MADRID
Ramirez had selected the spot well. Kealey realized as much as he moved down the sidewalk, Pétain trailing a few steps behind. The operative had dropped them 100 meters south of the gate leading into the building site, but more importantly, he’d picked an area where the road was completely shielded from the site. Not only by the 5-foot chain-link fence, but by a flimsy wooden fence. It meant the workers wouldn’t have seen the vehicle that dropped them off. It was a small point, admittedly, but major operations had been blown on far less. Every intelligence agency around the world had suffered its fair share of embarrassments, including the CIA. Hopefully, today’s work wouldn’t fall into that category.
As they approached the east gate, Kealey saw with relief that it was already open. It would save them some time loitering outside, where they might be noticed by the wrong person. The second gate was on the other side of the site, where it opened onto a parallel street. A dump truck filled with stone was edging into traffic, and a number of workers in khakis, T-shirts, and hard hats were waiting to close the gate once the vehicle had made the turn. The street wasn’t especially busy, but noise seemed to be hitting them from all directions: the staccato sounds of rapid-fire Spanish, the groan of machinery on the other side of the fence, as well as the steady thump of rap music emanating from a passing Land Rover. To their left, an African street vendor plied his trade, his wares—bootlegged CDs and DVDs, for the most part—neatly lined up on a white cotton sheet spread over the cement. A few tourists stopped to gape at the blatant display of illegal merchandise, but the vendor ignored them, his wary eyes scanning the crowd for the smallest sign of an undercover police officer.
Kealey shifted his eyes from the scene and kept moving forward, Pétain a few feet to his rear. The strap of the bag was biting into his shoulder, and sweat was streaming down the back of his neck. Every inch of his skin was damp, his shirt soaked completely through.
A hand tightened around the back of his arm, pulling him out of his distracted state. He turned to face Marissa Pétain.
“What are you going to say?” she shouted over the roar of the dump truck and passing traffic. He frowned, pulling her close, and she caught the hint, lowering her voice as she put her mouth next to his ear. “They’re not going to let us walk right in there, you know. How are you going to get us in?”
“I’m going to tell them the truth.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging open. He didn’t wait for her to snap out of it, instead hurrying forward, sliding past a tight knot of wayward tourists. Someone bumped him hard, nearly shoving him into the road, where cars were streaming by at a steady clip. He swore under his breath and kept going. He was angry with himself for letting the heat distract him. Pétain’s question had slowed him down as well; he shouldn’t have stopped to answer her. In truth, he would have preferred to leave her out of this altogether. She wouldn’t be contributing much to the conversation; he just wanted her there to lower the tension, or at least keep it in check. Ghafour would be less suspicious, less confrontational, with a woman present. At least, that was the hope. According to the file, Ghafour had lost his father at an early age, and he’d grown up with his mother and four older sisters. That kind of upbringing would likely leave a lasting impression.
Kealey sprinted the last few feet as the gate swung shut. He reached it and grabbed the chain-link with his fingers. The man who was trying to pull it closed stopped and shot him a confused, slightly irritated look. “¿ Qué deseas?”
“Deseo hablar con un hombre que trabaje contigo, ” Kealey replied.
“Kamil Ghafour.”
The burly Spaniard froze and looked at him hard, his dark eyes unreadable beneath the plastic brim of his hard hat. “¿Por qué?”
“That’s my business,” Kealey continued in Spanish. Pétain stood next to him silently, nervously shifting from one foot to the other.
“But he’ll want to talk to me. Tell him I have something to give him. Something to offer.”
The man shook his head, spat on the ground, and turned to walk away. Kealey called out, and when the man looked back, he lifted a crumpled fistful of Euros. The worker walked back cautiously and eyed the obvious bribe.
“One hundred Euros,” Kealey said. “Fifty when you let me in, another fifty when you point him out.”
The Spaniard hesitated, looked around slowly, then nodded his agreement. He lifted a finger, indicating they should wait, and walked off. Pétain started to speak, but Kealey silenced her with a quick gesture. “He’ll be back,” he told her. “Just give it a minute.”
