44

The final briefing of Dr. Jonathan Ransom, newly minted operative, by Frank Connor, director of Division, took place in a sterile conference room on the fifth floor of the Executive Business Center at Zurich Flughafen. The time was six o’clock in the evening. A floor-to-ceiling window offered a view toward the piers of Terminals A and B and, five hundred meters away, like an island rising out of the tarmac, Terminal E. Planes from a dozen nations sat parked at gates, awaiting departure. Most were from Far Eastern lands and being made ready for night flights to the Orient: Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines. Barely visible at the farthest corner of Terminal E was a Boeing 787 with the green, black, and red tail markings of Emirates. Emirates Flight 221, service from Zurich to Dubai, was scheduled for 8:30 departure, with a full complement of 248 passengers and crew.

“Here’s my boy,” said Connor as he entered the room and spied Jonathan standing by the window. “Christ, I hardly recognize you. What did they do to your hair? Is it blond? Glasses, too, and a suit. You clean up nice.”

Jonathan smiled tightly. The only thing Connor had missed was the blue contact lenses. “Hello, Frank. How’re the legs?”

“Hurt like the dickens. You’re a doctor. Can’t you do something about it?” Connor laughed to show that he was in good spirits, and the two men shook hands, Connor keeping Jonathan in his grip a long time and looking him up and down. “Danni taking good care of you?”

“I guess you can say that.”

“She tells me you’ve done marvelously. Exceeded all our expectations. One of her best ever. I’m just sorry I didn’t find you earlier.”

“You did, actually. At least, Emma did. Isn’t that the same thing?” Jonathan sat down and crossed his hands on the table. There were bottles of mineral water at all eight seats, along with blocks of papers and pens. A sign outside the door read, “Reserved for Atlantic International Consultants.”

Connor sat next to him, pulling his chair out so the two could look each other in the eye. “I apologize for the hurry. No one expected things to develop so quickly. But that’s the way things are in the business.”

“Is Balfour in trouble?”

“Not any more than before. Pakistanis want him out a little sooner than he expected. That’s all.” Connor sat down with a huff and pulled a stack of files from his satchel, making a show of checking his watch. “Two hours until boarding. We’ve got some time.” He rapped his knuckles on the topmost file. “So, you know all about our boy?”

“Balfour?” Jonathan nodded. “I think I’ve got him down. Details are a little sketchy.”

“He likes to keep them that way. Everyone knows he’s from the slums, but he doesn’t like to admit it. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest. Anyway, we were able to dig up about a hundred e-mails exchanged between him and Revy. I’ve brought you a summary of the important stuff. Read it on the plane. When you’re finished, tear it up and flush it down the toilet, page by page. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jonathan, responding to the martial patter of Connor’s instructions and discovering that he was no longer bothered by the military lingo. “We’re clear.”

“Apparently Balfour’s set up the Taj Mahal of surgical suites over there. What he didn’t know was that Revy was taking a fat commission from the medical equipment companies.” A wry grin between accomplices to gauge the new operative’s nerves. Jonathan chuckled, and Connor relaxed a notch. “And here’s a list of Revy’s recent trips: Sardinia, Rome, Paris, Athens, Kiev, Berlin. The man gets around. Memorize it. Finally, we were able to draw a set of plans of Balfour’s home from the city surveyor in Islamabad. Balfour calls it Blenheim. The main building is twenty-two thousand square feet on three floors. There are several outbuildings and stables. Balfour likes to ride. Apparently Revy served in a cavalry unit in the Swiss army. You’ll see a few exchanges about Hanoverians and Warmbloods and all manner of bullshit relating to matters equestrian. How are you in the saddle?”

“I know how to get on and off a horse,” said Jonathan. “But that’s about it.”

“You’re not a rider, then?”

“Give me a saddle with a horn and I’ll be fine. Otherwise, things might get ugly.”

Connor frowned. “Say you’ve got a bum knee. Hurt it skiing. Whatever you do, don’t get on the horse. We don’t want to give him any reason to think you’re not who you’re supposed to be. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good.” Connor spread a reduced blueprint of Balfour’s home on the table. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. The guest suite is on the second floor, right here. The master suite, where Balfour conducts his business, is on the third floor, directly above you. That’s the nerve center of his operation. Everything we need to know, we should be able to find in there.”

Jonathan studied the drawings. “Does he have guards inside the house?”

