The Lions Of Lucerne

43

As he exited the bank, Harvath carefully surveyed the street before stepping out of the doorway. All of his senses were afire, filtering the stream of input they were receiving, searching for even the slightest hint of danger. Everything looked normal, but years of training had taught him that was when attacks often happened. Half a block to his left was a red-and-white van with Ziretta Carpet Cleaning written across the side. A long orange hose stretched from the van across the sidewalk and into a nearby building. The generator inside the van created a tremendous amount of noise, but that wasn’t unusual; carpet cleaning vans were normally loud.

As he turned to his right, he decided not to give the van a second thought. It wasn’t out of place, he was. This whole morning had been out of place. Life in D.C. was not magically changing because of his experiences; the real danger for him lay in seeing threats where there weren’t any. Paranoia was not going to do anything to improve his current situation.

The flip side of Scot’s reassuring self-talk was that paranoia might be annoying, but a healthy dose of it served to keep you alive. No one ever got killed by being too vigilant.

Quickly, Scot made his way down the street, using the reflective storefront windows he passed to see what was happening across the street and behind him. The noise of the carpet van began to slowly fade, but it was replaced by something that sounded like a heartbeat: boom, boom, boom. It was faint at first, but began to increase in volume. Harvath didn’t hear it so much as feel it in the middle of his chest: boom, boom, boom. He realized that the sound was growing louder because it was coming closer: boom, boom, boom.

It was the heavy bass from a pumped-up car stereo system. Without even turning to look at the vehicle, Harvath knew exactly what it would be. His colleagues at the Secret Service called them ghettomobiles. Cars with windows tinted in flagrant violation of city ordinances, the chassis lowered, and tires sticking out far beyond the wheel wells. The drivers of these cars didn’t care that bass matured over distance and got louder and deeper as the sound waves traveled outward. All they knew was that it sounded cool. Harvath hated ghettomobiles and the hey, look at me machismo attitude of their drivers and occupants.

The noise was almost on top of him now, and as he listened to it approach, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought the car had slowed down. He glanced ahead, but there wasn’t any traffic that would have caused the car to reduce its speed. Probably not on their way to the bank, he thought. Drawing alongside another storefront, Harvath looked in the window just in time to see the reflection of tinted windows sliding down on the ghettomobile and a Tec 9 automatic being thrust through.

Reflexively, Harvath hit the sidewalk and rolled. Bullets tore up the concrete where he had stood. The window he’d used to covertly survey the vehicle shattered in a thousand pieces, spraying him with shards of razor-sharp glass. All the while, the stereo kept thumping its staccato beat: boom, boom, boom.

Harvath jammed his hand inside his trench coat and groped for his waistband. It settled on the rubberized grip of his silenced nine millimeter Glock pistol. He thought he heard one of the car doors opening, and the sudden increase in the music’s volume confirmed it. From where he lay next to a parked car, the curb was too high for him to see anything in the street. With the window of the store to his left shattered, he had no idea which way the person, or persons, who had exited the car were coming.

Needing a diversion, Harvath aimed the Glock and took two well-placed shots through the rear window of the car parked in front of him. The silent spits broke the glass and sent it showering into the street. He heard one of his assailants yell, “Gun!” Harvath sprang to his feet and rolled along the trunk of the parked car that had been his cover.

A powerfully built man in black fatigues and a balaclava stood swinging his Tec 9 from side to side trying to figure out where the shots had come from. Harvath didn’t waste any time. He fired twice into the man’s torso because the head was snapping around too wildly to get a clean between-the-eyes kill.

The man was ripped right off his feet and thrown to the ground by the force of Harvath’s weapon. As Harvath turned to fire at the occupants of the gray Nissan Maxima with the thumping stereo and polished alloy wheels, the man he’d just put down shook his head as if he had been in a daze and turned his weapon on Harvath. Scot dove out of the line of fire as bullets ripped up the side of the parked car, flattening both tires and blowing out all of the vehicle’s glass.

There was no way the man could have survived two direct hits, unless he was wearing body armor.

