It took me nearly an hour to piece together a backstory.…
At the age of seventeen, Giselle Rousseau had parlayed a stymied career as a swimsuit model into an all-pass ticket to the inner sanctum of the rich and famous. Sex and drugs, yachts and mansions — the seductive teen was passed around like a joint at a biker rally. By the time she was twenty-seven she had traded in sex and paid companionship from A-list actors and members of their entourage for access into the billionaire boys club — Saudi sheiks who paid lavishly to get their freak on. In the bedroom they preferred young boys; in public — exotic women — eye candy to protect their criminal fetish. Giselle was repulsed by her new Middle Eastern employers, but as long as the mortgage on her condo in the Mediterranean was paid for, she could live with that.
Giselle had met Abdul Hamid bin Rashidi eight months ago at a party in Cannes. The Saudi oil baron had made his billions playing both sides of the Middle East equation, buying Syrian oil at a substantial discount from ISIS, reselling it at submarket prices to oil companies in Turkey and the United States. At one point, he was even selling Assad back his own oil.
As long as everyone was making money, no one seemed to care.
Of course, ISIS was making the biggest share, using the profits to fund their regime. Bin Rashidi knew the men whose faces were cloaked in black scarves; the leaders of Islamic State were all former members of Saddam’s Ba’athist army. Back in 2003, Paul Bremer had fired these four hundred thousand trained soldiers from their jobs while signing a decree that prevented the men from being involved in their nation’s future.
Four hundred thousand men who could have kept the peace.…
Four hundred thousand trained soldiers with access to large caches of weapons.
No potential for chaos there.
With Iraq bogged down in a Sunni-Shiite conflict and Syria’s president Assad waging war on his own people, the Ba’athist commandos saw ISIS as the perfect vehicle from which they could retake Iraq and rule the region. As trained soldiers they had no difficulty overrunning Syria’s military bases and taking the country’s supply of Russian-made tanks and weapons. Within weeks they controlled Assad’s oil wells and refineries and were paying workers higher salaries to run things for ISIL. Having organized smuggling networks under Saddam back in the 1990s to avoid UN sanctions, the Ba’athists knew exactly whom to approach to broker the Syrian crude, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars to support their terrorist regime.
Rather than operate in the shadows, bin Rashidi preferred to flaunt his wealth, his stunning Nubian beauty, Giselle, making up for his lack of social graces. By hiding out in the open while extolling Western values, he attracted like-minded Americans and Europeans, creating an ISIL/ISIS pipeline from Syria, profiting on everything from stolen museum artifacts to human slaves.
Giselle was living the good life, and with her Arabian sugar daddy preferring young boys in the bedroom, she had more time to feed her own habit — heroin. When bin Rashidi began using her as a mule on his private jets, she had ample opportunity to siphon off some of the product for her own personal use and sale.
She was caught with two ounces entering New York City, a problem that cost bin Rashidi a nine-thousand-year-old Babylonian statue to resolve behind closed doors. When she was caught in her hotel room in Los Angeles with twice that amount, the district attorney wanted cash.
Bin Rashidi warned Giselle that a third arrest would end their relationship. Knowing the Arab would not allow her to become a loose end, she entered a methadone clinic. She stayed clean for six weeks until she attended a Hollywood Oscar party and was arrested at Heathrow Airport.
What Giselle never knew was that the FBI and MI6’s antiterrorist division had targeted bin Rashidi and wanted to use the girl to penetrate his organization. They had heard rumors about a major deal set to take place at Le Baron, a private nightclub and discotheque in Paris. The nature of the meeting was unknown, but the involvement of the Russian mafia concerned authorities, who feared it was only a matter of time before Islamic State acquired enough uranium to fashion a nuclear suitcase bomb.
The authorities would drop the drug charges and wipe her slate clean if Giselle wore a wire. She agreed, but only if she had backup. The agent could not be from either British or American intelligence, the girl convinced both sides had been compromised long ago. The FBI and MI6 each submitted facial shots of three members of black ops antiterrorist organizations that serviced North America.
Guess who she selected.
The event had been held last night. Giselle was dead, the French police and, no doubt, MI6 were after me, and I couldn’t remember a goddamn thing.
The Lamborghini and its GPS continued to provide clues. After picking me up at Heathrow and entering France via the Chunnel, Giselle had driven us to the town of Annecy, located in the Rhône-Alpes. The car was not hers; it was registered to an American named Robert Gibbons.
So now I had a name, an address, a full tank of gas, five hundred euros, and a hangover that made me the odds-on favorite to win a pickup game of Russian roulette. Powering up the Lamborghini, I set the GPS and made my way toward the entrance of the A6 highway.
I was two hours into a five-hour journey when nature called. Feeling famished, I turned off the next exit for gas, food, and a bathroom break.
That’s when I noticed the fuel gauge was still on full.
Cheap $300,000 sports car… the damn float valve must be broken. That’s all I need is to run out of gas in a stolen car in the middle of nowhere.
After pulling into an ELF: Les Prix Bas petrol station, I popped the lever to open the tank lid, rolled down the window, and handed the attendant fifty euros. “Le plein, s’ilvousplaît.”
From the side-view mirror, I watched him shove the nozzle in and start the pump. Within seconds gasoline began pouring over the side.
“Le reservoir est plein, l’idiot!” He tossed my money back at me and left to service another customer.
How could I have driven almost two hundred miles without using any gas? Could the engine be a hybrid?
Beyond curious, I parked the car away from nosy civilians and popped the hood.
The device was the size of a hockey puck. It was mounted directly beneath the Lamborghini hood emblem, which had been fashioned with air vents.
I reached for the object, expecting it to be red-hot, yet it was quite cool. It was also vibrating, its internal workings spinning at an incredible velocity.
Leaving the sports car running, I walked to the back of the vehicle and bent down to examine the dual exhausts. No heat… and no carbon dioxide!
What the hell had I gotten myself involved in?
With my bladder ready to burst, I shut off the car and headed inside the facility to use the bathroom, grab some food, and call in to one of my guys at DMS. I’d try Rudy first, then Bunny… anyone who could report my field status to Church without divulging my whereabouts.
The female former Navy SEAL answered on the third ring. “This is the international operator. I have a collect call from a Mr. Cowboy, will you accept the charges?”
“Yes! Where are you? What’s your status?”
“Mobile. Safe at the moment.”
“We don’t have much time, all our phones are tapped.”
My heart raced. “Lydia, I didn’t kill her.”