30
“Is it him?”
Von Daniken compared the snapshot of Gottfried Blitz standing next to the drone with the ruined face lying at his feet. “You tell me,” he said, handing the photo to Kurt Myer and turning away before the bile rose any farther in his throat.
“Same sweater. Same eyes. It’s him.” Squatting on his haunches, Myer studied the corpse with an expert’s keen eye. “He was killed while seated in the chair, then moved to the floor. The shot had to be taken at waist level with the muzzle aimed downward to have expelled Blitz’s brains all over the desk and wall.”
Using a fountain pen, he pointed to the rash of gunpowder tattooed into the skin. “Look at the abrasion collar and the stippling. The shooter was a foot away when he pulled the trigger. Blitz didn’t even know he was there. He was working on his laptop until the moment he was shot.”
But von Daniken was interested in something else Myer had said. “Back up a second, Kurt. What do you mean ‘moved to the floor’? Are you saying the killer shot him, then laid him on the carpet? Did he bring him the towels, too?”
“Someone did. It certainly wasn’t Mr. Blitz.” Myer tested the pile of towels heaped near the body. “Still warm.”
The men shared an uncomfortable glance.
From the street came the sound of another siren approaching. Doors slammed. There was a commotion in the hall. Two paramedics entered the study.
“That was quick,” said von Daniken, referring to the near instantaneous arrival of the medical technicians.
“Did you call?” one of the paramedics asked. “Dispatch said it was an American.”
“An American?” Von Daniken traded looks with Myer. “How long ago did the American call?” he asked the paramedic.
“Twelve minutes ago. Nine-oh-six.”
“It’s him,” said Myer. “Ransom.”
Von Daniken nodded, then glanced at his watch. During the drive from the airfield, he’d called Signor Orsini, the station manager, for a description of the man who’d shown up at his door early that morning impersonating a police officer and asking about who had sent a certain pair of bags to Landquart. Afterward, he’d phoned the Graubünden police for details about the murder of one of its officers the day before, also in Landquart. Orsini’s description perfectly matched that given by a witness to the crime. The police in Landquart even had a name: Dr. Jonathan Ransom. An American. There was more. Ransom’s wife had perished two days earlier in a climbing mishap in the mountains near Davos.
“If it was Ransom who called,” he said to Myer, “that explains the towels. He’s a doctor.”
Lieutenant Conti, who had been listening in on the exchange, tucked his chin into his neck and lifted his hands in a quintessentially Italian gesture. “But why would Ransom shoot Blitz and then call the ambulance to save his life?”
Von Daniken exchanged looks with Myer. Neither man wanted to answer the question for the time being.
Von Daniken walked over to the desk and tapped a few keys on the laptop. The screen displayed a hodgepodge of fractured colors. Here was something else that bothered him. Was Blitz working on a broken computer when he’d been shot? Or had he purposefully ruined it to prevent anyone from finding out what was on its hard drive?
One by one, he opened the desk drawers. The top two were empty, except for a few scraps of paper, rubber bands, and pens. The bottom drawer was locked, but appeared to have been tampered with. He glanced up and noticed a few moving boxes placed against the wall. He rushed to see what was inside and was disappointed to find them empty as well.
Just then, the crime scene technicians arrived. All unnecessary personnel were ordered out of the room. Myer slipped past von Daniken in the corridor, whispering that he was going to get the daisy sniffer, which was what he called the explosives and radiation detector.
As the technicians filed into the house, von Daniken went upstairs and made his way to Gottfried Blitz’s bedroom. He wasn’t thinking about the victim so much as the man who might have killed him. He was looking for a clue as to why a cop killer whose wife had died in a mountaineering accident was in such a hurry to visit Blitz.
The search of Blitz’s bedroom
turned up nothing. The night table was stacked with German celebrity glossies; the dresser filled with neatly folded clothing; the bathroom stuffed to bursting with cologne, hair products, and a variety of prescription drugs. But nowhere did he find anything that would tie Blitz to the drone, or indicate how he planned to use it.
Von Daniken sat down on the bed and stared out the window. It came to him that there were two groups and that they were somehow battling one another. There was Lammers and Blitz on the one side, and those who wanted them dead on the other. The quality of the killings combined with the discovery of the drone and the RDX marked it as an intelligence operation.
The prospect angered him. If an intelligence agency knew enough about a plot involving RDX and a drone to take decisive measures to stop it, why hadn’t they contacted him with the information?
He turned his mind to Dr. Jonathan Ransom, who apparently had phoned the paramedics. According to the station manager, Ransom had been hellbent on discovering who had sent the bags to Landquart earlier in the week. The logical assumption was that he didn’t know Blitz. How, then, had Ransom come to be in possession of the baggage claims?
