The Enemy Inside

by Steve Martini

  About fifty meters out from the Libyan’s side of the river there was a large six-sided stone tower with a matching hexagonal roof. It appeared to be part of the bridge structure. At the tower the bridge angled sharply to the left. To that point the Libyan would have complete cover from the old man moving toward him from the other side of the river. He considered moving out onto the bridge at least as far as the tower. Then he looked at the cold, dark water flowing by, and decided against it.

  If someone entered the bridge behind him when he was engaged with the old man he would have to run to the far side of the bridge to escape. The river was less than a hundred and twenty meters wide at this point. But the old wooden bridge, because it ran at a diagonal across the water, was more than two hundred meters from end to end.

  If someone saw him, called the police, and they closed off the two ends of the bridge, he would have nowhere to go but over the side and into the water. He was not a good swimmer. Just downstream a few hundred meters the river washed over the baffles of a small dam, and the water was swift. The Libyan wanted no part of it.

  Besides, here on dry land, he had an advantage, not only darkness and surprise, but the steps leading down from the bridge. The old man would have to navigate those. In his present state he might fall and break his neck even if no one touched him.

  The Libyan moved out toward the steps leading up to the wooden bridge, passed into the shadows beyond them, and huddled down low near the ground. He would wait.

  Up on the roof, his partner watched the lights in the two rooms across the river through the field glasses. The lawyers were getting ready for bed. He had seen them come to the windows and close the curtains.

  Earlier in the evening as the two lawyers were having dinner, his compatriot now down by the bridge stole into their rooms at the hotel and went through their luggage. As instructed, he was looking for any documents that might be important. He found nothing. Neither one of the lawyers was carrying a computer. That seemed strange. The man doing the search was young but highly efficient. When he finished the search of the first bag he casually deposited everything back inside the suitcase, zipped it closed, and put it back on the floor. Then he locked up the room and went next door.

  Here he had a separate task to complete. When he finished searching the suitcase he laid out his tools and materials on the bed and went to work on the inside of the case.

  He placed a sizable package wrapped in a single thin layer of plastic on the bed next to him. It was about the size of a small laptop computer and approximately one inch thick. It weighed a little more than half a kilo. He knew it wouldn’t take much to break the plastic covering. Any sharp impact or rough handling would do it.

  He worked swiftly, his fingers and hands nimble. In less than three minutes he was done. He checked to make sure that everything was dry and then tossed the American’s clothes and other personal items back into the bag. He added one more little touch, then zipped the bag closed and stood it back down on the floor where he had found it. Then he exited the room and locked the door.

  Now as the Libyan watched through the field glasses his compatriot scurried near the entrance to the bridge and disappeared into the darkness.

  All was going well. A few seconds later the two lawyers turned out the lights in their rooms. He knew they would be tired. They had traveled much farther to get here than either of the two Libyans. Weary from their trip, within minutes the Americans would be sound asleep.

  He lowered the field glasses from his eyes, pushed himself back from the parapet along the edge of the roof, and made his way toward the fire escape at the back of the building.

  FORTY-ONE

  Simon Korff fingered the crisp bank notes in his pocket. The three stiff one-hundred-franc bills felt as if they just came off the press. They even felt warm from the lawyer’s pocket. He hadn’t seen that much money at any one time since losing his job at the bank.

  He knew that he had promised his dinner companions that he would take a taxi home. He had intended to do just that. But when he got to the hotel’s front counter the night clerk wasn’t there. He hit the bell twice but no one showed up. As he stood there waiting he considered the cost of the taxi and had second thoughts. With the money in his pocket he could buy a nice present for his son and daughter-in-law. They had been so good to him. For once he would be able to do something for them.

  He turned and headed out the front door. As he navigated his way around and over the cobblestones on the street the cold night air seemed to have a sobering effect. The tingling sensation at the tip of his nose began to lessen. The walk would do him good. This way by the time he got home he could slip into the apartment without stumbling and waking everyone up.

  Slowly he made his way to the bridge, up the two broad steps, and onto the old wooden concourse. He steadied himself against the railing and looked down the long straight tunnel. Under the gabled roof with its massive beamed supports, the bright overhead lights showered the entire path with a yellow incandescent brilliance.

  The glare may have made him feel safe, but the pounding in his head had the old man wishing for a little less radiance. Besides, Lucerne was a tourist town. No one worried about walking at night. The crime rate here was almost nonexistent.

  He trudged along under the glowing lights, stopping every so often against the railing and the solid wooden walls. A few times he wondered how he had gotten from the railing on the left side of the bridge to the railing on the right without intending to do so. At one point he stumbled into a huge curved laminated support the size of a tree trunk. He reached out and slapped the solid wood as if it had assaulted him. Then he collected himself and moved on. In the distance he could see the outline of the tower at the side of the bridge. He steeled himself and moved toward it as if it were a waypoint on GPS and he was on autopilot.

