For the second night in a row Franz Stoeckler surveyed the sales floor with his usual seasonal pessimism. For the second night in a row he was saved by a man he’d never seen before.
He came through the door and spoke briefly to a cashier, who pointed toward the back of the store. Stoeckler intercepted him at the camping aisle. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, something telling him to go straight to English.
“Possibly. I am here in Davos to meet a friend. We’re planning to go into the backcountry, but he arrived before I did—I think he might already have purchased his gear.”
Stoeckler immediately thought of last night’s customer. He racked his brain for a name, but realized the man had never given one. “Yesterday evening, perhaps? There was a younger man with an accent—I thought he might be Russian, or perhaps Latvian.”
The customer smiled congenially. “Yes, that would be him. You helped him?”
“Indeed. He knew precisely what he wanted.”
“I fear we’ve gotten our signals crossed—his phone is failing. He didn’t mention where he was staying, did he?”
“No, I’m sorry. He said he was here for some off-piste skiing, and purchased everything he would need.”
The customer seemed to consider it. “Well, he is something of an expert … perhaps I should buy the same gear. Tell me, would you have an exact record of what he purchased? I don’t want to forget anything.”
Stoeckler nearly scoffed, but reminded himself that this customer was not a countryman, and therefore not necessarily acquainted with the Swiss obsession for records. “I can certainly help you with that, sir. Please come with me.”
Stoeckler led the way to an unused checkout stand and logged into the register. He called up last night’s transactions, and a list was displayed on the monitor. There were few to choose from, and he quickly highlighted the record in question. “Here we are,” he said, turning to find the customer already looking over his shoulder.
“Yes,” the man said. “That does look comprehensive. I see he paid in cash.”
For the first time Stoeckler hesitated. The man he was looking at was slightly older than last night’s visitor, taller and more strongly built. His English came with an accent Stoeckler couldn’t quite place. Combined with the fair hair, he thought perhaps Scandinavian.
“Can you help me find everything?” the man said.
Any reservations brewing in Stoeckler’s head were lost in that moment. “But of course.” He made a show of studying his customer. “I think an extra large for the jacket?”
The gray Nordic eyes smiled.
* * *
It took fifty minutes to fulfill the list, everything sized and fitted and ready for use. Slaton watched the salesman scurry around the store pulling skis and boots from racks, estimating and adjusting, unfailingly keeping to the most expensive brands. Several times, as Herr Stoeckler was otherwise occupied, Slaton studied the sales record from last night he’d printed out. He saw nothing of use, the entire customer information field being blank. He knew the store had a surveillance system that monitored the registers—he’d been doing his best to avoid a ceiling-mounted camera since coming inside.He suspected that last night’s star customer had done the same. Try as he might, Slaton could think of no reasonable explanation for asking the clerk to give him a look at the video.
He obliquely learned a bit more as the process ran. He asked the colors of his companion’s jacket—gray—so as to choose something different, and discovered that the man was between a medium and a large in clothing, and wore size nine shoes. All useful, but hardly telling. The most intriguing purchase was a laminated topographical map, and Slaton requested his own copy without hesitation. His purchases ended up in a mountainous pile on what had become his private checkout stand.
Stoeckler began the math, and asked, “Will there be anything else?”
“I hope not,” Slaton replied in good humor. “But if my friend and I come up short, we’ll know where to come.”
“Of course. I can tell you he may have gone out today—he seemed eager to test his new gear.”
“As am I,” Slaton said.
He paid with the credit card, not wanting to dent his cash cushion so severely. Stoeckler began putting everything into a shopping cart.
“Is this how my friend took his gear to the parking lot?”
“Actually, no,” Stoeckler said. “It must have been quite a workout, but he carried everything by hand. He must have been staying nearby.”
“Probably,” Slaton said, as he thought, But he’s not here anymore. “What makes you think I wouldn’t do the same?” he asked good-naturedly.
“It is quite simple, sir. I saw you drive up earlier.”
Slaton looked outside. His Mercedes was parked in the front row. The smallest of mistakes, but a mistake all the same. He didn’t dwell on it.
The two exchanged wishes for a pleasant evening, and Slaton headed outside feeling he’d made considerable headway. And completely unaware he was making his second mistake.
* * *
As he walked out of the store, Slaton had no way of knowing that three blocks away, from the fourth-floor window of the tallest hotel in town, a wiry young man stood watching him closely. He used binoculars, indeed a pair exactly like the ones Slaton was at that moment loading into the back seat of his Mercedes rental.
