CHAPTER 7 - REACTIONS
17:02 (Paris Time)
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Room 406, Hôtel Le Forum
Monaco
‘’Any new directives from Langley, Ian?’’ asked Erik to the young analyst as soon as he was back in their room. Dorset, who was wearing a headset connected to his laptop computer, shook his head.
‘’No! According to Mister Moore’s short message one hour ago, he is still waiting for a reaction from Washington.’’
‘’A reaction from Washington…’’ repeated Erik in a frustrated tone. ‘’You might just say instead that Nero is playing his fiddle while Rome is burning.’’
‘’Well, Nero did realize that Rome was burning, Erik.’’ replied Julie Prost, who was monitoring the cell phone traffic coming out of the Port Palace Hotel. ‘’I am not sure that our Dear Leader in the White House even realizes the seriousness of the present situation with the Pakistanis and the Saudis.’’
‘’Our Dear Leader… Thankfully we all voted by anticipation in advance of the presidential elections due on November 3. If not, we could well be still stuck here on election day, waiting for Washington to grow balls and act. To return to the local situation, how are Dean and Ali doing? Anything new on their side?’’
‘’Not yet,’’ replied Ian, ‘’although we are expecting to see Khan and Ghanef to soon leave their hotel and return to the SERENE for more talks with Prince Bin Salman. Hopefully, we will then be able to intercept more interesting conversations via satellite.’’
Erik nodded his head at that: with Dean watching the Port Palace Hotel, he was confident that they would be able to keep a close watch on Khan and Ghanef.
At that very moment, Dean, sitting inside his rented Porsche with Ali Suleiman, focused his eyes on an approaching Mercedes sedan.
‘’Heads up, Ali! I see the Saudi Mercedes approaching from our right.’’
‘’And I see Khan and Ghanef inside the hotel lobby: they are about to come out. Since we did not hear a call to them to prepare, it must mean that they had a prearranged meeting hour.’’
‘’I concur!’’ said Dean before speaking in his radio microphone. ‘’Stryker to Sparrow. We have the target vehicle in sight. Our customers are about to leave their nest, over.’’
‘’Understood, Stryker. We will extend our ears to the maximum, out.’’
Satisfied, Dean then concentrated back on the approaching armored Mercedes 450. He however stiffened on noticing something which raised his suspicions at once.
‘’I see a blue van that had been parked further down the street and which is now pulling out of its spot from behind the Mercedes… A green Peugeot sedan is also rolling out of its parking spot. Something is going on.’’
Ali, now concentrating on the two vehicles signaled by Dean and using his day/night scope, spoke up two seconds later.
‘’Watch out! I can see a man dressed in black commando gear sticking his head out of the back section of the van and speaking to the driver and front passenger while pointing at the Mercedes.’’
‘’What about the green Peugeot?’’
‘’I see four men inside it and they are all looking at the Mercedes.’’
‘’The DGSI! The French may be about to pull a swifty on Khan and Ghanef.’’
‘’A swifty? What does that word mean?’’
‘’A swifty means someone pulling a surprise move on another person. I’m calling this in, but we won’t interfere with this, Ali: we will just observe. Stryker to Sparrow: we have a possible situation developing. The frogs may be on the move.’’
Both Dean and Ali then watched on as the Mercedes 450 rolled to a stop in front of the main entrance of the hotel, with the man they knew as Jean Levasseur, aka al-Harb, then stepping out to open the rear right door of the sedan for the approaching Khan and Ghanef. The two Pakistanis were still about six meters away from the Mercedes when the green Peugeot suddenly stopped in front of the big sedan, blocking its path, while the blue van screeched to a halt a mere meter behind it. Armed men dressed in black commando garb then poured out of the van, their sub-machine guns pointed. Ali immediately thought that this could only go badly: a murderous fanatic like al-Harb could not be expected to surrender peacefully. He was quickly proven right, as Levasseur’s first reflex was to draw a pistol in a flash from under his suit’s vest. The leading French DGSI commando then made the mistake of yelling a warning to Levasseur to drop his weapon. While legally obliged to give a verbal warning first before opening fire, that cost the French agent dearly, as it gave time to Levasseur to fire first. His 9mm bullet struck the DGSI agent at the level of his right collar bone, missing his throat by mere centimeters and hitting a spot not protected by the armored tactical vest of the agent. The DGSI officer went down at once, unable to fire a single shot. However, Levasseur did not have the chance to fire a second time, as three French commandos opened fire simultaneously with their sub-machine guns, peppering the ex-ISIS fighter with more than fourteen bullets. Levasseur then crumbled down on the sidewalk, dead. With the two right side doors of his vehicle still wide open, the driver of the Mercedes panicked and, trying to get out of the trap laid by the French, put his sedan in reverse, only to slam violently against the front bumper of the DGSI van. He then tried to push aside the green Peugeot, ramming it, only to attract a volley of gunfire from the French agents inside the Peugeot and from the black-clad commandos. While the bullets fired from the Peugeot did not penetrate the thick armored glass windows of the Mercedes, the two opened right-side doors let in a hail of 9mm bullets that killed the driver. As the pedestrians near the scene of the battle fled in panic towards the nearest cover they could find, two of the DGSI agents ran to Khan and Ghanef, forcing them to kneel and then lay face down on the sidewalk with their hands and feet spread apart.
