Chapter 5
Switzerland was a mountain and inside the mountain was a compound that Nia described to Zoe, in the first encrypted call Jyn’s communications team set up, as “like if someone built a luxury hotel inside a Bond villain’s lair, but with better coffee and a dedicated chef.”
The compound occupied the lower half of what appeared from the outside to be a very large and very private estate in the Bernese Oberland, accessible by a road that required a code and a retinal scan and the patient evaluation of two men in positions that were technically described as groundskeepers but whose physical presence suggested a different professional specialization. The main building was warm stone and large windows and in-floor heating and somehow, despite being a fortress, didn’t feel like one from inside.
Leo’s first complete sentence upon arrival, having woken when they transferred from the car to the building, was: “Big house, Mama.”
“Yes, buddy.”
“Dog live here?”
Thor, who had been transported in a climate-controlled vehicle compartment and had emerged appearing entirely unimpressed by the journey, padded over to Leo at that moment and sat down in front of him with the seriousness of a creature reporting for duty.
Leo grabbed both of Thor’s ears. Thor allowed this.
“Dog live here now,” Leo confirmed to himself, nodding.
Nia watched her son and the massive dog conduct their greeting and thought about the first time Thor had jumped the fence, about Mr. Bun Bun soggy and triumphant in those enormous jaws, about the way she had stood at the intercom of the murder mansion and shouted at a camera.
She thought about Thor shaking the yellow blanket to dislodge the scorpion.
She thought about the hand in the bushes.
She thought: I owe that dog an enormous amount more than one ribeye steak.
Jyn appeared at her shoulder, having handled the coordination of arriving vehicles and staff with the quiet efficiency that seemed to be his primary mode of existence. He watched Leo and Thor. Something in his face did the unguarded thing again.
“He’s not afraid of anything,” Jyn said, with the tone of a man filing this as information.
“He was afraid of the vacuum cleaner until six months ago,” Nia said. “And the man at the bodega on 5th who has a very loud laugh. But otherwise yes, relatively fearless.”
“He gets that from you.”
“He gets fearlessness from the person who tore up five million dollars?”
“You were angry. Fear would have taken the money.”
She considered this. “I was angry and afraid.”
“I know.” He paused. “You didn’t show the fear.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice not showing it.”
They stood there for a moment, watching Leo attempt to use Thor as a pillow while Thor demonstrated approximately infinite patience.
Gigi swept past them with the decisiveness of a woman who had been in unfamiliar places before and had learned that the fastest way to feel at home in them was to immediately begin reorganizing the kitchen. Secretary Han, who had arrived ahead of them to handle logistics, watched her enter his carefully arranged staff kitchen with the expression of a man who understood he was about to lose a professional conflict but didn’t yet know the terms.
“Your grandmother,” Jyn said.
“Yes.”
“She frightens me.”
“Good,” Nia said. “That’s the correct response.”
