Grebo said, “I’m telling you the truth!”
“We’ll see,” Tanner said.
He, Cahil, and Oliver exited the van and walked a few feet away.
“What do you think?” Oliver asked.
“He’s lying about his connection with Litzman,” Tanner replied. “Before we do anything, we’d better make sure there’s nothing else.”
“How?”
Cahil looked at Tanner. “Toolbox?”
Tanner nodded. “Toolbox.”
They returned to the van. Briggs said to Grebo, “We’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
“Parts of your story don’t ring true.”
Grebe started shaking his head. “No, no …”
His voice trailed off as he spotted Cahil moving to the rear of the van. Bear returned with a large steel toolbox and set it on the floor. Grim faced, Cahil opened the lid and began rummaging through the box, occasionally taking out an item and placing it on the floor out of Grebo’s view.
“What’s he doing?” he sputtered. “What’s that?”
“You have to understand,” Tanner said, “we need to be sure. It’s nothing personal.”
“I told you everything! I swear it.”
“We don’t believe you.”
Cahil muttered something indistinguishable and lifted a pair of locking pliers from the toolbox. He studied the spring mechanism for a moment, blew away an invisible piece of lint, then set it aside. Next he produced a rat-tail file. He tested the grate with the edge of his nail, shrugged, then laid it aside and went back to rummaging.
Eyes wide, Grebo looked imploringly at Tanner. “Please …”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, God—”
Bear said, “I’m ready. I’ll need some privacy.”
Tanner nodded to Oliver. They both climbed out and shut the doors behind them. Oliver’s mouth was hanging open. He stared at the van for a moment, then back at Tanner. “Jesus Christ! You can’t … I mean … Is Ian going to—”
“No.”
“I don’t want any part of this, Briggs. This has gone too far.”
Tanner placed a hand on his shoulder. “Collin: Trust me. He’s fine.”
Five minutes passed. Oliver paced, staring at the ground, until finally the van’s door opened. Cahil stepped out. “Everything’s true except for the Litzman connection,” he whispered to Tanner. “He’s still holding back on that.”
“God almighty,” Oliver said. “What did you do to him?”
“Not a thing.”
“Then how—”
“He believed I would. That was enough.”
Oliver frowned, walked to the van, peered through the window, then walked back to them. “He’s fine.”
“Yes,” Tanner said.
“I feel like I’m in the goddamned Twilight Zone. So what now?”
Briggs said, “We’ll worry about Litzman later. We have a rescue to mount.”
37
They dropped Oliver three blocks from the Hotel Golden Krone, then drove to a diner on Bergiselweg near the entrance to the autobahn and waited for his call. Per Tanner’s instructions, Oliver checked into the Goldene Krone, then walked to Root’s room, where Root phoned the front desk and asked the concierge to have all his phone calls anonymously routed to the new room. With Root now relatively safe, Cahil got on the autobahn and headed east.
Tanner planned as they drove. Their first hurdle was firepower. According to Grebo, the three men at the cabin were armed with H&K SL8s, an assault rifle based on the German Army’s infantry weapon. Aside from a high rate of fire, a laser sighting system, and a modular design straight from a science fiction movie, the SL8 was a compact eighteen inches long and was made almost entirely from carbon-fiber polymer, which made its covert transportation much easier.
Tanner didn’t relish the idea of going into that kind of situation with only an eight-shot pistol, but their other option was to involve the Austrian Bundespolizei, which would create more problems than it would solve. Moreover, they weren’t likely to get a better chance to rescue Amelia Root. With Svetic having disappeared and the guards around her depleted, now was the time. With a healthy dose of luck and improvisation, they could free her, collect Kestrel from the bank, and be out of the area before the sun had risen over the Alps. Anticipating this, Cahil sat on the van’s floor, working with the supplies from his earlier shopping trip. Grebo watched his every move from his curled-up position in the corner.
The trick with improvisation was balance. When it came to special ops, most jobs failed for one of two reasons: resources and planning — either you don’t have the people and tools to get the job done, or the plan itself is flawed. Of the two, the latter was the gremlin. Underplanning led to confusion; overplanning, chaos. A balance of the two — simplicity — was the cure.
At least the crux on the problem was simple: how to get into the cabin and dispatch the guards before they had a chance to turn their guns on either him and Cahil, or Amelia Root. The answer Give them something bigger to worry about.
Tanner took the Vogelsberg exit and headed southeast into the Tuxer Alps. According to Grebo, the cabin was on the eastern edge of the High Tauren National Park, near an abandoned silver mine, the Juns Silberwerken. Standing on his knees and peering through the windshield, Grebo directed Tanner off the main road and onto a series of switchback dirt roads that led them deeper into the forest. Briggs slowed down and turned off the headlights, relying only on the orange glow of the parking lights. The air grew noticeably cooler as the elevation increased. Through the canopy he could see patches of moonlight.
Realizing Svetic’s men might have posted an observation post into which Grebo was leading them, Tanner kept the Sauer tucked under his thigh.
“Stop here,” Grebo said. Tanner did so, and Grebo peered out each side window. “This is it. The cabin’s about a half mile that way.” He pointed down the road, which curved out of sight.
Tanner turned the Hyundai around, shut off the engine, coasted back down the hill a hundred yards, then braked to a stop. He climbed into the back, forced Grebo into his corner, then secured him hand, foot, and waist to the seat frame.
He dialed Oliver’s hotel room, said, “We’re here; you know what to do,” then hung up. He turned to Grebo. “If I don’t call them back in ninety minutes, the Bundespolizei will be on their way and you’ll get a chance to talk your way out of this with them. So: Is there anything else we need to know?”
“No, I swear it.”
“If you’re lying, my friend here is going to be unhappy.”
Grebo glanced at Cahil. “No, really, I told you everything.”
Briggs sealed his mouth with a strip of duct tape and patted him on the shoulder. “Stay put.”
With Tanner carrying the Sauer and Cahil a small duffel holding their improv props, they climbed the embankment bordering the road and into the trees beyond, where they dropped to their bellies and backtracked until they could see the Hyundai. After ten minutes, certain their arrival hadn’t alerted any watchers, they started climbing again.
They picked their way through the forest until Briggs guessed the cabin was below and to their southwest, which put them downwind. Given the chill in the air, he was hoping they’d smell the cabin before they saw it. They started downhill. After fifty yards, Briggs stopped. He touched his nose and pointed ahead. Cahil nodded. The tang of wood smoke was unmistakable.
Now they slowed down, stepping carefully on flat feet and pausing every few yards to watch and listen. Their progress was frustratingly slow, but Tanner knew better than to rash. Outgunned as they were, they could afford to be neither seen nor heard. With little cover and an uphill escape route, an unexpected hail of gunfire would finish them.