Rules of Deception (40 page)
88
Jonathan found Emma
slumped in the passenger seat. She was conscious, but barely.
“I tried to stop him,” he said. “But he wouldn’t listen.”
She nodded, and motioned for him to come closer. “He never listened to anyone,” she whispered.
Jonathan peered into the abandoned woods. “Where did they go?”
“They’re ghosts. They don’t exist.”
He took her hand. Her grip was weak and cold. “I need to get you to a hospital.”
“The world thinks I’m dead. I can’t go to a hospital.”
“You need surgery to take out that bullet.”
“You’re a doctor. You can look after me.”
Jonathan eased the seat back and examined her wound. The bullet had passed through her upper arm and lodged itself in the flesh below her shoulder blade. “You stopped the attack. You can come in now.”
Emma shook her head, a forlorn smile tracing her lips. “I broke ranks. There’s only one punishment for that.”
“But Austen was acting on his own…”
“I’m not so sure.” Emma shifted in the seat. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Division’s like the Hydra. Cut off its head and ten more grow in its place. They’ll need to make an example.”
Jonathan grasped her hand more tightly.
“They’ll be watching you,” she said, her voice stronger. She was an agent again. She’d been trained for this. “They’ll suspect you had help. There’s no way you could have found the drone on your own. Sooner or later, they’ll find out what really happened. Someone will go into the mountains and discover that I didn’t really have an accident. I made mistakes. I left tracks.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Jonathan stared at her, unable to bring himself to speak.
Emma reached up and touched his cheek. “We have a few days until they start looking.”
The seesaw whine of sirens sounded from down the hill. Jonathan turned and saw the blue lights flashing in the forest as they neared the house. A police car pulled up in front of the driveway. Marcus von Daniken climbed out, his right arm in a sling. He walked over to them. “Did you stop it?”
“Yes,” said Jonathan.
“Thank God.”
Jonathan gestured toward the house. “There are two men inside.”
“Dead?”
Jonathan nodded. Von Daniken considered this. He looked at Emma. “Who are you?”
“You’ll know soon enough,” she said.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said the policeman.
“I can take care of her,” said Jonathan.
Von Daniken ran a hand over the bullet holes puncturing the hood. He tossed a set of car keys to Jonathan. “It’s a blue VW. I left it in back of the command house. Take it and get out of here.”
“Thank you,” said Emma.
“You owe me.” The Swiss turned and walked haltingly toward the house.
More police cars were arriving by the second. A helicopter swooped low and hovered overhead, its spotlight trained on the scene.
Jonathan reached into the car and lifted his wife into his arms.
“My name’s Jonathan,” he said.
“My name’s Cary. Nice to meet you.”
He turned and carried her down the hill.
EPILOGUE
The planes of Israel’s
69 Squadron attacked at dawn. They came in low over the water beneath Iranian radar. The newly installed antiaircraft systems had only seconds to see them. By the time the first missiles were launched, it was too late. The bombs struck their target with deadly accuracy. In minutes, sixteen conventionally armed bunker busters had completed their job. The missile facility at Karshun on the Persian Gulf had been wiped from the map. Deep inside a fortified weapons magazine ten meters below ground, the four Kh-55 cruise missiles, each armed with a ten-kiloton nuclear warhead, were obliterated.
Operation Nightingale was a success.
Inside the prime minister’s office, the relief was palpable, if temporary. The state of Israel no longer had to worry about being annihilated without warning. The threat to its existence had been quelled, its borders secured. For the moment.
In the wake of the attack, evidence about the true nature of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was made public. World leaders roundly condemned the Islamic Republic and called for an immediate cessation of its nuclear enrichment program. The United States went a step further and issued an ultimatum calling on Teheran to turn over all of its weapons-grade uranium within seventy-two hours or else risk a military reprisal. The government in Teheran waffled, but finally acceded to the demands rather than risk a repeated embarrassment.
Only Zvi Hirsch knew the identity of the person who had provided his country the detailed information about Iran’s entire nuclear program and caused the raid to be diverted from Chalus to Karshun. And he wasn’t telling.
As he crossed the street from the prime minister’s residence, he tossed the small flash drive in his hand.