Inside the Porsche Taycan Turbo S, Dean and Ali watched on as the French arrested Khan and Ghanef, while agents checked out both Levasseur and the driver to make sure that they were dead. Dean then radioed to Erik.
‘’Stryker to Sparrow: the frogs got angry, took out the Mercedes and arrested our targets, over.’’
Back in the hotel, Erik mulled for a few seconds about the possible consequences of this event: this could either derail or help his mission, depending on the reactions of the various players concerned. He then keyed his radio microphone to answer Dean’s message.
‘’Sparrow to Stryker: I copy your message. Go to the port and check if anything happens there, over.’’
‘’Stryker understood, out!’’
After replying to Erik’s message, Dean then pulled his Porsche out of its parking spot as discretely as possible, in order not to attract the attention of the DGSI agents now swarming the area of the front entrance of the hotel. He had time to see both Khan and Ghanef being handcuffed and loaded into the DGSI van before he was out of sight of the fight scene. Ali, who had sent his own radio message in Farsi to their hotel, looked at him as Dean drove down the J.F.K. Avenue.
‘’Where are we going now?’’
‘’To the Quai de l’Hirondelle! We are going to see what the reaction to this will be there. Maybe the French will also want to arrest and question the occupants of the Saudi speedboat.’’
‘’But the Saudis will claim diplomatic immunity and will refuse to let the French take them in: they are part of the crew of the Saudi royal yacht.’’
‘’You are quite right about that, Ali. However, the French tend not to put kids’ gloves on when they decide to act. They may just ignore the protests from those Saudis and arrest them anyway, pretending to need to ‘control’ their identities. That’s what I would do anyway in their place.’’
Ali didn’t find anything to say to that and simply nodded his head as Dean turned onto the boulevard next to the quays of the port and sped towards the Quai de l’Hirondelle.
Dean was soon parking his Porsche in nearly the same spot as the day before. Leading Ali to a good observation point on the opposite side of the quay, he then patiently waited for the Saudi speedboat to appear while scanning visually the activity around the quay. The noise of the gun battle from the Port Palace Hotel had attracted most people present on the quay or inside the commercial establishments lining the quay to come out and look in the direction of where the gunfire had come. It thus made it easier for him to spot two parked cars in which a total of eight men were sitting, apparently not curious about the recent source of noise.
‘’Heads up, Ali! You see these two parked cars full of men, the blue Citroen and the gray Peugeot?’’
‘’Yes! They effectively look suspicious to me as well. You think that they are waiting for the boat from the SERENE?’’
‘’I could bet on that. Whatever happens, we only watch and film: I want to see what the French will do.’’
‘’Understood, Donald.’’
Looking around the yachting harbor and waiting for the Saudi speedboat, Dean only saw at first a solitary large, sleek boat of the type smugglers favored, in the process of leaving the harbor. Ignoring it, he patiently waited, with Ali at his side behind the concrete column. The Iranian then spoke softly, keeping his voice low.
‘’Whatever happens next, I will at least have had the satisfaction of seeing that al-Harb bastard die.’’
‘’I certainly won’t cry for him, Ali. Now, if the French could also arrest that Michael Sutherland, aka al-Eiqab, that would truly make my day.’’
‘’Here comes the Saudi boat!’’ suddenly said Ali, making Dean’s eyes sharpen as the same speedboat as yesterday evening appeared from behind the mass of the harbor master’s building. Using his camera with zoom lens to scan the occupants of the boat, Dean grinned after a few seconds.
‘’Sutherland is aboard the speedboat. Apparently, the men in the Mercedes didn’t have time to send a warning message by radio to the SERENE. If the DGSI laid a trap for them, then these bastards will jump right into the frying pan.’’
With Ali also watching with his scope, Dean started taking a few still pictures of the speedboat and of its occupants as it approached a free portion of the quay. He then switched to video mode once the boat bumped against the quay. To his satisfaction, it was the said Michael Sutherland, wearing a pistol belt around his black coverall, who stepped on the quay to tie a mooring line. The French agents apparently were waiting just for that as, the moment that the mooring line was solidly tied to the quay, six men stepped out of the two waiting cars and ran to the speedboat while yelling in both French and English.