If, however, von Daniken were to assume that Ransom and Blitz were working together—that they did know each other—the pieces fell into place. Stopped by the police after picking up the bags, Ransom had panicked, killed the arresting officer, then run down his partner in his hurry to flee the scene. Cover compromised, Ransom fled to Ascona to seek instructions from his controller. His ignorance of Blitz’s address could be put off to a cardinal rule of espionage: Compartmentalize information, or in the vernacular, keep it need-to-know. Hence, his need to speak to Orsini.
And the wife? The Englishwoman who had perished in a freak mountaineering accident? Might Ransom have killed her when she’d discovered that he was an agent?
Von Daniken scowled. He was grasping. Spinning fantasies out of thin air. Rising, he made his way to the stairs. He wanted to know what was in the bags that had made Ransom deem them worth killing for. There was little prospect of finding out, at least in the short term. The officer Ransom had struck with the car lay in a coma. His prognosis was not optimistic.
Von Daniken’s phone rang, interrupting his thoughts.
It was Myer, and he sounded worried. “In the garage. Come quickly.”
31
The garage was detached
from the main house and accessible by a side entry. A late-model Mercedes sedan occupied one space. The other was empty, but a fresh oil stain and a set of muddy tire tracks testified to the fact that a vehicle—either a truck or a van by the width of its axle—had recently been parked there.
Myer skirted the Mercedes and made his way to a storage closet built into the rear wall. He opened the doors and stood back so von Daniken could have a clear view. Stacked on the shelves were bricks wrapped in white plastic and bound in groups of five by duct tape.
“Is it what I think it is?” said von Daniken.
“Thirty kilos of Semtex still in its factory wrapping,” said Myer. “Won’t be hard to find out where this came from.”
Plastic explosives were tagged with a special reactive chemical that identified not only the manufacturer, but the lot number. The practice allowed the explosives to be tracked, and in theory, at least, to defend against illegal sale and trafficking.
“Take one,” said von Daniken.
Myer didn’t hesitate before removing a brick and tossing it to Krajcek, who slipped it into his overcoat. As material evidence, the explosives officially belonged to the Tessin police, but von Daniken didn’t feel like filing a request and waiting a week for the evidence to be catalogued and then released. Plastic explosives were not passports.
“Check the car?” von Daniken asked.
“Just the trunk. It’s clean.”
Von Daniken climbed into the Mercedes and rummaged through its contents. The vehicle was registered to Blitz. His driver’s license was tucked into the flap alongside the door. As he removed it, a piece of blue paper fell into his lap.
An envelope. One of the flimsy old-fashioned ones marked “Air Mail.” He saw the writing and his heart skipped a beat. It was Arabic written in a fountain pen’s faded blue ink. The postmark read, “Dubai, U.A.E. 10.12.85.”
Von Daniken opened it. The letter itself was written in Arabic, too. One page, the script neat and precise. A laser printer could hardly do better. He couldn’t read a word of it, but that didn’t matter. The faded photograph tucked inside told him all he needed to know.
Staring into the camera was a strapping young soldier dressed in a green uniform complete with a Sam Browne belt and an officer’s oversized cap. Flanking him were his mother and father. Proud grins were the same the world over. Von Daniken had never been to Iran, but he recognized a picture of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei when he saw it, and he knew that the giant, four-story painted portrait of the religious figure that dominated the photograph’s background could only have been taken in Teheran. Even so, his attention kept returning to the military man’s face and his strange blue eyes. A zealot’s eyes, he thought.
Just then, his cell phone rang. He checked the screen. A restricted number. “Von Daniken.”
“Marcus, it’s your American cousin.”
Von Daniken handed the letter to Myer and told him to find someone who spoke Arabic. Then he stepped outside the garage and resumed his conversation. “No more engine problems, I trust.”
“All taken care of.”
“I’m glad.”
“We talked to Walid Gassan.”
“I figured.” Von Daniken wondered where they’d hidden him on the plane. “When did you take him down?”
“Five days ago in Stockholm. One of our informants received word that Gassan had taken delivery of some plastic explosives up in Leipzig. We brought in a jump team to nab him, but he’d gotten rid of the stuff before we could arrest him.”
“Semtex?”
“How’d you know? He got it from that Ukrainian scumbag Shevchenko.”
“You’re certain?”
“Let’s just say that we had a heart-to-heart with him and he decided to come to Jesus.”
Von Daniken didn’t require any further details.
“Gassan was acting as a facilitator,” Palumbo continued. “He handed over the explosives to someone named Mahmoud Quitab. We ran the name through Langley and Interpol but didn’t get anything. Anyway, this Quitab character took delivery in a white Volkswagen work van with Swiss plates. We don’t have a number.”
Von Daniken had rounded the corner of the garage. As he listened, he noticed that a small chunk of concrete was chipped from the pillar separating the two bays. Visible to the naked eye was a streak of white paint. “A white van? You’re sure of the color?”
