Conviction

17

Having been out of contact longer than he’d anticipated, Fisher, upon landing at the Madrid Barajas International Airport, took a taxi downtown to the first touristy landmark that came to mind, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales on Plaza de las Descalzas. The forty-minute drive gave him time to do some passive dry-cleaning. The driver, whom Fisher felt certain had been rejected by a Spanish demolition-derby show, made countersurveillance an easy task as he weaved in and out of traffic, ignored the speed limits, and showed a love for impromptu turns and narrow, one-way streets. By the time they reached Plaza de las Descalzas, Fisher was beyond certain he’d picked up no tails.

The previous night, after sitting on the bank of the inlet for five hours, he had waded out beneath the Koblenzer Strasse bridge, then walked north through farmers’ fields and down riverside hiking trails to Andernach, two miles north of Weißenthurm. By the time he found an appropriately anonymous hotel, the Martinsberg, his clothes were dry and he was presentable enough to arouse no suspicions from the night clerk. Once in the room, he first called the Frankfurt Airport’s Iberia desk and booked a late-morning flight to Madrid; his second call was to a local limousine company to arrange for a pickup. Both of these reservations he made using yet another pair of Emmanuel’s clean passports and credit cards. Unless he was recognized between Andernach and the airport, he would be leaving behind an ice-cold trail.

After a hot shower and a late room-service supper, Fisher spent ten minutes probing his rib cage until satisfied nothing was broken, then took four 200 mg tablets of ibuprofen and went to sleep. He awoke the next morning at eight, found a local address for a DHL office, and took a taxi there, returning thirty minutes later with a box and packing materials. He packed up his non-airport-friendly gear and weapons, sealed the box, and addressed it to the DHL office in Madrid and left it at the hotel’s front desk for pickup.

Now, just before noon Madrid time, he found himself standing before the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales. He paid the driver, waited for the car to squeal around the corner and out of sight, then walked four blocks southeast to an Internet café on Calle de la Montera.

Fisher got signed in, left his passport at the counter as requested, then found an open computer cubicle and sat down. There was a draft message in his Lycos mailbox. It read simply:

This would be another safe house. Fisher memorized the address, deleted the message, and was out the door and in a taxi two minutes later. It wasn’t until the car pulled onto the narrow street that Fisher realized the apartment faced the building housing Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Nice touch, he thought as he got out.

As advertised, beside the door to apartment 3B Fisher found a loose baseboard, and behind it a key that opened the apartment door. Inside there was nothing. Where the German safe house had all the charm of a hotel chain, this studio apartment was completely empty, save for a familiar-looking keypad lock on the bedroom door. He punched in the correct code and pushed through. Inside was, of all things, a red beanbag chair sitting before an LCD television. On the floor next to the chair was a speakerphone. Fisher typed in his pound/asterisk code, and sixty seconds later Grimsdóttir appeared on the monitor.

“You’re alive,” she said simply.

“So it appears. They were tipped off, Grim.”

“What?”

“You heard me. If Hans Hoffman hadn’t grown a conscience, they would’ve been on me when I walked out of the winery.”

“Explain.” Fisher did so, and Grim said, “So Hoffman gets a thirdhand call that trickled down from the top, which means the original call had to come from someone with horsepower.”

“I got the impression it came from outside the BND. One of those ‘step aside and let nature take its course’ orders.”

“Kovac?”

“That was my first thought. What better way to undermine you than to arrange my capture? He makes some calls to ally agencies, cashes in a few favors, gets lucky… ”

“No proof, though,” Grim replied. “No one in the Bundesnachrichtendienst or the German government would cross Kovac.”

“Agreed.” Fisher moved on. “What do Hansen and his team think?”

“About your stunt? They’re skeptical, but the rescue workers haven’t even found the car yet, let alone a body. Truth is, I think they’re all in shock. They all think you did it on purpose; most of them think you thought you’d survive and were wrong.”

Fisher nodded. This was one of the outcomes for which he’d hoped. The other involved the Neuwied police. He asked Grim about it.

