Dutcher asked Briggs, “Does Gill know the odds?”
“I suspect so,” Tanner replied, “but he doesn’t care. It’s his little girl, Leland.”
“Yep. So: He asked you for a favor.”
Tanner nodded.
“Does he know you’re still on the inside?”
“I suspect so, but he’s never brought it up. Bottom line: His daughter is missing, the DEA isn’t talking, and he can’t go himself. He needs help.”
Dutcher smiled. “I can see you’ve already made your decision.”
“Not much to think about.”
“I suppose not. Briggs, if you get into trouble—”
“I know.” If he got into trouble, he would truly be on his own. Semiautonomous as Holystone was, Dutcher still had people to whom he answered and boundaries he could not cross. If it came out that Holystone was applying its resources to an operator’s personal agenda, heads would roll — starting with Dutcher’s. While this in itself didn’t worry Leland, the idea of Holystone being shut down did.
Dutcher stared hard at Briggs for a few seconds, then said, “What we can do is have Walt do a little digging”—Tanner opened his mouth to protest, but Dutcher held up a hand and kept going—“into open sources and see what we come up with. Maybe we can give you a trail to follow. What do you think, Walt?”
Oaken smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can learn on the internet these days.”
Tanner smiled back. “Thanks.”
“One condition, though,” Dutcher said.
“What’s that?”
“If you turn up anything dicey, hand it over to the right people and step aside.”
“I’ll step back, not aside.”
Dutcher shrugged the concession. “How’s your French?”
“Ce n’est pas grave.” No problem.
“J’espère ainsi,” Dutcher replied. Here’s hoping so.
After leaving Holystone, Tanner ran some last-minute errands before driving home. He pulled into the garage, then mounted the wraparound deck and walked toward the rear French doors. Slouched in an Adirondack chair, his feet propped on the deck railing, was Ian Cahil. A black duffel sat on the deck beside him.
“About time you got here,” Cahil called. “Our flight leaves in an hour.”
“Our flight?”
“You didn’t think I’d let you jaunt on over to France without me, did you? One condition: We make a stop at that little boulangerie in the … uh …” Cahil snapped his fingers rapidly. “Where was it?”
“Latin Quarter — off Saint Germain.”
“That’s the place. With the spicy bouillabaisse.”
Tanner chuckled. He didn’t need to ask Cahil how he’d found out about the trip. Either Dutcher or Oaken had called him. Good ol’ Mama Bear, Briggs thought.
Like Tanner and Gillman Vetsch, Cahil was also a former member of ISAG, but his and Tanner’s friendship was older still, having been cemented during what was then called BUD/s, the Navy’s Special Warfare six-month selection course. Early in the grueling program Cahil’s protective nature earned him the nickname Mama Bear.
Cahil was Tanner’s finest friend — reliable, stubborn, and fiercely loyal. Standing five-eight and weighing 220 pounds, Bear was a half-foot shorter than Tanner and thirty pounds heavier, with a physique somewhere between that of a brick and an Olympic wrestler.
Noting the expression on Bear’s face, Briggs knew better than to argue with him. Besides, Cahil also counted Gill and Susanna Vetsch as near-family. Moreover, Bear would argue, Tanner needed him. He’d be right Tanner could think of no one he’d rather have at his side when diving headfirst into the unknown.
“They told you everything?” Tanner asked.
“Yep. How’s Gill taking it?”
Tanner sat down in the other Adirondack. “Not very good. She’s all he’s got.”
Cahil nodded solemnly. “How’re you doing?”
“We’ll find her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Briggs smiled, shrugged. “Tell you the truth, I think I’d started thinking of her as my own. I’ve got this hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that isn’t going away.”
Cahil was silent for a moment, then he clapped Tanner on the shoulder. “It will when we find her. Somebody, somewhere, knows where she is. We’ll find them, then we’ll find her.”
Three thousand miles away, the only man who knew what had become of Susanna Vetsch was walking along the Rue de la Marine toward the city’s main harbor. In the distance, through the waves of heat shimmering off the ocean, he could see the jagged cliffs of Gibraltar. A group of four imdyazn came marching down the street, the lead man singing as the other three cavorted around him, somersaulting and prancing for passing tourists who tossed coins and applauded.
“Too shah rif na! Shokran!” You honor us! Thank you!
The man stopped across from the Grand Mosque and pulled out a handkerchief to mop his face. The imdyazn pranced over to him, dancers spinning. “Sbah I’khir...”
The man shook his head. “Seer, seer!” Get lost!
“So sorry, so sorry … Allah akbar!”
He watched the group turn the corner and disappear onto Dar el Baroud, then he unfolded a map and perused it. Down the block a vendor knelt over a brazier of lamb’s meat. A customer in a bright red fez walked up, haggled briefly over the price, then purchased a slice. He paid the vendor and then strolled to where the man was standing.
“You’re Stephan?” the customer asked.
“Nafed?” the man replied in German-accented English.
“Indeed. I was told you are looking for a boat.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place—”
“Save the sales pitch. If you supply the right vessel, you’ll be well paid.”
Nafed smiled and bowed his head submissively. His newest customer was a giant of a man with fish-belly white skin and a puckered scar on his cheekbone that twisted his eyelid downward. Here’s a face that hasn’t seen a smile in years, Nafed thought. A very serious, very dangerous man. The broker in Sarajevo had told him as much, but Nafed had dismissed the warning. He’d dealt with men from all walks of life, from the very dangerous to the very stupid. But now, looking at the man calling himself Stephan, Nafed reconsidered his attitude. This man, with his dead eyes and Teutonic accent, reeked of violence.
“Massena beef,” Nafed said with a broad smile. “Whatever you wish. We will take a stroll and you shall point out the kind of boat you want. Allah willing, we will find one that suits your needs.”
They spent the next hour walking among the slips in the marina, Stephan pointing out vessels that interested him and Nafed reciting each one’s specifications: speed, cruising range, cargo capacity, and, most importantly, availability.
Once they’d accumulated a dozen candidates, they walked to the Hotel Continental and found a table on the terrace overlooking the harbor. Nafed pulled a notebook from the pocket of his robe and began paging through it, making notations as he went. Finally he looked up. “Of the twelve you chose, four would be quite easy to obtain; six difficult but not impossible; two would be out of the question.”
“Why?”