Locked On

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 passed; 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 pass, 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 swanky 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 passenger seat of the Galaxy minivan. He entered the hotel via an employee entrance.

Clark circled the block, and when Sock wid 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 assassinate 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 bastards 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 assumption 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 hit, 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.”

10

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- Vce.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 hell 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 bastard will always win.”

Ryan began to find himself transforming under the weight of the ex — SAS 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