by Ted Bell
Der Nadel was popularly known by the name surviving climbers had given it. White Death. Hawke knew the mountain literally, inside and out. For deep inside the massive mountain lay one of Switzerland’s best-kept secrets. The mountain was home to a massive military complex of the Sorcerer. Dr. Steinhauser. The incredibly powerful man known to the financial world as the wizard who’d made the global economy tick like a Swiss clock for decades.
Sigrid looked at Hawke until she had his full attention. “Here’s the thing, Alex,” she said, “and this is important. Whoever was behind that five hundred million in outgoing cash? That was the very same account or individual who paid thirty million for Von Stuka’s island paradise, Seegarten.”
“Putin bought both in forty-eight hours?”
“He did.”
Hawke looked at her, thinking. “The baron also has a schloss somewhere, doesn’t he? A family castle?”
“He certainly does. Schloss Weisses Kreuz is its name. The White Cross. Primary family residence for five hundred years.”
“Can you take us there, Sigrid? Get Artemis and me inside the White Cross so we can have a little chat with the baron?”
She smiled and said, “Well, if I can’t, nobody can. He still wants to marry me, poor boy.”
Hawke smiled, but he didn’t find it very funny. “Where is this place, Sigrid?”
“In the stratosphere. High in the Alps. Far above Great St. Bernard Pass in northern Switzerland. But, there’s no way to surprise him, Alex. This time of year, the castle can be accessed only by Sno-Cat up the back side of the mountain. He’ll hear you coming . . .”
“Artemis, my friend, we’re going back to Switzerland as quickly as possible. If you think it’s the right thing to do, we’ll take Johnnie’s body back home on the plane with us. Chief Inspector Congreve could supervise the postmortem work at Scotland Yard?”
“Yes. I’d feel much better getting him the hell out of Morocco and back to his family. Thank you, sir.”
“Alex?” Sigrid asked. “Am I back on the team?”
He stood and pressed her head to his chest, holding her close. “After all that you’ve been doing here? This incredible room you’ve created? This mission of yours? My god, darling. What with all you’ve already done? And all this? To help me get closer to finding Alexei?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, Sigrid. You are the team, darling.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
KGB HQ, Siberia
Late afternoon in the middle of nowhere. At the sound of an approaching chopper, Beau Beauregard stepped into the frigid air outside the front doors of HQ to greet his arriving guest, Uncle Joe Stalingrad. He looked up into the bleak blue skies. Oh, god, here he comes, he thought, seeing the bright red chopper swooping in over the tops of the giant pines. Joe always arrived on the scene with a mountain of baggage—and not the kind you packed clothes inside.
Beau knew Joe was a political genius. Here on official business, namely, spying on Beau for Putin. But he was also a drama queen of the first rank.
Beau had nothing to hide. He’d been a very busy boy. He already had six hundred battle-hardened war fighters under arms, barracked and training twenty hours a day. He was well on his way to the first plateau Putin had established for Phase 1 of Operation Overkill.
“Hey-oh, it’s Uncle Joe!” Beau said, striding out onto the pad to meet him as soon as the rotor dust settled. The two men, he thought, had really hit it off in these few weeks since that first meeting at the Beau Rivage in Geneva. Wasn’t that hard to understand, either. Hell, they were kindred spirits in a funny way. Both show business, rock stars in their own way. All about the sizzle, the greasepaint and the razzamatazz and the funky Broadway . . .
“Colonel, good to see you, hotshot!” Joe said, giving the big man a good squeeze on his left biceps. “Had a hell of a time getting here though. You ever take that trans-Siberian train? The Red Arrow? Out of St. Petersburg? Man oh man, getting here was definitely not half the fun. I had a small private compartment, mind you, and it still smelled like the room where sick cats all go to piss before they die.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Well, anyway, welcome to nowhere. Look at this place. Not even the middle of nowhere is sufficient to describe it. You look like a man who could use a drink. Come on in and I’ll fix you up. Dinner’s in one hour. I got the kitchen to whip up some beef stroganoff in honor of your arrival . . .”
