Brad Thor - The Lions Of Lucerne

Harvath was able to move just in time, but the blade caught the left shoulder of his trench coat and tore it. The force of the man’s attack threw him off balance, and as his assailant overextended himself, he made his left side vulnerable. That was the opening Scot needed.

Before the man could regain his balance, Scot drove his right fist up hard into his kidney. He heard a woosh of air along with a deep groan. The man spun with both knives, pivoting back in the other direction. Harvath ducked and repeated the same punch to the man’s right side, achieving the same effect. The man groaned again, and as he prepared to come at Scot for another pass, Harvath jumped to his feet and maneuvered behind him. He landed several swift and painful blows into the man’s back, as well as a kick into the back of his right knee, which sent him sprawling forward onto the polished stone floor.

Before his would-be assassin could recover, Harvath popped him twice in a very painful area beneath each shoulder blade, which caused him to involuntarily release his grip on the blades. The one in his left hand clattered onto the ground, but his right fingers were still inside the knuckle loops.

Harvath stepped on his right hand and pulled the man’s head up by his hair. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Fuck you,” the man sputtered.

From behind him, Harvath could hear the sound of footsteps running in his direction. He glanced back and saw two Amtrak security guards closing in fast. He decided to cut his losses.

Standing up, Harvath kicked the man hard in the ribs, knowing for sure he had broken at least three. He turned toward the approaching security guards and shouted, “You guys take him. I’m going after the other one. He got my wallet!” With that, he ran toward the door the other attacker had used.

As Harvath reached the exit, he pulled up short and carefully glanced through the glass. It could be a trap. He surveyed the immediate area outside the doors before he slipped outside. Everything seemed quiet. There was nothing to suggest that a man had come out only moments before holding his arm and howling in pain. Of course that hadn’t happened. These guys were professionals. There was no question about that. The man would have done his best not to draw attention to himself when he exited. The main question was, Who sent these two and why? Whoever nailed him in the back of the head at his apartment last night could have finished him off then. Why didn’t they?

None of the people nor any of the traffic buzzing up and down Second Street seemed to pay him any attention. Whoever the other man was, he was gone by now. Careful to make sure that he was not being followed, Harvath crossed to the other side of the street and quickly made his way toward Stanton Park. Although he had lost his umbrella in the scuffle, he had managed to retain his hat, and the rain trickled from it in small gray rivulets.

Harvath tried to repair his trench coat by tucking the torn fabric underneath the shoulder seam. It would have to do for now. He was extremely lucky that the blade had not sliced any deeper. He rubbed his jaw, and although it was sore, he quickly determined that it hadn’t been broken. He would live, but he had suffered yet another blunt trauma to his head. That was twice in less than eight hours.

Cutting south on Fourth Street, Scot arrived at the Folger Shakespeare Library. He needed a place where he could catch his breath and gather his thoughts. This seemed as good a place as any. Falling in with a group of older tourists who were scurrying up the stairs to get out of the rain, Harvath blended in with them perfectly as they entered the building. The group checked their wet things and were led into a recreated Tudor gallery with dark oak panels. Everyone oohed and ahhed at the library’s intricately carved Elizabethan doorways. As the group moved on, Scot found a bench and sat down, placing his trench coat next to him.

He withdrew the manila envelope from his suit coat and tore it open. Inside he found several strips of paper that he couldn’t at first make out. Suddenly, he realized what they were. Apparently, André had been using a handheld Xerox scanner and the strips were meant to be put together to show a complete page. Harvath didn’t have time for puzzles, so he quickly sifted through the stack. Most of it seemed to be journal entries, presumably from Senator Snyder’s personal appointment book. But as Harvath continued to sift, something else caught his attention.

Two strips of paper could be placed together to form what looked like a photo negative of a note. The paper was black and the handwriting was white. The handwriting matched the entries in the senator’s appointment book, but why would André have a negative of a note that the senator had written? Harvath pushed the thought aside and read:

Dear Aunt Jane,

All is well here. We are looking forward to your visit and hope that everything is ready on your end. We trust that the money we sent will cover your expenses. We expect your trip to be a roaring success. You know how to contact us if you have any questions.

Yours,

Edwin

Why would Snyder write a letter and sign it “Edwin”? Harvath kept flipping through the pieces of paper. He came across something in a totally different hand and assumed it was André Martin’s.

Aunt Jane? Edwin? Switzerland? Snyder claims he has no living relatives. What’s the connection?

Stapled to it was another piece of paper that listed an address for a post office box in Interlaken, Switzerland, written in the senator’s hand. Switzerland? Scot tumbled the pieces in his mind, trying to figure out how they all fit.

What was the connection? There had to be one. Snyder had had André killed because of what he thought he had discovered. Whatever it was, it must have been explosive if Snyder would kill to protect it. Now he wanted Scot dead. Well, Senator Snyder had a little surprise coming; Scot Harvath was not that easy to get rid of.

Back outside the Folger Library, Harvath turned and headed south. Along the way he tried another ATM and got the same message as before. If he was going to figure things out, he would need a little walking-around money. He flagged a cab and had it take him to the Washington Navy Yard. He gave the driver his remaining seven dollars and got out. Checking carefully behind him, he ducked into Navy Yard Metro station and took the train one stop to Waterfront. There, he emerged again and hailed a cab for his bank on Twelfth Street, just south of Logan Circle.

The bank officer was polite and after comparing Harvath’s signature to the one on his card and looking at his ID, he gestured for Scot to follow him downstairs to the vault that contained the safe deposit boxes. Scot produced his key, and in a synchronous fashion that Harvath felt sure was supposed to impress, the bank officer waited to turn his key at the same moment Scot did, as if they were about to unleash a nuclear weapon.

After the box had been withdrawn, Scot was shown to a small private room, where the door was shut behind him and he was left alone. He lifted the lid of the box and removed the normal things one would expect to find, stock certificates, bonds, legal papers…Once those were removed, he stared down at something he thought he would never need to use.

As he exited the bank, Harvath carefully surveyed the street before stepping out of the doorway. All of his senses were afire, filtering the stream of input they were receiving, searching for even the slightest hint of danger. Everything looked normal, but years of training had taught him that was when attacks often happened. Half a block to his left was a red-and-white van with Ziretta Carpet Cleaning written across the side. A long orange hose stretched from the van across the sidewalk and into a nearby building. The generator inside the van created a tremendous amount of noise, but that wasn’t unusual; carpet cleaning vans were normally loud.