The First Casualty

8

The moment he exited the hotel, Jason Peters knew he was being watched. With snow falling through the mist like feathers from a torn pillow, there was no need for the sunglasses the man across the street was wearing as his breath came in steamy puffs in the frigid air. Not unless he considered himself a film star or sport celebrity. The monochromatic light leached color from the day as if the blood had been drained from it. Hardly a time to protect the eyes. Overcoat collar pulled up, brimmed hat pulled down, the man appeared to be studying the display in the window of a Buchhandlung, bookstore. But unless immune to the fingers of the probing cold, no one would stand outside instead of enjoying the shop’s warmth. No one who was really interested in the store’s wares, that is.

Jason declined the offer of help from the comic opera-uniformed bellhop as he tossed his single bag into the space behind the driver’s seat of the turbo Porsche, space that only the elves in Stuttgart could describe, with a straight face, as a backseat. He had not rented the car for its meager comforts, but for its nimble handling and blinding acceleration, features he had enjoyed on the winding sixty-mile drive south from Zurich. Liechtenstein had no commercial airport of its own.

He pretended to fuss with the canvas suitcase as he watched through the car’s rear window, now rapidly shrinking as snow covered the glass. The man was using the reflection in the store’s window to monitor Jason’s movements.

Jason gave a sigh of resignation. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, Jason didn’t need his shit. He was tired and glad to be going home. Two days dealing with bankers had been enough to wear down the hardiest of souls. In an age when no electronic communication was 100 percent secure, face-to-face was the only safe way to transact business best kept secret.

The town’s dearth of nightlife had not improved his stay. The only after-hours entertainment was a slightly discordant band playing German beer-hall music in the hotel’s uninspiring bar. Liechtenstein prevented Switzerland from being the world’s most boring country.

But Jason had not come here to haunt nightclubs. With revenue-starved governments’ ever-tightening pressure on banks worldwide, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the anonymity large sums of ready cash demanded. That was why he had chosen Liechtenstein. Other than Alpine scenery and collectable stamps, bank secrecy was all the diminutive country had to offer.

Now this.

Jason was well aware there were a number of people in the world who not only would like to see him dead, but also had the means to bring his demise about, violently and painfully. That was why he had spent the last ten years living in remote places, places difficult to reach, where arrivals were easily noted.

It was a good bet the man across the street was not watching out of idle curiosity. The question was why the guy had been so easy to spot. Jason’s years-ago training with the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force had made observation a sixth sense. Anomalies, like sunglasses on a dark day, were like a mis-struck key in the middle of a piano sonata, a false note in a symphony.

Jason handed the bellhop a wad of Swiss francs and thanked him for his attentiveness before turning the key in the ignition. The engine snarled alive as the instruments jolted to life. Jason made a show of setting the electronically operated side-view mirrors. The man in front of the bookstore was speaking into a cell phone as Jason shifted into first gear, easing out the heavy clutch.

He made a random turn. On his right, the rococo parliament house sat behind a plaza decorated with a bronze stature vaguely resembling a horse, the falling snow on the metal turning the creature piebald. A picture-postcard moment, had he time to snap a shot. White-crested Alps, their peaks lost in the dove-colored eastern sky.

A Mercedes sedan followed. Black-tinted windows. Could not have been more obvious had it been pulled by eight tiny reindeer. Whoever was inside was a rank amateur — or damn sure of himself.

Jason slowed and gaped at the town hall, a tourist blithely unaware of potential danger. He turned onto Fürst-Franz-Josef Strasse. Ahead, he could see Vaduz Castle’s gray Romanesque shape on its plateau above the town. Its distinctive single round tower stabbed the sky’s sagging belly.

If whoever was in the Mercedes was knowledgeable, he would be aware the seven-century-old castle was the residence of the prince of Liechtenstein and his family, and not open to the public. If he had done his homework, he would know Jason was flying out of Zurich, which was in the opposite direction. If Jason could not tour the castle, then why would he be headed toward it?

If he were lucky, his pursuers wouldn’t figure that out until it was too late.

A narrow road, Bergstrasse, split off to the left, snaking uphill until it was swallowed by low clouds. Without signaling, Jason peeled off. As expected, so did the Mercedes.

