Light. A lot of light, shining on Lauren, a spotlight? She waddled closer, held gently by the man. “A few more steps, Lauren. Be strong. Kyle’s just on the other side of the door.” She blinked several times and ran her tongue across her dry lips. There was a shadow in the light, a silhouette forming, something familiar about the solid shape. Kyle? Kyle had come to take her out of the hospital? I’m not wearing makeup. What will he think when he sees me like this? My hair is a mess. Will he still love me? Tears began to well in her eyes and roll onto her cheeks.
“Wait here for a minute, Lauren, and get some strength. Just another minute. I promise.”
She knew the voice now and leaned against the man. “Okay, Jim. Thank you.”
* * *
T HE ADDRESS THAT J IM Hall had given was an apartment house in the Herrengasse section of Bern, a stone building surrounded by a thick wall, with knotted brown vines climbing over it at some points. Swanson walked all the way around the place. The wall was merely decorative, with no gates. A wide entrance at the rear opened into an alleyway to facilitate off-street, underground parking for the tenants. The front was a spacious, well-maintained walkway rising to a single line of stone steps up to a set of doors. Carved stone bears flanked the entranceway, and polished steel banisters extended down the stairs for assistance during the bitter winters. He closed his right hand around the pistol in his jacket pocket and went up past the bears and cautiously pushed open the door.
It was a weather portal, an air lock that helped hold in the heat, a seven-by-seven sanctuary from the weather. The floor was of well-worn marble with a rubber mat on which to wipe shoes and boots. A cheap painting was on one white wall, and on the opposite side was a brass line of call buttons for the individual residents and a set of mailboxes. In front of him was another pair of doors, tall and heavy with a rectangle of thick glass in each. The doors were secured by heavy interior bolts that could be activated by a tenant. There were no knobs. It reeked of Swiss solidity, dependability, and safety. Kyle thought those doors, which seemed so inviting to visitors, could probably stop a cruise missile. The glass certainly was not bulletproof but was made up of several thick layers, even more protection from the weather.
He peered through, using his hand as a shade, and saw three figures step from a small elevator and into the hallway. Two women, one man, all in enough shadow to distort their images. One of the women walked away, and the other two people turned to face him.
Jim Hall was holding Lauren tightly around the waist, supporting her weight. She seemed dazed, hardly able to walk, but Kyle saw no blood. That was good. He took his pistol from the pocket, racked in a cartridge, and held it by his left side, out of sight beneath the glass. He saw Hall say something to Lauren but could not hear the words.
Hall extended his right arm and touched a button, and the hum of an intercom hissed in the entranceway. He then leaned down and gave her a slight kiss on the cheek. “Here she is, Kyle. A deal is a deal.”
Hall threw Lauren against the door so hard that she hit it and bounced back; then there was a clap of thunder and she slammed into the door a second time. Her eyes flew wide in surprise and shock, then hurt and pain. As she slid down, Jim Hall pulled the trigger again and put a bullet into her upper right shoulder. A spray of crimson smeared the window, and Kyle watched her slide to the floor.
He screamed and fired a shot through the glass, which webbed out to absorb the impact but did not shatter. It was bulletproof! “I’m coming, Lauren!” he yelled, then began punching every buzzer on the call board, shouting in English, German, and French for somebody to unlock the damned door. A girl is dying in the foyer. Open the door and call the police.
It seemed an eternity before a few responses came, residents asking for more detail before they unlocked the portal for a stranger. Finally one person upstairs hit the button and the lock buzzed and slid back. Kyle pushed on the door, but Lauren’s body was in the way. He put his shoulder to it and managed to open it enough to squeeze through, weapon first, shifting his eyes to the hallway in case Hall decided to snap off more shots. He heard footsteps pounding down the stairs, Jim Hall escaping.
Adrenaline surged through Kyle, telling the warrior to go after the target, to take down the threat no matter what. Finish what you start. Finish Jim Hall now, because you might never get another chance. But this was Lauren lying at his feet, with a couple of terrible bullet wounds that were bleeding profusely, silently weeping and trying to eat the pain. He dropped the gun.
