“How many guards do you count?” Will asked, pressed against a boulder beside me.
“At least a dozen on the perimeter. More inside, probably, plus whatever staff they need to run a facility this size.” I lowered my binoculars. “Will, this is a military installation.”
“Look at the east wing.” He pointed toward a section of the fortress that jutted out over the cliff face. “The windows are barred, and those ventilation pipes . . . that’s not standard architecture. I bet that’s a detention facility.”
A prison built into the mountains, invisible from the valley below, staffed by professionals who knew how to keep secrets?
“If they’re holding anyone here . . .”
“Then they’re not getting out without an army.” Will’s voice was grim. “We can’t assault this place. Not the two of us. Not even with Bisch and Otto.”
“The Baroness has resources—”
“The Baroness has a mole she can’t identify. Anyone she brings in could be reporting to the other side.” He shook his head. “We need another way.”
I studied the fortress, trying to find a weakness. The walls were too high to climb. The guards were too alert to slip past. The gate was too heavily defended to force.
But there, on the eastern side where the building met the cliff face, I saw a narrow drainage channel emerging from the rock and disappearing into a culvert below the wall. It was barely visible in the gathering dusk.
“Will. Look at that.”
He followed my gaze. His eyes narrowed as he calculated the same thing I was thinking.
“Sewage outlet,” he said. “Or drainage. Either way, it’s an opening.”
“Big enough for a man?”
“Maybe. It’s hard to tell from here.” He was quiet for a moment. “We’d need to get closer. After dark, when the floodlights are on but the guards are tired. And we’d need a distraction.”
“And we’d need to not die.”
“That, too.” He almost smiled. “But it’s a way in that doesn’t involve walking through the front door.”
The drive back to Bern was long and quiet. Otto drove without speaking, and Will had fallen into one of his contemplative silences, staring out the window at the darkness. I should have been tired. We had been moving constantly for days, barely sleeping, running on coffee and adrenaline. But ashard as I tried to relax, my mind wouldn’t stop racing.
Adlerhorst.
The Chamber Session.
February 15th.
The pieces were starting to fit together, forming a picture that made my blood run cold.
They were planning an occupation rather than a simple coup, a complete takeover of Swiss infrastructure, coordinated and executed in a single night. I was now sure Adlerhorst was the nerve center, the place where the leaders would gather and the orders would be issued.
“Thomas.” Will’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “Look.”
He was pointing at something through the windshield. Ahead of us, on the outskirts of Bern, red and blue lights were flashing. Police cars, multiple vehicles, clustered around something I couldn’t see.
Otto slowed the car. “Should I go around?”
“No.” A shivery feeling was spreading through my chest. “Get closer.”
We crept forward, joining a small crowd of late-night motorists who had stopped to gawk at whatever was happening. I rolled down my window, straining to see past the police cordon.
And then I saw it.
A warehouse was engulfed in flames. Fire trucks sprayed water that seemed to evaporate before itcould touch the inferno. The building was collapsing in on itself, sending showers of sparks into the night sky.
