Conviction

8

Fisher bolted awake to screaming and the pounding of feet, but his mind immediately clicked over, translating the sounds from potential threat to reality: children giggling as they ran down the hall outside his room. Youth hostel… Luxembourg city. He checked his watch. He’d been asleep for four hours. It took a few more moments to piece together the events of the night before.

Knowing the oak was sturdy enough to take his weight, he had been less worried about plunging to the ground after leaping off the foundry’s roof than he was about catching a bullet in the back. Whether the shooter, whoever she was, had been too startled to fire or had simply decided her chances of a hit were nil, Fisher didn’t know, but his descent through the boughs had prevented any further attempts. So far Blondie and Kimberly had exercised good fire discipline; it seemed unlikely they’d hose down the oak.

Mostly bouncing from limb to limb but occasionally managing to swing himself closer to the trunk, Fisher crashed through the tree, picking up plenty of bruises and scratches but no serious injuries. He managed to arrest his fall ten feet from the ground. Hanging from the lowermost limb, he waited for his body to stop swinging, then dropped the remaining distance.

He raced across the side street behind the foundry, rue Barbourg, then zigzagged his way through alleys while keeping the lights of the soccer stadium in view. Three minutes after dropping from the tree, he was standing at a ticket booth outside the main entrance, and a minute after that he was in the stadium itself, along with five thousand cheering fans who’d come to see the match starring the home team, the Jeunesse Esch. He took a few moments to consult a Plexiglas board showing the stadium’s layout, then found a bathroom and ducked into a stall, where he changed clothes. A quick stop at a souvenir shop and he had a Windbreaker and baseball cap bearing the team’s distinctive black and yellow logo. Finally, he made his way around the field to the east-side exit, then across the frontage road and down another embankment into some trees.

The CFL train station was now out of the question; upon realizing they’d lost him at the foundry, it would be the first place they’d stake out. The same with Esch-sur-Alzette. They would assume he’d look for the next easiest mode of escape, namely a bus or rental car; with the town’s population less than twenty-seven thousand, Hansen and his team would have little trouble scouring stations and agencies. Fisher needed distance, as much and as quickly as he could manage.

Fisher got out his iPhone and called up Google Earth. To the east were three towns within three miles: Rumelange, Kayl, and Tétange. Fisher chose the latter. It had a train station and the intervening terrain was mostly farm fields and forest. After downing an energy bar with a few gulps of water, he started running.

It took him forty minutes to reach Tétange’s western outskirts. From there it was a quarter mile stroll to the station. His luck was holding. He bought a ticket on the night’s last train heading north and, after a brief stop in Bettembourg, he was on his way toward the city of Luxembourg — and a youth hostel full of, predictably, young tourists and their even younger children. On the plus side, Luxembourgian hostels were rarely fully occupied, so he had a communal room to himself and, most important, no credit card was required.

He made his bed, then opened his rucksack and removed its contents and went about checking supplies. The SC he’d taken off Ames was gone, disassembled and tossed into a river during his jog to Tétange the night before. The rest of his delicate gear seemed undamaged, tucked safely away in Aloksaks. He would need to restock his staples, but a few quick stops to military surplus, hardware, and hobby shops would do the trick. Of course, with any luck by dawn tomorrow he’d have all the gear he needed for the foreseeable future.

He repacked everything but his clothes and stuffed all of those into a garbage bag, except for a pair of dark khaki trousers, a long-sleeved navy rugby shirt, and a pair of brown loafers. Finally, he shaved, showered, re-dressed, and left, tossing the garbage bag into the Dumpster behind the hostel. It was almost nine, so he had an hour to kill.

In contrast to most of the rest of the city, the hostel itself was contemporary in design, with a stark white-stucco and glass facade; it lay situated between the Pfaffenthal Viaduct, an elevated, arched train overpass, and a park of labyrinthine and concentric hedgerows.

The city of Luxembourg started in the fourth century as nothing more than a Roman watchtower at the intersection of two roads and remained that way for another six hundred years before the construction of the Lucilinburhuc, or Little Fortress. Over the next three centuries Lucilinburhuc morphed into Luxembourg. For Fisher, who had spent a good portion of the last eighteen months traveling Europe, Luxembourg epitomized Old World charm, with rolling cobblestone streets, some barely wide enough to accommodate two cars; winding rivers and moats; and steeply sloped and spired rooflines.

Fisher got to the meeting place, a shop-lined alleyway on rue de l’Eau, a few blocks from the Grand Ducal Palace, an hour early, then found a small restaurant with a terrace overlooking a park and ordered breakfast. He hadn’t eaten a real meal in two days, so he asked for uitsmijter—bread, Gouda cheese, Ardennes ham, and fried eggs — along with quetsche tort, all followed up by two cups of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee.

