Blood Money
by
Azam Gill

Chapter One

First Foreign Regiment
      - French Foreign Légion Headquarters, Aubagne.
      End of Contract.

In stonewashed jeans, Nikes and a brown leather jacket, he walked along the Allée Viennot, rucksack slung easily over his left shoulder. For the last time his eyes blazed a silent salute to the monument of the dead - four Légionnaires back-to-back in colonial pith helmets leaning over their long-barreled rifles with sword bayonets.
      A wasp buzzed past his ear. He half-turned his head, and the periphery of his vision outlined the Légion Museum. Not a man to give in to impulses, he had allowed himself to be invited by Warrant Officer Pfeiffer, the chief curator, for a drink. He might never come back again. Lithely, he went down the fifty-seven steps to the parade ground, a fighting fit, elite soldier at the end of his five-year contract. A staff captain was coming up the steps. The Légionnaire stiffened, stared hard into the eyes of his officer and slapped his thigh in the Légion's bareheaded salute. The sharp crack reverberated across the spit'n'polish deserted parade ground. Staff Clancy, his drill sergeant at Sandhurst, would have approved.
      The officer nodded as his hand came up to reply in the Saint Cyr flourish. He recognized him. One of the best. Maybe the best. And an ex-Sandhurst man. Another five years would have seen him with a commission.
      Further on, Sergeant Major Derudder, a Belgian of Flemish stock with seventeen years' service, stood outside the entrance to the Musée de la Légion Etrangere in his dress uniform, medals from Africa to the Gulf War glinting across his chest in the mellow sun of a Provençal afternoon. Sergeant Major De Rudder took a deep drag on his Gauloise and squinted at the Légionnaire coming towards him. Johnny, he said to himself with wry affection. Our best. A file clicked open in his head. Ex-Sandhurst, Lieutenant in the SAS, and in another two hours, ex-Légionnaire. Champion long-distance runner, crack shot, good bearing and exemplary turnout. Five-ten, 160 lbs of lean meat on the hoof, trained to kill pitilessly but with style - even his jeans and leather jacket were worn with class.
      Sergeant Major De Rudder flicked his Gauloise into the sand-bowl, raised his face to the sky. The nostrils beneath his high-bridged Flemish nose quivered, his lips curled in a snarl. In perfect imitation of a high-spirited horse, he neighed, then stamped his left foot on the ground.
      Johnny stopped in his tracks, gently put the rucksack on the ground, and smartly slapped his thigh. He, too, raised his face to the limpid Provençal sky and neighed, then stamped his foot. It was the greeting of the First Squadron of the First Foreign Regiment of Cavalry, raised in 1635 … the oldest surviving mercenary unit in the world.
      The two men shook hands. Sergeant Major De Rudder was proud of Johnny's streamlined efficiency. Johnny was the epitome of a Légionnaire. Impeccable turnout, even in civvies, and combat perfect.
      "Alors, Johnny, you going civile?"
      "In a couple of hours, Chief."
      Johnny's French was fluent, but with the cultural arrogance typical to most Englishmen in the Légion, he had retained the Anglo-Saxon hard consonants and stressed vowels throughout his five-year contract.
      "You got a job - du boulot?"
      The Légion is concerned for its own.
      "Not yet, but bientôt."
      "Hmm. You're a good Légionnaire. The doors will always be open to you."
      Seventeen years in the Légion allowed De Rudder to say this without any hint of pomposity.
      "Oui chef - that's what the General told me this morning at the Liberation ceremony - when he gave me my discharge papers and Certificate of Merit."
      "You got your money from the Indian?"
      The treasury officer, a captain, was Indian.
      "No problem."
      Johnny patted the leather belt holding up his jeans. It would have seemed a little plump to a close observer. Of fine leather, a zip ran along the back of its length. The Légion salary is as modest as its bonuses are generous. A wise Légionnaire spends his salary, saves his bonuses and is vigilant about carrying large amounts of cash. Denied a bank account, he has no option.
      "And your name, Johnny?"
      This was a bit of a joke. Every Englishman in the Légion is called 'Johnny', but Johnny was his real name.
      "Still Johnny Kilvington."
      If De Rudder had been the sort of person to get embarrassed, he would have gone red. Instead, a blank mask dropped over his face. A Légionnaire signs up with the Foreign Légion for adventure, military professionalism and the guarantee of anonymity - l'anonymat - down to a meticulous change of identity and even nationality by the BPLE - Bureau des Personnels de la Légion Etrangère. With Johnny Kilvington it had taken four weeks, flitting him from Paris to Lille, to Marseilles and then to Aubagne. Once under l'anonymat, the Légionnaire's real identity is secret. L'anonymat is so sacred a trust that every recruit is considered under a declared identity. After a certain length of service, he is asked if he wants to revert to his former identity, the process being called rectification de l'état civile. Either way, the Légionnaire's choice is respected, as long as he understands one thing: at the end of his contract, his discharge papers will carry the Identité Déclarée stamp of the BSLE - Bureau des Statistiques de la Légion Etrangère - a smoke screen for the security apparatus of the Légion. The stamp ensures against any misuse of l'anonymat . The watertight protection of the identity change is only valid for the duration of the Légion contract.
