“Here’s something in Ontario from three years ago: Control systems for two oil refineries malfunctioned and vented thousands of barrels into a nearby fishery.”
René asked, “Private company?”
“Yes,” Jack replied. “I’ve also got two incidents in Panama last year, both at sugarcane storage facilities. One, a malfunction in the climate control system that led to fungus infestation. Estimated loss was sixty million. The other was a fire control system that failed to detect a fire. Estimated loss was thirty million. Both facilities were privately managed.”
“I’d call that a pattern,” said Jack.
“What are we saying, though? That Klugmann cyberattacked those facilities and caused those catastrophes? For what reason?”
“Who stood to benefit from those companies’ losing their contracts?” Jack asked. “Did these countries nationalize the failed facilities, or did they hire another company to take over?”
Effrem surfed on his laptop for a few minutes. “Mumbai’s reclamation plant stayed private, but another company is managing the facility.”
“Same with Ontario,” Jack noted. “And Panama.”
“This is unbelievable,” Effrem said. “We can’t be looking at this right.”
Jack wasn’t so sure. Economic espionage was a booming business, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake. Rarely did a week pass without a new story about one company trying to sabotage a rival’s market research or financial position. Gossip was spread, media campaigns launched, and legal battles fought, all as an economic cold war. Was direct-action sabotage that much more of a stretch?
The Panamanian sugarcane business was probably $4 billion a year. With those kinds of profits, hiring someone like Rostock to oust a rival company and be installed in its place could be seen as both a reasonable expense and a sound investment.
Marshal Allemand had mentioned the immense coffers Rostock would need to fund his private war on terrorism. Having failed to find either advocates or investors, had the German developed a niche side business as an economic mercenary?
Talk about aggressive market development. Through disaster Rostock creates an economic vacuum and then arrives to save the day for his client. Jack wondered how many times Rostock had done this. They’d found three possible instances, and perhaps one in the making here in Namibia, but could there be others they had yet to find?
René, who had been following the exchange closely, walked over and sat down on the couch opposite Jack. “All this that you’re suggesting, you believe Alexander Bossard is involved?”
Jack and Effrem exchanged glances. Jack hesitated, then replied, “Involved, yes, but he’s secondary. We think Jürgen Rostock is at the head of it.”
René nodded thoughtfully. “And why would he do all this?”
“To fund his war on terrorism,” said Effrem. “René, you said it yourself: Rostock is convinced governments can’t do the job and that his approach is the only one that has a chance of working. Does he believe that? Is he truly committed?”
“Of course.”
Jack said, “Then how do you know how far he’s willing to go? If you need to make a little mess to clean up a bigger one, isn’t it a fair trade?”
René was frowning, shaking his head. “Stop. Just please stop.”
Jack and Effrem went quiet. Finally René said, “Earlier you were talking about Dovestar. What is that?”
“Are you asking?” said Jack.
“Obviously.”
“Just wanted to make sure. Effrem, tell him everything.”
Effrem did so, starting with Jack’s audit of Dovestar, RSG’s connection to it, and the secret operational fund. He ended his recap with the evidence that Dovestar had been paying Klugmann.
“It sounds like there is a better case against Bossard,” René said.
Jack did his best to keep the frustration from his voice. “Here’re the pieces of the puzzle. Follow me on this: Without knowing it, I uncover evidence that Rostock is hiding money at Dovestar; Eric Schrader tries to kill me, Schrader works for Rostock, Schrader and Möller know one another, therefore Möller likely works for Rostock. There’s evidence Schrader was involved with the Lyon attacks. Finally, there’s evidence that it was Rostock who kidnapped you, held you, and tortured you.”
“What evidence?”
Effrem answered: “Janine Périer.”
“What about her?”
“She doesn’t exist,” said Jack. “Her real name is Janine Pelzer. She’s German. She lives in Munich, the same place RSG is headquartered. Rostock used her as a lure, René. She helped set up your kidnapping.”
