Authors: Christopher Reich
“Mobile One, what’s the status of your roadblock?”
“Roadblock up,” said Mobile One.
“Mobile Four,” radioed von Daniken to the driver of the Swiss Telecom van. “Any traffic?” Mobile Four was charged with blocking traffic coming from the far end of Dorfstrasse and placing a repair crew in the middle of the road. The goal was to force Revy to stop without making him suspicious.
“No one in sight.”
“Close down the road.”
The red dot glided around a turn, with the first of the blue dots a short distance behind. Craning his neck out the window, von Daniken caught the silky howl of Revy’s Porsche.
“Get on his tail,” he said. “I don’t want him thinking he has any place to run if he gets nervous.”
Von Daniken’s vantage point offered a view of the road as it curved and climbed through the forest. He caught a patch of silver among the trees and knew it was Revy.
“Mobile Four, are your men in place?”
“Road closed. No one in sight.”
Von Daniken tightened his fingers around the steering wheel. Now it was up to Revy to follow the script.
The Porsche rounded the nearest bend and von Daniken was granted an unobstructed view of his prey. He was happy to observe Mobile One directly on his tail. Von Daniken started the engine and
edged toward the road. Revy whipped past, followed by Mobile One. Von Daniken was astounded by how fast Revy was driving. Then again, he reminded himself, Revy knew the road perfectly. Von Daniken gunned the engine and shot into the road.
“Thirty seconds,” he radioed.
“Thirty seconds,” confirmed Mobile Four.
Von Daniken watched the Panamera pass the first of a series of orange cones running down the center of the road. He waited for the Porsche’s brake lights to flare, the car to slow. If anything, the Porsche seemed to accelerate, its tail sliding to the left as it negotiated the sharp curve.
Verglas
, thought von Daniken. Black ice. A thin sheet of impossibly slick ice invisible to the eye. A second later, Revy had disappeared round the bend.
Von Daniken hurried to catch up. He knew what lay a few hundred meters ahead. A three-man crew dressed as laborers in grimy pants and orange safety vests gathered in the center of the road. A fourth man directed traffic. The Telecom van blocked the oncoming lane. In a country obsessed by the condition of its roads, it was a sight every Swiss could count on seeing once a day.
He came around the bend, but Revy was already out of sight, and he saw only the rear of Mobile One’s sedan.
You’re driving too fast
, von Daniken admonished Revy from afar, as if the doctor were purposefully disobeying his instructions in an effort to defeat his planning.
Slow down. That’s an order!
Von Daniken rounded the next curve in time to witness the accident. There were some things one could not plan for, or for that matter even foresee. And in that never-ending instant, as he watched the disaster unfold and saw his carefully wrought plan quite literally go up in flames, he knew that later, when they would meet at headquarters in Bern, some smart-ass would say that he should have known that the area was a wilderness preserve and that all kinds of animals were roaming the woods.
But for that moment, all he could do was watch.
The stag was the biggest he’d seen since he was a child in the mountains near Zinal. The deer bounded off the hillside and into the
center of the road not ten meters in front of Revy’s 200,000-franc sports sedan. Seeing the oncoming car, the animal froze, its head raised proudly, its magnificent rack (eighteen points at least) silhouetted against the waning afternoon sun. It was a testament to Revy’s reflexes that he did not hit the buck. The Porsche veered crazily to the left, and von Daniken was certain he did not see the faintest glimmer of its brake lights as it careened off the hillside and seemingly took flight before slamming nose first into the trunk of a century-old pine and plummeting twenty meters to the stream below.
Revy didn’t stand a chance, even with airbags and a safety belt. The Porsche landed flat on its back, buckling the roof. Von Daniken was out of his car in time to hear the shattered windshield tinkle onto the rocks, watch the splintered treetop spear the wreck, and spy the first flames lick from the gas tank. The explosion came a second later, enveloping the automobile. He prayed that the fall had broken Revy’s neck.
Von Daniken looked on for ten seconds as the flames danced in and out of the passenger compartment. He lamented Revy’s death. Maybe he even felt sorry for him. By now his men had gathered beside him. They stood like mourners gazing into the ravine, their pale, impassive faces shadowed by the specter of death. In a few minutes a police car would arrive, then a fire truck, and afterward an ambulance. Someone would call a reporter from the local newspaper. The crash was spectacular enough to merit a half-page article with color photographs in
Blick
, the country’s daily tabloid. Von Daniken could not allow that to happen.
