“Four kilos a month enriched to ninety-six percent.”

He wished all aboard a pleasant flight, and in closing, stated that he would speak with the passengers again shortly before landing.

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“No,” said von Daniken into the phone. “We don’t have any details regarding a specific threat.

All we know is that there’s a terrorist cell operating in the country which has as its goal the destruction of an airliner on our soil. We don’t know who they are, or where they are at this moment. But, I repeat: we do know that they’re here, most probably in Zurich or Geneva. All our evidence points to an attempt on an aircraft, either airborne or at the terminal, within the next forty-eight hours.”

He was speaking to the director of the Federal Office of Civil Aviation, the organization that had final say on all matters concerning flights originating or terminating at Swiss airports. The man was a friend, a former messmate in the army, but friendship didn’t come into play with matters of such magnitude.

“Let me get this straight, Marcus. You want us to shut down all major airports in the country until further notice?”

“Yes.”

“But that means canceling all outgoing flights and rerouting incoming aircraft to airports in France, Germany, and Italy.”

“I’m aware of that,” said von Daniken.

“You’re talking about over one hundred flights tonight alone. Do you have any idea of the impact that would have on the entire European flight grid?”

“I wouldn’t be making the request if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

There was a pause and von Daniken could sense the man’s anguish. “I’ll need the president’s authority on this,” said the director of civil aviation.

“Madam President is out of the country. She can’t be reached at the moment.”

“What about the vice president?”

“I spoke with him and he’s unwilling to make a decision until he speaks with her.”

“Have you talked to the Federal Security Service? All security aboard aircraft inside our borders is under their purview.”

“I just got off the phone with them. It’s a nonstarter. The most they can do is to pass on a warning to all pilots. Advising them won’t help. We believe the attack is to be conducted with an armed drone. Commercial airliners aren’t built to take evasive maneuvers.”

“No,” agreed the chief of civil aviation. “They’re not. What about the army?”

“The minister of defense has authorized them to position batteries of Stinger air-to-ground missiles around the airports in Zurich, Geneva, and Lugano. Unfortunately, they won’t be in place until tomorrow morning.”

Von Daniken didn’t add what the general in charge of air defense had told him. The problem is, he’d said, that the Stinger might just as easily shoot down the passenger plane as the drone.

“I’m sorry, Marcus, but my hands are tied. The moment you hear something from the president, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll issue a warning to air traffic control. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Von Daniken put down the phone.

Maps of Zurich and Geneva were spread across two of the desks. Myer stood beside the map of Zurich. With a pen, he was dividing the area around each airport into search grids.

Von Daniken approached and leaned over the maps. “How many officers do we have on this?”

“Fifty two-man teams are working the communities around Zurich Flughafen. In Geneva, just thirty-five. They’re going door to door asking if anyone has seen a black or white van, or any suspicious activity.”

Von Daniken bit back his anger. Combined, the police forces of the country’s two largest cities numbered more than ten thousand. One hundred seventy was a paltry commitment.

“It’s all the chiefs were willing to spare,” explained Myer. “Marti is a federal councilor and justice minister. They know his feelings about all this.”

“Do they? Well, Marti’s feelings have changed. We’ll have to call them up and let them know.”

Von Daniken studied the map. Four communities, or Gemeindes, surrounded Zurich Airport: Glattbrugg, Opfikon, Oerlikon, and Kloten. A total of sixty thousand inhabitants in some eight thousand homes and apartment buildings. Myer shaded in the neighborhoods that had already been canvassed with a pink pen. The pie-shaped sliver covered less than ten percent of the total area.

“And so?” von Daniken asked. “What’s the latest?”

“A dozen or so sightings of a black VW van, invariably belonging to a neighbor. Nothing suspicious to report except the usual. Someone peeking in their windows at night, someone siphoning gas from their car, a couple of drunk teenagers singing too loudly. But no terrorists with a state-of-the-art drone.”

“Not one mention of a miniature aircraft with a twenty-five-foot wingspan rolling down the street in front of their house, eh?”

“Not a one,” said Myer.

Von Daniken sat on the edge of the desk.

“What about Marti? Is he going down?” asked Myer.

Von Daniken shook his head. He explained that as it stood, Alphons Marti would never see the inside of a jail. Tobi Tingeli had violated Swiss bank statutes by showing von Daniken a client’s correspondence. Evidence of the monthly transfers from the U.S. Defense Department’s accounts to Marti’s would never be admissible in a court of law. Likewise, von Daniken could not obtain a warrant to search ZIAG’s premises unless Marti gave sworn testimony before an investigating magistrate about the company exporting contraband materials. Marti would be forced out of the government, but it would be done under the guise of a resignation for reasons of ill health, or some other ruse.

“So he gets off,” said Myer.

Von Daniken shrugged. “I’m sure you and I might find some ways to make his life more interesting down the road.”

“It will be a goddamned pleasure.”

Von Daniken poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at his desk. He couldn’t stop thinking about Marti being on the Americans’ payroll. Export licenses. Dual-use goods. It had all the smell of a setup. But to what end?

Why equip your enemy with the devil’s handiwork?

