A quick glance over his shoulder showed his pursuer halted indecisively along a narrow curb between the street and the tram tracks. Although a helmet with a tinted face shield hid the man’s expression, Flynn could read frustration and anger in the rigid set of his shoulders. Sucks to be you, amigo, he thought coolly, before turning back and striding on faster toward the other side of the station.
He dodged around a couple of lost-looking British tourists consulting a Vienna transit map and came out on the far edge of the platform. Moments later, a southbound tram glided in along tracks that paralleled the broad Ringstrasse. He nodded in satisfaction. There came his next ride… exactly as planned.
As soon as the flood of debarking passengers ebbed, Flynn made his way onboard and took a window seat. His last glimpse of the motorcyclist who’d been dogging his heels for so long was of the man slamming his fist down repeatedly on his handlebars in exasperation.
Flynn smiled. Along this stretch of the grand boulevard, cars, trucks, and motorcycles were only allowed to travel northbound. There was no way his pursuer could follow him now. “One more down,” he said quietly to himself.
Skoblin watched the new tram pull away down the Ringstrasse in disbelief. He had the sudden, uneasy feeling that he’d just seen his death warrant being signed. “Keep after him,” he radioed the drone operator.
“That’s no problem,” the other man assured him. “My little bird has plenty of battery power left. I’ll keep this guy in sight until you can vector the others back onto him.”
Skoblin grimaced. So far, they’d been tricked at every turn by this man. He’d managed to shake off every ground-based tail with what appeared to be consummate ease.
Sweating now, he followed the tram as it trundled onward around the Ringstrasse. There had to be something more he could do, he thought desperately. But what?
“Dispatch, this is Raven Eye,” he heard the drone operator report suddenly. “The target has left the tram. He’s back on foot again.”
Skoblin gritted his teeth. As he watched, the drone operator toggled his onboard camera, zooming in to give him a closer look. Yes, that was definitely the same self-assured prick he’d identified outside the Israeli embassy. And now here he was strolling confidently across the Ringstrasse between cars stalled in heavy traffic as though he didn’t have a worry in the world. “What the hell is this etot skol’zkiy ublyudok, this slippery bastard, up to now?” he growled softly.
Tracked silently by the tiny drone flying unobtrusively a couple of hundred feet above him, the man headed directly toward a set of arched gateways set in one long wing of the Hofburg Palace. Beyond those arches, Skoblin knew, was a vast inner courtyard, and then, through more gates, the other side of the enormous palace complex. It was a common and scenic shortcut from the Ringstrasse into the very heart of the inner city.
He swore luridly again. Vienna’s medieval core was laced with narrow winding streets, many of them set aside solely for foot traffic. Dozens of shops and stores, coffeehouses, and restaurants were nestled among its historic churches and museums. It was the perfect place for someone being followed to disappear, especially someone only under aerial surveillance. A quick duck into a shop or café with a restroom, a few hasty changes of clothing, and, hey presto, out would come a brand-new man. Human watchers would still have a shot at spotting someone they’d been tailing for a while, because it was difficult to disguise a distinctive gait or even the set of one’s shoulders. But a camera, especially one mounted on a distant, moving platform, might easily be fooled.
Skoblin reacted quickly to this horrifying realization. He snapped out a series of new instructions to the several observers still deployed around the Israeli embassy. They were to leave their current posts immediately and drive straight to the Innere Stadt. By dispersing in a rough perimeter around the old city, there was at least a small chance that one of his team might be fortunate enough to spot, follow, and then kill this enemy agent who’d already caused them so much trouble. He licked his lips nervously. He’d better damned well get lucky. Because if this man escaped, Voronin would show him no mercy.
The spire-topped clock tower of St. Michael’s Church climbed nearly eighty meters into the air. Its windows overlooked a wide cobblestoned plaza. The Hofburg Palace’s famous Spanish Riding School and its St. Michael’s Wing formed the expanse’s western arc. Slightly less ornate, but equally imposing, buildings separated by four narrow streets enclosed the remainder of the Michaelerplatz. St. Michael’s itself was one of the most ancient churches in the city. Portions of the structure went back to the thirteenth century. And though the clock tower was a somewhat later addition, its lower levels were still around seven hundred years old.
Two-thirds of the way up the tower, Tadeusz Kossak gently eased one of the narrow, high-arched windows partway open. For safety, it had long been painted and puttied closed, but a few minutes’ work with a sharp knife had stripped those layers away. When the window was open far enough, he knelt down and picked up a scoped, magazine-fed rifle. It had a black polymer handgrip and handguard, and a gray metal barrel and receiver.
Kossak checked his watch. It should be very soon, he thought, if even half of this complicated plan played out as expected. He tucked the rifle’s butt stock firmly against his shoulder and sighted through the scope. Its crosshairs settled on the centermost arch of the palace gates across the square. As he watched, a lean, dark-haired man walked out through the gate and into the open.
A pleased smile crossed his weather-beaten face. The American was right on time. Which, in turn, should mean—
Kossak raised his aiming point, scanning the sky above the Michaelerplatz. There. A tiny drone hovered noiselessly in the air, held aloft by four rotors. He zeroed in, breathed out, and gently squeezed the trigger of his Sig Sauer PCP air rifle. Pop. Then, rapidly, he fired two more times. Pop-pop.
Hit three times by .22-caliber hollow-point hunting pellets moving at seven hundred feet per second, the drone staggered in midair. Shards of shattered plastic flew away from each impact point. One after another, three of the four rotors stopped. Tumbling out of control, the dying drone spun around and around all the way down to the ground and smacked hard into the cobblestones.
Kossak nodded to himself in satisfaction. Scratch one robotic spy. He lowered his air rifle and closed the window. Taking out a target at sixty meters was not an especially difficult task for a sniper who’d spent years in Poland’s elite special forces before joining the Quartet Directorate. Still, he always enjoyed the chance to exercise his shooting skills… even using a weapon better suited to killing squirrels than to actual combat. Action of any kind was better than the dull routine of ordinary civilian life. It kept him sharp and focused.
Flynn saw the smashed drone clatter to the ground. People around him turned in surprise and moved to inspect the wreckage. He grinned. No one seemed to have heard the air rifle’s whisper-quiet shots. Just as Tadeusz had promised. He turned and walked away toward a car parked on a side street at the north end of the plaza. He already had the keys in his pocket.