He felt better, both physically and mentally. He had some breathing room, some time to think and plan before Hansen and his team would reappear. Whether they would be able to track him here on their own, he didn’t know, but he was doubtful: He’d paid for his CFL ticket using cash and an Emmanuel credit card; he’d changed out of his black and yellow Jeunesse Esch- fan outfit before reaching Bettembourg, and both the train and the station at Luxembourg had been all but deserted.

Fisher sipped at his third cup of Yirgacheffe, then checked his watch.

Almost time.

Ten minutes later a slight man with blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses came beetling through the park toward the restaurant. Of course, “beetling” wasn’t exactly right, was it? Fisher thought. Vesa Hytönen’s movements were more birdlike. Somehow Hytönen managed to exude both furtiveness and inconspicuousness at the same time. To passersby he was, Fisher suspected, just another funny little man — a cloistered scientist or a persnickety librarian, someone you found momentarily interesting but almost immediately forgot. If Vesa ever decided to graduate from information cutout to full-fledged agent or intelligence operative, the espionage world might never be the same.

Of Finnish and Belgian descent, Vesa was, in fact, a scientist — a biochemist — but he also held postdoctorate degrees in European literature and African history and had begun tinkering in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, both of which were, according to Vesa, merely hobbies to help pass the time.

When he reached the edge of the park, Vesa gave no sign that he’d seen Fisher but rather turned left down the block, bird-walked his way around a couple of pedestrians, then into a bookshop. He emerged carrying a newspaper in his right hand and headed down the block away from Fisher. Vesa dropped the newspaper. When he retrieved it, he folded it lengthwise and stuffed it into his outside jacket pocket with the top headline showing. Fisher got up and followed. After twenty minutes of dry-cleaning, Fisher decided neither of them was being watched. He gave Vesa the all clear signal — a simple scratch of the ear while they waited, with some other pedestrians, at a crosswalk — then broke off. They met back at the City Central Park and sat down on a bench near a fountain.

“Good to see you again, Vesa,” Fisher said.

Hytönen darted his eyes to meet Fisher’s for a moment, then bobbed his head. “And you, and you.”

“What do you have for me?”

“I’ve been told that the man you’re interested in will in fact be at his Vianden home for the next three days.”

The man in question was a man named Yannick Ernsdorff. An Austrian in his mid-fifties, Ernsdorff had until ten years earlier worked as a legitimate, if ruthless, investment banker in Vienna. Why and exactly how Ernsdorff had chosen the profession that had occupied him in recent years was anyone’s guess, but he had become the go-to financial manager to the underworld’s überwealthy. What Einstein and Planck were to physics, Ernsdorff was to the sheltering and laundering of money. To even get the Austrian on the phone, prospective clients had to have a minimum net worth of one hundred million dollars.

As of late, however, Yannick Ernsdorff had expanded his menu of services to include the role of banker for a very special auction, the details of which were what Fisher required before he could make his next move. With luck, Ernsdorff’s secrets would be the shove Fisher needed to set the dominoes falling.

“Security contingent?” he now asked Hytönen.

“I should have satellite imagery by this afternoon.”

“Blueprints?”

“The same. I did, however, come across an item in the news that I thought would interest you.” Hytönen handed Fisher a newspaper clipping.

Fisher scanned it. Yannick Ernsdorff, it seemed, was either a philanthropist or he’d decided the appearance of philanthropy was a deductible business expense: The previous year he’d spent three million dollars building an Outward Bound-style children’s challenge course on the grounds of his five-hundred-acre waterfront estate outside Vianden. Starting that summer, underprivileged children from across Europe could come to enjoy rock-climbing walls, zip lines, rope bridges, obstacle courses, spelunking treasure hunts, and hide-and-seek among dozens of multilevel tree-house complexes.

“Almost makes me wish I were a kid again,” Fisher replied dryly. “Please tell me this place isn’t named Yannickland.”

“Challenge Discovery Park,” replied Hytönen. “There’s a website. Many pictures and maps.”

How nice of Yannick, Fisher thought. “I need you to pass along a few questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“One, ask about ROE,” Fisher said, referring to the rules of engagement. “Not mine. She’ll know what it means.”

“Very well.”

“Two, our Japanese friend seems to have attracted some attention. I need to know everything she knows. And three, I’ll need all their operational frequencies, both data and voice, and the makes and models of any cell phones they’re carrying.”

Hytönen nodded. He’d written nothing down, having filed the information away in his mental vault. Fisher had seen a number of keystone spook traits in Vesa, but near the top of the list was his astounding memory. Fisher had no doubt that if asked, Vesa could draw an exact map of Ernsdorff’s property from his brief visit to the Challenge Discovery Park website. Likewise, the queries he’d just recited would be passed along, verbatim.

“I will strive to have answers by this afternoon.”

“Thanks. What about the caches?”

“There are three of them within the borders of Luxembourg, and another four in northern France, eastern Belgium, and western Germany—”

“No more borders for a while.” More often than not, border crossings went smoothly, but they were in Fisher’s mind a lot like air travel: Most aircraft accidents happen during takeoffs and landings, and the odds of an incident occurring increased with repetition.

