On the TV screen, police milled about,some at the ready, most just standing and watching. Trained police or not, they were little trained for a situation like this, and the Swiss, while they had considered such an event everyone in the civilized world had-had taken it no more seriously than, say, the cops in Boulder, Colorado. This had never happened before in Bern, and until it did, it would not be part of the local police department’s corporate culture. The facts were too stark for Clark and the rest to discount. The German police-as competent as any in the world-had thoroughly blown the hostage rescue at Furstenfeldbruck, not because they had been bad cops, but because it had been their first time, and as a result some Israeli athletes hadn’t made it home from the 1972 Munich Olympiad. The whole world had learned from that, but how much had they learned? Clark and the rest all wondered at the same time.
The TV screens showed very little for another half hour beyond an empty city street, but then a senior police officer walked into the open, holding a cellular phone. His body language was placid at first, but it started to change, and then he held the cell phone close to his ear, seeming to lean into it. His free hand came up about then, placatingly, as though in a face-to-face conversation.
“Something’s wrong,” Dr. Paul Bellow observed, which was hardly a surprise to the others, especially Eddie Price, who tensed in his chair, but said nothing as he puffed on his pipe. Negotiating with people like those controlling the bank was its own little art form, and it was one this police superintendent-whatever his rank was-had yet to learn. Bad news, the sergeant major thought, for one or more of the bank customers.
” `Was that a shot?’ ” the translator said, relaying the words of one of the reporters on the scene.
“Oh, shit,” Chavez observed quietly. The situation had just escalated.
Less than a minute later, one of the bank’s glass doors opened, and a man in civilian clothes dragged a body onto the sidewalk. It seemed to be a man, but his head, as both the cameras zoomed in on the scene from different angles, was a red mass. The civilian got the body all the way outside and froze the moment he set it down.
Move right, go to your right, Chavez thought as loudly as he could from so faraway. Somehow the thought must have gotten there, for the unnamed man in his gray overcoat stood stock-still for several seconds, looking down, and then-furtively, he thought went to the right.
” `Somebody’s shouting from inside the bank,’ ” the translator relayed.
But whatever the voice had shouted, it hadn’t been the right thing. The civilian dove to his right, away from the double glass doors of the bank and below the level of the plate-glass bank windows. He was now on the sidewalk, with three feet of granite block over his head, invisible from the interior of the building.
“Good move, old man,” Tawney observed quietly. “Now, we’ll see if the police can get you into the clear.”
One of the cameras shifted to the senior cop, who’d wandered into the middle of the street with his cell phone, and was now waving frantically for the civilian to get down. Brave or foolish, they couldn’t tell, but the cop then walked slowly back to the line of police cars-astonishingly, without being shot for his troubles. The cameras shifted back to the escaped civilian. Police had edged to the side of the bank building, waving for the man to crawl, keep low, to where they were standing. The uniformed cops had submachine guns out. Their body language was tense and frustrated. One of the police faces looked to the body on the sidewalk, and the men in Hereford could easily translate his thoughts.
“Mr. Tawney, a call for you on Line Four,” the intercom called. The intelligence chief walked to a phone and punched the proper button.
“Tawney . . . ah, yes, Dennis. . .”
“Whoever they are, they’ve just murdered a chap.”
“We just watched it. We’re pirating the TV feed.” Which meant that Gordon’s trip to Bern was a waste of time-but no, it wasn’t, was it? “You have that Armitage chap with you?”
“Yes, Bill, he’s going over to talk to their police now.”
“Excellent. I will hold for him.”
As though on cue, a camera showed a man in civilian clothes walking to the senior cop on the scene. He pulled out an ID folder, spoke briefly with the police commander, and walked away, disappearing around the corner.”This is Tony Armitage, who’s this?”
“Bill Tawney.”
“Well, if you know Dennis, I expect you’re a `Six’ chap. What can I do for you, sir?”
“What did the police tell you?” Tawney hit the speaker switch on the phone.
“He’s out of his depth by several meters or so. Said he’s sending it up to the canton for advice.”
“Mr. C?” Chavez said from his chair.
“Tell the choppers to spool up, Ding, you’re off to Gatwick. Hold there for further instructions.’
“Roger that, Mr. C. Team-2 is moving.”
Chavez walked down the stairs with Price behind him. then jumped into their car, which had them at Team-2’s building in under three minutes.
“People, if you’re watching the telly, you know what’s happening. Saddle up, we’re choppering to Gatwick.” They’d just headed out the door when a brave Swiss cop managed to get the civilian to safety. The TV showed the civilian being hustled to a car, which sped off at once. Again the body language was the important thing. The assembled police, who had been standing around casually, were standing differently now, mainly crouched behind the cover of their automobiles, their hands fingering their weapons, tense but still unsure of what they ought to do.
“It’s going out live on TV now,” Bennett reported. “Sky News will have it on in a few.”
“I guess that figures,” Clark said. “Where’s Stanley?”
“He’s at Gatwick now,” Tawney said. Clark nodded. Stanley would deploy with Team-2 as field commander. Dr. Paul Bellow was gone as well. He’d chopper out with Chavez and advise him and Stanley on the psychological aspects of the tactical situation. Nothing to be done now but order coffee and solid food, which Clark did, taking a chair and sitting in front of the TVs.
CHAPTER 3
GNOMES AND GUNS
The helicopter ride was twenty-five minutes exactly, and deposited Team-2 and its attachments in the general aviation portion of the international airport. Two vans waited, and Chavez watched his men load their gear into one of them for movement to the British Airways terminal. There, some cops, who were also waiting, supervised the van’s handling into a cargo container which would be first off the flight when the plane arrived at Bern.
But first they had to wait for the go-mission order. Chavez pulled out his cellular phone, flipped it open, and thumbed speeddial number one.
“Clark,” the voice said after the encryption software Ticked through.
“Ding here, John. The call come from Whitehall yet?”
“Still waiting, Domingo. We expect it shortly. The canton pumped it upstairs. Their Justice Minister is considering it now.”
“Well, tell the worthy gentleman that this flight leaves the gate in two-zero minutes, and the next one after that is ninety minutes, ‘less you want us to travel Swissair. One of those in forty minutes, and another in an hour fifteen.”
“I hear you, Ding. We have to hold.”
Chavez swore in Spanish. He knew it. He didn’t have to like it. “Roger, Six, Team-2 is holding on the ramp at Gatwick.”
“Roger that, Team-2, Rainbow Six, out.”
Chavez closed his phone and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “Okay, people,” he said to his men over the shriek of jet engines, “we hold here for the go-ahead.” The troops nodded, as eager to get it going as their boss, but just as powerless to make it happen. The British team members had been there before and took it better than the Americans and the others.
“Bill, tell Whitehall that we have twenty minutes to get them off the ground, after that over an hour delay.”
Tawney nodded and went to a phone in the corner to call his contact in the Foreign Ministry. From there it went to the British Ambassador in Geneva, who’d been told that the SAS was offering special mission assistance of a technical nature. It was an odd case where the Swiss Foreign Minister knew more than the man making the offer. But, remarkably, the word came back in fifteen minutes: Va. ”
“We have mission approval, John,” Tawney reported, much to his own surprise.
“Right.” Clark flipped open his own phone and hit the speeddial #2 button.
“Chavez,” a voice said over considerable background noise.
“We have a go-mission,” Clark said. “Acknowledge.”