A shadow falls, p.34
A Shadow Falls, page 34
part #2 of Jenny Aaron Series
Revolvers. Unbeatable at short distance, useless for anything else. The men look unflappable.
Adaja is hanging up washing. Aaron zooms in on her. Every face tells of a life. In this one she sees one that never will be. A little slice of happiness in a village. A husband, children. Proud parents. Two grown-up brothers.
Chloé totters over to the circus tent in her high heels, waving about a piece of paper, probably new instructions. Adaja follows her with her eyes. Aaron sees the anger in them. A cold shiver runs down her spine.
*
The following day is Adaja’s day off. She leaves the house early. Aaron follows her to the station and boards the train to Arles with her. Lavender fields snuggle into a blanket of morning mist. The sky looks as if it’s been Photoshopped.
In Arles, Aaron bumps into Adaja on the platform, seemingly by accident, and apologizes profusely.
Adaja rushes through the historic centre. Dogs doze in the shade, souvenir traders are setting up their stalls. She goes into the amphitheatre. Aaron buys a ticket too and sits down on the other side of the arena. Adaja has no eyes for anything. She waits. After ten minutes, Jerôme arrives. They fall into each other’s arms. For two hours they sit holding hands and talk. Adaja isn’t wearing her microphone plaster, so Aaron can’t hear what they are saying.
She takes her make-up mirror out of the bag and positions it in such a way that it reflects the sunlight into the woman’s eyes. Adaja sees Aaron and recognizes her from the station. Adaja stands up and pulls Jerôme away with her. They scurry through the tourist crowds this way and that.
She turns round several times.
Aaron stays invisible.
When they sit down in a street café, Aaron browses in a second-hand bookshop and gives them another two hours.
Then she goes out onto the street and repeats the game with the mirror. Adaja stares at Aaron, then says something to Jerôme. They hug and Jerôme saunters off. Aaron sits down at the table and asks Adaja what she said to her brother. That she has a doctor’s appointment, Adaja replies, and that they’ll meet back here at midday.
It is hard to gain the trust of a woman whose soul has been battered. Aaron does everything right when she asks: ‘What was Jerôme like as a child?’
Adaja wavers.
‘This has nothing to do with my work. You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want.’
‘He was magical. All he had to do was smile and the day would be beautiful. He often got up to mischief, but nobody could be angry with him. Also because he was the youngest, they always get away with things. He was a good pupil. Inquisitive and cheeky. He had a small shaggy dog, Chipie. I buried him next to our parents.’
The waiter comes. Aaron orders two coffees. They sit in the sun and both feel cold.
‘And Louis?’ she asks.
‘His skin was as dark as molasses. The other kids called him “Mukish”, that’s a type of ghost. He idolized an American baseball player. Louis never saw him play, but he said that the man always pokes out his tongue. He liked that. Perhaps because he was very different himself. He was very serious and thought about things a lot. Louis was always very conscientious. I don’t understand how it happened, with that radio part—’
The pain cuts off Adaja’s voice.
After a while, she recovers. Aaron passes her a tissue. She lets the woman speak. She has to give Jerôme so much of what little strength she has and can never talk about herself.
‘Chloé’s daughter was in your room. You caught her doing something that made you cry. What did she do?’
‘I only had the one picture of our family,’ Adaja whispers. ‘I found it half burnt in the rubble of our house. She tore it to pieces and laughed. You shouldn’t think about a child like that, but I wish she had been in the village back then.’
They remain silent for ten minutes. When Aaron looks at her watch, it is a quarter to twelve; Jerôme will be back any minute. She looks at Adaja firmly. ‘Makata will never enter that house again. We’re going to take him when he’s on his way from the airport. You no longer need to fear him. Justice will be done for your parents and your brothers.’
‘Do you promise that?’
‘Yes.’
Adaja kneads the tissue.
‘Go away with Jerôme, as soon as it’s done. But not before. That’s important. Do you understand?’
She nods.
‘Do you have any papers?’
She shakes her head. ‘Makata always took care of that.’
‘I will tell you a phone number now. You have to learn it off by heart and you must never write it down.’
