Wait and watch.

He returned to Intelink’s main page. More entries: 7-2; 13:11 CET. Falcon. A message sent the day before from Falcon.

Confirm Robin compromised. Cease all communication. Await instructions HQ.

7-2; 10:55 CET. Cormorant. Rook contacted self. Referenced Thor.

Rook in possession of Robin’s PDA. Stated Robin killed. Confirm.

7-2; 09:55 CET. Falcon. Transfer approved.

7-2; 08:45 CET. Robin. Request transfer Sfr. 100,000 to account at BPT. Replacement lost funds.

Jonathan reviewed the text. “Cormorant” was Hoffmann. “Hawk” was unknown. “Falcon,” the individual who approved funding and who

confirmed to his agents that Robin was dead, looked to be in charge.

“Robin” being Gottfried Blitz. And Emma? Where was she?

He scrolled back through the numerous posts, searching for a specific time, a date. He saw it.

Tuesday. The day after Emma’s accident.

5-2; 07:45 CET. Falcon. Nightingale lost in climbing mishap. Rook alive.

There it was. Emma was “Nightingale.” Jonathan was “Rook,” as in chess piece. The castle. Or was it “Rook” as in con, to deceive? That made more sense, he thought angrily. And then he realized that he was wrong on both accounts. If all the agents had been given avian code names, then so had he.

Rook. The British cousin of the crow, but a larger, more aggressive bird altogether.

Devouring line after line of text, he retraced the events of the past few days as viewed from the other side. Here was Blitz stating that the car was in place in Landquart and that the baggage claims had been sent to Emma’s hotel. Then came Emma’s reply that the mail had been delayed due to an avalanche on the train tracks and that she would pick up the bags the next day. The postings were sent at six-thirty in the evening the night before their climb.

Jonathan looked up. The busy restaurant was swirling around him. The lights were too bright.

The voices too loud.

Emma had been in contact with her network all along.

Just then, a new line appeared on the display. The letters blinked to make sure they caught the reader’s attention.

A live posting.

8-2; 21:56 CET. Falcon. PJ landed 20:16 ZRH. En route to hotel.

Meeting confirmed 9-2; 14:00 Belvedere. Bring shipment advice. Trade for Gold.

Tomorrow, February 9, at two p.m. He knew of the Belvedere Hotel in Davos. A five-star palace for the rich and famous. But who was P.J.? And what was the “Gold” he planned to trade for the shipment advice?

And then, almost instantaneously, a response from Cormorant.

Confirmation copied. Hoffmann was headed to Davos.

The letters blinked for five seconds, then assumed their normal amplification.

For the first time, Jonathan noted a tab at the bottom of the page marked

“Reference.” Clicking on the word, he was rewarded with a list of hyperlinks. More code. The date, followed by a name he’d come to know well. ZIAG. Zug Industriewerk.

He opened the first link.

It was a bill of lading detailing the contents of a shipment from ZIAG to Xanthus Medical Instruments in Athens. Two hundred advanced global positioning handheld navigation systems.

Technical specifications as noted. Price: twenty-thousand Swiss francs per unit. To ship Friday, February 9, from Zurich to Athens aboard Swissair at seven in the evening.

Was this the shipment advice mentioned in Falcon’s earlier instruction to Cormorant?

He clicked on the other hyperlinks. More of the same. Detailed invoices.

Not GPS navigation systems but insulin pumps, vacuum tubes, carbon extruders. Shipped December 10, Zurich to Cairo via Nice. Shipped November 20, Zurich to Dubai. Shipped October 21, Geneva to Amman via Rome. The final destination always in the Middle East.

The shipments dated back several months. The first had been made on October 12, a little more than six weeks after he and Emma returned from the Middle East.

As Jonathan reread the list of goods, he realized that he’d been right when he’d told Hoffmann his suspicions. You’re making things you shouldn’t and sending them to people who shouldn’t have them.

But who was P.J.? And what was he doing coming to the World Economic Forum in Davos?

Jonathan finished his meal and paid the bill in cash. Leaving the restaurant, he stopped in an adjoining kiosk and looked over the selection of newspapers. Nearly every one featured a headline related to the World Economic Forum. He purchased two Swiss newspapers, as well as the Herald Tribune and the Financial Times. Folding them under one arm, he crossed the parking lot to the Mercedes.