For the last three or four weeks, Colonel Beau Beauregard had been bivouacked here in what felt like the back of beyond, also known as Siberia. Familiar territory. He was at his old stomping grounds, the top-secret KGB HQ, the place where he’d built a massive military force for Putin some years ago.
Now he spent mornings in his old KGB office, scouring the files he’d created back in the glory years. Those golden days three years earlier, when he’d been engaged in creating the most powerful, most highly trained, most well-equipped and well-armed private army on the face of the earth. When money was no object and he was working his way through screwing every fat-fannied Siberian nurse residing at the base hospital. His “Huskies” as used to call them.
Yeah, those halcyon days of yore. Back when he’d first been at the service of Vladimir Putin, his henchman and right-hand man. Back then, a geographically voracious Putin had been hell-bent on redrawing the maps of Europe and the Baltic. Revanchism, pure and simple. Restore the borders to the old Cold War status, pre–Fall of the Wall.
Beau, with unlimited funds, had built up his magnificent secret strategic military base in record time. And in heavy secrecy, he had effected a miracle on Putin’s behalf.
He had molded raw and seasoned men into world-class storm-trooper-level infantry troops, paratroopers, spec ops divisions, an air fighter wing, tank battalions—everything Putin would need for a massive surprise attack that, were he successful, would amount to a restoration of the old Soviet empire. He had even threatened to use a revolutionary new weapon of mass destruction (that turned out to be fake) should anyone get in his way.
But it was not to be.
Putin’s erstwhile friend, and now nemesis, Alex Hawke, had risen up at the last minute. And saved everybody a whole shitload of trouble. With Europe, the Baltics, and the West all trembling at the brink of a world war, Hawke had gone to Putin’s private dacha in Russia to confront the president. Fully confident that Putin’s much-ballyhooed secret weapon of mass destruction, called Feuerwasser, meaning firewater, was a complete hoax, foisted on the world by that brilliant salesman, Vladimir Putin.
But Hawke had humiliated the president, met with him for countless hours, and finally convinced him that the Western allies—the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany—were united and not even slightly fooled by his phony X-factor explosive. And that they simply would not stand for his rash belligerence, knocking on the doors of every one of America’s NATO allies.
Hawke told him the Pentagon was already on a war footing in anticipation of Putin rolling tank divisions into Estonia and the Baltic. In the end, Hawke had presented Putin with a treaty drafted by the American president and Admiral Charlie Moore, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. By signing, Putin effectively agreed to withdraw all Russian troops back to the legal borders and ordered all of his military commanders on land, sea, and air to stand down effective immediately.
In the end, a weary Putin had backed away and abided by the tenets of the American treaty.
But now, Putin was out to make a major comeback. And Beau was back. And both men reunited with Uncle Joe Stalingrad. Joe was Putin’s eyes and ears here in Siberia and wherever else he roamed. Beau knew the former henchman was only here to check up on how the colonel was handling his new assignment. And find out exactly what was required to mount Operation Overkill. But he was also here to see how he could help Beau pull this miracle off on schedule.
“How much money? How much time?’ Joe asked him point-blank over vodka in the little library. This was where Beau spent most of his free tim
e, reading reports in front of the warming fire.
“You wanna talk money with me, Joe?”
“I do.”
“Well, I tell you what I’ve been working on all morning. Look at this topo map of the Alps. I’m going to need me some lightweight tactical tanks to break through these well-defended Alpine passes, Joe. Our tactical air support, the fighter wing at Falcon’s Lair, will not be, I promise you, will not be enough to ward off the swarms of Swiss fighter jets raining fire and brimstone down on our tanks and ground troops. Our boys bottlenecked at the pass? No.”
“Yeah, I see that, Beau,” Joe said. “How many tanks you think you’re going to need?”
“Hell, I dunno. Ten. Fifteen,” Beau said.
“Main battle tanks? T-14 Armatas?”
“No, no, no. Airborne Light Tanks. The Sprut-SDM1.”
“I’ll talk to the boss. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You also need to help me figure out how in hell I’m going to smuggle all them damn tanks and troops inside Swiss borders in time for a P-day shootout without nobody noticin’ nothin’ . . .”