“Keep the roads blocked,” he said to his colleague. “Get a cleanup crew over here on the double. This never happened.”
The final briefing of Dr. Jonathan Ransom
, newly minted operative, by Frank Connor, director of Division, took place in a sterile conference room on the fifth floor of the Executive Business Center at Zurich Flughafen. The time was six o’clock in the evening. A floor-to-ceiling window offered a view toward the piers of Terminals A and B and, five hundred meters away, like an island rising out of the tarmac, Terminal E. Planes from a dozen nations sat parked at gates, awaiting departure. Most were from Far Eastern lands and being made ready for night flights to the Orient: Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines. Barely visible at the farthest corner of Terminal E was a Boeing 787 with the green, black, and red tail markings of Emirates. Emirates Flight 221, service from Zurich to Dubai, was scheduled for 8:30 departure, with a full complement of 248 passengers and crew.
“Here’s my boy,” said Connor as he entered the room and spied Jonathan standing by the window. “Christ, I hardly recognize you. What did they do to your hair? Is it blond? Glasses, too, and a suit. You clean up nice.”
Jonathan smiled tightly. The only thing Connor had missed was the blue contact lenses. “Hello, Frank. How’re the legs?”
“Hurt like the dickens. You’re a doctor. Can’t you do something about it?” Connor laughed to show that he was in good spirits, and the two men shook hands, Connor keeping Jonathan in his grip a long time and looking him up and down. “Danni taking good care of you?”
“I guess you can say that.”
“She tells me you’ve done marvelously. Exceeded all our expectations. One of her best ever. I’m just sorry I didn’t find you earlier.”
“You did, actually. At least, Emma did. Isn’t that the same thing?”
Jonathan sat down and crossed his hands on the table. There were bottles of mineral water at all eight seats, along with blocks of papers and pens. A sign outside the door read, “Reserved for Atlantic International Consultants.”
Connor sat next to him, pulling his chair out so the two could look each other in the eye. “I apologize for the hurry. No one expected things to develop so quickly. But that’s the way things are in the business.”
“Is Balfour in trouble?”
“Not any more than before. Pakistanis want him out a little sooner than he expected. That’s all.” Connor sat down with a huff and pulled a stack of files from his satchel, making a show of checking his watch. “Two hours until boarding. We’ve got some time.” He rapped his knuckles on the topmost file. “So, you know all about our boy?”
“Balfour?” Jonathan nodded. “I think I’ve got him down. Details are a little sketchy.”
“He likes to keep them that way. Everyone knows he’s from the slums, but he doesn’t like to admit it. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest. Anyway, we were able to dig up about a hundred e-mails exchanged between him and Revy. I’ve brought you a summary of the important stuff. Read it on the plane. When you’re finished, tear it up and flush it down the toilet, page by page. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jonathan, responding to the martial patter of Connor’s instructions and discovering that he was no longer bothered by the military lingo. “We’re clear.”
“Apparently Balfour’s set up the Taj Mahal of surgical suites over there. What he didn’t know was that Revy was taking a fat commission from the medical equipment companies.” A wry grin between accomplices to gauge the new operative’s nerves. Jonathan chuckled, and Connor relaxed a notch. “And here’s a list of Revy’s recent trips: Sardinia, Rome, Paris, Athens, Kiev, Berlin. The man gets around. Memorize it. Finally, we were able to draw a set of plans of Balfour’s home from the city surveyor in Islamabad. Balfour calls it Blenheim. The main building is twenty-two thousand square feet on three floors. There are several outbuildings and stables. Balfour likes to ride.
Apparently Revy served in a cavalry unit in the Swiss army. You’ll see a few exchanges about Hanoverians and Warmbloods and all manner of bullshit relating to matters equestrian. How are you in the saddle?”
“I know how to get on and off a horse,” said Jonathan. “But that’s about it.”
“You’re not a rider, then?”
“Give me a saddle with a horn and I’ll be fine. Otherwise, things might get ugly.”
Connor frowned. “Say you’ve got a bum knee. Hurt it skiing. Whatever you do, don’t get on the horse. We don’t want to give him any reason to think you’re not who you’re supposed to be. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Good.” Connor spread a reduced blueprint of Balfour’s home on the table. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. The guest suite is on the second floor, right here. The master suite, where Balfour conducts his business, is on the third floor, directly above you. That’s the nerve center of his operation. Everything we need to know, we should be able to find in there.”