Turning into his aisle, he found himself staring into the beams of a slow-moving car. It took him a moment to make out the sirens on top. He kept his pace steady, walking directly toward the police car. The cruiser advanced at a crawl. A two-man patrol. A handheld spotlight illuminated one license plate, then the next. He reached his car and got inside. A moment later, the cabin was flooded with light. He waited, breath tight in his chest. The illumination made it easy to see the newspaper on the seat beside him. A photograph on the front page of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung showed a Middle Eastern man delivering a fiery oration. The caption identified him as Parvez Jinn, Iranian Minister of Technology, and stated that he was due to give an address to the WEF in Davos Friday evening in which he would detail his country’s nuclear aspirations.

Parvez Jinn. The initials were not lost on Jonathan. He’d found P.J.

And then the cabin was dark again. The spotlight moved on to the next vehicle. He wondered if this had been a routine check or if he had been the target?

He started the engine and pulled out of the space.

He was going back to the mountains.

He was going to Davos.

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57

Tobias Tingeli lived in an imposing Victorian mansion high on the Zürichberg near the Dolder Grand Hotel. The four-story stone structure had been his father’s and, before that, his father’s father’s, all the way back to 1870 when the first Tobias Tingeli made his fortune bankrolling Kaiser Wilhelm I in his war against Napoleon III.

Relations between Germany and the private bank had remained close over the years. During the Second World War, the Tingeli Bank had been a haven not only for the National Socialists, who transacted a majority of their gold sales through its offices, but also for the Americans, the British, and the Russians, whose spy services all found it to be equally accommodating. Since then, the bank had been content to concentrate on a private clientele, but rumors of questionable activity never quite faded away.

“Marcus, come in,” boomed Tobias Tingeli. “I was surprised to hear from you.”

Von Daniken smiled. Very surprised, no doubt, he thought to himself.

“Hello, Tobi. Things are well? I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all. Don’t just stand there freezing. Let me take your jacket.”

Tobias Tingeli IV, “Tobi” to his friends, was the new breed of banker. He was a young man, ten years von Daniken’s junior. Answering the door in faded jeans, a black turtleneck, his abundant black hair combed into a fashionable mess, he looked more like an artist than a businessman.

Von Daniken handed over his coat. When he’d visited ten years ago, there had been a legion of uniformed maids and butlers on hand to fetch coats and serve cocktails. He wondered if Tingeli had forgone the luxury, or if he’d dismissed them in advance of his visit. The two men had what would be called a history. A very secret one: and Tobi Tingeli’s effervescent manner did little to the fact that he didn’t like having von Daniken in his house.

“Follow me, Marcus. You remember your way around, don’t you?”

Tingeli led the way into his living room, where a floor-to-ceiling window

seemed to devour the Lake of Zurich. “Drink?” he asked, pulling the stopper off a cut-glass decanter.

Von Daniken refused. “As I mentioned, it’s a matter of some urgency,” he began. “I’ll have to ask that everything we discuss tonight remains for your ears only. I know that I can count on you to be discreet.”

Tingeli nodded gravely. The two sat facing one another in matching leather chairs. Von Daniken explained the rudiments of his investigation into Lammers and Blitz—their murders, the plastic explosives found in Blitz’s garage, and their ties to the terrorist Walid Gassan. He was careful not to mention the threat against air travel. “We tracked their finances to a company set up by your subsidiary in Liechtenstein. An entity called Excelsior Trust.”

“Do you have any idea how many laws I’d be breaking if I divulge my clients’ information?”

“If you’d like, I can have Alphons Marti issue a warrant.”

A wave dismissed the suggestion. “Forget about the rules. I’m willing to bet that the names on the trust belong to lawyers. They’re the ones who know everything. Go after them.”

“Give me their names and I will. As I recall, a trust must have a certain number of directors. Their names will be on the paperwork.”

Tingeli flashed his blinding smile. “I’d like to cooperate, but if word gets around that we’re working with the government, it will be the end of our business.”

Von Daniken surveyed the room’s decor. The furniture was minimalist and spare. All attention was meant to be focused on the walls. A giant oil hung to his right, some abstract psychological nightmare worth ten or twenty million francs no doubt. It was cheap in comparison to the Paul Klee facing it. Last year, a Klee had fetched the highest price ever at an auction.

