Blood gushed from Manzak’s forehead, yet Payne felt no pity for him. He’d tried to kill Jones and Maria with a car bomb and would’ve murdered Payne as well. So in his mind, he wasn’t doing anything immoral. ‘What’s it gonna be, Dick? Tell me now! Who are you working for?’
‘I don’t care what you do. I won’t tell!’
Payne shook his head. ‘You dumb bastard. This could’ve been so easy. All you had to do was answer my questions, and I would’ve let you go. But not now. Now you have to suffer.’
‘No!’ he shouted back. ‘It is you that will suffer when you ultimately discover the truth! I promise you, my pain will be temporary. But yours will last forever.’
Payne considered his words for a moment. Then showed him what he could do with a stick.
When Payne climbed into the chopper, he looked like a butcher at the end of a long shift. Blood covered his hands and face and leaked from the bulge in his shirt pocket. Jones said nothing, focusing his attention on the nearby power lines and the flashing lights that filled the ground below. Eventually, once they were out of danger, Jones turned toward Payne. ‘Stick trick?’
‘Yeah,’ he answered into the chopper’s headset. ‘Molotov Cockpit?’
Jones laughed. ‘How could you tell?’
‘You’re missing a shirt.’
‘Very observant of you… Speaking of shirts, what’s in your pocket?’
Payne shrugged. ‘Souvenirs.’
‘Of what?’
‘Their identities. Manzak wouldn’t tell me his name, so I borrowed some fingers.’
‘You mean the stick trick didn’t work?’
‘Actually, it worked too well. The bastard kept passing out on me.’
‘That’s been known to happen… So, how’d you leave him?’
‘Just like Otto.’
‘Otto? Who’s Otto?’
‘Oh, that was Buckner’s real name. He was Manzak’s bodyguard.’
‘Buckner was his bodyguard?’
Payne nodded. ‘And get this, he spoke with a German accent.’
‘Otto spoke? I didn’t know he could.’
‘Well, he can’t anymore.’
Jones smiled. ‘OK, funny man, any suggestions on where to go next?’
‘What are our choices?’
He checked the fuel gauge. ‘I’d say Switzerland or possibly Austria. We can’t risk farther.’
Payne clicked the button on his headset and talked to Boyd in the chopper’s backseat. ‘Hey Doc, any suggestions on where we should land?’
Boyd discussed things with Maria for several seconds before answering. ‘There’s a lovely research facility in Küsendorf that might be able to aid our cause.’
Payne glanced at Jones. ‘What do you think?’
‘What do I think? I think we’d be crazy to fly right there. The odds are pretty good we’re being tracked by radar, and I can’t risk flying underneath it.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
A smile crossed Jones’s lips. ‘Don’t worry. As long as we have some money and a few credit cards, I’m confident they’ll never find us.’
The squadron of black helicopters hovered over the Bern-Belpmoos Airport (six miles southeast of Bern, Switzerland’s capital city), searching for their sister chopper. When one of the pilots spotted it at the far end of the airfield, he ordered the tower to redirect all current air traffic to other Swiss facilities. Planes, he informed them, shouldn’t be landing in a crime scene.
A dozen men, each dressed in military fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, circled the craft, then stormed the chopper, searching the cockpit, backseat, and rear hatch for any available clues. Nothing turned up except a cold engine, which meant it had been on the ground for at least twenty minutes. Maybe more.
The team leader spoke into his headset. ‘The bird is clear. Starting ground surveillance.’
‘Be careful,’ the command post warned. ‘These men are clever and quite dangerous. Double-check all leads, then radio back to me. Is that understood?’
‘Don’t worry, sir. We’ll find them or die trying.’
After figuring out a way to get to Switzerland, Payne and Jones realized they had a decision to make, one that was more important than where they were going to spend the night. The sole reason they were in this mess was their agreement with Manzak and Buckner. Now that they were dead, Payne and Jones had to decide if they wanted to stay involved.
‘What do you think?’ Payne asked. ‘Have we completed our end of the deal?’
‘Technically, I’d say yes. We found Boyd and delivered him to Manzak, just like we agreed. Of course, you did kill Manzak during the exchange.’
‘Hey! Don’t pin this all on me. You blew up their chopper. Then stole another.’
‘Yeah, but only after they trashed our Ferrari. Come on, someone had to pay for that.’
Payne didn’t want to think about the car because his gut told him he was going to pay for it. ‘So what do you think?’ Payne asked again. ‘Should we stay involved with this mess?’
‘I think we better. At least until we know who’s running things and why they wanted us involved. I mean, if we don’t, we’re gonna have to watch our backs for a very long time.’
46
Küsendorf, Switzerland
(eighty-two miles southeast of Bern)
Clinging to the southern slopes of the Lepontine Alps, Küsendorf is a village of nearly 2,000 people in Ticino, the southernmost canton (or state) in Switzerland. Known primarily for its scenic views and local brand of Swiss cheese, Küsendorf is also the home of the Ulster Archives, one of the finest private collections of rare documents in the world.
The manuscripts themselves are housed in a well-guarded chalet. Built as a temporary haven for Austrian philanthropist Conrad Ulster, it eventually became his permanent home. During the early 1930s, Ulster, an avid collector of rare artifacts, sensed the political instability in his country and realized there was a good chance that his prized library would be seized by the Nazis. To protect himself and his books, he smuggled his collection across the Swiss border in railcars, hidden under thin layers of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, and dropped from public view until after World War II. He eventually died in 1964 but expressed his utmost thanks to the people of Switzerland by donating his estate to his adopted hometown of Küsendorf – provided that they keep his collection intact and accessible to the world’s finest academic minds.