For thirty-five minutes they could feel the motion as the van was moved out of the city. They could sense and hear the truck accelerate as it reached a highway, and later slow and twist around curves as it left the major thoroughfare. Not long after, all motion stopped. Wherever the Russians, Yuri Zayysev and the woman, Ludmilla, who’d pretended to be Kara, were taking him, Isphording assumed they’d arrived.

He and his guard waited in silence for something to happen. The minutes crept by slowly.

What the lawyer couldn’t see from the back of the armored van was that Linc and the others were waiting for Juan to arrive. As soon as he pulled his Mercedes SUV between the tractor trailer and Julia’s Volkswagen, Hali closed the big overhead door. Because of the overcast sky, the light coming through the opaque skylights cast the big warehouse in murky shadow. Hali snapped on a few overhead lamps, but it did little to soften the building’s gloomy air.

Cabrillo’s SUV was powdered with cement dust, and the chairman himself was grimy. He accepted a damp cloth from Julia to wipe the worst of the dust from his face. He also drank down a half liter of water. “So far, so good,” he congratulated his people. “Looks like no one had any trouble getting here, so let’s open this tin can and finish it. Linc, I couldn’t tell when I lowered the truck into the rig, which way is it facing?”

“It’s facing the rear doors.”

“That should make this a little easier.” Juan grabbed a Heckler&Koch MP-5 machine pistol from a workbench and slid the strap over his shoulder. He also palmed a pair of round grenades. They were dummy practice grenades but would look indistinguishable from the real things to the guards in the van. He passed around black ski masks to everyone and lowered his over his face so only his eyes and mouth were exposed. The others had also armed themselves with an assortment of pistols and machine guns.

Once everyone was ready at the rear of the trailer, he unlatched the door. He gave his people a five-second countdown and swung open the door with a jerk. All five of them swarmed up inside the trailer, jumping onto the van’s long hood, waving their weapons and shouting incoherently. The Swiss driver and the guard riding shotgun had service pistols in their hands, but through the bulletproof glass they were at a standoff. Before the driver could start the engine and try to drive out of the trailer, Juan leered into the windscreen and showed off the grenades.

He pointed at each man and then at the doors before pulling the pin from one of the grenades. There was no mistaking his intention.