Some 130 million dollars. Tingeli could stand to lose one or two clients and he’d still be among the richest men in Europe.

“I’m afraid that I’m not asking for your help. I’m ordering it. First thing in the morning, I want to see all the paperwork you have on the trust holding those Curaçao companies. Lawyers’ names, directors, everything.”

“The government has no right to order me to do anything.”

“Who mentioned the government?”

“Come now, Marcus, no one cares about all that old business anymore.

The war’s been over seventy years. People barely remember Hitler, let alone the Nazis. Besides, we paid our debt. A billion dollars buys a lot of understanding.”

As part of his work on the Holocaust Commission, von Daniken had been detailed to look into the degree of collaboration between Swiss banks and the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS, the agency charged with handling the Third Reich’s financial dealings. If the Swiss banks had been remiss in their conduct toward survivors after the war, the vast majority could claim in good conscience that they had only been following long-established rules to guarantee the privacy and safety of their clients’ deposits. The same rules that denied their deceased clients’ heirs access to their money had also denied access to less scrupulous forces, namely a constant parade of German officers sent to Zurich, Basel, and Geneva with orders to pry imprisoned, and soon to be dead, Jews’ money out of the bankers’ greedy little fingers.

One bank, though, had not been as stringent in the enforcement of these rules as the others. Not only had the Tingeli Bank cooperated with the Germans and transferred millions of francs from their rightful (Jewish) owners to the Third Reich, it had actually set up an office in-house for officers of the SS to systematically loot these accounts.

Von Daniken had discovered all of this and more in his research, including a photograph of Tobi Tingeli’s grandfather, Tobias II, in the company of Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and Reichsführer Adolf Hitler. In the photograph, Tingeli was wearing an SS officer’s black uniform with the rank of Standartenführer, or colonel.

News of the discovery was vehemently hushed up. In exchange for the Commission’s silence, the Tingeli Bank had donated one hundred million dollars to the survivors’ fund. Case closed.

“You’re right,” said von Daniken. “The war is old hat. I’m talking about something more recent.” He slid an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the banker. Tobi Tingeli opened it.

Several photographs were inside. Not photos of old Nazis from a bygone era. But something equally shocking.

“Where did you get this?” Tingeli’s face drained of color.

“My mandate is to cover extremists. I’d say the activity in those pictures qualifies. Not political extremism, but some rather embarrassing behavior all the same. You see, I don’t like you, Tobi. I don’t like your father, either.

For far too long you’ve been allowed to buy yourself a clean conscience.

I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I always knew that you were a strange one. I just didn’t know how strange.”

There were only two pictures, but two were enough. The first showed Tobi Tingeli standing at a bar in a dark room, dressed in his grandfather’s SS tunic, the death’s-head cap cocked rakishly on his head. He wore nothing else. No pants. No socks. No shoes. He stood with an erection in one hand and a quirt in the other, whipping the hairy white ass of a man bent over beside him.

The second picture was, if possible, more bizarre. In it, Tingeli was on his knees, dressed head to toe in a black latex suit with slits cut out for the eyes, nose, and mouth. Hands cuffed behind his back, his head was buried in a woman’s crotch. True, his face wasn’t visible, but the large gold signet ring engraved with his family crest that he wore on his right hand was. The cops in the undercover unit had gotten laughs out of it for months.

“Not exactly something to inspire the shareholders, are they? I’d imagine the scandal sheets would love to get their hands on them. If I wanted, I could feather my retirement nest very nicely. What do you think they’d pay? A hundred thousand? Two?”

Tingeli tossed the photographs onto a coffee table. “Bastard.”

“Count on it.”

Tingeli stood. “You’ll have the names in the morning. But I want those pictures.”

“Deal.” Von Daniken walked himself to the front door. “Just remember that I can always get more.”

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58

Alphons Marti popped his head into Marcus von Daniken’s unoccupied office. The overhead lights were extinguished. A sole desktop lamp burned, casting a halo on the papers covering the desk. It was eight o’clock in the evening, and he’d come for a briefing on the day’s progress. He wandered down the hall until he found an office still occupied. “Excuse me,” he said with a knock on the door. “I’m looking for Mr. von Daniken.”

A stocky bald man shot from his desk. “Hardenberg, sir. I’m afraid Chief Inspector von Daniken isn’t here at the moment.”