“The guy said white. The name Quitab mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing.” Von Daniken fought to keep the anxiety from his voice. “Anything else on this Quitab…phone, address, description?”
“His phone number belonged to a SIM card with a French prefix. We’ve got a request into France Telecom to run its numbers. We’re doing the same with all incoming and outgoing calls registered on Gassan’s phone. Nothing on Quitab’s address or his whereabouts so far, but we did get a description of him. Maybe fifty. Dark hair. Trim. Medium height. Sophisticated. Well dressed. One of them, but with blue eyes.”
One of them,
meaning an Arab.
Von Daniken looked at the photo of Blitz. Dark hair. Medium height. A look of sophistication. And, of course, the diamond blue eyes.
Just then, Myer came back with a police officer in tow. Von Daniken asked Palumbo to hold a moment, then addressed the policeman. “Did you read the letter?” he asked.
The officer nodded and explained that it was a note to his parents about daily life. He added that there was no mention of any illegal activities.
Von Daniken took it all in. “And the name? Can you tell me who it was addressed to?”
“Why yes, of course.” The policeman told him the name.
It had to be, thought von Daniken. There was no such thing as coincidence in this game.
“Are you there, Marcus?” asked Palumbo.
“I’m here. Go on.”
“Apparently, this guy Quitab has a setup in your neck of the woods,” said Palumbo. “I called to give you a heads-up.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What do you mean you know?” Palumbo sounded annoyed. “I thought you’d never heard of him.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m at his home right now.”
“You mean you know about this operation?”
“It’s more complicated than that. Quitab is dead.”
“He’s dead? Quitab? How? I mean…great! Jesus Christ, that’s good news. I was worried for a minute. Thought you had a real white-knuckler on your hands. Did you find the explosives, too?”
“Yes, we did.”
“All fifty kilos? Thank God. You guys dodged a major bullet.”
Von Daniken hurried into the garage. He counted the bricks of explosive. Six bundles of five bricks. Thirty kilos at most. “What do you mean that we dodged a bullet, Phil? Do you have a line on what Quitab was planning?”
“I thought you did…” Reception weakened and Palumbo’s voice disappeared in a thicket of crackles. “…fuckin’ crazy bastard.”
“I’m losing you. Can I call you back on a land line?”
“No go. I’m in transit.”
Hoping for a better signal, von Daniken moved out of the garage and stood in the rain. “What did you mean when you said we dodged a bullet?”
“I said that Gassan told us that that fuckin’ crazy Iranian Quitab was going to Switzerland to take down a plane.”
32
The time in Israel
was three hours ahead of Switzerland. Instead of rain and snow, a blistering sun ruled the sky. The mercury nudged the century mark as the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean sweltered beneath an early spring heat wave.
Ten miles north of Tel Aviv, in the rocky coastal hillside town of Herzliya, an emergency meeting was under way on the second floor of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, better known as the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service. Present were the heads of the organization’s most important divisions. Collections, which handled intelligence gathering. Political Action and Liaison, which was responsible for dealing with foreign intelligence services, and Special Operations, or Metsada, which supervised the dark side of the business: targeted assassination, sabotage, and kidnapping, among other activities.
“Since when do they have a facility in Chalus?” demanded the fat, proudly unattractive man pacing back and forth at the head of the room. “Last I heard, they’d concentrated their enrichment efforts at Natanz and Esfahan.” Dressed in short sleeves, with thinning black hair, an unlined face, and a reptile’s bulging eyes, he might have been forty or seventy. What was unmistakable, however, was his air of seething resolve. His name was Zvi Hirsch and for the past seven years, he’d been chief of the Mossad.
“We can’t find anything on the maps. No satellite imagery. Nothing,” said Collections. “They’ve been very clever. They managed to keep its construction secret.”
“Secret, indeed!” said Zvi Hirsch. “How many centrifuges do they need to process that much uranium? We’re talking one hundred kilos in less than two years.”
“In so short a time? At least fifty thousand.”
“And how many companies manufacture the equipment needed to do that kind of job?”
“Less than a hundred,” said Collections. “Exports are strictly controlled and monitored.”
“I can see that,” Hirsch replied dryly.
“Clearly, they received their technology from outside the usual channels,” said Metsada. He was dark and rail thin and spoke in a gentle voice that sounded as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly. “Most probably from manufacturers of dual-use goods.”
“In Hebrew, please.”
“Products made for civilian purposes that can be used by the defense industry. In this case, it would be equipment to assist in the fuel enrichment cycle. High-speed centrifuges sold to dairies to make yogurt cultures that can also be used to separate uranium hexafluoride gas. Heat exchangers designed for steel mills that can be used to cool reactors. Those products aren’t subject to export licenses or end-user certificates. Think of it as a false flag operation.”
