Hunter (5 page)

BORDEAUX, SOUTH-WESTERN FRANCE

La belle au Bois dormant,
the sleeping beauty! Guillaume Rene de Villepin loved this graceful city, his home that lay serenely upon the banks of the Garonne. Her history could be traced for millennia and, for those who elected to pay no heed to the centuries of bloodshed or even the discovery of Neanderthal remains at Pair-non-Pair, it was a history written exclusively in commerce, culture and the arts. Her streets and architecture, Place de la Bourse, Rue Ausone, Cathedrale Saint-Andre, all conjured so many memories. And, of course, the wines. The wines! A quarter of a million acres of the world's finest grapes grew here. How he loved to come home. It was his life, his sanctuary. His heart resided here. Here he was a citizen. Here he was anonymous. Here he could be himself with none of the responsibilities, scrutiny or stresses of his real life - his life under the spotlight in The Hague.

Guillaume, or simply Guy to those who were close enough to be invited to call him that, walked briskly but relaxedly along the Rue Sainte-Catherine in search of coffee. The de Villepin family had lived in the Aquitaine region for many centuries and if truth be known, there was a time when the Bordeaux de Villepins were considered noblesse de chancellerie, 
landed gentry, much favored by royalty. Of course, La Revolution francaise had changed all that.

Soaking up the beauty and promise of his homeland, Guy de Villepin took a seat on a rickety metal chair and rested his arm on an equally rickety metal table just outside the entrance of his favorite cafe. He ordered coffee and, with little genuine interest, thumbed through a copy of
Le Figaro
that had been left on a seat nearby. From here he could watch the world go by, basking in the peaceful enjoyment of his brief leave of absence.
Liberté!

Despite the joy he felt at being back in Bordeaux, de Villepin could not help but turn his mind to what he had left behind. To be so threatened - with death - and to constantly live under its power and menace was taking its toll. Not only upon him but also upon his colleagues. The work was so important and to consider the possibility that these threats could be realized made him cold to the bone. Theirs was much more than a mere job of work. It was a vocation. He, like his colleagues, was committed. He had sworn an oath to carry out his duty and now he'd been forced to flee. He and the others had been ordered into hiding, scurrying like frightened mice. How could this be happening? He suddenly felt ashamed that he had acquiesced to the decision. Still, he was here now and nobody knew him.

Further along Rue Sainte-Catherine, a man - tall, dark, with striking good looks and impeccable dress sense - stood quietly examining a shop front. There was nothing particularly out of place in either where he was standing or what he was doing. A dozen other men could easily be observed striking similar poses 
in both directions, perusing the various stores of the famous shopping strip. What was not obvious was that this man was watching a reflection. The reflection he was watching was that of Guy de Villepin.

The man at the window casually reached into the pocket of his designer jeans and extracted an iPhone. He tapped the screen and placed the phone to his ear. He made a play of speaking as if to a wife or girlfriend, seemingly describing items he was looking at in the window. In fact he was providing the listener with a very different description in fluent French.

"It's him. He's on his own, sitting right in front of the café diagonally opposite me. He's about sixty. Medium height. Skinny. Gray hair, well groomed. He's wearing a light overcoat with a red scarf, dark pants and black boots. Good-quality stuff, not cheap shit. Walks quickly but with a bit of a shuffle. He's wearing glasses. He needs them to read but not for walking around. Can you see him? Right, get as many pictures as you can and stay on him. I need to pull back, I've been on him for too long already. Now that you know what he looks like, don't fucking lose him. Report back to me as soon as you have him returning to his home and stay there until I reach you. Got it? Good."

The phone was returned to his pocket and the dark figure disappeared into the milieu.

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF INTERPOL TO THE UNITED NATIONS
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, USA

Brett Tappin, assistant director responsible for the Judicial Security Division of the United States Marshals Service, wasn't happy about the meeting, but he had no choice. The director wanted him there, and when she said jump, everyone in the Service knew better than to ask "How high?"; they just jumped as high as they could first time and hoped it was enough.