“I can see that. He was due to update me on today’s activity.”

“It’s not like him to miss a meeting. Was it scheduled?”

Marti avoided the question. The visit was unannounced. He hadn’t wanted to give von Daniken time to doctor his findings. “Where is he?”

“In Zurich. Looking into a lead regarding the financing of the operation.”

“Really? Aren’t the banks closed at this hour?”

“He’s not at a bank. He’s visiting Tobias Tingeli. They know each other from the Holocaust Commission. You can reach him on his cell phone.”

Marti considered this. “Not necessary,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure you can fill me in. You said that you’ve discovered a lead on the financing of this operation. Do you have any idea which group is behind the plot? Is it the Revolutionary Guard? Al-Qaeda? Islamic Jihad? Or is it some organization we haven’t heard of?”

“We’re not certain yet,” replied Hardenberg. “All we know is that Blitz’s house was purchased by an offshore company based in Curaçao. Once we find out who paid his bills, we’ll be a lot closer to knowing who’s behind this attack.”

“What’s standing in your way?”

“The law, sir. The existing bank secrecy requirements make it difficult for us to obtain the information we need. Still, Mr. von Daniken is confident he’ll be able to get around them. He has close ties with a number of bankers.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Marti, laboring to sound pleased. “Keep up the good work.”

Hardenberg accompanied him to the door. “I’ll tell Mr. von Daniken that you came by. I’m sure he didn’t mean to miss the meeting.”

Marti hurried down the stairs, a man with a mission.

Back in his office at the Bundeshaus, Marti rooted around in the files until he found the paperwork relating to the government’s request to Swisscom, the national telecommunications authority, for a record of all of Blitz’s, Lammers’s, and Ransom’s phone calls. Papers in hand, he phoned the Swisscom executive in charge of judicial relations.

“I need a complete record of all calls made to and from these numbers,”

he said, after introducing himself. He provided Marcus von Daniken’s business, home, and cellular numbers.

“Certainly. Is there any time period you’re interested in?”

“Last Monday from eight a.m. to four p.m.”

“Just last Monday?”

“That’s all,” said Marti. “How soon can you have it?”

“Tomorrow at noon.”

“I need it by eight a.m.”

“You’ll have it.”

Marti hung up. In less than twelve hours, he would have his proof.

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59

Jonathan drove until he was exhausted. He pulled off the highway in Rapperswil at the south end of the Lake of Zurich and maneuvered through the town and into the hills beyond. When he hadn’t seen a home or the light of another car for ten minutes, he pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine. Davos was another hundred kilometers ahead.

Using the emergency flashlight clipped to the interior wall of the glove compartment, he pored over the newspapers he’d bought. He knew little about the World Economic Forum other than what he’d glimpsed on the television news.

The WEF was an annual conference that brought together approximately one thousand political and business leaders from around the globe to share information about a subject deemed crucial to the world’s welfare. This year’s topic was the proliferation of nuclear weapons. An article stated that

“eighteen heads of state, two hundred cabinet-level ministers, and forty-seven of the Fortune 100 CEOs” will be in attendance. This year’s guests included two former U.S. presidents, the British prime minister, the sultan of Brunei, the king of Jordan, and the chairmen of Shell Oil, Intel, and Deutsche Bank, to name a few.

An article in the Financial Times discussed security for the event. Some three thousand soldiers would assist a battery of two hundred local police officers in guarding the World Economic Forum. No one was permitted entry without prior vetting. There were photos of large fences cutting through snow-covered fields, imposing floodlights, armed sentries with German shepherds. Based on the photographs, Davos looked more like a concentration camp than a ski resort.

In the Tages-Anzeiger, he found a boxed feature discussing a Swiss firm that manufactured the identification card readers utilized by the law enforcement authorities to govern access to the event. The company’s chief executive boasted that no one could get past his card readers. He noted that there were three levels of security. The green zone was free to residents and visitors, who nonetheless had to present a form of identification at one of three security checkpoints before being issued an official Forum identification that they must wear around their necks at all times. The

yellow zone encompassed that part of the town nearer the Kongresshaus where the Forum would actually take place, as well as common areas in proximity to hotels putting up the event’s VIPs. To gain access to the yellow zone required an official invitation to the event and prior vetting by the Swiss Federal Police.

