Neither the guard nor the mayor had noticed a black motorcycle that had followed them, staying about a block or so behind, ducking out of sight briefly now and then, only to appear again in some blind spot. When the car stopped and the mayor went inside, the small dirt bike roared past the house and evaporated into the failing light.
30
Lem James was wrapping up a long day. The special agent of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service had been up to his elbows in work for the past forty-eight hours as tensions increased throughout Finland. The Russians were on the move on one side and NATO was awakening on the other, and Finland was in the middle. Diplomats in the laid-back city had been as busy as honeybees in the bright spring weather, and that meant that Lem and his fellow agents were working around the clock to protect them. Late-night meetings were becoming the norm, but maybe tonight he could get home to his wife and son in time for dinner.
He had locked his safe and his desk and was putting on his jacket when the cell phone began a little bebop tune that meant a call was coming in. He was tempted to let it go until he saw the picture and name of Inspector Rikka Aura of the Finland Security Intelligence Service.
“I told you never to call me here,” he answered in a teasing voice. “My other mistresses will get suspicious.”
“I have no time to be a mistress for anybody,” Aura said. She sounded tired. “Sorry to call you so late.”
“I always have time for you, Rikka. You know that.”
The woman paused, as if gathering courage. “This is way off the record, Lem. You remember that friend of yours with whom I had a disagreement a while back?”
“Yeah. You threw him out of the country.”
“Meet me at Molly Malone’s as soon as you can.”
Ten minutes later, they each had a foam-topped beer before them at a table in the rear of the pub, their heads almost touching so they could talk above the racket of a local band trying to play Irish music. Lem had rarely seen his friend so concerned, but understood that her neutral country was caught in a tightening vice because of its ardent neutrality. Failing to stand up to a bully never works — not on a playground and not in a global showdown.
“My source for the information about when and how Kyle Swanson was coming to Finland was General Sir Frederick Ravensdale of Great Britain. He called me personally from Brussels. I assumed at the time that he was acting in his role as NATO deputy commander.”
Lem pulled back, took a slug of beer, and said, “No shit? The guy who just got named to head the special northern task force? Why would he do that?”
“I thought it was an unofficial favor. You know how that works, Lem. Now I’m no longer certain. The general did not want Swanson to linger in Finland a moment longer than necessary. Having me expel him forced your friend to act immediately and not make other arrangements. It forced him along a certain path. Does that make sense?”
“No, but I’m not very smart. I will pass this along to my people. Thanks, Rikka. I know this was a difficult decision for you.”
“It was, Lem. It could get me fired or imprisoned if it gets out, but Helsinki is in the crosshairs of whatever is about to happen and I think this might have something to do with it. You go home now and say hello to the family for me. Tomorrow may be hell.” She got up, touched his shoulder lightly and left the bar while he ordered another beer to help him digest the news.
The guard parked in front of the home of Mayor Konstantin Pran had a problem common to most men his age. As the time passed, and darkness fell like a shade across the neighborhood, boredom set in and his attention drifted to the edge of sleep. He jerked himself awake and checked the time. Too many more hours. He decided to get out, stretch his legs, bend his back a few times and go to the trees and pee. Tomorrow, he would pack a plastic jug in the trunk so he could do his business in the car, just as he had on stakeouts when he was a young cop.
The night air was cool and welcoming. He could smoke out in the open, but not in the car. Silly rule. The neighborhood had settled down like a snoozing dog. The guard had done a pee break an hour before without incident. A jug would be better than getting a complaint from some neighbor who might see him urinating on the flowers. This time, the shadows were longer and the shade was deeper. As he unzipped his pants, a double garrote of fine piano wire was slipped over his head and bit into his neck.
Kyle Swanson had waited patiently, knowing that it was likely the guard would repeat his earlier behavior to empty his bladder. He snapped the wire loops into place, crossed his hands to tighten it and pulled hard with a knee in the man’s back to force a bend. The garrotte cut through the flesh as fast as a spinning butcher’s saw, and went hard and deep completely around the neck. Kyle kept pulling through pharynx, larynx, trachea, esophagus, pharyngeal muscles and a field of blood veins. In a few seconds, the thin wire was sawing on the top of the spine. The guard had automatically reached up to pull on the wire, but Swanson was using the French Foreign Legion method. By using a very long wire, he was able to wrap it twice around the neck, so even as the victim clawed at one loop of the collar, the other was made tighter. Once snared, there was no way out. The man went down and Kyle straddled him until it was over. The corpse had been almost decapitated.
Swanson unwound the wire, having to pull a bit to free it from the muscles and flesh, and stuffed the metal weapon in the backpack. He grabbed the dead guard by his shoulders and hauled him deeper into the trees. Peeling off a black raincoat that was smeared with blood, he spread it over the corpse.
Then he pulled down the knitted balaclava mask, drew his .45-caliber Colt, slung on the backpack and headed toward the front door. An ankle holster held the 9mm Beretta Px4 Storm Compact. There was a light on the small porch. He unscrewed it and rapped lightly, four times.
The mayor was at the dining table. His wife, Ivi, had come home right after the swearing-in ceremony and devoted herself to building a spectacular meal of roast chicken, fresh vegetables, potatoes and a salad mixture of her own design. A thick, sweet kissel with ice cream waited as dessert. She was very pleased both with the meal and with her husband, and the tapping at the door annoyed her.
“You stay and enjoy the food, Konstantin. I will get it. Maybe the guard has to use the bathroom.” Ivi put aside her folded napkin.
The mayor watched her go with a private smile. They had been married more than thirty years and he still loved her spirit and admired her grace. He called, “Whoever it is, send them away, Ivi. The workday is over. This is our time.”
She pulled the dead-bolt free and undid the thin brass chain. Just as she realized the light was not working, Kyle Swanson kicked in the door and sent her spinning across the hall, bouncing off of the wall. By the time she hit the floor, he had closed the door, was wrapping strips of duct tape around her hands and over her mouth like a cowboy roping a calf.
Three and a half seconds after the door had opened, Swanson was down the hall, across the living room and descending on Konstantin Pram like an indoor hurricane. The mayor had managed to drop his silverware and begin rising from the chair when Kyle hit him with a body-tackle, feeling the weakness of the old man. In a few more seconds, the mayor was also hog-tied.