Jennifer glanced at me, and I could see she wanted to say something. I said, “What? Can’t we just sit here and enjoy this?”
She said, “You’re always asking for a fight, and now you’re just wanting to eat ice cream.”
That sort of ticked me off. I said, “I didn’t ask to come here. They interrupted our wedding, for God’s sake. We were supposed to spend a week in Charleston with our friends.”
She grinned and took my hand, letting the ice cream run down her other arm. She said, “You are so full of crap. You wanted this to happen. I saw you at the rehearsal.”
I reached up and wiped her arm with a napkin, saying, “I didn’t want this to happen, but you have to admit it’s pretty cool.”
She laughed and said, “I knew it. I knew it.”
I grinned and said, “Come on. This is nothing. No shots fired, no danger. We get to spend a weekend in Zurich and we don’t even have to pay for it. Tell me you don’t think this is cool, too.”
She said, “Yeah, right up until it’s not.”
And then my phone buzzed with a text.
He’s on the move. Headed south.
Which meant toward our location. I looked up from the phone to see her reading the same text. I said, “Looks like vacation time is over.”
Chapter 16
We went across the promenade so we’d be facing in the direction of his approach, both of us pulling up the target’s picture on our phone for a final memorization of what he looked like.
He was an older guy, about sixty-five, with salt-and-pepper hair. Truthfully, he looked a lot like the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani—the guy we’d eliminated in a drone strike. Bushy black eyebrows and a neatly trimmed gray beard. He could have been a university professor. Or Doctor Evil.
Time would tell.
We finished our cones sitting right next to the river, waiting on him to appear.
He did not.
On my earpiece I heard someone whisper, “We’re breaching. We’re breaching. Status.”
I said, “I don’t have him. No breach. No breach.”
Jennifer slid her hand down my arm and I looked at her. She flicked her eyes, and there he was, walking down the promenade like he was just another tourist.
Shoshana said, “Pike, find him. He’s there.”
I said, “I have him. I say again, I have him. Clear to breach.”
We stood up after he passed, falling in behind him as he crossed the river.
His pace was a little bit less than someone with a place to be and a little bit more than a person just enjoying a stroll, but with the small crowd on the promenade, it didn’t really matter. We could stay behind him with little difficulty and keep him in sight.
I called Knuckles, gave him our location, and told him to close in on the far side of the river to give us some options to keep an eye on him.
The target wound around, eventually walking by the famed Saint Peter’s Church, the large clock in the bell tower shadowing his moves, before heading again toward the river, back the way he had come.
Which was strange.
He threaded through the streets until he hit an avenue called Schipfe, right along the water, passing by the promenade we’d just crossed over.
Stranger still.
He picked up his pace along the river’s edge and then took a left in a narrow alley. Before he turned, he did a brief glance behind, surveying the river walk, which gave me some concern. I pulled Jennifer next to me on the water’s edge, pretending to watch the spectacular view. I gave him thirty seconds, then went to the entrance of the alley, seeing a cascade of stairs, the buildings so close it wasn’t even an alley. It looked more like an indoor fire escape in a New York apartment. It was a choke point that would advertise anyone who entered behind him, the ancient stairwell so narrow any target above would see who was behind. I saw his back rising up the stairs at a trot and immediately retreated before he turned around and saw me.
I waited a bit, and then started to go again, the mission of keeping him in sight for Shoshana the foremost in my mind. Jennifer pulled my arm saying, “You want to follow him up that? We’ll be burned for anything else. Call Knuckles and have him interdict.”
Her words broke through my mission focus. It dawned on me. That son of a bitch is conducting a surveillance detection route.
I clicked my earpiece, saying, “Knuckles, Blood, what’s your status?”
I heard, “On the west side, moving your way. About thirty seconds out.”
“This guy is running an SDR. I can’t follow. Get on him.”
I sent them my location through the phone and waited. I saw the realization blossom in Jennifer’s eyes. She said, “Shoshana’s right. This guy is bad.”
I smiled and said, “Maybe. Maybe you’re just paranoid.”
Standing there with her now-melted ice cream cone, looking out over the Limmat River, she hip-bumped me and said, “I guess being paranoid was worth it.”
I laughed and said, “Still got to prove it.”
I contacted Aaron and said, “Target is still on the move. Temporarily unsighted due to terrain. Got the other team about to lock on, but they haven’t yet. What’s your status?”
He came back and said, “We’re in. Not a lot here. We have control of his computer and the only thing suspicious is a steganography program.”
“Okay, keep working it. I’ll let you know if we lose control. If they don’t find him in five minutes, get out.”
“Roger all.”
I then contacted Knuckles saying, “Do you have him?”
He said, “No. Unsighted.”
I turned to Jennifer and said, “Get up there. As fast as you can.” I knew if he was conducting a surveillance detection route, he’d have pinged on me instead of Jennifer. And I was sick of waiting around.
She nodded at me and took off like a gazelle, her long legs pumping up the stairs like she was trying to power a generator. She reached the top, and said, “Unsighted.”
I went to the stairs myself, and started jogging up them saying, “Find him. He’s close.”
Brett came on, saying, “I got five-five. I have the target. He’s on a street called Rollengasse. Still moving, but looking around. I’m ahead of him, so no threat. But he’s definitely running an SDR.”
I said, “Can we come up?”
“Yeah, bring it. Knuckles is down the street so he’s boxed.”
I contacted Aaron and said, “Target acquired. Continue the mission.”
As I reached Jennifer I heard, “Roger. Still working the room. Let us know when he’s coming back.”
Jennifer said, “I told you. This guy is up to no good.”
I said, “Yeah, probably so, but let’s make sure it’s not just some coyote refugee bullshit before we go crazy and say he’s the next bin Laden. Keep working the problem.”
We went up the stairs, faced a split, and I glanced at the location of Brett’s phone on our moving map. I said, “Right.”
Jennifer went that way and Brett said, “He’s on the move again. No longer looking at the staircase. I’m on him.”
Knuckles said, “I see you. I see you. I have backup.”