The red zone included the Kongresshaus, where all speeches were delivered and breakout sessions held, as well as the Hotel Belvedere, where many of the VIPs boarded. Identification badges permitting visitors access to these areas carried not only photographs but also memory chips loaded with pertinent information about the individual. Those individuals granted access to the red zone received their own personalized card readers. These readers scanned a ten-meter-square footprint around them to pick up signals from their fellow attendees, flashing that person’s name, photograph, and bio on the reader’s display. While no one would fail to recognize Bill Gates or Tony Blair, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia was a different story.

Jonathan dumped everything from the glove compartment onto the seat next to him. He reasoned that if Emma were to deliver the car to P.J. in Davos, she had to have been given an ID allowing her into the red zone. He sorted through the automobile’s user’s guide, a service book, and customs papers, then leaned over and ran a hand over the glove compartment’s surface. Nothing there.

He sat back, thinking. If the ID wasn’t in the bags Blitz sent to Landquart, it had to be in the car.

But where? The user’s manual explained that armor wasn’t the vehicle’s only unique feature.

The car also boasted run-flat tires, antiskid brakes, and automated parking.

He found what he was looking for listed under “Custom Specifications”: a strongbox hidden beneath the rear passenger seat. He got out of the car and opened the rear door. Leaning into the cabin, he muscled a tab in the center of the banquette. The seat rose. In the space beneath it was a dull black steel box. He popped the catch. A manila envelope lay inside with the name “Eva Kruger” typed on it. He ripped it open. A plastic identification card strung with a cloth lanyard fell into his hand. The ID was issued by the

World Economic Forum and bore the same photo that adorned her driver’s license. There was more: a French passport with Parvez Jinn’s photograph inside and a cell phone.

A passport to go with the one hundred thousand Swiss francs and the armored Mercedes sedan.

All, Jonathan surmised, in return for “Gold” to be provided by Parvez Jinn, Minister of Technology of the Fundamentalist Islamic Republic of Iran.

He picked up the phone. It was one of the cheapest models. He turned it on and saw that it had been charged with fifty Swiss francs. Why leave Emma a phone unless she had to call someone…someone who only wanted to be called on a certain number. Parvez Jinn? He checked the directory, but found no numbers listed. He wondered if Jinn was supposed to call her?

That made more sense. The minister of technology would have to find a suitable moment when he was free of his guards.

Jonathan began to gain a sense of what was taking place. He didn’t fathom all of it, just the bare bones. Shipments in exchange for information.

“Gold,” they called it. There was only one type of product that he imagined the Iranians desired. Products the Western world had forbade them.

Heart pounding, he sat up straighter. He logged on to the Intelink website and began reviewing the shipping lists. Centrifuges, navigation units, vacuum tubes. He worked backward through the months: December, November, October. Carbon extruders. Maraging steel. Coolant systems.

And further back still. September, August. Ring magnets. Heat exchangers. He had no doubt but that the items were falsely labeled. It made no difference whether or not he knew their exact functions. He knew their purpose and that was enough.

Suddenly, he was overcome with a need to be free of the car. Stumbling outside, he set off up the road. His stride lengthened and he began to jog up the incline, pushing himself, reveling in the burn in his legs, the pounding of his heart, the scuff of his breath.

His mind took flight and he imagined himself in the mountains, deep in the wilderness, at the moment a few days out on an expedition when it finally hit that, at least for now—for a sharp, glinting moment—you’d left

everything behind: your past, your present, your future. It was a new world, separate from everything that had come before, with no ties to bind you and no expectations to draw you forward. You were just a solitary man, alone with rocks and trees and fast-running streams. One beating heart surrounded by a world that had been there long before mankind had begun to despoil it.

For that moment, you were boldly and gloriously alive.

After ten minutes, he reached the crest of the hill. A cairn had been erected on the summit. He circled the stones, his lungs burning, his eyes stinging from the cold. To the north the long, curving shadow of the Lake of Zurich fell away like a scythe bordered by sparkling jewels. To the south the valley was long and dark, lit at varying distances by clusters of light.

Hardly a kilometer away, the foothills of the Alps pushed against the plain, erupting from the flat, fertile land as towering granite escarpments that rose in vertical plains a thousand meters or more, capped by jagged summits.

Why, Emma? he demanded silently. How could she send these materials to the most dangerous country in the world? It’s to make bombs. And not just any bombs. The bomb.