Tappin, with elbows on the arms of his chair and chin resting atop steepled fingers, surveyed the others around the table with a marksman's critical eye. A former Marine sniper with service in the first Gulf War, Tappin had been with the Marshals Service, the USMS, for twenty years.

His attention was drawn to the man closest to him. He was younger than all of them, Tappin observed, about thirty-five and, by the look of him, extremely fit. He had dark hair, cut short and neat, a tanned complexion, and looked like he weighed about 200 pounds. The young bastard exuded health and vitality along with that particular quality that can't be faked: a comfortable indifference to danger; it was written all over 
him. Tappin could spot it because he'd been exactly the same, back in the day. The guy was a gunslinger, no doubt about it.

As the meeting was getting under way, Tappin's attention turned to the head of the large oval-shaped conference table where the meeting's chair, Peter Vallincourt, was going through the usual round of introductions and pleasantries. Vallincourt, special representative of Interpol to the United Nations, was exactly what you'd expect of a former NYPD commissioner: tall, broad-chested, with a thick, walrus-like moustache, boxer's nose and eyes that sat like telescopes beneath a heavy, determined brow. He'd been around a long time and was renowned among senior figures in the US law enforcement fraternity as a total old-school hard-ass. He was the host of the meeting and this was his turf.

To the left of Vallincourt was Madeline Clancy, presiding judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Tappin placed her in her mid-fifties. She was tall, slender and elegant, in contrast to her business suit, which was dark gray and masculine, with a fine pinstripe. She had light brown hair with a reddish tinge, worn in a neat bob. Judge Clancy was the reason they were all there.

As the discussion began, Tappin continued his scan of participants, shifting his focus to the man addressing the judge, FBI Special Agent Pat Ryerson, deputy director of Interpol Washington, or more formally, the US National Central Bureau of Interpol. Ryerson was the senior Homeland Security guy with day-to-day coordination responsibility between Interpol and over 18 000 law enforcement agencies 
across the United States. If there was any interagency cooperation required, he was the man to make it happen.

"So, Your Honor," Ryerson was saying, "as I see it, you were on your way home and stopped for coffee when these guys made their move. Is that right, ma'am?"

"Yes, Mr Ryerson," Judge Clancy replied. "I had already collected my coffee and was walking back to the car. I know it sounds like a cliché, gentlemen, but it all happened very quickly:'

"I understand, judge," said Ryerson. "I noted in your statement to the Seattle PD that you had your personal distress beacon on you at the time."

"I have it attached to my keyring, just as I'd been advised by the police when I returned to Seattle from The Hague. If I'd pressed it any damn harder I think I would have broken my finger." There were smiles around the table.

The fourth person to fall into Tappin's sights was someone he knew only by reputation. Sitting to the right of Vallincourt, he was also tall and solidly built. Late fifties, impeccably dressed, salt-and-pepper hair brushed straight back and beard precisely trimmed. Major General Reginald "Nobby" Davenport, chief of Intrepid. Davenport carried himself in a way Tappin could only put down to absolute, unequivocal self-assuredness. A former British SAS officer injured chasing Scuds across Iraq during Desert Storm. Rumor had it that he led the SAS assault on the Iranian Embassy at
Princes Gate in London back in 1980.
Nobby,
he
thought.
Where the hell do the Brits come up with these nicknames?

"Well, it's important that you were carrying it, Madeline," Davenport said, "and that your instincts told you to use it."

Tappin noted Davenport's use of the judge's first name. It was familiar, almost intimate, indicating they knew each other well.

"The activated beacon was picked up by Seattle dispatch," Ryerson added. "But it was pure coincidence that there was a squad car so close at the time. I think you know already, judge, that those officers responded to what they saw. If they hadn't been there at that moment ... well, I don't mean to belabor the issue."

"I'm absolutely aware of how lucky I was to have those officers nearby, Mr Ryerson. And, of all things, one was the son of one of my oldest friends, no less. Still, what more could I have done?"

"Don't get me wrong, ma'am," said Ryerson. "You did everything that you'd been advised to. And, that's my point. This attempt on you, coming in so close to the arrest of Serifovic and the threats against the tribunal and all, necessitates that we make drastic changes immediately to ensure your safety while you're back home on US soil."

