The Witness Read online

  The French government officially apologized to Ramsey, and—though he never blamed them—they seemed to go out of their way to assure him and his wife that those responsible were rogue agents who had been acting on their own and that they in no way represented the intelligence services or the administration in Paris.

  Still, Ramsey had confided in Marwan that he also believed there was at least one more rogue agent deep inside French intelligence who had planned the blackmail operation from the beginning. Furthermore, he believed this rogue agent had had his coconspirators killed in prison to keep them from talking and was once again trying to shake him down.

  That, Ramsey had said, was why he had contacted Marwan—because he wasn’t sure whom else he could trust. If some higher-up in French intelligence, acting on his own, was coming after him, how could he trust some low-level homicide detective in the Parisian police force to solve the case and bring the guilty party or parties to justice?

  The elevator bell rang again.

  The door opened on the fifth floor. But Marwan, lost in thought, barely noticed. Could Ramsey have been right? What’s more, could Ramsey’s wife have been working with this unnamed, unknown French operative from the beginning? Why? What would have been her motive? From all appearances, Rafeeq and Claudette Ramsey seemed a happy couple—rich, amorous, and about to enjoy his long-overdue retirement. What had gone wrong?

  The elevator door began to close.

  Marwan suddenly snapped back to the reality of the moment. There would be time to figure this all out later. Right now, he needed to get his things and get out of there. If the police wanted an interview, he would let them know where to find him. But he wouldn’t hang around to get picked off by a sniper or another car bomb.

  He reached out his hand and triggered the doors back open. Then, stepping off the elevator, he turned right and headed down the hallway. Something seemed odd, different in some way, and it wasn’t until he was five steps out of the elevator that he realized how dim the light was, as if some of the lights had blown out or the bulbs had been removed.

  At the end of the hallway, a figure moved in the shadows. Marwan heard the distinctive sound of a hammer being pulled back. And he knew instantly that he’d been found.

  4

  Marwan broke left as the gun fired, and the blast echoed through the hallway. The shot ripped a hole in the wall beside him, sending chunks of Sheetrock into the air.

  He quickly drew the gun from his belt and returned fire. As he did, the exit door at the other end of the hall flew open. Marwan turned in time to see another figure emerge from the shadows—the woman from the elevator.

  Marwan dropped to the floor just as another round exploded in the wall over his head. He aimed for the woman’s head and squeezed off two shots, then pivoted back and fired two more rounds at the man in the shadows ahead of him. None of the shots hit their intended targets, but they bought him a few precious seconds.

  Just ahead several meters was a tiny side hallway on the right—a vestibule, almost—leading to a large suite. It didn’t offer much protection, but it was all he was going to get for now. He fired again—twice in both directions—then dashed to the side hallway, turning the corner just as the return fire began. For the moment, neither hunter had a clear shot at him. But that wouldn’t last for long.

  Again the hallway filled with the sounds of gunfire.

  They were already closing in. Meter by meter. Door by door.

  He had only a few seconds to make his move.

  Marwan fired two more shots around the corner to the left and two more to the right; then he wheeled around and fired into the Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the door handle. Smashing the door with both feet halfway down from the plaque declaring this the honeymoon suite, he knocked it off its hinges. Marwan dove forward as more gunfire erupted behind him.

  Inside the room, a young couple huddled in the corner behind their room service trays, shivering with fear.

  “Get down,” Marwan ordered in a voice not much louder than a whisper. “Under the bed—quick!”

  He had no time to explain he wasn’t the villain in this nightmare. All he wanted to do was try to keep them as safe as possible for as long as possible. The two lovers scrambled to the floor and crawled under the large canopy bed, staring back at him as he ejected the spent magazine from his pistol and reloaded. Then Marwan moved to the sliding glass door and stepped onto the balcony.

  He felt the bullet slice into his right shoulder before he heard the gun go off.

  The impact sent him reeling. He crashed into a small glass table on the balcony, which collapsed beneath him. Still, he had the presence of mind to roll over, firing back into the room with one hand while shielding his face with the other.

  One round went wild, and the partly open sliding door exploded into a thousand shards of glass, but the other rounds hit their mark. The woman with the pearls took two bullets in the chest. She screamed in agony and collapsed to the floor.

  One down, but there was still one to go.

  Marwan moved with as much speed as he could muster, fighting his pain. He shook off the glass, scrambled to his feet, and staggered back inside the hotel room, his gun still aimed at the door to the hallway, waiting for the partner to show his face. To his right, the young bride was hyperventilating. Her husband of probably only a few hours tried in vain to comfort her.

  Marwan bristled with a murderous rage. He reached down and felt the pulse of the woman with the pearls. She was dying but was not yet dead. Her pulse was slow and erratic. He kicked her pistol out of her reach and turned her over, only to find her blouse turning crimson.

  He fired a shot through the hallway door, buying himself a few more seconds. Then he thrust his pistol in the woman’s throat.

  “Who sent you?” Marwan said through gritted teeth.

  The woman, nearly unconscious, smiled weakly but said nothing.