      "You want to have a look around, Johnny?"
      "Yes."
      They stepped into the austere marble elegance surrounding the Légion's sacred relics and icons. De Rudder's dress shoes echoed on the mirror-like marble, Johnny's Nikes managed to retain a lethal silence. The Légion Museum has the same effect on all visitors - there are too many ghosts, and after a minute's silence, you can feel them, even hear them. US submariners who regularly visit the museum when they dock in Marseilles have reported these feelings. After the Gulf War, General Schwarzkopf stood in the entrance hall with goose pimples breaking out over his beefy forearms. As museums go, it is in impeccable French taste, the lighting and arrangement done by highly skilled and talented professionals - all Légionnaires. It is the Légion's boast that it never needs to call in outsiders for specific skills - there are specialists of every kind who bring their skills to the ranks of the Légion.
      Johnny and De Rudder held silent communion in front of the wall consecrated to portraits of the Légion tribe - each seamed face a piece of the Western myth that surrounds this force. The play of light and shadow chosen by De Rudder to highlight the ancestral gallery was appropriate to the nether world of the Légion. Deep inside him and far away, Johnny heard a falcon's cry above mists of yellow sand ... the gallop of desert steeds ... flash of cold steel ... pools of blood ... a burnoused figure charging in his direction became a black robed grim reaper with raised scythe ... startled, Johnny broke out of it. His armpits felt moist. De Rudder sensed his reverie; he'd seen it all too often. Once the Légion expertly demolished a recruit's past life, Légionnaires of the past became his new ancestors in a blood-bond.
      "The crypt?" De Rudder inquired quietly.
      Johnny nodded, and they entered the enormous black-marbled hall. The walls had no decoration, only the names of fallen Légionnaires. The weight of doom was heavy. The music came on automatically. It was suffocating, "dirge-like" as General Schwarzkopf described it in his memoirs. The Légion's eighty-three paces a minute was the traditional Hohenloe mercenary regiments' pace, much slower than the French army's one hundred and twenty steps.
      The centerpiece of the crypt is a glass case with bits and pieces of old relics. The wooden hand of Captain Danjou stands out, paraded once a year on the 30th of April before massed ranks of Légionnaires overlooked by the monument to the dead. In Camerone, Mexico, in 1863, sixty-two NCOs and men led by Captain Danjou successfully diverted two thousand crack Mexican troops to save a French convoy. Cornered in an old hacienda, they fought to the last man. Before dying, Captain Danjou made them promise not to surrender. The foreign-born soldiers kept their contractual word, and the Mexican dispatches vindicate it. In 1892 a monument was raised on the spot. Camerone is the central myth of the Légion, as venerated as Marathon by the ancient Greeks.
      Both men quietly retraced their steps to the mournful tempo of Adieu Veille Europe.
      In the hallway, Warrant Officer Pfeiffer grimaced. In his sixties, the weather-beaten German NCO was old enough to have served in the Wehrmacht. At fourteen, he was one of the fanatical teenagers resisting the allied advance in the Black Forest. Wounded but not captured, disillusioned but not bitter, his intellect guided him. After the war, two successful hold-ups in Belgium left him with a choice: a third hold-up, which might be successful, or Odessa, the Nazi organization smuggling fascists to safety. Neither would give him the legitimacy he knew was necessary to survive in the New World. He decided that serving in the Foreign Légion would be of mutual benefit to himself and France. He got a new country, France got a trooper. Over his decades of service, neither party had cause for regret.
      "Achtung Johnny!"
      Warrant Officer Pfeiffer's standard greeting. The lupine smile reinforced rather than mitigated his natural authority and fearsome reputation. Medium height and build, legend hovered over his head like a halo.
      "Mes respects, mon adjudant." Johnny slapped his thigh with reflexive precision.
      "Boire un coup - one for der roat, ja?"
      Pfeiffer was an ageless father setting his son on the path of the wide wicked world.
      "Bien sûr, mon adjudant." Johnny was touched by the gesture.
      Pfeiffer's office would have done both a General and a General Motor's manager credit. On one side stood a walnut desk, three telephones of different colors, and a Hewlett-Packard terminal. Behind this array hung an electronic wall display next to a monitoring screen. Sensors from the cutting edge of technology constantly monitored the temperature, state of humidity, electric circuits, voltage, even seismic tremors. The system was linked on an Aptor network. At the first hint of discrepancy, the electric lights blinked twice - a discreet alarm. The valuables on display alone were worth a few thousand million. In the secret vaults beneath the museum lies the Légion's collateral, as jealously guarded as the crown jewels of the House of Windsor. Its existence is not denied, but never acknowledged. It is alluded to in the most oblique references by the select lodge of veteran officers, NCOs and Légionnaires who administer it.
      Unknown to Johnny, the chair he was sitting in was directly above the vault containing the original hand-written manuscript of La Chanson de Roland, predating the one in the Bodleyan by two decades. De Rudder sat opposite the oval table in the corner. The table was 19th century ebony with the Légion crest carved in its center, presented by a Druze chief during the Syrian campaign. From a cabinet Pfeiffer selected a bottle and three small glasses. The bottle contained a clear liquid and had no label. As Pfeiffer's gnarled old hands gently twisted the cork, he announced: "Eau de vie de poire, seventy percent, from Puyloubier, matured for ten years."