He finished the coffee, then called Philip Palumbo. He was anxious to see if his contact at the CIA had dug up any information about the assassin who’d killed Lammers and, as the latest medical reports confirmed, Gottfried Blitz, a.k.a. Mahmoud Quitab. The call rolled over to voice mail.

Von Daniken left his name and number, but no word of the reason for his call. Palumbo wouldn’t need any prompting.

The Americans. Everywhere you looked, there they were. The key was Ransom. He’d met with Blitz and with Jinn. He was the sole figure to straddle both operations.

Just then, he spotted Hardenberg bustling across the floor. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and his belly jostled back and forth like an unrestrained bowling ball.

“Sir,” he called, not able to wait until he drew nearer. “I’ve got something.”

“Get your breath first.”

“It’s about the Excelsior Trust, the one in Curaçao,” Hardenberg continued, huffing. “I had the idea that if it held title to one house, it might hold title to another. I wasn’t in the meeting with General Chabert, but I was told that he was certain that the drone had to have some kind of operations base that would grant the pilot a direct line of sight to the aircraft.”

“That’s correct.”

“Based on that reasoning, I contacted the tax recorder and asked him to check the name of the trust against any recent property sales in all the communities surrounding the Zurich and Geneva airports.”

“And?” Von Daniken locked his hands behind his back, hoping he wouldn’t appear too anxious.

“So far, only two of seven communities have reported back, but it seems that the Excelsior Trust purchased a home in Glattbrugg.”

Von Daniken swallowed, hope sparking like kindling in his belly.

Glattbrugg was the community directly contiguous to the Zurich Airport.

“Where in Glattbrugg, precisely?”

“The home is located less than a kilometer from the southernmost tip of the runway.”

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The assignment went to 69 Squadron of the Israeli Air Force, also known as the Hammers.

Operating out of Tel Nof Air Force Base southeast of Tel Aviv in the Negev Desert, 69 Squadron was comprised of twenty-seven McDonnell Douglas F-151 Thunder aircraft. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, the F-151 was capable of speeds up to Mach 2.5 or some 1,875

miles per hour, and had a range of two thousand nautical miles. It would be able to strike seventy percent of the prescribed targets inside Iran without airborne refueling. More important, the F-151 was the only aircraft in the Israeli Air Force capable of carrying the B61-11 EPW.

The nuclear-tipped bunker busters sat in their cradles on the gleaming concrete floor. The bombs were intimidating just to look at. Twenty-five feet in length, they bore four fins behind a sharp nose and four more on the tail. The B61-11 was slim as far as airborne munitions go. Its two-foot four-inch diameter corresponded exactly to the eight-inch artillery barrel of the deactivated M110 howitzer used in its manufacture. Equipped with a delayed-reaction fuse, it would strike the earth at a speed of two thousand feet per second and burrow through fifty feet of granite or reinforced concrete prior to detonation. Armed with a ten-kiloton warhead, the bomb and the seismic shock waves it would generate would destroy any structure up to two hundred fifty feet underground. It would also throw over sixty thousand tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

“Just in time,” said General Danny Ganz as he walked alongside Zvi Hirsch inside the large hangar.

“A miracle,” Hirsch agreed.

Nearby, a team of airmen wheeled one of the bunker busters across the polished concrete floor.

Positioning it beneath the plane’s bay, they jacked up the gurney and fastened the projectile to the internal bomb rack. Hirsch and Ganz watched as the team attached a second bomb, and then a third. Ganz sighed inwardly at the sight. He was tired of the fighting. Tired of the constant vigilance. He wondered if Israel would ever have the luxury of peace.

“The first wave will concentrate on the newly discovered enrichment facility at Chalus,” he said.

“After that, we’ll go after their missile launchers and warhead fabrication plants. Some Sayeret men are going in tonight to paint the targets in advance of our birds. We’ll helo them in from our boats in the Gulf.”

“Tonight?” asked Zvi Hirsch, more than a little confused. “Isn’t that a bit rash? Remember what the president said: We can’t go off half-cocked. We need a reason.”

Ganz crossed his arms. “I received a phone call a few minutes ago from a friend in the Pentagon.

A fellow pilot, actually.”

“Who?”

“Major General John Austen.”

“The evangelist?”

“I prefer to think of him as a friend of Israel.” Ganz leaned closer to make sure that no one overheard their conversation. “He has intelligence pointing to an attack against our interests within the next twelve hours.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in Europe,” said Ganz. He stared into Hirsch’s bulging eyes.

“I don’t think we have long to wait.”

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“How will we find him?” Jonathan asked.

“Look in the backseat and get my laptop,” said Emma.

Jonathan found the computer and turned it on. “Same password?”

“Same one. You know that you scared the hell out of everyone by cracking that code. They’re going to have to redesign the entire Intelink system because of you.”

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.”

They were driving beside the Lake of Zurich. It was six o’clock. Lights sparkled along the hillside like a fairy-tale landscape. During the ride down the mountain, she’d finally opened up and began to talk. If she wouldn’t tell him about everything she’d done in the past, she was more forthcoming about how she’d found him and about John Austen’s plan to shoot down the plane.

