As the hotel doorman reached for the handle, a dirty painter’s van swerved out of the traffic and slammed into the rear of the taxi, throwing it forward and knocking the doorman to the ground. Everyone automatically took a step back at the moment of grinding impact, with Kyle already changing into combat mode. He grabbed Lauren’s arm as the side door of the van opened and a huge man lumbered out. He was totally bald but for a mustache and goatee and wore a black leather jacket and biker boots. He had a knife in his right hand. “Back inside! Quick,” yelled Kyle.
The young couple behind them slammed into Lauren like a pair of charging linebackers, sweeping her away from Kyle’s grasp and pushing her in a single motion into the van, where more hands gripped her. The man with the knife lashed out at Kyle, who danced to the side, reaching for Lauren but seeing the door already closing. He could hear the van’s engine roar and her scream.
The man with the knife stood easily, dominating the space between Swanson and the vehicle, with his mouth curved down into an evil smile. When the young hotel doorman struggled to his feet, he was slashed on the arm and kicked by the thug with a hard karate-style thrust of his right foot, the leg fully extended in a practiced move. It was a moment Kyle would not let pass. The guy had been watching too much television.
Using the side kick had left the thug standing for an instant on one foot, tilting his body to the other side for balance and his attention drawn to the newest threat, the doorman. Kyle took a single step forward and delivered a powerful kick to the totally exposed groin, grabbed the knife hand itself to take it out of play, and delivered a flat-hand punch into the assailant’s throat. The big man staggered back, choking and hurting and suddenly uncertain of his strength. Kyle followed with a single, flowing right-side attack-a right cross deep into the gut, then bringing his elbow up hard into the man’s chin, which rocked the head back. Swanson’s fist was now cocked right beside his own ear, and he finished the combination with a downward hammer strike that crushed the man’s nose. The thug was staggering, so it was easy to snatch the knife from him, which Kyle did, then flipped it and slashed him across the stomach. The man grabbed for the cut as he toppled like a fat tree. Kyle moved aside to let him fall and then made two more quick cuts that severed the Achilles tendons behind both ankles. The man wasn’t going anywhere.
When the frenzy of the fight cleared, Kyle turned to the street as his breathing returned to normal. The white van was nowhere to be seen. Lauren had been professionally kidnapped, slickly taken right out of his arms. Damn it all!
47
BERN
SWITZERLAND
COMMANDER STEFAN GLAMER OF Einsatzgruppe TIGRIS was on his cell, looking nothing like the suave civilian that Kyle had met at the bear pit. The commander was in a black jumpsuit with the legs tucked into the tops of flat black jump boots. His Kevlar helmet, flak jacket, and submachine gun were stacked on a table. “This man Jim Hall is a monster,” he said. The icy eyes betrayed no real emotion. It was a statement of fact.
Glamer, CIA Assistant Chief of Station Mark Brand, and a ranking team of civilian detectives had interviewed Swanson for hours in a private room at the canton police headquarters, prying for details of the attack. Kyle had tried every trick in the book to increase the memories of those moments, draining his thoughts into words. Colors, smells, invisible hunches, anything that might help. There was not much.
“The fellow you took down has been identified as nothing more than a contract hit man paid to kill you. Ignorant beyond what he was told and did not know who hired him. The van was abandoned a kilometer away from the hotel. It had been stolen, and the forensic people are going through it for evidence.” One of the detectives was drinking coffee, the sort of beefy, seen-it-all investigator who is found in almost any city in the world. He didn’t know about terrorism, but kidnapping was a serious crime. With every passing hour, the chances of solving it became less and less.
Mark Brand was almost an invisible man, average in every external way, which was why he was the chief administrator in the CIA office in Switzerland. The country had been the safe haven where spies came to meet for hundreds of years, and the goal here was to conduct intelligence work without rocking the neutral boat. He might as well not have been in the room at all.
“You people are going to continue to sit on the sidelines while one of your agents has been abducted by another one of your agents.” Swanson felt like spitting on the American.
“Technically, neither of them works for the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Carson had not yet been reinstated to duty, and Mr. Hall left some time ago. Also, our hands are bound due to an issue that I cannot discuss here.” Brand’s movements, even with his fingers, were precise and birdlike, and Kyle considered him to be a born pencil-pusher.
Swanson shook his head slowly. “You mean the deal you made with Hall to leave each other alone. You think that’s a secret?”
Brand shrugged. “The danger to a single agent must be weighted against potential damage.”
“So why don’t you just get the fuck out of here and let us work? Go back to your desk before your suit gets dirty.”
“I was instructed to help the Swiss police in any way possible.” Brand did not seem perturbed, and Kyle knew the CIA man was really in the room to hobble anything that might bring harm to the Agency.
Commander Glamer looked at the detectives, and they spoke in a rapid German dialect. One looked over at Mark Brand and snorted in derision. “All kidnappings have a reason, Gunny Swanson. Most of them involve a ransom, and that requires the kidnappers to make contact. Agent Carson has no family here, so the contact will come either to you or to Mr. Brand. Is that right?”
Swanson took out his wallet and extracted a single U.S. dollar. “That’s the reason,” he said. “Hall is after the cash in the bank. He will want to make a trade. If we keep watching the money, he will turn up. He is playing for millions of dollars.” Kyle fought to keep his thoughts on an even keel, worried about how long the routine logic of a law enforcement situation would apply to Jim Hall. Kyle had come to the conclusion that there would be a killing at the end of the road, and either Jim or Kyle would lie dead. Lauren was a pawn in the game.
The commander stood before a map taped to a cardboard backing propped on a tripod. He pointed to the business district of Bern, then used a fingertip to trace the perimeter where his men were already in positions. Police throughout the city were on alert, and more federal agents had been dispatched to support them. “He cannot possibly hope to get away. Our borders are sealed tight all around the country, and we have the area around the bank saturated. We are missing something.”
The room lapsed into thoughtful silence, and when a cell tone started to chime, all four of them reached for their own phones. It was the phone in Kyle’s pocket that was chirping, and he jumped to his feet when he saw the incoming number on the small screen. Lauren!
He pressed the TALK button and heard the hard voice of Jim Hall on the other end say, “Hello, buddy-boy.”
THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE AS precise as they were absurd, and Hall delivered it all with rapid-fire intensity. “Your number was on the phone in her purse. Listen up and don’t even think about negotiating. You want to see the bitch alive again, this is what you and your cop friends are going to do.”