Rules of Deception

“And not just of the airport,” added a short, stocky man with curly black hair and a gambler’s pencil-thin mustache. His name was Michael Berger. He was captain of the Zurich police department’s special assault team. It would be Berger who would be first in the door to storm the house. “Whoever’s inside will be able to see us coming for one hundred meters. How many do you reckon there are?”

“We don’t know for certain, but we’re estimating that there are at least five. There may be more.”

“Armed?”

“Count on it. They’re professionals. They took possession of twenty kilos of Semtex-H plastic explosives a few weeks ago that’re almost certainly in the drone.”

Berger nodded grimly, his eyes calculating his odds of success and survival. “We’ll go in from the air. Two choppers. Rope down our team. We’ll time it to coincide with the takeoff of a passenger jet. The helicopters are equipped with engine baffles that permit them to fly in near total silence. We’ll send a second team up the main road and hit the house from the front. Your friends won’t hear a peep until we break down the doors. The entire operation should take less than sixty seconds.”

Von Daniken made a show of studying the drawings. “How many times have you done this?”

Berger squinted his eyes. “Never. But we do a very good job in practice.”

Von Daniken could only nod.

“We’ll be ready in forty minutes,” said Berger. “Let’s say seven-twenty.”

The men synchronized their watches.

Von Daniken strode to the front window where Myer had taken up position with the binoculars. “Has anyone in the neighborhood seen or heard anything?”

“Apparently, there’s been a lot of activity in the place the last few days. Men coming and going. Cars zooming up and down the street, parking in front of the house.”

“Any sign of the van?”

“Everything except the van.”

Captain Berger signaled from the back door that it was time to move out. Von Daniken joined him and they jogged to a waiting van and pulled the door closed behind them.

It was a two-minute drive to the local firehouse where Berger’s men were staging. Two Aérospatiale Écureuil helicopters sat on a soccer field adjoining it, their rotors turning slowly.

Inside the firehouse, the tension was palpable as the policemen pulled on midnight blue jumpsuits and Kevlar body armor, followed by nylon harnesses to hold their equipment: radio, grenades, ammunition. This was not practice.

There were twenty-five assault troops in all. It was not as young a group as von Daniken might have hoped for, and he observed more than one officer struggling to secure his vest over a sizable paunch. The standard armament was a compact submachine gun, the Heckler & Koch MP-5. Two men hefted large, ungainly rifles called Wingmasters, used to blow doors off their hinges.

Von Daniken’s two-way radio crackled. It was Myer. “Lights just went on inside the house.”

“Lights on in the house,” boomed Berger to his team.

The room reeked of sweat and anxiety.

“Any conversation?” asked von Daniken.

One of the tech teams had trained a laser microphone at the target’s windows. The device was able to read vibrations in the glass caused by persons speaking inside the home and translate them back into something approximating the original sound.

“Television’s on,” responded Myer. “Let’s hope they keep the volume nice and loud.”

Berger divided his men into two squads, eight men each, with eight in reserve. “I need an official green light.”

“You’ve got it.” Von Daniken extended his hand and wished him good luck.

Berger turned and went back to his men. “We go in five minutes,” he called out.

Von Daniken set off to the command post along a path that skirted the forest. He looked into the sky. It was a beautiful night, a velvet curtain punched through with stars, a crescent moon hanging low in the sky. The time was 7:16. Night had fallen. Behind him, he heard Berger ordering his men into the helicopters. He dug his hands into his pockets and quickened his pace.

“Von Daniken.”

He halted, then turned in a circle, trying to locate the speaker. But nobody was there.

A tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from the shadows.

“My name is Jonathan Ransom. I believe you’re looking for me.”

83

Jonathan approached the policeman, holding his hands away from his body to show that he was unarmed, just as Emma had coached him to do. “You need to stop your men,” he said. “The people you’re looking for are not in that house.”

“They’re not?” said von Daniken warily.

“No. And neither is the drone.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want to stop them, too. You’ve made a mistake. It’s not me you’ve been looking for.”

“Who is it, then?”

“It’s me,” said Emma, stepping from an arc of shadow behind the policeman. “Mr. Blitz and Mr. Lammers were my colleagues, not Jonathan’s.”

“I’m not certain I understand, Miss…”

“Mrs. Ransom,” she said.

Von Daniken considered this. His eyes jumped back and forth between them, and for a moment, it appeared that he’d caught their sense of desperation. “You’re Emma Ransom,” he said, pointing a finger at her as if unconvinced. “The woman who died in a climbing accident last Monday?”

“There was no accident.”

“Apparently not.”

Emma met his eye. The unspoken shorthand of one professional to another passed between them. She allowed him a moment to figure things out, then said, “Jonathan is not involved in this plot in any way. The policemen he killed were acting on our orders. They attacked my husband in order to take possession of certain items that belonged to me. Jonathan responded in self-defense. I can’t elaborate any further except to say again that I’m the person you were looking for. Not my husband. You need to listen to me. You’re targeting the wrong house. You’re mounting an assault on the decoy.”

“The decoy?” von Daniken said skeptically.

“Yes.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I know where the real house is.”

“We have to hurry,” said Jonathan. “Call them off.”

Von Daniken had the stolid, immovable air of an exhausted fighter marshaling his energies for one last fight. His lips moved, and Jonathan guessed that he was sorting between the dozens of questions plaguing him. They were, Jonathan knew, the same questions that had beleaguered him.

“Where’s the drone?” von Daniken asked.

“It’s being kept at a house on top of the hill. Lenkstrasse 4.” Emma pointed to the foothills that rose five kilometers behind them.

“And it’s set for tonight?”

“The El Al flight due in from Tel Aviv,” she said.

On a far runway, an aircraft was preparing to take off. The shrill whistle of the powerful engines pierced the sky. Then, from somewhere closer, came a different noise, a lower frequency. Their faces lifted to the sky as two dull gray shapes skidded low overhead.

“Stop them,” said Emma.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Because I’m here.”

Von Daniken pulled his walkie-talkie from his jacket and brought it to his mouth. Before he could utter a word, the night erupted in a blur of blinding explosions, shattering glass, and staccato machine-gun fire. A flare burst to life and burned magnificently. Illuminated in its glare were the silhouettes of men rushing into the rear of the house.

Von Daniken began to run down the path. Jonathan and Emma followed close behind. They reached the command post and went in through the back door. A dozen men stood congregated in the living room, staring out the front window as the police band radio blared crazily.

“Den. Clear.”

“Kitchen. Clear.”

“Bedroom. Clear.”

The voices spoke in controlled telegraphese. And then another burst of machine-gun fire.