Adaja repeats the number three times.
‘Ring that number once you’ve left Avignon. Tell them who you are, that will be enough. They will ask you for passport photos and a postal address. You’ll get a French passport and a social security number.’
Adaja is so grateful she finds no words.
Aaron leaves. After the next street corner she stops and peers back at the café. She sees that Adaja calls over the waiter and asks him to clear away the second coffee cup.
Well done.
It will stay our secret.
Jerôme is on time. Aaron watches them; two people who have nothing except a longing never to lose each other again. At three o’clock they say goodbye to each other with a heartfelt embrace. Adaja walks away towards the station, Jerôme disappears into the town centre bustle.
For Aaron and the others he is just a means to an end, an instrument they use to get Adaja to cooperate and prevent her from slipping away before Makata arrives. If she were to disappear overnight, Chloé would tell her husband. That could make him suspicious; menials without rights, such as Adaja, are open to attack from police and secret services. They present a risk.
Aaron decides to follow Jerôme without thinking much about it. It’s as if she has known him for ever. He buys Gitanes Maïs from a street hawker. He nicks an apple as he passes a fruit stall.
He spends some minutes sitting on a bench, eating the apple. He looks around, he’s learnt to be on his guard at all times. As his eyes dart about, there is an emptiness in his face that could swallow the sun.
Jerôme walks on. He’s no longer just drifting, he seems to have an aim. But it isn’t the station. His path takes him across the Trinquetaille Bridge, straight through the famous Van Gogh painting, onto the opposite bank of the Rhône.
The balconies of the tenement blocks are festooned with washing. A man, even more scrawny than Jerôme, loiters around between corrugated iron garages. He’s scratching his lower arms. Aaron can see at a glance that he’s a junkie. She cowers down behind a car.
Jerôme negotiates with the scrawny bloke. He pulls a sachet out of his jeans. He’s lifted some smack from the Marseilles lab and is earning himself a little extra.
The scrawny man inspects the goods; Jerôme keeps an eye on him. With junkies who are on withdrawal and just pretend to have money, it can happen that they swallow the heroin.
Neither of them notices the two men who are strolling towards the garages behind their backs. They’re wearing leather jackets, despite the warm weather. Aaron instantly knows: policemen. The junkie sees them first and runs away. Jerôme isn’t fast enough. One of the men grabs him and throws him against the garage wall. The other lays into him with kicks. Jerôme curls up, tries to protect his head.
The two men don’t let off. For them he is just a ‘Bamboula’, a dirty nigger dealer, and they are teaching him a lesson.
Aaron could keep out of it. They will be long gone with Makata by the time Adaja hears about Jerôme being arrested. But she thinks of how Jerôme had to throw his brother’s body into the river, and of Chipie, his little dog.
The men don’t hear Aaron’s silent footsteps. Within three seconds, she is behind them. She stuns one of them with a stab into the throat meridian, then rams her index finger into the kyusho point on the other one’s nape. They sink to the ground unconscious.
Jerôme struggles to his feet.
He stares at Aaron confused and fearful.
She says: ‘Run and never come back to Arles.’
He begins to move, first hesitantly, then faster and faster, until he is running as if the devil was after him.
Aaron crouches down and pats down the men. Guns in holsters, handcuffs, police badges. She leaves the two lying there and disappears.
In the train to Avignon there’s a man with a bandaged ear. He sees her look and laughs. ‘My dog bit me. You won’t believe this, but he’s called Vincent.’
*
The evening before, they run through everything once more. Everyone knows what they need to do. They check the equipment, clean the guns, channel the adrenalin.
At ten, a phone rings in Makata’s house.
Chloé answers it in the bedroom. She puts it on loudspeaker, perhaps she’s busy varnishing her nails. ‘Hello, chérie. Where are you? Already in France?’
‘No, I’m still in Libya.’
Aaron hears Makata’s voice for the first time. It is surprisingly pleasant. Confident and rounded.
‘What time is the circus performance tomorrow?’ he asks.
‘At six.’
‘We’ll do it at three.’
‘But why? Everything has been—’
‘We have two guests coming for dinner at nine.’