It was a first step in repairing the split between them.

Emma instructed him how to open the software program. The laptop’s screen filled with a detailed map of Switzerland. She told him to enter the letters “VD.”

A flashing red dot appeared near the outskirts of Zurich. The map zoomed in until it reached street level.

“What is it?” he asked.

“LoJack on steroids,” said Emma. “I put a tracker on von Daniken’s car three days ago. I needed to keep tabs on him. The signal from his car is sent to a satellite and bounced right back down to us.”

“You’ve been busy.”

Emma smiled cryptically. “Where is he?”

“Close.”

“Glattbrugg?”

Jonathan studied the map. “How did you know?”

“Shit.” Emma punched the accelerator.

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“Zurich Air Traffic, this is El Al 8851 heavy commencing initial approach.”

“Roger El Al 8851. You are cleared for approach. Proceed to vector one-seven-zero and descend to altitude ten thousand four hundred. You are number six in the grid.”

“Copy.”

The Pilot listened to the communications between Zurich air control and El Al Flight 8851 with anticipation.

Shutting his eyes, he whispered a last prayer. He asked for His guidance and a steady hand. He prayed for the courage to see the job done. He was not an evil man. Faced with taking more than six hundred lives, he trembled. He knew that Christ had felt the same as he bore the cross upon his shoulders. Their deaths would be as painful to him as the Crucifixion.

“It’s time,” said John Austen.

He walked into the garage. His men had removed the coffins from their storage lockers and rolled the steel containers to the center of the floor.

With the precision of a pit crew, the team assembled the drone. The wheel struts came first, set down and locked onto the fuselage. The long, flexible wing sections were bolted to one another, then attached to the fuselage.

Austen rolled the cradle holding the nacelle and its contents of twenty kilos of Semtex plastic explosive beneath the aircraft and fixed it to the UAV’s belly.

“Fly well,” he said, brushing his fingers against the drone’s steel flesh.

He returned to the living room with its view of the airport. One wall of the living room was given over to his instruments. Monitors for the radar and nose camera. Flat-panel arrays broadcasting speed, altitude, position over ground. In the center of the array was a keyboard with a joystick positioned to either side. He climbed into the seat and spent a moment getting comfortable.

“Engines on,” he called as he flipped on the ignition. A red light blinked five times, before burning steadily. Though he was not inside the drone, he

could feel it shudder as it came to life.

A thread of excitement ran along his spine. He’d waited twenty-eight years for this moment. The date was inscribed in his mind, no different than a plaque at a historic site. April 24, 1980.

Operation Eagle Claw.

He, John Austen, then a major in the United States Air Force, had been chosen to fly the lead Hercules C-130 into the Iranian desert on the first leg of a desperate, overly ambitious plan to rescue fifty-three hostages from the United States embassy in Teheran. Aboard were seventy-four members of the newly created Special Operations detachment trained by Colonel Charlie Beckwith and led by Lieutenant Colonel William “Jerry” Boykin.

The flight into the desert had gone according to plan, the only incident being a period of seven minutes when the plane had passed through a haboob, a blinding dust storm in the Dasht-e-Kariv, the Great Salt Desert, that spanned four hundred miles in the southwestern corner of the country.

The plane negotiated the dust storm well enough, the turboprop engines holding up despite the onslaught of grit and sand. He landed without problem at a preordained spot christened Desert One. Eight Sea Stallion helicopters followed, inbound from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Arabian Sea. The choppers were to ferry the elite soldiers into Teheran, where they would free the diplomats and bring them back to Austen’s aircraft for the return flight across the Persian Gulf to Saudi Arabia.

Disaster soon struck.

One of the helicopters landed disabled, its hydraulics severely damaged by the same dust storm that Austen had himself flown through. Another had turned back in mid-flight, lost and fearing a systems failure. With only six functioning helicopters instead of the eight planned, there would not be enough space to carry all of the rescued hostages out of Teheran. The mission was called off.

As one of the helicopters took off, its rotor wash stirred the fine desert sand into a maelstrom.

Blinded, the pilot lost his bearings and flew into Austen’s C-130, parked fifty meters away. The chopper’s rotor blades sliced through the Hercules

main stabilizer. Unbalanced, the helicopter toppled over the aircraft, gushing fuel and engulfing the plane beneath it in a fierce inferno.

Austen remembered the unexpected jolt to his plane, the burst of anger and confusion— What the hell’s the problem now? he’d wondered—the thoughts seared by a blinding flash and cauterized by a wave of intense heat that in the blink of an eye had swallowed him entirely. Strapped into his seat, the flames licking at his flesh, he repeated the words, “I’m dead, I’m dead.”

But he wasn’t dead. Unstrapping himself from his seat, he clawed his way out of the inferno. He walked out of the wreckage, his flight suit, his hair, his entire being engulfed in flame. An apparition from hell.

Several troopers knocked him to the ground and rolled him in the hard desert sand, extinguishing the fire.

He woke up inside a helicopter taking him to the USS Enterprise. A navy corpsman was hunched over him. Austen reached up and grasped the cross dangling from the corpsman’s neck.

A jolt of salvation ran from his hand up his arm and through his body.

