Duty and Honor

27

At nine p.m. they left the hotel and retraced their southerly route along Lake Zurich to Wädenswil. Here, just fifteen miles outside Zurich proper, its night skyline appeared as a hazy dome of light on the horizon. Although it frequently passed through villages — there were fifteen on the left, or western, shoreline — the road south was dark and lightly traveled. Lake Zurich was more impressive than Jack had realized, reaching some twenty-five miles from Zurich in the north to Schmerikon in the south and, according to the fishing brochure at the hotel, more than five hundred feet deep in several spots.

As seemed to be par for the course, Jack had in his mind only a vaguely outlined plan. From their earlier reconnoiter, Jack knew getting over the villa’s wall would present no problem, but the house itself was an unknown. Google Earth’s overhead view had shown little of the structure beyond a hip-and-valley roof that was barely visible through the canopy, a lush lawn, and an acre-size English-style garden on the property’s western edge. For all Jack knew, the grounds were actively patrolled by a cadre of guards similar to the one Effrem had seen in Bossard’s office building. If so, Jack would probably be scrambling back over the wall before the lawn had a chance to moisten his shoes.

Jack pulled into the Jachtklub Wädenswil parking lot and doused the headlights but left the engine running. The villa’s outer wall was a quarter-mile south through a cluster of trees.

“Questions?” Jack asked.

“No, sir,” Effrem replied with a mock salute. “Orbit a half-mile route between Horgen and Wädenswil and then wait until I hear from you. If you text ‘evac,’ I get back here at best speed. If I don’t hear from you within ninety minutes, I pick up Belinda, move to the secondary hotel, wait another day, then leave, head to Brussels, and contact the U.S. embassy there.”

“Right.” This last bit of instruction would likely prove worthless if Jack’s penetration of the villa went bad; more than anything else, it was designed to get Effrem and Belinda back to relatively safe territory. It would also have the added benefit of ruining Effrem’s investigation. If there was no story left to pursue, he might live to see thirty.

“Why the Brussels embassy?” Effrem asked. “Why not the one in Bern?”

“They know my name in Brussels. You’ll get more immediate action.”

Though Jack had a hard time saying this with a straight face, the explanation seemed to satisfy Effrem. “Consider it done,” he said. “Good hunting.”

As Effrem pulled the Citroën out of the lot and back onto the road, Jack walked into the trees, where he paused to let his eyes adjust to the darkness before continuing on until the villa’s stone wall came into view. The trees were thicker here and probably hadn’t been trimmed for years; branches crisscrossed the top of the wall and jutted over the property. While the overgrowth lessened the likelihood of any surveillance cameras picking him up, it also surrounded him in almost complete darkness. Now he regretted his decision to not replace the night-vision goggles he’d lost in Munich.

Deal with it, Jack.

He turned right and followed the wall to its western corner. Here was the most likely place for a camera; corner-positioned cameras offered the most bang for the buck, but they also had built-in blind spots. Jack saw no camera.

Now came the less-than-glamorous part of being a special operator — the waiting and watching. Stealth was as much about stillness as it was about skulking. If his approach had attracted attention, he’d be getting visitors soon enough.

He sat cross-legged on the ground, his back against a tree trunk, and donned his portable radio’s headset. He keyed the talk button. “Effrem, you there?”

“I’m here. Making the turn back north. I’ll be driving past the gate again in about two minutes.”

Ten minutes passed. Aside from some faint boat engine sounds coming from the direction of the lake, all was quiet. A rabbit hopped into view along the wall, spotted Jack, then sprinted away.

Long enough. He was anxious to get in and get out.

He approached the wall, grabbed its top with both hands, and hop-vaulted so his chin was level with the capstone. On the other side was a mulched planting bed interspersed with white tulips and cedar bushes.

Jack pulled himself up, flipped his leg over the wall’s crest, then rolled over and dropped to the ground behind one of the bushes. Ahead he could see the curved black edge of the asphalt driveway. The main gate was somewhere to his right. He headed that way until the wrought-iron gate came into view, then crossed the driveway and ducked behind a hedgerow.