It was amazing what these computer wizards could do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of individuals gave generously of their time to help with the writing of this book. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Doug Fischer, Special Agent with the California Department of Justice, Andreas Tobler and Andreas Janka of the Graubunden Kantonspolizei, Juerg Siegfried Buehler of the Swiss Federal Police, Hansueli Brunner, the finest mountain guide in Switzerland (and, I’m proud to say, my cousin), Gary Schroen, Nick Paumgarten, Jack Shaw, Arnaud de Borchgrave, and others in the intelligence community who because of their positions do not wish to be named.
At Doubleday, I would like to thank my editor, Stacy Creamer, for her enthusiasm, insight, and support. Also, my thanks go to Bill Thomas, John Pitts, Todd Doughty, Alison Rich, Suzanne Herz, and Janet Cooke. Finally, I want to give a special thank-you to Steve Rubin, who sets the standard for class in the publishing industry.
There are several persons who deserve a longer mention. Foremost is my agent, Richard Pine, who stood by me every step of the way during the writing of this book. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for his devotion to the manuscript, his criticism and suggestions, and, mostly, his tireless encouragement. It’s not an exaggeration to say that an author is only as good as his agent, and I am blessed to be represented by the very best. Richard, thank you.
Elisa Petrini of InkWell Management was another key member of the Rules “team.” Elisa is a fantastic reader and editor. I can’t thank her enough for her many invaluable insights during the shaping of the manuscript.
Also at InkWell, I’d like to thank Susan Hobson, Libby O’Neill, and of course, Michael Carlisle and Kim Witherspoon.
In England, my thanks go to Peter Robinson.
Last, and most important, I want to thank my wife, Sue, and my daughters, Noelle and Katja, for their love and support. You make it all worthwhile. I have to point out that Sue is an early reader of all my work. I rely heavily on her judgment about whether a book works or not (and frankly on just about everything). If I don’t say it enough at home, “Thank you, sweetheart, for showing the interest and taking the time.”
AN EXCERPT FROM THE FORTHCOMING
RULES OF VENGEANCE
BY CHRISTOPHER REICH
A POWERFUL CAR BOMB EXPLODED THIS MORNING AT 11:16 A.M. IN THE WESTMINSTER DISTRICT OF LONDON. IMMEDIATE CASUALTIES ARE SAID TO NUMBER FOUR DEAD AND MORE THAN THIRTY WOUNDED. THE TARGET IS THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN RUSSIAN INTERIOR MINISTER IGOR IVANOV WHO WAS TRAVELING IN A MOTORCADE FOLLOWING AN UNPUBLICIZED MEETING WITH BRITISH BUSINESS EXECUTIVES. THERE IS NO WORD YET AS TO WHETHER IVANOV WAS AMONG THE INJURED.
DEVELOPING …
London, England
Storey’s Gate, Westminster
11:18 a.m
.
The world was on fire
.
Flames licked at the ruined cars littering the roadway. Coils of oily black smoke choked the air. Everywhere there were bodies sprawled on the sidewalk and in the street. Debris rained down.
Jonathan Ransom lay on the hood of an automobile, half-in, half-out of the windshield. Lifting his head, a torrent of fractured glass scattered across his face. He put a hand to his cheek and it came away wet with blood. He could hear nothing but a shrill, painful ringing.
Emma
,he thought.
Are you alright
?
Recklessly, he pulled himself clear of the windshield and slid off the hood. He staggered, one hand on the car, getting his bearings, and as he took a breath and cleared his head, he remembered everything. The convoy of black cars, the tricolored flag waving from the antenna, and then the brilliant light, the sudden, unexpected wave of heat and the liberating sensation of being tossed through the air.
Slowly, he picked his way through the bodies and the wreckage toward the intersection where he’d seen her last. He was looking for a woman with auburn hair and hazel eyes. “Emma,” he called out, searching the bewildered and panicked faces.
There was a crater where the BMW she’d driven across the city and parked so precisely had detonated. The vehicle itself sat five meters away blazing fiercely, essentially unrecognizable. Across from it was one of the Mercedes or what was left of it. No survivors there. The blast had shattered the windows of every building up and down the street. Through the smoke, he could see curtains billowing forth like flags of surrender.
