, then we could alert the right people and have the target moved or the location shut down. But just telling the French cops that a group of shady b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are in a particular suite at the Four Seasons? No . . . Think about it. They won't want an incident, they won't want to violate anyone's rights, so they'll make some gentle inquiries with the hotel-"

Ding finished the thought. "Meanwhile, these mutts run out with some det cord and Semtex and take out the Eiffel Tower and everyone in it."

"You got it. DCRI is tailing them already. We have to work under the a.s.sumption that that is all the heat this cell of tangos is going to get for now."

"So we take them down?"

Clark thought it over. "We haven't had an opportunity like this since the Emir. Ryan says Rokki isn't that big a deal by himself, but if he's here doing a job for al Qahtani, you can bet he knows more about al Qahtani than we do."

"You want to bag him?"

"It would be nice. We can stop his. .h.i.t, kill the other guys in his cell, and then snag him for a little chat."

Chavez nodded. "I like it. Don't guess we have time to wait around."

"No time at all. I'll make the call. We're going to need some help to pull this off."

Jack Ryan Jr. held an ice pack to his face. He'd just taken an elbow to the upper lip. It was followed with a "Sorry, old boy" by James Buck, a not-quite-apology that did nothing to improve the mood in the spartan training room. Jack knew the "accidental" elbow had been delivered purposefully.

Buck was playing a one-man version of the good cop/bad cop routine. This was some strategy to keep Jack Junior on his toes; Jack himself recognized this. And it worked. One minute Buck was telling Ryan how great he was doing; the next he was choking him out from behind.

Jesus, Jack thought. This sucks. But he realized how amazing this training was from a standpoint of imparting information and teaching his mind and body to react to unpredictable threats. He was smart enough to realize that someday, some much later date after the bruises healed, he would appreciate the h.e.l.l out of James Buck and his split personality.

Buck's philosophy of teaching pushed mind-set as much as it stressed his tactics. "No such thing as a fair fight, lad. If one of the fighters is fighting 'fair,' then the fight won't last long. The dirtier b.a.s.t.a.r.d will always win."

Ryan began to find himself transforming under the weight of the exSAS man's "dirty" tactics. A few weeks back he'd grappled and thrown straight punches and hooks. Now as often as not, he used his opponent's clothing against him, twisted him in excruciating arm bars, and even jabbed at Adam's apples.

Ryan's body was covered in bruises from head to toe, his joints had been twisted and wrenched, and scratches crisscrossed his face and torso.

He could not say he'd won more than a few of the hundred or so encounters he'd had against Buck, but he recognized his incredible improvement over the past month.

Ryan was mature enough and smart enough to recognize what was happening. Buck had nothing personal against him at all. He was just doing his job, and his job consisted of first breaking Ryan down.

And he was doing a h.e.l.l of a job at that, Jack confessed.

"Again!" shouted Buck, and he began crossing the teak floor, approaching his student. Ryan quickly put the ice pack down on a table and prepared himself for another encounter.

Someone called from the dojo's office. "James? Phone call for Ryan."

Buck's eyes had narrowed in concentration for the impending attack. Upon hearing the distraction he stopped, turned toward the man in the office. "What did I b.l.o.o.d.y tell you about calls whilst we're in training?"

Jack's body tensed. His trainer was ten feet away; two quick steps and he'd be in arm's reach. Ryan thought about launching himself toward his trainer at this moment, when his eyes were diverted. It would be a dirty shot, but Buck encouraged just exactly that.

"It's Hendley," came the voice from the office.

The Welshman sighed. "Right. Off you go, Ryan," he said as he turned back to the young American.

Ryan's amped-up body relaxed. d.a.m.n. He could have totally waylaid Buck, and, from the look Buck was giving him now, the hand-to-hand and edged-weapons instructor knew it, too. His surprised eyes realized he'd come a half-second from getting his a.s.s handed to him by his young student.

James Buck smiled appreciatively.

Ryan recovered, wiped a little blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He walked toward the office and the telephone, careful to hide the fact that Buck's last kick to the inside of his knee had left residual pain there, lest Buck see Jack's injury and exploit it in their next melee.

"Ryan."

"Jack, it's Gerry."

"Hi, Gerry."

"Situation in Paris. The Gulfstream is fueling up at BWI as we speak. There will be gear bags on board, a folder on the table with your doc.u.ments, some credit cards and cash, and further instructions. Get there as quick as you can."

Ryan kept his face impa.s.sive, though he felt like a school kid who'd just been let out for summer vacation in February. "Right."

"Chavez will call you on the way and have you go through some equipment that he's ordered that will be on board."

"Got it." Paris, Jack thought. How great is that?

"And Jack?"

"Yeah, Gerry?"

"This one could get rough. You will not be going to provide a.n.a.lysis. Clark will use you as he sees fit."

Jack quickly admonished himself for thinking about beautiful girls and outdoor cafes. Get your head in the game.

"I understand," he said. He handed the phone to Buck. The Brit took it and listened. Jack thought the older man looked like a lion watching a gazelle escape.

"I'll be back," Ryan said as he turned toward the locker room.

"And I'll be waiting, laddie. Might want to get that dodgy knee sorted whilst you're on holiday, because my boot will be hunting for that weak spot upon your return."

"Great," Jack mumbled as he disappeared through the door.

Dom Caruso and Sam Driscoll sat on a pair of cots they'd stationed by the window of their studio apartment in Cairo's Zamalek neighborhood. They sipped Turkish coffee that Sam had made in a metal pot on the stove, and watched the property on an adjacent hillside a few blocks away.

Throughout the evening, el Daboussi had received only one visitor. Caruso had taken a few pictures of the car, an S-cla.s.s Mercedes, and he'd caught the tag. He'd e-mailed the images to the a.n.a.lysts at The Campus, and they'd reported back in minutes that the vehicle was registered to a high-level Egyptian parliamentarian who, until just nine months ago, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood living in exile in Saudi Arabia. Now he was back home and helping to run the country. This was all well and good, Dom thought, unless and until he began cavorting with a known former URC trainer with experience in the Al-Qaeda camps of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

s.h.i.+t, Caruso said to himself, and then, aloud, "Hey, Sam. I watch American TV. They say the Muslim Brotherhood only want democracy and equal rights for women. What gives with their midnight meetings with jihadists?" He was being facetious, of course.

"Yeah," said Sam, picking up on the false naivete. "I thought the Mo-Bros were the good guys."

"Right," said Dom. "I saw some nutjob on MSNBC say that the Muslim Brotherhood used to be terrorists, but now they are as benign as the Salvation Army in the U.S. Just another religious-based organization that only wants to do good."

Sam didn't say anything.

"No opinion?"

"I tuned you out when you said MSNBC."

Dom laughed.

Caruso's Thuraya Hughes satellite phone chirped, and he checked his watch as he answered it. "Yeah?"

"Dom, it's Gerry. We're going to have to pull you out. Clark and Chavez need some help in Paris right away."

Caruso was surprised. He knew Clark and Chavez were working an op in Europe, but last he'd heard, their target had jetted back to Islamabad.

"What about Sam?" Dom asked. Driscoll eyed him from the cot on the other side of the tiny darkened room.

"Sam, too. The situation in Paris is the kind that is going to need the type of help you and Driscoll can provide. Ryan is on the way there in the jet. He's got everything you will need."