by Tom Clancy
A woman appeared on the patio, carrying a pair of margarita glasses. She gave one to van der Putten, then lay down on the neighboring lounge. She had long brown hair, was supermodel thin, and was taller than van der Putten by a good four inches. She wore owl sunglasses that dominated her gaunt face, giving her a distinctly alien appearance. Only extraterrestrial origins or an abiding attraction to money could explain her choice of companion, Fisher decided. To each her own.
Fisher kept scanning, studying the other homes on van der Putten’s road, looking for likely infiltration and exfiltration routes, and good cover, until finally lowering his binoculars. As he did so he caught a flash of reflected sunlight to his left. Instinctively he knew it hadn’t come from a windshield or window or mirror but rather a lens of some kind—spotting scope, binoculars, or camera. Fisher leaned forward, pulled the brim of his cap lower over his eyes, and rested his arms on the stone, casually looking around as tourists tend to do. He stopped the rotation of his head just short of the flash’s origin and used his peripheral vision to watch for it. A few moments later it came again. Fisher raised his binoculars and pointed them skyward, ostensibly watching the hawk riding the thermals above the castle but flicking his eyes left. A few hundred yards to the north and west, a cluster of villas sat atop a lesser hill. Parked at the head of an east-facing empty cul-de-sac was a gray compact car. Two men stood outside it. Both were armed with either cameras or binoculars. Above Fisher, the hawk cooperated and banked west. He followed it, one eye fixed on the two men until they came into complete focus. Neither looked familiar; both were well tanned, with black hair. Locals, he guessed. One of them was pointing a camera at van der Putten’s home; the other, a pair of binoculars at Fisher himself.
Competition, Fisher thought. Of what type, it was too soon to tell.
Fisher took his binoculars off the hawk and lowered them, resuming his touristlike scan of the lush fields beneath the castillo. After a few more minutes, the two men got back in their car, backed down the cul-de-sac, and disappeared from view, only to reemerge on Cuesta de los Yeseros, the east-west road a quarter mile below. He watched the car meander east, then disappear again, then reappear on Calle del Alamillo Bajo, the road he’d followed twenty minutes earlier to reach the castle.
This could not be a coincidence.
He briefly considered bluffing it out as a tourist, but if they were curious enough to drive up here, they would also be thorough enough to memorize his face and record the make and model of his car. He didn’t have time to get away, not in the car, at least.
He waited until the gray compact disappeared behind a line of scrub pines, then pulled out his Canon, zoomed in on van der Putten’s, and took five sets of bursts, then put the camera and binoculars away and returned to the courtyard. He followed the brochure’s map to the eastern wall, then down a set of steps the led beneath the wall, into a short tunnel, then outside through an arch built into the sloped foundation. He turned left, jogged to the base of the southwest turret, and peeked around the corner. He saw no one. He pulled back and waited.
A few minutes later he heard the crunch of tires on gravel, then the soft squeal of brakes. Two car doors opened, then shut, and then he heard feet scuffing over dirt. In his mind’s eye he imagined the two men walking to his rental car and taking down the particulars before heading for the portcullis bridge. The footsteps went quiet as they crossed onto stone. Fisher peeked around the corner and saw the tops of two heads moving toward the portcullis. He heard the soft bang of the brochure box’s lid falling shut, then counted to ten, stepped out, and walked quickly but quietly west along the wall. He was under the bridge and at the southeast turret seventy seconds later. He didn’t pause, didn’t look back, but kept going until he reached the copse of cypress bordering the entrance road. Once in the deep shade, he laid himself flat, scooped the loam into a berm before him, and went still.
His visitors took their time, spending almost thirty minutes in the castle before emerging from the portcullis and crossing back over to the parking lot. A minute passed without the sound of car doors. Two minutes. A door opened and closed, followed by a second. An engine revved up, and moments later the car was moving down the entrance road above Fisher’s hiding spot. He gave them five minutes, then retraced his steps to the castle, back through the courtyard, and across the bridge to the lot.
His car looked undisturbed, but he knew better than to take that on faith. He found the GPS transmitter—a DIY affair consisting of a prepaid cell phone, a plastic project box, and glued-on neodymium magnets—attached to a bracket on the engine’s firewall. Interesting. They were observant and thorough but were using a homemade tracker. Fisher had seen their type: mercenaries or contract security consultants who were good but underfinanced. Entrepreneurs trying to break into the business. Fisher reassembled the tracker and put it back.
He lay in the cool shade beneath the car for a few minutes, thinking. He’d found himself in a wheels-within-wheels situation. Were these men watching him or van der Putten? If the former, were they watching him because he was watching van der Putten, or because he was potential competition or a threat? If their primary interest was van der Putten, they could be anyone: enemies, personal or professional; potential employers doing homework; law enforcement; intelligence operatives. . . . Fisher realized these mental aerobics were largely unnecessary. Bottom line: He needed to talk to van der Putten, and he needed to do it before these new players did whatever they’d come to do.