Up the street, a thin blond woman emerged from the smoke, walking purposefully in his direction. In one hand, she held a phone or a radio. In the other, she gripped a pistol and it was pointed at him. Seeing him, she shouted. He could not hear what she said. There was too much smoke, too much confusion to tell whether she was alone or not. It didn’t matter. She was police and she was coming for him.
Jonathan turned and ran.
It was then that he heard the scream.
Immediately, he stopped.
In the center of the road, a man tumbled from the wreckage of a black sedan and crawled away from the burning car. It was one of the Mercedes from the motorcade. Flames had seared the clothing off of his back and much of the flesh, too. His hair was on fire, enveloping his head in a curious orange halo.
Jonathan ran to the suffering man, tearing off his own blazer and throwing it over the man’s head to extinguish the flames. “Lie down,” he said firmly. “Don’t move. I’ll get an ambulance.”
”Please help me,” said the man, as he stretched out onto the pavement.
“You’re going to be alright,” said Jonathan. “But you need to stay still.” He rose, searching for help. Farther down the road, he saw a police strobe and he waved his arms and began to shout. “Over here! I need some med ical attention!”
Just then, someone knocked him to the ground. Strong hands yanked his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. “Police,” a man barked into his ear. “Make a move and I’ll kill ya.”
“Don’t touch him,” said Jonathan, struggling against the cuffs. “He has third-degree burns all over his body. Get a poncho and cover him up. There’s too much debris in the air. You have to protect the burn or he’ll die of infection.”
“Shut it!” yelled the policeman, slamming his cheek to the ground.
“What’s your name?” asked the blond woman, kneeling beside him.
“Ransom. Jonathan Ransom. I’m a doctor.”
“Why did you do this?” she demanded.
“Do what?”
“This. The bomb,” said the woman. “I saw you shouting at someone back there. Who was it?”
“I don’t— “ Jonathan bit back his words.
“You don’t what?”
Jonathan didn’t answer. Far up the block, he’d spotted a woman with ungoverned auburn hair maneuvering through the crowd. He saw her only for an instant, less even, because there were police all around, and besides it was so smoky. All the same he knew.
It was Emma.
His wife was alive.
TWO DAYS EARLIER…
.
1
The most expensive
real estate in the world is located in the borough of Mayfair in central London. Barely two square miles, Mayfair is bordered by Hyde Park to the west
and Green Park to the south. Claridge’s Hotel, the world
headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell, and the summer residence of the Sultan of Brunei are within walking distance of
one another. In between can be found many of the world’s
best-known luxury boutiques, London’s only three-star
restaurant (as awarded by the Guide Michelin), and a
handful of art galleries catering to those with unlimited bank
accounts. Yet even within this enclave of wealth and privilege, one address stands above the rest
.
One Park Lane, or “One Park” as it’s commonly known
,
is a luxury residential high-rise located at the southeast corner of Hyde Park. It had begun life one hundred years earlier
as a modest ten-story hotel and over time had served as a
bank, a car dealership, and, it is rumored, a high-class
brothel for visiting Middle Eastern dignitaries. As real estate
values began to spiral upward, so did the building’s aspirations
.
Today, One Park stands some twenty stories tall and is
home to nineteen private residences. Each occupies an entire
floor, not counting the penthouse, which is a duplex. Prices
start at five thousand pounds per square foot, or a breath
under nine thousand dollars. The cheapest residence goes for
fifteen million pounds; the penthouse, four times that, sixty
million pounds, or nearly one hundred ten million dollars
.
Owners include a former British prime minister, an American hedge-fund manager, and the purported leader of the
Bulgarian underworld. The joke around the building is who
among them is the biggest thief
.
With so much wealth gathered beneath one roof, security is a twenty-four-hour concern. At all times, two liveried door men cover the lobby, a team of three plainclothes officers roam the premises, and two more occupy the control room, where they keep a constant eye on the multiplex of video
monitors broadcasting live feeds from the building’s forty-four closed-circuit television cameras
.
One Park’s imposing front doors are made from double-
paned, bulletproof glass, protected by a steel grate and
secured by magnetic lock. The doors’ German manufacturer
,
Siegfried & Stein, guaranteed the lock against a direct hit
from a rocket-propelled grenade. The front doors might be
blown clear off their hinges and across the spacious marble
lobby, but by God and Bismarck, they will remain locked
.
