Jennifer took a sip of her latte and said, “Not sure how we ended up being the break-in crew. Shoshana said we’d just be security for the work.”
I said, “Yeah, well, why should she get all the fun? We followed the guy all day today and they’re clean for the next follow. We’re clean for the break-in. Should be fun.”
She smirked, snaked her hand across the table, and put it on top of mine, saying, “I thought you wanted to spend some time with your wife in Zurich?”
I chuckled and said, “I do. What better way to spend it than breaking into a potential terrorist hideout?”
She grew serious, saying, “Do you think we should have contacted Wolffe before going active like this? We promised him we’d just be doing surveillance work. It’s why he allowed us to leave.”
I said, “Honestly? Yeah, we probably should, but we don’t know what turns this is going to take, and Wolffe knows me. Knows how I think. He wouldn’t have let us go if he didn’t think it was worth it.”
“He didn’t know we’d be doing this.”
Jennifer was still a little black-and-white when it came to authority for something. Still wanting to ask permission, when I was more likely to ask for forgiveness after the fact. I knew she didn’t give a damn about breaking into this guy’s house, but instead was more worried about breaking her trust with George Wolffe. But I also knew that Wolffe understood that I wouldn’t do something crazy without calling first.
This little B&E wasn’t crazy. At least in my mind.
I squeezed her hand, saying, “What’s the use of walking on the edge if you don’t lean over every once in a while?”
She grinned and said, “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you say that in the past. Right before we fall off. I’m not sure why I ever listen to you.”
“Because you’d never get any high adventure if you didn’t, that’s why.”
She pulled her hand away and I said, “What? I was making a joke—”
She cut me off saying, “He’s on the move.”
I glanced at the front of the tunnel and saw Qassim exiting at a leisurely pace. He stopped and watched a street performer in front of a fountain, then continued on.
I got on the net and said, “The Professor is loose, going north.”
I always liked giving a target a nickname. That way, on the off chance someone heard me speaking or our radio calls were intercepted, they still wouldn’t know who I was talking about. This time, I’d anointed Qassim “the Professor” because that’s what he looked like.
He took a right and disappeared from view. I said, “Knuckles, he just entered your alley, Nerd-duffus-strasse or whatever it’s called.”
The surveillance box was much tighter this time, as there were plenty of places to eat threaded throughout the maze of alleys, forcing us to use singleton positions to stake out each potential egress.
I heard laughter coming through the net, then, “You mean, Niederdorfstrasse?”
I said, “Whatever,” and watched Jennifer begin working a knapsack at her feet, getting our tools ready.
When she was done we still didn’t move, patiently waiting for Knuckles to get lock-on, because an unseen target is an unknown threat. The last thing we wanted was for him to meet us at his door as I was picking the lock.
I heard him say, “Got eyes on. Clear to breach,” then heard him starting to coordinate the surveillance effort against Qassim with Brett and the Israelis.
Jennifer swung her arms through the straps of the small backpack, a grin on her face, her eyes lighting up from the adrenaline. I stood up and threw some euros on the table, saying, “Showtime.”
Chapter 23
We left the café and walked to the tunnel holding hands, just another couple of tourists out enjoying Zurich. The good part of this op was that the Israelis had already done the hard work for us, having given us a complete data dump of exactly what to expect. We only had two barriers to penetrate, and we’d come prepared for both.
Harshly lit by overhead fluorescent lamps, the tunnel had the air of a cheap carnival house of horrors, some of the lights flickering like a Saw movie. We passed by several smaller shops, then reached a set of stairs. The building had five floors, with the ground floor reserved for the shops, and each subsequent floor owned by different companies that rented out apartments, with the final floor having office spaces. We went up three flights, took a right down a hallway, and reached a set of double-glass doors with a keypad on the wall, a small lobby behind it. The first barrier.
I checked the doors on the off chance the magnetic lock was turned off, but no luck. Jennifer took a knee, rotating her back with the knapsack toward me, and I bent down, ripping open the zippers. I pulled out what looked like a thick coat hanger covered in rubber with a T-handle on one end and a square hook on the other. Called a double-door tool, it was designed to defeat exactly what we were facing.
Everyone entering the apartment lobby had to punch in a code on the keypad, which meant we either had to sneak in behind someone using the keypad—a definite nonstarter—or figure out the code, which we didn’t have time to accomplish. Fortunately for us, because of fire codes and general convenience, everyone that left the complex only had to hit a push bar to exit. And that was what we were going to bypass.
I tapped Jennifer on the shoulder and she rotated around for early warning from anyone else coming up the stairs. I slid the tool through the small gap between the doors, rotated it around, seated the box end against the push bar, and pulled. The door opened like magic. I held it and snapped my fingers. Jennifer scuttled inside, racing through the lobby, then cutting left down a hallway. I walked through the door, let it close, then did a survey of the other two hallways leading to the lobby. Both were empty.
On the net, I said, “You’re clear,” then took a seat on a bench, protecting her work on the apartment door.
I heard “Roger,” and started the chronograph on my watch. Fourteen seconds later, I heard, “I’m in.”
That caused my eyebrows to rise. I stood up and started jogging down the hallway thinking, No way was she that fast.
I reached the door, saw it cracked, and entered, finding Jennifer going through a credenza. I looked at the lock set, seeing an Abloy cylinder bolt-lock just like Aaron had said. A brand that wasn’t cheap crap. I closed the door and engaged the bolt saying, “How’d you get in so quick? Was it unlocked?”
She closed a drawer and said, “Really? No, it wasn’t unlocked. The pins just worked out. Sorry about that.”
I grinned and went to the other side of the credenza, opening a drawer and saying, “That might be a Taskforce record. We should have recorded it. Knuckles will never believe you.”
She gave me the side-eye and I winked, saying, “Remember to put everything back exactly like you found it.”
She nodded and we continued going through the drawers. They gave us nothing. The apartment was small, with a kitchenette adjacent to a tiny den, and a closet-sized bedroom in the rear. It took us no time to go through the major places for hiding a thumb drive, to include the refrigerator, stove, wall vents, bottoms of drawers, and other secret spots.
We’d both had instruction from DEA and ICE on the various ways criminals hid stuff—you’d be amazed at the ingenuity—but all of our tricks came up empty. We found nothing. I was beginning to suspect he had it on him, or he’d hidden it in a place that would take wall-penetrating radar to find.