Page 56 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

I CAN talk now,” Rapp said, putting his cell back to his ear after he’d shut the safe house’s door.

“That didn’t sound good,” Greta said.

“Just work stuff, darling. Tell me again why you’re worried.”

“You know that feeling you said I’d get? The one where my subconscious is trying to tell me I’m in trouble? I’m getting it.”

Greta sounded calm.

Dispassionate.

Like she was complaining about freeway traffic on her drive home from the office rather than the true purpose of her call.

Men who might be trying to kill her.

“Where are you?” Rapp said.

The moment he asked this question, Rapp knew everything would have to change. The protection afforded Greta by his ignorance would be gone. There could be no continuing his Russian adventures with Stan until the situation with Greta was sorted.

He didn’t care.

He’d been powerless to stop the men who’d killed Mary.

He wasn’t powerless now.

“Zurich. In the mountains just outside the city limits.”

He’d guessed as much. Carl Ohlmeyer might be a fantastic banker, but he wasn’t a spy. The impulse to keep Greta close would have been almost impossible to ignore.

“Are you currently in danger?”

Rapp hustled down the steps leading to the street. The safe house was in a rougher part of town. This was great for maintaining the operational privacy that came with staying off the beaten path, but a bit more problematic when it came to hailing a cab.

“No. Or at least not yet. I spend most of my time indoors and our food gets delivered, but something feels… off. A tension among my bodyguards that wasn’t there before. The team quiets down whenever I’m around, but I’ve heard them arguing more and more frequently. Something’s not right.”

Rapp angled west, away from the dingy apartment building and toward a park he’d seen while completing a surveillance detection route, or SDR, on the way to the safe house.

While Reumannplatz was still a far cry from Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, there was no denying the grittier feel to the neighborhood.

Graffiti tags covered the concrete barriers denoting the entrance to the U-Bahn and pedestrians gave wide berth to the clusters of angry-looking men clumped at street intersections.

Three such men detached themselves from where they’d been leaning against a bus shelter’s glass walls and headed toward him.

“What changed to make you call?”

Greta sighed. “It’s too quiet. Before, I could always hear the off-duty men joking or teasing each other. You know?”

Rapp did know. He’d spent a disproportionate amount of his teenage years and early twenties in locker rooms or riding on team buses. Men, especially the types of men drawn to physically demanding sports and vocations, liked to bust each other’s balls.

“When did the quiet begin?” Rapp said.

“About an hour ago. We’re at a little estate in the country.

My grandfather’s had the property for years.

There’s a guest wing with its own kitchen and bedrooms and that’s where the security detail members go when they’re off duty.

I didn’t sleep much last night, so I was in the kitchen preparing coffee during their shift change brief.

While I couldn’t make out their words, I did hear the conversation’s tenor.

Something had them on edge and they couldn’t agree on how to handle it. ”

Rapp stopped walking. The three rough-looking men increased their pace, positioning themselves between him and the park.

“How long ago was this meeting?” Rapp said.

“Thirty minutes or so. They always check in with me after shift change, so I didn’t get a chance to call until now.”

“Can you get outside unnoticed?”

“I think so. My room’s on the second floor, but it’s a short drop to the ground. I used to sneak out as a child. There’s a village with a pub just a short hike down the mountain.”

“Do it. Pick up a new phone at the village and call me. Is there somewhere you can go? Somewhere public that no one would think to look?”

The men fanned out with coordinated movements, cutting off potential escape routes unless Rapp decided to retreat.

He wasn’t much on retreating.

“Umm… yes. I can call a taxi once I get my new phone. There’s a hostel in Rheinfall, about twenty miles to the north. My friends and I used to go there when we were in high school. It has a café that’s usually full of backpackers and students.”

Were the situation not so dire, Rapp might have pursued this revelation in more depth. Sneaking out of her grandfather’s estate for clandestine visits to the village pub and slumming with university students at a hostel. Neither of these was an activity he would have associated with his girlfriend.

But the situation was dire.

The biggest of the trio stared at Rapp with hard eyes as his shoulders bunched.

“Go now,” Rapp said. “Call me once you’re safely out of the woods.”

“Okay. Are you all right?”

“Fine, darling. I’m heading to the airport now. I’ll pick you up in Rheinfall in four or five hours. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Greta ended the call.

The biggest of the three men flicked open a knife.