“No. I don’t believe you.”
Jack replied, “There’s a part of you that does.”
“Why would Jürgen do that?”
Jack decided they’d pushed René far enough for now. “We don’t know yet. We’re working on it.”
René waved his hand dismissively. “Until you have an answer for me, I refuse to buy into any of this.” He stood and stared down at Jack. “Do you really believe I could miss seeing all this? I’m going for a walk to clear my head.”
—
With his belly in a knot, Jack took the elevator down to the lobby, then out the doors to the valet desk. It was two hours since René had left.
“Can I help you, sir,” the valet on duty said.
“I’m looking for a friend. He came down a couple hours ago.” Jack described René’s face and clothing.
“Yes, I remember, sir. He asked for a taxi.”
“To where, do you know?”
“Hosea Kutako Airport. I hailed the taxi myself.”
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Jack’s choice of Zurich was based on little more than a gut call. If his reason for leaving was what Jack suspected, René’s destination could be only one of three locations: Khorusepa Lodge to find Möller; Munich to confront Rostock; or Zurich to force answers from Alexander Bossard. René had already suggested Bossard, not Rostock, was the driving force behind all this, so in René’s mind Bossard was not only the juicier target but also the easiest, for he’d already spent weeks stalking Bossard.
Fifteen hours later and six hours behind René, Jack’s plane touched down at Zurich’s Kloten Airport just after midnight local time. Having left Zurich in a hurry, Jack had told Effrem to not return their rented Citroën, but rather to leave it in the airport’s long-term parking. Jack went straight there, then drove to the level on which he and René had left his van.
The van was gone. For the sixth time since finding René gone, Jack dialed his cell phone. As with each time before, the phone went to voice mail. Jack disconnected before René’s greeting began. He called Effrem, who answered immediately.
“Any luck?”
“His van’s gone, so at least we know this is where he came,” said Jack. “Is the Pilatus still at the Midgard airstrip?”
“The GPS tracker hasn’t moved. That doesn’t mean Möller and his men are still there, though. Jack, I can—”
“Forget it, Effrem.”
They’d already had this conversation a few times, Effrem pressing for permission to stake out Khorusepa Lodge and Jack demurring. Effrem had come a long way since their first meeting at the nature preserve in Alexandria, but the kind of surveillance mission Effrem was proposing would have been risky even for Jack.
“So I just sit here?” Effrem asked.
“No, you sit there and keep working the Bossard material. Look for flaws in our thinking, details we overlooked. Sift it all through your journalist’s brain.”
Marshal Allemand had promised action against Rostock if Jack offered evidence to support his allegations, and the information in the Bossard material went a long way to doing that.
But not far enough, Jack thought.
Rostock’s people had come to Namibia for
the same reason they’d gone to Mumbai, Ontario, Panama, and who knew where else, and Jack wanted to catch them in the act. That might not happen if René succeeded in grabbing Bossard—or if he failed in the attempt, for that matter. If either news reached Rostock, Namibia would be called off. But would that outcome be so bad? he wondered. In the short term, no, but Rostock wasn’t going to stop. If not Namibia now, where next?
Effrem made one last attempt: “If they don’t take the Pilatus, we’re going to lose them. Let me go—”
“No,” Jack replied. “Stay put. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
—
How to find one van in a city with hundreds of thousands of vehicles? Jack wondered. René had told Jack he’d been living in the van. Where in Zurich could he park overnight and not be ticketed or harassed? No, that was the wrong approach. Jack didn’t have time for that. It all depended on one factor, he decided: Had René already managed to grab Bossard? If so, then René could have taken him anywhere. If not, then René would have to ambush Bossard at either home or work, or, between the two, deal with Bossard’s bodyguards, and get cleanly away. Objectively, it was a tough tactical problem, but perhaps not so to René and his dangerous blend of training, experience, and brittle mental state.
