“What about Jacques? Is he a fugitive, too?”
“Yes, but not officially. Michel just wants him detained before he hurts someone. He was shocked at the news of Jacques’s visit with you today.”
“Not as shocked as I was,” Stone said.
“Well,” Mike said, “it seems that we have a virtual army on our side now. I hope the French police can prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”
“That’s more than my people can do,” Lance said. “We’re now in a situation where we have to rely on the French. I had hoped to avoid that.”
“I don’t want to avoid it,” Stone said. “I want Majorov and Jacques in custody.”
Marcel came into the room. “I was thinking, perhaps we should issue a statement to the press about what has happened—perhaps even hold a press conference.”
Lance shook his head. “It’s not a good idea for Stone’s name to appear in the press,” he said.
“I don’t mind, if it will help find Majorov,” Stone replied.
“You’re forgetting our election at home,” Lance said. “Your name has already been linked to Kate’s in the press once, she doesn’t need that happening again at this late date.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Stone said. “I guess I’m not thinking very clearly.”
“All you can do now, Stone, is just hunker down here until Majorov pops up somewhere, and the French can lay hands on him.”
Stone knew he was right, but he didn’t like it.
53
S
tone woke with a jerk; he had been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember what, except that it was very important. He tried to go back to sleep to regain his dream, but an image popped into his head that kept him awake. It was something he had seen back in Los Angeles, at his son Peter’s hangar at Santa Monica Airport.
Stone sat up in bed. The image was of a Gulfstream jet, the one that Yuri Majorov, Yevgeny’s brother, had later died in. There was something unusual about it, something that made it different from other Gulfstreams, but he couldn’t get it straight in his mind. It was a symbol something like the old USSR crossed hammer and sickle, but not quite; something
was different about it. He swung his feet onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to re-create the scene in his mind. He was standing by the open hangar door when the Gulfstream taxied past him, headed for the terminal building. The symbol was painted on the engine nacelle, so it was directly in his line of sight as the airplane passed him. It was in red paint. What was more, he had seen it somewhere recently.
“What’s wrong?” Holly asked from the other side of the bed.
“I just remembered something,” Stone replied. “Lance said that his people couldn’t prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”
“That’s right, there aren’t enough of our personnel in Paris to cover the airports and the train stations.”
“If Majorov wants to leave the country, he won’t go by train—he’ll fly in his own jet.”
“There are an awful lot of those,” Holly said, “and I happen to possess the useless knowledge that there are fourteen airports in and around Paris.”
“He’ll be leaving on a Gulfstream 450.”
“There are a lot of those, too, and we don’t have a tail number. And they all seem to have a similar paint job.”
“Not this one,” Stone said. “It has a sort of takeoff on the Soviet hammer and sickle on the engine nacelle, but instead of a sickle crossed by a hammer, it’s a sickle crossed by a Kalashnikov assault rifle. I saw it at Santa Monica Airport, and again at Le Bourget when we arrived here. I had forgotten about it.”
Holly sat up. “We’ve got to call the Paris police,” she said.
“Bad idea,” Stone replied. “First of all, why would they listen to us? We’re Americans, and we can’t explain ourselves in French.”
“Lance can call Michel Chance, the prefect. His jurisdiction is the Île-de-France, which includes all fourteen airports.”
“He won’t be leaving from thirteen of those—he’ll be leaving from Le Bourget, where Charles Lindbergh landed after his flight across the Atlantic.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because when Charles de Gaulle Airport opened, Le Bourget became the airport of choice for corporate jets like the Gulfstreams. I just told you, I saw the Majorov jet when we landed there.”
“That’s right, we did. Let’s wake up Lance.”
“I’ve got a better idea—wake up Rick LaRose and tell him we’ll meet him at Le Bourget.”
“It’s a big airport, where are we going to look for the airplane?”
“At Landmark Aviation, where we landed. It was being hangared there.”
“Lance will kill me if I don’t wake him up,” Holly said.
“All right, get dressed and wake him. And when you call Rick, remember to tell him we’re leaving here for Le Bourget and to let his people outside the house know not to fire on us.”
