June 3rd, 2014 - Port of Gennevilliers, Paris, France.

Sabine’s hip hurt. The painkillers had barely helped to dull the pain, and she had refused Claire’s offer of stronger medication. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she channeled the pain into her other senses and focused on the task that lay ahead of her. All she could hope was that she ended the night with as few aches and pains as she had now.

It was a little after ten that evening, and the sun had finally slipped below the horizon, leaving the world bathed in shadows and darkness. Sabine had parked her car a few blocks from the warehouse and set about her preparations. When she was ready, she launched the Russian unmanned aerial vehicle and set off on foot towards her target.

“Clear route ahead, One.”

“Copy,” Sabine muttered. “Two hundred meters from target.”

Sabine was shuffling along the waterfront, doing her best to look like a wandering vagrant. She wore a bulky old raincoat with the hood up to conceal her appearance. Underneath the coat, she wore her body armor and weaponry over a pair of black jeans and a dark T-shirt. It was far from tactical, but the clothing was flexible enough to allow her to move freely.

“Lights are on in the hen house, and I have movement inside. Total number of players unknown. You watch yourself, do you hear me?”

“Got to be done,” Sabine replied, hunching her shoulders and adding a slight shuffling stumble to her step. “Maybe I can have a chat with one and see if they’re feeling talkative.”

“Don’t take any excessive risks, ok?” A worried tone entered Claire’s voice over the transmission. “Get in, get what you need, and leave. Once we have hard proof, I’m sending it directly to the powers that be. I’ve got a line ready and waiting to land it on the Director’s desk.”

“Not fucking around, huh?”

Sabine could hear the shift in tone over the radio. She knew deep down that Claire was extremely worried for her. She didn’t blame the woman, for she was more than scared herself. While she knew that she was capable of the individual tasks that lay ahead, it was another thing entirely to do it all at once and by herself. In many ways, the experience made her miss Tom Spencer all the more.

This was exactly the sort of stupid plan that Tom would have regaled her with during their time together. The Station Chief had told her many a story of survival and desperate action in his time behind the Iron Curtain. A younger Sabine had blown a lot of the tales off as hyperbole and bluff, but now that she faced the same isolation, the same struggle, it all felt terrifyingly real.

“The sooner I get this stuff to someone that matters, the sooner they call off the attack dogs. I want you back alive, do you understand?”

“I understand,” Sabine replied quietly. “I’m coming back to you both.”

“You better had,” Claire replied, a catch in her voice. “If this goes sideways, I’m calling the French cops in, ok?”

“Last ditch, if we do that,” Sabine pointed out. “That’s the nuclear option; nothing stays quiet then, and I will get arrested and returned to CIA custody.”

“But you’ll be alive, that matters more.”

But at what cost? Sabine thought to herself, eying the building ahead of her.

Approaching the warehouse, Sabine slipped behind a parked truck and unzipped the raincoat before bundling it up and stuffing it under the vehicle’s tire. Checking her equipment was secure, she leaned around the vehicle and scanned the building, “One to Watcher, in position. Any patrols to watch out for?”

“Exterior is all quiet, best access is going to be the southern wall, upper floor. There’s a fire escape on the older section of the building.”

“Copy”

The fire escape was located exactly where Claire had identified, on the south-western corner of the warehouse closest to the waterfront. It was an old metal structure painted black, connecting the upper floor to the ground below. It had a metal ladder that allowed access to the ground that was presently in the up and retracted position. It was a minor problem, in the short term, but it revealed an even greater one: a closed-circuit camera mounted fifty feet away on a wall bracket high off the ground that was covering the area.

“Camera, middle of the wall,” Sabine hissed. “Above the loading bay.”

“Shit, didn’t see that one, static or scanning?”

“Scanning,” Sabine replied, watching the camera twisting on its mount as it rotated to cover a large swathe of the yard before it. “Looks like it’s set up to cover the loading dock, but it catches the escape on the end of its scan.

“How long?”

Sabine watched for a moment, “It takes thirty seconds for a full sweep. That gives me probably twenty-five when the escape is out of frame.”

“The ladder is up. What’s your plan?”

