Jack Coughlin - An Act of Treason

“You never stop, do you?” She gave him a bright smile. “The Swiss Gestapo or Cheesemakers or whoever they are will handle this now, Kyle. We’re done except for pointing a finger at Jim when we see him tomorrow.”

“I’m concerned that they want to just catch him without firing a shot. It could still all go to hell.”

“Kyle, the Swiss guard the pope. They were Europe’s best mercenaries for hundreds of years. Trust them.”

“I do, but they don’t know Jim like we do. He will have a good plan, which is why I want you to get an armed CIA escort tonight. The assistant station chief can arrange that. Also he gives you a ride back to the hotel in a company car.”

“Yes, teacher. You know best, teacher. Anything you say, teacher.” She somehow smiled and frowned at the same time. “Tonight, I get my creds back and can start legally carrying a weapon again. I can take care of myself, Kyle. Don’t worry. I will be the one of us with a gun. C’mon.” She moved toward the door.

Swanson picked up his jacket and walked out behind her, locking the door. She waited beside the elevator, and when she turned to look at him, he was again struck by the beauty of the woman. From hair to eyes to toes, everything seemed to just fit her perfectly. He gave her a slight kiss and was scolded for risking the makeup job.

Downstairs, he led the way out of the elevator into the busy lobby, which had the look and feeling of normalcy. Two female clerks behind the front desk, a young couple talking with the woman concierge about affordable restaurants, a uniformed bellman pushing a handcart stacked with luggage. Then out the door, Kyle first, looking both ways. The front of their hotel was easy to identify, not because of its own signage, or the set of columns beside the door, but because some unhappy tagger had written YANKEE GO HOME in red paint on one of the cornerstones. Traffic was flowing smoothly, and he told the green-uniformed doorman to get a cab. Behind them, the young couple emerged, chattering in French, and waited their turn. A little Nova Taxi with its distinctive red sides and yellow top swung out of the flow and pulled to a stop.

As the hotel doorman reached for the handle, a dirty painter’s van swerved out of the traffic and slammed into the rear of the taxi, throwing it forward and knocking the doorman to the ground. Everyone automatically took a step back at the moment of grinding impact, with Kyle already changing into combat mode. He grabbed Lauren’s arm as the side door of the van opened and a huge man lumbered out. He was totally bald but for a mustache and goatee and wore a black leather jacket and biker boots. He had a knife in his right hand. “Back inside! Quick,” yelled Kyle.

The young couple behind them slammed into Lauren like a pair of charging linebackers, sweeping her away from Kyle’s grasp and pushing her in a single motion into the van, where more hands gripped her. The man with the knife lashed out at Kyle, who danced to the side, reaching for Lauren but seeing the door already closing. He could hear the van’s engine roar and her scream.

The man with the knife stood easily, dominating the space between Swanson and the vehicle, with his mouth curved down into an evil smile. When the young hotel doorman struggled to his feet, he was slashed on the arm and kicked by the thug with a hard karate-style thrust of his right foot, the leg fully extended in a practiced move. It was a moment Kyle would not let pass. The guy had been watching too much television.

Using the side kick had left the thug standing for an instant on one foot, tilting his body to the other side for balance and his attention drawn to the newest threat, the doorman. Kyle took a single step forward and delivered a powerful kick to the totally exposed groin, grabbed the knife hand itself to take it out of play, and delivered a flat-hand punch into the assailant’s throat. The big man staggered back, choking and hurting and suddenly uncertain of his strength. Kyle followed with a single, flowing right-side attack-a right cross deep into the gut, then bringing his elbow up hard into the man’s chin, which rocked the head back. Swanson’s fist was now cocked right beside his own ear, and he finished the combination with a downward hammer strike that crushed the man’s nose. The thug was staggering, so it was easy to snatch the knife from him, which Kyle did, then flipped it and slashed him across the stomach. The man grabbed for the cut as he toppled like a fat tree. Kyle moved aside to let him fall and then made two more quick cuts that severed the Achilles tendons behind both ankles. The man wasn’t going anywhere.

When the frenzy of the fight cleared, Kyle turned to the street as his breathing returned to normal. The white van was nowhere to be seen. Lauren had been professionally kidnapped, slickly taken right out of his arms. Damn it all!

BERN

SWITZERLAND

C OMMANDER S TEFAN G LAMER OFEinsatzgruppe TIGRIS was on his cell, looking nothing like the suave civilian that Kyle had met at the bear pit. The commander was in a black jumpsuit with the legs tucked into the tops of flat black jump boots. His Kevlar helmet, flak jacket, and submachine gun were stacked on a table. “This man Jim Hall is a monster,” he said. The icy eyes betrayed no real emotion. It was a statement of fact.

Glamer, CIA Assistant Chief of Station Mark Brand, and a ranking team of civilian detectives had interviewed Swanson for hours in a private room at the canton police headquarters, prying for details of the attack. Kyle had tried every trick in the book to increase the memories of those moments, draining his thoughts into words. Colors, smells, invisible hunches, anything that might help. There was not much.

“The fellow you took down has been identified as nothing more than a contract hit man paid to kill you. Ignorant beyond what he was told and did not know who hired him. The van was abandoned a kilometer away from the hotel. It had been stolen, and the forensic people are going through it for evidence.” One of the detectives was drinking coffee, the sort of beefy, seen-it-all investigator who is found in almost any city in the world. He didn’t know about terrorism, but kidnapping was a serious crime. With every passing hour, the chances of solving it became less and less.

Mark Brand was almost an invisible man, average in every external way, which was why he was the chief administrator in the CIA office in Switzerland. The country had been the safe haven where spies came to meet for hundreds of years, and the goal here was to conduct intelligence work without rocking the neutral boat. He might as well not have been in the room at all.

“You people are going to continue to sit on the sidelines while one of your agents has been abducted by another one of your agents.” Swanson felt like spitting on the American.

“Technically, neither of them works for the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Carson had not yet been reinstated to duty, and Mr. Hall left some time ago. Also, our hands are bound due to an issue that I cannot discuss here.” Brand’s movements, even with his fingers, were precise and birdlike, and Kyle considered him to be a born pencil-pusher.

Swanson shook his head slowly. “You mean the deal you made with Hall to leave each other alone. You think that’s a secret?”

Brand shrugged. “The danger to a single agent must be weighted against potential damage.”

“So why don’t you just get the fuck out of here and let us work? Go back to your desk before your suit gets dirty.”

“I was instructed to help the Swiss police in any way possible.” Brand did not seem perturbed, and Kyle knew the CIA man was really in the room to hobble anything that might bring harm to the Agency.