Kids… The last thing he wanted was for any children to be hurt. He hung close enough to the family to blend in, but far enough to one side that if someone really wanted to take a shot at him, the children wouldn’t be in the way.

Subconsciously, Scot felt crosshairs pointing at him from every angle. He had a strange desire to rub his forehead and the base of his skull to somehow wipe them away. As he entered the Sphinx hall, he heard the chime of the elevator and watched as a large group of tourists clamored out. They milled around and waited for the elevator to go back up and bring down the rest of their group. Scot abandoned his previous cover and waited with them. When they were joined by the second half, the group made their way to the train with Harvath nestled snugly in the middle.

As they approached the tracks, he noticed several passengers had already boarded the train and more still were standing on the platform having a final cigarette. Harvath realized that the only person he would be able to ID was the woman. He had no idea what the two male shooters looked like, or if there were any others he hadn’t seen.

Toward the end of the platform Scot noticed two solidly built men with wide frames who resembled a couple of bulldogs. His back tensed, but quickly relaxed again when the men were joined by their wives, who had gone back to the gift shop to buy one last thing. Harvath kept scanning the crowd as his group moved closer and closer to the train.

There! In the side passage. Those two fit the bill. Step a little farther into the light so I can see your eyes.

It was too late. Scot’s group pushed onto the train, and he allowed himself to be swept along with them. So far, his new plan was working. No one had fired. As far as he knew, no one had even seen him, but that was a sucker’s bet and he didn’t like the odds. He needed to assume that he had been spotted and the gunmen were waiting for their exact moment to take their shot. It would happen quickly, and they would have to be close. Most likely, they would create a diversion to distract people’s attention from what was really happening. The only insurance Scot Harvath had came from staying as close to this group as he could. He began committing each and every face to memory. In nineteen minutes they would be back at Kleine Scheidegg and he would have to change trains.

At Kleine Scheidegg, Harvath discovered he was lucky enough to be with another crowd of smokers. He’d never thought he would ever call being surrounded by smokers lucky, but today it was. The nineteen-minute no-smoking ride from the top of the Jungfrau had been more than they could bear, and as they crossed the platform to catch the next train, they all lit up, forgoing the gift shop. Harvath was able to stay right in the middle of them.

Even though the transfer time was only four minutes, it was the longest four minutes of his life. He could feel the shooters close by. He knew they were waiting for their opportunity. Harvath’s group was descending via Lauterbrunnen, and that was fine by him. Being such a large group, they had automatically accepted him as part of their tour. The bad hat and tacky windbreaker allowed him to fit right in. All he was missing was a camera.

The train whistle blew and the group boarded. This compartment was larger and they had been joined by faces that Scot didn’t recognize, but none had the eyes of a killer. Nevertheless, he had to expect that they had seen him and that the attack would come at any time. If it did, what would he do? He had only his plastic Glock. He needed to be preemptive. There was only a half hour until the next stop, which was Wengen. That’s where Scot would make his move. Another plan was beginning to form in his mind.

55

Half an hour gave Harvath plenty of time to become cozy with the members of the tour group sitting around him. A healthy dose of charm made him the darling of the conversation while the train slowly descended from the Jungfraujoch.

As the overhead speaker began announcing the stop for Wengen, Scot could feel the train slowing down. Timing would be everything.

He looked at his watch and then out the window to judge how much distance was left.

“…It’d be great to have you. We’ll take you out on the boat and show you nothing but whales, seals, and beautiful Washington State scenery. Camano Island is like no other vacation you’ve ever taken,” Scot said as he wrote down a fictional address with a pen he borrowed from one of the group members. On vacation, people were so willing to give strangers personal information that they never would at home: names, addresses, phone numbers…it was a phenomenon unique to traveling.

As Scot was about to hand the ballpoint pen back to the man he’d borrowed it from, he made it appear as if he had accidentally dropped it.

“What butterfingers I’ve got. Sorry about that,” he said, bending down to pick it up. The train came to a stop in the Wengen station, and Harvath kicked his plan into action.

From where he was fishing beneath the seats for the dropped pen, he screamed, “Oh, my God! There’s a bomb underneath the seats! Everybody out!”

A murmur of shock floated across the train compartment, but only a couple of people moved. He didn’t have time for this. They were getting out whether they liked it or not. A little added influence was needed. Scot drew the fake Glock from his waistband and began yelling once again as he waved the pistol in the air where everyone could see it, “A bomb! A bomb! A bomb! We’re all going to die! Everybody get out! Run for your lives!”

Whether it was the added urgency in his voice or the gun he would never know, but it didn’t matter. Passengers were screaming and trampling each other to get out of the compartment and as far away from the train as possible. This only helped Harvath as passengers began streaming out of the other compartments, shouting for help and running for their lives. It was sheer chaos.

Using the fleeing passengers for concealment, Harvath hopped out of the train and began running with the herd’s forward direction. Tentatively, he shot a glance backward and his stomach immediately cramped at what he saw-three very large, broad-shouldered men standing alongside the train scanning the crowd and not moving. Trouble in paradise.

Harvath turned around, but not quickly enough to see that a woman in front of him had stumbled, and he fell right down on top of her. She was panicked, hyperventilating, and clawing at the snow-covered ground to get back up and away from the soon-to-be-exploding train. Next, a man ran straight over the top of Harvath, unknowingly digging the toe of his boot into the small of his back. Scot let out a groan of pain. Maybe his ruse had been a little too effective.

Knowing he had to move fast, he saw a break in the people running to his right and rolled off the woman, who was up and away in an instant. Scrambling to his feet, Harvath dug his boots in and shot forward out of his crouch, just in time to see two explosions in the snow where he had been lying. The killers had seen him too and were now firing. Harvath took off as fast as his legs would carry him.

There wasn’t enough time to try to do another quick change to throw the men off his path. His only hope was to outrun them, or lose them somehow in the village.

Wengen played host every year to the world’s longest downhill ski race, the Lauberhorn. Although downhill had not been Scot’s area of expertise, he had come to Wengen to see the race twice and cheer on the American team, as well as competitors he knew from other countries.

The village hadn’t changed much since he’d last been here. Completely devoid of cars, it seemed frozen in time. Were Goethe to come back to revisit the nine-hundred-foot-high Staubach waterfall, only the fashions would seem out of place.