Liberation Day

Chapter 48

Click, click.

Lotfi came back. “Stop, stop, stop. Held at the lights, still intending toward L’Ariane. The autoroute traffic now is moving on. We are held. N, they are definitely intending right. Acknowledge, acknowledge. Where are you? What if they go into the mountains?”

It was still not the time to talk to him yet. Click, click.

I got my foot down and tried to make up the distance. If the van carried on farther north, past L’Ariane and the built-up area, the roads became very narrow and wound up the mountains on either side. It would be hard to follow a target in that sort of terrain even with a four-car team, let alone two. It would need both of us to keep on top of the van, changing positions often so the same vehicle was never behind the target for long. At the same time, we’d have to keep close to each other, because once we got up into those hills there was no telling if we could keep communications. If the van became unsighted, we’d have to split up and look in different directions to try to find it, which would totally screw everything.

Lotfi came back on. “Stand by, stand by. Lights to green. They’re mobile, right, toward the incinerator. N, acknowledge.”

Click, click.

“Roger that, approaching the bridge, approaching the bridge.”

“Roger that, N. Still toward the incinerator. Speed four-five, five-zero. Increasing.”

“Roger that, roger that, I’m at the bridge, at the bridge.”

Click, click.

I turned onto the bridge and followed the tracks over the stony riverbed. The viaduct and the incinerator funnel towered into the sky to my right. I turned right, and as I followed the other side of the riverbank, I could see Lotfi’s Focus about four cars back from the Merc van. Lotfi was regaining control once more. “That’s halfway toward the incinerator.”

“Roger that. N’s backing. I’m now backing. Acknowledge.”

“Good, good, that’s approaching the incinerator. Wait, wait, at the incinerator, still straight. Now straight toward the apartments.”

Click, click.

Lotfi was sounding a lot better now. “That’s approaching the apartments. Wait, wait. Past the first option left, speed six five, seven zero. It looks like they’re not slowing down around here. N, acknowledge. N, acknowledge.”

“Roger that. That’s me at the incinerator.”

“Roger that, N, that’s past the second left, wait, past the third. Still straight, they’re still going straight, speed no change.”

Driving past the incinerator, I saw the burnt-out shell of the Audi in the dead ground to the right of it, and the skeleton of a van a few yards away that had also been torched.

“That’s now past the apartments, still straight. They’re heading north, it looks like they’re heading out of the city, speed no change. I’m going to need you soon to take. N, acknowledge.” He was getting worked up again.

Click, click.

“That’s now approaching the bridge on the right. Brake lights on, brake lights on! Intending right, intending right, they’re going back over the river. That’s now right onto the bridge. N, acknowledge. N, acknowledge.”

Click, click.

Looking along the line of the rocky riverbed, ahead of me I could see the van crossing the bridge from left to right, with the Ford Focus directly behind. Lotfi came back. “Halfway over the bridge brake lights on, brake lights on, intending left.”

I could see the van’s rear indicators flashing.

“That’s now over the bridge, they’re intending left into the industrial area. I’m going—”

“Don’t go with them, don’t go with them! Acknowledge, acknowledge. L, acknowledge. Don’t do it.”

The van disappeared as it took the first left just over the bridge. The Focus went straight as Lotfi told me what he could see down the option. “That’s the van at the horse, at the horse. They’ve gone straight, into the industrial area beyond the horse, somewhere to the left. I’m unsighted.”

“Roger that. N is checking, N is checking. L, acknowledge.”

I got a double-click as I saw him take the next turning left and disappear. I got to the bridge and turned right, and got a burst of air brakes and flashing headlights from an approaching truck as I crossed his front.

I didn’t want Lotfi to go in there. Going into a closed area was dangerous and it might be a trap. Or they might just be stopping in there to see if anyone was following.

I was about halfway over the bridge when I heard, “L’s foxtrot.”

“Roger that. That’s me on the bridge.”

As I reached the other side of the rocky riverbed I looked into the first option left and could see the horse he’d been going on about. Down on the left-hand side of the road was a thirty-foot-high stone monster, prancing on his hind legs, Roman fashion. It was to the left of an entrance into what looked like a decaying light-industrial complex. To the left of the gate was a large, rundown brick warehouse with a faded, hand-painted sign running the full length of the wall, announcing it was a brocante, selling secondhand furniture and odds and ends. There was a line of vehicles parked facing the wall. Fuck it. I turned, crossing over the traffic, and headed to the left of the horse and the vehicles.

The road quickly became a mud-caked, potholed nightmare with puddles of diesel fuel and muck. At last I saw Lotfi in my side mirror, walking down toward me from the bridge road. I swung left by the horse and backed up against the brick wall of the warehouse, in line with the other cars. It was out of sight of the industrial complex entrance, in case I was being watched, and it looked natural. I was just your everyday furniture buyer.

Lotfi was just a few yards short of the factory gates, and was going for his pistol. If he’d seen me, he certainly wasn’t coming over to join me.

