Page 68 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

Z URICH , S WITZERLAND

S HOULD I call the police?” Greta said.

Rapp powered into a turn before riding the brakes as he tore through the outskirts of the village that sat just south of Ohlmeyer’s estate.

Like most Swiss towns, this one consisted of orderly groups of houses bordered by greenery.

Even this close to Zurich, the town had an agrarian feel, with pastoral wheat fields providing a backdrop to the settlement.

Rapp didn’t slow in concession to the speed limit as much as he did to the reality that houses meant children and children didn’t always look twice before crossing the street.

After nosing the BMW around a hairpin ninety-degree turn, he exited the village proper for the smaller back road leading to Ohlmeyer’s estate.

With open road to his front and rolling fields to his left and right, Rapp floored the accelerator.

Though he couldn’t see it yet, he knew the turnoff to the mansion was waiting just beyond the next bend.

“No,” Rapp said. “We’re almost there.”

Greta nodded, her fingers still clutching the phone.

Though he wanted to comfort her, Rapp kept both hands on the steering wheel.

Last time he’d consulted the speedometer, the needle had been north of 130 kilometers per hour and climbing.

Getting to the estate as quickly as possible was important, but he would be no help to anyone if his driving put them into a farmer’s field.

Or worse.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a sedan shot from the opposite side of the blind turn.

Rapp jerked the wheel right. Greta screamed as the hillside filled the BMW’s windshield.

Rapp ran the front tire up on the edge of the embankment and gritted his teeth.

He made eye contact with the sedan’s driver as the vehicle flashed by and had the image of a clean-shaven man with brown hair parted to the side and piercing blue eyes.

Piercing blue asymmetrical eyes.

The man’s right eye was opened wider than his left. Almost as if that half of his face had registered surprise while the other portion had continued with business as usual.

Then, the road was clear.

“ Mein Gott ,” Greta said. “He nearly killed us.”

Rapp risked a glance in the rearview mirror, but the vehicle showed no signs of slowing.

Its brake lights flashed briefly as the car approached another turn and then disappeared from sight.

Then the turnoff to Ohlmeyer’s estate appeared.

When he’d come here with Stan, the private drive had been blocked by a reinforced gate.

Not today.

The gate was open, and the gatehouse empty.

“Oh no,” Greta said, clutching the dashboard as she leaned forward to peer out the windshield. “No, no, no.”

“Lock the doors behind me and stay in the car,” Rapp said, unbuckling with one hand and steering with the other. “Do you hear me? Stay in the car.”

If she heard him, Greta gave no indication.

Instead she continued her steady monotone of no, no, no .

Rapp powered up the long drive before slamming to a stop at the roundabout even with the mansion’s imposing entrance.

Though he currently resided in Switzerland, Ohlmeyer would always be German at heart.

His choice of pets reflected this sentiment.

During earlier visits to the estate, Rapp had become acquainted with the banker’s two giant German shepherds.

One of them was sprawled in a puddle of fur across the front entrance.

“Greta,” Rapp said, shaking her shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

For the first time since she’d seen the open gatehouse, his words seemed to register. Turning, Greta regarded him with tear-filled eyes.

“Stay in the car,” Rapp said. “If I’m not back in five minutes, call the police and wait for them at the gatehouse. Do you understand?”

Greta slowly nodded.

“I need to hear you say it, darling. What are you going to do?”

“Stay in the car. Wait for you. Call the police.”

Not perfect, but it would do.

Rapp pressed his lips against her forehead. Then he exited the BMW, closed the door, and drew the Glock from his waistband. The sound of the BMW’s locks engaging gave him hope that his instructions had penetrated Greta’s shock-clouded mind, but that was the extent of the good news.

Of bad news there was plenty.

Like the gatehouse, the mansion’s massive oak door stood wide open.

Rapp flowed up the sidewalk, his eyes and the pistol’s sights moving in tandem. The German shepherd lay motionless, sprawled on the blood-soaked ground. Its open, unblinking eyes told the story, but Rapp still crouched and touched its fur.

Warm.

Judging by the gaping exit wounds on its back, the dog had been felled by multiple gunshots. Its lips were pulled back in a snarl, revealing a set of massive teeth. The animal had gone down fighting.

Rapp angled left as he approached the door and then cleared the foyer by sliding right in increments.

The maneuver was known as slicing the pie, and the slow and deliberate methodology, while effective, was the opposite of what Rapp wanted to do.

His bloodlust was screaming for him to make entry in a wave of sound and fury, but doing so alone without the aid of flash-bangs or frag grenades was akin to suicide.

Instead he finished his sweep of the foyer, peering as deeply into the foyer’s recesses as possible while trying to ignore the crimson-stained marble tile.

Then he made entry.

Rapp buttonhooked left, both because it was his dominant side and because most shooters were right-handed and would have chosen the opposite direction.

The pistol’s Tritium night sights glowed green in the semidarkness as Rapp swept the three orbs across the room, resting for a moment on the two chairs and the figures tied to them before clearing the rest. The second German shepherd was sprawled across the foyer, its breath coming in labored, wet-sounding pants.

As much as he felt for the dog, Rapp ignored the animal in favor of the chairs.

He had immediately recognized what the open gate and empty gatehouse signified and had spent the seconds it had taken to hurtle up the driveway fortifying himself for what he would find in the house proper. He thought he’d done a reasonable job.

He hadn’t.

Carl Ohlmeyer and his beloved wife were each tied to a chair.

Chairs that were facing each other. The unspeakable things done to Elsa Ohlmeyer were matched only by the look of horror on Carl’s dead face.

The implication was obvious—the banker had been forced to watch as his wife was tortured to death.