The watcher was transfixed. He would very much have liked to take a photograph of the man standing behind the SUV, but the lights in the parking lot were feeble, and he had no equipment for long-range night imagery.
Could it really be him? he wondered.
Only yesterday it had seemed little more than fiction. The whispers about David Slaton to begin with, planted by the FSB and SVR, he knew to be no more than maskirovka—a bit of deception to keep the authorities in Italy and beyond guessing. It served to keep his own name from being added to any suspect list, not that it likely would be.
As a sergeant in the Russian Special Forces he’d often performed work abroad, although it had always been in a military capacity, embedded in units operating largely inside combat zones, and always with the utmost of discretion. Places like Chechnya and Ukraine, where generic, sanitized battle dress was the uniform of the day, and where identity cards were little more than nostalgic remembrances. It was a notable reversal of classic military norms: the avoidance of attribution for a mission. For the units in which he typically operated, to be recognized for battlefield success, and by extension for Russia herself to be credited, was tantamount to failure. Obfuscation was the new primary objective. Medal ceremonies became private affairs, unit citations closely guarded secrets.
And now? the sergeant mused. Now we have taken things to the next level.
He had become part of a new shadow army—in his case, a unit of one. His clothes were strictly civilian, his identities forged by the finest craftsmen in the FSB. His weapons and tactics were the only vestige of his military heritage. In bygone days, during wars between great nations, such subterfuge would have labeled him as a spy—the most grievous of offenses, and, if he were captured, punishable by death.
But who bothered to declare war anymore?
Irregular warfare—that was the new normal, and he had put himself at the forefront. So confident was the sergeant in his cover, he’d not given a second thought to the fact that the police in Capri were searching for a hired assassin. Now he sensed an error.
His first warning had been the call that came yesterday: a man had shown up on Cassandra, in the company of an American woman who was almost certainly CIA. They were looking into Ivanovic’s death. The man was tall with slate-gray eyes, and had asked knowledgeable questions. That was how Cassandra’s captain had reported it—the skipper had been retained to keep an eye on more than just his boat. Now, the very next day, a man of vaguely the same description had appeared in Davos, and only hours after the strike on Romanov.
Coincidence?
The sergeant had first spotted him an hour ago at the bottom of the slope. He’d watched the man blend casually into the meager crowd that was gawking at the proceedings mid-hill. He seemed no more than a curiosity in those first moments. Then something about the way he moved, the way he surveyed the mountain, seized the sergeant’s attention. He’d noted the watchful manner in which he approached a ski instructor, and the way he’d taken directions into town. Then—most incredible of all—the man had walked straight to the outfitters. Through the tight angle of the storefront window, the sergeant watched the same salesman he’d dealt with last night collect a pile of equipment for the newcomer. As far as he could tell, a purchase identical to the one he himself had made.
No, he decided. There could be no doubt. Someone was tracking him. But … could it really be Slaton?
He watched the Mercedes pull out of the parking lot and disappear into a maze of buildings. He couldn’t tell where it was headed.
The sergeant weighed his options. He was tempted to go back to the outfitters. He was sure he could manipulate the salesman into talking about this new customer. He reckoned the man who was tracking him had done much the same. I think my friend came in last night. I’d like to buy the same gear. Whoever he was, he was clever.
In the end, the sergeant decided it wasn’t worth the risk. He was already on a tight schedule, and it was time to leave Davos. The local police might be plodders, but they weren’t stupid. In time they would make connections, discover that a man with a heavy East European accent had been at the store last night buying climbing gear. When that happened, he needed to be far away. To the positive, they now had a second suspect to track down, a man who’d probably claimed to know the first.
That would confuse things nicely.
He collected his few possessions and headed into the hallway, closing the door of his prepaid room quietly behind him. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced—it might very well be Slaton. Quick-stepping down the main stairwell, he tried to remember what Mossad called their assassins. Every service had their monikers, and it came to him on the first-floor landing. Kidon. Hebrew for bayonet.
His midsized Audi was in the basement parking garage. His gear, including the weapon, was already secure in the trunk. He fired the car to life, and moments later the big garage door lifted to present a serene Davos evening. He surveyed every sidewalk and road before pulling out, his attention more acute than at any time since he’d arrived. It wasn’t the police he was looking for.
As the sergeant set out at a measured pace toward Zurich, he gave the new developments considerable thought. When the road began to straighten, and with Zurich on the horizon, he placed the expected call.
It was answered immediately.
“I am leaving Davos,” he said in Russian. “But there may be a complication…”