      De Rudder and Johnny inclined their heads in silent acknowledgement of the privilege as the aroma of William pears caressed the room. Puyloubier is the retirement home for incapacitated Légionnaires: it is also a working farm with superb vineyards only a few kilometres from Aubagne.
      Pfeiffer sat at the table. They clinked glasses, growled: "tchin-tchin," and took a sip each.
      "You're going back to the British army?"
      "Once is enough, mon adjudant," Johnny replied.
      "And you've been with the best now," De Rudder added with a glint in his eyes.
      "That's not quite true," Johnny asserted.
      "Marseilles is a nice town. You can't get bored there. Lots to do, eh Johnny?"
      "Yes. Plenty of crumpet, mon adjudant, and hustlers all over the place. Easy to lose your money."
      "Johnny's gonna live in England. You got a nice little English girl waiting for you in the rain?"
      They laughed at De Rudder's dig at English weather.
      "I'll nip across the channel to see my family. But no. I'll probably settle in France."
      "Where?" queried Pfeiffer.
      "The Arab quarter in Marseille, where he can start pimping les petites anglaises!" chuckled De Rudder.
      Johnny grinned. "Good idea. Sell nookie to the suckers and get your own for free!"
      There was a general exchange of lewd nods. De Rudder and Pfeiffer were not surprised by Johnny's absence of decision. It reflected a drifter cowboy culture common to many Légionnaries.
      "Seriously, somewhere with mountains around. Getting a little bored with this Mediterranean landscape. I'll have to think about it. Any ideas, mon adjudant?"
      "You ever been to Grenoble?"
      "Sure. Super town, surrounded by mountains. Rich. Calls itself Gateway to the Alps. Plenty of bars. Looks smart. Winter Olympics '68."
      Pfeiffer nodded.
      "Yes, Gateway to the Alps. It's a techno pole with the second-highest industrial turnover in France. Population around 400,000, and …" here he raised his right index in the air. "… The old Légionnaires Association - l'amicale - of Grenoble, is the best-organized in France. Their meeting hall is in the officers' mess of the Alpine Division. Old Légionnaires occupy key positions in industry and local government. You won't be by yourself. If you're ever there, say bonjour to Marinescu from me. He's the president of l'amicale. Romanian."
      The last word was a friendly dismissal.
      Johnny and De Rudder exchanged looks. De Rudder raised his glass.
      "I wish you merde, Johnny," he proposed. "Shit."
      "Merde," echoed Pfeiffer, both NCOs wishing good luck in the French tradition set by General Cambron in his defiant response to the British at Waterloo.
      They clinked glasses and tossed the remaining fiery liquid down their throats.
      Pfeiffer and De Rudder escorted Johnny to the door. As with all practitioners of high-risk professions, the farewell itself was not a drawn-out affair. If anything, perhaps a little brusque. Brief, dry handshakes, the odd expletive, and Johnny was walking down the shady path that led up to the fourrier's, rucksack over his left shoulder. Fourrier refers to the Quartermaster's office, and at Aubagne, is where a recruit is kitted out with over fifty thousand francs worth of paquetage.
      Pfeiffer closed the door to his office. His eyes were neutral, professional. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Yes, that's right. He'll head for Grenoble."

Twenty-five echoes of Johnny's past came around a corner at a sharp clip, to the ein-zwei count in German by a Swiss-German corporal whose face had seen nineteen years but whose eyes had seen more. The twenty-five recruits represented every race and color, and the average age looked about thirty-five. Johnny wished them a silent merde. He wondered how many would make it through the living hell of Castelnaudary - Castel, to Légion hands - the training depot. Some would be medically discharged, others for being otherwise unsuitable, a few would desert, and the remaining would have earned the white képi of the most elegant mercenary in the world.
      Johnny was back on the steps leading to the Allée Viennot, with the monument aux morts on his left, and the fourrier's behind him. General Headquarters, Légion Command, from where the tentacles of the Légion's General Staff reached out to control over ten thousand crack mercenaries on special forces' duty, bristled with antennae. He breasted the top of the steps. Half-right was the building housing Légionnaires in transit, half-left the canteen, and opposite, the dreaded Statistical Department, to which Pfeiffer had made his brief call, and from where another call had been made to another number.
      The buildings were typical of Sixties architecture with simple, straight, very modern lines. The equipment used inside the buildings was state of the art for France's crème-de-la-crème of the defense ministry.
      Johnny turned left on the pavement, silently appreciating the meticulous flowerbeds. Légion regiments were immaculate and stylish. They never failed to remind him of Sandhurst, but that was many years ago.
      The odd Légionnaire or NCO went past, some familiar, some unknown. He exchanged a few friendly insults with a couple of them, just overlooking the Képi Blanc building. The Képi Blanc is the Légion's monthly magazine, produced by Légionnaires under the supervision of a major. A slick production, as glossy as the gossipy Paris Match. The presses are high-tech, and maintained at high-cost. If they have other uses, it is not known.