After a while, he headed down the hill. In ten minutes, he regained the Mercedes. He climbed inside and turned on the heat. One question stayed with him above all.

Who was she working for?

He laid his head back and closed his eyes, but his mind was racing. He didn’t fall asleep until much later, when the first light of dawn crept above the horizon and lit the sky a dead, ashen gray.

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60

It’s none of your business. Leave it. It can only go badly for you.

Philip Palumbo mulled over the words, then leaned across the front seat of his car and removed his service sidearm from the glove compartment. It was because nobody took a stand that the world was in such sorry shape.

The pistol was a Beretta 9mm, left over from his days as an officer with the 82nd Airborne. He’d given fourteen years to the military, including his time as a cadet at West Point, and advanced as high as major before getting out. There were plenty of opportunities in private enterprise for a man with his background, but he’d never had much of an interest in making money.

Seven weeks after signing his separation papers, he put his name on a contract with the Central Intelligence Agency. And despite all that he’d seen and all that he’d done, he still considered it the best decision he’d ever made. He did not relish giving it all up.

He checked that the magazine was full, chambered a round, and clicked down the safety.

The house was a two-story colonial with forest-green shutters and a shake roof. He took the stairs two at a time and rang the bell. A slim, unprepossessing man wearing a gray cardigan, bifocals hanging from a chain around his neck, opened the door. “There you are, Phil,” said Admiral James Lafever, Deputy Director of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. “A matter of some urgency, I take it.”

Palumbo entered the home. “I appreciate you seeing me at such short notice.”

“No problem at all.” Lafever led the way into a spacious foyer. He was a workaholic and lived alone. “Can I get you some coffee?”

Palumbo declined.

Lafever walked into the kitchen and poured himself a mug of steaming coffee. “I understand that you got solid information out of Walid Gassan that helped prevent an attack.”

He knows, thought Palumbo. Someone’s tipped him off.

“Actually, that’s why I’ve come.”

Lafever added some sugar to his coffee, then signaled for Palumbo to go ahead.

“On my way back from Syria, I got a call from Marcus von Daniken, who heads up the Swiss counterintelligence service. He was investigating the murder in Zurich of a man named Theo Lammers, a Dutch national who was shot outside his house. It was a professional job. Clean. No witnesses.

Lammers owned a business that designed and manufactured sophisticated guidance systems. On the side, he built drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles.

Small ones, big ones, you name it. Von Daniken was looking into it when a colleague of Lammers also got killed: an Iranian by the name of Mahmoud Quitab who was residing in Switzerland under the work name of Gottfried Blitz. Any of this sound familiar?”

“Should it?”

“With all due respect, sir, I think it might ring a few bells.”

Lafever added some milk to his coffee. When he returned his attention to Palumbo, his expression had changed. The social portion of the visit had officially concluded. “Go on, Phil. Let’s save my part for the end.”

Palumbo knew an order when he heard it. “I called Marcus to fill him in on the details of Gassan’s interrogation.”

“You mean regarding Gassan’s involvement in a plot to shoot down an airliner?”

“That’s correct. Von Daniken was surprised, to say the least. It turns out that the two deceased gentlemen he was looking into were Gassan’s co-conspirators.”

“Quite a coincidence.” Lafever’s voice made clear that he knew it was anything but.

Palumbo went on. “The next day, von Daniken received a report from the coroner that both victims were killed by someone who liked to dip his bullets in poison. This coroner had asked around if anyone had ever come across a similar case. One of his colleagues at Scotland Yard knew exactly what he was talking about. The man was a former British Marine, and had seen that same poison used in El Salvador back in the early eighties. I guess it was a common practice among the Indians down there. Some kind of

local voodoo to ward off evil spirits. The Englishman shared his belief that it was us that trained them. According to him, whoever killed Lammers and his partner had at one time or another been working with the CIA. Von Daniken wants to know if we have an op running on his turf. Sir, if we have credible information about a cell looking to take down an airliner in Swiss airspace, it’s our duty to keep them in the loop.”

“And what did you tell him?” asked Lafever.

“I said I’d look into it.”

“So you haven’t spoken to him since?”

Palumbo shook his head. “You were running the station in San Salvador back then. Wasn’t Mourning Dove one of your operations?”

“That’s classified information.”

