Act of Treason

49

M itch Rapp sat in the backseat of the car and studied Garret through the opaque glass of the backseat side window. The fingers on Rapp’s right hand clamped down on the cuff of his black leather jacket. The entire team was carrying miniaturized encrypted radios with wireless earpieces. Rapp pressed the Transmit button sewn into his cuff and said, “He’s on his way.”

He released the button and looked at Hacket who was behind the wheel. “You know the routine, Kevin. Hang back for a second and make sure no one else is following him.”
The black Mercedes sedan began to roll. The flight from DC had taken six hours and eleven minutes. They were wheels up at 11:47 p.m., and with the time change they were on the ground in Geneva a few minutes before noon; a full hour before Garret’s plane was due to land. No one slept on the way over. There was too much work to be done. Dumond went online and hacked into the networks of seven different hotels before he found out where Garret was staying. He was booked at the Beau-Rivage on Quai du Mont-Blanc overlooking the lake. If he had business at Speyer’s bank, the hotel made sense. It was a short walk.
After analyzing the Rivage’s reservation system, the best they were able to do was get a room on the same floor as Garret two doors down. There was no adjacent hotel with a direct line of sight to Garret’s room so they would have to bug his room instead. After they cleared customs, they found two identical black Mercedes sedans with heavily tinted windows and a white Volkswagen cargo van waiting for them. In the trunk of each sedan they found a full complement of silenced weapons, and in the back of the van a surveillance kit. Everyone was dressed in business attire, except Coleman and Stroble, who were wearing pilot’s uniforms. Coleman and Stroble took one of the sedans and parked out in front of the Air France terminal. Rapp, Dumond, and Hacket took the white van and followed Brooks and Wicker, who were in the other Mercedes, to the Rivage. Brooks and Wicker checked into the room at the Rivage while the rest of the team went to the D’Angleterre a few blocks away. Rapp and the other two waited outside until the newlyweds finished bugging Garret’s room.
Dumond in the meantime managed to insert Garret’s mobile phone numbers into the National Security Agency’s Echelon system. The CIA worked closely with the NSA on overseas matters. Neither wanted to be embarrassed over the discovery that they were intentionally targeting U.S. citizens abroad, so they’d developed a system where numbers could be monitored for a brief period, a day or two, and then they would be purged from the system as if they’d never been looked at in the first place. Garret’s e-mail addresses were also added to the list. So far the hardest part of the op had been getting a reservation for Brooks and Wicker at Le Bearn. Wicker slid the concierge at the Rivage a hundred-dollar bill and the guy barely batted an eye. It took two more C-notes before the guy could guarantee a table.
A laptop was sitting on the seat next to Rapp. The screen was divided into four pictures. Wicker and Brooks had already arrived at Le Bearn and had planted several miniaturized cameras and listening devices in the bar, restaurant, and bathroom. Dumond was monitoring everything from the back of the van which was parked a half block away from the restaurant. The screen currently showed a picture of the street outside the restaurant, the front door of the restaurant from the inside, and two more interior shots of the dining area. Dumond was recording everything.