Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

The Ghost leaned over the body. Nuzzling the silencer against the man’s chest, he shot him through the heart. The body jumped. It was then that he noticed something peculiar on the man’s lapel. A pin of some kind. He bent to take a closer look.

A butterfly.

Marcus von Daniken returned to his home a few minutes after eleven o’clock. Beneath his arm, he carried two long-stem roses wrapped in florist’s paper. He walked through dark hallways to the kitchen where a single light burned above the table. He set the flowers down, then tossed his gun and his wallet onto the counter. Stifling a yawn, he opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. There was a ham sandwich on the center island, a plate of potato salad, and a lemon tart. All were neatly wrapped in cellophane. A note from his housekeeper reminded him to put the leftovers back in the refrigerator. Throwing his jacket over the back of a chair, he rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands in the sink. He ate the sandwich, then dutifully returned the potato salad and lemon tart to the fridge, untouched.

Von Daniken lived alone in a hulking chalet in the foothills outside of Bern. The house was too big for a bachelor. It had been his father’s and his grandfather’s, and so on, all the way back to the nineteenth century. He didn’t like living by himself, but he liked the idea of moving less. Over the years, he’d made friends with the echoing corridors, the brooding silences, and the unlit rooms.

Turning back to the table, he unwrapped the florist’s paper and removed the roses that lay inside. With care, he trimmed the stems and placed them in a blown glass vase, one of a pair purchased on his honeymoon at the famous factory in Murano. He’d been married once. He’d had a daughter and another on the way. The house wasn’t too big then. Still, when he’d first wed, his wife had pleaded with him to sell it. She was an attorney from Geneva, spirited and impetuous, brilliant in her field. She saw the house as a relic, as rigid and hidebound as the society that had built it. He disagreed. They never had a chance to settle the argument.

Von Daniken flipped on the living room light. A photograph of his wife and daughter sat above the fireplace. Two blondes, Marie-France and Stéphanie, taken from him fifteen years ago in an airline disaster. He replaced the day-old roses with fresh ones, then sat down in an old recliner and drank the rest of his beer. He picked up the remote and flicked on the television. Thankfully, there was no mention of the failed arrest that afternoon on the late news. He changed channels, stopping to watch a French literary program. He didn’t care much for literature, French or otherwise, but he loved the moderator, a gorgeous middle-aged brunette. He killed the sound and stared at her. Perfect. Now he had company.

Television was safer than real life. Over the years, he’d had plenty of first dates, fewer second ones, and only two relationships that had lasted longer than six months. Both women had been attractive, intelligent, and not unaccomplished in bed. Neither, however, had compared to his wife. Once he realized this, the relationships withered. Phone calls went unreturned. Dates grew infrequent. More often, they were canceled at the last minute because of a case. It didn’t take long for either of the women to get the message. Strangely, the parting had been bitter, and more painful than he liked to admit.

His cell phone rang. “Yes?”

“Widmer. Zurich Kantonspolizei. We have a situation. A murder in Erlenbach. The Gold Coast. A professional job.”

Von Daniken swung out of the recliner and turned off the television. “Why me? Sounds like it belongs to the Criminal Police.”

But already he was moving. He walked into the kitchen and poured the cold beer into the sink. He attached his holster to his belt, put on his jacket, and picked up his wallet.

“The victim turned up on ISIS,” Widmer explained. “The file was flagged ‘Secret’ with a note saying he’d been the subject of an inquiry twenty years back.”

“ISIS” stood for the Information System for Internal Security, the Federal Police database that contained files on over fifty thousand individuals suspected of being terrorists, extremists, or members of a foreign intelligence agency, both friendly and not.

“Who’s the lucky fellow?” von Daniken asked, scooping up his car keys.

“Name of Lammers. Dutch. Permit C holder. Lived here fifteen years.” Widmer paused, and his voice grew taut. “There’s something else. Something you might want to see yourself.”

“Give me ninety minutes.”

Von Daniken needed only eighty-five minutes to make the hundred-ten-kilometer journey. Stepping out of his car, he walked cautiously across the icy sidewalk and ducked beneath the fluttering police tape. An officer from the Kantonspolizei caught a glimpse of von Daniken’s face and drew himself to attention. “Good evening, sir.”

Von Daniken patted him on the shoulder. “I’m looking for Captain Widmer.”

“Up there,” said the officer, pointing toward the garage.

Von Daniken made his way up the driveway toward a battery of mobile lights that had been erected around the perimeter of the crime scene. The array of thousand-watt bulbs lit the victim as if he were sun-bathing on Plage Tahiti in Saint-Tropez. He looked at the body, then looked away. “Some piece of work,” he muttered.

A bald, broad-shouldered man kneeling next to the body glanced up. “Three to the head, one to the chest,” said Walter Widmer, head of the Zurich Kantonspolizei capital crimes division. “Small caliber. Dumdums by the mess it made. Whoever did this wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Still think it was a hit?”

“No shells. No witnesses.” Widmer stood, frowning. “We’re guessing that the shooter electronically jammed the garage door to make sure Lammers had to get out of the car. You tell me.”

Von Daniken hurried back to the street. The sight of the victim’s ruined physiognomy would be with him for days.

Marcus von Daniken was not a homicide cop. In fact, he had little experience with violent crime. He had come up the other way. After four years as an infantry officer, he had joined the Federal Police’s financial crimes division. It was a slow climb. Years as an investigator in the field looking into fraud, counterfeiting, and money laundering-the holy trinity of Swiss banking. Then, ten years back, he caught his big break: a slot as Fedpol’s representative on the Swiss Task Force on Nazi Victims’ Assets.

Working alongside directors of his country’s largest banks, diplomats from a dozen nations, and representatives of too many aggrieved organizations to name, he had been instrumental in fashioning a solution that was acceptable to all interested parties: the Swiss government, the Swiss banks, the World Jewish Congress, the White House, the German government, and lastly, the wronged parties themselves. His reward was a posting to the Service for Analysis and Prevention, regarded as the elite division of the Federal Police.

“What about the wife?” he asked, pointing to the picture window that overlooked the garage. “Did she see anything?”

Widmer shook his head. “She’s a tough one. Moluccan by birth. She says that she and the kids were watching the television when it happened. She saw the car pull up. When she didn’t hear the garage door open, she went to look for him. She swears it was only two minutes. I went through the usual questions. Husband have any enemies? Had he received any threats lately? Anything strange happen the last few days? She claims that everything was fine.”

“You believe her?”

“I don’t believe anybody,” said Widmer.