THE GAZEBO WAS built at the end of a dock that jutted from Eisschloss out into Lake Zug. Portier liked to take cocktails there but, it was still too cold to do that. Now he was on the phone, an encrypted and secure line used only by him. While he spoke, Angelika played quietly with Genevieve who was making a big deal of putting on “lipstick” from a plastic toy shaped like a lipstick. The child’s purse was emptied of its toy contents: a pink plastic Hello Kitty cell phone, matching plastic key and key chain, a comb shaped like a bow.
“Shall we feed the swans?” Angelika asked, grabbing a roll from the tea tray.
Genevieve was eager to go along.
“Aren’t you going to take your purse?” Angelika asked with a smile.
Responsibly, Genevieve picked up all her purse’s contents and placed them in her plastic Hello Kitty purse.
“The second it leaves ‘O,’ I want to know.” Portier hung up. His assistant placed documents in from of him, diverting his attention.
‘O’ was Oberpfaffenhofen. An educated guess on Angelika’s part, but the airport was private and near Munich. Convenient when one was transporting a bomb from the Königssee.
“I’m ready,” Genevieve announced rather imperiously.
“You sure? You didn’t forget anything?”
The little girl clutched the pink plastic purse now bulging with her accessories. She ran ahead, the purse flapping on her arm.
Angelika nodded to Portier who acknowledged her with a glance.
When they got to the gazebo, they lounged on the cushioned chairs. Angelika enticed the swans with pieces of a roll. Genevieve laughed with delight as more of them arrived by wing, spraying them with icy droplets.
She handed the roll to Genevieve and took the chair farthest away from the lake. Beneath the gazebo, satellite surveillance was impossible. While she had no doubt there were at least two boats training cameras on them, there was no way to see what she was up to behind Genevieve’s chair.
She watched her daughter and laughed, all the while stealthily pulling out the Hello Kitty phone. Built into it was all the circuitry of a real phone, but because it had to pass the weight test as a useless child’s plastic toy, it had an extremely limited battery. She had just enough power to get out a last text.
Taking a paperclip from her pocket, she stuck the end into a tiny hole in the toy phone. Nothing indicated it was turned on but a very faint vibration.
Watching her daughter while typing the encrypted message onto the phone’s big purple keypad, she laughed and played the doting mother, all the while sending out the word Oberpfaffenhofen over and over again to the numbers station that would signal Duffy.
“Mama! Come here! A black one!” Genevieve pointed to the group that had gathered at the end of the dock. Angelika slid the toy phone back in the toy purse. There was no need to turn it off. It was dead. The battery had little more use. Her desperation with this last message had surely drained it.
Now it was indeed a useless child’s plaything.
In the NATO helicopter, Duffy barked into the phone while Stag clutched and unclutched the armrests. They were tearing across the 57 kilometers from Munich Airport to Oberpfaffenhofen. Intelligence on the ground had a flight scheduled to depart for Moscow in fifteen minutes with a parts payload that could serve cover as their bomb. All the paperwork was filed. Everything was completely good to go. The thought of it made his stomach lurch more than the helicopter ride.
“We need to see that flight plan,” the admiral shouted into his headpiece.
In seconds, it was forwarded. He stared down at his device and pointed to Duffy how the flight path deviated slightly to put it over Barvikha on its approach.
Duffy’s phone binged incessantly. He looked at it. “They say the co-pilot just emailed the flight plan to an IP address in Zurich.”
“Portier’s going to let the Russians know exactly who was behind this.” The admiral released an extraordinary string of epithets. “We’ve got to hope like hell this intelligence isn’t wrong. Who knows what the fuck the Russians will do if they think the US is behind this? Washington will be Hiroshima.”
The helicopter landed. Behind it were four more. Several private jets were in the sky, having already taken off. A string of others awaited their turn.
“Which one is it?” the admiral barked.
“I think the Global 7000 is that one there,” Duffy answered.
“We’ve got a NATO threat on the Global 7000 here on the tarmac,” the admiral screamed into his headgear. “Tell the tower to take it back to the hangar. Now.”
By now, several Oberpfaffenhofen airport security cars, lights flashing, sirens wailing, were racing up to them.
On the tarmac, the next plane in the queue went to the end of the runway. The Global 7000 was next.
Airport security jumped from their vehicles and ran toward the group of helicopters descending. Their faces were white. Clearly, they’d never experienced such an assault on their little airport before.
“Get that plane back to the hangar. On orders of NATO,” the admiral boomed across the tarmac, gesturing wildly at the Global 7000.
Frantically the security men shouted into their radios, trying to gain insight into what was happening.
In the distance, the plane ahead took off, leaving the runway clear for the Global 7000.
“Goddamnit.” The admiral watched as the plane moved to the end of the runway.
“Sir?” the helicopter pilot queried.
The admiral nodded.
Without warning, they were airborne again, rocking furiously until the pilot set the helicopter down between the runway and the Global 7000.
Chaos erupted on the radio as the tower began having to deal with all the planes in the queue behind it.
“Pull it to the hangar!” the admiral shouted into his headset like a rabid dog.
Airport security chased them out to the tarmac. The Global 7000 didn’t move. Other NATO helicopters set down behind it. A show of force.
Suddenly, without warning, the Global 7000 jerked right onto the grass next to the tarmac. It made another hard turn and, skirting the helicopter, rolled back onto the runway, gaining speed with every spin of the wheels.
Stag fought the G-force as their helicopter took off and flew overhead of the speeding airplane. In the tilt-a-hurl, Stag was only vaguely aware that the other NATO helicopters were swooping in on the plane also, each like a small black cricket trying to take down a grasshopper. After they reached maximum forward speed, Stag looked down at the plane below them, screaming to get airborne.
“Land this motherfucker! Do it! Now!” the admiral shouted to the pilot.
Inching away from the plane, the helicopter sped to the end of the runway and planted like an Olympiad coming off the double bar.
Stag shut his eyes at the roaring plane bulleting toward them. He wasn’t a genius at math, but with momentum and forward speed, he saw no room to stop the plane before it hit them. His every nerve was on fire.
A scream of burning tires added to the cacophony of helicopter blades and screaming men. Its flaps up, the plane tried to turn away, but it was too late. The plane spun around and around but the forward momentum couldn’t be stopped. The Bombardier careened toward their helicopter like a spinning top of annihilation, carrying the prescient doom of fuel and sparking metal.
In a split second, the pilot threw the helicopter into violent ascent. Stag slammed against his harness and they were airborne, the helicopter’s rotors clawing at the air to get away. With barely inches to spare, the plane passed beneath them, skidding far into the grass next to the runaway. The helicopter lurched in the gale of wind as the Bombardier passed below.
Like a swarming bunch of predators, the NATO helicopters one by one landed next to the sliding plane, hopping around it until it finally came to a dead halt.
Sirens filled the air as fire trucks and police began streaming down the runway toward them. Stag looked over and Duffy was wearing his lunch all over the front of his suit. It had been a wild ride. Duffy lamely patted at himself with a handkerchief.
Stag barely could keep his own lunch down.
“Fuck,” was all he could whisper.