Rules of Deception

As the di

He gave her a phone number and a sentence she was to repeat if ever she felt the necessity to call him. He asked that she memorize both, and insisted on quizzing her until she could repeat the ten-digit phone number and the sentence flawlessly. Finished with this piece of business, he regained his light ma

As she climbed into a taxi for the ride home, Millicent Brandt, née Ludmilla Nilskova, felt an unfamiliar stirring in her breast. Part fear, part apprehension, part thrill. She had joined the ranks of countless others-executives, officials, bureaucrats, and professionals from every walk of life-who had sworn an oath to the state of Israel, and had promised to help the country in any way it saw fit.

On the telephone, the sharp voice returned. “Hans will meet you at the Gloriette at Schönbru

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.” But the phone was already dead.

Milli Brandt hung up. She had done it. She had kept her promise. She was officially a sayyan.

A friend.

27

Gottfried Blitz shooed the three dachshunds inside the house. Closing the door behind him, he stood stock-still, listening for a cry of alarm. The dogs’ trained noses were more effective than any electronic security system. The house remained quiet. He walked into the living room. The hounds lay camped out on the marble floor, panting after their morning’s exertion.

Stepping to the window, he peeled back the curtain and glanced down the road. The street was empty. There was no sign of the hiker he’d spoken with earlier. Blitz made it a habit to memorize faces, and he knew that the pale, slim man was not a neighbor. His Italian was fluent, but not that of a native. Who then? A tourist eager to explore the surrounding hills? But in this weather? And why hadn’t he been headed toward the paths that began just past the end of the road?

Blitz peered at the darkening sky. It was not yet nine o’clock and the day was already done. Rain began to fall. He listened as the drops grew heavier and began to strike the windowpane. Shivering, he dropped the lace curtain into place.

Lammers’s death had him spooked. The papers indicated that the killer had been waiting for him at his home. There were suggestions that it had been a professional job, and that Lammers may have been involved with organized crime. Blitz knew better. He also knew that if Lammers had been compromised, it wouldn’t be long until he was, too. At any other time, he would break camp and call it a day. Gottfried Blitz was in grave danger.

But this was not any other time.

The end game had begun. The Pilot was in the country. The final test of the drone had been a resounding success. Operational status had been elevated to red. It was a go. For all intents and purposes, the attack had already been launched.

And now, the mess in Landquart. One man dead, the other injured.

Blitz chewed on his lip. He’d questioned sending the bags by train, but in the end, there had been no other way. It was not just a question of manpower (Division had only seven operatives in the country) but risk. At this stage, it was too dangerous to hand off the bags personally. Using the Swiss mail system hadn’t troubled him, though he could see now that putting his name to the receipts had been a mistake. It was Finance that had insisted. They didn’t want the money left unclaimed should something go wrong. Operations had signed off on it, too. The money was key, they’d said. It’s the first thing they’ll look for. Crumbs for the trail, went their logic. You had to lead the police by the nose if you wanted them to find anything. And all trails led to him. To Gottfried Blitz.

Still, he couldn’t get Theo Lammers out of his mind. A professional job. Someone waiting for him at his home. He shuddered. It could mean only one thing. The network had been penetrated.

In the living room, he turned on the stereo. Wagner, as always. Just loud enough to let his neighbors know that he was at home, and that today was a day like any other.

Friends and neighbors knew Gottfried Blitz as a wealthy German businessman, one of thousands who had fled to southern Switzerland to enjoy the milder clime and the Mediterranean atmosphere. He drove the newest Mercedes sedan. He made a

Blitz walked to the study, sat down at his desk, and removed the pistol he kept in his waistband. Slipping the gun into the top drawer, he turned on his laptop and went over his checklist. New Bogner sweater for P.J. WEF creds for H.H. 100k cash wire. He whistled softly. Another hundred thousand francs. That one was not going to fly with the boys in Finance. On the other hand, it paled beside what had already been spent. Two hundred million francs to buy control of the company in Zug. Another sixty million to finance the shipments of equipment. The payoffs to P.J. alone amounted to twenty million francs, and that didn’t include the Mercedes and all its special equipment.

He finished typing the request for the monetary transfer and e-mailed it to Finance. Just then, Blitz cocked his head toward the door. The hairs on his forearm were standing on end.

“Hello?” he called. “Someone there?”

There was no reply. The house was too quiet. And where was the barking that accompanied the arrival of a guest?

“Gretel, Isolde,” he called to his dogs.

He sat up, straining for the scrabble of their paws across the marble floor. Wagner drifted in from the living room. The rumble of timpani like distant thunder. The lament of a Teutonic maiden mourning her vanquished prince.

Where were the dogs?

Something shifted in the air behind him. A presence, dark and cold.

A klaxon sounded deep inside him.

Blitz looked at the drawer holding his gun, then at the computer.

Choose one.

Thirty years of training took over. The mission came first. He positioned his fingers above the keyboard and typed in the “destroy” command, obliterating the laptop’s hard drive.

He felt the air rustle behind him. Something cold and hard pressed against his temple.

And then there was light. A thunderclap of hellish color that lasted an instant, and then was no more.