Up in the apartment, three bulky members of the U.S. paramilitary team were already installed, looking at maps of the city. They were dressed in plain clothes, but the leader was evidently the man bent tight over the map like a human torsion spring. The others addressed him as Major Kirby.
“You’re one tough lady,” said the major after shaking Marx’s hand.
“More lucky than tough,” she said.
“That’s even better. Hope it rubs off.”
He pointed to his map of the city, laid out on the coffee table.
“We’ve had, like, twelve hours to work on this, which is impossible, frankly. But my boss talked to your boss, whoever he is, and I gather we have no choice but to move right away. And to do it unilaterally, without telling the Belgians, which is never a good idea, but what the hell, right?”
“Whatever you say, Major. I’m not even sure who my boss is anymore, but I think his name is Hoffman.”
Kirby shrugged. He was wired and impatient. He wanted to get on with it.
“Look,” he said, “we’re here because the agency isn’t supposed to do this anymore, interrogation and rendition and all that, and the military can do whatever it wants, so long as we call it ‘force protection,’ or ‘tactical intelligence,’ or ‘preparation of the battlefield,’ so the lawyers can say it’s Title Ten. But basically, we’re working for you, okay?”
“Sounds good to me. Any title you like.”
“All they told us was that you have some kind of urgent security problem, which my boss says wasn’t explained to him. Which must mean it’s pretty damn serious, right, if they can’t even tell us what it is?”
“Yes, Major, I promise you that it’s extremely damn serious. Four of our people have been killed and more on the way if we don’t get a handle on this soon. What’s your ops plan?”
“The ID we have been given on the target is Joseph Sabah. Correct? For security, we are just going to call him Harry from here on. Okay?”
Marx nodded.
Major Kirby pointed to the lower right quadrant of the Brussels map, southeast of the city center. He spoke the place names very carefully, not wanting to botch them.
“Harry lives here, on Avenue…George…Bergmann. His apartment is a few blocks east of a big park called Bois…de…la…Cambre. Did I say that right?”
“Sort of,” answered Marx. “Nobody would mistake you for a Belgian.”
“Thank you,” said Major Kirby. “Okay, Harry has a dog, a little yapper dog. What is it, Sergeant?”
“A miniature poodle, sir.”
“Right. So every evening when Harry gets home from his job at this SWIFT place south of the city in, lemme look…La…Hulpe, he takes this dog out for a walk to do his business in the park, in this Bois…de…la…Cambre.”
“You can just call it the park, Major, that’s fine,” said Marx.
“Roger that. Harry walked his dog last night, and we were able to get one of our friends to access the surveillance cameras in the park. He took the dog there every night for the last week, same route, pretty much. So, gents and lady, we are going to assume that he goes to the park every freaking night, and that when he gets home from work tonight he will take little bowser on that same route for his evening walk.”
“And we will be waiting in the park?” asked Marx.
“Not exactly ‘we,’ ma’am, if that includes you. ‘We’ will be there, meaning me and my two JSOC brothers, plus Ted and Luis from the station. But you, meaning you, will be at the safe house where we are going to interrogate this clown, assuming we do this right.”
“Okay, but I’m good luck. You said so yourself.”
“We’ll just have to live with that. Let’s finish our pre-op. Ma’am, you may want to get some rest. There’s a bedroom down the hall.” He looked at the other four men.
“Okay, brothers. De oppressso liber.”
“Why did you say that?” asked Marx.
“Special Forces motto. Liberate the oppressed.”
“Oh,” said Marx. “Nice.”
A voice piped up from the side of the room. It was one of the two other soldiers, who hadn’t spoken yet.
“IYAAYAS,” he said, speaking the letters quickly.
“What the hell does that mean?” queried Marx.
“Unofficial shooters’ motto, ma’am,” said the soldier. “‘If you ain’t ammo, you ain’t shit.’”
“Please, gentlemen,” she said. “Grow up.”
The armored Mercedes returned to the Citadines at noon and transported Sophie Marx to a house in a leafy suburb south of Brussels, on the way to Waterloo. A member of the station was already there, preparing the room where the interrogation would take place. He had closed the blinds and the curtains and was moving furniture around, trying to make it look like Grandma’s living room. The very word “interrogation” seemed to make him squeamish. He had been told to bring food for the “suspect” and the interrogators, as well as several cans of dog food.
Marx went upstairs to call Hoffman, but he didn’t answer his phone. She rang Perkins again, and when he didn’t pick up, either, she gave up trying. She knew she should call Gertz, but she didn’t know what she would say to him, and if he ordered her home, she would refuse. So the best course, she decided, was to take another nap.
At 6:10, the surveillance team at SWIFT’s headquarters on Avenue Adele in La Hulpe, south of the city, reported to the team in the Citadines that they had spotted “Harry” leaving work.
“Showtime,” said Major Kirby. Two of the five men in the apartment had already set off, but the remaining three now departed and walked to the Metro station on Avenue Louise. They were carrying sports bags, marked with the symbols of Adidas and Nike, which contained their weapons: Three Heckler amp; Koch Mark 23 semiautomatic pistols with suppressors, the special operator’s weapon of choice.
The three traveled by subway to Schuman station, melding into the wave of homeward-bound commuters; they found the Brussels railway line, which they took to the Watermael junction. They exited the station and walked west a half mile into the park, where they stationed themselves at the agreed watch posts.
The park cut a deep, green elliptical swath in the southern tier of the city. It was a smaller version of Paris’s Bois de Boulogne: woods and meadows, with sandy paths bordering a kidney-shaped pond in the center of the park.
Joseph Sabah was driving north toward home in his gray Peugeot, meanwhile. He parked in the garage of his apartment building, changed out of his suit into a pair of blue jeans and hugged his dog, Emile, who had greeted his master’s return by racing around in a circle in the living room of the apartment. The dog was now standing in the kitchen next to the leash, waiting for his walk.
Sabah fastened the leash to Emile’s collar and descended the stairs to the street. It was still light outside, the sky illuminated on this summer day as if by a low-watt bulb. The dog couldn’t wait to do his business; he dropped a turd a block from home. Sabah scooped it up in a plastic bag and continued on toward the park; he was carrying a second bag for later in the journey.
They walked along Avenue George Bergmann, the dog sniffing a few of his fellows along the way, and crossed into the park on the Avenue de l’Oree. The dog knew the route. He pulled Sabah south toward the pond on their left, stopping every few seconds when he encountered a new smell. Sabah tugged ineffectually at his leash.
Major Kirby was sitting on a bench along the Avenue de Flores, just inside the park. He saw “Harry” enter and spoke into the microphone in his sleeve to his colleagues, who were arrayed at other looking posts. It was light, and people were out strolling, so it wasn’t easy to conceal their movements. It was so much easier to grab people in the dark.
The team slowly converged toward Sabah, two ahead of him, three behind. He was so slow, stopping and starting with the dog. The idea was to take him on his way back home, when it was darker, but it was still the soft half-light of a summer evening. The trees seemed to enfold the space; amid the green, the noise of the city fell away. You could hear birds calling to each other as they settled down for the night.
Sabah was crossing a wide expanse of grass now, entirely open, which took him to the northern edge of the pond. The dog relieved himself a second time; he was tired and ready to head home. Sabah took out his second bag and gingerly scooped up the droppings. The dog was tugging on the leash now, pulling his master homeward. They