Where, though? René had landed in Zurich after Bossard’s office on Limmatquai had closed for the day. Unless René was willing to wait until morning, that left him one target: Bossard’s home. According to René, Bossard lived in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, Zürichberg, a forested hill rising more than two thousand feet above the city’s eastern edge.
Jack punched the address into his phone’s navigation app and started driving.
—
As the crow flew, Bossard’s home was fifteen minutes from the airport, but the exclusive neighborhood could be reached by only one road, so Jack had to circumnavigate the base of Zürichberg and pick his way through the city before starting his climb up the hill, which added another twenty minutes.
Finally his navigation app told him to turn into a driveway entrance lit by a lone faux gas lamp and hemmed in by tightly packed spruce trees. As they closed in around him, Jack rolled down his window, doused the Citroën’s headlights, and let the car coast to a stop. Outside his window, night insects buzzed softly and Jack could hear the distant trickling of a creek.
He called up his Google Earth application, entered Bossard’s address, then zoomed in on the two-acre property. The overhead view showed Bossard’s house as a white rectangle sitting in the middle of a clearing of green grass. It wasn’t until Jack changed the angle of the view that he realized the rectangular roof hid a five-thousand-square-foot house that looked like a cross between Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and an M. C. Escher print come to life. The structure was all right angles, glass, hidden wraparound balconies, and zigzagging exterior stairs.
Jack drove ahead until the home’s lawn came into view, then pulled over and shut off the engine. He walked around to the trunk and removed the spare tire, under which he’d tucked his HK nine-millimeter. He walked the remainder of the driveway, then stepped left into the trees and maneuvered until he could see the house.
Unsurprisingly, the house was dark. Either Bossard and his wife were simply asleep or René had already been here and was gone. Or was still here. He’d seen no other cars on the drive up, either moving or parked, but that meant nothing. René Allemand had become adept at playing cloak-and-dagger.
Jack pulled out his phone and dialed René.
A few seconds passed.
Faintly, almost imperceptibly, came the sound of René’s marimba ringtone.
Oh, God. Jack’s heart was pounding. René was here, in the house, either lying in wait for Bossard or having already captured him. What of the man’s wife and his bodyguards? Damn it, René.
The marimba tone went silent. René’s phone went to voice mail. At the beep Jack cupped his hand over the microphone and whispered, “René, call me back. We’ve got activity at Khorusepa Lodge. We could use your help.” Jack disconnected and set the phone ringer to vibrate-only mode.
Jack doubted he’d get a return call, but if René had been worrying about Jack pursuing him to Zurich, perhaps Jack’s message had bought him a slight tactical advantage. The problem was that the home’s vast windows and darkened interior made any approach route dangerous. Would René open fire on him? Jack wondered.
From the house came a woman’s scream, then a lone gunshot.
No choice now.
Jack stepped out of the trees, raised the HK, and sprinted across the lawn to the house’s nearest wall, which he followed to a sliding glass door. Through it he could see a kitchen and dining alcove; the decor was modern industrial: hard angles, straight lines, and brushed stainless steel. A body lay on the polished concrete floor. It was a man in a suit. Bodyguard, Jack guessed.
With his gun trained on the interior, he reached out and tried the door. It was locked. He moved on until he reached the building’s next corner, where he found a set of zigzag steps that led him to the second-floor wraparound balcony. He stopped on the top step and crouched. Ahead was another wall of glass. On the other side was what looked like a home office. The interior door was open, and through it Jack could see a carpeted hallway lit by a green outlet nightlight.
Jack stood up, walked down the balcony until he found the office’s heavy exterior glass door. He tried the latch. It was unlocked. He eased open the door. With a soft hiss of hydraulics, the door swung open. Jack stepped through and, as the door hissed shut, paced to the doorway and looked down the hall. There were three doors, two on his right and one at the end of the hall. This one was partially open, and through the gap Jack could see what looked like the moving beam of a flashlight.