I powered down the window and waved to him from the Citroën like a long-lost friend, smiling and gesturing for him to cross over. It didn’t look as if it was working. All I could hear was the noise of traffic rumbling over the bridge and the hissing of air brakes. He looked over to me and must have had a change of heart, because he ran reluctantly toward me, avoiding the potholes as I held out my hand in welcome from the window for the benefit of any third parties. He played his part in the pretense, but his eyes were still dancing around just like they’d done in Algeria.

I tried to calm him down and glanced at the pistol. “Put that away, mate, get in the car.”

He ignored me.

“Get in the car.”

“No, come. That is wasting time. We’ve got to go and get him. Now.”

I started to plead with him through the window, and both of us had smiles on as his eyes screamed around like a pair of pinwheels.

“We just can’t go in like that.” I gestured for him to get into the van. “Look, we don’t know where they are, how many of them there are. It could be a trap. Come on, get in the car, let’s take our time and we’ll all get out of this alive.”

But Lotfi wasn’t having any of it. “He might be dead soon. We have to—”

“I know, I know. But let’s find out where he is first, so we can work out how to get him out in one piece.”

“I will not leave my brother behind.”

“We’re not leaving anybody behind. Just get in the car. We’ve got to stay calm and work out how to get him out. Come on, you know it’s the right thing to do.”

He thought about it for a couple of seconds, then walked around the front of the Citroën and climbed in beside me. He stared at the rocky riverbed to the right, where the wall of the brocante ended. I left him to it, changed channel back to two, and listened in case Hubba-Hubba was sending. There was nothing coming over the air at all, so I switched it off and removed it from my belt as Lotfi checked chamber.

“I cannot wait any longer, he could be dead any minute. Are you coming with me?”

I turned to a heavy nostril-breathing Lotfi, who was trying to calm himself down as he stared into my eyes. I couldn’t make out whether he really cared if I went with him or not: he was going anyway.

“You know this is fucked up…You don’t know how many there are, you don’t know what weapons they have, you don’t even know where the fuck they are. You are going to die, you know that, don’t you?”

“God will decide my fate.” He turned for his door handle.

I hated this shit. I should have just dropped it and headed for the airport back at the boulevard. Fuck it. I started to suck in my stomach so I could draw down the Browning. I tapped his arm with my spare hand to get his attention before nodding at the radio. “We can’t use these things anymore, mate. They might start scanning channels on Hubba-Hubba’s. Let’s just hope they didn’t switch to channel four and listen to us panicking on the way here, eh?”

Lotfi turned and gave me a smile as I pulled back the hammer from half-cock and checked chamber. My head was spinning. Why was I doing this? “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, right. Kismet my ass. If I’m going to die I might as well make sure a couple of those fuckers come along with me — so they can get their books, whatever they’re called, weighed.”

He finished checking that his magazines were correctly positioned on his belt carrier before looking up at me as I did the same. “Destiny — their books of destiny. You know exactly what it is called.”

“Come on, then, let’s get—”

Lotfi’s eyes darted beyond me and he sank back into his seat. Instinctively, I followed.

“Lexus.”

I heard a vehicle crunch over the gravel filling some of the potholes on the road toward the industrial complex.

“Two up in the front.”

I looked, but now being side-on I couldn’t see who was behind the darkened rear windows. Baldilocks was definitely driving.

“Romeo Three, with the goatee, I saw him in the same restaurant as Greaseball the other night. I don’t know if they met or what, but…”

The vehicle had gone past the gates and I jumped out of the Scudo, shoving away my Browning.

“Come on, we can do this without getting killed now, we have time.”

Lotfi ran around the vehicle to make up the distance with me as I headed toward the rusty, sagging chain-link gate that hadn’t been closed in ages. I kept to the left against the brocante wall for a little cover as I passed the gate. Lotfi had caught up with me, and he still had his pistol out. “Put it away,” I snapped. “Third party, for fuck’s sake.”

Leaving him a few steps behind to sort himself out, I kept walking. In front of me was a ramshackle collection of buildings, at least thirty or forty years old, some of brick or stone, some of a corrugated material. Pipes that ran between the buildings had been covered and painted with tar, and held together with bits of chicken wire. Dumpsters were overflowing all over the place. Stacks of old tires had collapsed across the diesel-infected asphalt that had lost its straight edges and was starting to merge with the mud. There was even an old stone farmhouse and barns, which had long since given up the struggle against the encroaching banlieues.

I inched forward, using the wall, trying to look as normal as I could. Then, as I reached the end of the wall of the brocante, I saw movement to my left. The rear of the Lexus was disappearing inside a tall brick building. I held out my hand behind me. “Stop, stop.”

I leaned back against the wall, just as a train came into the station off to my right, beyond the factory complex. The screech of its braking wheels drowned out the clatter of the roller shutter as it crashed down behind the hawallada and his men.