On his knees, Swanson felt for a pulse and found a weak one. He gripped her hand, and somehow she smiled. He ran his hands over the wounds, front and back. The first bullet had struck her in the thigh, the second in the back. He knew from his own past that the two bullets had done a lot of damage, too much for any first aid to mend. She needed a hospital and a surgeon. He would not leave her to die alone on a cold marble floor in Switzerland. He ripped off his jacket and tied the sleeves around the thigh wound, which was spilling dark blood like a waterfall. Kyle bit his lower lip, knowing the sign that her femoral artery was hit. His shirt became a bandage for the back wound. No exit wound meant the bullet was still in there. Shit!
The hiccupping sirens of approaching police and ambulances could be heard, but in his heart, Kyle knew they might lose this race. He wrapped his arms around Lauren, sat back against the wall, and pulled her close, pressing the makeshift bandages. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you now,” he whispered. He was at a loss to do any more and felt hot tears of his own. He stroked her hair and looked deep into the beautiful eyes that were growing dim. “Hey, did I ever tell you about a place called Flo’s Hot Dogs, back in Maine? I’ll take you there soon.” And he explained to her the mysteries of making a great hot dog.
BAVARIA
T HE GLOVES CAME OFF after the shooting of Agent Lauren Carson and even the CIA joined the hunt-only in a support role, but it furnished a ton of support. The orders from the president were explicit: Find Jim Hall. Every alphabet agency in the U.S. government, and their counterparts overseas, put him at number one on the international list of active terrorists. Any country knowingly providing him aid and comfort could expect harsh retribution and a cutoff of all financial aid from the United States.
Still, it took five months before the German police talked to a woman in a small Bavarian village.
She was angry, she said, because a friend worked as a housekeeper for a rich American man up at that house in the mountains and he paid her too much money. She was nothing but a showoff, throwing that money in everybody’s face with her new clothes and the new car. Nobody else could make that kind of money as housekeepers, and it was unfair. A police visit to the friend’s place turned up a few hundred-dollar bills with sequential serial numbers.
Technology then came into play, with the isolated house, a large cabin that was perfect for withstanding a winter in the Alps, targeted by satellites and drones. The German intelligence service contacted Switzerland, where this suspect had made such an imprint, and asked Commander Stefan Glamer for any ideas.
Glamer gave them one. He knew a man admirably equipped to handle the situation, he said, a specialist, the best there was at this sort of thing, and it would be kept quiet. The Germans liked the idea. Glamer placed a call to General Brad Middleton in Washington.
* * *
F OUR NIGHTS LATER, IN cold and frigid darkness, Kyle Swanson was dropped off by helicopter in a touch-and-go two miles from the cabin. He humped in overnight, nearly invisible in his winter white combat gear, using a GPS system that led him right to a ridge from which he could see the house. He came to a stop in a tree line five hundred yards from the cabin. New snow veiled the rocks and underbrush.
Jim Hall obviously knew that Kyle would be coming after him, sooner or later, but the months had passed quietly since Bern, and the harsh winter had clamped onto the Alps, providing an extra barrier of protection.
Kyle studied the place through his binos from the tall trees tha
t shadowed him from the bright starlight illuminating a cloudless sky. There were no lights in the windows. After so much secure time, Hall had let his guard slip. Hell, Kyle thought, the guy can’t stay up and alert all night, every night. He edged closer, into a thicket only about three hundred yards away.
A little dark shape darted nearby, a curious fox that smelled the strange scent but did not follow it. Kyle was glad to see him. Abundant wildlife meant that motion detection sensors would have been useless as a defense mechanism. This time, his binos showed cameras perched at all four corners of the cabin, but he believed the harsh weather had likely corrupted their lenses over the past few months. The dustings of snow and ice would blur his image anyway.