‘’FRENCH POLICE! DON’T MOVE AND RAISE YOUR HANDS! NOW!’’
Again, the ex-ISIS fighter on the quay did as Dean had expected him to do: his right hand immediately flew to the pistol holstered at his belt. This time, however, the French agents didn’t give him a chance to draw and shoot. Four pistols barked nearly at once, making Sutherland jerk before crumbling like a broken puppet on the quay. What followed stunned Dean by its sheer stupidity. Instead of using their heads and surrendering to the French agents, in which case they would have been able to claim their innocence or whatever diplomatic immunity they could have used, the two other men aboard the speedboat produced AKSU-74 compact automatic carbines and opened fire on the French agents. Four of the DGSI officers went down under the hail of bullets, with the remaining two officers hurriedly seeking cover behind nearby cars, low walls or columns. As one of the men in the speedboat kept firing at the French agents, forcing them to keep their heads down, the second man started frantically cutting with a large knife the mooring rope tying his boat to the quay. Understanding that the men in the boat could well manage to escape and sail back to sea, Dean took a decision and, opening his sports bag, took out of it his Smith & Wesson 500 revolver in caliber .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum.
‘’Fuck it! I’m not going to let those bastards escape. Let’s kill those bastards, Ali!’’
‘’With pleasure, Donald.’’ Replied the Iranian, grinning as he took out his FN Five-Seven 5.7mm pistol. However, before he could fire it, a monstrous muzzle blast and ear-splitting detonation made him jump sideways.
BOOM
The two French agents still fighting it off with the boat occupants saw the man who was trying to cut the mooring line be literally projected off the deck of his boat and into the water of the harbor. The man firing at the French agents then swiveled around to aim his AKSU-74 in the direction from where the shot had come, only to be stitched from crotch to head by a dense burst of automatic fire. The gunman was dead before he could fall flat on his back. Back behind the column protecting them, Dean looked with big eyes at Ali’s pistol.
‘’I didn’t know that the FN Five-Seven came in an automatic variant.’’
Ali replied with a big smile.
‘’Special modification ‘made in Iran’, my friend.’’
‘’Nice! Let’s get out of Dodge before those frogs can regain their senses.’’
The two men, pistols still in hand, then broke into a sprint, returning to their car.
On the quay, near the moored speedboat flying the Saudi flag, the two intact agents were soon joined by their two drivers. The most senior agent left intact then shouted a few orders around.
‘’CHARLES, JACQUES, MAKE SURE THAT THOSE TWO BASTARDS ARE DEAD, THEN CALL FOR AMBULANCES. JULIEN, YOU AND I WILL CHECK ON OUR COMRADES.’’
Running to their four comrades lying around the quay, the two DGSI agents could only see that two of them were now dead, while the two others were gravely wounded and bleeding profusely. Quickly taking out his handkerchief, the senior agent did his best to slow down the bleeding from the belly wound of his youngest agent.
‘’Merde! I think that the liver was hit. CHARLES, WE WILL NEED THOSE AMBULANCES RIGHT AWAY!’’
A minute or so later, as he was despairing of saving his junior agent, an ambulance appeared at the base of the quay, its siren blaring. Soon, two medics came to him and started taking care of the two wounded agents. Less than five minutes later, the two wounded were leaving aboard the ambulance, leaving behind four shaken DGSI officers. The most senior one looked around at the scene of the fight and at the now empty speedboat.
‘’Damn! Those two Saudi bastards acted as if they owned the place. And who were those two men who helped us during the fight?’’
‘’I don’t know, Robert, but I could kiss their asses right now.’’ replied another agent.