FISHER’S solution to the GPS tracker was to play his tourist role to the hilt. He left the castle and drove through Chinchón until he reached the M-316, which he took northeast toward the town of Valdelaguna three miles away. Soon after leaving Chinchón’s outskirts, the gray compact appeared in his rearview mirror and followed him into Valdelaguna. Fisher spent an hour ignoring his pursuers, who seemed to worry less about being seen as time went by and Fisher went about his photography tour, snapping dozens of shots of architecture and scenery before finally heading back to Chinchón.
By the time he got back, siesta was over and the townsfolk were moving about. Fisher found a hotel, Casa de la Marquesa, within view of the bullring, and checked in, making sure to ask the desk clerk in halting Spanish about the bullfight the next day and nearby photography hot spots, in case his watchers should decide to ask the clerk about his gringo guest.
Once in his room, a quick peek through the curtains revealed his watchers had taken up station on the patio of a cantina down the block. After a half hour, they left. Fisher checked his watch: six thirty.
19
HE waited until dusk, when the town’s lights began to flicker to life. He wandered down to the bullring and found it had been converted into an outdoor dance hall complete with pole-mounted torches and loudspeakers through which strains of jota music drifted. Fisher wore brown trousers, hiking sandals, and a dark blue polo shirt over a white T-shirt, both untucked to cover the butt of the SC pistol and the folded Nomex balaclava in his waistband. He’d debated bringing more equipment, at least the Tridents or the Night Owls, but given Chinchón’s close-set houses, narrow streets, and the celebratory mood of the town, his chances of encountering a civilian were too great.
Though night had not yet fully fallen, half the town seemed to have already converged on the ring; it was standing room only. Fisher spent twenty minutes picking his way through the throng, smiling and greeting revelers and enjoying the spectacle, all the while keeping his eyes open for his watchers. They were nowhere to be seen, and this told Fisher something else about them: They probably had no backup, and they relied too heavily on the GPS tracker, a dangerous approach, especially in a town where a person could walk from edge to edge in ten minutes. Then again, he’d given them little reason to further pursue their curiosity about him. Clearly, he was a shutterbug tourist who happened to be in the same area as their target.
Sticking to side streets, Fisher proceeded south, using the decorative lights of the castle on the
hill as his guide until he reached Cuesta de los Yeseros, where he stopped beneath the sidewalk trees and watched and listened. He then walked across the road, scaled the shrub-covered embankment into the field beyond, and turned west. Another hundred yards brought him opposite van der Putten’s rear patio, fifty feet across the road and situated atop a berm of scrub grass. Tiny halogen theater lights set into the patio wall cast soft white cones on the flagstone, and submerged lights glowed amber beneath the pool’s surface. Van der Putten’s master suite was dark save for a half dozen glowing candles. As Fisher watched, a door opened and in the rectangle of yellow light stood the silhouetted form of van der Putten’s companion. She stood still for a moment, one leg before the other, arms lightly braced on the jamb, clearly showing off for van der Putten, whom Fisher could now see was lying on the bed. He was still wearing his red Speedo trunks. The woman flipped off the light and the room went dim again.
Through the ground floor’s sliding-glass doors Fisher saw a circle of red appear, pan quickly across the kitchen, then go dark again. Only someone interested in preserving their night vision would use a red flashlight. His friends in the gray compact were making their move.
Fisher drew the SC, pushed his way through the undergrowth, zigzagged down the embankment, then sprinted across the road and up the berm to van der Putten’s patio wall. Through the ground-floor glass he could see two shadowed figures moving through the living room toward the front of the house—toward stairs, Fisher assumed. He rolled over the wall and ran, hunched over, around the pool until he reached the sliding-glass doors, where he crouched down. He tried the door. Locked. He drew the Gerber Guardian from its calf sheath. He laid the SC down, then used his right hand to pull the door to the right, while wedging the tip of the Guardian into the latch mechanism. With a click, the lock popped open. He sheathed the Guardian, picked up the SC, crab-walked inside, and paused to slip on his balaclava.
From upstairs came a woman’s scream, then a thump, like a body hitting the floor.
SC extended before him, Fisher moved through the kitchen, checked the foyer, then peeked around the corner up the stairs. Somewhere upstairs a light was on. Another scream. Fisher mounted the stairs, stepping carefully and steadily until the second floor came into view. At the end of a ten-foot hall, the door to the master suite was partially open. He could see a nightstand and a lamp, which was the source of light.
He heard a soft thwump, like a gloved hand striking a heavy dictionary.
Noise-suppressed weapon, a detached part of Fisher’s brain told him. Either van der Putten or his girlfriend had taken a bullet, and the woman’s scream that came a second later gave Fisher his answer. It wasn’t a scream of pain but of resignation, of anguish. They’d killed van der Putten. Fisher quashed the urge to charge the door. The woman was still alive. The intruders had other business, or else she’d have already gotten her bullet.
Fisher took two more steps down the hall and stopped at an open door on his right. A bathroom. He stepped in, carefully groped with his hand until he found a heavy, glass soap dish. He switched the SC to his left hand, picked up the dish with his right, then stepped back into the hall.
“Hurry up, Rodrigo!” said a male voice in Spanish.
“This ain’t as easy as it looks, damn it!” came the reply.