Jason resisted the urge to floorboard the accelerator. A sudden burst of power on the powder-covered road would spin his wheels at best. The deepening chasm along the left side of the pavement presented the worst. Stay cool; stay alive. He gradually applied power. The Mercedes showed no difficulty in keeping up. Despite its bulk, it successfully navigated the first two hairpin turns without any great speed loss.

An AMG-engineered S65, Jason thought. The car lumbered on the highway but had agility that belied its bulk. An elephant with the nimbleness and speed of a big cat.

As Jason climbed, he made mental note of details, a dead tree, a rock protruding from the hillside. Another bit of Delta Force training: If you don’t memorize what you see on the way in, you’re asking to get lost on the way out.

When the Porsche’s tachometer hit 6500, the turbo kicked in at the same time the rpm’s were “on the cam.” In layman’s terms, a mule kicked the car in the ass. Jason could spare only the briefest of glances at the rearview mirrors as he tried to hold the fishtailing vehicle onto the snow-slick pavement. The Mercedes was fading.

Jason was thankful he had insisted the Europcar rental place in Zurich replace the Porsche’s normal, art-gum-eraser soft tires designed to give the car adhesion against pavement, tires that would be roller skates on glass in these conditions. At least the Michelin Latitude Alpin HPs gave the car an even chance to maintain a semblance of traction.

The snow had become BBs in a tin can, tiny pellets that rattled against the windshield. On an unfamiliar road that twisted like — as one of Jason’s old army buddies used to say — a worm in a hot frying pan, a surface literally slick in some spots and iced over in others, with visibility quickly fading into clouds the color of dirty rags, there was no chance Jason could sustain the speeds of which the car was capable.

But he didn’t intend to.

Instead, he reduced speed and turned on his lights. The mist gave him back the glare with interest.

Downshifting, he slowed further, this time to a near crawl. With the visibility now measured in a few feet, he was navigating by the guardrail, the thin metal margin between him and roiling clouds that filled an abyss like tea in a cup. He could not see the details of the road that would serve as braking points on the way down.

The good news was the Mercedes had the same problem.

Minutes later, he found what he had hoped for: a place to pull off the road, a scenic overlook in better weather. A quick twist of the steering wheel and he was now headed downhill, lights out.

The visibility grudgingly improved as he descended. There was a patch in the pavement Jason remembered as being twenty, thirty feet from what would now be a left-hand sweeper, a dent in the guardrail just shy of a hairpin around which he could only creep.

He met the Mercedes just past the hairpin.

The big car made an effort to swerve, to block the road just as Jason downshifted and hit the gas. The Porsche’s rear tires shrieked against the icy pavement, slid.

Time came to a stop, milliseconds expanding into lifetimes. Jason felt the car in a four-wheel drift, the side of the Mercedes closer. The normal reaction would be to slam on the brakes; the normal reaction would kill him. Instead, Jason punched it out, stood on the accelerator. Protesting rubber found traction and the car lunged forward like a rodeo bull released from the chute.

There was an impact that threw Jason against his shoulder harness to the sound of distressed sheet metal screeching. And then he was clear.

As he descended, the mist grew thinner, shredded like rotten fabric by a light breeze. Fat bugs of snowflakes splattered against the glass, wipers tamping their remains into icy piles at the edges of the windshield. He could see his markers clearly, allowing him to brake and then accelerate through the line of each turn. He ignored the temptation to stop and inspect whatever damage the car had sustained. The steering wheel was steady in his hands, the suspension compliant with his demands. Superficial bodywork only. The Europcar people in Zurich might not be happy with the car’s appearance, but Jason could not be more pleased with its performance.

By the time the Mercedes got turned around and tiptoed out of the clouds, he would be well on the road to Zurich, winding but comparatively flat as it followed the course of the Rhine. Almost as an afterthought, he took out his iPad, called the airline’s reservation center, and changed flights and destinations. A precaution the availability of airlines’ passenger manifests to even amateur hackers made almost obsolete. He might never know who those people were. As long as he never saw them again, that was okay with him.

Not likely, his inner voice whispered. If they traced you to Vaduz, Liechtenstein, they’ll find you again.

Jason turned on the radio, hoping to drown the voice out. He didn’t want to listen to it. What it said was all too true.