      He was walking down the slope now, deliberately keeping to the little path to avoid the cinema and foyer - the Légionnaires' canteen and bar. Too many mates to split a last beer with.
      He rounded a corner and his heart quickened. The reality of libération hit him in the back of the knees. Even the keenest of observers, however, would have registered no change in his demeanor. He was twenty yards from the quarter-guard. Two tall, erectly lean MPs with brown faces walked past, escorting a bedraggled deserter who looked frightened. One of the MPs nodded to Johnny, and the other one winked. Johnny knew them well. Both were Punjabis - one a Muslim from the Pakistani half, the other a Sikh from the Indian half.
      Johnny walked up the steps to the quarter-guard veranda. The walls were decorated with trophies and insignias. The guard was a six-foot four Masai from Kenya. In his white képi, black chinstrap, crimson epaulettes, foragers, blue cummerbund, white belt and glistening black boots, the effect was pure pageantry. On his chest he wore the eagle of the alpine commando over a set of Para wings; next to it the crossed rifles of a sniper. His medals proclaimed his presence in the Gulf, Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Across his chest he held the business-like 5.56 caliber bull pup FAMAS with twenty rounds in the magazine and fixed bayonet. He exchanged winks with Johnny, and then Johnny found himself face to face with the guard commander, a craggy faced peasant from the dry hills of the Ardèche region. Johnny put his rucksack down. His last salute … and it would be the best!
      He stretched himself to full height, stomach in chest out shoulders back chin tucked in neck-and-collar touching, and fuck you RSM Clancy of Sandhurst thisisit, and his hands slapped his thighs with the whiplash of a gunshot and the palms opened outwards while the little fingers stayed glued to the seams. His eyes blazed into the sergeant's, his voice boomed from the pit of his stomach.
      "Caporal-chef Kilvington.
      "Five year's service, one year's rank.
      "End of contract.
      "At your orders SERGEANT!"
      The last word was a stressed bark - growled the way England's Sandhurst and France's Castel preferred it.
      The sergeant snapped a salute in reply. Johnny handed over his discharge papers, then stood rigidly to attention as the sergeant handed them to a duty corporal through a window, a Vietnamese Johnny didn't know. The Vietnamese corporal duly noted the details in a register, handed them to the sergeant with a nasal "RAS - rien à signaler," which meant everything was in order. The sergeant handed back his papers, and Johnny slipped them into the inside pocket of his jacket. The sergeant came to attention.
      "Tu peux disposer!" he growled.
      "Je peux disposer à vos ordres SERGEANT!"
      "Bonne chance en civile."
      "Merci sergeant."
      A nod to the Masai on the way out, and then he stood at the crossroads outside, blinking in the Provençal sunlight, his heart beating a little faster than usual … for the first time in years not very sure ... the parting of the ways.

MARSEILLES: half an hour later.

The train came to a halt, and the doors of the compartment hissed open. Johnny lithely jumped onto the platform of Marseilles station. It seemed strange being in the city without having to worry about the Légion MPs. The railway station was the same. An enormous bustle of travelers, bound for everywhere and from all over the world. Bra-less Scandinavian tourists with eager nipples thrusting against thin tee shirts, tight shorts and equally overstuffed rucksacks carrying cartons of milk and fruit, eyes dripping Mediterranean waves. Young men who looked sexually satiated and young men who looked sex-starved. Businessmen clutching bags and briefcases, most of them in ill-cut off-the-rack suits. African women in their colorful head scarves moving with the majestic grace of their race, followed by their children and their men in sad Western clothes. North African immigrants coming back from holiday, carrying bags overloaded with souvenirs. North African immigrants going on holiday, carrying blue-striped plastic bags filled with bargain-basement gifts. Johnny could distinguish those going to North Africa from those coming back. The outgoers changed into their djellebahs, and the incomers flashed cheap chalk-striped casbah suits with open collars and kaffiyes.
      He kept an eye out for sharp operators. Wide boys. Pickpockets. He wondered if he had already been 'sold'. A pickpocket would spot a likely mark and position the sidekick, usually a girl. She would be dressed to distract any man short of one undergoing treatment for impotency, in which case she could always bump into him. The distraction allowed the pickpocket, using whatever method his school in Colombia, Tunis, Corsica or Sardinia had trained him in, to relieve the mark's wallet. However, if the target presented no opportunity within the territory staked out by each pair of pickpockets, they would use sign language to sell the target to the next pickpocket. Later, the seller would receive a percentage from the buyer.
      A faceful of smiling yellow buckteeth appeared in Johnny's vision.
      "Légionnaire?"
      "No," Johnny replied flatly.
      The smile became crafty. The hustler understood in a flash that this was a freshly discharged Légionnaire, which meant cash on the hoof. A bared forearm with a tattoo proclaiming Legio Patria Nostra - the Légion is my fatherland - now inserted itself in Johnny's vision. He knew what was coming, and also what would follow.
      "I'm an ex-Légionnaire. Down and out. You gonna buy me a drink? Me and my girlfriend?"