17:29 (Paris Time)
Aboard the speedboat SIRÈNE ARGENTÉE
Leaving Monaco Bay
Dean’s impression about the fast boat he had watched leave the yachting port had actually been correct: the SIRÈNE ARGENTÉE{16} was indeed used to smuggle in and out of Monaco both goods and people, including young women kidnapped around Northern Africa and then forcibly brought to Monaco to serve as prostitutes for the rich men who kept visiting the principality. The owner of the boat was a French citizen of Algerian descent, Charles Haroun, who had been in the smuggling business for years already. However, Charles Haroun was not at the wheel of his boat this evening. Rather, his body lay hidden in the forward section of the boat, next to the two powerful diesel engines and to newly-placed 400 kilos of HMX-RDX explosive mixture. It was Hassan Kosravi who was now piloting the boat. Kosravi had killed Haroun yesterday and then taken control of his fast boat. By doing that, Hassan had achieved three useful things: first, he had gained access to a fast boat at no cost; second, he had silenced the only witness who could later on signal him to the French police; third, and not the least, he had made Haroun pay for having double-crossed in the past another Iranian agent. Now, Hassan was ready to execute his team’s ‘Plan B’ in support of their mission. The team even had a ‘Plan C’, if absolutely needed. Right now, his target was easily visible in the distance, with the lowering Sun nicely silhouetting it on the horizon. Hassan had heard the noise of two separate gun battles around the port area, after receiving an order via radio from Farah, using a prearranged codeword. Noticing one of the radios fitted to the boat by Haroun, a model made to intercept police and coast guard frequencies, Hassan switched it on and set it to the frequency his team knew to be in use by the French DGSI local team, all the while piloting his boat in a way that would eventually make him pass well behind the SERENE. He frowned on hearing that those ex-ISIS bastards had resisted arrest and had killed or wounded a number of French agents: that had been a stupid, unnecessary reaction by the ISIS fighters. He did raise an eyebrow when the radio conversation mentioned two unidentified men who had escaped after lending a providential hand to a group of DGSI agents under fire. Apparently, Donald the American and Ali had decided to help the French agents against the ISIS fighters. If that was the case, then Hassan could only approve. It also further raised by one notch his appreciation for the said Donald: he decidedly was an enemy that he could truly respect. As for the enemies he was going to face, they were only worthy of Hell. Some 200 meters before passing well behind the stern of the SERENE, Hassan effected a tight turn to the right and gunned his big diesel engines to maximum power. As he was getting level with the yacht, with some 150 meters separating the speedboat from the yacht, he turned his boat again, this time to the left, pointing his bow at the yacht while going at full speed. Hassan then grabbed the Deadman’s Switch he had bought in Marseille and closed his left hand around it, holding the contacts in open position. Next, he switched on his main detonator circuit box. Now, even if his Deadman’s Switch proved non-functional, an extra, impact-initiated delayed fuse would take care of igniting his explosives. Having studied days before the known layout of the Saudi royal yacht, Hassan corrected his trajectory to point his boat at the section of the yacht containing the royal suite, then crouched down behind the protection of two body armor vests he had laid over and taped to the windshield of the boat, sticking his head only high enough to be able to guide his boat. He could now see a number of men on the yacht who were starting to react to his approach. However, those men all wore the uniforms of simple sailors, with none of Prince Bin Salman’s bodyguards in sight yet. Those bodyguards never had time to react before the smuggler’s boat rammed the yacht at a speed of 38 knots, with its aluminum hull crumbling on impact but still splitting open and penetrating the thin steel hull of the SERENE. Hassan Kosravi died when his head smashed against a steel hull panel, with his hand then opening, triggering the ignition of the 400 kilos of HMX-RDX mixture. The explosion inside of the yacht’s hull of that charge, equivalent to the power of two modern heavy torpedo warheads, gutted half of the internal volume of the yacht in one mighty blast. To the devastation of that blast was added the incendiary power of a dozen full propane tanks carried in the back of the speedboat. Cut in half and with both parts deformed and on fire, the SERENE sank out of view in less than three minutes, leaving alive only two stunned sailors who had been standing on the open deck near the bow and who had been projected into the water by the blast wave.
On the shore in Monaco, Dean was driving back to his hotel at moderate speed when a big flash on the horizon attracted his eyes. Slowing down further, then parking in front of a restaurant, he grabbed his binoculars and looked towards the sea just as the noise of a powerful explosion reached the coast. Somehow, he guessed what had just happened and was about to call Erik by radio when he heard Ali whisper to himself. Looking at the Iranian agent, he then saw that Ali was actually praying, both of his eyes closed and his head bowed. The full reality of this then struck Dean: either Farah or Hassan were now dead, having executed a suicide mission, probably against the SERENE. Judging from the size and power of the explosion he had just seen, the Saudi royal yacht was probably in the process of sinking, if that had not happened yet. Out of respect to the obvious grief shown by Ali, Dean stayed silent, letting him time to finish his prayers and open his eyes. Ali was however the first one to speak, his tone soft.
‘’Hassan has now martyred himself in the name of Iran. May his memory be praised for the years to come.’’
‘’Was this the SERENE blowing up, Ali?’’
‘’Yes, it was! With luck, that cursed Saudi prince is now dead, roasting in Hell.’’
Dean looked somberly at Ali for a few seconds before speaking to him.
‘’Look, Ali, for what it’s worth, I truly regret Hassan’s death.’’
‘’Thank you, Donald. He would have been happy to hear your words.’’
Dean silently sighed, then rolled out of his parking space without using his radio: this kind of news was best passed on in person.