14:25 (Paris Time)
Monday, October 26, 2020
Passengers Arrival Terminal, Charles-de-Gaulle International Airport
Roissy-en-France, northeastern suburbs of Paris
France
The French immigration officer manning one of the arrival reception booths at the Arrival Terminal of the Charles-de-Gaulle International Airport took the passport and arrival card presented to him, then glanced at the big, tough-looking man now standing in front of his wicket. The man actually fitted to a ‘T’ with the alert notice passed by the DGSI to the immigration and customs services of the airport: single male visitor from either the Indian sub-continent or the Middle East, with special emphasis on Pakistani or Saudi passport holders; age between 25 and 45; looking physically fit and coming for short stays. The immigration officer typed a few information from the passport and arrival card into his computer after discretely pushing a hidden button under his desk, then asked a few questions in a neutral voice to the ‘Amir Khan’ facing him.
‘’What is the purpose of your visit to France, Mister Khan?’’
‘’Tourism!’’ replied tersely the Pakistani man.
‘’And how long are you planning to stay in France, sir?’’
‘’One week!’’
‘’Gee, not exactly the talkative type!’’ thought the immigration officer before stamping the man’s passport and giving the document back to the Pakistani, along with a yellow tag.
‘’Here you are, sir. Please present this tag to the customs officers when you will arrive with your luggage at their control counter.’’
The man took back his passport and the tag, then walked away without as much as a thank you. The immigration officer followed him with suspicious eyes for a moment: that guy was the spitting portrait of a foreign government agent, the kind of which the officer had seen a few times in the past, including today.
Inside a high-security room overlooking the arrival area, Captain Jacques Longchamp of the DGSI was standing behind a row of men and women manning computer stations linked to the immigration control booths located in the arrival hall. When one of the screens turned to flashing red, he went at once to it to look over the shoulders of the computer operator. This was the fifth such alert that had appeared since early this morning. This one, like the four earlier alerts, concerned a single man arriving from Pakistan. Longchamp read quickly the info on the screen, then patted the shoulder of the young female police officer manning that station.
‘’Record this entry as ‘Pakistan Alert 05 of October 26, 2020’ and print a sheet, then do a name and facial recognition search of that bozo. I doubt that the name will register, as it is probably a fake one, but maybe the face will tell us something.’’
‘’Understood, Captain!’’
As the computer operator did as she had been told, Longchamp activated his personal portable radio.
‘’Agents Miron and Latour, be ready to tag and follow a certain Amir Khan once he has gone through customs checks. His stated designation is the Royal Hotel, on 33 Avenue de Friedland. Check the Alert Notice 05 for a photo and description.’’
Longchamp then thought about what that Khan and the other four Pakistani men who had triggered an alert notice today were supposed to do in France. According to the alert sent by Director Lerner two days ago, Pakistan was expected to react in an illegal way to the arrest and continued detention of a General Khan and a Doctor Ghanef, both of which were implicated in a highly sensitive case of weapons trafficking. In this case, ‘an illegal reaction’ probably meant an attempt at freeing by force those suspects or, something the Pakistanis were known to be capable of doing, silencing them. Longchamp snickered to himself on reviewing the hotel address given by Khan on his arrival info form.
‘’Five fit men of the right age category, arriving separately on the same day and claiming to be tourists, while all going to the same hotel in Paris situated near the Pakistani embassy. Yeah, sure!’’
As Longchamp had expected, the thorough baggage check done with Amir Khan revealed no weapons or other illegal items and Khan was allowed to leave the airport without further ado, but with two DGSI agents trailing him. The Pakistani ISI,{19} while undoubtedly ruthless, was also quite professional and would not be stupid to the point of having his agents try to pass French customs with weapons hidden in their luggage. The weapons for those agents, if they were indeed clandestine agents, had probably arrived in Paris via that unscheduled Pakistani diplomatic pouch courier who had showed up late last night. Unfortunately, one could pass even an anti-tank rocket launcher if one wanted to, hidden inside a sealed diplomatic pouch, which French authorities were not allowed to open or even check via X-rays. Longchamp had the feeling that those Pakistanis could very well soon create some shit storm in Paris.
15:02 (Paris Time)
DGSI Headquarters, Levallois-Perret
Département de Haut-de-Seine
Director Nicolas Lerner nearly slammed down his telephone receiver at the end of his conversation with CIA Director Clayburn.
‘’What an imbecile! We are concerned about more nuclear weapons ending in the Middle East and that idiot is only interested in finding proofs of suspected Iranian involvement in the murder of Prince Bin Salman? And he fired a man like Julian Moore because of this political obsession?’’