  Marwan repeated himself in French, but still the woman kept silent.

  “Claudette Ramsey? Did she send you from São Paulo?” he demanded.

  The woman’s face suddenly registered real fear—and surprise. It was clear she knew that name. She knew that city. He pressed the gun deeper into her neck, but she still refused to talk, and then suddenly her eyes rolled back in her head and her faint breathing stopped altogether.

  Marwan’s heart was still racing. A nearly toxic combination of adrenaline and revenge coursed through his veins. He grabbed the woman’s pistol, checked the magazine, and stormed into the hallway, both guns blazing. The man in the shadows never had a chance. Marwan tossed his guns onto the man’s crumpled body, then pried the pistol from the man’s left hand and the spare magazine from his suit pocket.

  The man had no identification on him whatsoever—no wallet, no passport, nothing. Marwan doubled back to the honeymoon suite. The woman with the pearls had no ID either. These were professionals—trained to be invisible, anonymous; trained to stalk their prey in the shadows and then strike without warning. What if Ramsey had been right? What if they were French intelligence?

  For now, one thing was certain: they had picked the wrong fight.

  As his heart rate finally slowed, the burning in his right shoulder intensified. He felt blood streaking down his cheeks from the multiple glass cuts on his head.

  And then he heard the sirens.

  5

  Should he stay or run?

  He had only seconds to decide. The police would be there any moment. The thought should have made him feel safer, but it only increased his anxiety.

  Yes, he had an airtight case of self-defense. But would it matter? He was being hunted. And whoever was after him apparently knew his every move. They had known he was in Monaco. They had known he was staying at the Méridien, despite the fact that he had registered under an assumed name. They had known he would meet with Ramsey. They had known when. They had known where. They had known what car he’d be in, what elevator he’d be in. How was that possible? How coul
d they have known?

  He supposed it was possible that his pursuers had no connection to a European or Middle Eastern police force or intelligence service. But the odds were dropping quickly. Who else could be tracking him so closely? Only the tiniest handful of people had even known about this trip, and it had been arranged less than forty-eight hours earlier.

  Marwan decided he would try to find the taxi that had brought him to the hotel. If it was still out front—if the driver had not yet been scared off by the commotion or forced to leave by the police, or if he had not gotten sick of waiting—Marwan would consider it a sign that he should run. He would head to Milan, then to Rome, and then get back to his brother in Beirut as soon as he could.

  But if the taxi was not there, if there was no way to escape, Marwan would accept this as a sign that he should remain, that his fate was sealed, that he must go to the police and take his chances.

  Perhaps if there had been more time, he would have devised a more clever plan. But there were only precious seconds now.

  “Don’t you move from under that bed,” Marwan commanded the couple, who continued to cower under the box springs.

  Marwan stuffed the pistol into his belt and ran into the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and hands. He washed as much blood out of his hair as he could.

  Gently, he slid off his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head, realizing for the first time just how badly he was hurt. He used a warm washcloth to clean the excruciating gash in his shoulder. The entry wound was not large, but the area around it was discolored. There was no exit wound in the back, which meant that the bullet was still in there. He desperately needed to get the bullet out and the wound cleaned. And even then, he knew he still ran a serious risk of an infection.

  But there was nothing he could do about it now except swallow a handful of pain relievers, which he did, taking them from a plastic bottle beside the sink. A black T-shirt lay crumpled in a ball next to the tub. He snatched it up and slid it over his head. It smelled of American cigarettes and cheap champagne.

  Next, he stuffed a dry washcloth under the shirt as a dressing for his shoulder wound and ditched the rest of the bloody towels in the tub. He wished he had some alcohol or other antiseptic to soak the washcloth with, but at least for now, this would have to do. After sliding his jacket back on, he grabbed one of the couple’s garment bags from the closet by the bathroom, bolted out the door, and ran toward the emergency exit.

  He raced down the stairwell and peeked out the hotel’s side door. The first police car had reached the hotel. He saw two officers jump out and run into the lobby. He also saw his taxi still waiting for him, just a few yards away. He made a dash for it and climbed into the backseat.

  “The airport,” he said in French.

  But the man did not move.

  Marwan repeated himself in English, but still nothing.

  He leaned forward to shake the man awake and saw blood on the dashboard and the passenger seat. The driver was dead—shot in the left temple.

  Marwan spun around and drew his pistol again. He scanned the parking lot, the road, the front entrance. He saw no one. But he heard more sirens approaching.

  What kind of sign is this? he wondered. He had a car but no driver.

  And then a terrible thought came over him. His fingerprints were all over the door and interior of the taxi. If he ran now, he would be suspected of murder. A warrant would be issued for his arrest. His career would be finished. His company would be ruined. Rich men didn’t hire bodyguards who were wanted for murder, no matter how loudly they insisted upon their innocence.

  But running offered one benefit that staying might not—the chance to live.