“I’ll certainly remember that,” Holly said, getting into some jeans.
—
LANCE CAME
downstairs dressed, but unshaven. “All right, Stone, tell me about this.”
“Didn’t Holly tell you?”
“You tell me.”
“I saw the airplane, first in Santa Monica, then I saw it at Le Bourget when we arrived on Mike Freeman’s Gulfstream. I just couldn’t remember where I had seen it before—now I do.”
Lance produced a cell phone and pressed a number. “Rick? We’re on. Stone says for us all to meet at Le Bourget, at Landmark Aviation.” He listened for a moment, then hung up. “All right,” he said, “let’s get going.”
Lance had, apparently, been on the phone before, because there was a Mercedes armored van waiting for them in the mews.
“How far is it to Le Bourget?” Holly asked.
“Seven miles,” Lance replied. “It seems like a lot farther in traffic, but there’s no traffic this time of the day. Driver, step on it—use the flashing lights if you have to, but no siren.”
Stone was pressed into his seat by the acceleration.
54
T
hey didn’t bother with the Périphérique; they went straight north, through the heart of Paris. It astonished Stone how little traffic they saw along the way.
“Director,” the man in the front passenger seat called, “where at Le Bourget?”
Lance gave him directions to a security gate near Landmark Aviation. “Rick LaRose will meet us there.”
Ten minutes later they drew up at a security gate bearing a large sign in several languages, to the effect that admittance was available only to those with the proper credentials. At their appearance, the gate slid open, beeping loudly. Just
inside, next to a small guardhouse, Rick stood waiting for them with half a dozen other men.
Lance slid open a door. “Rick, I assume you have the proper credentials for us to be admitted.”
“I do,” Rick replied. “A two-hundred-euro note satisfied that requirement.” He produced a map of the airport and a small flashlight. “Here’s Landmark,” he said, then pointed at a lighted ramp a quarter of a mile away. “There are several large hangars. I’ve sent some men to reconnoiter. They’ll call us.” He held up a small handheld radio.
“How long do we have to wait?” Lance said.
“Until they call us. The airplane could be in any of the Landmark hangars, or it could have already departed. That seems unlikely, however. We checked with the tower, and no flight plan for a Gulfstream jet has been filed since sundown yesterday.”
“Check with the tower again,” Lance said.
Rick produced a cell phone, dialed a number, and, in excellent French, conducted a brief conversation, then hung up. “A Gulfstream 450 has filed for Saint Petersburg”—he consulted his watch—“departure in thirty-five minutes.”
“Can you see it on the Landmark ramp?” Lance asked.
Rick got a pair of binoculars and trained them on the FBO. As he did, a voice was heard from his radio. He listened. “That’s our guy,” he said. “An FBO employee tells him a Gulfstream is being pre-flighted by three pilots, a stewardess, and a maintenance crew in Hangar Two.” He pointed. “The doors are closed.”
“Tell your guy,” Lance said, “to find a way to observe—
only observe
—the interior of the hangar. I want to know if there are any passengers in the hangar or on the airplane, and I want to know if any vehicles bearing such persons arrive at the hangar.”
Rick transmitted the orders. “He’ll get back to us. Do you want us to go over there now?”
“Not until we know what we’re getting into,” Lance said. “I don’t want a firefight on French soil.” He turned around. “Stone, you’re a pilot—what’s the best way to temporarily disable a jet airplane without causing a fire or an explosion or much of a fuss?”
“Fire a round into the nosewheel,” Stone said. “It would take at least an hour, perhaps much longer, to replace it, even if they have a tire readily available.”
“An hour to change a tire?”
“It’s not a car,” Stone said, “it’s an airplane, and the mechanics who work on it have to follow strict procedures in the maintenance manual. It’s time-consuming.”
“Would the pilots start the engines in the hangar?”
“No, the thrust from those two big engines would likely blow out the back of the hangar. They’ll tow it onto the ramp with a tractor, and they’ll start the engines there.”