“I have classified clearance. One of the locals was recommended for recruitment. His name was Ricardo Reyes. His mother was half Indian. He did some training up at the Farm, then was sent overseas. He’s still on payroll.”

“Been digging, eh?”

“I’m guessing he’s the one who pulled the trigger.”

Admiral Lafever stepped closer and Palumbo could smell the coffee on his breath. “What concern of yours is one of my ops?”

Palumbo shifted his weight and felt the pistol digging into his back.

“None. I’m out of my depth here. It’s just that I was able to track down some info on Lammers, the man who was shot and killed in Zurich.”

“And so?”

“Sir, we’ve got a file ten inches thick on the man. He was on our payroll for ten years. He worked in industrial espionage and was run out of our London substation. He fell off the books in 2003. I asked myself why in the world was Walid Gassan delivering explosives to men even remotely affiliated with the U.S. government. Something didn’t feel right to me about the whole thing. I made some calls around town to ask if Lammers had gone over to the other side.”

“What did you find out?”

“Oh, he’d gone over to the other side, alright. Lammers was picked up by the Defense Department two years back. At the time of his death, he was working as a consultant to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Admiral, can you tell me what in God’s name we’re doing taking out American agents?”

“I thought you’d be more concerned about why the Pentagon is trying to take down an airliner.”

“That’s my next question.”

Palumbo had been expecting a tirade. Instead, Lafever put down his coffee cup and smiled bleakly. “Are you familiar with a unit called Division?”

“Division? No, sir, I’m not.”

“Didn’t think so.” Lafever led him by the elbow toward a sliding door in the kitchen. “Let’s go outside. I need a smoke.”

Palumbo followed Lafever onto the back patio and down a flight of stairs into his backyard. It was a cold evening, the sky grim and forlorn. Their feet crunched in the snow as they ambled through a thicket of barren trees.

“It’s that Austen. He’s the problem,” said Lafever, shaking loose a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros. “Crazy Christian sonuvabitch will have me yet. Between all his prayer meetings and fundamentalist mojo, he can’t keep his fingers out of the other guy’s pie.”

“Do you mean Major General John Austen of the Air Force?”

“The one and only. It started eight years back, even before 9/11. The boys at the Pentagon wanted to start mounting clandestine operations on foreign soil. They were pissed off at how terrorists were nailing our overseas installations and had taken to going around town saying that we at CIA couldn’t do squat to stop them. The Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the bombings of our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the numerous attacks against U.S. multinationals operating abroad. Austen went to the president and asked if he could put together a team of operators and give it a shot. The president didn’t need much convincing. He’d been riding us hard to find out who was behind the attack on the USS Cole and we weren’t able to help him.

Austen’s team found the culprits lickety-split. Thirty days later, the president signed a National Security Presidential Directive authorizing the Defense Department to run units overseas.

“They called it Division. Austen ran it out of a little-known office called the Defense Human Intelligence Service, whose official job is to manage military attachés assigned to our foreign embassies. He moved fast. Within a year, he had five teams in the field. We’re talking the blackest of black ops. Clandestine. Deniable. Operating without any oversight from Congress, or even the president. The kind of blanket authorization any intelligence officer would kill for. Me included. They did some good work.

I won’t deny it. Took out that murderous lunatic in Bosnia, Drako, and a couple of warlords in the Sudan. The successes went to Austen’s head. He started overstepping his bounds. Got his fingers dirty in that affair with the Lebanese prime minister.

Got mixed up in the insurgency in Iraq. We are intelligence officers. It’s our job to gather information and pass it on. It’s not our job to be judge, jury, and executioner. That’s policy, and the last I looked, it was run out of the White House. Anyway, by God, Phil, after a while I’d had enough.”

“But, sir, they’re American agents.”

“They’re not American. Quitab’s an Iranian. Lammers is Dutch. Foreign born and foreign bred.”

“Even so, sir, why didn’t you go to the president?”

“And say what? I’d only look like a jealous suitor. It was the president who authorized all this. Only he can pull the plug.”

“I don’t think he would authorize U.S. agents working in concert with an Iranian illegal to take down an airliner.”