Jonathan studied the drawings. “Does he have guards inside the house?”
“Not guards per se, but plenty of underlings, including a six-foot-six-inch Sikh named Mr. Singh who’s his majordomo, personal assistant, and hired gun.”
“Sounds like he’ll be hard to miss.”
“He’s the muscle, and he’ll be keeping an eye on you. Be careful.” Connor gave Jonathan a look of warning before going on. “Balfour’s also got his own little harem of between eight and twelve girls. He ships them in and out every six months. Russians, English, even some Americans, I’ve been told. If he offers, accept. Revy’s a bachelor, and Balfour’s asked him a few times about what his preferences are.”
“Preferences?”
“Blond, brunette, or red. The answer, by the way, is young, blond, buxom, and smooth. Don’t ask me anything more about it. I’m an old man and I embarrass easily.”
Jonathan caught sight of his reflection in the window. Or rather, Revy’s. He was beginning to develop an intense dislike for the Swiss plastic surgeon. “Did you get him?” he asked.
Connor’s eyes shot up from the papers. “Revy? Oh yeah. We got him. Not to worry. Von Daniken didn’t harm him in the least. The good doctor is resting comfortably and shall do so for the immediate future.”
Jonathan said he was glad, but he was markedly less concerned about the doctor’s well-being than he had been a few days ago.
“We did have one setback,” Connor went on. “Revy’s phone was broken in the hand-off. We’ve got a new one for you. It has his same number, but we weren’t able to transfer the information from his SIM card.”
“Will that be a problem?”
“We don’t think so. You shouldn’t be contacting anyone once you’re in Pakistan anyway. You can count on the fact that Balfour will block all calls into and out of his compound. His run-in with the Indian government has made him more than a little paranoid about people spying on him.”
“So how do I pass on any information I find?”
“If at all possible, use your laptop and send it to my secure mailbox. Even better is if you get out of the compound and call. If you can’t, we’ve got a nifty little toy that should defeat his jamming signals and allow you to place a call. Only use it if you’ve got important information or if you need help. We should have a team to you within a day.”
“That sounds like a long time. What about Danni?”
“What about her?”
“Is she coming?”
“’Fraid not. I used up that favor. She’s due back in Israel. Pressing business. I told you from the beginning you’d be hanging out there pretty far. It’s no different from one of your big climbs. Once you get past a certain point, you’re on your own. You’ve still got a chance to back out. I won’t hold it against you.”
“What about Emma?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more about her unless you commit.”
“So you’ve learned something?”
“We have.”
The room had suddenly gone still. For once, Connor had stopped shuffling his papers and banging his fingers for emphasis and speaking in his overly loud voice. The table shook minutely as a jet took off, and Jonathan was once again reminded of being back on the USS
Ronald Reagan
. “Do you have any more idea about the information you’d like me to find?” he asked, testing the waters.
“We’re still talking about a munition and the identity of the man to whom Balfour plans to sell it.”
Something in Connor’s voice sounded an alarm. He sounded too matter-of-fact, too coy. Or maybe it was something that Danni had said earlier in the day.
What if it’s more than hundreds of lives?
“What
kind
of munition?” asked Jonathan.
Connor held his eyes. “In or out? I think we’ve reached the Rubicon.”
Jonathan rubbed a hand over his mouth. He thought about Danni and what she’d said about his motivation for helping Connor. He decided that she was right. He was trying to see if he could do his wife’s job. But the root of his desire was more nuanced than that. It was not competition that drove him, but an ingrained sense of responsibility, maybe even guilt. Willing or not, he had helped Emma carry out too many missions to be a simple spectator. A husband had a duty to know his wife’s business. Once he’d learned her true profession, his own actions had changed markedly. The past eleven months had seen his role grow from pawn to participant—in Switzerland, France, and finally Afghanistan. He’d been a fugitive from justice. He’d witnessed terrible crimes. He’d killed with his own hands in self-defense and with malice and forethought. Somewhere along the way, he’d stopped being just a husband or a doctor or a civilian and become something else. It was a testament to his own skills that Connor had recruited him. Jonathan had never known the weight of being
asked to serve your country. Looking at the portly, ruddy-cheeked man in the rumpled suit seated an arm’s length away, he felt something close to honor. There was a conviction in Connor’s eyes that Jonathan wanted to be his own.