  By now I am starting to get irritated with Harry. “Let it go!” I tell him. “We’ll sort it out when we get home.”

  “I’m not gonna let it go. Eight hundred bucks,” he says. “We’ll pay for tonight but not for tomorrow night.” Harry has hammered on the bell at the front desk long enough to rouse the night clerk, and is now arguing with the man across the counter.

  The clerk is half asleep. “Sir! I have told you. Cancellation requires forty-eight hours’ notice. That is hotel policy.”

  “And, as I told you, we have an emergency. We have to leave, and we have to do it now,” says Harry. “You know as well as I do the place is full up. We had to pay a premium for the rooms to get them on short notice. You’ll rent them in the morning within an hour, and for the same price. So why don’t you just print out a cancellation form and we will leave. Unless you want to wake up the entire hotel.”

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot do that.”

  “Then perhaps you can give me a list of the names of all the people who had a key to our rooms?” says Harry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that somebody let themselves into our rooms during dinner and it wasn’t to turn down the covers or leave chocolate kisses.”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “We don’t know and we don’t have time right now to stop and find out. Tell you what, why don’t we call the police?” says Harry.

  “No. No,” says the clerk. “No need for that. I’m sure we can work this out.”

  “I knew you could,” says Harry.

  The clerk wipes the sleep from his eyes as he shuffles his feet toward the computer to work up the form.

  I look at Harry. “Please tell me you’re not gonna do the same thing for the plane tickets.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  It didn’t take Ana long to realize she wasn’t the only one tracking them. Her senses had been attuned to this since first setting up outside their law office in Coronado.

  Whoever had her equipment still had an interest in their client, the one named Ives. Otherwise why go diving in the trash bin behind their office? If she had any
doubts concerning this, they were cured when she saw them disappear onto the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar. Sooner or later, Ana knew she would get lucky. And like bees to honey, they would come back.

  She watched the lawyers long enough to see them settle down to dinner with a third man, an older guy, European from the cut of his clothes. Then she peeled off from the lawyers and keyed instead on the two men watching them from the roof across the river.

  Ana carried a large quilted shoulder bag. It looked handmade because it was. She had fashioned it herself—one of her hobbies, sewing. It had little pockets stitched inside. One of them contained a small 4X mini-monocular infrared night scope. With this, from three hundred meters away, in the shadows on the other side of the river, she was able to light up the two men on the roof as if she shot them with a flare.

  She watched as one of the men left the roof. Ana thought about going after him but instead sat tight. She needed only one of them. If she could take him alive and had enough time, she could squeeze him for everything he knew. Find out who hired him, a name and a location. With that she could go get her stuff.

  Three minutes later she saw movement on the other side of the river. The man from the roof emerged from one of the darkened little lanes between the buildings across the way. She watched him through the night scope as he hunkered against one of the vendor stalls near the far end of the wooden footbridge.

  He remained there for a while. It was obvious they were stalking someone. She figured it had to be one of the lawyers. Perhaps both of them. Ana didn’t care. What she wanted was information. She kept flashing the night scope between the one on the roof and his partner near the end of the bridge.

  Finally the guy on the ground moved. She watched as he went past the entrance to the bridge. Suddenly the night scope flared. A blinding orange flash from the bright lights on the bridge caught her directly in the eye. The man had moved to where the scope was useless. There was too much light. She blinked, then closed her eyes until the glowing orange spot on her retina receded. She closed her eye, rubbed the lid, and blinked a few more times. Finally she brought the scope back up to her eye. She trained it up toward the rooftop, away from the lights. This time the man, the one on the edge of the roof, was gone.

  “Damn.” She quickly capped off the ends of the scope, slipped it back into the pocket of her large shoulder bag, and began to move. There was another footbridge, a wrought-iron one that crossed the river about eighty meters downstream, to the west. She moved as fast as she could toward the bridge and the other side of the river. If she could circle around behind them fast enough she might catch one of them before they disappeared.

  As the old man made his way across the bridge it seemed to the Libyan who was waiting for him that his footfalls became less lumbering, more regular and steady. He seemed to pick up his pace.

  The Libyan began to wonder if he might have a fight on his hands by the time the old man reached this side. Either way it had to be done. There was no time to waste. He pulled out the coil of four-hundred-pound monofilament fishing line from his pocket and looped one end of it around the post next to the steps leading onto the bridge. He tied it off.

  Then he scurried across and did the same on the other side, pulling the line taut about eight inches above the second step. In the bright light from the bridge the white line shimmered like a spider’s web in the morning dew. There was nothing to be done about it. Who could have expected this much light?

  He pressed the button on the side of the knife and the six-inch blade snapped open. He cut the line with a single stroke from the razor-sharp blade. Then he unwound another four feet of line and cut it.

  He put the unused coil back in his pocket and at the same time fished out two small wooden handles. The handles, each about four inches long, were cut from the branches of an acacia tree. They were harder than oak. He doubled the line and wrapped one end around the center of one of the handles, then took the other end of the line and did the same with the other handle. He crossed his hands, one over the other, then gripped the handles tight in his palms so that the doubled-up line passed between the second and third fingers of each hand.