“Of course. The key codes are unchanged, and the equipment is of the penultimate generation.”

“‘Penultimate?’”

“It means—”

“I know what it means. Second to latest. I’ve just never heard anyone actually use the word in a sentence.”

“Thank you. Standard antitampering measures are in place, so if you—”

“Everything goes boom.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Hytönen said with another birdlike head bob. “You’ll want to exercise caution.”

Fisher smiled ruefully. “Story of my life, Vesa.”

They made plans to meet again later that afternoon; then Fisher walked a few blocks to a mom-and-pop car agency and rented a dark green 2001 Range Rover. He used a pair of Emmanuel’s sanitized passports and credit cards; he still had the Doucet batch but would not use any of those unless absolutely necessary. He’d ridden that particular trick pony hard during his Esch-sur-Alzette border crossing, and while Hansen and his team would have no choice but to investigate should he use the IDs or cards again, Fisher doubted they would fall for such a ruse so completely again.

Before leaving the parking lot he got his iPhone, called up the maps application, and punched in an address in Bavigne, a quaint village of 125 souls, sitting along a channel of the Sauer River about sixty kilometers northwest of the city of Luxembourg. He took his time with the drive, exploring and enjoying the Luxembourgian countryside before finally pulling into Bavigne shortly before one. He found a restaurant, the Auberge, and ordered what turned out to be one of the best meals of his life: lobster soup with langoustine tails, Ardennes salad, game terrine on a bed of salad, confit of red plums, and a lemon tartelette for dessert.

One for the list, Fisher decided. As of late he’d started a mental list of potential retirement spots. Bavigne had just jumped into his top ten. Quiet, secluded, and bucolic.

He lingered over coffee for another hour, then paid the bill and drove out of town, following the iPhone’s on-screen directions: first heading northeast, then south again along the Sauer, between farmers’ fields and the tree-lined banks of the river, until he crossed over a covered wooden bridge and found himself in a clearing dominated by a log cabin. He got out, mounted the porch, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked a second time and waited a full minute before circling the cabin and checking windows and satisfying himself that no one was home.

He walked back to the rear and down six steps to a wooden root cellar door. The padlock hanging from the hasp was relatively new, an all-weather Viro marine model; at the turn of Fisher’s key it snapped open smoothly.

The root cellar was dark and cool, the temperature hovering in the mid-sixties. Fisher clicked on his flashlight and entered. Momentarily caught in his beam, a rat skittered across the dirt floor and disappeared. Fisher stopped in the center of the cellar, took a moment to orient himself, then walked to the southeast corner, shoved some empty fruit crates out of the way, and set his flashlight on one of them. He knelt down and began brushing at the dirt with both hands until a four-by-three-foot rectangular outline appeared. He felt along the edges until he found a thumb hole and lifted the hatch, revealing a shallow dug-out. At its center sat a black plastic case the size of a large suitcase. It was in fact a DARPA-modified model 1650 Pelican case complete with an encrypted-keypad lock and an antitampering system that consisted of a C-4-shaped charge designed to destroy the case’s contents.

Fisher lifted the case out of its hole and laid it flat on the ground with the keypad facing him. He pulled out his iPhone, called up the calculator application, then punched in the cabin’s latitude coordinates, subtracted the longitude, and divided the resulting number by the current algorithm, a random four-digit number spit out by the mainframes at Fort Meade every month. Fisher took a deep breath, tapped the code into the keypad, and pressed ENTER. A series of six red lights across the front of the pad began flashing, and then slowly, one by one, began turning green. There was a soft beep followed by a triple mechanical snick.

Fisher flipped open the latches along the perimeter of the Pelican’s lid, then lifted it. He smiled. “Hello, old friends.”

Fisher was back in Luxembourg by five. He and Hytönen met at yet another park, this one was across town. As he sat down, Vesa dropped a tiny object to the ground between them; Fisher glanced at it. A key. He covered it with his foot.

“A storage locker at Findel airport,” Hytönen said.

“All the information you requested.”

“Thanks.”

“I have a special message from our mutual friend. She says there’s a mole.”

“Say that again.”

“There’s a mole. Someone inside the group following you.”

“She’s sure?”

“Reasonably so, I expect, or she wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Good point.”

“How or to whom the information is going, she doesn’t know.”

“But it involves me,” Fisher said.

“Yes. She is working on the problem, but she suggests, and these are her words, ‘Don’t hold your breath.’ ”

Fisher smiled. “That sounds like her.”

“Will you be needing me again?”

“Probably. I’ll keep you posted via the Lycos account. Check the drafts folder every morning. If it’s more urgent, I’ll leave a message for Heinrich.”

“I will. Good luck to you.”

And then Hytönen was gone, walking down the path with his birdlike steps.