Visitors are granted entry only after their faces have been
scrutinized via closed-circuit television and their identity
confirmed by a resident
.
For all intents and purposes, One Park is impregnable
.
_________
Getting in was
the easy part.
The trespasser, operational designation, “Alpha,” stood inside the master bedroom closet of residence 5A of One Park Lane. Alpha was familiar with the apartment’s security system. Prior reconnaissance had revealed the presence of pressure pads beneath the carpet alongside the windows in every room and at the front entry, but none in the closet. There were other more sophisticated measures, but they, too, could be defeated.
The intruder crossed to the door and flipped the light switch. The closet was palatial. A shoe rack stood against the far wall, and next to it, a rolled up flag of St. George, and two Holland and Holland shotguns. The owner’s clothing hung along one wall. There was no women’s clothing to be seen. The residence belonged to a bachelor.
To the left were stacks of yellowing periodicals, bound newspapers, and manila files; the meticulously accumulated bric-a-brac of a dedicated scholar. To the right stood a mahogany dresser with several photographs in sterling frames. One showed a fit, sandy-haired man in hunting attire, shotgun under one arm, in conversation with a similarly sporty Queen Elizabeth II. The trespasser recognized the owner of the apartment. He was Lord Robert Russell, second son of the Duke of Westminster, England’s richest peer with a fortune estimated at five billion pounds.
Alpha had not come to steal Russell’s money, but for something infinitely more valuable.
Kneeling, the intruder removed a slim packet from the workbag. A thumbnail punctured its plastic wrapping. Alpha deftly unfolded a foilcolored jumpsuit and stepped into it. Care was taken to ensure that the suit covered every square inch of exposed skin. A hood descended low over the brow and rose over the jaw to mask the nose and mouth. The jumpsuit was made from Mylar, a material often used for survival blankets. The suit had been designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to prevent the escape of the body’s ambient heat.
Satisfied the Mylar suit was in place, the intruder removed a pair of telescopic night vision goggles and affixed them comfortably, again working to cover as much skin as possible. A pair of gloves came last.
Alpha cracked open the closet door. The master bedroom was cloaked in darkness. A scan of the area revealed a motion detector attached to the ceiling near the door. The size of a pack of cigarettes, the motion detector emitted passive infrared beams capable of detecting minute oscillations in room temperature caused by the passage of human bodies through a protected space. The alarm’s sensitivity could be calibrated to allow a cat or a small dog free reign of the premises without triggering the alarm, but Robert Russell did not own a house pet. Moreover, he was cautious by nature and paranoid by dint of his profession. He knew full well that his recent work had made him unpopular in certain circles. He also knew that if the past were to be taken as any indication, his life was in danger. The sensors would be set to detect the faintest sign of an intruder.
Even with the thermal suit, it was not yet safe to enter the room. Robert Russell had equipped his flat with a double redundant security system. The motion detector constituted one measure. The other was a microwave transmitter that relied on the concept of Doppler radar to bounce sound waves off the walls. Any disturbance in the sound waves’ pattern would activate the alarm.
A survey of the bedroom failed to locate the transmitter.
Just then, a voice sounded in Alpha’s earpiece. “He’s leaving the target. You have eight minutes.”
“Check.”
There was no time to waste.
Stepping out of the closet, Alpha moved swiftly to the bedroom door. No alarm sounded. All was silent. There was no microwave transmitter in the room. The bedroom door stood ajar, granting a clear view down a hallway and into the living area. Gloved fingers increased the night vision goggles’ magnification fourfold. It required fifteen seconds to locate the ruby red diode high on the foyer wall that signaled the location of the transmitter. There was no way to disable the diode. The solution lay in tricking it into thinking it was operating normally.
Drawing a miniature target pistol from an underarm holster, Alpha took careful aim at the diode and fired. The pistol did not shoot a bullet–at least not in the conventional sense of the word. Instead, it launched a subsonic projectile containing a crystalline epoxy compound. Designed to flatten on impact, the epoxy would effectively block the sound waves and reflect them back to the transmitter. Still, for less than a second, the sound waves would be disturbed. The alarm would be triggered.
But there it would end.
