Rules of Deception

He turned his attention to the glossy company brochure. A photograph inside the front cover depicted a prim three-story headquarters building and a sprawling factory attached to it. He flipped past photos of impressive silver machines and colleagues engaged in oppressively earnest conversation.

“Zug Industriewerk was founded in 1911 by Werner Stutz as a manufacturer of precision gun barrels,” read a brief history of the firm. “By the early 1930s, Mr. Stutz had expanded the firm’s product line to include light and heavy armament, as well as the first mass-produced steel aircraft wings.” Good timing, commented Jonathan. Half the world was about to need as many gun barrels as they could get their hands on. It was a success story that had been repeated countless times during the bloody twentieth century. So far, things were on track for a repeat performance in the twenty-first.

He turned to the back of the brochure and perused the accounts. Revenues: 55 million. Profit: 6 million. Employees: 478. The numbers had a weight to them that the words couldn’t match. Money was real. It was substantial. Money did not lie.

The more Jonathan read, the angrier he became. There was no doubting that ZIAG was a legitimate firm. So how was it that a woman who did not exist had come to be an employee?

It was then that he heard the tapping on his window. Something hard.

He jumped in his seat and turned toward the noise.

All he needed was a towel. The Ghost hadn’t counted on the darkness being so complete. The flames from a silencer would be visible ten cars back. He dug around in his overnight bag and came up with a black T-shirt. He tore off a strip of fabric and wrapped it around the silencer. His last act before leaving the car was to attach the twill bag that would catch his spent shells.

The Ghost opened the door with care, leaving it ajar for his return. Precious little space separated the car and the safety railing. Keeping low, he slid alongside the chassis. The air inside the tu

Keeping to a crouch, the Ghost moved toward him. He passed one car, then another. He stopped to check his watch. It was nine minutes since the train had entered the tu

He settled back on his haunches.

A minute passed. Then another. Finally, he moved.

Sliding from the rear of the car, he crossed from one flatbed to the next. The Mercedes was parked at the head of its carriage. There were no railings here, and the Ghost had to be careful not to put a foot over the side. He took another step forward, putting his hand out to touch the Mercedes’ fender. He drew up to the driver’s door. Thumbing the safety to the off position, he stood and tapped the pistol against the window.

Jonathan Ransom looked directly at him.

The Ghost pulled the trigger.

Jonathan stared out the window. Something was there. A shadow. A form. He looked more closely. His eyes widened. A gun was pointed at his forehead.

Suddenly, a flame erupted, blinding him.

He flinched, turning his head away. There was the sound of crunching sand. Again, the same noise. He looked back as a spit of fire smeared the glass. The window bulged inward. He saw the starlike fractures where bullets had struck the glass but hadn’t passed through.

The glass was bulletproof.

He had no time to react. Just then, the car door opened and an arm pushed through the gap. All Jonathan saw was the pistol aimed at his cheek. Instinctively, he threw his head back and grabbed the wrist, forcing it up and away from his face before it spat something that tore into the roof. He grasped the wrist with both hands and wrenched it downward. He glanced toward the door and caught a glimpse of a face. Hooded eyes. An expression of cold concentration.

At that moment, the train passed into the wider section of the tu

The killer yanked his arm free. Jonathan pulled the door closed and locked it. The shadow melted into the dark. Jonathan started the engine. But where to go? He couldn’t go forward or backward, and he couldn’t sit there waiting to be shot. He rammed a palm into the horn, then turned on the lights and hit the brights. The Xenon beams illuminated the cars in front of him with a diamond blue light. He noted for the first time that the safety railing didn’t extend between the railway cars. A sturdy chain two meters in length spa

Just then, the train emerged from the tu

He continued down the loading ramp and across the parking lot, coming to a stop at the red light that governed access to the highway. Behind him, the train was pulling to a halt, its iron wheels screeching and moaning. No cars had begun to disembark.

The traffic light turned green.

Jonathan turned onto the highway and drove at the speed limit for ten minutes before taking the nearest exit and guiding the car down a series of narrower roads that led as far from the highway as possible. Content that he hadn’t been followed, he pulled the car to the side of the road and killed the engine. He met his eyes in the rearview mirror. They were the eyes of a fugitive. His breath came in shallow gulps that left him light-headed and just this side of nauseous.

It wasn’t the first time that he’d been shot at. He’d come under gunfire in a general, “duck, you sucker” way. Working in a field hospital in Liberia, he’d found himself in a no-man’s-land caught between two warring factions. He was operating when the firing began. It was an amputation, a machete wound gone gangrenous. Even now, after seven years, he could see himself holding the saw as bullets suddenly began to tear into the whitewashed cement walls. Outside, there came the usual cries and whimpers. He remembered one man’s voice in particular calling out, “Cachez-vous vite. Ils vont nous tous tuer.” Hide quickly. They’re going to kill us all. But no one in the operating room budged. Not even after a round exploded an IV drip.

Turning, he stared at the driver’s side window. There was no spidering. No fractures. Just three star-shaped scratches in the glass. He ran his fingers over the surface. Not even an indentation. Amazing, he thought, wondering how a piece of glass could fend off a bullet fired at point-blank range. He figured that it wasn’t glass at all, but some kind of plastic. Whatever it was, he liked it. He liked it a helluva lot. He poked his finger into the rent in the ceiling fabric, seeking out the bullet, but found nothing.