The construction worker reappeared in two. He opened the gate, waved them in, and handed them a couple of hard hats. They put them on and Kealey handed over the first fifty. The man held it up to the afternoon sun, as though verifying its authenticity. Satisfied, he turned and waved a heavily calloused hand, indicating they should follow. Kealey thought it strange that the man hadn’t given Pétain so much as an appraising glance, but he quickly pushed aside the distracting thought. They walked toward a series of trailers, following the deep impressions left by a heavy vehicle’s tires. The ground was hard beneath their feet, red soil heaped to the right, the concrete pad to the left. The sound of an electric bolt gun filled the air, drowned out a moment later by the low, throaty rumble of a diesel crane. After another 50 feet, the Spaniard stopped and pointed to the third trailer. “He’s in there,” he said in his native language. There was a hint of derision in his voice, and he paused again to spit on the ground.
“The maricón doesn’t get his hands dirty anymore, not since the police came. He sits inside, where it’s cool, and does the paperwork.”
Kealey looked around, trying to get a better sense of his surroundings. No one was paying them too much attention, and he didn’t see the face he was looking for. As far as he could tell, the construction worker was telling the truth.
He handed over the second fifty, and the Spaniard grunted his approval. He shoved the money into the right pocket of his filthy khakis. Then, finally, he shot a lecherous look at Pétain. She pretended not to notice as she nudged the solid clay with her foot, her eyes stubbornly fixed on the trailer in the near distance. Finally, the man snorted and lumbered off.
“Asshole,” Pétain muttered. Once the worker was out of earshot, she turned to Kealey and said, “So, what do you think?”
“I think he’s in there. Most of these guys are natives. They’ll put up with an Algerian boss, if the money is right, but I doubt their goodwill extends to a favored employee. Especially one born on foreign soil.”
“That’s how it looks,” she agreed. “So what now?”
“Now we go in.” Kealey moved forward suddenly, Pétain scrambling to keep up. As he crossed the uneven terrain, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of doubt. There was no guarantee that Ghafour could point them in the right direction, and just approaching him entailed a huge risk. All he had to do was call out for his coworkers. They might not care for him, but they would back him up if it came to that; Kealey was sure of it. If summoned, they would arrive in a matter of seconds, and the police wouldn’t be far behind. Should that happen, the whole operation would be blown wide open. The Agency would suffer a major embarrassment, and they’d be no closer to finding Amari Saifi. At the same time, they only had one shot at this—one shot at getting Ghafour to talk. If he did know something, they had to get it out of him. By any means necessary. A low, pointed cough brought him back to reality. They had reached the trailer, and Pétain was staring at him expectantly, flapping her blouse in a fruitless attempt to dispel the suffocating heat.
“Okay,” he said, after listening for noise inside the unit. He couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of the crane’s engine and the high-pitched, rattling whine of the bolt gun. Even here, more than 200 feet from the street, the sound of traffic was incredibly noisy. He didn’t continue his thought; instead, he just banged twice on the door. Inside, there was a slight squeak, as if someone had just risen from an old chair. Kealey unzipped the duffel on his shoulder, thrust a hand inside, and withdrew a bundle of notes. Seconds later, the door sprung open, and a man stood before them. He looked confused at first, but a cautious expression soon slid over his face. “Who are you?” he asked in fractured Spanish. “What do you want?”
Kealey had seen file photographs of the rail-thin Algerian. He knew he had the right man, but he decided to feign a little ignorance to keep things casual. “Are you Kamil Ghafour?” he asked in English. Ghafour’s shrewd brown eyes narrowed immediately. “Why?”
“I need to talk to you. I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”
“Are you the police?” he snapped. He extended a bony, threatening finger, then continued in English. “My status in this country is legal. I have documentation, and—”
“I’m not the police.” Kealey held up the bundle of notes, and Ghafour’s eyes locked onto the money immediately. Kealey was surprised when the man didn’t visibly react. No smile, no greedy stare, no nervous lick of the lips . . . no gesture of any kind. Instead, his feral gaze slid sideways to Pétain, who was standing at the bottom of the wooden steps. “Who is she?”