The beauty and the arrogance of the double redundant alarm lay in the necessity to trigger both mechanisms at the same time in order to activate the alarm. If the thermal sensor detected a rise in temperature, it would crosscheck with the motion detector for a corresponding disruption in the Doppler waves. Similarly, if the Doppler-based motion sensor were disturbed, it would verify with the thermal sensor that there had been an increase in room temperature. If, in either case, the response was negative, the alarm would not be activated. The redundancy was not installed to make the room safer, but to guard against the possibility of a false alarm. No one had ever considered it possible to defeat both systems at the same time.
The projectile hit its target dead-on. The ruby red diode vanished. The room was clear.
Alpha checked the time. Six minutes thirty seconds.
Inside the living room, it was necessary to fold back the carpet from the walls. The pressure pads were located as noted on the schematics. One was placed in front of each of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Hyde Park, and the third in front of the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. Each required one minute to be disabled. There was another near the front door, but Alpha didn’t bother with it. The entry and escape routes were the same.
Four minutes.
Free to roam the apartment, the intruder made a bee-26 line for Russell’s study. Alpha had been inside the apartment before and had made a point of memorizing its layout. A sleek stainless-steel desk occupied the center of the room. On it were three flat-screen monitors arrayed side by side. A far larger screen, some ninety-six inches across, hung from the wall directly opposite.
Alpha directed a halogen beam beneath the desk. The computer’s central processing unit sat on the floor at the rear of the foot well. There was no time to copy its contents, only to destroy it. Alpha slipped a handheld electronic device from the workbag and swiped it several times over Russell’s CPU. The device delivered an immensely powerful electromagnetic pulse obliterating all data.
Unfortunately, the information was also stored in a more permanent location: Robert Russell’s estimable brain.
“He’s pulling into the garage,” announced the voice in the earpiece.
The time was 2:18 a.m. “Everything’s a go,” said Alpha. “Get lost.”
“See you back at the fort.”
On the desk was a Web Tablet, an all-in-one touch screen that controlled the apartment’s automatic functions. With a touch, Russell could turn on the television, open or close the curtains, or adjust the temperature. There was another more interesting feature. Hitting the SECURITY button, the screen divided itself into quarters, each showing the view from one of the building’s closed-circuit cameras. The top left quadrant showed Robert Russell leaving his car, a Bentley Mulsanne Turbo. Russell appeared entering the basement foyer a moment later. A few seconds passed and he entered the bottom left quadrant, this time inside the elevator. At thirty, he was tall and lean, with a full head of tousled white blond hair that drew looks wherever he went. He wore jeans, an open shirt, and a blazer. Somewhere in the past, he’d earned a black belt in jujitsu. He was a dangerous man in every respect.
He stepped out of the elevator, and, a moment later, appeared in the final screen, standing inside his private alcove and pressing his passkey and thumb to the biometric lock.
Alpha walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer. On the top shelf were two bottles of vodka sheathed in ice rings.
read the labels. Polish vodka made from buffalo grass. The vodka tasted like warm velvet.
The tumblers to the front door slid back. Robert Russell’s heels clicked on the marble floor. The trespasser took off the balaclava, unzipped the jumpsuit, and waited. The disguise was no longer needed. It was essential that Russell not be frightened. His keychain held a panic button that activated the alarm.
Russell walked into the kitchen. “Jesus, you scared the hell out of me,” he exclaimed.
“Hello, Robbie. Care for a drink?”
Russell’s smile faded rapidly as the facts arranged themselves in his razor-sharp mind. “Actually, just how the hell did you get in here?”
He had barely finished the words when the trespasser, operational designation “Alpha,” brought the bottle of vodka and its ice sheath down on his skull. Russell collapsed to all fours, the keychain skittering across the floor. The blow left him stunned but not unconscious. Before he could call out, Alpha straddled him, grasped his jaw in one hand, his hair in the other and wrenched his head violently to the left.
Russell’s neck snapped like a dead branch. He fell limp to the floor.
It took all of Alpha’s strength to drag the body across the living room and onto the balcony. Flinging his arms over the railing, Alpha grasped Russell’s legs, hefted the deadweight, and rolled the body over.
She did not wait to see Lord Robert Tavistock Russell strike the granite stairs 117 feet below.
