The Puma helicopter remained stationary at about ten meters over the waters. Six silent, dark shadows dropped from the carrier into the cool waters of the Thames River. Their close oxygen circuits did not send treacherous air bubbles to the surface, while they moved on silently for the last three thousand meters. The observation team in Southwark had recommended the long and straining underwater approach in order not to raise suspicion from either the target or any other docklands dweller. Helicopters were not a common feature within the harbour facilities and apart some river police patrol boats no traffic was permitted by the British authorities during the night hours.
As soon as they reached the two large canalisations that connected the storage facility underground with the Thames, the six silent shadows, still hindered by their palms and respiratory systems crawled into the concrete tubes. Only when they were far enough inside to feel completely secure, they took off their diving gear and replaced the masks with night-vision goggles each of them had stored in a waterproof bag at his belt.
Freed from cumbersome 75 cm long palms, they forced their way through smelly used waters with cat-size rats rushing away from the nightly intruders on a sidewalk habitually used by the Greater London Canalisation Maintenance.
Each of the six kept his breathing down, since the used waters smelled strongly. It took them ten minutes to walk through the canalisation until they reached a 45% angular elbow with an iron ladder. Although it was impossible that their targets could hear them in the underground, none of the six men spoke. They communicated by sign language.
Damien Tremayne auctioned his intercom with Quérelen. A simple pressure of his thumb against the sensible earphone told General Fillon and the Ops Centre that they were on target. In the darkness of the canalisation tube the small camera fixed on top of each man's night vision system was unable to transmit images. A minimum of light was necessary for the high tech device to function properly.
'Clear!' Sounded in the ears of each member of the commando.
Tremayne and Denez-Pregent were the first to climb up the iron ladder. They moved like cats. Damien pushed the iron plate that covered the canalisation inside the storage facilities basement with his shoulder.
'Go' The voice from the DGSE team in front of the building cleared his entry.
The young wizard drew his wand with his right hand. As soon as he had his feet firmly rooted on the ground, his left hand ushered the HK from behind his back.
'Way's free!' He whispered into the intercom. Yvan Denez-Pregent appeared by his side, wand ready and the container for the bottle ghost in his left.
'Go!' The anonymous voice ordered the next member of the team.
Alain Genty rushed upstairs, waiting for further indications from the observation team.
Damien and Yvan had to take chances since the djhinnij could be wherever in the storage facility. To the sophisticate listening devices the ghost did not exist, and the video cameras saw only mist. But the dervish -Nouredine Ben Kad'r had the habit to sleep on a couch inside his office and Alain had memorized the way from the canalisation to his target.
As soon as the three first arrivals had cleared the basement silently, Capitaine de la Bedoyère tapped his two NCOs on the shoulder. The men climbed at speed and secured the perimeter for their commanding officer. When Snape arrived too, the first thing he did was to replace the iron plate carefully on their secret entrance.
His right held out the HK instinctively, while with his left he sent a short Morse message to base. They had all arrived!
The voice from the observation team explained calmly that all their targets were firmly asleep in their habitual places. Already during the morning session of studying the location, Severus and the two NCOs had agreed upon a job sharing. Since Snape was a wizard and could in case of emergency support either Genty or Tremayne and Denez-Pregent, his two non-magic companions would take upon themselves the extermination of six targets that habitually slept upstairs in two distinguished rooms. Although this share left Snape with four Islamists at his own discretion, he had not opposed the idea.
Claude's orders were formal and even though the operation had basically been approved to weaken Voldemort, the French Prime Minister and Patrick Delacour had agreed upon a demonstration of power against the GIA as an add-on.
There was no quarter given! Fillon had carefully instructed his men to cause a maximum bloodshed.
The two NCOs disappeared in the dark of the night, while Snape tugged away his noisy HK and drew a long, sharp commando dagger from a shed at his right ankle.
At this very moment he did not care about the dervish and the djhinnij. He trusted Damien, Yvan and Alain to do what they had to do and disappear into the night and straight to the Poseidon which waited for the 'cargo' close to the place where the Puma had dropped them some thirty minutes ago.
The French vessel was not to wait for him and the two NCOs. They were supposed to get themselves out of Southwark on their own, relying on the help of the British muggle authorities and a River Police vessel that would navigate up and down in front of the facility at fixed times….if the worst should ever happen.
He took a turn to the left, making his way to a small cot hidden behind some merchandise. The man who had the habit of sleeping there was to be his first target. Severus had studied each and every of the half-wits he was to dispose off with care and N° 1 behind the merchandise seemed to be the most Crabbe-and-Goyle like of them all.