Light surrounded him. Not flame, this time, but a healing light. In that moment, Austen saw Him. He saw the Lord, his Savior. He listened to His words and he promised to obey them. He knew that he would live. He had been given a mission to fulfill.

He, John Austen, who had not set foot inside a church since his confirmation at the age of thirteen, a user of alcohol, a womanizer who trampled on the sacred vows of marriage, a gambler who took the Lord’s name in vain, a heathen in all senses of the word, had been chosen to usher in the Second Coming of his almighty Lord, Jesus Christ.

That was twenty-eight years ago.

Austen ran through his preflight check. Ailerons. Flaps. Oil. Antifreeze.

The nose camera came to life. He was presented with a view of the street outside his home. A series of lights had been set down on either side of the runway to act as boundary markers.

He pressed the throttle and the drone edged forward.

The Mahdi I was ready to fly.

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Inside the command center, von Daniken put the binoculars to his eyes and studied the residence from behind the protection of lace curtains. The home purchased by the Excelsior Trust was located at Holzwegstrasse 33. It was a sturdy two-story residence designed without the least imagination. An ivory stucco box with a gray slate roof. A garden surrounded the property.

A balcony extended from one of the bedrooms on the second floor. But what interested von Daniken most was the road passing in front of it.

Cleared of snow, it ran straight and level for five hundred meters. To his eye, it made the perfect runway.

He moved his binoculars to the left. A stand-alone shed occupied a corner of the property. It didn’t appear large enough to house the drone, but then again, Brigadier General Chabert had told them that the drone could be assembled quickly. Otherwise, the house appeared quiet, giving no clue to any activity within.

The airport security fence began hardly ten meters away. In one direction, it climbed a mild rise then turned north and ran in a straight line for three kilometers bordering a lush evergreen forest.

In the other direction, it cut through a broad meadow buried in snow.

Farther on, the meadow yielded to a vast apron of concrete lit by tall, blinding lights. The southernmost edge of Zurich Airport.

Somewhere a plane was taking off. The noise grew in volume as the aircraft approached. Within seconds, the roar of the engines had drowned out every other sound.

He lowered the binoculars and returned to the dining room. “They chose well. No neighbors. A good view of the airport. Unobstructed line of sight.”

“And not just of the airport,” added a short, stocky man with curly black hair and a gambler’s pencil-thin mustache. His name was Michael Berger.

He was captain of the Zurich police department’s special assault team. It would be Berger who would be first in the door to storm the house.

“Whoever’s inside will be able to see us coming for one hundred meters.

How many do you reckon there are?”

“We don’t know for certain, but we’re estimating that there are at least five. There may be more.”

“Armed?”

“Count on it. They’re professionals. They took possession of twenty kilos of Semtex-H plastic explosives a few weeks ago that’re almost certainly in the drone.”

Berger nodded grimly, his eyes calculating his odds of success and survival. “We’ll go in from the air. Two choppers. Rope down our team.

We’ll time it to coincide with the takeoff of a passenger jet. The helicopters are equipped with engine baffles that permit them to fly in near total silence. We’ll send a second team up the main road and hit the house from the front. Your friends won’t hear a peep until we break down the doors.

The entire operation should take less than sixty seconds.”

Von Daniken made a show of studying the drawings. “How many times have you done this?”

Berger squinted his eyes. “Never. But we do a very good job in practice.”

Von Daniken could only nod.

“We’ll be ready in forty minutes,” said Berger. “Let’s say seven-twenty.”

The men synchronized their watches.

Von Daniken strode to the front window where Myer had taken up position with the binoculars.

“Has anyone in the neighborhood seen or heard anything?”

“Apparently, there’s been a lot of activity in the place the last few days.

Men coming and going. Cars zooming up and down the street, parking in front of the house.”

“Any sign of the van?”

“Everything except the van.”

Captain Berger signaled from the back door that it was time to move out.

Von Daniken joined him and they jogged to a waiting van and pulled the door closed behind them.

It was a two-minute drive to the local firehouse where Berger’s men were staging. Two Aérospatiale Écureuil helicopters sat on a soccer field adjoining it, their rotors turning slowly.

Inside the firehouse, the tension was palpable as the policemen pulled on midnight blue jumpsuits and Kevlar body armor, followed by nylon harnesses to hold their equipment: radio, grenades, ammunition. This was not practice.

There were twenty-five assault troops in all. It was not as young a group as von Daniken might have hoped for, and he observed more than one officer struggling to secure his vest over a sizable paunch. The standard armament was a compact submachine gun, the Heckler & Koch MP-5. Two men hefted large, ungainly rifles called Wingmasters, used to blow doors off their hinges.

Von Daniken’s two-way radio crackled. It was Myer. “Lights just went on inside the house.”

“Lights on in the house,” boomed Berger to his team.

The room reeked of sweat and anxiety.

“Any conversation?” asked von Daniken.

One of the tech teams had trained a laser microphone at the target’s windows. The device was able to read vibrations in the glass caused by persons speaking inside the home and translate them back into something approximating the original sound.

“Television’s on,” responded Myer. “Let’s hope they keep the volume nice and loud.”