To any witnesses dumb enough to still be standing on the street, this looked like one vicious drive-by, but Scot knew better. Somehow, whoever had been responsible for the attack on him at Union Station had been able to track him to his bank. While this group might look like gang bangers in commando outfits, there was no fooling Harvath; they were professional hit men. The man yelling, “Gun,” had proved it.

That sealed it. Scot had absolutely no plans to turn himself in to Director Jameson until he was able to get some answers. For all he knew, by turning himself in he could be handing himself over to the very people who were trying to kill him. It was obvious Shaw was behind the deaths of Natalie Sperando and André Martin. He could be behind this as well. And if Shaw was involved, who else might be working with him? There was no telling. It could be anyone.

There was no time to figure things out now. He needed to focus on staying alive.

Scot’s ears were too busy ringing from the explosion of gunfire to notice the silence that now enveloped him. The smell of cordite hung in the damp air, and he heard the telltale sound of boots crunching on broken glass. There was a clicking sound followed by metal scraping on metal. The shooter was reloading and coming toward him. This might be Scot’s only chance.

Not knowing how many other occupants were in the car and where they had their weapons trained, Harvath raised the Glock above the level of the trunk he was hiding behind and fired wildly toward where he thought the shooter and the lowered Maxima were. He heard a loud grunt and, without looking, made a desperate leap from between the parked cars onto the sidewalk. He broke off at a run back toward the bank, staying as low as he could.

He heard the squeal of tires and the rapid fire of automatic weapons as he ran. The bullets chewed apart every car he tried to use as cover, sending glass flying everywhere. Then, as quickly as it started, the commotion stopped with the sickening slam of an impact.

Harvath cautioned a look back and saw that a furniture truck, its driver not knowing what was happening, had turned left off a side street at exactly the same time his assailants were reversing wildly down the street toward him, and the two vehicles had collided. The sound of approaching police sirens could now be heard in the distance.

As Harvath turned back toward the bank, something whispered by his right ear and tore a huge piece of stone out of the building behind him. Someone else was shooting at him! And whoever this person was, he or she was somewhere in front of him using a silenced weapon.

He hit the ground and rolled again; just as another muffled shot narrowly missed his head. Using the still intact storefront window to his left, he could see a man with a mounted rifle in the back of the Ziretta Carpet Cleaning van. Scot was pinned down. He couldn’t go forward and he couldn’t go back. He was trapped. Or was he?

Using the storefront image for guidance, Scot raised his pistol and fired two shots toward the red-and-white van. As soon as the shots were fired, he rolled into the street between two parked cars. What were the chances the men in the Nissan were hanging around after crashing into the furniture truck? Most likely, they had taken off in the car if it was drivable, or by foot if it wasn’t. The vehicle was undoubtedly stolen, and with the police on their way, the men would want to put as much distance between themselves and the crime scene as possible. Those who fight and run away live to fight another day, Scot thought to himself.

There hadn’t been any gunfire from behind him, nor any sound of someone pursuing him on foot. Chances were the men in the Maxima had fled. One group down.

His problem now was the shooter in the van. From where the van was parked, the shooter had a pretty good command of this length of the street. The sirens were getting closer. Both Harvath and the man in the van would have to make their moves soon.

Fours shots from the van in quick succession tore up the roof and shattered the glass of the car Scot was using for cover.

Harvath waited, but the van showed no sign of moving. They were playing a very deadly game of chicken. Show yourself and be shot; wait too long and be picked up by the police. Harvath knew the man in the van wouldn’t want that and probably knew that he felt exactly the same way. He needed to make a move, and he needed to make it now.

Thinking back, Scot realized the shooter in the van hadn’t begun firing at him until he had run back toward his bank, which meant that if he went in the other direction, the guy probably wouldn’t have a clean shot. It was the only choice Scot had.

Harvath hadn’t taken his eyes off the reflection in the glass for a second. The man still sat in the van, its doors open, with his rifle pointed in Scot’s direction. He hadn’t figured out that Scot could see him in the glass, or else he surely would have blown it out. Or would he? Maybe the shooter was using the glass to his advantage as well.