Jack continued like this for another fifteen minutes, partly to hunt for any patrolling guards, partly to get a better look at the villa itself, a two-story structure done in French farmhouse style. Switzerland was a country of four official languages — German, French, Italian, and a bit of Romansh — and the architecture and culture reflected this. The more expensive homes along Lake Zurich seemed to be a mixture of design styles, from old-world Tuscan to German neo-modern.

By the time Jack reached the villa’s lake side he was convinced he was alone on the grounds. He’d seen no lights and no movement in or around the villa, so unless the occupants had turned in very early, no one was home.

Jack emerged from his hiding spot and strode across the lawn to the villa’s rear patio, a slab of herringbone paving stones complete with a sunken grotto hot tub whose surface was choked with leaves and twigs. Jack switched his penlight to red, clicked it on, checked the patio doors and nearby windows for signs of an alarm system. Again, there was nothing. Apparently, Lake Zurich wasn’t known for its high crime rate. Jack half wondered if the villa’s doors were locked, but a quick check of the patio door answered his question.

Effrem’s voice came over Jack’s headset. “Jack, I’ve got a vehicle parked about a hundred meters north of the villa gate. I think it may be that green cargo van we saw earlier.”

“Give me a percentage of certainty,” Jack replied.

“Eight percent. This one’s got an electrician’s placard on the side, but it looked crooked. Might be a stick-on.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t there before?”

“No, not sure at all. Sorry. You want me to get closer and check the license plate? Or maybe see if someone’s inside?”

“No, leave it.” Effrem didn’t reply immediately, so Jack asked, “Are you hearing me? Stay away from it.”

“Okay, I hear you.”

“Tighten up your loop so you pass the van every few minutes. If he starts following you, drive into Horgen and find as public a place as you can find and stay there. Keep me posted.”

In turn Jack checked each of the villa’s first-floor mullioned windows; all seemed to be bedrooms except for the corner room, which looked to be a study/library. A computer monitor sat atop the walnut desk.

Jack pulled a roll of masking tape and a glass punch from his rucksack, then taped an asterisk over the window’s lower-left pane and pressed the punch into the glass until it shattered with a muffled tinkling. Carefully he peeled away the sections of taped glass, then reached inside and unlocked the window and climbed through.

He went still and scanned the room for blinking lights or the telltale soft clicking of a triggered motion detector. There was neither. Too easy, Jack thought, a bit worried. In the United States, a luxury home of this caliber would be bristling with surveillance cameras and alarm systems.

Count your good luck and keep moving.

He pulled the window curtains closed, then sat down at the desk and powered up the computer. When the desktop appeared, a username/password dialogue box popped up.

Jack switched his headset plug from the portable radio to his cell phone and dialed Mitch, whom he’d asked to stand by, should Jack run into this very problem. When Mitch answered, Jack explained the situation.

“Well, there’s no sense trying to brute-force the thing,” Mitch said. “Permutations are in the billions. You got the flash drive I gave Effrem?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s try this first. Restart the computer, but hold down the command and R buttons as you do it.”

“Recovery mode?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, you know what it looks like, then? Let’s try the easy way first.”

Once the computer’s recovery-mode dialogue box appeared, Mitch had Jack navigate to the Utilities drop-down menu. “You’re looking for ‘Terminal,’” Mitch explained.

“It’s there, but it’s ghosted out. I can’t select it.”

“Worth a shot. Okay, insert that flash drive and do a force restart.” Jack did this, and a black screen with a blinking orange cursor appeared. Mitch said, “Type ‘run’ into the command line, then sit back and wait.”

“How long?”

“Depends on the size of the hard drive and whether the owner’s running any third-party password or encryption protocols. Ten minutes, give or take. You should see a progress bar. The words ‘run stop’ will appear below the command line.”

On Jack’s belt the portable radio flashed. He told Mitch, “I’ll call you back,” then switched the headset over, turned up the radio’s volume, and said, “Effrem, what—”

“—over the wall.”

“What? Say again.”