Doing his best to calm down, Lerner then called up on his computer and reviewed the alerts he had received since last night from his agents at the Charles-de-Gaulle Airport and in Paris. The Pakistanis were up to something: he could smell it. What it was could only be two things, in his mind: the freeing of Khan and Ghanef through some sort of forcible action; or their killing in order to silence what were very incriminating witnesses against the Pakistani government. Both Khan and Ghanef were presently being detained at the new headquarters of the Regional Judiciary Police Directorate, in the 17ème Arrondissement, where they were waiting to pass in front of a case magistrate. Checking on that case examination, Lerner frowned when he saw that it was scheduled for tomorrow morning. If anything, that would be when Pakistani agents were most likely to act, while Khan and Ghanef were being transported to the equally new Justice Palace of Paris, situated in the recently completed Renzo Piano Tower. Such action promised to be a violent one, something Lerner wished to avoid as much as possible in such a densely populated district. Something would have to be done before that transfer.
Some three hours later, Lerner received one by one reports which only reinforced his suspicions: each of those five suspected Pakistani agents had visited their embassy shortly after arriving at their hotel and had then come out, all of them carrying sports bags on their way out. He now knew that he had to act, and quickly.
01:48 (Paris Time)
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Third floor hallway of the Royal Hotel
33 Avenue de Friedland, 8ème Arrondissement
Paris
The sixteen armed men dressed in black commando outfits and masks and wearing body armor and helmets advanced as silently as possible along the hotel hallway, splitting in groups of three as they passed by selected doors. Their leader, standing in the middle of the hallway, then raised one arm high, signifying to his men to be ready to act. Each group of three commandos from the DGSI Groupe d’Action Opérationel{20}, or GAO, included a man holding a heavy battering ram and two men ready to storm inside with their sub-machine guns raised and ready. When the group leader lowered his arm, each ram operator swung his heavy steel ram and slammed it against the door handle of the room he was standing in front of, smashing them open, then quickly stepped back to let the two assault men run inside while screaming in English.
‘’FRENCH POLICE! DON’T MOVE! HANDS UP!’’
The five Pakistani men, caught asleep and totally taken by surprise, could do little but groggily obey and raise both arms while lying in their bed. They were then quickly and none too gently turned on their belly before their hands were cuffed in their back. Each of the five Pakistani men, still wearing only boxer shorts or pajamas, were pushed out in the hallway by two GAO commandos, while the third commando of each group, the one who had swung a ram, started searching the room for weapons, explosives and other incriminating equipment and documents. It wasn’t long before a hefty collection of sub-machine guns, pistols, knives and grenades were found, photographed and inventoried. The leader of the GAO was in the process of collating the information about that glut of evidence when he received a radio call from his man tasked to check out the minivan rented yesterday by the Pakistanis.
‘’Captain, this is Lemire! I found the suspects’ minivan to be rigged for remote-controlled detonation, with a charge of thirty kilos of Semtex plastic explosives inside. I just disconnected that charge and removed the detonators. It should be safe now, over.’’
‘’Thirty kilos of Semtex?! Hell, that could have caused some mass casualties if exploded near the Justice Palace. Alright, take copious pictures of that charge, remote-control device and minivan, then have that minivan towed to our forensic legal garage. Good job, Lemire!’’
‘’Thank you, Captain!’’
The GAO leader then threw a dirty look at the five Pakistani men laying on their belly along the hallway: they could have caused quite a bloodbath if not arrested before putting their plan into action. The Pakistani ambassador was going to count himself lucky if he was not summarily called in at the Foreign Affairs Ministry and then thrown out as a Persona Non Grata.
‘’Okay, men: get these pieces of shit on their feet and bring them down to our cell van.’’
09:19 (Paris Time)
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Outdoor garden terrace of the Atala Hotel
10 Rue de Chateaubriand, 8ème Arrondissement
Paris, France
Dean was smiling as he read his morning copy of the newspaper Le Monde while sitting in the outdoor garden terrace of his team’s hotel and savoring a cup of espresso coffee.
‘’Team of Pakistani government assassins arrested… Pakistani ambassador thrown out… Attempts by Saudi Arabia to buy Pakistani-produced nuclear weapons… Yeah, the shit really hit the fan for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I love it! This should be enough to wake up to reality our asshole of a director in Langley.’’
Julie, who was sitting in a nearby patio chair and reading the New York Times, spoke up while keeping her face hidden by her opened newspaper.
‘’Well, the House Intelligence Committee is now demanding to grill Clayburn about this affair. With Trump’s attention stuck on the coming presidential elections, I doubt that Clayburn will get much support from his manipulator. The only thing that is still unresolved now is who will be our next President? Right now, the polls are still inconclusive.’’
‘’Damn, let’s not end up with four more years of that lying narcissist, please!’’ pleaded Dean to himself.