expensively dressed young blonde, clutching a Festiner’s shopping bag,
who glanced generally in Ben’s direction, and then glanced at him again
quickly, but with a flicker of interest before averting her eyes. Had
we but world enough and time, thought Ben. His gaze wandered again.
The sounds of traffic were continuous but muted, drifting in from the
Lowenstrasse, a few hundred feet away. Somewhere nearby a high-strung
dog was yipping. A middle-aged man wearing a
blazer with an odd purple hue, a tad too stylish for Zurich. And then
he saw a man about his age, walking with a purposeful stride past the
Koss Konditerei. He looked vaguely familiar Very familiar.
Ben did a double-take, peered more closely. Was that–could that
really be–his old college buddy Jimmy Cavanaugh? A quizzical smile
spread over Ben’s face.
Jimmy Cavanaugh, whom he’d known since his sophomore year at Princeton.
Jimmy, who’d glamorously lived off-campus, smoked unfiltered cigarettes
that would have choked an ordinary mortal, and could drink anybody
under the table, even Ben, who had something of a reputation in that
regard. Jimmy had come from a small town in western upstate New York
called Homer, which supplied him with a storehouse of tales. One
night, after he taught Ben the finer points of downing Tequila shots
with beer chasers, Jimmy had him gasping for breath with his stories
about the town sport of “cow tipping.” Jimmy was rangy, sly, and
worldly, had an immense repertory of pranks, a quick wit, and the gift
of gab. Most of all, he just seemed more alive than most of the kids
Ben knew: the clammy-palmed pre professionals trading tips about the
entrance exams for law school or B-school, the pretentious French
majors with their clove cigarettes and black scarves, the sullen
burn-out cases for whom rebellion was found in a bottle of green hair
dye. Jimmy seemed to stand apart from all that, and Ben, envying him
his simple ease with himself, was pleased, even flattered by the
friendship. As so often happens, they’d lost touch after college;
Jimmy had gone off to do something at the Georgetown School of Foreign
Service, and Ben had stayed in New York. Neither of them was big on
college nostalgia, and then distance and time had done their usual job.
Still, Ben reflected, Jimmy Cavanaugh was probably one of the few
people he actually felt like talking to just now.
Jimmy Cavanaugh–it was definitely Jimmy–was now near enough that Ben
could see that he was wearing an expensive-looking suit, under a tan
trench coat, and smoking a cigarette. His build had changed: he was
broader-shouldered now. But it was Cavanaugh for sure.
“Jesus,” Ben said aloud. He started down the Bahnhofstrasse toward
Jimmy, then remembered his Volants, which he didn’t want to leave
unattended, doormen or no doormen. He picked the skis up, hefted them
over one shoulder, and walked toward Cavanaugh. The red hair had
faded and receded a bit, the once-freckled face was a little lined, he
was wearing a two-thousand-dollar Armani suit, and what the hell was he
doing in Zurich of all places? Suddenly they made eye contact.
Jimmy broke out in a wide grin, and he strode toward Ben, an arm
outstretched, the other in the pocket of his trench coat.
“Hartman, you old dog,” Jimmy crowed from a few yards away. “Hey, pal,
great to see you!”
“My God, it really is you!” Ben exclaimed. At the same time, Ben was
puzzled to see a metal tube protruding from his old friend’s trench
coat, a silencer, he now realized, the muzzle pointing directly up at
him from waist level.
It had to be some bizarre prank, good old Jimmy was always doing that
kind of thing. Yet just as Ben jokingly threw his hands up in the air
and dodged an imaginary bullet, he saw Jimmy Cavanaugh shift his right
hand ever so slightly, the unmistakable motions of someone squeezing a
trigger.
What happened next took a fraction of a second, yet time seemed to
telescope, slowing almost to a halt. Reflexively, abruptly, Ben swung
his skis down from his right shoulder in a sharp arc, trying to scuttle
the weapon but in the process slamming his old friend hard in the
neck.
