and piston-kicked the door. He was unbalanced by the ease with which it flew open, and suffered a painful blow on his shins as the door bounced back and struck him heavily just below the knee. Swearing loudly, he butt-shuffled across the seat and fell onto the cobblestone road.
The air cleared instantly, at least compared to the smoke-choked interior of the Land Rover. Left arm dangling uselessly, Melton quickly checked for the other passengers. One was obviously dead, shredded by the RPG, the other was missing. He hurried away, making for the nearest doorway.
Unsure of where they were, disoriented by the blast and probably suffering concussion, he took in his surroundings as a dizzy, discontinuous swirl of images. Burnt-out vehicles. Gutted buildings. At least four bodies in the street. A wall of four- and five-storey terrace buildings in front of him. Old but well-maintained until recently. They were now pockmarked with bullet holes and disfigured by scorch marks. He was still in the old city. Somewhere near the BBC offices, he thought – but deep inside that jigsaw puzzle of irregularly shaped city blocks to which neither the Loyalists nor Sarkozy could lay claim.
Bullets spattered and caromed off the wreckage of the Land Rover, just as the fuel tank went up with a dense, hot
‘This is the last of them,’ said Caitlin. ‘If he’s not here, or hasn’t been here, I’m tapped out,
The French infantry officer patted her gently on the shoulder. ‘You have done well,’ he told her. ‘Better than we could have asked. Perhaps you should let us handle this now?’
Caitlin peered out through the window of the ruined apartment, across the street from the tenement where Baumer had met with English members of Hizb ut-Tahrir on three occasions. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied eventually. ‘If that fucker turns up, there’ll be a reckoning between him and me.’
‘You are still very weak, Caitlin. If we are to get him, it will mean a struggle.’
‘I’m strong enough to pull a trigger.’
Rolland pulled her around to face him. ‘We need him alive. Both him and Lacan. We need to know the extent of the School Masters’ influence.’
Caitlin folded her arms and leaned against the wet, peeling wallpaper. A bomb had damaged the upper floors of this building, letting in the elements. She was wrapped in a padded army jacket but she still shivered at the unseasonable chill. Three French commandos kept watch on the street while staying well hidden from view. It had been a hellish business, just getting them into the neighbourhood, let alone into this house opposite the last of Baumer’s known addresses. For two whole days they had been on his trail, using her knowledge of al Banna’s networks and contact nodes. Two days of scurrying like dump rats from one ruin to the next, avoiding all contact with the enemy, both uniformed and otherwise.
She felt much stronger in mind and body than she had for a long time, although her illness still weakened her, and it would take her months to fully recover from Noisy-le-Sec. In truth, she should not have been out here, but there was no choice. She was the expert on al Banna, and that meant being in on the hunt, no matter how damaged she may have been.
A wet, dank-smelling armchair, covered in plaster and mouse droppings, sat in the nearest corner. After one more glance at the street outside, she dropped into it. She could hear sporadic firing somewhere out there and the occasional shout, but the street was relatively quiet for now. A more distant thunder spoke of the pitched battle at the edge of the park, as Sarkozy’s forces attempted to break into the heart of the old city.
‘He may not come,’ she said, forcing the weariness she felt out of her voice.
‘No,’ Rolland admitted. ‘Maybe not. He may have fled the city already. But we must do what we will. Would you like a coffee, Caitlin? I saw some in the kitchen before. I could have one of my men heat up some water. We may be waiting a while.’
They did. It was not until night had fallen that any significant activity returned to the street. There had been a small explosion, during the afternoon, and a cloud of dirty black smoke rose over the roofline of the buildings opposite, but nothing came of it. Just another skirmish in a city of a thousand myriad clashes. She dozed through the afternoon, fitfully, for a few hours, waking in the early evening as Rolland’s men ate a cold meal of MREs. She’d been hoping the French might have had better field rations than the US version, but there was no discernible difference in quality. It was all NATO standard slop, she supposed.
‘Caitlin? Come here, please.’
She came fully awake with a start, and slid from the chair like a cat. Rolland stood by the window, narrowing his eyes, peering through the lace curtain.
‘Those men, do you recognise any of them?’
She peered out. At least four men, all civilians, all Arabic or African in appearance, were gathered outside the target address across and down the street a little way. It was dark outside, but some of them smoked, and as they passed around a lighter she was pretty sure she recognised a couple of faces.
One in particular stood out. Short, round-shouldered, with a potbelly. Grey stringy beard but no moustache. His skin was dark brown, as though stained by tobacco juice. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and in her imagination she could smell the fragrant blend. Some acne pits blemished the left side of his face, but melted skin from a homemade bomb gone wrong marred his other profile. The permanent squint to his right eye was a result of the same disfiguration. She couldn’t see from here, but she knew he would have yellowed, crooked teeth, with two of the lower incisors missing, thanks to a beating from the Malaysian Special Branch five years ago. Completing the picture were his powerful forearms and thighs from years of silat and karate training.
‘The chunky-looking groover in the nasty grey acid-wash jeans and cheap vinyl jacket, his name’s Noordim ul Haq. He’s an Indonesian. Javanese. We called him “Doctor Noo”. He’s a Jemaah Islamiyah commander, a bomb maker too, but not a great one, as you can see from his pretty face.’
‘He is part of Baumer’s network?’ Rolland asked. ‘I have not heard of him.’
Caitlin frowned. ‘Nope. But he and Baumer have met, twice that we know of. Once in Singapore in August 1998, and in Surabaya later that year. We’re not sure to what end or if they ever met again under the radar. But the Doc there is a heavy hitter in Mantiki 3, the Jemaah Islamiyah franchise with responsibility for the Philippines and central Indonesia.’