Fixing the position of the van in his mind, Scot turned his Glock toward the storefront and chose several spots that would allow his bullets to break the glass, but minimize the chances of hitting anyone inside. He fired and, as the glass came tumbling down, he turned his weapon toward where he remembered the van to be and began firing as he ran back up the sidewalk, away from the bank.

He managed to pin down the shooter in the van long enough to escape his line of fire. He was now safely out of range, but didn’t know what would face him in just a few car lengths.

The furniture truck was still in the middle of the street. Scot kept his pistol at the ready. Sliding out into the street, he glanced back to make sure no one from the van was coming up behind him. So far, it was clear.

Harvath hugged the back of the furniture truck and moved up the passenger side. As he neared the cab, he could see the crumpled gray metal of the Maxima. It was totaled. Crouching by the truck’s right front tire, Harvath held the Glock in both hands ready to swing out and search for the shooters. He took a deep breath, applied pressure to the trigger and spun, just as he heard a noise from behind.

The truck’s passenger door began to swing open. An older, gray-haired black man, whose eyes were wild with fright, was attempting to climb down.

“Stay where you are,” ordered Harvath. “Get back in your truck, close the door, and stay on the floor.” The man did as he was told.

Scot waited a beat and then sprang forward. He swept the Glock from side to side, ready to take down any of the assailants in or around the vehicle who might still be armed. There were none. The Nissan’s trunk was completely crunched against its backseat. The car’s interior was filled with broken glass and brass shell casings, as was the ground around it. The men had fled. The police were almost on top of the scene, and Harvath also decided fleeing was a good idea. There was nothing to gain by hanging around.

While sifting through the contents of his safe deposit box and André Martin’s envelope again, it had become obvious to Scot that his only chance to get to the bottom of things was to go to Interlaken himself. After the attack outside the bank, he knew it was the right move. Besides, he reasoned, who wouldn’t want a break from the goddamn D.C. weather? Rain, sleet, snow, and now bullets. He just prayed he wouldn’t be embarking upon on a wild-goose chase.

Three blocks away, he caught a cab that took him straight down M Street to the tony Georgetown Park mall. This time, he had cash for the driver.

For some reason, the mall’s Edwardian interior, in green with brass touches, always reminded him of Harrods in London. The waterfalls, which he normally found soothing, didn’t work their magic on him today. He made his way toward the J. Crew store and paid for his purchases with bills from the twenty thousand dollars in cash he had removed from his safe deposit box. He’d always kept an emergency reserve, just in case, and today he was glad he had. He didn’t dare use his credit card again. He had used it for two cab rides and was sure that was how the assassins had tracked him. With plenty of cash at his disposal, he could afford to ditch the plastic.

Leaving J. Crew, he bent his credit cards back and forth until he could break them into pieces. He pocketed the pieces and made his way toward Voyageur Luggage. At Voyageur, he picked up a wheeled KIVA Designs travel bag that could be converted into a backpack. It was big enough to hold the clothing he bought, but small enough to fit into an overhead compartment. Next on his list was Crabtree amp; Evelyn, where an attractive woman named Leslie outfitted him with a complete men’s toiletry kit and a women’s Pamper Yourself gift basket. Harvath counted out the bills, thanked the clerk, and asked where the nearest men’s room was.

Outside the washrooms was a bank of pay telephones. Harvath chose the one at the far end and, opening the yellow pages, looked up the eight hundred number for Swissair. Knowing the quickest way to get an operator was to select the business-and-first-class-reservation option, he pressed the appropriate button. After only a few seconds a polite agent came on the line. According to the woman, Swissair had a 5:40 P.M. flight leaving Dulles that would arrive in Zurich at 7:35 the next morning. Harvath made a reservation in the name of Hans Brauner, memorized the record-locator number, thanked the agent, and hung up the phone. Harvath had been keeping an eye on the men’s room. There was very little traffic, so he decided now was as good a time as any.

