Valentina thought a moment, then said, “So did Ben ask how Fisher got away?”
She nodded. “I told him the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That he got out of there before I had time to take a shot. And that
“I believe you. Did Ben?”
“He says he did, but I’m pretty sure he’s still wondering and hoping that I’m not the one who’ll have to make that decision. If I were him, I’d feel the same way.”
“But do you trust yourself to take the shot if it comes to that? If I were you, I don’t think I could do it.”
Gillespie eyed her plate. “I can say, yeah, I’d shoot him because, really, in the end, he was a bastard. But I really don’t know.”
The phone rang sometime after 4:00 A.M., and Ames thought he was dreaming. He barely heard Hansen speaking on the phone, and it seemed the room was still spinning… Finally, the fool shut his mouth, and the world seemed to balance itself on its axis. Ames settled back into the cool darkness…
Noboru was down in the hotel lobby lounge by 6:00 A.M., sipping a cup of coffee and thumbing through a local newspaper, which he could not read, but the pictures were interesting. He observed the comings and goings of a few early-morning risers, and then, through the lobby’s glass doors, he thought he saw a familiar face seated in a car parked across the street.
Gothwhiler.
He rose, crossed over to the doors, but even as he squinted, to get a better look, the car pulled away from the curb and was gone.
It was just his paranoia. Again.
He turned around — and nearly knocked over Ames, who had glided up behind him.
“What’s the matter, buddy? You look sick.”
“Nothing. What’re you doing down here so early? I thought you’d be hungover.”
“I am. I came down for coffee. And now that you’re here, I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“We need your help. Hansen’s got a good plan. I come from a law-enforcement background, but you… you were special forces in Japan, and I know for a fact that your agency has cross-trained with international forces. Now, listen to me very carefully. If I had to bet on it, I’d say Fisher’s here on a job — and he’s either working for Grim or at the very least getting help from her. And I’m willing to bet you’ve got a contact or two within the special ops community that could help us find him. People talk. Favors are owed. Money is exchanged, and information leaks.”
Noboru didn’t like the short man’s tone; it implied that he knew a whole lot more about Noboru’s background, and that was deeply troubling — especially after Grim’s promise.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Nathan, let me put it to you this way: If there’s anyone you know that could help us, you owe it to the team. You owe it to us. Do you understand?”
Noboru studied the man for a long moment. “You could die in an accident, and no one would question it.”
“Come on, Brucie, don’t be like that.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, I forgot, only the big boy upstairs is allowed.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Don’t you want to put an end to this? Don’t you think we should get Moreau to talk?”
Noboru considered this. He knew that if Fisher had gone mercenary, there was one man who might know where the ex-operative was.
Karlheinz van der Putten, a.k.a. Spock, lived in a village called Chinchon, southeast of Madrid, and Noboru had memorized his cell phone number and e-mail address. Spock had become a kind of “agent” and “packager” within the mercenary world, an old wizard of information who was once a formidable warrior himself and a dedicated collector of human ears, which he preserved and kept in glass trophy cases that he displayed on his office walls. His extensive collection had earned him his nickname, though he was hardly as even-tempered as that alien character. In the sixties and seventies, he had participated in more than a thousand operations, working for more than a dozen governments, and during that time he had formed alliances that now spanned the globe, alliances he had nurtured for nearly four decades.
Now in his early seventies, the once-muscular Aryan, with a jaw that appeared to have been hewn into shape by a hatchet, had grown fat, stoop shouldered, and hunched over, but he maintained the snow-white crew cut and narrow-eyed gaze that hinted at the menace of his past.
Indeed, Spock, the ear collector, always had his ear to the tracks, and maybe it was time to give him a call.
“I will give you a man’s name and his number. But you cannot tell him where you got it, and you cannot mention my name,” said Noboru.
“And you think this guy will know where Fisher is?”
“He might… ”
Noboru shifted in closer to Ames. “If you mention my name, it will be bad for you.”
“I understand, Bruce. You’re a badass. You’ll kill me and all that. Now, give me the damned number.”
29
Ames had no intention of calling one Karlheinz “Spock” van der Putten, but he had every intention of telling Hansen, in confidence, that Noboru had given him Spock’s name and that Noboru didn’t want anyone else on the team to know about it.
Now Ames had his cover story.
He would tell Hansen that he had called Spock, who said he had heard about an American special- forces operator heading up to Vianden on some mercenary job, probably to take out some rich businessman. It’d all click. Vianden was a small city, with about fifteen hundred inhabitants, and one of Luxembourg’s main tourist centers, with a restored castle converted into a museum rising up on the rocks above the city. Several lakefront areas included the mansions of some very wealthy people who might easily wind up on a merc’s target list.
Nevertheless, Ames still did not have enough information about Fisher’s exact target, and he would need to contact Stingray and demand more specifics before revealing anything to Hansen.
So for most of the day Ames volunteered to partner up with Noboru and check out the leads that Moreau had fed them, even as Hansen, Valentina, and Gillespie did the same but were simply going through the motions as Hansen waited for a callback from his CIA buddy, who’d said he would try to help out. Ames and Noboru inspected the other weapons caches (untouched) and followed up on Range Rover sightings that all turned up empty. “I’m shocked,” Valentina had groaned.
But not all was bad. Valentina, quite surprisingly, had managed to secure five pairs of Trident goggles and have them delivered to her at the hotel. When pressed, she finally revealed that there were two geeks at the NSA, twin brothers, who had both tried to date her. She promised them a date if they did what she asked and did not notify anyone else within the agency. It was a matter of national security, she’d told them. While she openly loathed using her body to gain friends, power, and classified Splinter Cell equipment, there was no denying that her cleavage and smoky voice worked every time.
By sundown, Ames was still awaiting his second update from Stingray, whom he had contacted earlier in the day. Ames, of course, had asked to know exactly where in Vianden Fisher might be, and he needed that information soon — because if Fisher was going to strike, he would more than likely do it at night, and the team needed to be