"What do you have in mind, Pat?" asked Vallincourt.

While the general discussion between Vallincourt, Clancy, Davenport and Ryerson continued, Tappin turned his attention back to the last person at the table, the gunslinger. So far, he'd been introduced only as Major Morgan, nothing more. Morgan had arrived with Davenport, quietly taking a seat toward the end of the table, to the right of his chief and left of Tappin. An Intrepid agent? Had to be.

Tappin had only heard conjecture about this new covert arm of Interpol; in fact most of the anecdotal intelligence getting around on the law enforcement grapevine was all rumor and speculation. Some kind of black ops outfit, apparently - the existence of Intrepid had never been officially, or unofficially, confirmed by Interpol and there was no evidence of it on any reports or documentation that he could find. As a professional courtesy ahead of this meeting, Vallincourt had given Tappin and Ryerson the most cursory overview of Davenport's role within Interpol, but nothing more. As Tappin's eyes came back around to survey Morgan, he realized that the Intrepid agent had been watching him the entire time. When Tappin saw he'd been caught out, Morgan simply gave him a knowing nod, as if to say,
I know what you're doing.
But there was more to it than that. The look also said,
Don't worry. I've been doing exactly the same thing.

"So, I'm very interested to know what the United States Marshals Service has in mind." The voice that broke in on Tappin's thoughts belonged to Davenport. "Mr Tappin?"

"Ah, well, general:' he began slowly, catching up on the threads of the conversation he'd been monitoring. "With respect to everybody present, we normally do things our way, you know. We're not keen on a committee-style approach to making these kinds of arrangements. It makes things complicated and when we have too many chiefs - well, things get missed, big holes start appearing in the plan and things go pear-shaped real quick. My director asked that I put that on the table from the get-go."

"I couldn't agree more, Mr Tappin," said Davenport diplomatically.

"What do you have in mind, marshal?" asked Vallincourt bluntly, not wanting to get bogged in a jurisdictional pissing competition.

"OK." Tappin shifted in his seat. "We'll be providing rotating teams of US marshals for round-the-clock protection of the judge." Turning to Madeline Clancy, he said, "That'll include whenever you're at your residence, ma'am, away from the residence, or when you're in transit to or from the residence, even if you're only going for coffee, until you're required back in The Hague. As far as I can gather, we're talking about a month or so. We currently have a team of technical specialists on standby in Sunset Hill, ready to install a new home security and duress system that will be patched directly through to our field office in Seattle. And as soon as you arrive on the ground at Sea-Tac Airport, the senior US marshal responsible for coordinating the protection details will be there with her team to meet you."

"I'm really very grateful, Mr Tappin," said Madeline Clancy. "I'm just sorry to be such a bother to everybody."

"This is what we do, Your Honor," replied Tappin. "The marshals will collect you and your luggage and will drive you home from the airport. It's about a forty-minute drive from Sea-Tac to your home, so you'll have ample time to get acquainted and to go over all the details."

"I very much appreciate you all allowing us to be involved, particularly the US Marshals Service, Mr Tappin," Davenport said. "I have absolutely no inten
tion of stepping on anyone's toes, and I offer my full support for the protection strategy you've just described. With that in mind, I would like to take a moment to clarify our involvement."

Davenport received a number of nodded responses of agreement. "We will remain at arm's length, nothing more than observers. But we will be looking with great interest for any opportunities that Dragoslav Obrenovic or his confederates may present. It's clear that he is feeling uncomfortable as a result of the endeavors of our colleagues at Interpol and through the excellent work of the tribunal." He nodded respectfully to both Vallincourt and Clancy. "And should his discomfiture cause Drago to act in such a way as to present us with an opportunity, our involvement will immediately move from the sidelines to the playing field. My intention will be to insert Major Morgan here at the appropriate juncture to exploit those opportunities and apply pressure to best effect. Madeline, one final thought has occurred to me. Perhaps we could discuss your daughter?"