Lance turned back to Rick. “If or when any attempt is made to tow the airplane from the hangar, tell your guy to shoot out the nosewheel tire, employing stealth, preferably with a silenced weapon. He should not fire at any person, even if fired upon.”
Rick transmitted the order. “Tell me when you want me to go,” he said to Lance.
“I want to know if any passengers are on that aircraft before I make any decisions.”
“My guy is working on it.”
Lance sat very still and waited, his eyes closed. Stone thought he might be napping.
Presently, Rick’s radio squawked, and he put an ear to it. Then he leaned into the van. “Two large vans just arrived at a door on the other side of the hangar. Six men and two women went inside, and their luggage is being taken into the hangar, as we speak.”
“Tell your guy to do his work on the nosewheel, then report back.”
A minute passed, and the radio squawked. “The tire is out,” Rick said.
“Right,” Lance said. “How many men do you have at your disposal?”
“Eleven,” Rick replied, “not including you, Stone, and Holly.”
“That should be enough. Let’s get over there, and I want your men to cover the large doors at the front and any other egress. No one is to leave the hangar—should anyone try, shoot to wound, not kill. Go!”
“Now, driver,” Lance said, “give their vehicles a two-minute head start, then drive over to the hangar they are covering and park this van to the right of the main door, where there’s a smaller door in the big door.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
They all sat and waited for two minutes, by Stone’s watch. “Lance,” he said, “what is your plan?”
“Plan?” Lance asked, as if surprised. “I plan to be reasonable, if I can.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then all hell will break loose,” Lance said. “Time to go,” he called to the driver.
The van began to move toward the hangar.
55
A
s the armored van rolled across the tarmac toward the hangar, the huge doors began to rise and fold, and from the left, a tow tractor appeared from the darkness and moved toward the big jet.
The van pulled up to the position Lance had ordered. They had a very good view of the front of the Gulfstream, to just past the main door. Lance produced an iPhone, tapped the Contacts icon, then tapped in a name. “Ah,” he said, then tapped the resulting phone number. He put the instrument to an ear and listened for several rings, then he apparently got an answer. “Yevgeny!” he said, smiling, as if the man were an old friend. “It’s Lance Cabot here. Good morning! Yes, I know it’s rather early, but I wanted to speak to you before you
abandoned Paris.” He listened. “On your way, are you? Well, not quite. If you will be kind enough to send someone to inspect your nosewheel, you’ll find that it’s in no condition to roll, and thus, neither is that beautiful Gulfstream of yours. Go ahead, I’ll wait.” He held the phone a few inches from his ear, and shouting in Russian could be heard. The door of the airplane swung down, and a uniformed pilot ran down the air stair and to the nosewheel, which was quite flat. He ran back up the stairs into the aircraft.
“Had a look, have you?” Lance said into the phone. “Did your pilot explain to you that, with a deflated tire, your airplane cannot move? Good, now let’s have a little chat. I’m sitting outside your hangar in an armored personnel carrier”—he winked at Stone—“and the prefect of the Paris National Police is here along with, I don’t know, perhaps fifty of his men, all suited up for combat, armed with automatic weapons and raring to go. He’s asked me to speak to you, since you, your family, and I are, well, old acquaintances, sort of. Prefect Michel Chance would like for you, your traveling companions, and your airplane’s crew to walk down your air stair into the hangar, and he would very much appreciate it if none of you were holding a weapon or anything else in his hand.” He held the phone away from his ear, and Stone could hear more shouting in Russian. “Now, now, Yevgeny, we don’t want that beautiful airplane of yours all shot full of holes, and the hangar burning down with the airplane inside it and you and your friends inside the airplane—do we? Of course we don’t, but I’m very much afraid that that is exactly what will happen if all of you
are not down the stairs in, say, sixty seconds. Let me make it easy—I’ll count down for you: sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…” Lance continued to count.
Stone turned to Holly. “What do we do if Lance gets to zero?”
“Duck,” Holly said.
“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen—running out of time, Yevgeny! Twelve, eleven, ten, nine—hurry up, now, trigger fingers are getting itchy! Eight, seven, six, five, four”—the count slowed—“three, two and a half, two, one and a half, one…”