His night vision system showed him a metal frame on which a meatball snored peacefully. The target had a naked, hairy foot tugged over a light blanket. A tuff of black hair contrasted an ugly yellow and red pillow. Before the man realized what had happened to him, a black-gaunted hand clutched mercilessly over his mouth and nose and the sharp stinging pain of a metal object that penetrated through a solid layer of fat right into his heart from underneath his left armpit had ended his life on earth.
Severus maintained his gaunted hand until he felt that the target would never breath again…..suffocated by a stream of blood in his lungs. He gave a small sigh before continuing his quest.
They'd take care of the targets as soon as Alain, Yvan and Damien were out. A simple puncture between the third and fourth rib was not 'maximum bloodshed' but the work of a sophisticate specialist!
The next two targets were somewhere to the right. He did not feel anything after this perfect kill. He had kille dmore then once in his seventeen years of service! One pawn was off the chessboard.
The two others were trickier, since he had to confront a metal door before the kill. He tugged his dagger away and fumbled a tiny endoscope from the side pocket of his diving gear. The endoscope's head was small enough to slip under the door and into the room. Within a second, the device's alimentation was connected with a computer screen the size of a pack of cigarettes fixed to his left forearm. Snape pushed the 'Enter' button before auctioning his intercom device.
'Clear!' An unfamiliar voice replied to his request. His night googles showed him two cots, one to the left and one to the right against bare concrete walls.
Carefully he tested the handle of the door. It was polite enough not to squeal, but he nevertheless muttered 'Alomohora' and made an opening movement with his left hand. The metal door obediently swung open and Severus sneaked into the dark room like a shadow.
The two men slept indeed soundly. One snored loudly, while the other gave only regular breathing. The snoring Islamist would go last. His own noise would prevent him from hearing the death struggle of his companion.
The merciless, unfeeling dark shadow hung for the quarter of a second over the cot before two black gaunted fists hit with terrible precision the temples of their sleeping victim.
The only reaction from the condemned creature was a slight 'ouff'. Snape retrieved his dagger from its shed. With an easy, casual movement he slit the unconscious Islamist's throat from his left ear to his right ear; Then he turned the dying man around to allow his lifeblood to spill in a dark puddle on the concrete floor.
His right hand pressed the intercom relay in his ear twice.
The anonymous voice from the observation team stated without a hint of emotion 'Six'.
Severus gave a sigh of relief. His two NCOs had finished business upstairs. As to Alain, Damien and Yvan he had no news but neither had he requested this intelligence and before messing around in other peoples' business he would finish his own job.
The snoring Islamist on the second cot met Allah without even realising that he had died. The strong arm that had enveloped his neck, while a gaunted hand prevented him from breathing or crying was enough to break a human neck within the second.
Severus had still one target left to him. The last would be the most difficult; He was the man he had identified on the transmissions from the observation team as the brightest and most alert and he slept in an individual room on the far end of the storage facility, close to an exit that led right into a lively street of Southwark, were night-time was business-time! The target had also a habit to sleep with an arm under his pillow.
A soft noise reached the young druid's ear. He was so absorbed in his dealings that he could not make out if it was a curse or a counter-curse but he had the feeling that the dervish was not one willing to be taken easily.
The voice must have been Alain, he comforted himself. Unfortunately his comrade was condemned to duel that bastard down instead of sending him to the realm of the death with an Aveda Kedavra.
Another soft noise disturbed Snape's concentration and effort to find his way around ranges and ranges of multicolour fabric and wooden trunks with customs markings in black and yellow.
'Crucio' the same well-known voice barked through the dark.
'Finally!' Severus' second self stated in a detached manner. What use to put on gloves and avoid the Unforgivables for the sake of a legislation that hardly ever cared about methods employed during a black operation.
'Crucio!' The familiar voice repeated with more dexterity, while a shrill cry of pain pierced the dark of the storage facility and the summer night.
Snape automatically accelerated his pace into a jog. Even the dumbest and most sleepy half-wit could not overhear such a desperate noise.
He pulled his HK from behind his back unarming the sub-machine gun in the same movement. When the door burst open in front of him, he did not even think twice before pulling the trigger and emptying his charger in full automatic mood into a black shadow. The shadow went down to his knees with a strange guttural noise, emptying his guts onto the barren floor and suffocating on his own blood.
Severus did not even care to throw a look on his victim. His left foot hit automatically the dark metallic thing the lifeless hand had been brandishing only instants earlier. The target's own firearm was out of reach if ever the man was not completely dead by now. He auctioned his intercom mechanically four times and sprinted off into the direction of the desperate cry.
Sweat was dropping from his front, creeping under the night vision goggles and making his eyes burn, but he ignored the irritation and just kept his direction. While still moving he pushed the HK behind his back and drew his wand from his left sleeve. Claude had been formal about the dervish; He was to be brought in alive and kicking at whatever price!
When Snape arrived where his ears and instincts had led him he heard a comforting 'Petrificus Totalis' and 'Silencio' before his night vision system showed him a man with oriental features whose eyes had gone completely white with pain and who was nevertheless unable to either move or cry.