  As he uncrossed his closed fists, the line of monofilament formed a loop about the size of a man’s head. As he pulled the handles farther apart the loop closed until the garrote narrowed to the diameter of a man’s neck. Pulled tight with the full force and leverage of a man’s arms, it would slice through flesh like a cheese cutter, and almost as fast.

  The Libyan could hear the shuffling of shoes on the wooden planks of the bridge as the old man drew near. Every once in a while he peeked over the steps leading up to the bridge to see if he could see him coming. But the angled elbow at the tower cut off his view.

  Finally the old man cleared the turn. When the Libyan saw him he realized he was moving faster and with more coordination than before. He seemed to have sobered up. And now that he was close, he looked much larger.

  The man may have been old but was big and barrel-chested, with shoulders and arms like a blacksmith. The Libyan weighed a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet. The man coming at him looked as if he might tip the scales at three hundred pounds.

  He began to wonder if he could hold him down long enough for the garrote to do the job, and if not, whether the blade on his knife was long enough to penetrate something vital. The Libyan began to have doubts. If only his friend had come to help him. The two of them would have no problem. Alone, he wasn’t sure.

  Ana made her way as quickly as she could across the metal bridge. It was a straight shot perpendicular across the water. But she was afraid to run for fear that the rattling footfalls on the bridge would draw attention.

  At the far side where the wrought-iron bridge met the quay, the distance between it and the end of the wooden bridge where the man was lurking was only about forty meters. This was the result of the diagonal line taken by the old wooden bridge as it crossed the river.

  As she came off the bridge Ana had only two options. In front of her was a building blocking her way. She didn’t dare turn left along the quay. If she did, within seconds she would run right into the man waiting at the end of the wooden bridge, assuming he was still there. Instead she went right and walked as fast as she could away from him.

  The second she cleared the large building on her left and saw the cross street, she turned the corner and started running.

  She ran a little, then walked briskly, then ran again. She had to work her way east back to the wooden bridge. It was no more than a large city block away but from where she was, she couldn’t see it. Behind the buildings along the waterfront was a labyrinth of small lanes, arcades, and narrow streets. None of them seemed to run in a straight line.

  She stopped, reached into her bag, and placed her hand firmly around the composite grip. The streets were deserted. Everything was dark. Ana glanced about to make sure no one was looking before she lifted it from the bag. She pulled it out, then felt around in the bottom of the bag for the small cranking device until she found it. She kept walking, one eye ahead of her into the distance, as she lined up the crank and wound it with the small stem handle, turning it like a coffee grinder.

  FORTY-TWO

  The Libyan watched from the shadows off to the side of the bridge as the old man reached the steps. When Korff got there, he steadied himself with one hand on the heavy beam that formed the handrail on one side of the stairs and began to step down.

  Holding the open-bladed knife in one hand, the handle of the garrote in the other, the Libyan waited for him to tumble. Instead the old man came down the steps slowly, sideways, until his lead foot hung up on the line he never saw. For a second he leaned off balance, looked as if he might go down, then grabbed the heavy timber that formed the banister and pulled himself back. He stood there one-legged on the step, the other foot somehow hooked, hung up on the fishing line as Korff tried to regain his balance.

  It was now or never. The Libyan came out of the shadows b
ehind him, stepped gingerly over the taut line and plunged the blade of the knife deep into the lower right side of Korff’s back. He probed with the point, moving the handle, searching for the kidney. The second he did it he realized that the blade was too short. He pulled it out and jammed it in again.

  This time he hit a nerve. Like a wounded bull the old man lashed out with his left arm. It caught the Libyan on the side of the head with the force of a wooden log and drove him down onto the stairs. The old man’s foot came down with such force that it snapped the line strung across the steps.

  The knife still in his back, the old man thrashed about, turning in circles as he tried to reach behind to grab the handle. But he couldn’t get it. The blade was buried in a blind spot beyond the angle where his elbow simply didn’t bend.

  The Libyan lay on the steps nearly paralyzed with fear as he watched the hulking form lashing out madly at the empty air above him.

  The old man tried to reach the knife with one hand as he swung blindly overhead with the other, all the while yelling and shouting in a language the Libyan couldn’t understand. He bellowed like a bull, enough noise to wake the dead. He struggled to find the handle of the knife as he bled onto the stairs.

  Lights on both sides of the river started coming on. If the old man got a hold of his knife and could pull it out, the Libyan knew he would cut him to pieces. He pulled himself to his knees and grabbed the garrote from the steps where he dropped it.

  He came up behind Korff just out of reach of his swinging arm, looped the double strand of monofilament over the old man’s head and dropped it quickly around his neck. With the full force of both arms he pulled, using every ounce of strength in his body. The loop snapped closed. Instantly the yelling stopped, the last German syllable cut in half.