Joe said, “You said you wanted airborne tanks. I guess you parachute them in, right?”
Beau said, “Man, get serious! If Overkill is ever going to work, this has to be a surprise attack. Get it? You don’t think folks seeing tanks come spitting out of the rear of aircraft is going to raise a few eyebrows?”
“Yeah . . . lemme think . . .”
“How about in a train?” Beau asked him, the idea, having occurred earlier that day, blooming ever larger in his brain.
“A train?” Joe said.
“Yeah, a train,” Beau said, “like a freight train combined with a passenger train, right? I’ve been thinking about this. You’re gonna like it, trust me. First, we air-cargo every damn tank, artillery weapon, and trooper from here in Siberia and drop them into Armenia. Off-load the whole shebang at the Russian 102nd Military Base at Gyumri, Armenia, north of the capital, Yerevan.”
“Okay, and where do we get this miraculous train?”
“We steal us one! Steal a train somewhere and have it waiting on the railroad tracks at the base. I’ve done this kind of shit before, for the Iranians one time. Listen to me. Those tanks you want to get me are small and light, right? About the size and weight of a C-Class Mercedes sedan. You could hide two of them in every boxcar, so say ten boxcars, twenty tanks. More boxcars loaded with troopers and light artillery. Rolling across the borders of Europe in the middle of the night on a speeding stealth train . . . fake papers, disguised somehow . . . Hell, pull right into the Hauptbahnhof at Zurich train station at two in the morning and off-load in a remote part of the damn rail yard . . .”
“Yeah. I can see it,” Joe said, thinking, This is why the wily old colonel gets the big bucks!
Time and logistics, those were the issues now, not money. All the members of the Falcon’s Lair loyalists had taken to calling the date of the Russian invasion of Switzerland P-day, with a tip of the hat to D-day, the “P” obviously for Putin.
That date was only two months away now. The invasion was scheduled for the first of May. And this time, Beau was convinced he and Joe, and Putin, could succeed in redrawing borders, rewriting the history books. Putin had a simple goal: he wanted, in the very worst way possible, to rule the world. The West would bow down to him first, and the rest of the world would follow. This, Putin, in his heart of hearts, believed fervently.
And old Beau? Well, in Joe’s book, he was still the baddest of the bad, the badass beyond the beyond. His mission? Restore Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin. First, invade Switzerland and recover all the gold stolen from him by the oligarchs. Second, use that money to fund Operation Overkill, the triumphant march on Moscow, and lay waste to anything and everything that stood in his way.
That was the plan, at any rate. Now, you know, war had a way of turning around and kicking you in the balls when you least expected it.
And P-day was fast approaching . . .
Chapter Seventy-Three
Great St. Bernard Pass, Switzerland
The big blue Sno-Cat churned up the steepest face, the north face, of the snow-packed mountain pass. Great St. Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps, with evidence of it in use dating back to the Bronze Age. It’s also the third highest pass, and the road is negotiable only four months of the year, from June to September. Now, in early February, travel was an arctic nightmare.
Artemis cranked up the wiper blades to high and leaned forward over the wheel, peering through the thick glass. The wipers struggling to keep up with the snowfall up here, in the nearly whiteout blizzard conditions. But as Hawke saw to his relief, Artemis Cooper was clearly in command and comfortable handling the growling monster.
Hawke, seated on the passenger side, turned around to smile at Sigrid, seated on the rear bench, her seat belt cinched tight around her hips. She was humming softly, skimming a new Vogue magazine she’d bought for the ride back from Morocco to Zurich. This trip up to the pass was very obviously not her first rodeo.
He had to say she looked phenomenal this morning. Forget the vapid redhead on the cover of her magazine; Sigrid could easily have graced the cover of Vogue herself. Clad head to toe in tight polar-white Bogner ski attire, her ash-blond hair piled atop her head, her wide blue eyes sparkling with adventure, she would be the perfect picture postcard for all that was right and good about Switzerland.