Berger divided his men into two squads, eight men each, with eight in reserve. “I need an official green light.”

“You’ve got it.” Von Daniken extended his hand and wished him good luck.

Berger turned and went back to his men. “We go in five minutes,” he called out.

Von Daniken set off to the command post along a path that skirted the forest. He looked into the sky. It was a beautiful night, a velvet curtain

punched through with stars, a crescent moon hanging low in the sky. The time was 7:16. Night had fallen. Behind him, he heard Berger ordering his men into the helicopters. He dug his hands into his pockets and quickened his pace.

“Von Daniken.”

He halted, then turned in a circle, trying to locate the speaker. But nobody was there.

A tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from the shadows.

“My name is Jonathan Ransom. I believe you’re looking for me.”

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Jonathan approached the policeman, holding his hands away from his body to show that he was unarmed, just as Emma had coached him to do.

“You need to stop your men,” he said. “The people you’re looking for are not in that house.”

“They’re not?” said von Daniken warily.

“No. And neither is the drone.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want to stop them, too. You’ve made a mistake. It’s not me you’ve been looking for.”

“Who is it, then?”

“It’s me,” said Emma, stepping from an arc of shadow behind the policeman. “Mr. Blitz and Mr. Lammers were my colleagues, not Jonathan’s.”

“I’m not certain I understand, Miss…”

“Mrs. Ransom,” she said.

Von Daniken considered this. His eyes jumped back and forth between them, and for a moment, it appeared that he’d caught their sense of desperation. “You’re Emma Ransom,” he said, pointing a finger at her as if unconvinced. “The woman who died in a climbing accident last Monday?”

“There was no accident.”

“Apparently not.”

Emma met his eye. The unspoken shorthand of one professional to another passed between them.

She allowed him a moment to figure things out, then said, “Jonathan is not involved in this plot in any way. The policemen he killed were acting on our orders. They attacked my husband in order to take possession of certain items that belonged to me. Jonathan responded in self-defense.

I can’t elaborate any further except to say again that I’m the person you were looking for. Not my husband. You need to listen to me. You’re

targeting the wrong house. You’re mounting an assault on the decoy.”

“The decoy?” von Daniken said skeptically.

“Yes.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I know where the real house is.”

“We have to hurry,” said Jonathan. “Call them off.”

Von Daniken had the stolid, immovable air of an exhausted fighter marshaling his energies for one last fight. His lips moved, and Jonathan guessed that he was sorting between the dozens of questions plaguing him.

They were, Jonathan knew, the same questions that had beleaguered him.

“Where’s the drone?” von Daniken asked.

“It’s being kept at a house on top of the hill. Lenkstrasse 4.” Emma pointed to the foothills that rose five kilometers behind them.

“And it’s set for tonight?”

“The El Al flight due in from Tel Aviv,” she said.

On a far runway, an aircraft was preparing to take off. The shrill whistle of the powerful engines pierced the sky. Then, from somewhere closer, came a different noise, a lower frequency. Their faces lifted to the sky as two dull gray shapes skidded low overhead.

“Stop them,” said Emma.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Because I’m here.”

Von Daniken pulled his walkie-talkie from his jacket and brought it to his mouth. Before he could utter a word, the night erupted in a blur of blinding explosions, shattering glass, and staccato machine-gun fire. A flare burst to life and burned magnificently. Illuminated in its glare were the silhouettes of men rushing into the rear of the house.

Von Daniken began to run down the path. Jonathan and Emma followed close behind. They reached the command post and went in through the back

door. A dozen men stood congregated in the living room, staring out the front window as the police band radio blared crazily.

“Den. Clear.”

“Kitchen. Clear.”

“Bedroom. Clear.”

The voices spoke in controlled telegraphese. And then another burst of machine-gun fire.

“Man down!”

The control was gone. Voices stepped over each other in a mad stampede.

“Who is it?”

“A bad guy.”

“Hold it…what the hell?”

“He’s tied up.”

“But he had a gun.”

“Get the boss in here. Now!”

Von Daniken glared at Emma, but she showed him nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the radio.

The melee stopped as quickly as it had begun. They stood enveloped in silence, waiting for further word. A minute passed. On the street, a dog began to bark.

Suddenly, Berger’s voice came on the radio. “Marcus, get in here.”

Von Daniken pointed at Emma and Jonathan. “Stay here.”

He walked purposefully down the center of the road. He wanted to run, but he was a division head of the Federal Police and he knew that doing so would appear unprofessional. Procedure was all that remained for him to cling to.

He took the stairs leading to the front door two at a time, ducking past troopers making their way out. Cordite fouled the air, burning his eyes. He

went inside. All power to the home had been cut prior to the assault. The hallways were dark and choked with smoke. Von Daniken turned on his flashlight. Berger appeared out of a side room, his face blackened. “They knew we were coming,” he said, leading the way into the living room. “It was a setup.”

“What was?”

“Take a look.”

Von Daniken cast his flashlight’s beam onto the mass heaped in the center of the floor. Toppled onto his side was a man tied to a low-backed chair. A length of duct tape covered his mouth.

