“Any ideas where he’ll be going next?”
“I was hoping Pakistan. We have an immediate opening at a new mission in Lahore. The director dropped dead of a heart attack. Only fifty, the dear man. He’d scheduled an important meeting with the minister of Health and Welfare for Tuesday. I’d rather hoped that I could convince Jonathan to fly out on Sunday in time to make it.”
“This Sunday?”
“Yes. On the evening flight. I know it’s asking rather a lot of a man who just lost his wife, but knowing Jonathan, I think it would do him good.”
“Sunday,” von Daniken repeated, as it all began to sink in.
Seventy-two hours.
Von Daniken’s theory was simple. Ransom was a trained agent in the pay of a foreign government. His position as a physician working for Doctors Without Borders offered ideal cover to move from country to country without attracting undue attention. The way to figure out who Ransom worked for was to discover what he’d done in the past. That was why von Daniken was seated at a computer in the watch room of the Geneva police on Rue Gauthier, staring at a picture of a gravely wounded woman being freed from a pile of rubble inside a bombed-out hospital. The picture came from the front page of the Daily Star, Lebanon’s English-language newspaper, and was dated July 31 the past year.
The article was titled “Blast Kills Police Investigator,” and it concerned an explosion that had killed seventeen persons, including a prominent policeman who had been leading the investigation into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister. At the time of the explosion, the investigator was undergoing weekly dialysis to treat a failing kidney. A detective at the scene revealed that he suspected that the bomb had been planted in the floor of the clinic during a renovation completed three months earlier. He estimated that the blast was equivalent to one hundred pounds of TNT.
The article went on to say that no responsibility had been claimed for the attack and that the police were following up reports that Syrian agents had been seen at the hospital prior to the blast.
Von Daniken looked up from the computer. A bomb planted during renovation three months prior to the attack. One hundred pounds of TNT. The scope of the attack sent a chill down his spine. The people involved had to number in the dozens. Builders, contractors, city officials who’d granted permits, someone in the doctor’s office to pass on details of the victim’s appointments. As a policeman, he was impressed. As a human being, he was horrified.
Before Lebanon, Darfur…
A United Nations C-141 transport carrying leaders of the Muslim Janjaweed and the indigenous Sudanese en route to Khartoum to discuss a government-sponsored cease-fire explodes in midair. There are no survivors. Evidence is discovered showing that a bomb had been planted in one of the engines. Both sides claimed that the other was responsible for the calamity. Civil war intensifies.
And before Darfur, Kosovo. Page two of the National Gazette: “An explosion has claimed the life of retired General Vladimir Drakic, known familiarly as ‘Drako,’ and twenty-eight others. At the time, Drakic, 55, was attending a secret meeting of the outlawed right-wing Patriots Party, of which he was rumored to be a top leader. The subject of an international manhunt for over ten years, Drakic was wanted by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in connection with the massacre of two thousand men, women, and children near the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Evidence at the scene pointed to a ruptured gas main as the cause of the blast. Police are investigating claims that a rival Albanian organization was involved. Two men have been taken into custody.”
The three attacks bore similar hallmarks. All involved targeting a highly placed, well-protected individual. All were the product of meticulous planning, extraordinary intelligence, and long-term engagement. And in each case, evidence was found pointing to a third party.
But what finally convinced von Daniken of Ransom’s participation was the timing of the three incidents. The bombing in Beirut took place four days before Ransom left Lebanon for Jordan. The downing of the Sudanese jet occurred two days before Ransom left the country. And the attack in Kosovo just one day before Ransom returned to Geneva.
Still, he was at a loss as to who would gain most from the attacks. Cui bono? Who would benefit? Motive was the investigator’s touchstone, and none was readily apparent.
Von Daniken pushed his chair away from the computer, the words of the director ringing in his ears.
“We have an immediate opening in Lahore. I was hoping he could fly out this Sunday.”
53
A two-man patrol responded to the report of an intruder at Waldhoheweg 30. The officers rang the caller’s bell and were admitted to the building. They were not unduly concerned. A CrimeStat analysis ranked the street and neighborhood as one of the safest in the city. Only two burglaries had been reported in the last ninety days. There had been no reported instances of armed robbery, rape, or murder in the past year.
“He’s inside,” said the aggrieved tenant, after shepherding the policemen into her apartment. “I’ve been watching since I called. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“And what makes you think he’s a burglar?”
“I didn’t say he was a burglar. I said he was an intruder. He shouldn’t be in the building. First he said he was waiting for Eva Kruger. He wanted to come inside. But he was bleeding here…” She pointed at her neck. “I told him that since I didn’t know him it would be better if he waited outside for his sister-in-law. A minute later, I heard him on the landing. He had a key to her apartment. I watched him enter.”
“His sister-in-law is Miss Kruger?”
“That’s what he said. He could be lying. I’ve never seen him here before.”
The police took turns asking her questions. “Did you see the woman who normally lives there…this Miss Kruger?”
“No.”
“Did you ask him about his injury?”
“He said it was an accident. He said he was a doctor and would take care of it once he was inside the apartment.”
Exasperation was writ clear on the policemen’s faces. “Did this doctor threaten you in any way?”
“No. He was polite…but he shouldn’t be here if Miss Kruger isn’t here. I’ve never seen him before. He frightened me.”
The policemen exchanged glances. Another snoop with too much time on her hands. “We’ll have a word with the gentleman. Did he, by any chance, give you his name?”
The woman frowned.
“Stay here, ma’am.”
Jonathan stood in the bathroom, chin raised high, studying his neck. The gash had begun to congeal, the torn flesh slowly hardening into place. In the field, he saw injuries like this on a daily basis. The only way to repair it without permanent scarring was to reopen the wound and stitch it closed when the hurt was fresh, but that wasn’t an option today.
He poured himself a shot of the buffalo grass vodka and drank it for courage.
“Keep still,” he whispered to himself, bringing needle and thread to his throat.
Drawing a breath, he set to work. The needle wasn’t bad for something he’d found in a sewing kit. Reasonably sharp. Reasonably sterile. He’d worked with worse. Using the fingers of his left hand to hold the folds of the cut close together, he drew the stitch.
It had been a lie from the very beginning. Emma wasn’t Emma. To some degree, his life had been a charade. A play directed by some unseen director. Surprisingly, he felt more liberated than disappointed. The blinders had been removed from his eyes, and for the first time he could see things as they really were. Not just what lay in front of him, but what existed on the periphery. It was a damning vista. Jonathan as pawn. Jonathan as puppet. Jonathan as a government’s ignorant, enthusiastic marionette.