THE CHAOS OF BATTLE! Major Sauvage thought with growing pleasure and excitement. La pagaille! It’s coming, so close I can smell it. Kill them now, soldier. Vanquish them. Drive them from our land.
As all this played in his head, Sauvage was pacing inside his command post in an abandoned building, drinking coffee, and monitoring the radio traffic from the six units under him. He was waiting for one of the hot spots to gather wind and throw sparks. So far, however, there’d been little to suggest a repeat of yesterday evening’s chaos: the bombing, Haja’s burning horse, and all the violence those two masterstrokes had spawned.
He thought of Haja, and knew without a doubt that she would sacrifice herself to their cause. She was that noble. She was that committed.
Sauvage admired her greatly. To the extent that he could, the major even loved her, and it made him sick that he might never see her again.
His burn phone rang. Had to be Mfune. Seeing the junior officers inside the command center caught up in their work, he slipped outside. He didn’t recognize the number, and almost didn’t answer.
Then he did, and said, “Yes?”
“Chloe there?” a woman said in a voice thick with alcohol.
“You’ve got the wrong number, madame,” he said.
“You’re sure? I punched the number she put in my contacts last night.”
“If Chloe did that, she’s either stupid or nuts,” Sauvage said, and ended the call.
The major hesitated, and then hit redial. The other phone rang twice.
“Chloe?” the woman said.
Sauvage cut the call, and went back to waiting for a mob to appear.
It wasn’t until shortly after midnight that the first gunshots were reported around La Forêt-the Forest-a housing project six kilometers northeast of his position on the northern border of the Bondy Forest.
The major called Captain Mfune on the radio. “Take the convoy jammers and triangulate the entire place. I’m coming behind you with two full units.”
“Rules of engagement?”
“If fired upon, defend yourselves.”
“Roger that,” Mfune said, and signed off.
Sauvage grabbed his flak jacket, helmet, and sidearm, saying, “Let’s move, Corporal Perry.”
The major got in the Sherpa, climbed into the backseat, and pushed up the roof hatch.
Taking goggles and a radio headset from a hook by the hatch, the major wriggled up through the opening and got in position behind the machine gun.
Moments after his driver and the sergeant who usually manned the turret gun climbed in, Sauvage’s headset crackled. “Where to, sir?” the corporal asked.
“La Forêt housing project. Patch me into all radio traffic in the area.”
“Roger that, sir,” the corporal said.
They pulled out and headed north.
Sauvage loved his station in life at that moment, riding high above the streets behind La Nana and a whole lot of accurate ammunition. Was there anything better?
The major’s brain replayed savored bits of past trips into the chaos of battle, and he felt his body warm. The radio traffic only fed his excitement. There were reports of armed men in the streets around the housing project, and snipers.
In Sauvage’s mind, the sniping was more than enough provocation to retaliate with force, regardless of whether someone was hit or not. He trembled with an addict’s anticipation then, knowing for certain that he was on the verge of slipping into the familiar insanity and lethal bliss of la pagaille.
Chapter 104
La Forêt, northeastern suburbs of Paris
April 13, 12:44 a.m.
NINE SEEDY TOTALITARIAN-STYLE high-rise buildings made up La Forêt housing project. Four sat to the left of a central access road, and five to the right. The project bordered a crescent-shaped wetland. If you made a straight line through the Bondy Forest, it was less than six miles from Les Bosquets.
Some of those AK-47s have got to be here, Sauvage thought as the Sherpa rolled to a stop two blocks from the eastern edge of the project. How many? Five or six at least. But perhaps as many as ten or fifteen were taken out of Les Bosquets, and then smuggled through the woods.
Mfune’s voice came over the headset. “Convoy jammers in position.”
The jammers were state-of-the-art Argos designed to interrupt all cellular and walkie-talkie traffic within five hundred yards. With three of the Argos in place, the housing project was a dead zone, which is how Sauvage wanted it.
“Turn them on,” the major said. “Shift all comm to C.”
“Yes, sir.”
The headset went dead. The major ducked down into the Sherpa, looked at the gunner sergeant, and said, “You’ll mobilize here as part of the perimeter.”
“Here, sir?” the sergeant said.
Sauvage nodded. “You’re to stop and search anyone seen fleeing that project. If they have weapons of any kind, arrest and restrain them.”
The sergeant pursed his lips and got out, shutting the door behind him.
“Change to C frequency, Corporal Perry,” Sauvage said.
The driver looked uneasy. “Protocol says B under these-”
“Perry, are you being insubordinate?”
“No sir!”
“Then do as I say,” Sauvage snapped. “Intelligence indicates that AB-16 may be monitoring police and military frequencies.”
He knew nothing of the sort, but it worked. His driver typed in the new frequency on the Sherpa’s in-dash computer.
“Well done, Corporal,” Sauvage said. “Going topside.”
The major crawled up through the port again and got his boots solidly in the stirrups below before triggering his mic.
“Captain Mfune?”
“Roger.”
“Put two-man teams on every corner two blocks back from the target,” he ordered. “You stay mobile on that perimeter. Catch the cats as they run.”
“You’re playing rat tonight?”
“Affirmative,” Sauvage said.
There was a pause, and then, “Good luck, Major.”
“Roger that,” he replied. “Corporal Perry?”
“Major?”
“You’re recon-trained?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you know what a rat patrol is?”
“Seek out the enemy and draw fire, sir.”
“Are you a brave man, Corporal Perry?”
“I’m a recon soldier, sir.”
“Then do your duty. Advance east. Cruise the perimeter of the project.”
“Done, sir.”
The Sherpa rolled toward La Forêt. Sauvage put both hands on the machine gun, swept away in the heightened awareness he longed and lived for.
He felt the way he used to in Afghanistan, when the sky was moonless and armies were moving. He sensed the tension that built before la pagaille, waiting for the first shot, the first flare, the first rocket streaking across the sky.
It was where he belonged.
I’m coming home, he thought ecstatically. Coming home right-
A gunshot ripped the night. Someone was shooting in the project.
“You hear that, Corporal Perry?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Bear right along the perimeter. Take the first entrance in, road or path.”
The Sherpa swung right onto a narrow two-lane road. The streetlamps were dead. A block away, two cars had been turned sideways, bumper to bumper, spanning the street, and set afire. Two other cars were burning and blocking the road a hundred yards beyond, up against the Bondy Forest.
Between the two barriers, a mob of young men guarded the main entrance into the project. Most held knives or machetes, clubs, Molotov cocktails, or stones. Sheets had been hung in the trees. There was Arabic writing on them that Sauvage read easily.
We fight for the Prophet’s warhorse!
Even better, Sauvage thought.
Then he barked, “Straight at them, Corporal Perry! Show them how the Sherpa works at ramming speed!”