He heard a soft buzz, then a click, and the latch opened under his hand. There was no one home, of that he was certain--or mostly certain. He wouldn't have been sent here if the safe house were occupied. Even so, with his SC pistol at his side he searched the apartment's two floors. The decor and furnishings had been chosen straight from a hotel supply catalogue: comfortable but without personality. On the second floor he found a similarly furnished office. One wall was dominated by a fifty-inch LCD television monitor. Sitting on the dark cherry desk, on a leather blotter, was what looked like a standard telephone. He punched SPEAKERPHONE, waited for the dial tone, then hit the pound button three times and the asterisk button twice. The speaker emitted thirty seconds' worth of squelches and clicks as the encryption buffers engaged; then a computerized, Stephen Hawkingesque voice came on the line. "Please hold . . . transferring . . ."
Then a female voice: "Sam, are you there?"
"I'm here, Grim."
IThad been eight months since he'd heard Anna Grimsdottir's voice, and a lot longer than that since they'd stood in the same room together. The LCD monitor glowed to life, and on the upper edge of the TV's case a tiny green light blinked on, indicating the built-in webcam was on. Grimsdottir's face and shoulders resolved. Fisher didn't recognize the background, but it clearly wasn't anywhere at Fort Meade. He guessed that she, too, was using a Third Echelon safe house.
She looked the same as she had the last time they'd seen each other. Despite his misgivings about his old friend's loyalty, it was good to see her. He missed his old life.
"You look tired, Sam," Grim now said.
"I am tired. When was the last time you heard from Hansen?"
"Couple of days. I'm afraid we might have a mutiny on our hands."
"How so?"
"The team knows we're holding back on them. Moreau's got his hands full."
"He's in the field?" Louis "Marty" Moreau was one of Third Echelon's best technical operations managers--in other words, a Splinter Cell "handler."
Grim nodded. "Coordinating. And getting shot at."
Fisher smiled. "But surviving, right?"
"Right. Anyway, Hansen's trying to keep the team on track, but I can hear it in his voice: He knows something isn't kosher. There's more than a little frustration there, too."
"Don't blame them. Well, for what it's worth, they haven't been making it easy on me. Almost had me a few times."
"Uh-huh," Grimsdottir replied skeptically. "You've given them some breaks."
"Some. Have to make sure the show's convincing enough to sell Kovac," Fisher replied, referring to the National Security Agency's deputy director, Nicholas Andrew Kovac. Grimsdottir's boss. In addition to being an all-around idiot and dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat, Kovac was also on their too-long list of high-ranking NSA Brahmins who may have sold out the United States. Until Fisher and Grimsdottir finished this mission, she would have to placate Kovac. Unfortunately, that meant fielding a team to hunt down Fisher.
"So far, so good," Grimsdottir said.
"Grim, we've got a problem. They were in Vianden--Hansen and the others. They almost caught me in Ernsdorff's backyard."
"What?"
Fisher brought her up to speed, starting with his arrival in Vianden and ending with his escape from the Siegfried-Line bunker. He left out any mention of Vin's close call at the bridge.
"They shouldn't have been there," Fisher explained. "I left them no trail to follow."
"You're sure?" When Fisher didn't reply, Grim said, "Of course you didn't."
"There are only a couple of ways they could've gotten there."
"Me and an outside information conduit."
Fisher nodded.
"It wasn't me, Sam."
Fisher almost said, Convince me. It wasn't necessary. He'd known Anna Grimsdottir too long, and the expression on her face told Fisher she was telling the truth.
"So that leaves a conduit. Moreau?"
"No chance."
"The mole, then," Fisher replied.
"Has to be."
"And you're sure about that part?"
Grim nodded. "There's a cutout. Code name is Sting-ray. He or she was in the Russange-Villerupt area the same time you were. Someone on the team is getting fed. We just don't know who or why."
"I'd like to think we could rule out Hansen."
"Me, too. But we can't. Not yet."
"Ames."
Grimsdottir sighed. "He's a weasel, but beyond that there's nothing that points to him."
"He took a couple of shots at me--at the Esch-sur-Alzette reservoir."
"He reported it to Hansen. Fell on his sword. Said he got a little jumpy and fired warning shots."
Fisher considered this and shrugged. "It happens." Fisher changed topics: "Put their feet to the fire," Fisher said. "Right now, they're pissed off and frustrated. Threaten to pull them out of the field if they don't tell you how they got to Vianden. Hell, threaten to investigate them, kick them out of the program, take away Christmas. They're good, all of them, but they're green. Use it."
Grim nodded. "I'll do it."
"By the way, who are the other two? The blonde and the Japanese Vin Diesel."
At this Grimsdottir laughed. "Maya Valentina and Nathan Noboru. I'll download their bios to your OPSAT."
"You may have a problem with Noboru. When I came out of the bunker, he was seconds away from getting a bullet in the head. Two men--one short and stocky, the other tall, anemic looking."
"Those would be misters Gothwhiler and Horatio. Mercenaries. Noboru did a job for a group called Gothos a few years back, but there was a woman and child involved, so he aborted mid mission. Gothos stiffed him, so Noboru hacked into its account and liberated his fee--he only took half, though, since he didn't do the woman and child."
"Interesting. I think I like him."
"You said, 'seconds away,' " Grimsdottir prompted. "I assume that means you--"
"I did. Seemed like the right thing to do. Where are you with the data from Ernsdorff's server?"
"Still working on it. Heavily encrypted stuff, but there's gigabytes' worth, so at least we know we're digging in the right place. Hopefully, I'll have something in a few hours--at least a direction I can point you."
"I'll need something to satisfy Hans."
"You'll have it. How soon?"
"I meet him in Hammerstein tomorrow."
For the sake of appearances, when Yannick Ernsdorff had come to Third Echelon's attention Grimsdottir and Fisher--who was already on the run and well established in the mercenary community--had looked for other agencies with an interest in Ernsdorff's activities. They found their stalking horse in Germany's BND, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Federal Intelligence Service. Fisher's BND contact, Hans Hoffman, hadn't specified what kind of information they were seeking, instead giving Fisher plenty of latitude. "Whatever you can find, ja?" had been Hoffman's vague instructions, which told Fisher that the Germans were in just the initial stages of mounting an operation against Ernsdorff or against someone Ernsdorff serviced. Either way, during the months running up to Fisher's penetration of Ernsdorff's estate the BND had supplied him with dribs and drabs of peripheral intelligence, which he had dutifully funneled back to Grimsdottir at Fort Meade. None of the information had been, in and of itself, earth shattering, but it had given them a few insights into the man. Now Fisher had to report back to his customer and turn over the information he'd gathered--at least such information as Grimsdottir deemed juicy enough to satisfy them but benign enough to keep the BND behind Third Echelon's own investigation. Until they were done with Yannick Ernsdorff, he needed to remain untouchable.