      Johnny sighed. It was a line he'd never fallen for. Never had anybody suckered him in, and they weren't about to.
      "Take a rain check."
      The yellow teeth fought to retain their display, but the eyes gave up. Viciousness lurked behind pupils rapidly assessing chances.
      "Putain, come on," he urged half-heartedly.
      Without replying, Johnny turned and excused himself through a group of young American tourists talking in loud voices echoing under the fifty foot high vaulted ceiling of the station. Two trains whooshed past.
      Unnoticed by Johnny, Yellow Teeth looked sideways towards a man in a smart blue blazer and tie. Blue Blazer gave an imperceptible nod. Yellow Teeth, unperceived by the single-minded human stream flowing past, turned discreetly towards the wall outside the public toilets. He put both hands over his face. When they came away, his cheeks were lean, and teeth perfectly straight and clean. He put the cheek pads, teeth covers and his tatty jacket in his shoulder bag, and slipped on a pair of dark glasses. He chucked the shoulder bag into the nearest bin. Even his walk had changed. It had the natty spring of the well-heeled tourist. It had only taken six seconds. Yellow Teeth could make out the shape of Johnny's head thirty paces ahead of him. He started the tail.
      Johnny stopped in front of the electronic screen displaying outgoing trains. There was one for Grenoble in a couple of hours. He glanced towards the self-service buffet, run by the ex-chief cookery instructor of the Légion. If he knew you or guessed you were a Légionnaire, you always got an extra dollop of something. He rejected the idea. Two hours in a railway buffet was too much for just an extra spoonful of couscous. He tried the newsstand. Bare buttocks and breasts photographed from odd angles danced in his vision.
      What the hell, he thought. I've got time. I've got thirty-five thousand in the money-belt, two thousand in the wallet. Why not the real thing?
      Johnny walked out of the station, refusing a taxi with a head movement. He stood on the steps overlooking the boulevard Athènes Dugommier. It was the same as usual. A little tacky, a little tough, the café tables set on the pavement; brave little islands holding fast against the human torrent. Johnny grinned to himself. This was Marseilles, a tough wide-open town. A Légionnaire's town. He saw the odd white képi bobbing on the human stream. His Nikes were soundless as he light-footedly descended the steps.
      Yellow Teeth understood what Johnny was up to. This was going to be easier than expected. His pocket carried the tools of his trade. Knockout drops and a brass knuckle-duster covered with vulcanized rubber. He went past Blue Blazer who had positioned himself at the bottom of the steps. They exchanged glances. Blue Blazer was satisfied. Yellow Teeth was a seasoned operator. His code-name was Pétard, and he was a police sergeant of the DST - Direction de Surveillance de la Térritoire - French Counterintelligence, counterpart of the FBI or MI5. He was on secondment for this operation.
      Pétard saw Johnny turn right on the rue Cannébière - perfect, he thought. Another sucker headed for the vieux port area, famous since the film The French Connection. An area of raucous nightclubs, girlie bars, brothels, pimps and drug peddlers.
      Johnny had always preferred the Cannébière to the Champs Elysées of Paris. On the Champs Elysées, he sensed the attraction France held for foreigners. On the Cannébière, he felt Marseilles' pulse. It was like being on stage right next to the snare drums of a rock band. Walking down the broad avenue always quickened his blood. Its cars chock-a-block were a kaleidoscope of energy. The multi-ethnic population hissed like a giant snake drying itself out after a fierce storm. And the girls - they were everywhere, and in all varieties. Enticing bottoms wiggling with energy - flash of bare arm, the curve of a breast, smiles, shopping bags, a hand pushing back an intrusive lock of hair. Impudent Arabs, sexy blacks, ultra-feminine ooh-la-la-French, bold Americans, overpowering Germans - here they were, women of different races. Their collective pants of excitement hung in the air. His nostrils flared slightly. They walked in and out of the smart shops, crotches lightly brushing against bottoms, chic plastic bags sensuously rubbing long thighs.
      The yacht club of Marseilles coned out in his vision. Colorful boats bobbed in the gay harbor against the backdrop of Fort Saint Nicholas - one of the Légion's recruiting depots. The harbor serving as the yacht club is about a hundred yards broad and two hundred long, lined with wooden docks. The two club bars were festooned with multi-colored pennants. It was almost dark. The fluttering pennants evoked a childhood pleasure. A road ran along both sides of the harbor. On his right, across the road that ran the length of the harbor, used to be the old casbah of Marseilles. A series of narrow alleys twisting their serpentine form in a neighborhood redolent with tales of freckle-faced English girls shanghaied in tailor shops. The Resistance had started making good use of this terrain during the Second World War, but the Germans had learnt their lesson fighting determined Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. With cold-blooded Teutonic efficiency, they had brought in tank-dozers and razed it to the ground. After the dust of the armistice had settled, a proud town council had reconstructed it. Although still a very charming quartier, the chic of Europe pervaded the sensuous exotica of the Mediterranean basin.