“Whoever was in that van just hopped over the wall! They’re coming your way! Should I—”

“No, keep circling, but stay close to the yacht club parking lot. Just one, you’re sure?”

“I only saw one.”

“Stay off the radio unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’ll be in touch. Same thing applies: Two hours and you run.”

Jack turned the computer’s monitor so its light was shining away from the window, then peeked through the curtains in time to see a figure sprinting across the lawn and around to the villa’s lake side. Jack checked the computer’s progress bar: ninety percent to go.

Did he sit tight or go hunting? If this new player was responding to Jack’s tampering with the computer, the chances were good he’d come straight to this study. Then again, why hop the wall rather than use the gate? Why post yourself outside the property rather than inside the villa itself? Those were questions for later. Right now he needed to be proactive.

Go hunting. He didn’t want to be trapped in this room with only the window for an escape route.

He eased open the study door and poked his head out. To his left was a long hallway of dark tumbled stone tile. Beyond the hallway, he could see what looked like a living room decorated in robin’s-egg-blue-and-white shabby chic. To his right, through an open arch, a winding stairway led to the second floor.

Jack heard what sounded like a burst from a dental drill followed by a soft double snick. He recognized the noise: an electric lock-pick tool known as a snap gun. Whoever was coming, they weren’t wasting any time.

Jack raised the HK and crept down the hallway to the living room, where he paused to listen. He heard another sound, this one a door clicking shut. Somewhere to his right. He looked around the corner. Through an archway was the villa’s kitchen.

As Jack watched, the back door swung open an inch, then went still.

Jack took aim.

The door moved again, just a few more inches, then clicked shut again.

Wind, Jack thought. Probably. Jack kept his gun trained on the door but let his eyes glide to either side of it, watching for movement. If the intruder had come through this door, what options did he have? Take cover behind the kitchen counter, or slip into the nook, or come through the living room arch toward Jack. Or… To the right of the back door was another set of stairs leading to the second floor.

As if on cue, Jack heard a floorboard creak above his head. If the intruder was familiar with the villa he might be crossing the second floor to the stairway behind Jack. Jack pivoted slowly on his heel, aimed the HK down the hall and waited for a five count, then pivoted back toward the living room.

From the second floor came a soft crash, as though someone had bumped a piece of furniture.

Move now.

With the HK raised and tracking, Jack paced through the arch and into the kitchen. A quick glance left told him the nook was clear. He circled behind the kitchen counter, saw no one hiding there, and continued toward the stairway door.

As he approached it, a semiautomatic pistol poked through the opening, almost crossing Jack’s own weapon. Startled, he stepped back. His heel rapped against the baseboard. A figure rushed through the door, gun coming around to bear on Jack. The man’s stance was straight-armed and overextended. Jack took advantage of this, batting aside the man’s gun, stepping in close, and snapping the point of his elbow into the man’s head. The man grunted but went along with the blow, using its momentum to coil his body for a counterpunch. Jack lifted his knee, slowing the strike, but not enough. The man’s fist landed just below Jack’s bottom rib. He gasped and bent sideways and felt his left leg buckle.

Strong and fast son of a bitch.

Jack drove his still-raised knee downward. His boot heel slammed into the tile, clipping the inner edge of the man’s foot. The man yelped in pain. Jack repeated the maneuver, this time raking his boot’s knurled edge down the length of the man’s shin before stomping the man’s foot a second time. Now the man collapsed sideways. Jack helped him, palming the side of his head and banging it against the doorjamb. The man dropped his gun. Jack kicked it, sending it twirling across the tile floor, then took a rapid step back and leveled the HK with the man’s head.

“Are you done?” Jack asked, panting.

The man tried to get up, pressing himself off the floor with his left hand. Jack stepped forward and kicked it out from under him. He collapsed and his head banged against the tile.

“I said, Are… you… done?” Jack said.

“J’ai fini,” the man replied. And then he added in lightly accented English, “I am done.”

Jack clicked on his penlight. “Let me see your face.”

“Why?”

“Show me your face,” Jack growled.

Slowly the man lifted his head.

It was René Allemand.