Inside, he looked under each stall to make sure they were vacant and chose one toward the very end. He locked the door and placed his bags in front of him. The pain in his head made it feel as if it were cracking wide open, and his stomach churned violently with nausea. Dr. Helsabeck had been right about stress and exertion making his symptoms worse, but there was no time to coddle himself. Scot faced the toilet and forced himself to vomit. If that’s what his body wanted to do, then let’s get it over with, he reasoned.

He used some toilet paper to wipe his mouth, then removed his Crabtree amp; Evelyn toiletry kit and hung it from the hook on the back of the stall door. Inside was a travel toothbrush and some toothpaste. No one had come into the men’s room since he’d entered, so he left his stall, did a fast tooth brushing with the water from the sink, then returned to the stall and locked the door once again.

Working quickly, Scot fished several Ziploc plastic bags out of his suit pocket. The first contained a contact lens case and the other a small white tube and what looked to be a handful of brown hair. The transformation wouldn’t be huge, but Harvath had learned over the years that with disguises, the sum is often greater than its parts.

The two keys to a successful disguise were, first, to eradicate any traces of a very recognizable feature, which in Scot’s case was the deep blue of his eyes, and, second, to have the disguise be as natural as possible. The more elaborate a disguise, the less chance it had of working. The final goal was not only to look like someone else, but to become someone else.

As Scot put in the brown contact lenses and used the tube of glue to apply the goatee and heavy eyebrows, he began his transformation. He pushed his hair forward and parted it in the middle. With a pair of wire-rim glasses with slightly tinted lenses and a new wardrobe in mismatched earth tones, with dark sensible shoes and a dark suede blazer, Harvath became the man whose picture and name were contained in the false passport he had also removed from his safe deposit box, Hans Brauner of Stuttgart, Germany.

During Scot’s time with the SEALs, he had done a lot of cross-training exercises with some of Germany’s most elite soldiers. One soldier in particular, Herman Toffle, had become quite popular with the SEALs, not only for his bravado, but also for his crazy sense of humor. Scot and Herman the German, as the guys called him, grew to be fast friends. When Herman left the military because of an injury, he entered the private sector and began representing a German arms manufacturer. Scot helped Herman get his weapons tested in America and also plugged him in with former SEALs around the world who were doing military or private security consulting and had a heavy say in their clients’ weapons procurement.

Scot couldn’t accept any commissions, but Herman felt his good friend was due something for all of the business he had helped create. Once, while Scot was on leave in Germany between SEAL training exercises, Herman led him on a cloak-and-dagger tour of Munich which, after several stops for beers, finally ended in a small apartment on the city’s north side. Knowing his friend’s proclivity for loose women, Harvath thought Herman had brought him to a brothel and was going to get him laid.

As it turned out, Herman had a million connections and the two men just happened to be in the apartment of one of them, a master documents forger. Herman introduced the stooped, balding man with thick glasses simply as Tinkerbell. After making Scot up with the eyebrows, goatee, glasses, and contacts, Tinkerbell had him sit in front of a tarp to have his picture taken. Two hours and five beers later, the man emerged from the back of the apartment and handed Scot his new passport. When, through the fog of beers, Scot realized what Herman had done for him, he tried to refuse the gift, but Herman said, “Men in our profession need insurance that employers can’t always provide.”

Harvath knew that Herman was trying, in his own way, to thank him, so he kept the passport locked safely away at his bank, not thinking he would ever need it. The passport was filled with valid entry and exit stamps from America, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America. Trying to find the most recent stamp would drive an immigration officer crazy, Tinkerbell had said, so not to worry. The old man had also given Scot an address in Munich at which, if he dropped the passport off whenever he was in Germany, one of Tinkerbell’s people would update the stamps for him. Scot knew the gift had cost Herman a lot of money, and even though he originally hadn’t wanted to take it, it looked now as if it was going to come in very handy.

Harvath finished changing into the J. Crew clothes and put the rest of the new clothing into his rolling suitcase. The trench coat and suit he had been wearing went into the J. Crew bag, which he promptly tossed into a Dumpster in an alley behind the mall. Wiping his prints off the Glock, he disassembled it and threw the pieces into three different storm drains. Now all he had to do was make a phone call and he would be free to go.