Текст книги "Conviction (2009)"

Автор книги: David Michaels

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Across the floor Hansen was moving, rolling to the left and withdrawing his leg from the hole. Kimberly had freed him. Fisher strapped the OPSAT to his wrist, returned to the hatch, and started downward. Footsteps clanged up the ladder across the room and, as his head dropped below floor level, he saw Kimberly's figure sprinting across to Hansen, who was climbing back to his feet. Hansen's taut posture told Fisher the team leader had failed to see the humor in his paracord trick.

Fisher repeated his trapeze act until he was back on the lintel shelf. Crouched over and taking careful, quiet steps, he headed south, stopping every ten feet to listen. Whether his ruse was working, he couldn't tell. As he drew even with the hole in which he'd entered the foundry, a pair of figures–Vin and Blondie–appeared on the floor below, silently sprinting north, trailing a cloud of dust. Fisher stopped, crouched down, and checked the OPSAT. It appeared Hansen had bought, at least for the time being, Ames's malfunction message, having used his command function to switch the team's comms from VOICE to VOICE + TEXT TRANSCRIPTION. As the transcription was coded by OPSAT number rather than name, Fisher couldn't tell who was who, but with Ames having gone solo, Hansen would have teamed up with Kimberly. In near-real time, Fisher watched the dialogue pop on the screen:In subbasement, north side . . . nothing yet . . .

Third-floor north clear, heading south . . .

Ames, report. Say position. Ames, respond . . .

Starting to get worried now, Fisher thought. He stood up and continued on.

Hansen was sharp; at most, he'd give Ames another minute to respond and then order a regroup. If he and Kimberly had, in fact, seen the footprints heading toward the ladder hatch, Hansen would realize his mistake, his assumption. By then it wouldn't matter. With the now-four-person team converging on the second-floor north wall, he would be moving south, toward–

Even before Fisher shifted his weight to his forward foot, he knew something was wrong, could feel the sole of his boot sliding sideways on the spot of grease or rainwater or whatever it was on the concrete. Before he could react, he was falling through space. The floor loomed before him. At the last moment he reached out and smacked his palm against a section of pipe. He twisted sideways, slowed ever so slightly; then his body was horizontal and falling again. He curled himself in a ball, arms wrapped around his head, legs tucked to his chest.

The loam softened the impact, but he still felt as if he'd taken a body blow from a heavyweight boxer. Swirling sparks burst behind his eyes.

He heard a crack, then a pop, then silence.

The floor splintered beneath him; then he was falling again.

7

HAVINGpunched a ragged, man-sized hole through the floor, Fisher found himself falling amid a cloud of dust and ash that obscured his vision save for a few jumbled glimpses of concrete, steel pipes, and moonlight glinting off water. Water. The canal.With no way of knowing how deep it was, he scrambled to right himself, twisting his torso and flailing his arms until his internal gyroscope told him he was right side up. He spread his limbs like a parachutist, sucked in a breath, and set his jaw.

The impact felt like someone had slapped him in the sternum with a twelve-inch plank. His world went dark and quiet. Despite being shielded from the sun, the water was surprisingly warm. His head broke the surface. He checked his waistband: The SC pistol was still there. He checked his wrist: The OPSAT was gone.

The stench of algae, mold, and animal decomposition filled his nostrils. The surface was covered in patches of greenish gray slime. Here and there he saw clumps of what looked like fur and feathers. This answered one of his earlier questions: This canal, wherever it began and ended, saw little freshwater circulation. Flanked on both sides by narrow concrete walkways and high walls interspersed with arched doorways, the canal was about thirty feet wide; whether it extended the length of the foundry proper, he couldn't tell.

Through the hole in the floor/ceiling he saw the glimmer of approaching flashlights accompanied by the muffled plodding of multiple sets of feet. Fisher looked around. The canal walls were smooth, vertical concrete rising at least four feet off the water's surface. Thirty yards away, on the right side of the canal, he could make out a set of steps rising from the water and, opposite them, an archway through which pale moonlight streamed. He'd never reach the steps in time, and with the team's adrenaline and anger levels spiked, he had to assume at least one of the gun barrels about to be jammed through the ceiling hole would be spitting bullets. Above, powdery loam gushed through the hole as feet skidded to a stop at its edge.

