Rules of Deception

Leahy was shaking his head, the memories practically flashing in his eye.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Joe?”

“That’s Black Bag stuff you’re talking about,” said Leahy. “If you know what’s good for that lovely wife and those brats you got at home, you’ll drop it.”

Palumbo was as arrogant as the next agent. The warning only served to spur him on. “The guys he killed were involved in the plot with Walid Gassan. They were going to take down an airliner. It was a sophisticated job. We’re talking about a drone that does four hundred miles per hour loaded with twenty keys of Semtex. That’s a cruise missile, the way I see it. No way some Bojinka motherfucker’s able to pull this one off.”

“Sounds like the guy’s doing the right thing.”

“No doubt about it.”

“So if it isn’t the ragheads, who exactly do you think is behind it?” asked Leahy.

“I’m not saying. But I have an idea. I mean, how many people are there at the end of the day with those kind of resources?”

“You think it’s state sponsored.”

“Oh, yeah.” Palumbo tapped the table with his knuckles. “But this info stays between you and me.”

Leahy flicked his hands above his chest, a pantomime of making the holy cross.

“There was something strange about those files,” Palumbo continued. “It’s what I needed to talk to you about. You see, the name of the agent in charge of the operation was missing. It looked like it had been cut out before they digitized it. Tell me, Joe, which one of our guys was calling the shots for Mourning Dove?”

Leahy stared at Palumbo for a moment, then stood from the table. As he passed, he bent and whispered two words in his ear. “The Admiral.”

Palumbo remained in his chair until Leahy had left the cafeteria.

“The Admiral” was James Lafever. The deputy director of operations.

55

“Seventy-two hours,” said von Daniken, taking off his coat and throwing it over the back of his chair. “That’s how long we’ve got. Ransom’s our man. There’s no doubt about it. He’s done this kind of thing before. He blows things up. He did it in Beirut and Kosovo and Darfur. He kills people and he’s good at it.”

The task force had taken up residence in the “morgue,” a soulless conference room located in the basement of Fedpol headquarters. Five desks had been arranged in a semicircle. Computers, telephones, and copy machines had been brought down. It was a nerve center in search of a body. At the moment, only Seiler and Hardenberg were present. The sight of the unma

“Slow down, Marcus,” said Max Seiler. “What do you mean, ‘seventy-two hours’?”

Von Daniken took a chair and related his findings to the two men. “He gets the hell out of the country immediately following the act,” he said after detailing Ransom’s crimes. “Apparently, our Dr. Ransom is all set to head off to Pakistan Sunday evening. He may pretend he doesn’t know the transfer is coming, but he knows alright. His men probably killed the poor bastard over there whose place he’s supposed to take. We need to locate Ransom and we need to do it now. What do we have on the van, anyway? Someone must have seen it.”

“Someone,” meaning a surveillance camera somewhere in Europe between Dublin and Dubrovnik.

“Not a trace,” said Hardenberg. “Myer’s over at ISIS seeing if he can blow some fire up their asses.”

“Two million cameras and all of them are blind. What are the odds on that?” Disgusted, von Daniken shook his head.

Just then, the door opened and Kurt Myer shambled in, pulling the belt of his trousers over his ample belly.

“There you are,” said von Daniken. “We’ve just been talking about you. What did you find?”

Myer looked around at the anxious faces. He could tell that something had changed, but he wasn’t sure what. He held up a sheaf of photographs. “Leipzig, ten days ago. It was taken near Bayerischer Platz adjacent to the train station. We’ve got the van.”

“Thank God!” said von Daniken as he stood and examined the photo.

With remarkable clarity, the picture showed a white VW van with Swiss plates driven by a bearded man with wire rim glasses. “Gassan’s at the wheel. Once I had the plate numbers, I was able to run an advanced search. I got a hit in Zurich seven days ago.” Another picture handed round. “This time Blitz is at the wheel.”

“Where exactly was the camera located?” asked von Daniken.

“On the corner of Badenerstrasse and Hardplatz.”

“That’s near where Lammers’s company is located, isn’t it?”

“Not far,” said Myer. “A couple kilometers away. Look at the rear window. There’s something very big inside the van. We analyzed the photos and came to the conclusion they’re large steel boxes.”

“The drone?”

“No idea. But whatever it is, it’s big and it’s heavy. Look at how low the chassis is riding on the suspension. Compare this picture to the others. We’re estimating that in the second photo the van’s carrying a load of at least six hundred kilos.” Myer chose another photograph from his pile and handed it around. “The last one we got was in Lugano on Saturday.”

Lugano, just thirty kilometers away from Ascona, where Blitz lived. Von Daniken had been right about the paint chips he’d found at Blitz’s house. The van had been parked in the garage. “So Gassan picks up the explosives in Leipzig, turns them over to Blitz along with the van, then he hightails it to Sweden. Blitz takes the van to Zurich and picks up the drone from Lammers’s factory.” He studied the pictures a moment longer. “Is that it?”

“That’s all we’ve got on the white van.”

Von Daniken shot Myer a glance. “What do you mean on the white van? Is there another one you haven’t told me about?”

“He’s driving a black van now. He painted it.”

“How do you know?”

“We don’t know where he got the white van originally, but we do know that the plates it carried were stolen from an identical van in Schaffhausen. Most people don’t bother reporting this kind of thing to the police. They think it’s a prank and report the loss to the motor vehicles department. Gassan and his buddies think they’re smart doing this. But we’re smarter. I guessed if they stole one set of license plates, they might have stolen another. I drilled down and checked for any reports of missing or stolen license plates. The owner of a black VW van in Lausa

Myer passed around the last photograph. An 8 x 10 of a black Volkswagen van moving at speed through an intersection. In the background were a billboard advertising Lindt chocolate and the sign of a well-known furniture retailer.

“The photo was taken yesterday at five p.m. on the outskirts of Zurich.”

“But how can we be certain it’s the same van?”

“Compare the front bumpers of the two vans. Both have a noticeable dent beneath the headlight. And both have a pine-tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. One might be a coincidence. But both? Never.”

“Call the city police,” said von Daniken. “Have them put out a warrant for the van. Run a check on every picture of every vehicle taken in the eastern half of the country over the last twenty-four hours.”

“You got it.”

Von Daniken brought the picture closer. “Who’s that driving? It couldn’t be Blitz. He was dead by then.” He showed the photograph to Myer, who frowned and put on a pair of bifocals. “Something’s off here. He doesn’t look normal.”

“Let’s get the photo to the crime lab. They can blow up the picture and send it to Interpol to run through their facial recognition software.”

Myer shambled out of the room.

Von Daniken spun in his chair and directed his attention toward the two men still in the room. “So much for the eastern front. Any progress in the west?”