feeling that Gould had played them. “There’s no way this guy is just your average banker.”
“Could be family money,” Coleman suggested.
That was when Rapp put Marcus Dumond on the problem of finding out who owned the estate. Dumond, their resident computer expert, was not having a good day. He’d spent the majority of the flight trying and failing to hack into Obrecht’s bank’s computer system. Rapp had rarely seen Dumond so frustrated.
Rapp had come to the conclusion that Gould had likely lied to them. As to Hurley’s point, that they should have brought Gould along, Rapp couldn’t bear to spend another second with the man. He made him sick, and if Kennedy was serious about keeping him alive, she needed to keep them apart, because Rapp wanted to kill him.
Even though the prospects didn’t look good, they continued on the second leg of the journey. They might not be able to get their hands on Obrecht while he sat behind the walls of his estate, but he couldn’t stay there forever. On Sunday night, more than likely, he would have to make the return trip to Zurich. The winding mountain roads would provide the perfect opportunity for an ambush.
Rapp sat behind the wheel and Hurley was in the front passenger seat. Dumond and Hayek were in back, Dumond still trying to hack into the bank while Hayek tried to get a lead on Obrecht’s mobile phone with a digitized scanner. Gould had given them a number, but so far they weren’t getting a thing, which meant that either the phone was turned off or Gould had lied again.
They met the advance team on the outskirts of a small town called Engwilen. It was a male-female team, which Rapp was happy to see as it was easier for them to blend in and look like a couple. They had made one pass by the main gate to confirm what the drone had already shown. Four men in dark blue SWAT uniforms were at the main gate and at least one dog and his handler could be seen halfway up the driveway. Rapp watched the video they had taken and said, “It looks like a frickin’ G Eight summit.”
Rapp and Hurley stood around the trunk of the first BMW with Coleman and the couple and asked questions for another ten minutes. The entire thing looked hopeless. The couple said they were fairly certain the place had an advanced security system around the perimeter of the property and that they assumed the house would have one as well. Beyond that, they’d used the drone to count a total of eight bodyguards. How many more were in the house was anybody’s guess.
They all agreed that the smartest course was to wait for Obrecht to leave the estate and take him on the way back to Zurich. In the meantime Hayek would coordinate with Langley to see if they could get signal interception on the house and Dumond would continue to try to hack into the bank’s secure server.
Coleman took his men into the town to scout things out and see if there was an inn without security cameras where they might be able to spend the night. Rapp and Hurley stood at the rear of the car, neither speaking for a long while. They were both in dark suits with lightweight overcoats. The temperature was in the midfifties, but the afternoon sun was making things warm.
Hurley lit a cigarette and exhaled. He tilted his face skyward and took in the warmth of the sun. “Do you know what’s strange?”
“There’s a lot of strange shit, Stan. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Hurley opened one eye and squinted at Rapp. “I feel good.”
“That’s nice.”
“I mean I’m at peace with the whole thing.”
They didn’t talk for over a minute and then Hurley asked, “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Hurley asked.
“Yeah,” Rapp replied. “But they’ll have cameras at the gate.”
Hurley shrugged. “Who gives a shit… I’ll be dead in six months.”
“Why do you keep talking like that?”
“Because it’s true,” Hurley said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Rapp thought about it for a moment and then said, “It might be, but-”
“Don’t waste your breath,” Hurley said, cutting him off. “You and I don’t bullshit each other… let’s not start now.”
Hurley was right. They’d always been honest with each other, at least after the first year or two. Now wasn’t the time to start denying the truth. Besides, it was his death. He could choose to deal with it in whatever way worked for him.
“All right, let’s go.” Rapp pushed off the car. “You have your Interpol creds?”
“Never leave home without them.”
“Good. I’ll text Scott and let him know.”
The climbed into the car and Rapp fired up the engine. He slipped the car into gear and pulled out on the smooth country road.
“Where are we going?” Hayek asked from the backseat.
“Stan wants to knock on Obrecht’s door.”
“You’re joking, right?”
Hurley shook his head. “I don’t joke about stuff like this, princess.”
“But… I thought we were going to wait for him to drive back to Zurich tomorrow.”
“We could,” Rapp said.
“But it might get messy,” Hurley added. “I’m going to knock on the front door instead. You might be surprised how often it works.”
“And if it doesn’t,” Rapp said, “it still might.”
“How?” Hayek didn’t understand anything they were saying.
“Spook him,” Hurley said. “Right now he’s comfortable, thinking everything is fine. We rattle his cage and he might turn that phone on that you’re trying to get a line on. He might fly the coop; he might do anything that would be better for us than spending the night in some boring town and then finding out tomorrow that he doesn’t travel by motorcade back to the city but takes a helicopter instead.”
Hayek didn’t have a lot of time to consider the new plan, as only a few minutes later they pulled off the road across the street from the main gate to Obrecht’s estate. Hurley handed Rapp a set of credentials and checked to make sure his fake Interpol identification was in order.
Rapp looked out the windshield at the four bodyguards. “What do you think… rent-a-cops or the real deal?”
Hurley watched the men for a moment and said, “They look like the real deal to me.”
“Me too.”
“No sense in trying to bully my way, then. I’ll make some easy conversation and then leave them a calling card.” And with that, Hurley was out the door. “Wish me luck.”
Rapp watched him cross the street. No one knew Hurley’s exact age, but Rapp guessed he was in his early to mid seventies, although he knew he could easily be off. The man moved like someone twenty years younger but his face showed the wear of someone who had been through a lot of rough stuff.
“Dammit,” Dumond barked from the backseat.
Rapp looked in the rearview mirror to see what was wrong. Dumond had attended MIT with Rapp’s little brother Steven. The computer genius had run afoul of the Feds for hacking into some of New York’s biggest banks. Rapp had Kennedy intervene on Dumond’s behalf. Rather than go to jail, the whiz kid decided to come to work for Langley. Rapp had rarely if ever seen him so frustrated. “What’s wrong, Marcus?”
“This is bullshit, Mitch.”
“You still can’t get in?”
“I can’t even get close.”
“Why?”
“These guys are using heavy-duty shit. Like the stuff the Chinese use, and our buddies out at Fort Meade-I’m talking cutting-edge stuff.”
Rapp didn’t know a lot about what Dumond did, but he tried to help. “Would it be better if you were back at Langley on a bigger computer… faster hookup speed?”
Dumond looked at Rapp’s reflection in the mirror with a “don’t even try to act like you know what you’re talking about” look.
Rapp threw up his hands. “Just trying to help.”
