Countdown to Midnight

Ten

Nick Flynn edged his way toward the front of the crowded tram car as it swung onto tracks that ran around an elongated oval at the intersection of several major streets. Schottentor, the Scottish Gate, was once a part of Vienna’s massive medieval walls. But those fortifications had all been pulled down in the mid-nineteenth century. They had been replaced by the Ringstrasse, the Ring Road, a wide and beautiful boulevard that encircled the core of the old city — with its ornate palaces, public buildings, museums, and churches.

The tram shuddered to a stop.

Flynn let several of the other passengers get off first before making his move. Instead, he stood aside until people waiting to board were starting to swarm around the door. Schottentor was the terminus for ten separate lines, so trams were constantly arriving and departing. Satisfied that he had enough cover, he stepped out onto the platform and, as politely as possible, pushed right in among the milling crowds. There was no sense giving the motorcycle rider still on his tail an easy shot.

A quick glance over his shoulder showed his pursuer halted indecisively along a narrow curb between the street and the tram tracks. Although a helmet with a tinted face shield hid the man’s expression, Flynn could read frustration and anger in the rigid set of his shoulders. Sucks to be you, amigo, he thought coolly, before turning back and striding on faster toward the other side of the station.

He dodged around a couple of lost-looking British tourists consulting a Vienna transit map and came out on the far edge of the platform. Moments later, a southbound tram glided in along tracks that paralleled the broad Ringstrasse. He nodded in satisfaction. There came his next ride… exactly as planned.

As soon as the flood of debarking passengers ebbed, Flynn made his way onboard and took a window seat. His last glimpse of the motorcyclist who’d been dogging his heels for so long was of the man slamming his fist down repeatedly on his handlebars in exasperation.

Flynn smiled. Along this stretch of the grand boulevard, cars, trucks, and motorcycles were only allowed to travel northbound. There was no way his pursuer could follow him now. “One more down,” he said quietly to himself.

Skoblin watched the new tram pull away down the Ringstrasse in disbelief. He had the sudden, uneasy feeling that he’d just seen his death warrant being signed. “Keep after him,” he radioed the drone operator.

“That’s no problem,” the other man assured him. “My little bird has plenty of battery power left. I’ll keep this guy in sight until you can vector the others back onto him.”

Skoblin grimaced. So far, they’d been tricked at every turn by this man. He’d managed to shake off every ground-based tail with what appeared to be consummate ease.

Sweating now, he followed the tram as it trundled onward around the Ringstrasse. There had to be something more he could do, he thought desperately. But what?

“Dispatch, this is Raven Eye,” he heard the drone operator report suddenly. “The target has left the tram. He’s back on foot again.”

Skoblin gritted his teeth. As he watched, the drone operator toggled his onboard camera, zooming in to give him a closer look. Yes, that was definitely the same self-assured prick he’d identified outside the Israeli embassy. And now here he was strolling confidently across the Ringstrasse between cars stalled in heavy traffic as though he didn’t have a worry in the world. “What the hell is this etot skol’zkiy ublyudok, this slippery bastard, up to now?” he growled softly.

Tracked silently by the tiny drone flying unobtrusively a couple of hundred feet above him, the man headed directly toward a set of arched gateways set in one long wing of the Hofburg Palace. Beyond those arches, Skoblin knew, was a vast inner courtyard, and then, through more gates, the other side of the enormous palace complex. It was a common and scenic shortcut from the Ringstrasse into the very heart of the inner city.

He swore luridly again. Vienna’s medieval core was laced with narrow winding streets, many of them set aside solely for foot traffic. Dozens of shops and stores, coffeehouses, and restaurants were nestled among its historic churches and museums. It was the perfect place for someone being followed to disappear, especially someone only under aerial surveillance. A quick duck into a shop or café with a restroom, a few hasty changes of clothing, and, hey presto, out would come a brand-new man. Human watchers would still have a shot at spotting someone they’d been tailing for a while, because it was difficult to disguise a distinctive gait or even the set of one’s shoulders. But a camera, especially one mounted on a distant, moving platform, might easily be fooled.

Skoblin reacted quickly to this horrifying realization. He snapped out a series of new instructions to the several observers still deployed around the Israeli embassy. They were to leave their current posts immediately and drive straight to the Innere Stadt. By dispersing in a rough perimeter around the old city, there was at least a small chance that one of his team might be fortunate enough to spot, follow, and then kill this enemy agent who’d already caused them so much trouble. He licked his lips nervously. He’d better damned well get lucky. Because if this man escaped, Voronin would show him no mercy.

The spire-topped clock tower of St. Michael’s Church climbed nearly eighty meters into the air. Its windows overlooked a wide cobblestoned plaza. The Hofburg Palace’s famous Spanish Riding School and its St. Michael’s Wing formed the expanse’s western arc. Slightly less ornate, but equally imposing, buildings separated by four narrow streets enclosed the remainder of the Michaelerplatz. St. Michael’s itself was one of the most ancient churches in the city. Portions of the structure went back to the thirteenth century. And though the clock tower was a somewhat later addition, its lower levels were still around seven hundred years old.

