The Red Cell André Gallo (essential reading .txt) 📖

“Okay, let me see if I can motivate him.” Svetlana said. She smiled and disappeared into the house.

She returned with Karim a few minutes later. He asked, “Iranian movie? I had not heard about it. How long is it going to be?” Reacting to Kristen’s questioning glance at the man standing beside them, Karim added, “Oh, Gaspard is my bodyguard. I saw my father yesterday, and he insisted I needed a bodyguard.” Rolling his eyes to the sky, he added, “I did not have a choice. So what is this about a movie?”

“This morning I received a phone call inviting me to a special preview. I’m going to be paid for it, so I splurged and I hired a car and driver,” she smiled alluringly, as she pointed to the vehicle parked at the curb. “That’s all I know, but I suspect it’s going to be in Farsi. So, I was hoping you could come with me.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Karim said, looking back at the house as if he were involved in another project.

“Come on,” Kristen said as she took him by the arm. “It’s going to be fun. And it’s probably not going to be more than a couple hours.” She surprised herself at the way she sounded, because inside she felt as wound up as a spring.

While this conversation was taking place, Kristen’s impression that Gaspard did not speak English was confirmed when Karim explained the situation to him in basic French. Kristen’s French was not much better, but she understood Gaspard wanted to accompany Karim. She glanced toward Hunter’s car and wondered if the situation was going to be resolved by talk or by force.

“Oh, let him stay here,” Kristen told Karim. “For one thing, he won’t be able to get into the theatre.”

“I’m going to go run and let you decide what you’re going to do,” Svetlana said, as she started to jog away from them. Then she stopped and turned back. Speaking English, she said, “Why don’t you take him with you? I bet he would not mind waiting for you in a bar somewhere.”

Karim nodded and motioned for Gaspard to accompany them.

When the three of them got in the car, Kristen sat in the front with McCabe and let the two men sit in the back. Behind the glass partition separating the passengers from the driver, Kristen quickly explained the situation to McCabe and told him to head for the nearest bar. He pulled in front of a café in the middle of the city. He got out and opened the door for Gaspard.

“Svetlana suggested, and I agree, that Gaspard should wait for us here. We’ll be about an hour,” McCabe said leaning down to see both Karim and Gaspard.

After Karim and Gaspard exchanged a few words in French, Karim said, “He says his job is to stay with me.”

Kristen stepped out of the car and said, “Tell him,” she told Karim, “that he will not be allowed in to the theatre. It’s by invitation only. This is by far the best place to wait. The alternative is to wait outside the theatre where there are no places to sit. Besides, it looks like rain. This does not look to me to be a bad place to spend an hour.”

After a few more words between Gaspard and Karim, the bodyguard stepped out of the car and, looking uncertain, directed his steps toward the entrance, as he glanced at his watch. Kristen got back in the car and McCabe quickly returned behind the wheel, locked all the doors, and headed for Waterloo.

22. Iranian Safe House, Charleroi

Hatred. Kella had never felt such an extreme hatred since her parents had been killed by the Malian Army during the Tuareg rebellion in the southern Sahara where she was born, the child of tribal royalty. However, the hatred had been diluted by confusion and lack of understanding for what had happened. A couple of years in a Catholic orphanage in Timbuktu had eventually erased her hostility. There was no such dilution now.

Shackled to a radiator by day and to a bed at night, her mind had transferred her focus from the men who had caused her to lose her child to the man who was behind her kidnapping, Yosemani, famously ruthless and responsible for killing hundreds of people. She assumed he would eventually appear to take part in the interrogation and she constantly rehearsed her part of the confrontation. She knew she would have little chance to actually hurt him physically, but she kept looking around the room for some sort of weapon. She tried to imagine the blood pattern against the wallpaper if she somehow could get a shot at him. Neither of the two guards usually carried a weapon, but she had to stay alert.

The green wallpaper was punctuated about every 12 inches, with red crested songbirds, sixteen across and twelve up, a total of a hundred ninety-two. She absentmindedly counted them, as her mind feverishly reviewed the events of the last couple of days and rehearsed her words and actions for future opportunities to get free.

The first two days of interrogation had been rough physically, but her guards were not very skilled. Her free hand felt the bruises over her body. Her every move caused pain. The black and blue marks would eventually go away, but her child could never be revived. She seethed with anger. She strongly believed sticking to her Jane Mercier cover was her only defense. She used the constantly rising frustration of the two Iranian guards as a measure of her success. But for the most part, she was now left alone for most of the day. The guards had obviously received a change of orders. She started wondering whether she was being readied for another phase. Could they be planning to exfiltrate her to another country? To Iran? Was Steve working