out of the minivan, and performed a half-hour of foot reconnaissance. He’d made a wide, arcing circle of the apartment building, and strolled through a few parking lots, a playground that looked like it was used these days primarily by glue-sniffers and heroin users, and through the ground level of a four-story parking garage. He then made his way back to the black Ford Galaxy.
Immediately after Chavez climbed in, Clark had asked, “What’s the word?”
“Same three or four guys downstairs at the back of the building. Four guys at the front entrance, too.”
“Anything else?”
“Yep. We aren’t the only ones interested in that apartment.”
“No?”
“Beige Citroen four-door. This side of the road, in the parking lot on the other side of that building there on the left. Male driver. Female passenger. Both black, in their thirties.”
“Surveillance,” Clark said. Chavez wouldn’t have mentioned them if they weren’t.
“Yeah. They were subtle enough, but they have line of sight on Rokki’s place, and we’ve got eyes on the entrance to that parking lot and didn’t see the car arrive, which means they’ve been there since before we got here. So, yeah, they are definitely watchers. Who do you think they are?”
“DCRI would be my first guess. If I’m right about that, then there will be more cars around here; they probably have a surveillance box set up, but I doubt we’re inside it. They are probably closer than we are because they won’t all need to have eyes on the target. They would just tuck into the parking lots and stay in comms with each other. I’m glad the French are watching these guys, but I sure as hell wish they had some stronger measures on their plate. It would be nice for them to pick Rokki up, give him a shake, and see what falls out.”
“Keep dreaming, John. Not the French. The CIA used to do a little of that, before Kealty put the kibosh on offending terrorists.”
“Heads up, Ding,” John said suddenly. A pair of young toughs walked by on the left from behind. Both men slowed and looked into the van. John and Ding were somewhat concealed behind the heavy tint, but they were by no means invisible. Clark stared back at the two young African immigrants for a long moment.
Then the men walked on.
Clark’s steely-eyed gaze had won the encounter, but they were prepared if they had to actually talk to the locals. The two American spies never worked any operation without a plausible cover for action, a reason to be in a location other than the actual motive. Both men had worked under so many covers over the years, oftentimes preparing themselves on the fly, that they possessed the abilities of well-trained actors.
The cover for this op, should they be pulled out of the vehicle by police or internal security or even a well- armed ne Kwel'3'ighborhood drug gang, was clever in both its simplicity and plausibility. Clark and Chavez were, if anyone demanded to know, American private investigators watching the flat of a woman who cleaned the home of a wealthy American living in the Latin Quarter. According to their story, their employer suspected the cleaning lady of stealing his valuables and then fencing them from her flat.
It would bear short-term scrutiny only, but nine times out of ten, that was enough.
One by one, the lights turned off on the fourth floor of the ramshackle building two hundred yards up the street. Clark looked through his binoculars through the rain.
“It’s ten-thirty. Is it bedtime?” Clark asked Chavez.
“Maybe so.”
Moments later, a Renault van passed Clark and Chavez’s position; it slowed at the target building and then pulled to the front door and stopped.
“Maybe not,” said Chavez now, and he readied his camera on the monopod, focused it on the area of light near the back door.
A minute later, a man exited the lobby of the building, walked directly to the light on the wall by the door, and unscrewed the bare bulb. The entire scene went dark.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Chavez.
Clark kept his eyes on his thermal binoculars, and they picked up the white-hot silhouette of the man who’d unscrewed the lightbulb as he walked down to the street and shook the hand of the driver of the Renault. He then spoke into a mobile phone, and soon four more ethereal silhouettes appeared from the back door of the dark building.
Chavez had given up on his camera for now, and instead he held a thermal monocular up to his eye. He saw the ghostly white figures exiting the building, and could tell they were four men, and he could see they pulled rolling bags and carried briefcases.
“Can you ID Rokki?” Chavez asked.
“Not positively through these thermal optics,” said Clark. What he could discern, although just barely, was that the four men with the luggage all wore suits and ties.
The driver of the van and the man who’d unscrewed the lightbulb helped the four travelers get their bags into the back of the vehicle. The interior light came on as they opened the tailgate. It wasn’t enough light for long-range camera work, but the two Americans were able to get a better look at the men and their luggage.
“Is that Louis Vuitton?” Chavez asked, his eyes peering through his camera’s high-powered lens.
“I wouldn’t know,” admitted Clark.
“Patsy made me look at handbags for two hours in London once. I’m pretty sure that’s the same design. Even Louis Vuitton handbags can run over a grand; can’t imagine how much those big rolling suitcases go for.”
The four men climbed efficiently into the van. They moved like a team as they found their seats and shut the door, extinguishing the lights.
“The tallest guy looks like he could be Hosni Rokki, but I can’t be certain,” Clark said.
“Whoever they are, they look like they’re heading back to Charles de Gaulle.”
“Maybe,” said Clark. “But it seems odd Hosni would fly into town just to meet up with three guys, then fly right back out. I think something else is going on.”
>
Chavez said, “This time of night there is no way we can tail them without being compromised. If these jokers are any good, they are going to spot us. It’s a shame we don’t have any more vehicles to split up the coverage.”
Clark looked ahead to the entrance of the parking lot where Chavez had noticed the surveillance team during his recon. “Maybe we do. If the French have a fixed surveillance operation around the target, then I’m willing to bet they have a mobile surveillance operation ready to go. Maybe we can just piggyback on them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m thinking we can stay back, away from the target, and do our best to pick out the vehicles following him. If we can manage to stay behind the DCRI backing car, we can follow the target without being spotted.”
“So we tail the tail.”
“Right. You up for it?”
Ding Chavez just nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
The Renault van with the driver and the four men in suits turned around in the street and began heading back in Chavez and Clark’s direction. The Americans sat patiently as the vehicle passed. They did not start their vehicle; instead they just packed up their gear and waited for the van to turn left some seventy-five yards behind them.
Both men knew what to expect next.
“Here we go,” said Chavez calmly. “Let’s see who’s working the night shift at DCRI.”
For a moment all was still on the dark street, until one by one the headlights of three vehicles lit up the night. An ancient four-door Toyota in the parking lot of the building ahead and to the right of Clark and Chavez’s position, a black Subaru station wagon facing their position but on the other side of the street and a good hundred yards past Rokki’s abandoned flat, and a white Citroen mini-truck that faced the apartment forty yards past Clark and Chavez. One after the next, all three vehicles pulled out into the street and turned down three different roads, all toward the south.
Seconds after this, the beige Citroen with the black couple pulled into view, made a left and then a right, and headed off in the direction of all the other cars.
When it was dark and quiet again, Clark still did not start the Ford; he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment.
