Color of Blood(58)
“Have you told Massey about your theory? You work for him now.”
“I’ll tell him soon enough.”
“Dennis, I hear loudspeakers and announcements in the background. Are you traveling?”
“Hitting the friendly skies as we speak.”
“Where to?”
“Can’t tell you that,” Dennis said. “I work for Massey now.”
“Christ, Dennis, you are a huge pain in the ass.”
Chapter 24
The flight from Dulles to Berlin was uneventful, except for a brief period of violent chop halfway across the Atlantic. Dennis tried deep-breathing exercises again, but in the end fell back to consuming several nips of Glenfiddich to deaden the anxiety.
The layover in Berlin lasted two hours, and he read an old Newsweek he’d brought with him. He was a little giddy, pleased with himself for stumbling upon this plan of attack. It was the kind of instinctive, split-second decision-making that had been a big part of his career successes. Dennis had the scent of his prey, and he was on the hunt again. All of the self-doubt about this assignment had vanished in the dust of the chase.
The flight to Basel was quick, and Dennis had to remind himself how small Western Europe really was.
The only hotel room Dennis could swing was a ridiculously expensive suite at the St. George. He knew he’d get grief from accounts payable on this expense report, but the only other option was a youth hostel.
This was Baselworld in Basel, Switzerland, the annual showcase of fine watches and jewelry from manufacturers around the world. Dennis could not believe his good fortune. Baselworld was taking place that week. Divine intervention!
Basel, situated on a bend in the Rhine where Germany, France, and Switzerland meet, was a classic old-new European city: both charmingly quaint and modern at the same time. Sleek twentieth-century glass-and-steel buildings sometimes stood alongside five hundred–year-old brick-and-mortar residential buildings.
But if he was a little put off by the city’s jarring juxtaposition of architectural styles, he was completely unnerved by the scene at the Messeplatz, the vast watch and jewelry exhibition hall.
Thousands of people roamed the exhibition halls ogling the latest watches from the world’s manufacturers, most of which he’d never heard of, nor could he pronounce their names.
The scene at the entrance of the Messeplatz was mayhem, with men and women of all nationalities squeezing through the exhibit-hall doors. It seems more like Christmas shopping at Tyson’s Corner Center, Dennis thought.
Most troubling of all, for purely operational reasons, was the volume of people; when he read about Baselworld on the Internet, it never occurred to him that there would be thousands of attendees. Finding Garder—if he was even there—in such a mass of people was going to be extremely difficult.
But Dennis felt he had two things in his favor: (1) Garder would never suspect that he’d be followed to Basel, of all places; (2) Garder wouldn’t know Dennis from an elevator operator since they had never met, and as far as Dennis was concerned, the guy didn’t even know Dennis existed. Now that the rogue agent had a million dollars to play with, he’d be cooing over the latest Patek Philippe timepiece. Dennis would ID him, call in the extraction team, and return to Langley a hero once again.
After several sweeps of the Messeplatz, Dennis staked out a seat on one of the small cement walls at the entrance to the exhibit hall. On his second day he grabbed a piece of the wall with a clear view of the main entrance. It was cool and cloudy outside, but he wore sunglasses and had his trusty spiral notebook in his lap. Taped to a page were three photos: Garder’s official ID photo at Langley, Garder’s ID photo at the consulate in Perth, and a casual group photo of him taken at a going-away party in Langley for one of Garder’s friends.
Still, Dennis was an investigator and not a fully trained field operative. To prepare himself, he concentrated on two physical features that he had culled from Garder’s Langley file: a broken nose in a high-school soccer game that had left Garder with a little notch at the top where the cartilage met the bone; and a thin, half-inch, horizontal scar below his bottom lip in the middle of his chin.
After the first hour Dennis realized that he had the wrong vantage point, since he ended up watching the sides and backs of people as they entered the hallway doors, so he entered the hall and grabbed another position that allowed him to observe the registration area and the entrance to the exhibits. He only had to look at young men, of course, who were Caucasian, about five foot nine inches tall with black hair. Garder could have shorn his hair, dyed it blond, grown a beard, or done all of the above, but it was the best Dennis had to work with.
After two hours of scanning he came down with a splitting headache and found his attention wandering. By lunchtime he was exhausted and ready for a drink, but he stayed at the entrance dutifully looking for his prey.
And, he wondered almost idly, how many Japanese watch retailers did that country have? Nearly one in four visitors appeared to be Japanese.
Dennis left at 1:00 p.m. and walked a block to a café. He had coffee, a pastry, a glass of red wine that he convinced himself would be good for his heart, three aspirins from a bottle he kept in his jacket pocket, and a large glass of water. For the first time since he left Dulles, he entertained the thought that he had guessed wrong, and that Garder was not in Basel, had never been in Basel, and would never be in Basel.