Fisher scanned farther out, checking the ocean's surface from horizon to horizon until he spotted her anchored off an island five miles down the coast. He could see six men on deck, all shirtless and bronze in the morning sun. A fit group, he decided. Though from this distance they were mere specks, he saw a familiar economy and confidence in the way they moved. It was the kind of bearing gained from spending years in an elite military outfit, in this case the Special Air Service. The man at the center of the group--Zahm, Fisher assumed--sat in a fighting chair on the afterdeck, heaving and leaning on a ten-foot fishing pole. Fifty yards off the stern a marlin broke the surface and arced into the sky, trying to shake the hook, its black back glistening in the sun before it plunged beneath the surface again. A silent cheer went up on the yacht's afterdeck.
Fisher pulled his face away from the viewer.
"Going to be tricky," he muttered.
Handling one SAS soldier was nothing to take lightly. Handling six SAS soldiers was a do-or-die proposition. Do it right, without mistakes, or you won't survive the encounter. The fact that the group had been retired for quite some time improved Fisher's odds, but not by a comfortable margin. A lot would depend how much of their old ways they'd retained.
AFTERanother hour the yacht hauled anchor and got under way. It took less than a minute for the twin 2,216-horsepower engines to bring her up to a cruising speed of thirty knots--almost thirty-five miles per hour--which meant they would be back in ten minutes or so. Fisher spent the time taking eighty-five pictures of Zahm's ubervilla, focusing on sight lines, angles, entrances, points of cover, and possible infiltration and exfiltration routes. The house's floor plan was open, with most rooms carpeted and separated by hanging walls or fabric panels, which made surveillance easy but movement inside problematic: Thick carpet was a double-edged sword.
Eleven minutes after it left the island, the yacht was pulling up to the jetty. The man himself was at the wheel atop the flying bridge. He deftly spun the hundred-foot craft in a sliding Y-turn before reversing the engines and easing her alongside the jetty's bumpers. Fisher could now see the yacht's name etched on the stern-- Dare--a play on the SAS motto, Who dares wins,Fisher guessed.
Zahm's buddies were moving before the Dare's engines were shut off, jumping to the dock and securing lines while Zahm barked orders and gesticulated. Seemingly satisfied all was in order, he climbed down from the bridge, leapt onto the jetty, and the group proceeded toward the steps.
What they did next told Fisher much. A few minutes after they settled onto the second terrace deck, a trio of white-smocked servants emerged from the house carrying trays of tall glasses and pitchers filled with something other than lemonade. Zahm was a gin-and-tonic man, and it stood to reason that his entourage followed suit. Another thirty minutes of watching proved Fisher's theory as the group grew steadily more boisterous. Twice more the servants returned with refills and took away the empties. It was not yet nine in the morning.
The world at their fingertips, and Zahm and his Little Red Robbers pass most of their time drunk,Fisher thought. While pathetic of them, this was good news for him.
HEspent the remainder of the morning touring the mountains above Zahm's villa, stopping whenever he came across a valuable vantage point. By the time the sun reached its zenith, he'd taken nearly two hundred photographs of the villa and surrounding terrain. Many of the shots would probably turn out to be duplicates or near duplicates, but that was the beauty of digital cameras, Fisher had learned: massive storage capacity and the DELETE button. Also, even seemingly identical pictures often revealed useful details when viewed at full screen, zoomed in, and through image filters.
He spent another hour doing reconnaissance on Portinho da Arrabida's beaches, below Zahm's villa, then drove back to his hotel in Setubal. The DHL box containing his gear was waiting for him. Once in his room, he dug out the OPSAT, powered it up, and established an encrypted link with Grimsdottir. A message was waiting:Spock financial accounts cracked.
No evidence of deposits within last two weeks.
Ames had lied. He hadn't gotten the Vianden tip from van der Putten.
21
GIVENthe party habits of Zahm and his friends, Fisher saw no benefit in postponing his infiltration much beyond nightfall. For all he knew, the band slept in the afternoon and stayed up all night, and Fisher didn't have the time to conduct protracted surveillance. At 9:00 P.M. he left Setubal and arrived in Portinho da Arrabida thirty minutes later and retraced his route into the mountains. His Garmin 60Cx led him back to the hiking trail parking lot he'd spotted earlier. There were no other cars in the lot. He got out, opened the trunk, and changed from civilian clothes to his tactical gear, then set out.
The hiking trail to the escarpment above Zahm's villa was less than a half mile long, but it crossed two ridge lines and covered a thousand feet of descent, so it was just after ten when Fisher saw the lights of the house appear through the trees. He dropped to his belly and crawled to the edge of the escarpment.
He had an ideal view of the villa, encompassing the entire west side and the deck and pool terraces; the party was in full swing on the latter, and Fisher could see that Zahm had guests--all of them female, all wearing bikinis. Fisher could hear strains of salsa music emanating from hidden speakers, and the area was lit by kerosene torches along the railing. Including Zahm and his men, Fisher counted twelve bodies--a couples get-together--but none of them appeared to be servants, which meant he could explore the villa without much worry of being interrupted. That was the only good news. With so many partygoers, separating Zahm from the pack would be dicey. Save for the glow cast from several recessed pot lights, the interior of the villa was dark.
Fisher stayed still, watching until he was certain he hadn't missed anyone in the house, then took a final night-vision/infrared/electromagnetic scan. Then he crawled backward into the trees, stood up, and followed a zigzagging trail down the face of the escarpment, using boulders and undergrowth to shield himself until the terraces disappeared from view below the top of the cliff. By the time he reached the saddle in which the villa sat, he was fifty feet west of the euonymus hedges bordering the property. After a quick night-vision/infrared check through the Tridents, he got up and ran, hunched over, to the hedges. On the other side of these he could hear the gurgle of the moat pool's filtering system. The offshore wind had picked up, carrying with it sounds of laughter and splashing intermixed with salsa music.
Fisher eased forward, following the hedges until they ended at the stone patio, where he peeked around the corner, then kept going. A short sprint over a decorative, wooden bridge took him over the moat to the villa's rear French doors. The right-hand door swung open under his hand. He slipped inside and shut it behind him. Despite the wind outside, the air conditioner was on and the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties. Fisher picked his way through the house, pausing at the entrance to every hallway and door to check for signs of alarms or sensors, but found nothing until he reached what he assumed was Zahm's master suite, near the front of the house and overlooking the ocean and Portinho da Arrabida. The terra-cotta-tiled floor was bare save for a tatami runner around its perimeter; through the EM, Fisher saw a lone rectangle of swirling blue waves emanating from beneath the runner. Directly above this spot was a framed painting. Fisher couldn't help but smile: Master thief Charles Zahm had gone with, of all things, a wall safe hidden behind a bad Monet reproduction. Fisher crossed the room to the painting and, careful to stay off the runner, examined the frame and the wall behind it for more sensors. There were none. He found the hidden latch on the frame's left side and swung it open, revealing a two-by-two-foot recessed wall safe. While Zahm had chosen the obvious route for the safe's location, he'd spared no expense on the safe itself. Bypassing the electronic lock would take time Fisher didn't have, and blasting the door open would also demolish much of the master suite. He needed Zahm's cooperation.