Free The Accident by Chris Pavone Page A

to someone?”
    “No I do not. My file is uploaded to a server every Friday night at midnight.”
    “How is that set up?”
    “I do not understand it. But the computer and the arrangement came with the job. The flat too. This is all I know.”
    Hayden takes a couple of steps away from this man, breathing space,and allows himself to look around this large cluttered room, office and living room and bedroom combined in one, with an untidy kitchenette in the corner—
    His earpiece crackles to life. “We have a problem from next door,” Kate says. The storefront to the west is a social club whose members appear to be primarily—perhaps exclusively—recent Turkish immigrants. A few small tables covered in oilcloth, an old television on a high shelf in the corner, a fat lazy cat, teapots and glasses.
    “Two men, possibly armed, entering lobby.”
    Until this moment it had been unclear if the club had any ties to questionable activities. It is still unclear what exactly is going on, but there must be some connection to Grundtvig, and it can’t be good.
    “I’ll bring up a rear position.”
    Hayden can see in his imagination Kate entering the building, holding her weapon carefully in front of her, creeping through the same door he entered a minute ago …
    His eyes dart around the room, looking for cover. He can hear the men trudging up the stairs. That’s when he notices the video camera that’s aimed at the front door.
    Grundtvig shifts in his chair. “Get up,” Hayden growls quietly.
    “Me?” Kate whispers in his ear.
    “No, I was talking to him.” Hayden grabs Grundtvig by the shoulder, makes the Dane face the door in front of Hayden. A human shield.
    The trudging stops. The men are just on the other side of the door.
    “Can you attain visual on the door in ten seconds?”
    “Yes.”
    “Starting now.”
    Hayden counts the seconds in his mind—one, two, three—his weapon aimed at the front door—four, five, six—
    The door bursts open. But there’s just one man standing in it, aiming a gun at Hayden. Six, seven—
    The two men stare at each other for a second—eight—before Hayden understands.
    “Kate!” he says—nine, ten—but realizes it’s too late.
    The man in the door smiles. Then he steps into the apartment, making room in the doorway for Kate, held at gunpoint by the second man, who’d obviously lain in wait. Who’d known that another American would be coming up the stairs.
    They’d been set up.

CHAPTER 10
    T he author shuffles out of the exam room wearing supple leather slippers, wrapped in a cashmere robe, indulgent items he purchased at an efficient, well-edited little men’s shop off the Bahnhofstrasse, the highest high street in Switzerland, with the streetcars gliding by and the flapping canton flags above the clean wide sidewalks lined with a comprehensive collection of the most famous luxury brands in the world, a rich assortment of expensive-looking handbags dangling from the arms of expensive-looking women.
    He’s still occasionally caught off-guard by the staggering prices in Zurich, for taxis and coffee and groceries and socks, his sense of propriety offended at some unreasonable price tag or another. But what does he care, really? As they say, you can’t take it with you.
    This is one of the things he ended up thinking to himself over and over, as he was telling his same sad story again and again last fall, to hundreds of people over the course of an interminable week, in person and on the phone and even by e-mail. Explaining to all these shocked and sympathetic people that his diagnosis had come out of the blue, after a season of not feeling well, tired, flu-ish, losing weight, constantly sniffling, his systems compromised by something or other.
    But as he made sure everyone knew, he was one of those ostentatiouslybusy super-professionals who can never get around to vacations or automotive tune-ups or doctor’s visits, not until crisis hits, which was in the fall,