Fisher blew out all the air in his lungs, refilled them, and ducked beneath the slime. Immediately, he realized his belly-flop entry had been the right move: The canal's muddy bottom was only four feet down. His submersion had improved his situation only slightly. They would see the ripples he'd left behind. He was just rolling over, sweeping his arms and legs into a powerful, scissoring sidestroke, when he heard the first pfftstrike the water behind him. Whether it was a bullet or an LTL projectile, he didn't know, but the first shot was immediately followed by several more, then a dozen in rapid succession, punching into the water to his right, to the rear, and in front as the shooters tried to bracket him.

He arched his back into a left-hand turn, heading for the canal wall, hoping the combination of the acute angle and the hole's jagged shape would make aiming more difficult. It did. The gunfire tapered off, then died away. Fisher kept stroking, gaining distance until he judged he was opposite the steps. Using his palms against the wall to control his ascent, he stopped a couple of inches below the surface. The murk made it impossible to see either the hole in the ceiling or any signs of light. He shifted his head a bit so he was centered under a plate-sized patch of slime, then let his eyes break the surface. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Now he could see the hole. Nothing moved. No light visible. Someone was there, if only to serve as overwatch as the rest of the team tried to find a way down to the basement. He couldn't wait any longer.

Keeping his head still, he reached behind his back, drew the SC out of his waistband, brought it around, and shut off the LAM, or laser aiming module, with his thumb. No use advertising his intentions. He let the pistol slowly rise to the surface until just the barrel was exposed. The angle was difficult and he was shooting from the hip, and he was trying to miss–a contradiction at which the tactical part of his brain balked.

He fired. The bullet punched into the closer edge of the hole. Another equipment improvement: The SC's noise suppressor was quieter still; the shot was no louder than a gloved hand clap. Fisher snapped off three more shots, then dove under, pushed sideways off the wall, and kicked to the steps. Five seconds later he was out of the water, through the arch, and crouched against the brick wall.

He was in a courtyard, roughly a hundred feet square, bordered on the left and right by window-lined wings of the main building; opposite him, a twelve-foot-high hedgerow leading . . . where? In the distance he heard the faint roar of a crowd and a tinny voice speaking through a loudspeaker. The soccer stadium.Fisher thought it over: It might work. First, he'd have to get there in one piece.

He heard the screeching of rusted steel. He looked up. On the wing's fire escape, a door was being shoved open. A body appeared in the gap, trying to push its way out. Fisher glanced across at the hedgerow, then back at the emerging figure.

A voice shouted, "In the arch! Three o'clock low!"

That settled it. Fisher dashed back through the arch, turned right, and sprinted down the walkway. The basement was cavernous, at least the length of a football field. He reached the far wall, turned left onto a catwalk suspended over the canal, then left again onto the walkway, then a quick right into the next arch. He stopped, listened. In the courtyard the door gave one final shriek, then slammed open. Boots pounded the fire-escape stairs. He closed his eyes, trying to gauge how many sets of feet; it was impossible to tell.

Fisher clicked on his penlight. He was in a maintenance tunnel. Just a few inches wider than his shoulders and lined with yet more conduits, pipes, and wall-mounted ladders, it ran from south to north. He tried to place himself on the mental map he'd been keeping. He was somewhere beneath where he'd first entered the building. He turned off his penlight.

The pounding of boots stopped, and in his mind's eye he could see figures racing across the courtyard.

Give them something to think about. Slow them down.

He ducked around the corner, took aim on the center of the canal, and fired three shots. All three rounds impacted within a half inch of one another. A second later a pair of figures–one on either side of the courtyard arch–peeked around the corner.

Fisher took off, sprinting on flat feet until he reached the first ladder. He started upward. After ten feet he found himself enclosed in a shaft; another twenty feet brought him to what, in the dim light, looked like a door. He clicked on his penlight, saw a rusted doorknob, clicked it off again. First floor, he assumed. He kept climbing, passing the second and third floors. The ladder came to an abrupt end. He groped above his head and traced out a square of sheet metal. A hatch. He found the handle and gave it a test push, expecting to feel resistance and hear the grating of steel on steel. Instead, the hatch opened smoothly, noiselessly. He froze. Someone had been here recently.

Probing with his index finger, he found one of the hinges; it was coated in oil. He brought his finger to his nose and sniffed. Then smiled. Bacon grease. This ruled out Hansen and company and ruled in urban explorers or, more likely, poor teenagers looking for a nocturnal adventure in their small Luxembourgian town.