Using a laser rangefinder, he studied the cabin from all sides, charting it with precision in his notebook. A driveway was clogged with snow all the way to the garage, and a snowmobile bulged beneath a blue tarp next to the front deck. Beside one wall were twin white tanks of propane gas for indoor heating. No smoke came from the brick chimney, telling him that the fireplace had been doused for the night and not yet relit. A small covered porch ended at one edge with an adjacent shed that was empty, indicating that the nearest supply of dry cut logs had been used. These days, Hall would have to trek out about ten yards from the steps to the secondary, larger stack. Kyle estimated that more than a cord of split wood was left. A path had been worn in the snow with the routine of bringing the logs inside. Everything seemed in place, and matched precisely with the information that the cleaning woman had provided the police.
As a precaution, Swanson slowly turned and scanned in a circle all about him, comfortable that he was invisible and alone, but checking nonetheless. This was an omnidirectional target, so there should be no one scouting behind him. The silence of the mountain was almost tangible. Kyle continued forward, ever more cautiously, and closed to within a hundred yards, then followed a snow ridge into a swell created by the blowing snow, only seventy yards from the house. That would do it.
He crawled forward to come in directly behind the two-foot-high mound, then quietly began to tunnel into the back side, out of sight of the windows and cameras. The new snow was soft and gave way easily to the small entrenching tool and his busy hands and feet. Kyle constantly estimated the depth of his burrowing, and finally his fingers punched through the outer crust and he stopped. He could see the front porch through the hole, which he carefully widened to become a small window at the front of his snow cave. He pulled a square of white cloth from his pack and secured it across the mouth of the hole, with a little space left at the top. It resembled the veil of a burka worn by a Muslim woman, covering everything but for the eyes.
Kyle squirmed backward. He would leave the rifle in its drag bag to protect it from the weather for now, but when it came time to work, he would be able to sight over the top edge of the cloth and fire through the sheer white material. He had become part of the landscape, and the only possibly visible element was the scope, which was also cammed out. In addition, the rising sun would be at his back and shining into the eyes of anyone on the porch. It would be impossible to spot his hide site.
Out of the wind and the weather, comfortable in the insulated suit and secure in his small igloo, he broke out some rations and calmly munched a bar of chocolate and drank some water. For Kyle, time simply stopped. He could stay there as long as need be, and the only mild concern was whether his trapped body heat might melt the tunnel.
Forty-eight hours ago he had been with Lauren at a hospital run by the CIA. She had survived the attack in Bern, but barely. The major artery in her leg had only been nicked, and skilled Swiss doctors managed to suture it before she bled to death. The bullet in the back had chipped the collarbone and sent fragments tearing deep into her, perforating a lung. The doctors had to cut deeper than they wanted, leaving behind a heavy lacework of scars that were requiring plastic surgery. The flawless beauty of her face remained intact, which only amplified the torn places in her back and leg. She was visited each afternoon by a Company psychiatrist.
Kyle did not care how she looked; she was alive, and he would be her guide back to full health. Lauren was strong and was getting through the process as well as could be expected. He knew she would.
She had burst into tears unexpectedly when he told her he had to leave for a little while. One more mission. He would make it quick, then come right back. She asked, How many more missions would there be? Having come so close to death herself, she looked at life differently now. When he could not answer the question, Lauren closed her eyes in disappointment and kept them closed. He did not know what that meant. Kyle kissed her softly, then left the room.
He pushed those thoughts aside because he could not dwell on that now, or any other things in the past, or future. This moment, this instant in time, was sucking up all of his concentration until the only thing he was thinking about was the shot to come. All of his senses were alive and vibrant. It would have to be exact, because he did not want to kill Jim Hall immediately, only to incapacitate him.
In fact, it was so important not to kill him with the first shot that Kyle had chosen a little rifle that fired a small.22 caliber long bullet for the job. He had finished the computations, figured the angle of the dangle, as his pals called the mathematics of the sniper’s job, and was listing the likely damage that would be caused by such a gut shot when lights began coming on in the windows. Swanson readied the rifle and peered through the scope over the veil. Wisps of smoke came from the chimney. The door of the house opened.