“She’s with me.” Kealey tossed over the bundle, and Ghafour caught the money cleanly. “There’s more where that came from. If you’re interested, that is.”
Ghafour looked at him a beat longer, then jerked his head to the rear. They followed him into the cool interior, and Pétain shut the door behind them. They removed their hard hats as the Algerian walked behind a cheap wooden desk. He turned to face them, but Kealey noticed that he didn’t sit down, and alarm bells started ringing instantly. He scanned the top of the desk, but he didn’t see any evidence of a weapon. That didn’t mean anything, though; there could be a veritable arsenal in the drawers. Given the site manager’s antigovernment stance and obvious disdain for authority, Kealey felt sure there was some kind of weapon hidden inside the room. Judging from Ghafour’s stance, it was probably inside or behind the desk.
“So,” Ghafour prompted, spreading his arms out to the side, as if to say, “Here I am . . . What do you want?”
Kealey lifted the duffel bag to eye level, then tossed it onto a ratty couch. “There’s a lot of money in there. Twenty thousand Euros, to be exact. My gift to you.”
Ghafour looked at the duffel once, but his eyes flicked back to Kealey instantly. “And what,” he asked in a slightly amused voice,
“would I have to do for all of that?”
Kealey didn’t respond right away, although his eyes never left Ghafour’s smiling face. The Algerian was short—five feet eight inches at the most—and he couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds. He was the last person one would expect to find on a building site, and that was something else to consider. Had his employer hired him simply because of his nationality, or was Ghafour active again? Was the site manager involved with the GIA? The man had money and connections, Kealey reminded himself, and Ghafour had never renounced his ties to the Armed Islamic Group. Suddenly, the spark of doubt returned, but this time it was twice as intense. Maybe trying to pay him off had been the wrong play. Unfortunately, it was too late to change tactics now; they had no choice but to see it through and hope for the best.
“All I want is information,” Kealey said, watching the other man carefully for a hint of where the weapon might be. The slightest shift of eyes could give it away, and he had to know. “Money for information, Kamil . . . Believe me, it’s a fair trade. You were in prison for seven years, correct? In Algiers?”
Ghafour smirked, his thin lips twisting into something approximating a smile. “Yes, but you already knew that, didn’t you?” The smile disappeared suddenly. “You’re not the police, so who are you? MI5?”
“No.”
“Where are you from? England? The States?”
Ghafour waited for a response. When it became clear one wasn’t forthcoming, his smile grew wider. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re American. It’s so obvious, when you know how to look . . . You seem familiar. What’s your name?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Kealey heard himself say. Pétain was shifting nervously beside him. She muttered something under her breath. Kealey didn’t catch it at first, the air conditioner drowning out the words, but then she repeated it.“Behind the files.”
Kealey’s eyes dropped to the desk. To his left—Ghafour’s right—
a pile of files was stacked up to waist height. Kealey understood that Pétain had a view of what lay behind the folders, and a cold chill ran down his spine when he realized what she was trying to tell him. Kamil Ghafour’s gun was less than 2 feet from his right hand.
“You don’t need to know who we are to enjoy the money, Kamil. All I want is a name. Who came to see Amari Saifi in prison? Who arranged to get him out?”
“Yes,” Ghafour continued slowly. He spoke with a slight lisp. “You seem very familiar.” It was as if he hadn’t heard the questions. He extended his left hand and wagged a finger at the other man. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. I’m sure of it.”
Kealey felt another chill. It could have just been the abrupt change in temperature, but either way, the man’s relaxed, carefree attitude was putting him on edge. Pétain was completely immobile next to him; he could almost feel the tension radiating from her body. Clearly, she was just as uneasy as he was.
