Free The Wolf of Sarajevo by Matthew Palmer Page B

visit from a friendly member of the Kantonspolizei acting on an anonymous inquiry from a “concerned citizen.” It was better to keep moving even if the logistics were a little more convoluted as a consequence.
    â€œKlingsor,” said a voice in his ear. The receiver was no bigger than a hearing aid and connected via Bluetooth rather than the Secret Service–style spiral cord that practically screamed “I’m a spy.” “This is Echo Three. I have eyes on target, southbound on rue des Rois. Gray suit. Red tie. Black briefcase in his right hand.”
    Echo Three could just as easily have been describing himself. Geneva was a city of bankers and bureaucrats, and they dressed the part, anonymous men who could have stepped right off the canvas of a Magritte painting if bowler hats ever came back into fashion.
    â€œThis is Echo Four. I have acquired the target.”
    â€œEcho Three. Dropping contact.”
    Klingsor did not want to do it this way. Too many things could go wrong with a snatch and grab, and the consequences of a fuckup could be quite severe. But Gisler’s office had been a dry hole. Klingsor’s team had tossed the place pretty thoroughly. It had taken no more than ten minutes to crack the safe. There had not beenanything inside. Just gold, gaudy jewelry, cash, and a thick stack of bearer bonds. Nothing really valuable. No information. The package was no doubt secured in one of the several hundred safe-deposit boxes that Gisler maintained for a client list that included drug dealers, Central Asian autocrats, the more respectable sort of terrorist—think Red Brigade rather than al-Qaeda—and “controversial businessmen” from east of the Urals. Gisler was not too picky as long as the check could be expected to clear. Kundry had ordered the snatch and grab, which is why Klingsor found himself sitting in the passenger seat of a panel van cruising through the streets of Europe’s most antiseptic city.
    At least it was dark.
    Gisler was on his way back to his apartment from the bar where he spent most nights drinking. He liked to drink. And eat. Their mark was something of a bon vivant with a penchant for fine dining and the build to prove it. Gisler was as close to perfectly spherical as Klingsor had ever seen a man achieve. Klingsor listened in on the radio as Echoes Two through Four traded coverage of the lawyer back and forth, always keeping him in sight but never giving him a chance to spot the coverage by overstaying their welcome. They were a good team. Klingsor was proud of them. This next part was the tricky bit.
    Klingsor pulled a black balaclava out of his pocket and slipped it on over his head. Echo One did the same.
    The van crept carefully down rue du Diorama, turning left onto rue de la Synagogue just as Gisler reached the intersection. This was a quiet part of Geneva, which even on a good day could not be mistaken for Berlin or Milan. At twenty minutes to midnight, therewas no traffic. The one security camera covering that intersection had come down with a nasty virus. It would show a continuous loop of nothing in particular for the next three hours before the virus took its own electronic life.
    Echo One slid the van door open. Echoes Three and Four had come up alongside behind Gisler wearing masks like Klingsor’s, and in one carefully choreographed motion, they muscled the rotund Swiss lawyer into the back of the van before he had time to so much as protest. Had he tried, he would have had a hard time making himself heard with the palm of Echo Four’s hand pressed firmly over his mouth. Echo One closed the door and the driver pulled away from the curb. The whole thing had taken no more than six seconds. It was textbook.
    â€œWhat a fat tub of lard,” Echo Three complained. He said it in German. They had agreed as part of OPSEC that all conversation would be in German. It was not Klingsor’s best foreign language, but his