“Not guards per se, but plenty of underlings, including a six-foot-six-inch Sikh named Mr. Singh who’s his majordomo, personal assistant, and hired gun.”

“Sounds like he’ll be hard to miss.”

“He’s the muscle, and he’ll be keeping an eye on you. Be careful.” Connor gave Jonathan a look of warning before going on. “Balfour’s also got his own little harem of between eight and twelve girls. He ships them in and out every six months. Russians, English, even some Americans, I’ve been told. If he offers, accept. Revy’s a bachelor, and Balfour’s asked him a few times about what his preferences are.”

“Preferences?”

“Blond, brunette, or red. The answer, by the way, is young, blond, buxom, and smooth. Don’t ask me anything more about it. I’m an old man and I embarrass easily.”

Jonathan caught sight of his reflection in the window. Or rather, Revy’s. He was beginning to develop an intense dislike for the Swiss plastic surgeon. “Did you get him?” he asked.

Connor’s eyes shot up from the papers. “Revy? Oh yeah. We got him. Not to worry. Von Daniken didn’t harm him in the least. The good doctor is resting comfortably and shall do so for the immediate future.”

Jonathan said he was glad, but he was markedly less concerned about the doctor’s well-being than he had been a few days ago.

“We did have one setback,” Connor went on. “Revy’s phone was broken in the hand-off. We’ve got a new one for you. It has his same number, but we weren’t able to transfer the information from his SIM card.”

“Will that be a problem?”

“We don’t think so. You shouldn’t be contacting anyone once you’re in Pakistan anyway. You can count on the fact that Balfour will block all calls into and out of his compound. His run-in with the Indian government has made him more than a little paranoid about people spying on him.”

“So how do I pass on any information I find?”

“If at all possible, use your laptop and send it to my secure mailbox. Even better is if you get out of the compound and call. If you can’t, we’ve got a nifty little toy that should defeat his jamming signals and allow you to place a call. Only use it if you’ve got important information or if you need help. We should have a team to you within a day.”

“That sounds like a long time. What about Danni?”

“What about her?”

“Is she coming?”

“’Fraid not. I used up that favor. She’s due back in Israel. Pressing business. I told you from the beginning you’d be hanging out there pretty far. It’s no different from one of your big climbs. Once you get past a certain point, you’re on your own. You’ve still got a chance to back out. I won’t hold it against you.”

“What about Emma?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more about her unless you commit.”

“So you’ve learned something?”

“We have.”

The room had suddenly gone still. For once, Connor had stopped shuffling his papers and banging his fingers for emphasis and speaking in his overly loud voice. The table shook minutely as a jet took off, and Jonathan was once again reminded of being back on the USS Ronald Reagan. “Do you have any more idea about the information you’d like me to find?” he asked, testing the waters.

“We’re still talking about a munition and the identity of the man to whom Balfour plans to sell it.”

Something in Connor’s voice sounded an alarm. He sounded too matter-of-fact, too coy. Or maybe it was something that Danni had said earlier in the day. What if it’s more than hundreds of lives?

“What kind of munition?” asked Jonathan.

Connor held his eyes. “In or out? I think we’ve reached the Rubicon.”

Jonathan rubbed a hand over his mouth. He thought about Danni and what she’d said about his motivation for helping Connor. He decided that she was right. He was trying to see if he could do his wife’s job. But the root of his desire was more nuanced than that. It was not competition that drove him, but an ingrained sense of responsibility, maybe even guilt. Willing or not, he had helped Emma carry out too many missions to be a simple spectator. A husband had a duty to know his wife’s business. Once he’d learned her true profession, his own actions had changed markedly. The past eleven months had seen his role grow from pawn to participant-in Switzerland, France, and finally Afghanistan. He’d been a fugitive from justice. He’d witnessed terrible crimes. He’d killed with his own hands in self-defense and with malice and forethought. Somewhere along the way, he’d stopped being just a husband or a doctor or a civilian and become something else. It was a testament to his own skills that Connor had recruited him. Jonathan had never known the weight of being asked to serve your country. Looking at the portly, ruddy-cheeked man in the rumpled suit seated an arm’s length away, he felt something close to honor. There was a conviction in Connor’s eyes that Jonathan wanted to be his own.

I save lives, he told himself. This is just a different way.

