Zürich

Zürich Airport
Source

The four FSB¹ agents got off their plane at Zürich's airport and headed to Customs, as Russia was not part of the Schengen area,² they were required to go through Customs. Loshchilov wasn't worried about that, the FSB's document section was superb. Their passports were not in their own names, but one would have been hard-pressed to spot them as fake.

Two men, two women, Loshchilov liked having his team look as normal as possible, two married couples traveling together looked far less suspicious (and less threatening) than four men traveling together. He had brought Iosif Semyonovich Koltsov, Angelika Zakryatina Savelievna, and Lara Cherkashina Borisovna. Savelievna would pose as his wife, Koltsov and Borisovna were the other couple in the group.

According to their passports he and Angelika were Klaus and Johanna Winkmann, Koltsov and Borisovna were Josef and Lara Gruber. They were posing as Germans from the Berlin area. Which fit well as all had spent time in Berlin and when they spoke German, they spoke as a Berliner would.

Customs was a breeze and soon they had collected all of their belongings and had loaded up their rental car. Loshchilov had booked a very nice hotel for them, after all the FSB was paying for it. As the area was popular with tourists, they would have no trouble fitting in.

Ruben Klerk, from South African, had made his fortune in the illicit diamond trade, now he listed his profession as "financier," which was, on the face of it, true. However, most of the things his money financed were illegal and caused people to die in unpleasant ways. He was a major player in the illegal weapons trade. An acquaintance had once joked at a party that "Ruben has his fingers in more revolutions than Lenin!"

It had gotten a good laugh at the party, six weeks later when that man had died in an unfortunate boating accident, Klerk wondered if he had been laughing then.

He didn't feel a part of the group, perhaps because of all of the millionaires, three were actually billionaires, he was the "poorest" of the group, he was worth less than 350 million dollars. It angered him at times. Obrecht bossed everyone around, the man was nothing better than a thug. Claimed to be Swiss, was about as Swiss as a Kalashnikov.

He knew that Lima, Mallet, Baum, and Tahara detested the man. Haghighi he wasn't sure of, he seemed friendly towards Obrecht one moment, then he'd disparage him behind his back. Guy was two faced and Klerk didn't trust him, then again, he trusted no one.

The women had gone out shopping, there were certain things which could be obtained locally which they would need for their mission. Koltsov was on his laptop, gathering information on the target area. Google Maps, local surveys, tax data, he had never ceased to be amazed how much information could be gleaned from the Internet.

Loshchilov, for his part, was headed down to the Oberdorfstrasse to visit Russia's honorary consul in Zürich. While it wasn't much of an office, they did have diplomatic immunity and could ship things via diplomatic pouch.

Loshchilov carried a rather hefty briefcase with him, at the moment it contained a number of documents which would be normal for an arms dealer to carry about. He carried papers identifying him as a representative of the Germans arms company Rheinmetall. Moscow chose that cover as they had made a lot of money supporting Ukraine in one of the early wars. He considered it the second, some called it simply a continuation of the first. The third (or second, depending on how you counted it) had been won by Russia, though with crippling losses. Moscow felt that Rheinmetall should pay for that, this little operation would not benefit that company.

He arrived at the consulate, a fairly nondescript place sharing a building with a local architect. But he didn't care about that, the consul had a package for him, something needed to send a message to a certain group based near Zürich.

His briefcase was rather heavier when he left the consulate. He now had the weapons and explosives needed for their little task. He also had a phone number, apparently someone inside the group his team would be visiting wanted to change sides. As the lake wasn't far from the consulate, he decided to walk down there, it would be a good place to make a phone call.

When he arrived and found an empty bench, there were many as it was October and the weather, while still clear, was getting rather chilly. He set his briefcase down and pulled out the phone the consul had provided him. He hit '1' on speed dial.

"Yes?"

The voice sounded almost Dutch, with just a hint of an unfamiliar accent. Loshchilov spoke, "This is Herr Winkmann, am I speaking to Herr Klerk?"

"How did you get this number?" the voice spoke, it struck Loshchilov that the man was South African, not Dutch.

"A mutual friend, a Frau Siegler from Bern."

"Oh, that Herr Winkmann Sorry, it's been a hectic day. Can we meet? Perhaps for dinner?"

"I would like that, Herr Klerk. I am not that familiar with Zürich (a lie), perhaps you could suggest a place?"

"Yes, elmira, it's a favorite of mine, the food is exquisite. Are you familiar with it?"

"No, but I'm sure my hotel's concierge is. I'm at the Sheraton."

"Oh yes, they'll know. How about 9:00 PM?"

"That would be excellent."

"Give the maître d'hôtel my name when you arrive. I look forward to meeting with you."

The man disconnected. Loshchilov was suspicious, the man seemed far too eager. Ah well, he would bring Koltsov with him as backup. Koltsov would be armed, just in case this was a setup.

"Do you think there are more nukes out there, Admiral?" the President asked.

Admiral Choe nodded, "I do, Sir. CIA has been hearing rumblings out of the Black Sea for a few weeks now. They think the weapons came out of Tashkent. We've done some research, the Uzbeks held on to at least ten Soviet-era tactical weapons. They tried to test one in 2027, it fizzled. Seems Soviet quality control was as bad as some people thought."

"Would our nukes go off after sitting in storage for years?" Bill Aspinall asked.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Finally the President nodded, "Yes, only one way to determine that, and we agreed with the Soviets to not do that. So, that aside, even if the baddies managed to get one into a city and it fizzled ..."

"That's still going to generate radiation and other bad things. It wouldn't look good." Aspinall said.

Beth Chapman looked at Aspinall, she looked angry.

"You have something to share, Commander?" the President asked.

"Well Sir, if you were nearby when it 'fizzled,"' you'd be dead. There is a lot of high explosives in those damned things. Even if it didn't compress the nuclear material sufficiently to set off a reaction, that's still a big bomb." Chapman explained.

Choe nodded, "A big dirty bomb."

Nakagawa stood up, "Whatever you need, let Mr. Aspinall know, we have to stop this. By any means necessary. Is that understood?"

Three voices said, "Yes Sir," nearly in unison.

¹ The FSB is the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the successor to the KGB (Committee for State Security).

² See here.