For her part, Sigrid found herself amazed at the camaraderie and sangfroid displayed by the two men up front. Considering the horrific death of poor Johnnie Walker, and him not even dead two days. But a part of her knew a thing or two about men. Sometimes grief is only grist for the strong, who use all that emotion as extra fuel for burning on the battlefield.
“Everything all right back there?” Hawke said.
“Perfectly all right, thank you very much for asking.”
“You’ve been up here before,” Hawke said, trying not to make it sound like a jealous question when in fact that’s exactly what it was.
“Yes, I have, as a matter of fact.”
“And was our dear baron a well-behaved host?”
“Alex, please. It was at his wife’s invitation. A weekend guest, you see. A house party.”
“Ah. At his wife’s invitation, you say. You two are very friendly, I take it? You and the baroness?”
“Not anymore. The baroness is dead.”
“Dead?”
“Hmm. She died last year. She and Wolfie were heli-skiing in New Zealand. Apparently she got out over her skis and ran out of luck and experience at precisely the same moment. She fell a thousand feet to her death.”
“I notice you use the word apparently. Was there ever any sign or evidence of foul play up on the mountain? Like, say, murder?”
“None. The ski chopper had returned to base and she and her husband were alone at the peak, last the pilot saw of them. Wolfie, according to his testimony at the inquest, was first to descend the upper portion. He claimed he was waiting for her at the bottom of a particularly treacherous descent. She simply never came down. He never saw her fall. Never saw her again. They never found the body. Police believe she fell into a deep crevasse.”
“Was this explanation challenged?”
“Not at the hearing. Let’s say people around town were talking, though. Her disappearance was topic A at high society holiday dinner parties around Zurich that Christmas. There had been troubles in the marriage for years. She often used the bottle to console herself. And . . . Wolfie had a reputation as, shall we say, an imperfect husband.”
“Zipper problems?”
“Hmm.”
“But he got away with it?” Hawke asked.
“The zipper problems?”
“No. His wife’s death. If it was murder, it was obviously a perfect murder. No witnesses, no corpse.”
“Hmm. Anyway, it’s all ancient history now, Alex. Social gossip has a short shelf life around here. Wolfie is now
seen as the ultimate catch. Switzerland’s most eligible bachelor. Kind of a Swiss version of you.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“No, Alex. You should take it as a joke. He is nothing like you, nothing at all.”
“I’m not a crook. For starters. Oh, and I didn’t kill my wife.”
“Alex, this is the most displaced case of green envy I’ve ever seen. He once gave me a ring. I probably shouldn’t have, but I accepted it. That’s it.”
“Sorry. Consider the subject closed. We’ve still got some time, Sigrid. Could you give us a refresher course in Wolfie 101? Artemis here needs to know what he’s up against when we arrive at Schloss Weisses Kreuz.”
“Sure. Where to start? Let’s see . . . Baron Wolfgang von Stuka. Patriarch of one of my country’s wealthiest, oldest, and most noble families. A citizen-soldier and a businessman. And not without his problems. It’s a little-known fact that Europe’s twelve ruling families remain deeply competitive. Who has the swankiest palaces, the biggest yachts, the shiniest diamonds, the healthiest bank balances. An expensive business, you know, being a royal.
“And then there’s our poor Wolfie. Poverty stricken by the standards of the Twelve Families. He keeps the Von Stuka family dynasty going by selling off land and art piecemeal, all the while frantically scouring the Riviera and other playgrounds for a wife who’s vastly richer than he is. There you have it.”
“What do you think, Artemis?” Hawke said.
“I think that when I meet him, I shall forgo the customary gentlemen’s handshake and hit him solidly in the mouth.”
“Well, that will certainly break the ice. How much farther now?”
“This is the last stretch of rough sledding. We’ll be there in twenty minutes or less.”
“Good, good,” Sigrid said, peering out her window.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Schloss Weisses Kreuz looked like one of those fairy-tale castles you see when cruising down the Rhine. Very Germanic, with four crenellated towers, one on each corner of the main structure. The ornate towers, with banners snapping in the wind atop them, soared into the snowy skies. Alex Hawke looked at one, mentally calculating its height. Good lord, he thought, they had to be 150 feet high!