More tape strapped a pistol to his hand. Blood from his chest formed a pool that was still advancing over the wooden floor. In death, his eyes were wide.

“We’re trained to fire if we see a gun,” said Berger.

Von Daniken stepped closer, feeling his body go numb, his mind rejecting what his eyes were telling him.

The dead man was Philip Palumbo.

“What else do you know about the drone?” asked von Daniken when he returned to the command post.

“There will be a team of no less than six,” said Emma. “Four to assemble the drone and keep watch. One to act as flight controller, and the other to fly the plane. They’ll be heavily armed.”

Von Daniken strode to the window and looked at the hilltop. He knew the area, a wooded hillside holding the ruins of the ancient walls that had once surrounded the citadel of Zurich. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, a plane took off from the airport. It rose into the sky and banked hard to the right, passing directly over the spot.

He looked down the road. Berger’s men were filing out of the house.

There was no time to have them reassemble.

“Get the car,” he ordered Hardenberg. He turned to Myer. “Do you have the flight schedule I asked for?”

Myer produced a set of papers from his jacket. Von Daniken studied the list of arrivals and departures. Arriving at 8:05. El Al Flight 8851 from Tel Aviv. He checked his watch. It was seven-thirty. He looked at Emma.

“What else can you tell me?”

“There are two routes to the house,” she said. “One approaches along the road that will serve as a runway. The other comes from the rear. I suggest we split into two teams. I’ll go in the front.”

Von Daniken looked at this arrogant, self-assured woman issuing him orders in his own country.

Gall rose hot in the back of his throat. It was a younger man’s gall and was inappropriate for a chief inspector. “Very well. Do you need a weapon?”

Emma tilted her head toward Jonathan. “Just for him.” She waited until von Daniken had given her husband a pistol and two clips of ammunition, then continued. “There will be men posted around the house. Get as close as you can, then hit them with the lights and the siren. That should spook them. After the attack on the decoy, they won’t be expecting us.”

“The man in charge of this? Is his name Austen?”

Emma didn’t answer.

“Can you speak with him?” von Daniken continued. “Will he listen to you if you tell him that we have his compound surrounded?”

“No,” said Emma. “He only listens to one voice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that he won’t stop. Not now.”

Von Daniken radioed the SWAT captain with instructions to bring his men to Lenkstrasse by the rear route as quickly as possible and to expect gunfire.

Just then, Hardenberg pulled up in a white Audi police cruiser. Von Daniken opened the door.

“Do you have a car?” he asked Emma Ransom.

“It’s up the road in back,” she answered.

“Good luck, then.”

Von Daniken climbed into the rear of the Audi. Kurt Myer, hefting a Heckler & Koch submachine gun, sat in the passenger seat. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t fired one of these in a while,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

“How long?” asked von Daniken.

“Not ever.”

“Give it to me.”

Myer handed von Daniken the machine gun and he chambered a round and set it to full automatic. “Aim and pull the trigger. You’re bound to hit something. Just make sure it isn’t one of us.”

Myer grabbed the machine gun and set it on his lap.

“Pull up Lenkstrasse on your navigation unit,” von Daniken said as the car accelerated.

Hardenberg input the address. A map appeared on the screen. Lenkstrasse was a ruler-straight stretch of road bordering the city park. The home in question sat at its northern end, at the point where it ran around the far side of the park. “Go the back way,” said von Daniken.

The car negotiated the streets of Glattbrugg, crossing under the freeway before commencing a steep, curving climb up the hillside. Von Daniken called the airport. It took four minutes until he was connected to the tower.

He identified himself. “What’s the status of El Al 8851?”

“Coming in twenty minutes early,” responded the flight controller.

“Posted for a seven forty-five arrival.”

Von Daniken eyed the onboard clock: 7:36. “Contact the pilot and tell him to abort the landing.

We have a verified threat against the aircraft.”

“He’s sixty kilometers out on initial approach. He hasn’t reported any problems. Are you sure?”

“We have every reason to believe there will be a ground-based attack directed against El Al Flight 8851.”

“But I haven’t had any notification from the head office…”

“Do it,” said von Daniken in a quiet voice that brooked no defiance.

“Yes, sir.”

Von Daniken hung up. Sixty kilometers. If the smaller drone he’d seen in Lammers’s office had a range of fifty kilometers, one this size could go ten times as far. If they didn’t succeed in stopping the unmanned aerial vehicle before it took off, it would be too late.

“There’s a roadblock ahead,” said Hardenberg.

“Go around it. You’ve got room on the shoulder.”

“Should I hit the siren?”

“Wait till we’re closer.”

Hardenberg eased the Audi off the road and onto the snow and hardscrabble alongside it. The car rocked gently. “Easy, easy.”

“No problem,” said Myer as the Audi regained the pavement. “I told—”

The windshield exploded, showering the cabin with glass. Bullets raked the car. A tire blew, and the Audi sagged to one side. The radiator exploded in a hiss of steam.

“Get down!” shouted von Daniken. A moment later, he was struck by something warm and wet.

He wiped his face, and his hands came away coated with gore. Kurt Myer lay twisted between the seats, his face a pulp of bone and gristle.