Two-thirds of the way up the tower, Tadeusz Kossak gently eased one of the narrow, high-arched windows partway open. For safety, it had long been painted and puttied closed, but a few minutes’ work with a sharp knife had stripped those layers away. When the window was open far enough, he knelt down and picked up a scoped, magazine-fed rifle. It had a black polymer handgrip and handguard, and a gray metal barrel and receiver.

Kossak checked his watch. It should be very soon, he thought, if even half of this complicated plan played out as expected. He tucked the rifle’s butt stock firmly against his shoulder and sighted through the scope. Its crosshairs settled on the centermost arch of the palace gates across the square. As he watched, a lean, dark-haired man walked out through the gate and into the open.

A pleased smile crossed his weather-beaten face. The American was right on time. Which, in turn, should mean—

Kossak raised his aiming point, scanning the sky above the Michaelerplatz. There. A tiny drone hovered noiselessly in the air, held aloft by four rotors. He zeroed in, breathed out, and gently squeezed the trigger of his Sig Sauer PCP air rifle. Pop. Then, rapidly, he fired two more times. Pop-pop.

Hit three times by .22-caliber hollow-point hunting pellets moving at seven hundred feet per second, the drone staggered in midair. Shards of shattered plastic flew away from each impact point. One after another, three of the four rotors stopped. Tumbling out of control, the dying drone spun around and around all the way down to the ground and smacked hard into the cobblestones.

Kossak nodded to himself in satisfaction. Scratch one robotic spy. He lowered his air rifle and closed the window. Taking out a target at sixty meters was not an especially difficult task for a sniper who’d spent years in Poland’s elite special forces before joining the Quartet Directorate. Still, he always enjoyed the chance to exercise his shooting skills… even using a weapon better suited to killing squirrels than to actual combat. Action of any kind was better than the dull routine of ordinary civilian life. It kept him sharp and focused.

Flynn saw the smashed drone clatter to the ground. People around him turned in surprise and moved to inspect the wreckage. He grinned. No one seemed to have heard the air rifle’s whisper-quiet shots. Just as Tadeusz had promised. He turned and walked away toward a car parked on a side street at the north end of the plaza. He already had the keys in his pocket.

Unhurriedly, he pulled out his phone and made a call. “I’m clear. You are go for roundup,” he said simply and then disconnected.

Skoblin stared blankly at the black square on his laptop. The live video feed from their drone had gone haywire only seconds ago — breaking apart into a chaotic, dizzying swirl of distorted images before it went completely dark. His hands clenched. “Raven Eye, what just happened?” he barked.

The drone operator’s voice was strained. “I don’t know, Viktor. Everything just suddenly dropped offline.”

“Oh, really? Well, nice work, Yvgeny. I’m so glad I’ve got an expert like you around to confirm that for me,” he ground out sarcastically. “Look, is there any chance you can get the signal back?”

“Negative,” the other man admitted after a moment. “I think the drone must have crashed.”

Skoblin felt cold. So now their sole remaining means of tracking their target had died, leaving them completely blind? He felt sure this was not just an unfortunate accident. It had to be hostile action.

A sharp rap on the back of the van startled him. Reflexively, he grabbed for the Walther P99 9mm pistol lying on the workbench next to his laptop. Holding it ready, he reached out and cautiously peeled back the sacking he’d used to block the rear windows. He peered out. Through the dusty, tinted glass, he saw a female police officer in a peaked cap standing next to the van. Thoroughly bundled up in a heavy uniform jacket against the cold, she looked hugely irritated.

“Now what?” Skoblin muttered. Quickly, he tucked the Walther back out of sight in a toolbox and closed the lid. Then he got up, unlocked the van’s rear doors, and stepped awkwardly outside. After the thick fug of mingled sweat and cigarette smoke he’d been breathing for hours, the crisp, icy air was like a tonic.

“Is this your vehicle?” the police officer demanded, looking him dubiously up and down. Her nose wrinkled slightly at the smell.

Skoblin nodded.

She folded her arms. “Look, we’ve been getting a lot of complaints about this van of yours being parked out here day and night. The residents say it’s an eyesore. And they don’t see why you can’t at least move it somewhere out of sight once you’ve finished work for the day.”

With an effort, he hid a scowl. This was all he needed after this shitstorm of an afternoon… complaints from the local busybodies. Donning a look of regret, he shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry about that, Officer. But this is a big job, you see. And our client wants it finished fast. So we’ve got crews working around the clock.”

She glanced up at the conspicuously deserted building beside them and then turned back at him with an eloquently raised eyebrow. “Around the clock?”

Skoblin forced a twisted smile. “They’re on break just now. Union rules, you know.”