“You don’t know me,” he told Ghafour, adding a harder note to his voice. He doubted the Algerian had any idea who he really was. Earlier that morning he’d added some gray streaks to his hair, which made him look at least ten years older, and his eye color had been temporarily changed with a pair of green-tinted Clear View contacts. More importantly, he was still wearing the thick beard he’d grown over the past three months, which all but obscured the lower half of his face.
“I’ll ask you once more, and then I’m taking the money and leaving,” Kealey lied. “Who came to see Saifi in Algiers?”
Ghafour opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, someone began pounding hard on the metal door to the trailer. Kealey caught only part of what happened next: Pétain jumped at the sudden noise, her eyes darting to the left. At the same time, her right hand dropped to her hip, lifting the lower edge of her white cotton blouse. It was purely instinctive, and the FN Forty-Nine was revealed for only a split second, but that was all it took. Kealey sensed, more than saw, Ghafour’s hand dart behind the cluster of files, and without thinking, he threw himself forward, reaching out for the other man’s arm.
The gun discharged once as Kealey reached Ghafour, his left hand moving to knock the weapon aside. He reached out with his right to get hold of Ghafour’s shirt at the neck, then used his forward momentum to propel them both into the wall of the trailer. The whole structure rocked with the impact as someone began to shout outside, calling for help in rapid-fire Spanish. Then Kealey and Ghafour were on the floor, wrestling for control of the gun. It went off again, the sound rattling off the thin metal walls of the trailer, then again before Kealey could pull it free of the other man’s grasp. It wasn’t until he got to his feet, struggling for breath, that he realized the third shot hadn’t come from Ghafour’s weapon.
He turned to face Marissa Pétain. Her feet were placed shoulderwidth apart, and both hands were on her gun. It was extended at arm’s length, and looking down, Kealey saw exactly where her round had gone. There was a small hole in the Algerian’s upper left thigh. It didn’t look too serious, but then, as Ghafour groaned and rolled to his right, the wound started to spurt.
“Oh, fuck, ” Kealey said. His own weapon was still at the small of his back, so nothing had to happen there. He put the safety on Ghafour’s 9mm and tossed it to Pétain. She managed to catch it as Kealey dropped to his knees and put both hands over the other man’s wound, pushing down as hard as he could. Ghafour shrieked in pain, then let loose with a series of unintelligible curses. He flailed his arms wildly, trying to catch Kealey in the face, but he didn’t have the leverage.
Ignoring the cries of pain, Kealey spoke to Pétain without turning to face her. “Make sure that fucking door is locked!” he shouted. After a second of frozen indecision, she burst into action, reaching the door with two quick paces.
She checked the handle quickly, then spun and said, “It’s locked. It’s already locked.”
“Can they open it from outside?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not without breaking it down. Oh, God, I didn’t mean to . . . Ryan, what do you want me to—”
“Find me something to stop him from bleeding out. Gauze, tape . . . anything. Look for a first aid kit. Hurry! ”
As Pétain began her frantic search, Kealey did his best to keep pressure on the wound. It was almost impossible; Ghafour was writhing around on the dirty floor, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Shut up!” Kealey screamed. “Stop moving around! I’m trying to save your life, asshole!”
Pétain, who’d been digging through a stand-alone closet in the corner, suddenly yelled, “I got it!” She stood up and sprinted the few feet between them, then dropped to her knees by Kealey’s side. She struggled with the lid for a few seconds, and then the kit sprung open, its contents scattering over the floor. She scrambled to collect the gauze and tape, and Kealey—pushing as hard as he could on the wound with his left hand—reached out with his right to grab the tape.
He shot a look at Pétain and, over Ghafour’s continued screams, yelled, “I need something heavier, something thicker than this gauze. Your shirt . . .”