Down the shaft he heard the scuff of a boot, followed by a pebble skittering across concrete. He eased the hatch shut and turned himself on the ladder so he was pressed against the wall. A flashlight beam appeared in the maintenance tunnel, widening and growing brighter as its owner approached. The flashlight went dark.

Then on again–this time pointing directly up the shaft. Half expecting this, Fisher had shielded his eyes with his palm. Still, he felt a deer-in-the-headlights moment of panic. He quashed the sensation. He was sixty feet off the ground. The flashlight beam was strong, but not strong enough to reach him. If, however, the person at the end of the beam decided to fire an exploratory shot . . . The cliche "fish in a barrel" came to mind.

The flashlight blinked off. Fisher took his hand away in time to see a figure move past the shaft opening and out of sight. Where's your partner? Come on . . .

A second flashlight popped on, probed the shaft, then went out again.

Fisher waited a full minute, then eased open the hatch, lifted the prop-arm into place, then climbed out and shut the hatch behind him. The E-shaped flat roof was an expanse of patchy gravel, peeling tar paper, and exposed ceiling planks interspersed with skylights and squat brick chimneys. On the western side he could see the roofs of three of the complex's watchtowers, for lack of a better term. He assumed they'd served as control booths from which foremen oversaw the foundry floor. To his east were upper (north) and lower (south) arms of the E–the two wings enclosing the courtyard. Overhanging the north wing's roof, and silhouetted against the night sky like a massive ball of cotton, were the boughs of an oak tree.

Not the most noble of exits, Fisher thought, scrambling down a tree like a kid, but it would work all the same.

Taking careful steps and sticking to exposed wood, he picked his way across the roof to the north wing. Closer up, the oak was even more massive than he'd imagined, reaching nearly 120 feet into the sky. The smallest limb overhanging the roof was the size of his waist. He'd taken his first step onto the branch when he heard a female voice behind him say, "Don't move a muscle."

Fisher neither turned nor hesitated. He jumped.

8

FISHERbolted awake to screaming and the pounding of feet, but his mind immediately clicked over, translating the sounds from potential threat to reality: children giggling as they ran down the hall outside his room. Youth hostel . . . Luxembourg city.He checked his watch. He'd been asleep for four hours. It took a few more moments to piece together the events of the night before.

Knowing the oak was sturdy enough to take his weight, he had been less worried about plunging to the ground after leaping off the foundry's roof than he was about catching a bullet in the back. Whether the shooter, whoever she was, had been too startled to fire or had simply decided her chances of a hit were nil, Fisher didn't know, but his descent through the boughs had prevented any further attempts. So far Blondie and Kimberly had exercised good fire discipline; it seemed unlikely they'd hose down the oak.

Mostly bouncing from limb to limb but occasionally managing to swing himself closer to the trunk, Fisher crashed through the tree, picking up plenty of bruises and scratches but no serious injuries. He managed to arrest his fall ten feet from the ground. Hanging from the lowermost limb, he waited for his body to stop swinging, then dropped the remaining distance.

He raced across the side street behind the foundry, rue Barbourg, then zigzagged his way through alleys while keeping the lights of the soccer stadium in view. Three minutes after dropping from the tree, he was standing at a ticket booth outside the main entrance, and a minute after that he was in the stadium itself, along with five thousand cheering fans who'd come to see the match starring the home team, the Jeunesse Esch. He took a few moments to consult a Plexiglas board showing the stadium's layout, then found a bathroom and ducked into a stall, where he changed clothes. A quick stop at a souvenir shop and he had a Windbreaker and baseball cap bearing the team's distinctive black and yellow logo. Finally, he made his way around the field to the east-side exit, then across the frontage road and down another embankment into some trees.

The CFL train station was now out of the question; upon realizing they'd lost him at the foundry, it would be the first place they'd stake out. The same with Esch-sur-Alzette. They would assume he'd look for the next easiest mode of escape, namely a bus or rental car; with the town's population less than twenty-seven thousand, Hansen and his team would have little trouble scouring stations and agencies. Fisher needed distance, as much and as quickly as he could manage.

