Coming out of the staircase, he turned to the right, toward his room halfway down the corridor. Van Heerden removed a key card from his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and turned the door handle. He opened the door slowly, looking down at the carpet inside his hotel room. The thin sheet of see-through plastic he had left there hadn’t moved. Satisfied, Van Heerden removed the DO NOT DISTURB sign and locked the door behind him. Next, he checked his carry-on. The four hard-to-see filaments he had fixed on the suitcase were intact. No one had searched his suitcase. Not that anyone would have found anything incriminating or of great value inside, but if the plastic at the door or the filaments had been disturbed, Van Heerden would have postponed or even called off the operation.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. He opened a browser, entered the username and password his employer had given him, and waited for the system to log him in. A single email popped into his in-box. The message contained an encrypted attachment. He tapped the attachment with his finger and examined the six mug shots and the three vehicles that appeared on his screen. The agent he had spotted in the lobby was indeed part of his mark’s protection detail, and, as he had thought, the Sprinter van belonged to the Secret Service. The two other vehicles were the black SUVs he had seen outside the hotel.
Good. Van Heerden wasn’t a big fan of last-minute surprises.
He reached under his sport jacket and drew the SIG Sauer P226 pistol from his shoulder holster. The pistol, with three fully loaded magazines and a black suppressor, had been left for him inside the rental car arranged for him by his employer. A summary inspection had shown the pistol to be in proper working order, but Van Heerden wouldn’t be completely satisfied until he took it apart and cleaned it himself. Aiming at the floor, he released the magazine and racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He slid out the rounds from the three magazines one at a time with his thumb. He examined the magazines and checked the springs. He then fieldstripped the pistol and laid out each piece neatly on top of the writing desk, inspecting every piece carefully. From his suitcase he removed a small gun-cleaning kit, from which he pulled out an old toothbrush, a cleaning rod, a barrel brush, and a bunch of Q-tips. Dirty weapons misfired. Clean ones didn’t.
Once his pistol was cleaned, he lightly oiled the moving parts, making sure to wipe any excess, and reassembled it piece by piece. He then reloaded the three magazines and inserted one of them into the SIG. He racked the slide and holstered his pistol. His actions during the course of the next hour would define how he would live the rest of his life. Success meant a nice villa by the Mediterranean; failure would send him to prison—or to his death.
Van Heerden ran an impatient hand through his silver hair. Only a few more minutes to wait. As he reached for one of the complimentary bottles of water provided by the hotel, he noticed that his hands, usually steady as a surgeon’s, had a slight tremor. The tremor, as faint and feeble as it was, worried him. He had fought in numerous wars, skied on the steep faces of so-called unskiable mountains, and even survived a bear encounter. Still, he couldn’t remember the last time he had shown any signs of anxiety. Was it fatigue?
Or maybe that’s just what happens when you get old, he thought, drinking from the plastic bottle. His fiftieth birthday was less than two weeks away. Images of his wife—his third—and his four adult sons popped into his head.
Damn. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. Wasn’t he exactly where he wanted to be, doing what he loved? Some folks pushed through their nine-to-five jobs so they could go home and live their lives. For Van Heerden, it was the opposite. The field was his home.
Well, he thought, if that’s true, why do I keep thinking about retiring to a Mediterranean villa? Van Heerden tightened his jaw and forced the villa and his family out of his mind.
For tonight’s operation, he had selected five of his best men. Like him, they were experienced operators who had all successfully completed several missions in the United States—albeit none more difficult or dicey than tonight’s. As mercenaries, it wasn’t the first time they would risk it all for a chance at a nice big paycheck. Each of them had different travel arrangements. None had crossed into the United States via the same route or even on the same day. After tonight’s operation, they would all leave the same way they had come in—just tourists going back home after a short but pleasant stay in San Francisco.
Van Heerden retrieved a wireless earbud from the inside pocket of his sport coat. He switched on the Bluetooth connection and inserted it in his right ear. His first order of business was to reestablish communications with his men. A call sign matching one of the first six letters of the alphabet had been assigned to each of them. Since his departure from Johannesburg ten days ago, he had only heard from each man once. A quick text to confirm a safe entry into the United States.