Sabine eyed the scene as she weighed her options. The ladder was approximately ten feet off the ground in its retracted position. There was, however, a dumpster a few feet away that reduced the distance if she was nimble enough to reach it. The second-floor balcony was compact, containing only the closed fire door and a window that was latched in the open position. All of it was accessible, but the time component would be a difficult factor.

“I think I can make it.”

“I can find you another option?”

“No other upper floor or roof access, and all the other doors are secured or will be on static cameras that we have no access to. This might just be the only real option.”

“Can you get up there in time?”

Sabine secured her submachine gun to her back and flexed her fingers. “I think we’re going to find out.”

As the camera reached the end of its travel, Sabine tensed up. It paused for a handful of seconds before the motor powering the camera began spinning in the opposite direction, turning the camera away from the fire escape. As soon as it was moving, she set off at a run.

Sabine, covering the distance in a few seconds, took a running jump, kicked off the warehouse wall, and landed squarely on top of the dumpster. Catching her balance, she looked up at the fire escape and gauged the distance. The ladder was about ten feet away and now considerably lower. Taking a moment to steady herself, she leapt into the air, her hands outstretched.

Sabine’s fingers closed around the bottom rung of the ladder, her body penduluming forward with the momentum of her jump. Steadying herself, she hauled her body upward and grabbed the next rung before stretching up with her left hand to grasp the one above it. With a swing of her hips, she lifted herself high enough to get a foot onto the ladder.

By the time she reached the platform, the camera was swinging back towards her. There was no time to go for the window, so Sabine flattened herself against the floor of the fire escape and remained stock still. The camera mounted on the wall was roughly level with the platform and was designed to cover the yard itself and the approach to the loading docks. With the Fire escape in shadow, she hoped that she would be invisible if she was seen at all.

“Where the hell did that move come from?” Claire asked, a reverent edge to her voice. “Do you sneak about ancient tombs in your time off?”

“Misspent youth on the monkey bars,” Sabine offered quietly. “And some gymnastics in high school.”

“If your career as a spy doesn’t pan out, you could always join the circus.”

“Am I clear?”

“Yeah, you’re clear.”

Sabine eased herself up and moved to the window. It was an older design with a large upper pane that hinged open. Peering inside revealed a dark storeroom and no signs of activity. Whoever had left the window open had seemingly presumed the height of the fire escape was a suitable counter to any heightened security risk.

Reaching inside, Sabine found the latch and swung the large pane further open until she was able to climb through and into the storeroom. Dropping down to the floor, she scanned the room before letting out a breath, “I’m inside.”

“Copy, no change on external. I’m keeping a track of any local police networks, and I have camera access to the building across the street. Thank god more companies are farming out their security monitoring.”

Sabine unslung her submachine gun from her back and checked that the weapon was loaded, “I’m going to begin penetration now. Keep me updated if anything changes, but otherwise, going quiet.”

“First time you’ve ever said that,” the voice snickered.

“Shut up,” Sabine rolled her eyes. She knew Claire was just trying to lighten her mood and ease the tension, but she needed to focus. Now that she was inside the warehouse, she was at the greatest risk of discovery. One wrong move and she could bring a world of pain down on her head. Edwards’ apartment had clearly proven that these men had no problem shooting people they considered to be a threat. Thanks to Komorov, she knew they were more than well enough equipped to do serious damage when they wanted to. 

The outer door of the store room was unlocked. Listening for a moment, Sabine decided that the coast was clear and eased the door open. Slipping out into the corridor, she swept both directions with her weapon. 

The space was dark and quiet, lit only by a lamp at the end of the hallway. Off in the distance, she could hear a radio playing somewhere and the occasional sound of human activity. She was not alone and would have to proceed cautiously. Raising her weapon, she moved along the corridor slowly, placing one foot in front of the other. The wooden floor was old, and Sabine made sure to stick close to the joists where possible as she moved toward the light. The last thing she needed was a creaking floorboard to announce her arrival.

Dark offices flanked the corridor as Sabine moved forward through the gloom. They were clearly a relic of the building’s former purpose and long disused, judging by the layer of dust and lack of furniture visible through the windows. It was a space that must have once bustled with employees and activity, but now, it was reduced to an empty, forgotten shell.