The rage that had been building since the gatehouse now threatened to burst free of the bulwarks Rapp had erected to contain it.

He wanted to scream. To rend things end to end.

To vent his anger on anything and everything within reach.

He did not.

Instead, Rapp kept his pistol oriented down the long hallway leading to the still-uncleared house while he forced himself to check Carl’s neck for a pulse. There was no need to do the same for his wife.

There wasn’t much left of her neck.

Greta’s grandfather was mercifully dead, but he hadn’t gone easy.

As with his wife, Herr Ohlmeyer had been tortured.

But unlike her wounds, which served only to cause pain, his had been meant to send a message.

The banker’s shirt was unbuttoned and a word was carved into his bare chest. Rapp was studying the letters, trying to make sense of their unfamiliar meaning, when a footfall sounded.

From behind him.

Turning, Rapp centered the pistol on the figure framed in the doorway.

“No!”

Greta’s wail was more animal than human.

She ran toward the chairs.

Rapp caught her by the torso as she tried to push past and spun her into the air. “You don’t want to see this,” he said, pressing her face against him. “Trust me—you don’t want to see this.”

He carried her outside as she sobbed against his chest, only setting her down once they reached the BMW. “Why didn’t you stay in the car?”

“You had a phone call. They said it was life-or-death.”

For the first time, he realized that she had his cell clutched in her hands. Prying the mobile from her fingers, he put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

The cigarette-saturated voice was instantly recognizable.

Stan Hurley.

“What?” Rapp said, his tone reflecting his anger.

“Tough day?”

“I’m at Ohlmeyer’s place.”

“Shit. Is it bad?”

“Just a sec.” Rapp opened the passenger door and helped Greta inside. “It’s Stan,” he said, pointing at the phone. “I need to take this.”

Her vacant stare provided no recognition that she’d heard, let alone understood, him. Rapp buckled her seat belt, kissed her forehead, and then gently closed the door. After putting some distance between himself and Greta, he held the phone back to his ear.

“Really bad,” Rapp said. “Ohlmeyer and his wife are both dead. I think they tortured her and made him watch. The things they did to her make the Hezbollah thugs from Beirut look like card-carrying members of the Geneva Convention. Greta saw it before I could stop her.”

“Motherfuckers. Any idea who?”

Rapp eyed the door, considering his answer. “They killed his dogs too. One of them is still dying. The other’s body was warm to the touch. I think we just missed the hitters.”

The image of the car that had nearly run him off the road flashed through his mind. Rapp pictured the driver. The man with the asymmetrical eyes.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Rapp said.

“Why torture them to death? That goes beyond just settling a score. Someone’s trying to send a message.”

“Not trying. Did. What does Verr?ter mean?”

“It’s German for ‘traitor.’?”

“They carved it into Carl’s chest.”

A wind tumbled down the hillside, plastering Rapp’s shirt against his torso.

The doorway eased open a bit farther as if the house were inviting him back to experience the horrors a second time.

Rapp had killed in anger before, but the rage coursing through his blood at that moment felt different.

The atrocities visited on an aging man and his dementia-stricken wife weren’t business as usual.

This was personal.

“Those motherfuckers. Volkov was right.”

“Right, how?”

“Not over the phone. You and I are about to go to war.”

“I already have a war,” Rapp said, watching the door swing back and forth in the breeze. “I don’t need another.”

“It’s the same fight. The shit they carved into Ohlmeyer’s chest proves it.

Drop Greta off at the US consulate in Zurich.

I’ll make sure a detail of DSS security folks and Marines from the embassy in Bern drive down to collect her and then bring her back.

She’ll be safe on embassy grounds until this is over. ”

“I’m not leaving her again.”

“Kid, I know I haven’t always been straight with you. I was a shitty mentor and an ungrateful son of a bitch. I realize this is a hell of a thing to ask, but I need you to stop with the questions and trust me.”

Rapp felt like he was at the edge of a precipice.

Did Stan Hurley deserve his trust? There was a pretty compelling case to be made that the answer was no. Hurley had deliberately tried to wash him out of the Orion program and then assumed the worst about him when the Paris job went off the rails.

But .

But Hurley had also admitted he was wrong and green-lighted Rapp’s request to kill Cooke and the double-dealing French intelligence officer.

Not only that, but he’d been the getaway driver after Rapp completed the job.

When Rapp had needed off-the-books help in Barcelona, Hurley had come, no questions asked.

Ohlmeyer and his wife were dead, but the original threat to Greta remained.

There was no reason to think that whoever had begun this killing spree was going to stop.

He could protect Greta in the short term, sure, but at what cost?

Was she prepared to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder?

The question he’d asked Volkov in Tunisia now taunted him.

Aren’t you tired of running?

If Hurley was correct, there was only one way to protect the woman he loved.

But what if Stan was wrong?

“What does Irene think?” Rapp said.

A long, tired sigh echoed from the phone. “Irene isn’t able to weigh in on this.”

Rapp’s blood ran cold. “Is she—”

“Alive? Yes. Still in the fight? No. It’s just you and me, kid. Now, are you in or not?”

Rapp stared at the BMW.

He knew it was Greta sitting in the front seat, but that’s not who he saw.

He’d been just sixteen when Mary had upended his entire world with that first, shy smile.

Some people went their entire lives without finding a soulmate.

Rapp had discovered his at sixteen and then lost her at twenty-one.

What was he willing to do to ensure that Greta didn’t end up like Mary?

Anything.

Everything.

“What do you need?” Rapp said.

“Get to the airport and buy a ticket with a clean legend.”

“Where?”

“Doha.”