      The road behind the docks is now lined with expensive, stylish bars. Above them, the flats have been bought up by families like the Ferieu's of Grenoble. They are used for nautical holidays. The streets behind these bars and flats overlooking the harbor are apparently quiet residential neighborhoods. Behind the quiet façade of these buildings are the headquarters of Marseilles' Unione Corseor La Corsa - the Corsican Mafia.
      There is also the mercenaries' bar. Chez Hans. It is a watering hole and message drop for soldiers of fortune, the nucleus of which is ex-Légionnaires - Johnny's destination.
      Lining the road behind the docks on the other side are seafood restaurants. Each restaurant rents the services of a smooth-talking character poised at its entrance who verbally pounces on the strolling tourist or holiday-maker and just stops short of physically dragging him into his restaurant for a plate of Marseilles oysters imported from Thailand. The streets behind these restaurants either contain the headquarters of organizations such as the Honorata Socéta - called the Italian Mafia by ill-informed journalists of dubious repute - or they lead to illustrious message drops such as Chez Hans. Indiscreet bars of doubtful morality called bars américain by the French and French bars by Americans, dominate these streets, several of which are as open and as inviting as the bars themselves.
      A minute later, Johnny was at Chez Hans. He saw the sign, and suddenly realized how thirsty he actually was. A hundred yards to his rear, Pétard was struck by the same thought. A beer would go down very nicely indeed.
      Chez Hans owes its name to its owner, Hans. His family name is known only to him, and after the end of the Second World War, he registered himself with the French authorities as a stateless person by virtue of having lost his memory. He gave his name as Hans, all he could remember. The French clerk, with a typically Gallic sense of humor, gave him the family name of Dupont. Once the French authorities satisfied themselves that Hans was neither a war criminal nor even an ex-Wehrmacht soldier, he entered the French system of Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité. He was sent to a convalescent home, housed and fed, and given psychiatric treatment to help bring his memory back. He never fully recovered, and thus became eligible for a state pension. The pension confirmed, and once released from the convalescent home, Hans made a remarkable recovery. Except for his name, and what he had actually done during the war, his memory came flooding back. Two years he lived the frugal life of a monk, working in a carbolic soap factory - le savon de marseilles - in which the Foreign Légion is said to hold shares.
      Hans did a lot of overtime, lived in a refugee hostel and took French language classes organized by the local social worker. Two years of Teutonic frugality, a small nest egg, and the social worker's recommendation allowed him to obtain a loan from the Credit Lyonnais bank. Everybody was willing to help a beaten down German refugee who felt guilty about German war crimes, and was so obviously himself a victim. Hans bought a ramshackle old bar in a street parallel to the road running along the right side of the yacht club - the Quai d'Honneur - it's present site. The bar's main entrance was the Rue du Soif - Thirsty Street - but it had a discreet door opening onto the little alley running behind it which would be good for business. Hans kept his job for another six months, working nights and weekends to do up the bar and make the little flat above it habitable. When it was finished, the social worker glowed with pride at his industriousness. She sent a report to Paris, which was duly published in the Social Security magazine, 'Avis', as an example of an immigrant's successful integration into French society.
      Infact, Hans Dupont had been an agent for the Abwehr - German military intelligence. Unknown except to himself, he had been the shadowy agent who co-coordinated the Generals' plot against Hitler. Captured and castrated by the SS, he had escaped from a prison camp. Single-handedly, he had reinvented himself as Hans Dupont of the lost memory.
      For a few months following the publication of the article in the Social Security magazine, part of Hans Dupont's mind still suffered from amnesia, but the rest of it appeared to function normally. His bar sprouted every German regimental insignia he could lay his hands on. Instead of getting firebombed by old Resistance die-hards, Chez Hans became the watering hole of old members of the milice, the pro-Nazi French militia. He was protected, and in return, took messages and passed them on. He was, in due time, contacted by members of Odessa. Hans drew the line at helping them.
      By the mid-Fifties, France had committed itself deeply to the Indo-China war. Légion regiments bore the brunt of the fighting, their strength was made up mainly by Germans, most of whom were ex-Wehrmacht, and their embarkation point Marseilles port. Before boarding ship, they would drop in at Chez Hans for a drink. Professional soldiers of the French regular army followed in their wake. Chez Hans became the message drop for the shadowy world of military toughs. When the troubles started in the Belgian Congo, Chez Hans was the logical place to have a drink, pick up a girl and leave a message. Marseilles yacht club was a transit point for many of the gunrunners. The end of the troubles in the Congo left many mercenaries unemployed, and the Cold War being fought by proxy all over Africa had Western governments scouring for soldiers of fortune. Chez Hans took off as the unofficial mercenaries' bureau, and had never looked back since.
      Two decades of hard work transformed Chez Hans from a bar into an institution. Hans Dupont had recreated his world. He basked in it. Inspite of his castration, it was commonly felt that he had balls.
      He now stood behind the bar counter, an untouched beer in a stein before him. Above and behind him were insignias of the Légion, with two white képis. The other walls were liberally covered with German Army Second World War insignias, trophies, flags and crests. The furniture was wood and leather. An overpoweringly masculine atmosphere that would have raised any decent woman's hackles.
