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How could she be certain, though? Who was he? Why had these files been so important to him? He was well dressed and looked Arab or Indian but beyond that she knew nothing about him. Was he a drug trafficker? Did this have something to do with the heroin she knew was produced in the Middle East? If so, what business was it of hers? People wanted heroin. There was no stopping it.
“Where are we going, Mom? Home?”
She nodded. “So we can change. I thought we’d go out to dinner tonight. How does La Stiva sound?”
It was Bianca’s favorite restaurant, but money had been tight for the past few years and they never went anymore. The budget was hard on her—young girls needed to fit in and that had become an expensive enterprise. She never complained, though.
“It sounds great, I guess. But what’s the occasion?”
Isabella almost started crying again but managed to maintain control. The occasion was that her daughter hadn’t been murdered.
“You’re going to be a woman soon and we might not have time to spend together then,” she said, her voice sounding slightly strangled. “I thought it would be nice. We can talk.”
Bianca didn’t look like she believed any of what she was being told but realized she wasn’t going to get any more out of her mother on the drive. No doubt she was scheduling a full interrogation for after a bottle of wine had been opened.
They continued in silence and Isabella felt doubt creeping in. Was the Arab man really gone or would he come back for something else? Was it possible that he wasn’t a drug dealer? Could he be a terrorist? Was she putting people in danger by not going to the police?
Ahead, she saw a semitruck approaching in the oncoming lane. It started to swerve, almost rocking up on two wheels as its load of concrete pipes shifted. Isabella slammed on her brakes and threw an arm instinctively in front of her daughter as the truck crossed into the lane in front of them.
CHAPTER 32
NEAR LAKE CONSTANCE
SWITZERLAND
WE’RE clear,” Wicker said, motioning the team forward and starting to run again.
Mitch Rapp released the tree he was using for balance and lurched forward, falling in behind Scott Coleman. His knee felt like it was full of glass and most of his right side had gone numb. Despite that and a number of offers of help, he’d carried Hurley’s body the entire way by himself. He had been in command when his friend was killed. It was his responsibility to get him out.
They finally stopped where the stream took a hard bend, creating a deep pool that shimmered almost black in the late afternoon sun. Joe Maslick dropped to his stomach next to it, reaching down into the water.
“Got them.”
He pulled out two large dry bags while the rest of the men peeled off their packs. Rapp nearly fell trying to get Hurley off his shoulder and dropped the man’s body unceremoniously into a pile of rocks.
“Scott,” Maslick said, throwing a duct tape–wrapped package to Coleman. He reached back into the bag and retrieved another, almost identical package. “This is you, Bruno.”
Rapp stripped and dove into the water as Maslick pulled out the bundle meant for Stan. A body bag.
The sudden cold and darkness was strangely comforting, and he stayed under for longer than he should have, reveling in the stillness. When he and Anna lived near the Chesapeake, he swam almost every day. It was one of the many little pleasures from his past that had fallen away.
When he surfaced, his men were cutting open their packages. Business suits, uniforms, and jogging clothes appeared along with wallets full of carefully forged documents. All the things necessary to separate and disappear.
Coleman tore the tape off the package meant for Rapp and tossed him a bar of abrasive soap. He caught it and used it to wash away the dried blood that covered most of his body. Wicker was the first dressed, and he collected everyone’s discarded clothing, stuffing it into the dry bags. When he was finished, he headed for the road without a word.
Decked out in running clothes, he would do another ten miles on the shoulder before he got to the car waiting for him. It was a lightly traveled thoroughfare and having all of them drive out at one time could raise suspicion. Staggering the time and method of escape was more critical than getting out fast.
Rapp dunked under again, struggling to get his matted hair clean as Bruno McGraw slipped away in a tailored business suit. When Rapp resurfaced, Coleman was wearing a FedEx uniform beneath an apron and elbow-length rubber gloves. The ease and speed with which he got Hurley into the body bag was a testament to how much practice they all had in such things.
Rapp climbed onto the bank and toweled off, dressing in the jeans, collared shirt, and leather jacket laid out for him on a rock. It felt uncomfortable not to have a weapon, but his Glock was tucked away in the dry bags with the rest of the team’s gear. In light of the recent fireworks, running into a roadblock was fairly likely and carrying a gun was too much of a risk.
“We’re ready,” Coleman said. Everything, including Hurley, had been consolidated into backpacks or bags and was piled up at the west end of the clearing.
Rapp glanced at his watch and picked up two of the packs. “Six minutes.”
They nee
ded to ferry all of it to the edge of the road, where a van would pick it up.