Fisher got out his iPhone and called up Google Earth. To the east were three towns within three miles: Rumelange, Kayl, and Tetange. Fisher chose the latter. It had a train station and the intervening terrain was mostly farm fields and forest. After downing an energy bar with a few gulps of water, he started running.

ITtook him forty minutes to reach Tetange's western outskirts. From there it was a quarter mile stroll to the station. His luck was holding. He bought a ticket on the night's last train heading north and, after a brief stop in Bettembourg, he was on his way toward the city of Luxembourg–and a youth hostel full of, predictably, young tourists and their even younger children. On the plus side, Luxembourgian hostels were rarely fully occupied, so he had a communal room to himself and, most important, no credit card was required.

He made his bed, then opened his rucksack and removed its contents and went about checking supplies. The SC he'd taken off Ames was gone, disassembled and tossed into a river during his jog to Tetange the night before. The rest of his delicate gear seemed undamaged, tucked safely away in Aloksaks. He would need to restock his staples, but a few quick stops to military surplus, hardware, and hobby shops would do the trick. Of course, with any luck by dawn tomorrow he'd have all the gear he needed for the foreseeable future.

He repacked everything but his clothes and stuffed all of those into a garbage bag, except for a pair of dark khaki trousers, a long-sleeved navy rugby shirt, and a pair of brown loafers. Finally, he shaved, showered, re-dressed, and left, tossing the garbage bag into the Dumpster behind the hostel. It was almost nine, so he had an hour to kill.

In contrast to most of the rest of the city, the hostel itself was contemporary in design, with a stark white-stucco and glass facade; it lay situated between the Pfaffenthal Viaduct, an elevated, arched train overpass, and a park of labyrinthine and concentric hedgerows.

The city of Luxembourg started in the fourth century as nothing more than a Roman watchtower at the intersection of two roads and remained that way for another six hundred years before the construction of the Lucilinburhuc, or Little Fortress. Over the next three centuries Lucilinburhuc morphed into Luxembourg. For Fisher, who had spent a good portion of the last eighteen months traveling Europe, Luxembourg epitomized Old World charm, with rolling cobblestone streets, some barely wide enough to accommodate two cars; winding rivers and moats; and steeply sloped and spired rooflines.

Fisher got to the meeting place, a shop-lined alleyway on rue de l'Eau, a few blocks from the Grand Ducal Palace, an hour early, then found a small restaurant with a terrace overlooking a park and ordered breakfast. He hadn't eaten a real meal in two days, so he asked for uitsmijter–bread, Gouda cheese, Ardennes ham, and fried eggs–along with quetsche tort, all followed up by two cups of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee.

He felt better, both physically and mentally. He had some breathing room, some time to think and plan before Hansen and his team would reappear. Whether they would be able to track him here on their own, he didn't know, but he was doubtful: He'd paid for his CFL ticket using cash and an Emmanuel credit card; he'd changed out of his black and yellow Jeunesse Esch -fan outfit before reaching Bettembourg, and both the train and the station at Luxembourg had been all but deserted.

Fisher sipped at his third cup of Yirgacheffe, then checked his watch.

Almost time.

TENminutes later a slight man with blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses came beetling through the park toward the restaurant. Of course, "beetling" wasn't exactly right, was it? Fisher thought. Vesa Hytonen's movements were more birdlike. Somehow Hytonen managed to exude both furtiveness and inconspicuousness at the same time. To passersby he was, Fisher suspected, just another funny little man–a cloistered scientist or a persnickety librarian, someone you found momentarily interesting but almost immediately forgot. If Vesa ever decided to graduate from information cutout to full-fledged agent or intelligence operative, the espionage world might never be the same.

Of Finnish and Belgian descent, Vesa was, in fact, a scientist–a biochemist–but he also held postdoctorate degrees in European literature and African history and had begun tinkering in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, both of which were, according to Vesa, merely hobbies to help pass the time.

When he reached the edge of the park, Vesa gave no sign that he'd seen Fisher but rather turned left down the block, bird-walked his way around a couple of pedestrians, then into a bookshop. He emerged carrying a newspaper in his right hand and headed down the block away from Fisher. Vesa dropped the newspaper. When he retrieved it, he folded it lengthwise and stuffed it into his outside jacket pocket with the top headline showing. Fisher got up and followed. After twenty minutes of dry-cleaning, Fisher decided neither of them was being watched. He gave Vesa the all clear signal–a simple scratch of the ear while they waited, with some other pedestrians, at a crosswalk–then broke off. They met back at the City Central Park and sat down on a bench near a fountain.