Hardenberg threw open the door and commando-crawled to the rear of the vehicle. Von Daniken eased open the door, counted to three, then scrambled into the forest. He threw himself to the ground, his face buried in the snow.

The gunfire died down, an occasional shot flicking ice into the air.

“Call Captain Berger,” he yelled to Hardenberg.

“My phone’s in the car.”

Von Daniken felt in his pockets. He’d dropped his own phone somewhere during his unceremonious exit. He drew his service pistol and fumbled with it until he’d managed to chamber a round and make sure that the safety was off. He swore under his breath. His watch read 7:42. He picked up a new noise coming from the top of the hill. It was the drone’s jet engine coming to life.

He looked around him. The house was thirty meters directly uphill from him. It was a modern building, cantilevered over the hillside, supported by great steel pylons. The windows were dark, lending it an abandoned feel.

He knew better.

He raised his head for a clearer view. A bullet struck a tree ten centimeters away. He dug his cheek into the snow. Night vision goggles. Of course. How else could they see him in this damned dark?

“Run down the hill,” he said to Hardenberg. “You’ve got to warn the others.”

Hardenberg sat with his back pressed to the rear bumper, his face bluer than ice. “Okay,” he said, but he didn’t budge.

“Stay behind the car and they won’t be able to hit you,” von Daniken went on.

Hardenberg stirred. He swallowed and his shoulders gave a giant shrug.

He set off, crawling on all fours backwards down the road. Von Daniken watched him retreat. Five steps. Ten. Stay down, he urged silently.

Hardenberg crawled a few more meters, then raised his head tentatively.

“Low,” von Daniken whispered, patting the air, signaling for him to keep down.

Hardenberg misinterpreted the motion and began to stand.

“No,” shouted von Daniken at the top of his lungs. “Get down!”

Hardenberg nodded hesitantly and continued to walk down the hill. A bullet struck him in the head and he collapsed onto the cement.

“Klaus!”

Von Daniken rolled onto his back, sick with himself.

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Captain Eli Zuckerman adjusted the trim on his ailerons and eased back the throttle as a prelude to disengaging the autopilot. Flying a passenger jet had become so automated that once a plane’s onboard computers were programmed with a particular flight’s data—destination, cruising altitude, maximum allowable ground speed—the aircraft could literally fly itself.

The only time Zuckerman felt himself in full control of the aircraft was during takeoff and landing, a total of thirty minutes per flight. The rest of the time, he was basically a technician monitoring all the instruments and making sure that his first officer kept up with ground communication. It wasn’t exactly the job he’d dreamed of when he’d left the air force so many years ago as a red-hot fighter jock with twenty-one kills during three wars.

Zuckerman hit the disengage button. The plane shuddered and dipped as he took manual control.

Easing the yoke left, the A380 began a gentle turn to the south. It was a clear night, ideal flying weather. He could see the city’s lights in the distance, and farther off behind it, a great black emptiness that was the Alps. He trimmed the flaps and the aircraft began its slow descent to Zurich Flughafen.

“Sixteen minutes to touchdown,” said his copilot.

Zuckerman stifled a yawn. As expected, it had been an uneventful flight.

He checked his watch—fifteen minutes to landing—then glanced at the first officer. “So, Benny,” he said. “What are you thinking for dinner? Wiener schnitzel or fondue?”

“El Al 8851 heavy, this is Zurich Air Traffic. We have an emergency.

Code 33. Divert to Basel-Mulhouse, vector two-seven-niner. Climb to thirty thousand feet. You are advised to use all possible haste.”

Code 33. A ground-to-air attack.

“Roger. Code thirty-three. El Al 8851 heavy proceeding on vector two-seven-niner. Climbing to thirty thousand feet. Do you have radar contact of that bogey?”

“Negative, El Al 8851. No radar contact as yet.”

“Thank you, Zurich.”

Eli Zuckerman tightened his shoulder harness and shared a worried look with his first officer.

Taking the yoke firmly in his hand, he banked the aircraft hard to port and pushed the throttle forward. The aircraft surged ahead.

It was time to see what this baby could do.

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“Mahdi I, all systems green. You are cleared for takeoff. May God be with you.”

Major General John Austen ran up the engine. The RPMs of the Williams turbofan jet rose smoothly. He released the brake and the drone began to roll down the runway.

Over the headset, he heard the crackle of fireworks. On the screen to his left, he saw sparks flying. No, not sparks. These were muzzle blasts from his men’s weapons. A voice came over his headset. “Police.”

“Keep them away.”

As Austen powered the throttle and the drone began to roll down the runway, he felt a surge of pride and accomplishment. He had done it. He had fulfilled the mission entrusted to him. Israel, in rightful possession of the Holy Land, was gearing up for attack. Iran itself was properly armed.

The Forces of Gog and Magog were set to do battle on the plains of Armageddon.

In brilliant detail, he envisioned how the conflict would unfold, all according to God’s plan.

Israel’s bombing offensive would fail.

Iran would retaliate with the Kh-55 cruise missiles in its arsenal, missiles whose sale he had personally brokered. The nuclear weapons armed with ten-kiloton warheads would fall upon Tel Aviv, but not upon Jerusalem itself. The Lord, in His power, would protect His holiest of cities.

