This was the next best or worst thing. His feet rested on the skids as the chopper approached the drop-site. His gloved hands held the rope, a hundred feet long in case the pilot misjudged something. Nobody trusted pilots very much, though one’s life so often depended on them, and this one seemed pretty good. A little bit of a cowboy the final part of the simulated insertion took them through a gap in some trees, and the top leaves brushed Ding’s uniform, gently to be sure, but in his position, any touch was decidedly unwelcome. Then the nose came up on a powerful dynamic-braking maneuver. Chavez’s legs went tight, and when the nose came back down, he kicked himself free of the skid and dropped. The tricky part was stopping the descent just short of the ground-and getting there quickly enough so as not to present yourself as a dangling target . . . done, and his feet hit the ground. He tossed the rope free, snatched up his H&K in both hands, and headed off toward the objective, having survived his fourteenth zipline deployment, the third from a chopper.
There was a delightfully joyous aspect to this job, he told himself as he ran along. He was being a physical soldier again, something he’d once learned to love and that his CIA duties had mainly denied him. Chavez was a man who liked to sweat, who enjoyed the physical exertion of soldiering in the field, and most of all loved being with others who shared his likes. It was hard. It was dangerous: every member of the team had suffered a minor injury or other in the past month except Weber, who seemed to be made of steel-and sooner or later, the statistics said, someone would have a major one, most probably a broken leg from zip-lining. Delta at Fort Bragg rarely had a complete team fully mission-capable, due to training accidents and injuries. But hard training made for easy combat. So ran the motto of every competent army in the world. An exaggeration, but not a big one. Looking back from his place of cover and concealment, Chavez saw that Team-2 was all down and moving-even Vega, remarkably enough. With Oso’s upper-body bulk, Chavez always worried about his ankles. Weber and Johnston were darting to their programmed perches, each carrying his custom-made scope-sighted rifle. Helmet-mounted radios were working, hissing with the digitized encryption system so that only team members could understand what was being said . . . Ding turned and saw that everyone was in his pre-briefed position, ready for his next move command . . .
The Communications Room was on the second floor of the building whose renovations had just been completed. It had the usual number of teletype machines for the various world news services, plus TV sets for CNN, and Sky News, and a few other broadcasts. These were overseen by people the Brits called “minders,” who were overseen in turn by a career intelligence officer. The one on this shift was an American from the National Security Agency, an Air Force major who usually dressed in civilian clothes that didn’t disguise his nationality or the nature of his training at all.
Major Sam Bennett had acclimated himself to the environment. His wife and son weren’t all that keen on the local TV, but they found the climate agreeable, and there were several decent golf courses within easy driving distance. He jogged three miles every morning to let the local collection of snake-eaters know he wasn’t a total wimp, and he was looking forward to a little bird-shooting in a few weeks. Otherwise, the duty here was pretty easy. General Clark-that’s how everyone seemed to think of him seemed a decent boss. He liked it clean and fast, which was precisely how Bennett liked to deliver it. Not a screamer, either. Bennett had worked for a few of those in his twelve years of uniformed service. And Bill Tawney, the British intelligence team boss, was about the best Bennett had ever seen-quiet, thoughtful, and smart. Bennett had shared a few pints of beer with him over the past weeks, while talking shop in the Hereford Officers’ Club.
But duty like this was boring most of the time. He’d worked the basement Watch Center at NSA, a large, low-ceiling room of standard office sheep-pens, with mini-televisions and computer printers that gave the room a constant low buzz of noise that could drive a man crazy on the long nights of keeping track of the whole fucking world. At least the Brits didn’t believe in caging all the worker bees. It was easy for him to get up and walk around. The crew was young here. Only Tawney was over fifty, and Bennett liked that, too.
“Major!” a voice called from one of the news printers. `We have a hostage case in Switzerland.”
“What service?” Bennett asked on the way over.
“Agence France-Press. It’s a bank, a bloody bank,” the corporal reported, as Bennett came close enough to read-but couldn’t, since he didn’t know French. The corporal could and translated on the fly. Bennett lifted a phone and pushed a button.
“Mr. Tawney, we have an incident in Bern, unknown number of criminals have seized the central branch of the Bern Commercial Bank. ‘1 here are some civilians trapped inside.”
“What else, Major?”
“Nothing at the moment. Evidently the police are there.”
“Very well, thank you, Major Bennett.” Tawney killed the line and pulled open a desk drawer, to find and open a very special book. Ah, yes, he knew that one. Then he dialed the British Embassy in .Geneva. “Mr. Gordon. please,” he told the operator.
“Gordon,” a voice said a few seconds later.
“Dennis, this is Bill Tawney.”
“Bill, haven’t heard from you in quite a while. What can I do for you?” the voice asked pleasantly.
“Bern Commercial Bank, main branch. There seems to be a hostage situation there. I want you to evaluate the situation and report back to me.”
“What’s our interest, Bill?” the man asked.
“We have an . . . an understanding with the Swiss government. If their police are unable to handle it, we may have to provide some technical assistance. Who in the embassy Bases with the local police?”
“Tony Armitage, used to be Scotland Yard. Good man for financial crimes and such.”
“Take him with you,” Tawney ordered. “Report back directly to me as soon as you have something.” Tawney gave his number.
“Very well.” It was a dull afternoon in Geneva anyway. “It will be a few hours.”
And it will probably end up as nothing, they both knew. “I’ll be here. Thank you, Dennis.” With that, Tawney left his office and went upstairs to watch TV.
Behind the Rainbow Headquarters building were four large satellite dishes trained on communications satellites hovering over the equator. A simple check told them which channel of which bird carried Swiss television satellite broadcasts-as with most countries, it was easier to go up and back to a satellite than to use coaxial landlines. Soon they were getting a direct newsfeed from the local station. Only one camera was set up at the moment. It showed the outside of an institutional building the Swiss tended to design banks rather like urban castles, though with a distinctly Germanic flavor to make them appear powerful and forbidding. The voice was that of a reporter talking to his station, not to the public. A linguist stood by to translate.
” `No, I have no idea. The police haven’t talked to us yet,’ ” the translator said in a dull monotone. Then a new voice came on the line. “Cameraman,” the translator said. -Sounds like a cameraman-there’s something-“-with that the camera zoomed in, catching a shape, a human shape wearing something over his head, a mask of sorts
“What kind of gun is that?” Bennett asked.
“Czech Model 58,” Tawney said at once. “So it would seem. Bloody good man on the camera.”
” `What did he say?’ That was the studio to the reporter,” t he translator went on, hardly looking at the picture on the TV screen. ” `Don’t know, couldn’t hear with all the noise out here. He shouted something, didn’t hear it.’ Oh, good: `How many people?’ ‘Not sure, the Wachtmeister said over twenty inside, bank customers and employees. Just me and my cameraman here outside, and about fifteen police officers that I can see.’ `More on the way, I imagine,’ reply from the station.” With that the audio line went quiet. The camera switched off, and shuffling on the audio line told them that the cameraman was moving to a different location, which was confirmed when the picture came back a minute later from a very different angle.
“What gives, Bill?” Tawney and Bennett turned to see Clark standing there behind theta. “1 came over to talk to you, but your secretary said you had a developing situation up here.”