“I’m in the mountains, around one hundred miles east of Agadir.”
“Are you in significant danger?”
“Negative right now. But the French Secret Service has made three attempts on my life, and I have reason to believe there will be others.”
“Are you alone?
“No. Two friends.”
“Can you make Agadir?”
“I think so.”
“How long?”
“Maybe five days’ trekking.”
“Can you remain in communication?”
“Affirmative. Say, every twelve hours?”
“From now. Let me connect you with Giselle…but don’t waste your battery.”
Jacques Gamoudi gave himself one minute on the line to his wife, who had recovered fully from being kidnapped in Pau and now wanted to know only that he was alive. There was no time for details, no time for explanations, just the overpowering sense of relief they were both safe, in his case temporarily, but for the moment safe.
The Colonel shoved the phone in his pocket and climbed to his feet, leading his little group up the steep slopes of this craggy, barren moonscape. It was now clear that Agadir was their destination. Gamoudi selected a route that would take them off the beaten track, away from other trekkers and mountain guides.
Over the next four hours they climbed almost 1,800 feet and a total of six miles. Here they took a rest and drank some water, and very slowly, Jacques Gamoudi turned to Rashood and said, “You don’t have to come any farther with me. I can find my way to the seaport. You have both done enough.”
The Hamas General grinned and said, “If it hadn’t been for you, old friend, I’d be in a grave in Marseille. I’m not leaving you until we reach the dockyard. Besides, you never know when the French hit men are going to arrive.”
“They’ll never find me,” replied Gamoudi.
“Maybe not. But I’ll bet they’ll try. And they might get lucky.”
Down below them they could see the climbers and walkers on the regular trail, almost all of them with guides, and some of them with mules carrying their baggage.
“We just need to avoid being seen by any of them,” said Gamoudi. “The country’s steep and rough, but we must avoid the villages of Ouaneskra and Tacheddirt — that’s where everyone is headed. We’ll stop at a summer settlement called Azib Likempt. It won’t be open yet, but there’s shelter in some old stone huts.”
They camped in there for the freezing cold night, cooked some sausages, and thanked God for the quality of the sleeping bags Abdul had purchased. By mid-morning on Saturday they were up beyond the snow line, through the windy mountain pass at Tizi-Lekempt, and on their way to the flat pastures high above the Azib.
Right then, Ravi Rashood heard the first sound of a huge military helicopter, its massive rotor lashing noisily through the mountain air. The high peaks completely obscured the view, but the sound was so intense General Rashood guessed there were more than one.
“Jesus,” he said. “Jacques, we have to find cover. Which way?”
“That way,” snapped Le Chasseur, pointing southwest. “Come on…run…run…run.”
Carrying their heavy burdens, all three of them set off down the escarpment, heading for a great rocky overhang they could dive behind. Gamoudi kept urging them forward. They reached the rock just as two AS532 Cougar Mark Ones came rocketing around the high southern slope of the mountain.
The noise was ferocious, but the pilots were going slowly, making short low-level circles above the terrain, obviously in search mode.
“Holy shit,” said Rashood, looking up. “Those fucking things have search radar, infrared heat-seeking and Christ knows what else.”
“I’m too cold to register,” volunteered Shakira.
All three of them dived for cover, Jacques Gamoudi in last place. But it was immediately obvious that the helicopter surveillance crew had seen something. They circled around at low speed, one after the other, flying back only fifty feet above the ground, above the enormous rock that provided shelter for the three fugitives.
Rashood, Shakira, and Gamoudi flattened themselves onto the ground, praying that the helicopters would not land and begin a ground search. There was no doubt in Colonel Gamoudi’s mind: the French could operate with impunity in Morocco, which was a privilege the United States did not have.
The helicopters circled for twenty minutes, before clattering off, dead slow, almost reluctantly, to the west. “We have to get the hell out of here,” said Rashood. “Didn’t you get the feeling they thought they’d spotted something?”
“I did,” said the Colonel. “And in my view they’ve gone to get permission to stage a military search up here.”
“From the Moroccans?” asked Rashood.
“No, no. Just from their superiors. But they might want to touch base with the Moroccan military before they go ahead. It’s a serious matter to start operations in a foreign country, especially if people are going to get shot.”
“You’re not referring to us, are you, Jacques?” asked Shakira.
“I hope to hell I’m not.”
“Well, where do we go?” said Rashood.
“I know somewhere, two miles west. The country’s pretty flat getting there, so we’ll have to be fast across the ground.”
“How about if those wild men in the helicopters come back and start searching?” said Sharira.
“That’s what bothers me,” said the Colonel. “If we stay here and they come back and land, we’re dead. We have to run and we have to run now, while the coast is relatively clear.”
“That’s my view also,” said Rashood. “Come on guys, let’s go. Jacques, lead the way!”
Running fast with the big packs was out of the question. Shakira carried less and could manage a decent jog, but it was very tough for the two men, who kept going at a steady military pace that would not break any records, but would probably have caused a person of normal fitness to drop dead.
They made the shelter of a big shadowy rock face to the northwest, and fought their way along a mountain trail that was really not much more than a ledge. All the way along, the stones and dust beneath their feet shifted and crumbled. And all three of them tried not to look to the right, to the almost sheer drop of 2,000 feet to the floor of the valley.
The helicopters returned when the three were at least a slow 200 yards from the destination Jacques Gamoudi had planned. Out of breath and holding on to any foliage that occasionally sprang out of the face of the mountain, they were now inching their way forward, grabbing with their left hands, trying not to slide over the edge.
The mountain shielded them from direct sight of the pilots, unless the copters suddenly swerved westward and began searching the granite wall of this escarpment — which they very well might, at any moment. The fact was, there was no cover, and the only hope was for the French pilots to continue searching the reasonable side of Mount Aksoul, rather than bother with the sheer rock face on the west side, just below the summit — the side upon which only a lunatic would venture.
The racket from the rotors was still echoing, unseen, in the mountain air when the three of them reached a point where Jacques Gamoudi told them to unclip their packs and haul out the mountaineering gear.
He swiftly uncoiled the ropes, hammered in the securing crampons, and made the lines fast. He then looped the harness expertly around Rashood’s chest, clipped on the climbing ropes, handed over the gloves, and told Rashood to assay over the edge and down the rock face for forty-seven feet exactly and then swing into a cave.
“Who, me?” said Rashood. “What if there isn’t a cave?”
