The lush countryside and impeccably maintained highways of Austria gave way to clusters of suburbs as the plane descended into Vienna. Her seatmate snorted and stirred under his blanket. The octogenarian had opted to sleep the entire flight, which suited Natalie just fine.
The plane landed minutes later, and Natalie slipped her customs declaration into the leather case holding her passport and credit cards. The Visa Black Card and American Express Platinum card, made from titanium, stared back at her. High-end credit cards weren’t unusual for a business traveler, but the unlimited line of credit with each card was damn peculiar for a CIA officer.
Screwing up expense reports was the number one reason officers lost their clearance and, by immediate correlation, their jobs. When her handler gave her the cards and her identity documents in the Prada handbag, she’d almost asked for something a little ostentatious. Carrying tens of thousands of dollars in personal liability struck her as a bit cruel and unusual for a shiny, new officer like herself. The handler just laughed at her, which didn’t help her confidence. She’d consoled herself that the purse was probably fake.
Her business class cabin let out, and she gave a polite “Bu-bye now” to the stewardesses at the exit.
She extended the handle on her carry-on and made her way toward customs, her shoulders back, chin up, and tendrils of fear snaking through her chest. She wanted to rehearse her backstory and have all the details of her trip on the tip of her tongue for the customs inspectors, but her mind was full of static.
There’d be a line at screening, she told herself. A chance to center herself.
Her heart skipped a beat as she came around a corner and found empty lines leading to plenty of available customs agents. Business class had a disadvantage her training hadn’t anticipated. She considered ducking into a restroom to buy time, but an agent waved her over. So much for that idea.
Natalie’s throat tightened as she walked up to the slight woman sitting at a desk surrounded by Plexiglas. The agent had a severe face and hair wrapped into a tiny bun behind her head. Natalie slid her passport and customs slip into the aluminum-lined depression beneath the Plexiglas and managed to smile.
Just remember, she thought, my name is Natalie… something. What’s my name again? She kept the smile on her face as a dribble of unladylike sweat rolled down her spine.
The agent glanced back and forth between Natalie’s face and the passport. She flipped through the pages, her eyes lingering on the entry stamps and visas for other countries stapled to the pages.
The agent put her hand on top of the desk, between a wooden stamp and a call button.
I’m about to have the shortest career in CIA history. They’ll tell stories about me at the Farm for years, Natalie thought.
She heard the sound of carry-ons rolling across the linoleum floors and the click of heels; the mass of passengers who’d flown coach were on approach.
The agent grabbed the entry stamp and slammed it onto Natalie’s passport.
“Welcome to Austria. Enjoy your stay,” she said.
The agent slid the passport onto the counter, where it sat untouched, as Natalie looked on in stunned silence. The agent cleared her throat.
“Merci—no, danke.” Natalie snatched her passport back and made a beeline for the baggage carousels. She passed the duty-free shops selling chocolates emblazoned with Mozart’s face and restaurants touting authentic Wiener schnitzel. The Wiener schnitzel looked more like chicken-fried steak than the hotdogs the similarly named fast-food chain in her native Las Vegas offered. Good, one more cultural faux pas to mark me as an ugly American, she thought.
She stopped to look over a book kiosk, looking for anyone in her peripheral vision who had made a similar stop. Mirroring a surveillance target was an unconscious act and a dead giveaway that she was being tailed.
She saw two Austrian police next to an emergency exit, with Steyr AUG assault rifles slung over their chests, shifting from side to side. They looked more bored with their shift than interested in running her down. No one else seemed interested in her.
Bags from her flight were already on the carousel by the time she reached it. She looked around at the milieu of people, wondering which one was her contact. The code phrase was simple: “New York” for all clear and “Chicago” if she’d picked up a tail or unwanted attention from the local authorities.
Her suitcase emerged from the center of the carousel and spat out onto the conveyer belt. She picked it up and carried it toward the customs station. As an army officer, she’d carried a duffel bag in each hand and a rucksack on her back as she deployed to and from Iraq. Carrying one suitcase shouldn’t have bothered her, but a woman with a $5,000—assuming it wasn’t fake — purse and $300 shoes simply didn’t carry her own bag, not when the airport offered a luggage trolley for a mere eight euros.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice said from behind her. A man who was a foot taller than her, with sun-darkened skin and a build that belonged in a strongman competition, smiled at her. His left arm was in a sling; a cast started at his knuckles and disappeared into an uncuffed shirt.
“Have the time?” the man asked.
Natalie set down her bag and looked down at her watch. “Sorry, I’m still set on New York.”
The large man nodded, reached past her with his good arm, and grabbed her bag.
“Go through the leftmost customs station. Then find the blue BMW waiting for you. Plate ends in three one four,” he said and walked off with her bag.
Natalie opened her mouth to protest the loss of all her packed clothes but caught herself. This would all make sense soon, she hoped.
The customs officer she’d been directed to waved her past with a wink. For all her training on penetrating a country’s customs and immigration controls, her experience in Vienna had been underwhelming.
Once outside, Natalie caught site of the distant Alps; snow still lay on the peaks, even this late in the spring. Taxis and limos jostled for position against the curb as she scanned the area for the BMW.
A minibus pulled away, and she found her next contact. A whipcord-thin man in a black suit and limo driver’s hat lounged against the open trunk of a blue BMW. The driver noticed her and tipped his hat. He had a V-shaped face and barely any chin under a short beard peppered with gray.
Natalie walked over, thinking how ridiculous it would be if he expected her to get in the trunk. Such a thing was inevitable, her instructors had promised.
The driver took her carry-on without a word, tossed it into the trunk, and slammed it shut. He opened the driver’s door, furrowed his brow. Natalie got the hint and let herself into the rear seat.
The driver pulled into traffic and drove them away from the airport.
Natalie let the awkward silence continue for a few minutes. This was as far as her instructions took her. If she’d been compromised at the airport or if her contact hadn’t found her, she was to check into the Vienna Hyatt, act like a tourist for two days, then fly back to New York.
“Excuse me. Where are we going?” Natalie asked.
The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror with eyes the color of glacier ice. He put a gloved finger to his lips.
The car turned off into the business district full of high-rise buildings and cars that were many times more expensive than what she rode in. They drove into a parking garage beneath one of the high-rises. The driver waved a key fob over a sensor at the drop-down arm blocking their way in. An armed guard took a phone call, looked hard at the driver, then raised the boom.
The parking garage was almost empty; a few sports cars were parked far from each other. A stretch limo took up four parking spaces across from an elevator entrance.