Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

The goal was to destroy the drone as well as the plane. No trace of the delivery mechanism would ever be found.

As soon as the nacelle was attached and the wiring plugged into the main instrument panel, the Pilot rolled the gurney from beneath the aircraft and called, “Time.”

He read the stopwatch. “Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

The men did not cheer or evince any satisfaction. As quickly as they had begun, they disassembled the drone. They couldn’t take the chance that a random check might uncover the aircraft sitting in the garage assembled and ready for launch. In minutes, the three coffins were loaded and stored in locked cabinets inside the house.

Having supervised every aspect of the drill, the Pilot walked into the living room where a picture window looked down on the Zurich Airport. At eight o’clock, he spotted the landing lights of an incoming airliner approaching from the north. He was happy to note that it was precisely on time. But then, this particular flight had one of the best arrival records in the world.

He followed the lights until the Airbus A380 landed. The plane appeared oversized even from a distance of four kilometers. He knew its specifications by heart. Seventy-three meters in length. Twenty-four meters high. A wingspan of nearly eighty meters, nearly that of a football field. It was in every way the largest commercial jet aircraft in the world. It was configured to carry 555 passengers. This evening the manifest put the total at a shade under five hundred. Tomorrow it was set to carry a maximum load.

The aircraft lumbered into its parking space. It was so large that even a special jetway had been built to accommodate it. It was then that he was finally able to make out the five-pointed star painted on the tail.

El Al Flight 863 from Tel Aviv had arrived.

Von Daniken arrived back at Tobi Tingeli’s door precisely at nine o’clock. A maid led the way to the study. Tingeli sat behind a large mahogany desk, talking on the telephone. The jeans and turtleneck were gone. He was dressed in a black suit and pearl gray tie, his hair combed through with pomade. He greeted von Daniken with a glare, tossing a bound dossier across the table to him.

Von Daniken picked it up. Inside was documentation relating to the creation of one Excelsior Trust, based in Curaçao, the Netherlands Antilles. The holding company was formed with a capital investment of fifty thousand Swiss francs. Three directors were listed, two of whom were employees of the bank. The last name meant nothing to him. He was interested, however, to learn that the client had visited the Vaduz offices of the Tingeli Bank in August of the past year. The visit fit in neatly with Ransom’s return from the Middle East.

More interesting were the documents that followed. Monthly account statements sent from the Bahamian bank kept by the Tingeli Bank on behalf of the Excelsior Trust. The statements detailed all activity in each of the numbered accounts that had sent money to Lammers and Blitz, as well as a third account that was used to purchase the Villa Principessa.

Still unanswered was the question of who had made the initial deposit into the Bahamian bank. Von Daniken shuffled through the papers. Both numbered accounts had been opened with cashier’s checks. He found copies of the checks and read the name of the issuing bank printed on the upper right-hand corner. His heart jumped. It was one of the most venerable names in the American financial community.

“And so?” asked Tingeli. He had hung up the phone and come round the desk. “Not what you’d expected?”

Von Daniken recalled his conversation with Philip Palumbo. He wondered if he’d put his colleague at the CIA in danger. “Not a word of this, Tobi.”

Tingeli took the dossier from von Daniken’s hands. “I didn’t like the way our meeting ended last night. I can’t live my life the way I please with you looking over my shoulder, so I did a little extra work on my end. Peddle it to your superiors as a loyal Helvetic doing his patriotic duty. You want me to keep quiet? Sure. No problem. It’s my job, right? But in return, I want you to stay off my ass, once and for all. I may be odd, but it’s my choice. I’m not breaking any laws.”

Von Daniken received the entreaty with skepticism. “So far, I don’t see anything that merits a promise on my behalf. It was no skin off your nose to get me the information. It was right there in the files. In a week I could have had a subpoena on your desk and obtained exactly what you’ve given me.”

“I figured you’d say as much.” Tingeli handed back the dossier, his thumb marking a page. “Here’s something that wasn’t originally in the file. I had to make some calls to get this. It cost me dearly.”

The dossier was opened to a confirmation of an outgoing wire transfer from the Bahamian bank in the amount of five hundred thousand francs. The money was sent from one of the numbered accounts in question to an account at one of Switzerland’s largest banks. Below it was written the name of the account holder.

Von Daniken gasped. “You’re sure about this?”

Tingeli nodded. “Do we have a deal?”

Von Daniken took the outstretched hand and shook it. “Yes.”

Tingeli yanked him forward so that they were uncomfortably close to one another. “Then get out of here. And tell your buddies in Bern that the Tingeli family has done enough for its country.”

Von Daniken descended the steps and walked to the sidewalk where his car was parked. All along he’d been aware of an unseen hand in the investigation. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on. It was just a feeling. Like most policemen, he knew better than to disobey his intuition. The information he now possessed was enough to shock the nation, let alone a middle-aged cop who still believed in the incorruptibility of his government. He stood for a moment, thinking of how he should proceed, reckoning whom he could trust and whom he couldn’t.

As he unlocked his door, a dark, late-model Audi sedan roared up the street and braked beside his car. The window went down revealing Kurt Myer’s flushed face. “We found Ransom.”

“Do you have him in custody?”

“Not yet, but we have a line on his whereabouts.”

“What happened?”

“Yesterday evening, two Bern police officers answered a call regarding an intruder gaining entry to an apartment. They knocked on the door and a man responded.”

“Was it Ransom?”

“Looks like it. But before he opened the door, there was an explosion inside the apartment. The policemen broke down the door and found the kitchen and bedroom ablaze. Apparently, it was a gas explosion. A leak in the oven or range…”

A gas explosion. Von Daniken was reminded of the ruptured gas main responsible for killing Drako, the Bosnian warlord.

Myer continued. “At first, the officers thought he’d been blown out of the building, but there was no blood and a search of the grounds failed to turn up anything. The woman who reported the intruder said that the man had identified himself as a doctor. Apparently, he had a wound on the neck and was bleeding. She thought it looked like he’d been cut with a knife. One of the officers thought it sounded like he might be a fugitive, so he ran his description through outstanding warrants. Ransom’s name came back. They printed a picture and showed it to the woman. She recognized him, but said that his hair was black and very short.”

“What was he doing in Bern?”

“He said he was there to see his sister-in-law. Her name is Eva Kruger.”

“What do we know about her?”

“Not a thing. She’s a ghost. No national ID. No work permit. The neighbor says she’s hardly ever around.”