  With all that had just happened, Marwan was convinced that staying in Monte Carlo was a death sentence. The people hunting him knew too much about him, and they had the initiative. Running at least gave him the hope of getting out of Monaco, out of Europe, and slipping off the grid until he could figure out who was after him—and why—and plot his next move.

  It was decided. He would run.

  Marwan glanced behind him and from side to side. For the moment, there was no one around. He reached over the dead man and found a switch to lower the driver’s seat all the way back. When that was done, he dragged the man’s body into the backseat. Then he got out, went around the car, opened the front door, and popped the trunk.

  In the trunk he found a blanket and some maps. He quickly laid the blanket over the body and tossed the maps into the passenger seat. Marwan reached into the glove compartment. Beside the owner’s manual, the registration, an insurance card, and several pads of blank receipts, there was a small stack of napkins and some ketchup packets. The napkins would have to do. Marwan glanced around again, then cleaned up as much of the blood and bits of the driver’s head from the interior of the car as he could, as rapidly as he could. He felt his gag reflex triggering at what his hand felt through the napkins, but still he pressed on.

  Fortunately—at least for Marwan—the driver’s side window had been open when the man had been shot. The window itself was still intact. Marwan got into the car, rolled up the window, turned the key, and checked his rearview mirror. His shoulder was throbbing, but he had no time to think about that.

  Flashing lights were coming up fast.

  The manager of the hotel ran out the front door and waved the police in. He yelled something that Marwan couldn’t hear but took to mean “move.”

  Marwan complied, cautiously pulling out of the hotel driveway and heading west.

  Italy was a mistake, he decided. France was better. He had some cash, clothes, and half a dozen fake passports stashed in Marseille, as he did in several cities throughout Europe and the Middle East, a necessary precaution in his business. Depending on traffic, he could be in Marseille in just a couple of hours. There, he could ditch the car and body and catch a plane for Casablanca.

  It had been years since he’d been in Morocco, and he had vowed to never go back. The scar from the knife wound on his side gently tingled as he thought about what had happened there. However, Casa was also where one of his closest friends lived—a man who had been on many missions with him a lifetime ago; the one man, besides his brother, whom Marwan knew he could trust—Kadeen al-Wadhi.

  6

  Marwan wound through the streets, passing from Monte Carlo into the neighboring residential ward of Saint Michel. He was anxious to get onto La Provençale, the freeway that would take him to Marseille. There was something that was keeping him from heading that way, though—a black Peugeot about a block and a half back.

  He wasn’t sure how long it had been there. In the craziness of leaving the hotel with a dead body in the backseat and a bullet in his shoulder, he had forgotten one of the key tenets of being a security man—always watch your back. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Marwan didn’t want to tip his hand about heading to Marseille, but he also couldn’t afford to spend all evening on a tour of Monaco’s ten wards.

  Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror and one eye toward the front, he made a right turn. Sure enough, the Peugeot turned after him. Two blocks up, he turned right again. Ten seconds later, his shadow followed. After two more right turns, he had completed a circle. Now there was no doubt in his mind that he was being followed. He needed to lose them, but where? The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of the police with some insane high-speed chase. If I could just—

  A car pulled from a side street right in front of Marwan. He slammed on the brakes, but not quickly enough. The taxi plowed into the side of the car. The air bag exploded in his face, then deflated. The shock of the slam to the face was quickly replaced by excruciating pain from his shoulder. He cried out, but the cry quickly turned into coughing from the air bag’s powder.

  Suddenly, his head was thrown backward as the car that had been trailing him hit the cab from behind.

  Instinctively, he dropped flat along the front bench seat. Half a second later, the rear window shatt
ered. The pistol that had been on the seat next to him lay on the floorboard. He reached for it, pointed it over the back of the seat, and fired off two rounds.

  Pushing open the passenger door, he slid across the seat and out onto the street. The agony from the collision with the pavement caused his vision to momentarily gray, but he shook himself alert. He rolled to give himself a view of the car behind. As he did, a man with a gun stepped out. Marwan fired two shots, both connecting with the gunman and dropping him to the ground.

  Bullets thunked into the door Marwan had just pushed open. He swiveled back around and connected one of two shots directed at a man who was firing over the hood of the car he had hit. One shot was enough. Two down. How many more to go?

  He heard yelling but couldn’t make out the words. Still more than one. He rolled so he could see under the car. A pair of feet was slowly making its way along the other side. He fired one shot into the right ankle. A man cried out and fell.

  His head cracked on the pavement, then turned. His eyes locked with Marwan’s for what seemed like a minute, though it was less than a second. I hate seeing their faces, Marwan thought as he fired his weapon. One of the man’s eyes disappeared; the other went lifeless.

  There’s at least one more around here somewhere, he thought as he scanned under the car one last time. He pushed himself into a squat. Looking around, he didn’t like what he saw. Although this was a quiet residential street, the battle was beginning to draw spectators. He knew he had only a matter of minutes before the police arrived.

  Marwan glanced up through the taxi’s windows, but the other side of the car was clear. He dropped back down. Where is he? He listened for any signs of movement, any breathing or coughing that would indicate he was close.