The corridor turned left and led deeper into the building. As Sabine moved, the radio in the distance grew gradually louder. The sound was echoing, clearly being played in one of the larger open spaces of the warehouse. She could hear voices now, too, muffled and indistinct, but certainly more than one.

The corridor terminated in an open mezzanine level that overlooked a large open space, which took up the majority of the main building. Doors along the far wall connected it to the newer portion of the warehouse beyond, and unlike the offices, the space was far from empty.

The cavernous space contained tall storage racks, many still containing the lumber, brick, and drums from the building's former life. It was clear that when the previous company had ceased trading, Edwards had purchased the entire operation with inventory included, ostensibly to maintain appearances.

It was from this balcony that Sabine saw the first of the building’s occupants. The radio was clearly audible now, tuned to a late-night radio talk show. Nearby, a group of men was loading a van while several more wandered about, rifles slung across their backs. They were approximately a hundred feet away.

Keeping low and sticking to the shadows, Sabine worked her way along the balcony until she found the main office located at the western end of the building. This space was clearly more frequently used, and the door was locked. After a brief moment with her lockpick, she had unlatched the door and slipped inside.

“I’ve got an office,” Sabine murmured as she searched the place in the dark. “Place is busy on the main floor, they’re loading a van. Not clear what yet, but they’re moving something out.”

“Net is still quiet, nothing to report yet. Are you secure?”

“So far,” Sabine replied. Sliding open the top drawer of a filing cabinet, she began to flick through the files inside. “Is it too much to ask the bad guys to keep meticulous records and store them like good boys?”

“I know, right? It would make our lives a lot easier.”

“Everything here seems to be from the place’s time, selling building materials,” Sabine sighed. “Inventory still on racks, everything seems like it’s meant to give the impression that it’s still doing that. Whatever they’re up to, it’s not hawking bricks.”

Claire chuckled over the radio connection, “I could have told you that. “No change outside. Had two guys walk outside to light up, but nothing otherwise.”

Sabine booted the computer at the desk and dimmed the monitor before it gave her position away. Slipping a USB drive into the side of the tower, she bypassed the login and opened the file browser. “This is newer,” she murmured, scanning through documents. “Shipments in and out are logged and tagged by material type and quantity, but judging by how old a lot of that stuff out there looks, they’re not moving it.”

“Using shipments as cover?”

“Probably, but for what?”

Sabine glanced past the monitor as she heard a van door slam downstairs in the warehouse, “I need a closer look at whatever they’re moving.”

“Be careful.”

Shutting down the computer, Sabine slipped back out onto the balcony. Pausing by the railing, she listened intently. The men down below were talking loudly in Arabic, shouting back and forth to each other.

“Are you finished yet?”

“Just done. This should be ready to go out as soon as Rafiq gets back from taking a smoke.”

“Make sure he knows the way this time, the boss wants any inventory gone before anyone comes looking.”

“Do you really think that one person is going to be a threat?”

“He thinks so. Mohamed said to have it all gone by morning. Remember, Khalid and Nasir are dead, Alhamdulillah. Some white bitch killed them, and the others got arrested. There is more than one person coming, and he wants us out soon.”

Sabine frowned as she squatted down behind the railing. Edwards was onto them, and he was moving his inventory. It was clear he was afraid that his operation was going to be exposed, and he was clearing house before that happened. If he believed that the warehouse was compromised, he had to believe that Sabine had been successful at his apartment. Time was running out, and she needed hard evidence.

“Did you hear that?”

“Got it, choppy, but I heard,” Claire confirmed. “I’ll put some feelers out and see what Company activity is like tonight in town. If Edwards is heading back here, he’s probably dragging the whole circus with him.”

“That’s my fear.”

“I’m going to line into the Embassy system and…. I…  hard… Interference… lost eyes…”

“Watcher?” Sabine hissed. “Come in.”

There was nothing but static on the earpiece for a moment before the line went dead.

If Claire had lost eyes and their coms had gone down, that meant only one possible scenario: someone had a jammer running locally, and it was interfering with their signal. A jammer meant that the Agency was here, and she was out of time.