Fisher took a step forward, pressed himself against the left-hand wall. Now he could see around the lamp. On the bed were two pair of calves—one set on the bottom, unclothed and toes pointed up; the second wearing pants, toes pointing down. Their owner was kneeling on the bed over van der Putten. The bed was rocking from side to side.
Fisher cocked his right arm, took aim, and hurled the soap dish into the master suite. The dish flew true, striking the sliding-glass doors dead center. Even as the glass shattered, Fisher was moving through the door.
At the threshold he looked right and saw one man standing over van der Putten’s naked girlfriend. He had a booted foot pressed into her neck and a noise-suppressed 9mm pointed at her skull. Predictably, he was gaping at the shattered doors. Fisher spun, shot the man in the head, and he stumbled sideways and slid down the wall. Fisher turned again and took aim at the man kneeling over van der Putten.
“Don’t move,” Fisher ordered in Spanish.
The man had been in middle of turning his head. He stopped, his face in profile. His hands were out of sight, held in front of him.
“Let me see your hands,” Fisher ordered.
The man didn’t move.
Fisher repeated his order.
The man raised his left hand above his head; it was bloody up to the wrist.
“The other hand.”
Fisher knew what was coming. He could see it in the man’s posture, in the flick of his eyes.
The man turned his head back toward the sliding-glass doors, and said, “Okay, okay . . .”
Fisher took a wide step to his left, and a half second later the man made his move. Left hand still raised above his head, the man spun his torso counterclockwise, revealing his right hand and the 9mm it held. The muzzle flashed orange. The bullet thunked into the wall where Fisher had been standing a moment earlier. Fisher fired twice, both bullets entering within an inch of each other directly beneath the man’s armpit. Both bullets shredded his heart. Already dead, he pitched forward over the edge of the bed, his legs jutting skyward for a few moments before he crumpled into a ball on the carpet.
Behind him the woman whimpered.
“Don’t move. Don’t look up,” Fisher told her. “You’re going to be okay.”
She didn’t answer.
“Say yes if you understand me.”
He got a feeble sí in response.
Fisher walked to the doors and pulled the curtains shut, then checked van der Putten. The former mercenary lay facedown on the bed, a Rorschach of blood staining the white sheets beneath him. He’d been shot once behind the right ear—or what little remained of the right ear. It had been sawed off, along with the left, by the bloody tanto knife that lay beside the body. The ears lay side by side on a nearby pillow. They looked like miniature, dehydrated pork chops.
Karma, Fisher thought.
HE quickly searched both men, taking everything he found, then grabbed a spare blanket in the linen closet and covered up the woman. After some coaxing, she got to her feet, and Fisher led her out of the bedroom and downstairs to the living room couch.
“What happened?” she murmured, barely coherent. She was in shock. “Who were those men? Why did they kill Heinzie? Who are you? Why did they . . . ?”
Fisher let her ramble as he went into the kitchen and found a plastic grocery bag, into which he dumped the men’s wallets, pocket litter, and a set of car keys. He then went back upstairs and rummaged in van der Putten’s medicine cabinet, where he found a bottle of Ambien. He gave the woman a tablet and a shot of Scotch, both of which she accepted without protest. He knelt before her.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Isobella.”
“Isobella, does Heinzie have a safe? Someplace he keeps important information? Maybe a hiding place?”
“What?” Fisher repeated the question, and Isobella shook her head. “He just has a watch and some rings. No jewelry—”
“I’m talking about documents. Important papers.”
“Why do you need that?” For the first time since sitting down, Isobella lifted her head and seemed to truly focus on Fisher. Seeing his balaclava-covered face, she withdrew and her eyes went wide.
“I’m a friend,” Fisher said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time to save Heinzie. Those men were after information.” This was likely untrue, but the woman wasn’t coherent enough to dissect the argument. “If I don’t find it and get it out of here, more men will come. Do you understand?”
“More? More men?”
“That’s right. Where did Heinz keep his important documents?”
“There’s a safe. Upstairs. Under the sink . . .”
; “Do you know the combination?”
“My birthday.”
Fisher felt a fleeting pang of sadness. Clearly, Isobella had meant more to van der Putten than Fisher had guessed. “What’s your birthday?”
Isobella blinked a few times and her head lolled. The Ambien/Scotch cocktail was taking hold. “What?”
“What’s your birthday?”
“June 9, 1961.”
Fisher laid her down on the couch, then went back upstairs. As advertised, he found a safe built into the floor of the bathroom vanity. He pushed aside the rolls of toilet paper and bottles of cleaning solution and spun the dial to 6-9-61. Nothing. He tried different combinations and sequences until 61-19-6-9 produced a click. Inside the shoebox-sized safe Fisher found nothing except a 2 GB SD memory card. He pocked it and went downstairs.
“I’ll call the police,” Fisher told Isobella. “You rest.”
She nodded wearily, then rolled over on the couch.
Fisher left.
They’d parked their gray compact two blocks away. He searched it, taking every pertinent scrap of paper he could find and dumping it into the grocery sack before locking the doors and tossing the keys down a nearby sewer drain.