She looked down at her blouse and caught his meaning immediately. She pulled it off as fast as she could, struggling to free her arms from the tight cotton sleeves. Once it was off—revealing a tank top underneath—she looked around the desk, found a utility knife, and began cutting strips of material. Each was approximately 2 feet in length and 6 inches wide. As she was working, Kealey was wrapping the gauze around Ghafour’s spurting wound. Once he had taped it into place, Pétain handed over the first length of cloth, and Kealey used it to cover the gauze, tying a nonslip knot to one side of the small wound. Then he wadded up a second strip, placed it directly over the small hole in the Algerian’s thigh, and secured it in place with a second strip of Pétain’s blouse. This time he tied a nonslip knot directly over the wound.
Ghafour was still moaning in between ragged, shallow breaths. His screaming had stopped, which wasn’t a good sign, but his eyes were wide open, and he was alert enough to respond to questions, which was all that mattered to Kealey. Retrieving a couple of cushions from the couch in the corner, he lifted the Algerian’s feet and slid the cushions under. It worked to keep the man’s legs well above the level of his heart, which would help to slow the bleeding. It was the best he could do without applying a tourniquet, but he wasn’t willing to take that step just yet.
The adrenaline started to dissipate, and Kealey found he was suddenly exhausted; he had yet to catch his breath, and his limbs felt incredibly heavy. He suddenly realized he might have been hit. He checked quickly, his pulse pounding hard in his ears, but nothing seemed to be out of place. Looking over, he saw that Pétain was on the phone, telling Ramirez what had taken place in short, terse sentences. Kealey was relieved to see she was relaying the information quickly but calmly. He knew he needed to give the operative in the van some instructions, so he immediately began thinking along those lines. But then he looked down at his hands, and he lost track of his thoughts completely. His hands and arms were dripping with bright red arterial blood. Glancing over, he realized that the Algerian had already lost about a pint of the vital fluid, and while the pressure dressing would slow the bleeding, it wouldn’t stop it completely. If Kealey was going to get the answers he needed, it would have to be soon.
Pétain looked over and caught his attention. “Ramirez wants to know what to do,” she said urgently. “They don’t—”
“Tell him to sit tight. There’s nothing else he can do right now.”
Pétain looked like she wanted to argue, but she pushed down her doubts and relayed the message. Seconds later, she snapped the phone shut and stared at him anxiously. “Ryan, do you hear that?”
Distracted by his efforts to slow the Algerian’s rate of bleeding, Kealey had allowed the noise outside the trailer to fade into the background. Now he listened intently, and he caught her point immediately. Above the confused shouts of construction workers and the distant rumble of traffic, he heard a sound that changed everything: the two-tone scream of a police car’s siren. The previous day, Kealey had seen a car flash past them using the same siren, and he realized the responding units belonged to the CNP, the National Police. Another siren joined in seconds later, completely drowning out the traffic on Calle de San Leonardo de Dios. Kealey studied Ghafour for a few seconds. His face was pale and covered in sweat, and his eyelids were starting to droop. Sliding over, he quickly checked for a pulse, pressing two fingers hard against the man’s clammy skin. The pulse was weak, but still there. Finding it didn’t do much to relieve his concern, as the Algerian was clearly sliding into hypovolaemic shock. Kealey knew that unless he did something immediately, Ghafour would pass out, and there was a good chance he’d never regain consciousness.
Lifting his gaze, Kealey scoured the medical supplies scattered over the floor. Before long, he saw what he wanted. “Hand me that syringe,” he said to Pétain. She looked uncertain for a second, but then she reached down and picked it up. She checked the markings quickly and handed it over.
“Epinephrine. Do you think it will work?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. He pulled the protective cover off the syringe and tried to block out the sound of rapidly approaching sirens. Judging by the speed with which the first cars had responded, they’d be completely surrounded in a matter of minutes. “But we have to keep him awake, and we need him to start talking. We’re running out of time.”
“You’re wrong,” Pétain said, her voice shaking with tension. She was standing at one of the small windows, using two fingers to separate the blinds. “We’re out of time.” She let go of the blinds, and they snapped shut with a slight metallic clatter. When she turned to face him, her face was pale and drawn. “The police are already at the gate, and it looks like they’re coming in.”