Jim Hall appeared at the top of the stairs in a worn blue parka and unlaced boots. A puff of exhaled air came from him, and he looked around. A new light snow was falling. The days were already getting longer, and soon he would be able to leave this place. The sunshine was calling his name.
Kyle Swanson slowed his breathing. Nothing else in the world existed but the target below. Hall slowly gathered an armload of wood, balancing it on one arm, then two, and turned back toward the house. Swanson gently squeezed the trigger and the rifle fired, not much more than a loud snapping noise.
The little bullet hit Jim Hall low in the abdomen and drilled deep before smashing to a stop against a bone in his left leg. His arms flew wide, the logs dropped with a clatter, and Hall fell with a yowl of pain into the snow, face-first. The sudden pain had been excruciating and was intensified by the extremely cold weather. Hall was down and hurt and disoriented.
The initial shock would last about thirty-five to forty seconds, and Kyle had no time to waste. He dropped the rifle, drew his 9 mm pistol, and erupted out of the snowpack, charging to reach the stunned Hall and yelling, “If you fucking reach for a weapon, I’ll shoot you right in the ass!” It was not a joke, for a bullet in the butt also would be tremendously painful.
Swanson stomped a boot into Hall’s back to hold him down and made a quick search. There were no weapons. He peeled a few plastic zip-ties from the batch in a vest pocket and jerked Hall’s arms back so he could bind him. There was a trickle of blood coming from the stomach wound, and it stained the crust of snow. He rolled him onto his back, and Hall stared up at the sky, moaning in shock and pain. A flash of recognition cut through the pain. “Kyle,” he said.
Unable to grasp his wound, Jim Hall tried to curl into a fetal position. That wouldn’t do. Swanson grabbed the collar of the thick jacket and hauled him over to a tree, leaned him against it, and used lengths of duct tape to secure the ankles to some smaller stumps. “I’ll be right back, Jim. Don’t go anywhere.”
He was certain the cabin was clear; even so, he kept his pistol at his side as he walked in. The place was small but warm, and Kyle saw that the main heating source was a baseboard system that was fed by the big propane tank outside. Pale wood-paneled walls gleamed with polish and were dappled with reflections of the flames dancing in the fireplace. First thing in the morning, and Hall already had it burning at a comfortable size. A sofa, a small television set, and a low table littered with magazine
s dominated the living room. Another TV set showed the views from the outside cameras, all fuzzy and useless. He could barely make out the bound shape of Jim Hall.
Through one door was a small dining table surrounded by a few straight-back chairs. A modest kitchen was directly through the far doorway, and he smelled fresh coffee and saw the makings for a breakfast of eggs and wurst. Toast had been made and buttered, and Kyle picked up a slice and nibbled it while he strolled into the bedroom. The thick blankets had been kicked aside this morning. Swanson slowly ransacked the place until, in the garage, he found two large brass-bound steamer trunks filled with banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills and other currencies. He scooped up an overflowing armful of cash and went back outside.
Some of the shock had worn off Jim Hall. His stomach seemed on fire, and it felt like some animal was clawing at his insides. “Kill me, Kyle,” Hall said. “Please.”
“Shut up,” Swanson snapped and dumped the money at Hall’s feet. The paper currency thudded and fluttered and spun into an irregular pyramid. Kyle went back and got another load and tossed that onto the pile to make it larger. Then he grunted, satisfied.
Hall had regained some of his edge and said with a sneer, “You win, so shoot me. Go ahead and shoot me now.”
“I’ve already shot you, but whatever.” Swanson smoothly pulled the pistol, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. A loud crack jarred the forest stillness, followed by a primal scream as the bullet tore into Hall’s right thigh. “Gee, I hope that didn’t hit your femoral artery, Jim, because then you would bleed to death too soon.”
An Act of Treason Page 29