“In.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Connor nodded momentously, and a great sigh sent a shudder through his shoulders and his back, right down to his thick workingman’s hands. “We believe Lord Balfour to be in possession of a nuclear weapon. A warhead from one of our cruise missiles lost in the mountains near Afghanistan about twenty-five years ago, to be specific.”

Silence followed, as only silence could.

“A WMD?” asked Jonathan, finally.

“A nice little one-hundred-fifty-kiloton WMD in a stainless steel warhead not much bigger than a ripe summer watermelon.”

Connor was still leaning forward, still staring at him a little too hard. Jonathan sensed that there was more, and that it was going to be awful. “And Emma?” he asked.

“Emma helped Balfour bring it down from the mountains. A peak called Tirich Mir.”

“Tirich Mir?”

“Name mean something to you?”

“Never mind.” It did, but this wasn’t the time to bring up the past. Jonathan looked away, a curtain of horror falling over him. He didn’t ask if Connor was sure. They were past the bullshit. Past the untruths and the posturing and the deception. This was the real deal. This was “operational,” as Connor might say.

“When I learned where the missile was lost, I tasked a spy satellite to give me a close-up view of the area. I saw her with my own eyes. She was leading a recovery team to the site. I tried to get a special ops team there in time to intercept her, but the weather didn’t cooperate. One of the Marines leading the mission was killed.”

“By Emma?”

“She set a charge to blow up the remnants of the missile. She knew that without proof, I couldn’t raise much of a hue and cry. Captain Crockett didn’t get out in time.”

Jonathan sat up straighter, forcing himself to speak in a measured voice. It was his doctor’s voice, the one he used when delivering the worst of news. He’d learned long ago that professionalism was the first refuge of shame. “But why would she help Balfour? You told me he was present when Rashid tortured her.”

“We’re guessing that Balfour rescued her from the desert and this is some sort of way she’s paying him back. It’s my fault. We got her wound so tight she didn’t know who she was any longer. The torture pushed her over the edge. If I hadn’t seen her myself, I wouldn’t believe it either.”

“Is she there?”

“No idea. We’re surmising she brought the weapon down from the mountain and delivered it to Balfour. There’s no reason for her to stick around, but I wouldn’t have said she’d jump ship to Balfour either.”

Jonathan returned his eyes to the blueprints. He needed to focus. For the mission and for his sanity. “Any idea where on the premises it might be? The warhead, I mean?”

“I doubt Balfour will keep it in the main house. It’s not the kind of thing you tuck under your pillow. My experts tell me there’s no way the bomb is still functional after all these years. If Balfour wants to sell it for top dollar-and we’re certain that is his intention-he’s going to need to bring it back up to working condition. For that, he’ll need a secure workshop away from prying eyes.”

Jonathan pointed to the two outbuildings and suggested they might serve as acceptable spots. And for the next ten minutes he and Connor discussed the other places where the bomb might be kept, general security at Blenheim, and Balfour’s working habits.

Then Connor fished in his jacket and came out with a small razor cartridge cradled in his palm. “See this? As far as you’re concerned, it’s the crown jewels, and you will guard it accordingly. Looks like a razor blade, but it’s really a flash drive. All you need to do is put this in Balfour’s computer for ten seconds-laptop or desktop, doesn’t matter as long as it has wireless or Ethernet connection. It will install spyware on the computer and send us the entire contents of his machine and every machine it makes contact with. If Achilles built the Trojan Horse today, it would look like this.”

Jonathan held the compact flash drive in his hand. He felt relatively comfortable with the parameters of his mission. He knew Pakistan fairly well from his salad days climbing in the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas. He was a doctor impersonating a doctor, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Even the thought of inserting himself into Balfour’s inner sanctum didn’t scare him much. He’d been in arduous circumstances before and kept his cool. As a surgeon, he was constantly operating under a microscope, so to speak.

There was only one wild card.

“What if I see her?” he asked.

Connor leaned forward, making a steeple of his fingers. “Talk to her. Find out why she’s doing what she’s doing. See if you can get her to tell you where the bomb is. Try to bring her back.”

“And if she threatens to expose me?”

Connor wrinkled his brow. “I suppose you’ll have to kill her.”

Jonathan said nothing. Surprisingly, no protest welled up inside him. There was no cry of indignation. Instead, he remembered the feel of the blade in his hand, the cold, heavy heft of it. Now he knew why Danni had been so insistent on teaching him how to use the knife.

But it was Connor who had the last word. “If, that is, she doesn’t kill you first.”