Alain Genty gave him a relieved thumbs up.
'Have to get my bastard out, before he's losing his mind under the 'Crucio'!' The young wizard whispered , while his hand covered the intercom.
'Damien?Yvan?' Snape whispered back, copying the gesture of his friend.
'Piece of cake! The bottle ghost was a piece of cake, but this bastard…….' He gave the agonizing dervish a heartless push with his elbow 'fought like a devil! Had to 'Crucio' him twice….. Yours?'
Severus passed his thumb in a very obvious gesture over his own throat 'All gone! We'll be with you in a second. I only make sure that the remainders look gory enough for the audience.'
Genty gave a broad grin 'Vingardium Leviosa!' His wand pointed the dishevelled, body-bound dervish and ushered him towards the basement and the canalisation.
'Get your ass out of here at high speed, Sev……or you'll miss the chopper back home!' He cautioned his relieved comrade.
'Give us five minutes and we'll be downstairs too!' The other wizard replied, tugging his wand away and turning on his heels to join the two NCOs on the storage facility's second floor.
Father Yannick Le Floa'ch watched the boy carefully. Harry had indeed dared and asked the question that obsessed him. But the one most concerned had not given the expected reply. Instead Severus had opted for a strange and very medieval gesture: He had rolled up the sleeve of his diver's combination, bent one knee in front of the child and offered Harry to touch the Dark Mark. When the boy had hesitatingly covered the ugly scar with his small hand, Sev had put his own hand over Harry's and forced him with his black pits into a long and silent eye contact.
Yannick knew that Severus was able to read a man's mind while shielding his own from any effort of penetration, but during the perhaps five minutes of the strange scene, the Benedictine was convinced that his elusive and secretive friend had allowed the boy to read what no one else before had ever seen.
Now Harry sat with strangely unfocussed eyes in the middle of the abandoned hangar, his long, skinny legs crossed Indian style and the boy was staring holes into the walls; He had not spoken a single word, since the six dark shadows had disappeared with the Puma. He just sat there, allowing him to put two soothing hands on his shoulders and obviously expecting him to shut up.
Harry's breathing had been going regularly for the first thirty minutes. Then a sharp intake had startled Yannick and he had almost lost his control and asked for the reason why, but before he could formulate the question the child was back to normal. Another five minutes had passed and the next sharp intake had almost uprooted the experienced exorcist and former soldier, but when Harry returned back to a slow constant breath Yannick told himself that it was better to let things run and just make the boy feel that he was not alone in his trial.
The Benedictine tried to adapt his own breathing rhythm to Harry's. He was fully aware that some hundred meters away Claude and Albus and Alastor were able to follow the whole operation in direct. The team had been equipped with intercoms and small nocturnal cameras which would transmit exactly what their eyes saw to the Ops Centre of Quérelen and the screens of the observation team in Southwark. But a long forgotten professional code prevented Father Le Floa'ch from interfering. It had been his very own choice to opt for Harry and the harder part of the operation; support the boy without knowing what was going on…..Time went bye slowly. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours and the short timeframe that separated him from his former comrades on the other side of the sea dragged on like endless days! Suddenly the priest felt the tense muscles of the boy relax under his hands.
'It is over!' Harry stated. Then the boy stood up and tucked his hand unceremoniously into the icy trembling hand of his companion.
'I need the Pensiève and I show you what I have seen!' He stated matter-of-factly.
Yannick gave a small sigh before he dared to ask the very question 'Everything's o.k., Harry?'
The boy gave a simply nod.
Outside a low, menacing swish announced the arrival of a helicopter that lowered itself slowly on the Quérelen heliport. The strong SNECMA engines sizzled like upset wasps through the night air.
Harry fetched the icy hand in a hard grip and dragged the Benedictine through the same small door six dark shadows had used a lifetime ago to disappear into the night.
When the angry wasp made contact with the ground, the boy let go the hand of the man he was supporting. Ducking his head instinctively under the wind of the long rotor blades he strode determinedly towards a black hole and as soon as the first dark shadow set foot on the ground of the French military base he threw two long, skinny arms around the shadow's neck and held him in a bear hug as if he'd never ever let him go again.
Severus put his arms gently around Harry and lifted him from the ground as if he were a small child.
'It's O.K., Harry! It is over!' He whispered gently while stepping aside to allow his fagged and drained comrades to leave the Puma. His black-gaunted hand pulled Harry's head closer to his shoulder.
'That was absolutely dreadful!' Harry sobbed between two sharp intakes of breath. The black and grey diver's combination smelled blood, decay and stale water.
'How could you…..?' Harry wrung his lanky arms even firmer around Severus' neck, almost strangling the young wizard.
'
