“How do you know this?” Liese had asked.
“The French are keeping an eye on things. As a favor.”
“Then you have what you wanted,” Liese said, tiredly. Gertner had fired her after her warning to Kirk, and she had gone home to try to divorce herself from caring. But that was impossible, and that’s when the erotic dreams had begun in earnest. “It no longer concerns me.”
“But it does,” Gertner cried. “We need your help out here.” He lowered his voice as if he was sharing a secret with her. “Liebchen, listen, I know that we’ve had our differences. It’s only natural, with two strongwilled and … I admit it … bull-headed individuals to clash swords. But I need you, Liebchen. Kirk needs you.”
“Has something happened to him?” Liese had demanded, but Gertner would tell her nothing further, except that she was back on the job. She had a second chance, which was a favor Gertner did not hand out every day.
She drove around to the south side of the chalet, out of sight from the Salman compound across the bay, and pulled up behind a Bureau of Technical Services van, the roof of which bristled with high-frequency communications antennae. In the past two days Gertner had called up a lot of support. This was important to him, and as he had explained to her ad nauseam, to Switzerland.
Ziegler was waiting for her at the kitchen door, his thick brown hair disheveled, his eyes red. He looked exhausted. “Thank God you’re here. Maybe you can get him to calm down,” he said, stepping aside for her.
“Has something happened to McGarvey? He wouldn’t say on the phone.”
Ziegler shook his head. “That’s what he wants you to find out. But he keeps saying that we’ve finally got the bastard.”
The kitchen was a filthy mess of dirty dishes and filled garbage bags stacked in a corner. The great room smelled of sweat, schnapps, and sweet pipe tobacco. Besides Gertner, LeFevre, and the translator, there were four other men she didn’t recognize. And there was more electronic equipment stacked on the long table, on top of aluminum carrying cases, and on the odd chair placed here and there. Wires connecting the equipment with several computers crisscrossed the floor.
Gertner sat at one of the computer terminals, intently listening to something on headphones. One of the technicians motioned toward the door. Gertner turned, and when he spotted Liese in the hall, he tore off his headphones and jumped up. “What took you so long? You’re not being followed, for heaven’s sake, are you?”
Liese tried to gauge his mood, which seemed more mercurial than normal. He looked tired, as did Ziegler. They’d all apparently been going at it around the clock since she’d been kicked out two days earlier. But Gertner looked worried too, as if not everything was going his way. He had set himself to go up against Kirk McGarvey, using Prince Salman as bait. What he had not counted on was McGarvey’s strength and the prince’s apparent deviousness. Gertner had been in over his head from the beginning, and he was finally starting to realize it.
The translator, Sergeant Hoenecker, looked at Liese with a mild smirk, as if he’d known all along that she couldn’t help herself from coming back any time Gertner snapped his fingers, because she was in love with Kirk McGarvey. It was a power that all of them held over her. And the bastards were right: she couldn’t help herself, as stupid as it was.
“No, I’m not being followed,” Liese said, stepping carefully over the wires. “What’s going on here? What’s the TMS van doing out back?”
“That was our big break,” Gertner said. “I can tell you with all modesty that had I not thought of a satellite intercept, we wouldn’t be at this point.” He looked to the others for approval. Hoenecker gave him a nod.
“I’m here, like you asked. What piece of intelligence vital to Swiss national security have you turned up? And has something happened to McGarvey?”
“So far as we know, he and his friend are just dandy,” Gertner said. “But I want you to know that I’m willing to bury the hatchet here. Let bygones be bygones. We have work to do, you and I, and yes, it is vital to Swiss national security.” He shook his head as if he were saddened by the naughtiness of a little girl. “You are a capable police officer, Liebchen, but if you don’t mind one piece of advice from an older, more experienced man to a rising, but impetuous star, you need to get in control of your emotions.”
Liese winced inside. He was such a smarmy bastard, she could hardly stand to be in the same room with him, let alone have him for a boss. But she needed him if she was going to help Kirk. “It’s a feminine thing,” she said.
“Of course it is.” Gertner agreed, wholeheartedly, as if he was relieved that she was finally beginning to see reason. “I’m glad you’re here, because we need your help. It’s a delicate situation.”
Liese looked at the headphones Gertner was holding. “Is it another telephone intercept?”
“Yes, it is,” Gertner said. “The prince is in Monaco, and so is your Mr. McGarvey, which you saw fit to insure. What you might not appreciate is that the prince is staying aboard his quite ostentatious yacht, and McGarvey has been there to visit.”
“The Americans suspect that the prince might be the terrorist Khalil,” Liese said. “McGarvey is there to investigate him.”
Gertner smiled indulgently. “In what capacity? Certainly not as the director of Central Intelligence. Men in that lofty position do not carry on in the field. But of course he resigned or was fired, and yet he’s aboard the prince’s yacht. Curious, no?”
“Kirk is there to kill him.”
Gertner gave her a wary nod, as if that idea had already occurred to him, but he wanted to see where she would take it.
“What about this call?” She asked.
“There were actually two of them from the yacht in the Monaco harbor within one minute of each other. The first was to his chief of security here at the lake house, informing his people that he might be gone longer than he had expected. In fact, he’s sailing tonight for his house in Corsica. On the south shore near the village of Bonifacio. There was mention of his estates in the file I sent you.”
“Did he mention Kirk?” Liese asked.
“Not by name. But he tells his contact that he may be entertaining an interesting guest.” Gertner was perplexed. He shook his head. “The prince was being coy, and for the life of us we cannot fathom why Nor can we fathom his next remarks.” Gertner picked up a printout of the telephone intercept. “‘Have the compound made ready,’” Gertner read. “That’s the prince talking. ‘Have the compound made ready. Fully ready.’” He looked up. “What do you suppose he meant by that last part?”
Liese’s head was spinning. McGarvey was stalking Salman. He had traveled to Monaco to put a bullet in the man’s brain. Apparently the prince knew about it and was setting up a trap at his Bonifacio compound. “The guest he’s talking about may not be McGarvey.”
“Perhaps not, unless you consider the possibility that McGarvey intends to go to Bonifacio with the prince, where the two of them will hunker down until this bin Laden insanity unfolds itself.”
“He would expose himself as a traitor,” Liese shot back. “Whatever you think of him, he is not stupid.”
“Anything but,” Gertner agreed. “After the attack on America, McGarvey could emerge a lone patriot who valiantly tried to stop the terrorists, but who failed in his mission.”
“But why?” Liese practically screamed.