      The three suggestively dressed girls at the bar felt at home. In the dim lights, their dyed blonde hair looked almost natural, and their excessive makeup was appropriate. Hans did not run a girlie bar, but certain girls who fitted into the sub-culture, were discreet and clean, were allowed there. Hans' face was leathery, creased but ageless. Hard to tell his age, but he had seen fifty or sixty not long ago. Actually, he was a little older, but his sparse eating habits supported a natural leanness. Hans moved his head slowly to Edith Piaf's Non, Je ne regrette rien, which enveloped the bar. Too early for customers, he thought.
      The door opened and Johnny smoothly glided across the varnished French parquet, put his rucksack below the counter.
      "Salute English!" Hans greeted Johnny in a mixture of French and German. He only knew Johnny by face. His flawless memory allowed him to retain the image of every face that passed through his bar. The same immaculate attention to detail had made him indispensable to the Abwehr. His discretion, moreover, was absolute. If a name wasn't offered, he never asked for it. Thus was Chez Hans known to mercenaries from Africa to Colorado to Scandinavia to the Middle East.
      "Salut Hans! Ça va?"
      They shook hands.
      "What'll it be?"
      "Two steins of German tap-lager."
      "Danks you."
      A ritual at Chez Hans. He rarely drank with a patron, and that explained the beer in front of him, which would last until closing time. But you bought Hans one beer, which he didn't drink. Then he bought you a beer, which you did drink. Such were Hans' little rituals, and if you were a part of the brotherhood, you respected them, which is why Johnny, a whiskey drinker, did the right thing and ordered a beer.
      One of the girls, svelte in a crimson satin dress that just stopped short of being topless, sidled up to him.
      "And one for me?"
      "Une autre bière, Hans, s'il te plait. "
      "Ja."
      The door opened and Pétard entered. He looked vaguely familiar to Johnny, and something niggled in his memory, but he was unable to place it. He dismissed it, and turned his attention to the girl's breasts.
      "I'm Sylvie. Are you English?"
      "Yes."
      "Ah!" she laughed, and her dark-brown eyes suddenly lost the bargirl's far away, dull expression. For a fleeting second, they were the eyes of a young girl who finds life exciting. "The Beatles - A Yellow Submarine!"
      The other two girls echoed her enthusiasm.
      "Yellow Submarine!" they chorused.
      Hans put their beers on the bar, they clinked glasses and took the first swallows. It was crisp German lager, and it was good. There was a pause in the music.
      The other two girls, one in a latex jump suit with obviously nothing underneath but skin, the other in a pair of jeans that could only have been painted on her magnificently sculpted legs, started singing slowly:
      "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow ..."
      Sylvie started humming, and Pétard joined in from Johnny's right. Stuck between the two, Johnny had to sing along. Pétard raised his beer, and they clinked glasses. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second. Pétard smiled. The niggle was back in Johnny's brain, but it slipped away again, so he smiled back. Then they were all singing: "Yellow Submarine," a small band bravely trying to scour for something meaningful to fill their lives by filling a seedy bar with good cheer. Hans didn't join in, but his smile was one of approval. Behind his smile, the razor-sharp brain ticked rapidly, assessing options and discarding them.
      He recognized Pétard, although Pétard didn't know it. Once, on somebody's confidential business in Tangiers as Hans sat in the dim corner of a belly-dancing joint, his contact had pointed him out, and explained his role in the nether world of intelligence.
      Johnny ordered a round of beers, and Sylvie impulsively kissed him on the neck. Johnny's heart missed a beat. His crotch flared briefly.
      "Are you on leave - back from Djibouti, maybe?" Sylvie wanted to know.
      "No. Just finished my contract."
      "I'm Jean-Jacques. I finished my contract with the Fusiliers Commando Marines last year."
      Johnny smiled, and Pétard knew he had him. The Commando Marines are part of French Special Forces, in operational capability counterparts of the British Special Boat Squadron or the American Seals. "You guys break your berets to the right, like the British Army."
      Pétard smiled with a thumbs-up. "You're right, goes back to the Second World War."
      "I know, the Fusiliers worked with Lord Lovat's commandos."
      "Or they worked with us!"
      They exchanged friendly grimaces and Sylvie touched Johnny's arm.
      "Like to dance?"
      "In a minute, why not?"
      The jukebox was silent, and Johnny understood. He handed Sylvie a ten-franc coin, then watched her bottom engage in desperate wiggles towards the jukebox. Johnny and Pétard exchanged suitably appreciative glances. The glasses were empty, and Pétard ordered another round. Sylvie was back, and the jukebox emitted the steady pulsation of a lecherous Brazilian lambada.
      Raucous laughter entered through the open door. Two hulking Légionnaires of Scandinavian stock stood in the doorframe, dwarfing a pretty dark-haired girl. Actually, one of the Légionnaires was Dutch, and the other American, and they were only dwarfing the dark-haired beauty because she was a dwarf. Stunning, she was more miniature than dwarf, with none of the characteristics of one - neither an elongated trunk nor reduced legs. She had curly black hair that reached down to her shoulders, full breasts, a pert bottom, and slim legs. Only … her bottomless eyes … a sad old woman's eyes ….