"Good to see you again, Vesa," Fisher said.

Hytonen darted his eyes to meet Fisher's for a moment, then bobbed his head. "And you, and you."

"What do you have for me?"

"I've been told that the man you're interested in will in fact be at his Vianden home for the next three days."

The man in question was a man named Yannick Ernsdorff. An Austrian in his mid-fifties, Ernsdorff had until ten years earlier worked as a legitimate, if ruthless, investment banker in Vienna. Why and exactly how Ernsdorff had chosen the profession that had occupied him in recent years was anyone's guess, but he had become the go-to financial manager to the underworld's uberwealthy. What Einstein and Planck were to physics, Ernsdorff was to the sheltering and laundering of money. To even get the Austrian on the phone, prospective clients had to have a minimum net worth of one hundred million dollars.

As of late, however, Yannick Ernsdorff had expanded his menu of services to include the role of banker for a very special auction, the details of which were what Fisher required before he could make his next move. With luck, Ernsdorff's secrets would be the shove Fisher needed to set the dominoes falling.

"Security contingent?" he now asked Hytonen.

"I should have satellite imagery by this afternoon."

"Blueprints?"

"The same. I did, however, come across an item in the news that I thought would interest you." Hytonen handed Fisher a newspaper clipping.

Fisher scanned it. Yannick Ernsdorff, it seemed, was either a philanthropist or he'd decided the appearance of philanthropy was a deductible business expense: The previous year he'd spent three million dollars building an Outward Bound-style children's challenge course on the grounds of his five-hundred-acre waterfront estate outside Vianden. Starting that summer, underprivileged children from across Europe could come to enjoy rock-climbing walls, zip lines, rope bridges, obstacle courses, spelunking treasure hunts, and hide-and-seek among dozens of multilevel tree-house complexes.

"Almost makes me wish I were a kid again," Fisher replied dryly. "Please tell me this place isn't named Yannickland."

"Challenge Discovery Park," replied Hytonen. "There's a website. Many pictures and maps."

How nice of Yannick, Fisher thought. "I need you to pass along a few questions."

"Go ahead."

"One, ask about ROE," Fisher said, referring to the rules of engagement. "Not mine. She'll know what it means."

"Very well."

"Two, our Japanese friend seems to have attracted some attention. I need to know everything she knows. And three, I'll need all their operational frequencies, both data and voice, and the makes and models of any cell phones they're carrying."

Hytonen nodded. He'd written nothing down, having filed the information away in his mental vault. Fisher had seen a number of keystone spook traits in Vesa, but near the top of the list was his astounding memory. Fisher had no doubt that if asked, Vesa could draw an exact map of Ernsdorff's property from his brief visit to the Challenge Discovery Park website. Likewise, the queries he'd just recited would be passed along, verbatim.

"I will strive to have answers by this afternoon."

"Thanks. What about the caches?"

"There are three of them within the borders of Luxembourg, and another four in northern France, eastern Belgium, and western Germany–"

"No more borders for a while." More often than not, border crossings went smoothly, but they were in Fisher's mind a lot like air travel: Most aircraft accidents happen during takeoffs and landings, and the odds of an incident occurring increased with repetition.

"Of course. The key codes are unchanged, and the equipment is of the penultimate generation."

"'Penultimate?'"

"It means–"

"I know what it means. Second to latest. I've just never heard anyone actually use the word in a sentence."

"Thank you. Standard antitampering measures are in place, so if you–"

"Everything goes boom."

"Well, yes, I suppose so," Hytonen said with another birdlike head bob. "You'll want to exercise caution."

Fisher smiled ruefully. "Story of my life, Vesa."

THEYmade plans to meet again later that afternoon; then Fisher walked a few blocks to a mom-and-pop car agency and rented a dark green 2001 Range Rover. He used a pair of Emmanuel's sanitized passports and credit cards; he still had the Doucet batch but would not use any of those unless absolutely necessary. He'd ridden that particular trick pony hard during his Esch-sur-Alzette border crossing, and while Hansen and his team would have no choice but to investigate should he use the IDs or cards again, Fisher doubted they would fall for such a ruse so completely again.