“The second Mercedes — with Valentina, Ames, and Noboru — managed to take off before the cops arrived on the bridge. Hansen and Gillespie talked their way out of it. They told the police they saw a dangerous driver and were trying to keep it in sight until the police arrived. Apparently, aside from your BMW, the Hammerstein cops couldn’t identify any of the cars involved in the chase.” Grim asked, “How’d you do it?”

Fisher recounted the incident, from his car’s impact with the water to his arrival in Madrid.

“Why the limousine?”

“The opposite of anonymity is—”

“Ostentatiousness,” Grim finished. “Hiding in plain sight.”

“Something like that. Were they even covering the airports?”

“No, they drove straight back to Cologne Bonn Airport. I pulled them back to Luxembourg and put them in a holding pattern. I assume you’re in Madrid to visit the local ear collector?”

“You assume correctly,” Fisher replied.

Karlheinz van der Putten, a.k.a. Spock, lived in Chinchón, twenty-five miles to the south. Ostensibly, Ames, using Noboru’s contacts in the mercenary world, had produced the lead that had led the team to Vianden. Fisher wanted to know if, in fact, van der Putten was the source of the information. As Grim had said during their previous teleconference, the scenario was plausible, but something about it wasn’t sitting right in Fisher’s belly. What he couldn’t quite figure out was whether the suspicion was born of instinct or of his dislike for Ames.

“How long is van der Putten going to take?” Grim asked.

“If he’s home, I’ll have my answer before morning.”

“Good, because your next stop is right next door — Portugal.”

Third Echelon’s mainframe was still chewing on the bulk of the data Fisher stole from Ernsdorff’s server, but, Grimsdóttir told him, an interesting lead had bubbled to the surface: the name Charles Zahm — a person also known as Chucky Zee. Fisher had plodded through one of Zahm’s novels, Myanmar Nightmare—250 pages of an In Like Flint-style secret agent karate-chopping his way through hordes of turtleneck-wearing villains and sleeping his way through gaggles of impossibly buxom women in beehive hairdos. At last count, Zahm’s series had grown to thirteen books and publishing contracts worth millions, all predicated upon the fact that Charles Zahm had, until seven years earlier, been a member of the Special Air Service, or SAS, Britain’s elite counterterrorism force.

According to Ernsdorff’s private investigating team — most of the members of which were culled from Britain’s Security Service, also known as MI5—Zahm hadn’t restricted his postretirement exploits to paper but had also gone into crime. Along with five of his former SAS mates, Zahm was the leader of what London’s tabloids had dubbed the Little Red Robbers, based on the Mao Tse-tung masks they’d worn during their robberies of two armored cars, four jewelry stores, and four banks. Whether Zahm had ever read or even heard of Chairman Mao’s famous Communist treatise, known in the West as The Little Red Book, was a hotly debated topic in the country’s gossip rags. What wasn’t in doubt, however, was the Little Red Robbers’ willingness to use violence. In all, six innocent bystanders had been beaten nearly to death during the robberies as preemptive warnings to would-be heroes, the police suspected. One woman lost her unborn child in the process.

“I don’t buy it,” Grimsdóttir told Fisher.

“I disagree,” Fisher replied. “The SAS doesn’t induct idiots. Maybe Zahm is just that smart. Write a bunch of critically panned novels that make millions and hide in plain sight as a dim-witted former soldier.”

“While pulling off some of the biggest heists in Britain’s history,” Grim finished.

“He’s got the training. With his money and contacts, it wouldn’t have taken much to learn the ropes. There are plenty of retired thieves who’d gladly pass on their knowledge for a price. How solid does Ernsdorff’s info look?”

“Very. Names, dates, accounts, sexual predilections… In fact, it looks like a blackmail file. But for what purpose?”

“Can’t be money,” Fisher replied. “Ernsdorff has more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes. My guess: He’s leveraging Zahm — using his Little Red Robbers for a job or jobs.”

“That seems out of character given what we know about Ernsdorff. He’s been exclusively a background player”

“We know he plays middleman for bad guys and their money. And we know he’s playing bank for this auction. From that, it’s not that big a leap to other kinds of services.”