‘But that’s when we were going to take Manon—’ Chloé angrily begins.
He immediately interrupts her and adopts a harsh tone that won’t tolerate dissent. ‘There are men to whom you can’t say there’s something else that’s more important. I may have owned a country once. One of these two owns the entire world. Send everyone away apart from the bodyguards and Adaja. She will cook and serve the food.’
Makata puts the phone down. The bug transmits a clanging sound: Chloé has thrown something against the wall.
Aaron and the others exchange mute glances.
One of these two owns the entire world.
They go out into the garden. A wedding couple is being photographed on the Saint-Bénézet Bridge. Flash lights and laughter bounce across the water. A tourist steamboat glides along the Rhône like a large, glittering dragon.
Pavlik voices it. They have to know who this man is. Kidnapping Makata will have to wait until he makes the return journey to the airport.
Whenever that is.
The others disappear back into the house. Aaron is alone with Butz. It is warm, the air is like treacle. She thinks of her father. Would he approve of what they are doing?
Butz puts his arm around her. Despite the twenty-nine years that separate him and Aaron’s father, the two are friends. She doesn’t know who saved whose life.
Butz mutters: ‘Your old man wouldn’t let himself in for this, not in a million years. But he isn’t here. And he didn’t look into Adaja Bilenge’s eyes.’
Pavlik, Fricke and Lutter return with beers. They sit by the riverbank. Cypresses tower into the night sky like extinguished torches. Fricke cracks a few jokes, which ebb away into silence. One by one, they all hit the sack. Eventually only Aaron and Pavlik remain.
‘Will you ring Lissek?’ she asks.
‘I already have.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Our doubts don’t count, only our actions.’
*
Aaron tosses and turns in her bed for hours. She knows that it’s the same for the others. At ten she is sitting in the oak tree with Pavlik. They see the chauffeur driving away with the Bentley. Alone, just as Adaja said. After an hour and a half, he comes back.
Makata gets out. A colossus, he must weigh at least hundred and fifty kilos. His upper arms are so fat they almost burst the jacket.
The staff have lined up in front of the house. Manon runs towards her father. Laughing, he spins her round like a chain carousel. He pulls a giant stuffed gorilla out of the car. Manon can’t hold it, the chauffeur takes it for her. Chloé plants pecks on her husband’s cheeks.
Aaron only has eyes for Adaja.
Her face crumbles in slow motion.
When Makata walks past her with Chloé and the girl, she curtsies like the others.
But she stares at the ground.
‘Do you see that?’ Pavlik mutters.
‘Yes. She thinks we’ve abandoned her.’
He agrees.
An hour later Adaja cycles into town. She buys veal fillets, lobster, asparagus, truffles. At the cheese counter, Aaron approaches her. ‘Excuse me, you seem to know your way round here. Can you recommend this Brie?’
Adaja doesn’t reply. When she leaves the shop, Aaron walks beside her. ‘We had to change the plan. We’re still going to take him. Just not today.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ Adaja blurts out. ‘I was so stupid to trust you. Nobody will ever do anything to Makata.’ She quickens her steps.
Aaron keeps up with her. ‘Please, you must believe me—’
Adaja stops. ‘I hope you choke on your lies!’ She tears off the microphone plaster, throws it on the ground and runs off.
Aaron can’t pursue her without attracting attention. She steadies her breath.
*
All day she sits in the tree with Pavlik. He has the rifle in his lap, with the silencer attached. Manon struts around wearing her new ermine coat in the lunchtime heat. The circus performance begins at three on the dot. Jolly music rings out from the tent for an hour. They can’t hear any applause, six hands aren’t loud enough. Then the artists disappear; they will take down the tent tomorrow. Adaja has baked the girl a cake, which she carries out onto the terrace. Manon blows out the candles, the staff have to clap. So many empty smiles. Regardless of what wish this child makes, they hope it will never come true. At six all the servants apart from Adaja leave the house.
Darkness descends.
Aaron and Pavlik put on night vision goggles with long-range optical eyepieces. The ones that Pavlik is wearing have an integrated camera. He will photograph the guests when they arrive.