Before leaving the parking lot he got his iPhone, called up the maps application, and punched in an address in Bavigne, a quaint village of 125 souls, sitting along a channel of the Sauer River about sixty kilometers northwest of the city of Luxembourg. He took his time with the drive, exploring and enjoying the Luxembourgian countryside before finally pulling into Bavigne shortly before one. He found a restaurant, the Auberge, and ordered what turned out to be one of the best meals of his life: lobster soup with langoustine tails, Ardennes salad, game terrine on a bed of salad, confit of red plums, and a lemon tartelettefor dessert.

One for the list, Fisher decided. As of late he'd started a mental list of potential retirement spots. Bavigne had just jumped into his top ten. Quiet, secluded, and bucolic.

He lingered over coffee for another hour, then paid the bill and drove out of town, following the iPhone's on-screen directions: first heading northeast, then south again along the Sauer, between farmers' fields and the tree-lined banks of the river, until he crossed over a covered wooden bridge and found himself in a clearing dominated by a log cabin. He got out, mounted the porch, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked a second time and waited a full minute before circling the cabin and checking windows and satisfying himself that no one was home.

He walked back to the rear and down six steps to a wooden root cellar door. The padlock hanging from the hasp was relatively new, an all-weather Viro marine model; at the turn of Fisher's key it snapped open smoothly.

The root cellar was dark and cool, the temperature hovering in the mid-sixties. Fisher clicked on his flashlight and entered. Momentarily caught in his beam, a rat skittered across the dirt floor and disappeared. Fisher stopped in the center of the cellar, took a moment to orient himself, then walked to the southeast corner, shoved some empty fruit crates out of the way, and set his flashlight on one of them. He knelt down and began brushing at the dirt with both hands until a four-by-three-foot rectangular outline appeared. He felt along the edges until he found a thumb hole and lifted the hatch, revealing a shallow dug-out. At its center sat a black plastic case the size of a large suitcase. It was in fact a DARPA-modified model 1650 Pelican case complete with an encrypted-keypad lock and an antitampering system that consisted of a C-4-shaped charge designed to destroy the case's contents.

Fisher lifted the case out of its hole and laid it flat on the ground with the keypad facing him. He pulled out his iPhone, called up the calculator application, then punched in the cabin's latitude coordinates, subtracted the longitude, and divided the resulting number by the current algorithm, a random four-digit number spit out by the mainframes at Fort Meade every month. Fisher took a deep breath, tapped the code into the keypad, and pressed ENTER. A series of six red lights across the front of the pad began flashing, and then slowly, one by one, began turning green. There was a soft beep followed by a triple mechanical snick.

Fisher flipped open the latches along the perimeter of the Pelican's lid, then lifted it. He smiled. "Hello, old friends."

FISHERwas back in Luxembourg by five. He and Hytonen met at yet another park, this one was across town. As he sat down, Vesa dropped a tiny object to the ground between them; Fisher glanced at it. A key. He covered it with his foot.

"A storage locker at Findel airport," Hytonen said.

"All the information you requested."

"Thanks."

"I have a special message from our mutual friend. She says there's a mole."

"Say that again."

"There's a mole. Someone inside the group following you."

"She's sure?"

"Reasonably so, I expect, or she wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Good point."

"How or to whom the information is going, she doesn't know."

"But it involves me," Fisher said.

"Yes. She is working on the problem, but she suggests, and these are her words, 'Don't hold your breath.' "

Fisher smiled. "That sounds like her."

"Will you be needing me again?"

"Probably. I'll keep you posted via the Lycos account. Check the drafts folder every morning. If it's more urgent, I'll leave a message for Heinrich."

"I will. Good luck to you."

And then Hytonen was gone, walking down the path with his birdlike steps.

9

VIANDEN , LUXEMBOURG

THEnext morning Fisher pulled to a stop in a parking lot overlooking the Our River and shut off the Range Rover's engine. Vianden had just jumped onto Fisher's retirement list above even Bavigne. Situated in a shallow valley along the Our River, Vianden and its fifteen hundred residents lived in what looked to Fisher like a Grimms' fairy tale come to life, with gingerbread-style homes in muted pastel shades, cobbled river walkways, and arched stone bridges. He could see castles rising from the mist atop several nearby hills, their lower reaches shrouded in trees. Fisher shook himself from his reverie and got out.