Keeping low, Sabine started moving along a gantry that took her closer to where the men were loading the cargo van. The men were still speaking, and none of them seemed particularly hurried, so she was fairly certain that the source of the jamming was not from the warehouse’s occupants. If she could find out what they were loading, she had a fair chance of getting out of here before the cavalry arrived.

The gantry led to a position thirty feet above the men and gave Sabine her first look at what they were doing. The men were busy removing something from drums before repacking the items into boxes in the back of a nearby cargo van.

Sabine pulled out her cellphone and eased it over the edge of the gantry. Zooming in with the camera app, her eyes widened with surprise. The men were fishing brown plastic wrapped bricks out of oil drums and drying them off before repacking them into cardboard boxes. Those boxes were then being stacked into the back of the nearby cargo van.

Heroin; Edwards was moving Heroin. Everything suddenly made perfect sense now to Sabine. The connections to Abbas Ahmad and his Freedom’s Fire group made all the sense in the world. There was no deeper ideological motive at play or turncoat conspiracy, simply the world’s greatest motivator: money.

Nar Alhuriyaat, or Freedom’s fire, the Terror group from Lebanon, formerly led by Abbas Ahmad, had the regional connections to move the illicit narcotics out of the Middle East. With nearby Syria in the grips of a civil war and the mess that was Iraq beyond it, it was the perfect conduit to the Mediterranean and Europe beyond.

Getting drugs out of Lebanon was certainly no difficult task, but getting them into Europe was significantly harder. If Ahmad was providing the muscle and logistics to fund his campaign of terror, that meant that Edwards had pulled strings and arranged sale of the product into Europe’s thriving drug trade. The man certainly had the connections to make that happen.

Money: the simplest way to get someone to betray all that they held dear. It was a motive as old as time. Once the pipeline was established and the product was flowing, Edwards really had no further need for Ahmad, only his organisation. When the Agency turned its attention in the terrorist’s direction, he had become more of a liability than an asset. This explained why Edwards had wanted Ahmad killed outright; any chance of capture risked him offering up Edwards as a deal for his freedom. There was no way Edwards could risk that. A messy, quick kill was an easy thing to cover up in an Agency long used to hiding its dirty secrets.

“Are we done yet?”

“Five more barrels, maybe thirty minutes, and we can be out of here, Insha'Allah.”

Sabine snapped several photographs of the men loading the narcotics into the van. This was what she needed: men belonging to Ahmad loading drugs at a warehouse owned by Edwards. There was no way he could weasel out of a situation like this when combined with her recording of the operations room in Nice.

A metal clang rang out ahead of Sabine on the gantry, making her look up from the scene below. One of the men that she had not seen was walking casually along the far end of the upper level, a Kalashnikov rifle slung casually over his shoulder.

Rolling back to her feet, Sabine started backing away as slowly and quietly as possible. The man was still walking parallel to her, and he had yet to turn to look in her direction. The man appeared to be more focused on the cellphone in his hand than on watching where he was going.

Sabine swung her weapon around and kept it raised in the man’s direction as she moved. She knew that she was in a precariously dangerous position, stuck on a gantry high in the air and far from any cover. She had little chance of making it back to the balcony before the man turned in her direction; it was just a matter of time. 

The man paused at the corner of the gantry and began prodding irritably at his phone with a look of frustration. Turning toward the railing, he turned and called something down to the men below in Arabic before his eyes swung in Sabine’s direction. The man’s eyes widened with surprise as he spotted the interloper crouching in what little shadow the gantry afforded. Before he could even open his mouth to call out, Sabine pulled the trigger.

Even with a suppressor attached, the vicious Heckler and Koch submachine gun’s discharge issued a noticeable crack that was easily audible by the men down below. The rounds impacted the man in the center of his chest, and he swayed for a moment before falling forward, the look of surprise still fixed on his face. Before he had even hit the floor, Sabine was running back towards the safety of the mezzanine balcony.

Down below, angry shouts of surprise could be heard as the men looked up in time to see their comrade fall, his weapon clattering away across the metal grating. Sabine kept running, her feet ringing loudly off the metal of the gantry. At this point, speed was far more important than any pretense of stealth.