      She was a transvestite who used to be a 'mule' for the Unione Corse money-laundering operation between Marseilles and the Seychelles. She also rented out her body to clients of unorthodox tastes. Eventually, she had invested in plastic surgery and became a ravishing beauty of small proportions. She now ran a brothel that catered only to rich men's perversions. In her spare time she was a Légion groupie, finding hunky Légionnaires she could initiate into her dark sexual practices.
      She looked at Johnny with a smile of recognition. He nodded and smiled in return, holding onto his distaste. Dorothée always made him feel sad, and for some reason, a little embarrassed to be a man. Dorothée sensed it in some men, and the gloating rose up in her. Her eyes caressed her two Légionnaires. Their anticipation of an evening's debauchery left them impervious to their surroundings.
      Pétard sensed the breach in Johnny, and expertly maneuvered himself into it.
      "The place seems to be getting crowded," he fatuously remarked, his eyes alertly focusing on Johnny's slightest reaction.
      "You're right, let's split."
      Hans gravely handed them their change. He respected everybody, remaining neutral. Just then the lambada tune was replaced by the even more lascivious African zouk. The Dutch Légionnaire made a few pelvic movements. Dorothée rose to the occasion. Her head came up to Johann's crotch, but the obvious implications of the configuration held no excitement for Johnny or Pétard. Danny, the American, guffawed, then put both hands around Dorothée's waist and raised her up. Her elegant black frock billowed a little, and it was obvious she had no underwear. Johnny's reaction to a bare crotch did not go unnoticed by Pétard.
      "No lack of crumpet in Marseilles," he murmured to Johnny as soon as they were out. "What about the Kit Kat?"
      "It's a good night-club, full of Légionnaires and wide boys. I like it. But I've got a train to catch in an hour." Johnny glanced at his Rolex Explorer.
      "So have I. What about a quickie in the Arab quarter?"
      "I think you've got the right idea."
      They turned back onto the Cannébière in the direction of the railway station. The Arab quarter then falls on the left, running parallel with the posh Cannébière. On the corner, at the entrance to the little alley leading to the brothels, Blue Blazer noted the air of bonhomie between Johnny andPétard. Yes, Pétard was decidedly the best for this part of the operation. Blue Blazer discreetly said a few words for the transmitter mike in the button of his jacket. The next part of the operation was confirmed.
      The alley Johnny and Pétard turned into was quiet, a little littered and smelly, but certainly not what one might expect from Marseilles' toughest quarter. Then they turned right into a blaze of lights and a crowded, squalid alley where the teeming mass of males had the naked look of men deprived of a normal sex life. Women sat in the doorways and leaned on the balconies. Strains of North African and Western pop music faintly brushed air that held the subtle aroma of stale urine, semen, cheap perfume, strong smelling armpits and male lust - for sex and money. The pimps, a mixture of white, North African Arabs and Afros, had the fish-eyed look of sex merchants across the globe - the only species Johnny enjoyed beating up. Two huge Afros monopolized a street corner, looking threateningly enormous in their robes of emphatic colors. Their natural grace exuded the arrogant indolence of savage felines. They were drug peddlers, a species Johnny could have knee-capped with good cheer.
      "Mind your Rolex, Johnny," Pétard remarked.
      Johnny's eyes darkened behind the bright blue pupils. Danger lurked.
      "That watch is more than a watch …" The unspoken threat stood suspended in the space between the two men.
      Pétard slid his index across his throat. Johnny nodded, then winked.
      "You've got the right idea."
      What had appeared between the two men went on its way. They made way for a police van of the brigade criminelle rolling slowly along the squalid street, the policemen's flat eyes scanning the people, unable to hear the odd insulting hiss of les flics.
      A low whistle sounded above their heads. Johnny looked up, saw a beautiful black face, flash of white teeth, merry eyes. His crotch tightened. Before he could turn into the doorway blocked by the unmoving shadow of the ubiquitous pimp, Pétard whispered.
      "Further on. I know of a nice little house. A little expensive, but not a rip-off. The girls are pretty, clean, and you get a room."
      "Let's go there," agreed Johnny, nostrils flaring.
      The body language was not lost on Pétard. The primitive male sex urge prevails over and directs the other senses, and distorts the perspective of the best fighting men, however well honed their discipline.
      "That's the wrong way, you'll regret it," sang the black prostitute from her balcony.
      A Turk with a gold tooth and dashing moustache looked up, noticed the girl, and turned towards the doorway.
      Johnny looked up again and exchanged winks with the girl. Then they were in a side street and it stank - the stench from two overflowing bins was powerful, and the alley was dimly lit. There were doorways and windows but they were all dark. A sense of foreboding lurked in the squalidness. The silence tolled a bell in Johnny's head, but the crotch dismissed it. They went past the first bin. There was a scurrying sound. His brain screamed a warning and then he plunged headfirst into a black void.
      A voice whispered a terse command into the buttonhole mike. An expert pair of hands removed Johnny's money-belt and Rolex. A car started up in the next alley. A pair of footsteps cat-footed away from Johnny's prone body. Next to his nostrils was a putrefying packet of frozen fish cakes. A rat scurried over his oblivious body. Soon there would be others.