Three bodyguards patrol the property. On the upper floor, the curtains in Makata’s study are still open. Aaron and Pavlik see him working at his desk, smoking a cigar. They hear the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen, and music coming from Manon’s room. In the other earbud Aaron would hear the team, if they weren’t all silent. Lutter, Fricke and Butz are sitting in the Mercedes a few kilometres away; they will follow Makata’s guests on their journey back.
Half-past eight. Screaming. Manon is crying, she refuses to be placated by her mother. Her father gets up and goes downstairs.
Aaron has been staring at the house for hours. For a sniper like Pavlik that’s no problem, but her eyes are stinging.
She removes the night vision goggles.
‘Damn,’ Pavlik hisses. He reaches for the rifle.
She puts the goggles back on.
Adaja is in Makata’s room.
She opens a drawer, takes out a revolver.
Aaron’s pulse accelerates to supersonic speed. She’s never climbed out of a tree that fast. In her left ear she hears Pavlik, who is informing the others. ‘Adaja wants to kill Makata. Without us she won’t get out of there alive. Aaron is taking the goods entrance. Lutter and Fricke: east side. Butz, you take the main gate. The bodyguards have priority.’
‘What about the alarm system?’ Lutter asks.
‘Bollocks to it.’
‘Roger.’
Aaron is sprinting towards the property across an open field. She attaches the silencer to the Browning. Through her night vision goggles, the world is a flurry of green lights. It feels like she is battling her way through a jungle of fear with a machete.
In her right ear she hears the child whining. Makata is downstairs, quarrelling with Chloé. On the left, Pavlik announces: ‘Four bodyguards in the grounds. Two at the front, one by the tent, one at the north wall. Three more are in the annexe.’
Aaron manages the four hundred metres in eighty seconds. It will take the others at least another two minutes to get here. Too long. She has to get inside the house before Makata goes back upstairs. When she reaches the goods entrance she chucks the night vision goggles away and pushes a refuse bin against the wall. She pulls herself up by the top. The razor wire cuts into her wrists and underarms, and slices open her jeans.
As she jumps down, the floodlights flash up. The alarm begins to blare.
‘Aaron is in,’ Pavlik says.
She rushes towards the house, sees the first bodyguard, to her right. Hundred metres. His revolver is enormous, but at this distance it’s as useless as a catapult. Before Aaron can take aim at him, his head explodes.
Pavlik. ‘Six left,’ he informs the team.
‘Where are the others?’ she pants.
‘All outside. I can’t make them out. They’re being clever and staying under the tr—’
In her earbud she hears the plop of his silencer.
‘Five,’ he corrects.
To her right a bodyguard bursts out of the undergrowth and runs towards Aaron. Seventy metres. She shoots him in the heart at full run and plays it safe with a bullet to his forehead.
‘Four,’ she reports.
‘Lutter and Fricke are in,’ says Butz.
Revolvers shout out, then silence. A suppressed groan.
‘I’ve been hit,’ Fricke forces out. ‘Flesh wound.’
Lutter radios through: ‘We’ve got two. One has disappeared to the south. He’s yours, Butz. No trace of the other.’
Aaron runs to the front door. ‘What’s Adaja doing?’
‘Still in the study. Staring out the window.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Lutter calls. ‘You take Makata, I’ll take care of the alarm system.’
Revolver shots by the gate. A yell.
‘Six is neutralized,’ Butz reports.
Where is number seven? drums through Aaron’s head. In the house?
She pushes open the door. She can’t see anyone in the entrance hall. Carefully, she advances a step. The blood rushing through her veins sounds like waves breaking on a shore.
The man has been waiting in the blind spot. He wants to do it silently, with the knife, so that he doesn’t give his position away.
Aaron drops the Browning. She intercepts the thrust with a three hundred and sixty degree block and plants a palm on the bodyguard’s chin. She shoves his arm down, grabs his wrist, applies her weight to it and rams her knee into his stomach, leaving him gasping for breath. Before he can even form a clear thought, she has got hold of the knife. She cuts deep into his thigh, severing the artery.