“I see,” the policewoman said dryly. Her voice hardened. “Do you have a permit for this restoration work?”

“Of course,” he assured her. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s in the glovebox.”

“Show me,” she ordered.

Officious bitch, Skoblin thought furiously. She was toying with him. But with an obsequious nod, he turned away to retrieve the genuine permit the Raven Syndicate had paid through the nose to acquire.

Abruptly, the world around him flared bright white as though a bomb had just gone off. Involuntarily, he stumbled forward and collided with one of the van’s open rear doors. Slack-jawed, unable to speak, the Raven Syndicate agent slowly slumped over and collapsed facedown on the ground — completely incapable of controlling his twitching arms and legs.

Laura Van Horn calmly holstered the Taser she’d just used to stun the phony electrician. Then she turned around and whistled sharply.

Another van, this one white with sliding side doors, came barreling around the corner. It braked sharply and stopped at an angle right behind them, preventing anyone on the street from getting a good look at what was going on. The moment it stopped moving, two of her men jumped out. Quickly and with practiced efficiency, they bound the tased man’s hands and ankles using plastic flexicuffs. Then they blindfolded and gagged him for good measure. Once he was secured, the two men unceremoniously bundled him into their own vehicle — sliding him between two rows of seats. A tarp hid his body from view.

While they were doing that, Van Horn busied herself inside the blue electrician’s van. Working swiftly, she collected their semiconscious prisoner’s laptop, toolbox, and every piece of radio gear in sight. She didn’t bother going through the glove box. Whoever these people eventually proved to be, she could already tell they were definitely professionals. They’d never be stupid enough to leave a paper trail for her to find.

Once she was finished, she scrambled into the front passenger seat of their own van and nodded sharply to her driver. He put the vehicle in gear, pulled back out onto the road, and drove away. Gleefully, she grinned over her shoulder at the rest of her team. From start to finish, their work had taken less than a minute… and not one of them had needed to utter a single word.

Nick Flynn closed the door to a maintenance room on the deserted lower level of a public parking garage outside the city center. “Our friend inside is still tied up tight,” he said quietly. “He won’t be going anywhere until we’re long gone.” Laura van Horn and the rest of the action team nodded in satisfaction. Like him, they all now wore clothes suitable for travel — jeans and khakis, button-down shirts and sweaters, and lightweight blazers or jackets.

One of them, a short, compact, and forceful man named Shannon Cooke, shoved Van Horn’s discarded police uniform into a trash bag for later disposal. Cooke was a veteran of the Joint Special Operations Command who’d been recruited into Four several years ago. Before joining the Army, he’d actually started law school, only to decide that if he was going to hurt people, he’d rather do it honestly using guns and knives instead of just bankrupting them with overpriced billing. While on active duty, he’d served in the Army’s ultra-secret Task Force Orange, otherwise known as the Mission Support Activity. Its highly trained and independent-minded operatives often deployed into hostile territory first to gather the vital intelligence needed for high-risk U.S. special forces missions. Now he did similar work for the Quartet Directorate.

Flynn checked the time. Except for Tadeusz Kossak and Cooke, who would also see to their weapons and other specialized equipment, they were all booked out on various flights from Vienna’s International Airport over the next several hours. He turned to another member of the team, Alain Ricard, and indicated the pair of CCTV cameras rigged to scan this floor of the parking structure. “Are we still good on those? Plus the camera covering the garage entrance?”

Ricard clapped him on the shoulder. “No sweat, Nick. You can relax.” The tall Frenchman, a former officer in his nation’s elite Marine Commandos, was proud of his grasp of American slang. “They will turn back on at staggered intervals, starting ten minutes from now.”

Flynn nodded. There’d been a slim chance that temporarily disabling those surveillance cameras would be noticed. But he’d judged it a risk worth taking to conceal their brief activity here. After all, there were dozens of public multistory garages dotted across Vienna’s metropolitan area. Which meant, in turn, that the municipal employees overseeing all those parking structures had to monitor hundreds of separate CCTV feeds at any given time. So no one would be especially surprised or worried if two or three cameras went offline for a few minutes here and there.

Van Horn handed him a rolling bag. “You’ve got the laptop.” She patted her jacket pocket. “And I’ve got the cellphone. Br’er Fox’s technical boys and girls should have a field day combing through them.” She smiled. “Not a bad haul for a harebrained operation cobbled together in just a couple of days. Good thing our lords and masters decided to use the first string for this one, right?”

He grinned back at her. “If you do say yourself?”

She shrugged. “Who? Little me? Never. Remember, modesty is one of my many virtues.”

Flynn laughed. “I’ll bear that in mind.” He looked at the other members of their team. “Everybody set?”

Heads nodded.

“Then let’s move out,” he said quietly. “We’ve got what we came for. But stay sharp all the way out of Austria and back to your respective stations. Let’s not give the other side any opportunities to even the score.”

In ones and twos, the Quartet Directorate team climbed into their various cars and the white van and drove away.