“False flag? I thought we’d cornered the market on that game.” Hirsch crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “Okay, so they have the stuff. Can they get it here?”
“They successfully test-fired the Shahab-4 long-range missile sixty days ago,” said Collections.
“How long from launch until it hits us?”
“An hour at the outside.”
“Can we shoot it down?” Hirsch asked.
“Theoretically, we’re as safe as a baby in her mother’s arms.”
Israel relied on a two-tier air defense structure to destroy incoming long-range missiles. The first was the Arrow II ground-to-air missile, and the second, the next-generation Patriot missile system. Each suffered from the same problems. They could only be launched once the incoming missile was within one hundred kilometers of the target—that is to say, within minutes of striking. And neither had ever been tested in combat.
“What about something that gets in under the radar? Do they have any cruise missiles?”
“Rumors, but that’s it.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Hirsch. “What about the Shahab’s accuracy?”
The man from Political Action and Liaison spoke up. “Accuracy is something that Germany and France and the U.S. have to worry about. In our case, it’s beside the point. Any hit within fifty miles of the target is a fatal blow. If they can smuggle fifty thousand centrifuges into the country under our eyes and build a state-of-the-art enrichment facility without anyone hearing about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve made advancements in that area as well.”
“And so,” said Hirsch, rubbing his thick, hairless forearms. “Are we supposed to put our hands up and surrender? Is that what our Persian friends desire? Do they expect us to stand still while they arm their rockets with warheads that can destroy our cities?”
A former major general in the Israeli Defense Force, he knew all too well the scenarios involving a nuclear strike on Israeli soil. Israel occupied a land mass three hundred miles long and one hundred fifty miles wide. However, ninety percent of the population was clustered around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, cities just thirty miles apart. A nuclear strike on either would not only kill a significant percentage of the population, but would wipe out the country’s industrial infrastructure. The radioactive fallout would render the landscape uninhabitable for years to come. Simply put, there would be nowhere for the population to go, save out of the country. A new diaspora.
None of his section chiefs answered.
“I have a meeting with the prime minister in an hour,” Hirsch went on. “I’d like to be able to show that we haven’t been caught with our peckers in our hands. I imagine he’ll be interested in one question and one question only. Will they launch on us?”
Collections pursed his lips. “The president of Iran is a believer in the apocalyptic end times as stated in the Koran. He sees it as his personal mission to hasten the return of the twelfth Imam, known as the Mahdi, the rightful descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. It’s written that his return will be preceded by a confrontation between the forces of good and evil that will see a period of prolonged warfare, political upheaval, and bloodshed. At the end of the period, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace. First, though, he has to destroy Israel.”
“Great,” said Hirsch. “Remind me not to come to you for good news next time.”
“There’s more. The president’s drive to gain control of the levers of power has been incredibly successful. He’s dismissed hundreds of the country’s leaders in education, medicine, and diplomacy who don’t share his beliefs, and replaced them with his cronies from the Republican Guard. Worse yet, he’s got his own man elected as the country’s supreme religious leader. Six months ago, the president’s ambitions might have been held in check by the top clerics. Not anymore. This new guy, Ayatollah Razdi, is certifiable. He’s on the horn to Mohammed on a regular basis. He is definitely not a rational actor.”
“You want to know if he’ll pull the trigger,” Metsada asked. “I think we have the answer already.”
Collections nodded. “The president is taking Iran back to the Age of Mohammed. On numerous occasions, he’s said publicly that the Prophet Himself has spoken to him and informed him that His return is only two years away. He’s got one hand on the Koran and the other on the trigger.”
“He can’t keep the program a secret forever.” Metsada’s voice had acquired a venomous edge. “When word gets out, he knows we’ll act.”
“Unless he acts first.” Hirsch dropped into his chair with a grunt. “It’s like March of 1936 all over again.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Hitler ordered his troops into the Rhineland to take back the territory annexed to France after the First World War. His soldiers were poorly trained and pathetically armed. Some didn’t even have bullets for their rifles. The commander carried two sets of orders in his pocket. One to open if the French fought back, the other if they didn’t.
“The French let the Boches walk right in, and even treated them like liberators. The commander opened the first set of orders. He was told to occupy the territory and hand out German flags to the citizens. The event was a watershed. Until that day, Hitler had been all bluster and hot air. After he took back the Rhineland, he began to take himself more seriously. And so did the rest of the world.”
“Excuse me, Zvi,” interrupted Collections. “What did the second set of orders say?”
“The second set?” Zvi Hirsch smiled sadly. “If fired upon, the commander was to immediately retreat and return the soldiers to the barracks. Essentially, it told him to cut and run at the first sign of conflict. The shame would have been too great for the country to endure. The government would have fallen. One shot and Hitler would have been forced out of office.”
“Are you saying we have to confront him?”
Hirsch turned and stared out the window. “I don’t think it will be that easy this time.”