“This is beyond top secret, Kyle,” Marty Atkins said as he handed over the one-page memo of a few short paragraphs.
Kyle read it, then slid the paper back onto the table. “When do I leave?”
“Go back to the hotel and shit, shine, shower and shave, then you’re outta here.”
“Where am I going?”
“You don’t need to know that yet. Call me when you get there.”
2
Swanson fondly remembered the days when he traveled so lightly that a duffel bag and a ValPak could hold everything he owned, from shaving cream to shoes, and how he had gotten along quite well. The U.S. Marine Corps furnished almost everything he needed, all the way up to formal dress blues. That, however, was a long-ago yesterday, before he switched over to the Central Intelligence Agency. Now it felt as though he required not only a hotel cart and a bellhop, but a mule train and a couple of Sherpas to carry his luggage. The handcrafted small suitcase, the medium suitcase and the large suitcase were accompanied by a matching suit bag, all made of tough leather with brass trim. The set cost more than most people earned in a month. It was the stamp of success. It was part of his cover.
Kyle had changed into a pin-striped gray suit with a deep gold tie imbedded with subdued green dots, brushed his styled sandy brown hair into place and transformed into somebody who did not at all resemble the sharpshooter who had just blown off the head of a terrorist. Instead, he was back to his day job of being the executive vice president of Excalibur Enterprises, a globe-trotting salesman with cold gray-green eyes and an intolerance for business screwups. He could go almost anywhere in the world, hidden in plain view as just another American millionaire with attitude. A stranger’s first impression was that Swanson was to be avoided, if for no other reason than he was an unpleasant jerk. The bankroll was provided by the company, his own salary and private holdings, plus a CIA slush fund.
“I still think you look goofy when you get all dolled up like a Eurotrash gigolo,” Dan Laird said, chewing a toothpick while driving Kyle to the Ciapino airport. Cars and trucks and motorbikes passed in an unending river, and the eyes of the two agents snapped through the throng, always looking for potential trouble. In Rome, they mostly saw only Italian men in suits puttering along on scooters with pretty girls clinging to their waists.
“Still feels strange, too. I can still kick your butt, though.”
“Never happen. And I would not want to get blood on your pretty shirt. Where you going, or can I ask?”
“You can ask, but I’m not supposed to tell you, which is easy because I don’t know myself.” The car radio was droning some anonymous instrumental and Kyle punched the audio system to scan for an all-news station off the satellite. He found one, but there was nothing out of the ordinary; not even a report yet about their hit in Rome. No mention of Ivan Strakov.
A Gulfstream V jet, a bland bluish-gray machine almost invisible in the ground clutter of any airport, had its engines humming when they arrived at the combination civilian and military facility, where a pair of uniformed enlisted men placed the expensive luggage in the bird’s cargo hold with a great deal more care than they would have shown ordinary bags. Swanson stepped aboard, hung up his coat, picked out a comfortable seat, stuffed his laptop overhead and strapped himself in; the hull was sealed and the plane began to taxi. Dan Laird, with a placid, almost bored, look on his face, peeled the plastic wrap from another toothpick and watched the little jet climb into the sky and disappear.
When it finally reached altitude and steadied into a course, Kyle knew they were headed north. That was not very helpful, since most of the entire boot of Italy lay north of Rome, and then Europe, and eventually, the North Pole. The flight could be going anywhere. He got his laptop down and plugged it into a charger in the armrest, opened the word processing program, found the folder containing information on the new company’s polymer-encased bullet experiment.
Excalibur Enterprises was on the cutting edge of weapons development, and any possible reduction of weight was always an attractive element for a soldier. The average American infantryman, when all geared up with comms, ammo, batteries, pack, water, rifle and other necessary items, carried about as much weight as a medieval knight’s suit of armor. Having lugged more than his share of tonnage around a battle zone, Kyle knew how those loads seemed to increase at every step. Trimming fractions was important, and plastic cartridges were not only lighter than brass, but cheaper, too. Excalibur could reap another fortune if it could get the bugs worked out and the patents approved.
His challenge was to report back to his boss-mentor and surrogate father, Sir Geoffrey Cornwell, the CEO of Excalibur, without leaving a word trail that might connect the company to today’s murder. Having questions asked in Parliament or by a congressional investigating committee was to be avoided.
The locked door to the pilot’s compartment clicked open, and Swanson looked up casually as a pilot in a U.S. Air Force flight suit stepped through, turned and locked it again. The major, on loan to the Central Intelligence Agency, wore no name tag. Kyle closed the laptop lid.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” the flier said, leaning on the seatback in front of Kyle. “Take off your tie and make yourself comfortable. Drinks are in the aft refrigerator, including some of the harder stuff. Blankets are stowed in the overhead. We’re going to be flying for several hours, so I am required to run through the emergency procedures for all passengers: If we crash at six hundred miles per hour, we’re all going to die. It would be appreciated if you wouldn’t scream a lot on the way down, because we will be busy up front with the parachutes.”
“Thanks for that information, Major. You filed a flight plan, correct?” Swanson cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes, we did.” The pilot walked back and grabbed a soda. “Want one of these?”
“Not right now. So it’s not really a secret about where the plane is going, right? I know we are heading north, but that course could change at any time.”
The pilot laughed, then took a pull of the cold drink. “No longer a secret, sir. We will continue on this heading all the way to Helsinki, tracked by the radars of about a half-dozen countries en route. There is no mystery to a straight line. Anyway, that’s where you will get off. Other than that, I don’t know nothing.”
“Finland.”
“An unusual destination, if I may say so.”
“Yes. It is.”
“Lots of blond young ladies and saunas. That could be a nice combination.”
“Do pilots ever think of anything other than airplanes and sex?”
“What else is there?” The pilot grinned, turned and went back to steering his sleek contraption through the sky.
Kyle thought: Finland? He turned his attention back to the computer keypad and resumed drafting his carefully-worded report.
He did not remember drifting into the dreamless sleep, because he was exhausted after the long day that had started before sunrise in Rome. It was about midnight, local time, according to a clock on the bulkhead, when the pilot woke him up by announcing on a speaker in the main cabin, “Prepare for landing.” Kyle went to the bathroom and washed his face and straightened his clothes, then he buckled back into the seat as the Gulfstream slid gracefully down over the dark Baltic Sea and touched down at the Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport. The aircraft rolled for a while to reach the military sector, which gave him time to pack away the computer, and check for his cell phone, wallet and cred pack.
The hatch opened to become a short stairway, and waiting at the bottom was a giant in an unbuttoned overcoat. He stood at least six-six and with the fur hat, he was about a foot taller than normal people, had a square jaw and a big chest. The man asked in a gravelly voice that came from a mouth that might break if he smiled, “Are you Swanson?”