A woman cried in German, “Hör auf damit! Bitte!” Stop that! Please!
Jack heard the sound of a scuffle, feet shuffling on carpet, followed by a thump and a grunt of pain.
“Er kann nicht atmen!” the woman shouted. “Bitte!” Her voice panicked, partially garbled, but Jack caught two words: can’t breathe.
Jack murmured, “The hell with this.” He zipped his anorak all the way up so the cowl was covering the lower half of his face, then stepped out and trotted down the hall. He stopped at the door. Through the gap to his right was a bed. A woman with long gray hair and wearing a nightgown lay facedown on the bed. Bossard’s wife. Her feet and ankles were duct-taped. Her head was facing Jack, but her eyes were fixed on something out of sight.
Jack pulled out his phone and again dialed René.
The marimba ringtone started.
Jack eased open the door, raised the HK, and stepped into the bedroom.
To his left, René—or so Jack assumed, as the figure was wearing a black balaclava—stood before Alexander Bossard, who was bound to a hard-back chair. His right eye was swollen shut and blood trickled from his mouth. René had his Walther P22 pressed against Bossard’s forehead.
René dug his phone from his pocket and checked the screen. “Damn it,” he muttered.
Bossard’s wife saw Jack in the doorway. She screamed. René glanced in her direction, saw where her eyes were pointed, then started to spin around. Jack was already moving, charging forward. Using the butt of the HK, he backhanded René across the temple. He stumbled sideways, then slumped to the carpet, unconscious.
Mrs. Bossard was still screaming. Jack pointed his gun at her. “Ruhe!” he barked. She went quiet. He added, “Ich werde nicht wehtun. Verstehst du?”
“Ja, ja,” she replied, nodding emphatically. “Ich verstehe!”
Jack turned to Alexander Bossard; his head was lolling to one side. His eyes were half closed. Jack said, “Keine Sorge. Ich komme wieder.” Don’t worry, I’ll be back. “Verstehst du?”
“Ja,” he mumbled.
Jack glanced at Mrs. Bossard and got another nod.
&nb
sp; He reached down, pocketed René’s gun, then grabbed him by the jacket collar and dragged him out of the room and down the hallway. He removed René’s balaclava.
“Idiot,” Jack whispered.
The door to Jack’s right was a bathroom; he soaked a towel in the sink, then wrung the cold water over René’s upturned face before dragging his knuckles over René’s sternum.
René’s eyes fluttered open. He tried to sit up. Jack pushed him back down and held the HK before his eyes. “Understand?”
“Oui.”
“What the hell were you thinking, René? Is that man downstairs dead?”
“No, of course not.”
“This was very stupid. How did you think this was going to play out?”
“Bossard would talk, and then we would know.”
“Know what?” asked Jack.
“If you and Effrem are right about Rostock.”
Jack squeezed the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. “I should hand you over to the police. In fact, that’s what I’m going to do.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“You wouldn’t do that, Jack.”
“I’m doing it right now.”
“Please, don’t. Just listen. For a moment.” Jack shrugged his agreement and René said, “I wasn’t going to kill him, or his wife.”
“You beat the shit out of him and terrorized his wife.”
“He deserves it. And worse.”
“Maybe,” Jack replied. “But you’re not seeing the big picture. Right now, whether we’re right about Rostock and about what happened to you isn’t the point. Something bad is about to go down in Namibia. We have a chance—or had a chance, for all I know—to stop it. Instead, I’m back here. All because you can’t keep your shit together and act like the soldier you should be.”
René didn’t reply, but rather squeezed his eyes shut. He lifted his head and banged it against the carpet. “I want this to be over, Jack.”
“Then go back to France. I went to see your father in Paris. He wants you home. He never gave up on you, and nothing he did led to your kidnapping. It’s Rostock, René, and you know it. He tortured you, messed with your brain, got you addicted to drugs. He’s behind the Lyon attacks and the incidents in India, Canada, and Panama. And maybe others.”