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“No!”
“I really don’t—”
“Move!”
Then, in English, Amy—quietly standing half a meter away—says, “Jeremy, are we being serious now? Are we?”
The Frenchman is still staring at Jeremy with rage.
Jeremy nods. “Quite serious.”
Amy moves quickly: she grabs the red metal fire extinguisher and with one hard swing she hits the French officer right in the back of his head.
He drops like a sack of cement. Amy strips him of his weapons, tosses them in the rear of the Land Rover, then rolls the groaning man over. She binds his arms behind his back and shoves the discarded balaclava in his mouth.
Amy slams the rear door shut.
“I’m serious, too,” she says, moving around to the front. “And I’m driving.”
Chapter52
FORTUNATELY FORall concerned, this Land Rover Defender starts up with just the shove of a button. In ops like this one, you don’t want to fumble around in an emergency, asking, “Who’s got the keys?”
The Defender’s transmission is manual, and I get savage satisfaction from hammering the clutch and accelerator and making a quick U-turn. Hard to believe, I know, but when I went through my CIA training at The Farm, some of the recruits had to be taught to drive a standard.
Jeremy doesn’t even buckle in as we roar off to the end of the runway, heading for the access road Rashad had used. We travel off the pavement onto a dirt area, then get on a narrow, rough road. Tree branches whip the vehicle’s sides as I drive as fast as I dare. The interior smells of gun oil and stale cigarette smoke.
I say, “Hopefully that guy’s friends will see him on the ground and think he was one of the KIAs. We should have about ten minutes or so of grace time before they figure out we’re gone.”
“Maybe not,” Jeremy says. “Look what’s ahead.”
Up ahead are two blue-and-white French police cars, parked at an angle and partially obstructing the road. Two officers in standard uniform stand between the cars, blocking the way to the country road that leads to the D5 highway, based on what I had seen earlier on that large map.
I say, “They’ll recognize this Land Rover as belonging to the DGSE, right?”
“They should,” he says.
“Well, we’re about to find out,” I say. “Hold up an identification card, wave it at them.”
“What? I don’t have an ID card like that!”
“Then use your National Health ID or anything…Now, Jeremy.”
I hold on tight and keep our speed up, and Jeremy is waving something back and forth. I join the action, gesturing brusquely with one arm, and when we’re a few meters away, the two policemen step back.
We blast through without hesitation. A few minutes later I make a turn and we’re heading toward the D5.
I say, “Tell me again about the bravery of the French?”
“Not a good example,” he says sharply. “Some are, some aren’t.”
“I know,” I say, speeding up the Land Rover. “I was just busting your chops. And some brave men back there are dead because they protected us.”
Jeremy says, “Go faster, Amy”
“Okay.”
An hour later we’re at a rural cottage south of Lognes—to the east of Paris—in a dark green Saab sedan Jeremy had quickly and expertly stolen from a Super U supermarket parking lot about twenty kilometers away. He directs me down the dirt driveway to the overgrown rear yard, and I switch off the engine.