“I agree, but he wouldn’t authorize me running a mole in Austen’s network either. What with his beliefs pinned on his sleeve and all those shiny medals on his chest, John Austen is what passes for a saint on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was in the fight since the beginning. By that I mean our holy war against Jihad, Incorporated. Austen set up the plan to rescue our hostages in Iran back in 1980. He organized the first Special Ops teams. And like our commander-in-chief, he burns for Christ. What’s a whiskey-drinking pagan like me to do?”

“But that rescue attempt in Iran was a fiasco,” said Palumbo. “We crashed and burned. We lost eight men.”

“It doesn’t matter, Phil. John Austen is a hero. Like being on the hill at Calvary way back when. Whatever he says, goes…until proven otherwise.”

“With due respect, Admiral, I can’t just stand by and let him take down a plane.”

“There’s no other way, Phil. This country can’t have two separate espionage services conducting operations without one talking to the other.

For too long now, the boys at Defense have been out of control. Once this thing blows up in their face, it will be over. John Austen will never be allowed to put a team in the field again. The Pentagon will be permanently out of the espionage business.”

“So you sent over Reyes to put a stop to it?”

“I sent Ricardo Reyes to show that we weren’t just sitting around with a thumb up our ass while this was going down. If we get caught flatfooted on something this big, it will just go to prove that everything Austen’s been saying to the president about the CIA is true. But if we can get within a hair’s breadth of knocking down that drone…if we can take out members of the plot…we will look like the heroes.” Lafever crushed his cigarette beneath his shoe. “Mr. Reyes won’t be able to stop the attack, and frankly, I don’t want him to. Once that plane goes down, I can go to the president with proof of who did this and show him just how badly things got out of hand. I can also show that I tried to stop it. The president will have no choice but to back me to the hilt. Division will be shut down in a second. At the end of the day, those pricks at Defense will have their asses handed to them, and the Agency will be back on top.”

Palumbo had nothing to say. He stood rooted to the spot, stunned and saddened.

Lafever stepped closer. “I can’t have any flag-waving officer of mine running off at the mouth about what he thinks he’s discovered. I need your word that you’re going to keep quiet.”

“But, sir, the plane…all the passengers…”

“I need your word.”

“But, Admiral…”

“But nothing!” said Lafever. “It’s a small price to pay to make sure that Austen doesn’t do anything else even more foolish.”

Palumbo sighed. He knew then how it was going to turn out. “I’m sorry. I just can’t allow it.”

Lafever looked at him like he was a poor, dumb rube just off the farm.

“Neither can I.”

When he raised his hand again, he was pointing a compact, nickel-plated revolver at Palumbo’s heart. It was a throwaway piece with its registration filed off, loaded with standard ammo he’d probably gotten from the armory.

The old man’s tradecraft was strictly by the book.

The gun fired twice. The bullets struck Palumbo in the chest and knocked him to the ground. He lay there a moment, eyes wide, the wind knocked out of him. Lafever advanced a step and stood over him, shaking his head. Then Palumbo coughed and Lafever realized that he was wearing a vest.

Hurriedly, the deputy director of operations of the Central Intelligence Agency brought his gun to bear. This time, he was too slow.

Palumbo’s shot struck him in the forehead.

Admiral James Lafever was dead before he hit the ground.

OceanofPDF.com

61

Twenty-four hours had passed since the war council had convened on Balfour Street. In that time, phone calls had shot back and forth across the Atlantic with the savagery of a spring lightning storm. The Foreign Ministry to the U.S. State Department. Iran Command to the Centcom headquarters. The Mossad to the CIA.

At eleven p.m., the prime minister of Israel stood in his office, one hand behind his back, the other clutching the telephone to his ear. Like any other courtier seeking the emperor’s company, he’d been told to wait his turn.

The president of the United States would be with him momentarily.

Zvi Hirsch stood at the PM’s side, seething with impatience.

“Momentarily” had run out five minutes earlier. Every added second worsened the insult to his congenitally insecure heart.

Suddenly, a woman came on the line. “The President of the United States.”

Before the prime minister could respond, a cold technocrat’s voice filled the earpiece. “Hello, Avi, good to hear from you.”

“Mr. President. I wish it were a happier occasion.”

“I wanted to convey my thanks for consulting with us,” the American president said. “These developments have caught us off guard. We didn’t see this coming so soon.”

“We were both caught off guard. I’m sure you can empathize with our position. We cannot tolerate the presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime that has unequivocally stated their commitment to seeing Israel wiped from the map.”