His eyes snapped open. Relief surged through him. He’d been dreaming of a man with a tube in his throat—not a real man, but a man without a face. Or a man whose face had been torn away. The man was on television, in close-up, and the image terrified him. Even now, he couldn’t get away from it: the empty visage stuck with him, shimmering in front of his eyes, pixilated and slightly blue. The man’s eyes, wide with horror, the venous pulp where his face should have been—
But no. That was a dream. And here he was in the Florida, looking at Adrienne looking at him with a worried look. Beyond the windows, a tram clattered and whined toward the train station.
“Let’s go out,” he suggested, “before the shops close for lunch.”
“They close for lunch?” Adrienne asked.
“Yeah—for a couple of hours, usually.”
“Think of that,” she muttered, having never been to Europe before.
Downstairs, the woman at the desk seemed charmed by McBride’s German. He was looking for a Jäger-store, he told her. Ein Speicher für Jäger.
“Of course,” the woman replied and, taking out a small brochure, marked the way in ballpoint pen from the hotel to the Speicher in question.
“What’s a spiker?” Adrienne asked, as they stepped out into the cold, and began walking in the direction of Zurich’s Old Town.
“It’s a store,” McBride told her, wishing he’d brought a pair of gloves.
“What kind of store?” she wanted to know.
“A store for hunters—a Jäger store.”
This confused her even more. “You mean, like—bows and arrows, fishing rods and—”
“Shotguns. Yeah, like that,” he said.
They continued walking for a while, until Adrienne stopped and turned to him. “Shotguns?” she asked. McBride nodded, and they resumed their stroll, crossing the Quail Bridge into the city’s historic quarter. Once again, and suddenly, Adrienne stopped. “The other day—when you said you were going to kill Opdahl so that everything could come out in court—and I’d be your lawyer—that was crazy, right? That was a joke. I mean, it’s not the plan—not really!”
He leaned on the parapet overlooking the Zurichsee, where a flotilla of white swans glided on the glassine surface. His breath came and went in clouds. Finally, he said, “You’re trying to tell me you didn’t pass the Swiss bar?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t come close. Never took the test. Don’t speak the language. Don’t know where I am.”
He nodded thoughtfully, and shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t much of a plan, anyway.” Then he smiled. “Don’t worry” he told her, “I’m not going to shoot anybody—unless they try to shoot me first.”
Two minutes later, they were standing in front of an old-fashioned store, looking in the window at a diorama of the hunt, replete with baying hounds, plunging horses, and men with post horns. Going inside, they were greeted by a stuffed bear, rearing on its hind legs. A wild boar’s head bristled from the wall behind the cash register, while a herd of dead stags stared forlornly from the wall.
Adrienne rolled her eyes. “You can’t just buy a gun,” she told him.
“You can in Switzerland,” he replied, studying the handguns that lay beneath the glass counter. “The country’s armed to the teeth. In fact, there’s a law: every male between twenty and forty, or something like that, has to own a gun.”
“Get out!”
“And not just a gun,” he added. “An assault rifle. It’s the law.” He paused. “Listen,” he said, “there’s a department store just up the block. Would you get me something?”
She nodded. “Sure. What?”
“Curtain rods.”
She didn’t think she’d heard right. Asked him to repeat it. He did. “What kind of curtain rods?”
“Any kind,” he told her. “As long as they are in a box and aren’t more than five feet long. And I’ll probably need some packing tape, too.” Before she could ask if he wanted café curtains or doilies as well, an elderly clerk came to the counter and inquired, in perfect English, if he could be of help.
McBride returned the old man’s smile. “I’m looking for a combat shotgun,” he told him. “Something with a pump-action and a pistol grip. A riot gun. Got one?”
Adrienne reacted in much the same way as if he’d asked for a suitcase full of pornography. Turning on her heel, she went out in search of the department store.
On the way back to their hotel, half an hour later, they stopped to buy some warmer clothes. A light snow was falling, and the air was clammy and cold. Happily, Seefeldstrasse was lined with stylish consignment shops, including one where Adrienne found a calf length Jil Sander coat, dove-gray and hooded, a long chenille scarf and a pair of soft leather gloves. Everything was marked down to a tenth of its designer’s expectations, which made the purchases a bargain, but the total was still higher than anything she’d ever bought before.
Then it was McBride’s turn and, to Adrienne’s surprise, he waited until they found a consignment shop that was markedly funkier than the rest. Going inside, he came out a few minutes later wearing a black watchcap, a khaki-colored Army jacket and a pair of Doc Martens that had seen better days.
Adrienne winced. “Could you afford it?”
“It’s a fashion statement,” he told her.
Soon afterward, they plunged into the warmth of the Florida’s lobby, and stood there for a bit, slapping the snow from their clothes, relishing the central heat. Steam rose in a cloud from Adrienne’s hair as they waited for the tiny elevator to arrive. It took the better part of a minute to rattle down from the floor above. When it finally did, McBride held the frosted glass door open for them, and they wedged their way in.
“Now I see why,” Adrienne said.
“Why what?”
“Why they called it the Florida.”
“And why is that?” McBride asked.
“For psychological warmth.”
Back in the room, McBride unpacked the shotgun, pumped the slide two or three times, and tested the trigger’s pull. Then he sat down on the bed with a box of 00 buckshot, and loaded eight shells into the gun’s extended magazine. Finally, he dumped the curtain rods out of the box they were in, and replaced them with the loaded shotgun. Then he closed the box with the packing tape and, producing a penknife, made an incision about two-thirds of the way down the box and three-quarters of the way around it.
Adrienne didn’t even want to look.
She skimmed the pages of the Herald-Tribune. There was trouble in Chechnya again, e-tailers were having a big holiday season, and the Redskins were in the hunt for a playoff spot. Turning to the financial pages, her eye was caught by a story with Switzerland in the headline. It was about the upcoming World Economic Summit in Davos, which sounded more like a very expensive party than the financial conference it was alleged to be. The tickets cost $160,000 each. Attendees would include everyone from Bill Gates to Prince Charles, Warren Beatty to Kofi Annan. Fearing demonstrations, organizers of the Summit were laying on extra security. Adrienne didn’t think they had to worry. Switzerland seemed like a pretty orderly place, and, as McBride had pointed out—all the men were armed to the teeth.
Including him.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, setting the newspaper aside.
“The plan? The plan is: I go to the Institute. Find Opdahl. And talk to him.”
She was silent for a long moment, as if waiting for McBride to continue. When he didn’t, she asked, “That’s it?”
“Well, no. First, I’ll put the gun to his head—so it won’t be like a general conversation. I’ll be real focused.”
She nodded. Thought about it. Said: “Seems kind of basic, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not exactly a plan. It’s more like—I don’t know—the headline for a plan.”
McBride shrugged. “Well, that’s my plan.”
She gave her head a little shake, as if to be certain she was hearing him right. “And what are you going to ask him?”