Bullets ripped through the air beside Sabine as she ran, sparking off the railings around her. Reaching the end of the gantry, she dropped low and slid across the floor, ducking out of the line of fire just in time to avoid a burst of rounds that filled the air she had occupied only seconds earlier. Rolling onto her stomach, Sabine raised the submachine gun over the edge of the balcony and held down the trigger. Her fire did not need to be accurate; it just needed to discourage any acts of bravery from the men down below.

Without Claire’s overwatch, she was operating in the blind, and the battlefield had changed significantly. The Agency was closing in on their position, and the men below were fairly keen to see the newly discovered interloper dead rather than stop to ask questions. It would not take much brainpower for them to link her to the woman who had killed their comrades earlier in the day.

More bullets shattered the window of the office behind her, showering Sabine with fragments of glittering glass. Shielding her face, Sabine dropped the empty magazine from her weapon before pulling herself back away from the edge. She needed to get out of the space, and the only path seemed to be back the way she had come.

Forward and to her left, a man appeared at the top of the stairs that led down to the ground floor. Bullets from his Kalashnikov ripped through the wall beside her as Sabine slammed the fresh magazine home into the grip of her weapon. Releasing the bolt, she sprayed single-handedly at the man as she ran for the safety of the corridor.

A scream behind her and a thump were enough confirmation to tell her that the man had been hit, but she did not bother to look back. Her heart was hammering as she ran, and the violence of gunfire in the contained space was dominating her senses.

Somewhere deeper inside the building, she heard the crump of a detonation, and fresh gunfire rang out. She had no idea what was going on, but her immediate focus was on retracing her steps and finding the storeroom that led to the fire escape.

Returning to the warren of offices had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, under the fog of combat, she was struggling to remember which door had belonged to the correct room. Had it been the fourth? The fifth door on the left? Each door handle she tried was frustratingly locked, and she was running out of doors to check.

A burst of gunfire ripped through the offices, shattering glass and splintering wood, forcing Sabine to dive for cover on the ground. Ahead of her, the faint light from the main warehouse shillouetted a figure at the corner. Rolling onto her stomach, Sabine leveled her submachine gun and pulled the trigger. The man slumped back against the wall and slid down to the floor, where he sat jerking as he choked on his own blood. Sabine fired a second burst, and the man stopped moving.

Another man leaned around the corner and sprayed bullets blindly along the corridor. The bullets peppered the walls at random, sending a spray of wood and dust in all directions. Sabine was out of time, and she knew it. She had a choice to make, and she knew it was one or nothing. Looking across the corridor, she spotted a door that seemed familiar and committed. 

Standing up, she took a running leap at the door and slammed into it shoulder-first. The door gave way, its latch splintering under her impact as Sabine tumbled into the storeroom. She landed hard on her injured hip and gave a yelp as she rolled onto her back, pointing the weapon back towards the doorway.

More gunfire barked, and bullets ripped through the thin walls, trailing shafts of light like laser beams in the dark dusty air. Sabine panted for breath as she waited for the man to approach, grimacing at the stabbing pain in her hip as she held her aim at the open doorway.

A moment later, she heard footsteps outside on the wooden floor, the old boards creaking under the weight of the person as he walked cautiously forward. Sabine’s heart thumped as the foot steps came closer until they stopped just outside the door. Adjusting her grip on the submachine gun, she held her breath, waiting for the man to show himself.

Two gunshots rang out, and the hidden figure stumbled forward, his body falling across the open doorway as his rifle clattered away across the floor. Sabine frowned and pulled herself painfully upright on a shelf, keeping her weapon leveled on the door ahead of her.

“Knight?”

Sabine’s heart leapt, “Pete?”

A large gloved hand waved from the edge of the doorway, “Not going to blow my head off, are you?”

Sabine lowered her weapon, “No, no, I’m not… Come in?”

Pete Sutherland eased around the doorway and stepped over the dead terrorist. Pausing, he fired a final round into the body before lowering his weapon. “What are you doing down there?”

“A long and painful story, Sabine sighed. “I’m really glad to see you, Pete.”

Sutherland extended a hand to Sabine, “Well, you sure still know how to party. This place was off the hook when we got here.”