The Americans would, in turn, fall upon Iran. The Fundamentalist Islamic Republic would cease to exist.

All was in place for the Lord’s return. And the Rapture that would follow.

Austen blocked out the noise of the escalating gunfight, focusing his eyes, his concentration on the screen in front of him. The trees passed by with increasing rapidity. The runway lights were flashes. The speedometer read one hundred knots…one hundred ten…he eased the joystick back.

The nose began to rise…

It was then that he saw it. A pair of headlights barreling toward the drone. A car where no car should be.

He grasped the joystick in his fist and pulled it back while punching the throttle.

“Fly!”

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“Did you hear that?” Jonathan asked, alarmed.

Emma glanced in his direction. “What?”

He rolled down the window and craned his neck out of the car. “I’m not sure, but…” A loud pop cracked the air, followed by another. The sounds were tinny, toyish, like the cap guns he used to play with as a kid.

“Gunshots. Can you hear them?”

Emma pulled the car to the side of the road halfway up the hill. A medieval forest cloaked the slope. Remnants of an ancient wall were visible close to the road, clawed basalt blocks splashed with lichen. Deep amongst the trees, the shots burst like fireflies.

“Von Daniken. That will keep them occupied.” She shifted in her seat and leveled her gaze at him. “Are you certain you’re prepared to do this?”

Jonathan nodded. He’d made the decision days ago.

“Switch seats,” said Emma. “You drive. Unless, that is, you know how to shoot a gun.”

Jonathan paused halfway out the door. “I was going to say you hate guns.”

“I do.”

The two crossed round the front of the car, their shoulders brushing.

Jonathan slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted it for his height. Emma closed the door and told him to get going. He noticed that she no longer looked so much the professional. Her face had lost its confident veneer and her breath was coming fast and hard. She was every bit as scared as he was.

He put the car into gear and accelerated up the slope. They’d hardly covered ten meters when their headlights illuminated a riot barrier spanning the road.

“Whatever you do,” said Emma. “Don’t stop.”

The car gained speed, hurtling toward the barrier.

“Cut the lights,” she said.

Jonathan doused the headlights. Darkness cloaked the road. He pushed his face closer to the windscreen. The top of the barrier was barely visible, a white line cutting through the heart of darkness. He floored it. The car smashed the barrier, spraying shards of wood everywhere. The road flattened out. Lanterns placed at even intervals on either side of it lit his path.

The sound of gunfire picked up, frighteningly close. A salvo of bullets struck the car like hail pounding a tin shack. A bullet shattered the windscreen, leaving a large hole and a sagging web of glass. Wind rushed in. He caught sight of several figures kneeling in the snow, their silhouettes flickering in the wake of their weapons’ muzzle blasts.

“Keep going!” Emma leaned out the window, firing at the shadows.

Then he saw it. A silver beast with tremendous wings and a large pod hanging from its belly.

“Emma!”

The drone was coming at them, advancing from the far end of the road.

“Faster,” she said. “Ram it.”

“But…” He looked at Emma. It was suicide.

“Do it!”

Jonathan downshifted into third gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The engine screamed as the burst of torque hurled the car ahead. The drone showed no sign of taking off. It came at them relentlessly, a malevolent metallic insect. Emma was firing at the aircraft. He had no idea if her bullets were going home. His eyes focused on the teardrop-shaped pod attached to the fuselage. It was the bomb. Twenty kilos of Semtex, she’d told him. The equivalent of a thousand pounds of TNT. A bomb large enough to obliterate an airliner.

“Faster,” said Emma, ducking her head into the cabin.

The drone’s nose lifted off the ground, then touched back down. Jonathan braced himself for impact, squinting in anticipation of the collision, the exquisite burst of light…

The drone began to take off. The nose rose into the air. The front wheels left the asphalt. It was no good. They were going to collide with it. Every instinct told him to brake. He grasped the wheel harder and pressed his foot into the floorboard.

He screamed.

A gleam of silver whisked over their heads.

It was gone. The drone was airborne.

A second later, one of the car’s front tires exploded. The car bounded to the left, abandoning the paved road. Jonathan spun the wheel in the opposite direction, but it did no good. The snow was too deep. The car plowed ahead, speed bleeding rapidly. It hit an underlying patch of ice, and slid sideways, coming to a halt in a hollow between several oaks some twenty meters from the house.

Emma slapped the pistol into his right hand. “The man you want is inside the house. Find the controls and he’ll be there. Don’t bother talking to him.

He won’t stop until he’s accomplished what he set out to do. You have eight bullets.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay here,” she said. “When I start firing, run into the forest and circle the house. You can reach the terrace by climbing on pylons built into the hillside. From there, you’ll have to find a way in.”

It was then that he saw that she’d been shot. Her shoulder drooped strangely and blood was spreading across her jacket. “You’re hurt.”

“Go,” she said, her eyes deflecting his concern. “Before they spot you.”

Jonathan hesitated for a split second, then took off. Behind him, Emma stood and began firing at the house.

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