An instant later–or was it the same instant?–he heard the explosion,
felt a sharp spray on the back of his neck as a very real bullet
shattered a glass storefront just a few feet away.
This couldn’t be happening!
Caught by surprise, Jimmy lost his balance and bellowed in pain. As he
stumbled to the ground, he flung out a hand to grab the skis. One
hand. The left. Ben felt as if he’d swallowed ice. The instinct to
brace yourself when you stumble is strong: you reach out with both
hands, and you drop your suitcase, your pen, your newspaper. There
were few things you wouldn’t drop–few things you’d still clutch as you
fell.
The gun was real.
Ben heard the skis clatter to the sidewalk, saw a thin streak of blood
on the side of Jimmy’s face, saw Jimmy scrambling to regain his
orientation. Then Ben lurched forward and, in a great burst of speed,
took off down the street.
The gun was real. And Jimmy had fired it at him.
Ben’s path was obstructed by crowds of shoppers and businessmen
hurrying to lunch appointments, and as he wove through the crowd he
collided with several people, who shouted protests. Still he vaulted
ahead, running as he’d never run before, zigzagging, hoping that the
irregular pattern would make him an elusive target.
What the hell was going on? This was madness, absolute madness!
He made the mistake of glancing behind him as he ran, inadvertently
slowing his pace, his face now a flashing beacon to a once-friend who
for some unfathomable reason seemed bent on killing him. Suddenly,
barely two feet away, a young woman’s forehead exploded in a mist of
red.
Ben gasped in terror.
Jesus Christ!
No, it couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t reality, this was some
bizarre nightmare He saw a small scattering of stone fragments, as a
bullet pitted the marble facade of the narrow office building he was
racing past. Cavanaugh was on his feet and running, now just fifty
feet or so away from Ben, and though he had to fire in midstride,
Cavanaugh’s aim was still unnervingly good.
He’s trying to kill me, no, he’s going to kill me Ben feinted suddenly
to the right, then jerked to the left, leaping forward as he did. Now
he ran flat out. On the Princeton track team, he was an
eight-hundred-meter man, and, fifteen years later, he knew his only
chance for survival was to find a surge of speed inside him. His
sneakers weren’t made for running, but they’d have to do. He needed a
destination, a clear goal, an endpoint: that was always the key. Think,
dammit! Something clicked in his head: he was a block away from the
largest underground shopping arcade in Europe, a garish, subterranean
temple of consumption known as Shopville, beneath and adjacent to the
main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. In his mind’s eye, he saw the
entrance, the bank of escalators at the Bahnhofplatz; it was always
quicker to enter there and walk underneath the square than to fight
through the crowds that typically thronged the streets above. He could
seek refuge underground in the arcade. Only a madman would dare chase
him down there. Ben sprinted now, keeping his knees high, his feet
ghosting along with great soft strides, falling back into the
discipline of the speed laps he used to devour, conscious only of the
breeze at his face. Had he lost
The blond woman with the Festiner’s bag folded up her tiny cellular
phone and placed it in a pocket of her azure Chanel suit, her pale
glossy lips compressed in a small moue of annoyance. At first
everything had gone like–well, like clockwork. It had taken her a few
seconds to decide that the man standing in front of St. Gotthard was a
probable match. He was clearly in his mid-thirties, with an angular
face and strong jaw, curly brown hair flecked with gray, and
hazel-green eyes. A pleasant looking fellow, she supposed, handsome,
even; but not so distinctive that she had been able to ensure a
definite identification from this distance. That was of no
consequence. The shooter they’d chosen could make the identification;
they’d made sure of that.
Now, however, matters seemed less than perfectly controlled. The
target was an amateur; there was little chance he would survive an
encounter with a professional. Still, amateurs made her uneasy. They
made mistakes, but erratic, unpredictable ones, their very naivete
defying rational prediction, as the subject’s evasive actions had
demonstrated. His wild, protracted escape attempt would merely
postpone the inevitable. And yet it was all going to take time–the
one thing that was in short supply. Sigma One would not be pleased.