Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

Jonathan nodded and opened the driver’s door. It all made sense. The meeting was to take place inside the car. Any exchange of information necessitated a private forum. The car was an ingenious device, at once a passport to allow Eva Kruger entry to Davos and a smokescreen behind which Jinn could hide to pass his traitor’s information to the other side.

Sliding into the car, Jonathan spotted Hannes Hoffmann walking up the driveway. Cormorant. Hoffmann had a butterfly stitch above one eye and a hat pulled low on his brow to cover the bruise. Their eyes locked. Hoffmann began to run up the icy road. Jonathan shut the door. The engine revved to life and Jinn jumped in his seat, just as Jonathan had several days before.

“Automatic ignition,” explained Jonathan, playing his role to the hilt. “You can program it for manual if you like.”

“A marvel.” Jinn gazed proudly around the well-appointed interior.

“I have the presents Eva promised you,” said Jonathan as he put the car into drive and touched the accelerator. “The sweater and, of course, your fees in cash.”

“Wait,” said Jinn, motioning for him to keep the money hidden until they were clear of the hotel.

Jonathan rolled up the windows and the tinted glass shielded the car’s interior. Hoffmann tried to force him to stop the car by moving into the center of the road, but Jonathan had no intention of slowing. Tapping the accelerator, he put on a burst of speed. Hoffmann jumped to the side and fell into the snowbank.

Parvez Jinn was too busy studying the onboard navigation to notice.

The Sikorsky helicopter traversed the narrow valley at maximum speed. In contrast to the trip of two days before, the weather was calm with barely a breeze to upset the aircraft. The sky was clearing by the minute. Patches of blue came and went. For a moment, the sun peeked out, its rays harsh and glaring after days of incessant shadow.

Squinting, Marcus von Daniken spoke into the radio. “The name is Kruger,” he said to the watch officer at the WEF base security in Chur. “Anyone presenting themselves at a checkpoint using that name, or anything similar, is to be refused entry into the Forum grounds. You are to consider him armed and dangerous. Use any necessary force. I want him arrested at once. Do you copy?”

“Roger, sir. We copy.”

Below him, he could see the two-lane highway that bisected the valley floor as it passed the town of Klosters. The checkpoints were also clearly visible, clusters of men and materiel at set intervals on either side of the road. Ten kilometers up the valley, he caught his first sight of the town. Davos. Population: 5,500. Altitude: 1,800 meters. The alpine village cut a long and wide swath across the mountain’s flank. A ray of sunlight reflected off the dome of the Protestant church. At the top of the mountain, he glimpsed the royal blue gondola of the Jakobshornbahn.

The radio crackled to life.

“Inspector von Daniken, this is base security.”

“What is it?”

“A Kruger already arrived. First name: Evan. Passed through the valley checkpoint at eleven-oh-seven. A new identification was issued at eleven thirty-one at the Main Security Outpost.”

“Did you say that you issued the man a new identification?”

“According to the report entered by the officer on the ground, Kruger’s ID was defective. It lists the cause as a faulty chip. There was also an instance of erroneous data.”

“What does that mean?”

“The name was originally Eva Kruger, but the guest was a male. He was slated to deliver a Mercedes-Benz sedan to Parvez Jinn, a member of the Iranian delegation.”

Jinn, the Iranian firebrand. Von Daniken remembered the note that had been attached to the wire transfer of one hundred thousand Swiss francs to Gottfried Blitz, a.k.a. Mahmoud Quitab. “Gift for P.J.” Now he knew beyond a reasonable doubt who the money was intended for, though the nature of the tie between the two men remained to be seen.

Von Daniken’s mind fixed on the newspaper articles he’d read concerning the assassinations of the Bosnian warlord and the Lebanese police inspector. Did Ransom have another murder in mind? If so, why had he given the man one hundred thousand francs and a new automobile worth twice that amount?

“Where is Evan Kruger?”

“One second, sir. I need to check.”

Waiting, von Daniken swore under his breath.

“He’s inside the red zone. He passed through the Hotel Belvedere’s grounds eight minutes ago.”

“Get your men to the hotel,” said von Daniken. “I want it surrounded as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about making a fuss. You have my authority. I’ll be landing at the southern helipad in four minutes. Have one of your men there to pick me up.”

Formed in 1291, the nation of Switzerland considers itself the oldest continually functioning democracy in the world. The government is based on the bicameral parliamentary tradition and draws heavily from the American and British constitutions. The lower house, or National Council, is comprised of two hundred representatives, elected proportionally from the nation’s twenty-six cantons. The upper house, called the Council of Cantons, counts two members from twenty of the cantons, and one each from the remaining six half-cantons. Instead of electing a prime minister from the majority ruling party to serve as head of the executive branch, members of both houses convene every four years to elect seven members to a governing federal council, the seats being split proportionally according to each political party’s representation. Each councilor is assigned a department or ministry to run, with the president selected on a rotating basis for a one-year term.

Though at forty-five, Alphons Marti was the most junior member of the Federal Council, he had no intention of waiting six years until filling the president’s seat. He’d made his name as a crusader, first in his home canton of Geneva, where he’d cleaned up whatever organized crime was there, and more recently, at the international level, where he’d campaigned against the Americans’ practice of extraordinary rendition.

Sitting at his expansive desk that frigid Friday morning, he looked at the papers in his hand and knew beyond any doubt that the information they contained constituted his ticket to the presidency.

The papers had come from Swisscom ten minutes earlier and they held a list of all phone calls made to and from numbers belonging to Marcus von Daniken. There were a total of thirty-eight calls. Most of the numbers belonged to von Daniken’s colleagues in the Federal Police. Marti spotted his own number on three occasions; at 8:50, when Onyx’s intercept detailing the passenger manifest of the CIA charter was distributed; at 12:15, when the American jet requested permission to touch down on Swiss soil; and at 1:50, when von Daniken called to coordinate the drive to the airport.

Running a finger down the list of phone numbers, he stopped at a 001 country code. The United States. Area code 703-for Langley, Virginia. The number belonged to the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Marti had his proof.

Setting the papers down, he called Hardenberg, the investigator he’d spoken with the night before. “Where’s von Daniken? I need to speak to him.”

“A helicopter picked him up in Zurich fifteen minutes ago,” Hardenberg replied. “He’s headed to Davos with Kurt Myer.”

“Davos?” Marti’s face fell. “What for?”

“We have a line on Jonathan Ransom. Apparently, he’s delivering an automobile to Parvez Jinn, the Iranian minister of technology.”

Marti pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt. “Have you alerted security in Davos?”