“Partly your fault, Sabine pointed out as she accepted the hand.

Sutherland pulled her easily to her feet before giving Sabine’s arm a squeeze, “I wasn’t sure what we’d find here, but I’m damn glad you’re ok. When it all kicked off, I was worried.”

“You and me both,” Sabine admitted, limping slightly as she put weight on her bad hip. “Are you here to take me in?”

Sutherland shrugged as two more of his men moved past the doorway and a third stuck his head inside, “Clear, boss, mopping up now.”

Sutherland nodded to the man before turning back to look at Sabine and cocking an eyebrow, “Depends on you, doesn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“Edwards got a ‘random tip’ that you’d be here after you and your coconspirators got into a gunfight with the Paris cops earlier today,” the old SEAL smirked. “I’m guessing there’s more to that story than he let on?”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t mention that they’re Abbas Ahmad’s men or that they were guarding his apartment, did he?” Sabine offered. “That’s where I found the paperwork for his company registered here.”

Sutherland grinned and shook his head and offered Sabine a hand, “You’re a piece of work, kid.”

“I’m just trying to survive,” Sabine admitted, accepting the help as she hobbled over the dead man in the doorway. “You have to take me in, right?”

Yeah,” Sutherland shrugged. “Standing orders to take you in dead or alive. But I’ll use whatever credit I’ve earned to make sure you get a fair hearing. My guys are doing cleanup and SSE now. We found the dope downstairs. This place is quite the racket.”

“Edwards was working with Freedom’s Fire and Ahmad to bring heroin out of Lebanon and into Europe,” Sabine explained. “Ahmad provided the muscle and the product, and Edwards got it in and moved it onward to the customers.”

“So with the recording, proof of this place’s ownership, and the drugs and terrorists we found here?” Sutherland did the math in his head.

“Edwards had every motive to silence Ahmad when the Agency turned its attention on his partner. He had to kill him, or a rat like that would flip on him the second he was in custody.”

Sabine rubbed her neck and sighed, “Chances are, he struck a deal with one of Ahmad’s lieutenants to keep the good times rolling. Between what we have here, the paperwork, and my recording, I’m pretty sure we caught him in bed with terrorists.”

“I knew you could do it,” Pete grinned, giving Sabine’s shoulder a squeeze. “I never doubted you.”

Two of Sutherland’s men came jogging back along the corridor from the direction of the main warehouse, their weapons held casually by their sides. “We’re complete on scene exploitation, ready to roll out before the local cops arrive.”

“Got it, round up the guys and let's roll,” Sutherland nodded.

The two soldiers nodded and vanished back the way they had come. Sabine fell in beside Sutherland as they followed the men toward the main warehouse. Sabine looked up at the old soldier beside her, “I really appreciate you not shooting me, Pete.”

“And miss all this chaos? Not likely.”

“I assume the jammer was you guys?” Sabine asked as they walked. “I lost contact with my eyes thanks to you.”

“Standard procedure, take out comms,” Sutherland nodded. Frowning, he paused for a moment, “Wait, that means you have someone watching your ass, who…?”

“A friend,” Sabine grinned sheepishly. “Not going to rat her out, are you?”

“Do I look like I rat people out, girl?” Sutherland raised an eyebrow. “ My old ass is carrying secrets that would make a hooker blush.”

Sabine smirked, “Ok, fine. Claire Patterson.”

Sutherland chuckled, “Of course you’d get her help. She got the kid?”

“Yeah,” Sabine nodded, stepping over a body on the stairs. “She’s been a real lifesaver.”

Sutherland stopped walking, and his face went white. “Where is she?”

“Claire? Her apartment, she’s nowhere near here, if that’s what you mean?”

Sutherland shook his head, “No, where, specifically?”

“Down in the 13th, near Rue de Tolbiac.”

Sutherland looked across the warehouse, “Yo, Scott, where did Edwards say he was going?”

One of the other operators turned around, “Some place south of the river, said something about tracking a security breach to the Quartier de la Gare or something. They thought it might have been somewhere Knight went to get access to Embassy files.”

Sabine felt her blood run cold and a wave of nausea wash over her. “Béatrice… my baby…”

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