Innocent as Sin

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Former ambassador James B. Steele rolled into the conference room on the fifty-seventh floor of the UBS Building as if he owned the television network headquartered there. He was fifteen minutes late and he didn’t apologize. He had more to bring to this meeting than the five people he’d kept waiting.

  “Good afternoon,” Steele said to everyone and no one.

  He guided the electric wheelchair over to the rosewood conference table. An overstuffed leather armchair blocked him from taking his place.

  “Oops. Okay, I’ll get that,” Ted Martin said quickly.

  “Thank you.”

  The field producer had been Steele’s principal UBS contact for the past two months of research and negotiations. As Martin scrambled to shove the armchair aside, Steele rolled forward. His position put him opposite the most important man in the room, Howard Prosser, executive producer of The World in One Hour.

  Steele greeted Prosser and nodded to the most famous face at the table, Brent Thomas. Being the best-looking guy in a war zone drew a television audience, but Steele had seen his own war zones. They hadn’t been nearly as pretty as Thomas, who was one of the network’s hottest correspondents. And the most ambitious. Fortunately for Steele’s plans, Thomas was as smart as he was camera-ready.

  “Deb Carroll is our senior researcher,” Martin said, gesturing toward a woman who hadn’t attended any of the previous meetings. “She’ll be in charge of fact-checking all material before it hits the air.”

  Steele nodded. “I’ll look forward to your questions.”

  Carroll’s smile said she doubted it.

  “Stanley Carson is our corporate counsel,” Prosser said. “He insisted on attending the meeting.”

  Steele’s eyebrows, nearly black despite his silver hair, lifted. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Carson. Truth is an absolute defense against both libel and slander.”

  “We prefer to forestall suits rather than defend them.”

  “St. Kilda Consulting has no such aversion to conflicts, legal or otherwise,” Steele said pleasantly. “Mr. Thomas may be a pretty face, but he’s not stupid. He has documented the leads we gave him very carefully, as I’m sure Ms. Carroll will discover.”

  “I ran up thousands of miles on some of the worst airplanes that ever got off the ground,” Thomas said, his trained voice a mixture of rue and enthusiasm. “All to track down those former rebel commanders you recommended. Great tape on all of them, great interviews. It puts human faces to the arms traffic. That’s why Mr. Prosser is thinking about giving us the whole hour for the piece.”

  Prosser grimaced. “The final decision hasn’t been made to air the segment, short or long. There are crucial elements missing, including an interview with our subject, Mr. Bertone.”

  Steele shook his head slightly. “When we’re certain of his location, we’ll tell you, so that Thomas and a camera crew can confront him. But Andre Bertone won’t give you an interview. It isn’t in the man’s nature.”

  Prosser grinned. “No problem. Our audience sees silence as an admission of guilt.”

  “Hold it,” Carson said. “Before I allow this network to air an attack on a man who is an extremely wealthy businessman—and a United Nations diplomat, according to Thomas—I want to see proof.”

  Steele already knew about Bertone’s diplomatic credentials, but he was surprised they did. He looked at Thomas.

  “Nice work,” Steele said. “If you ever want to leave television, come see me at St. Kilda.”

  “Actually, St. Kilda Consulting is what we wanted to talk about today,” Prosser said quickly. “We’re a little, um, concerned about some aspects of your organization—”

  “And how your company’s rather unsavory international reputation might impact ours,” Carson cut in. “There are reports spreading in the European press that St. Kilda Consulting is a private army that hires itself out to the highest bidder. This network can’t afford to associate itself with mercenaries. Period. That sentiment comes all the way down from the sixty-first floor.”

  Steele looked at the researcher, who was examining her nail polish with great interest. “So you read Le Figaro,” he said to her in French.

  Surprised, she put hands over the folder in front of her almost protectively.

  “I assume you brought the article,” Steele said, switching to English.

  After a moment the researcher shrugged, opened the folder, and said, “It’s one of Europe’s leading newspapers, not some rag.”

  “Pass the article around,” Steele said. “Everyone should see what is being used in an effort to discredit St. Kilda Consulting.”

  She slid the single sheet of paper toward Prosser, a copy of the article. He picked it up and looked at it. “I don’t read French,” he said.

  “The pertinent section is about halfway down,” Steele said, taking the paper from him, “between the two typographic devices this particular gossip columnist uses to break up items in his screed. Correct my translation if you wish, Ms. Carroll.”

  She pulled a second copy of the article from the folder and read while Steele translated.

  “‘The American-based mercenary security organization St. Kilda Consulting, a group well known for collecting extortionate fees from private clients all over the world, is expanding its activities into central Africa, according to well-placed intelligence sources.

  “‘It is reported that the group, which outwardly operates as an independent investigative and security consulting firm, has been retained to cripple legitimate commercial intercourse between various French firms and customers in the French sphere of influence in Africa, which includes several countries on both sides of the equator.

  “‘It is not known if St. Kilda’s efforts are endorsed or perhaps even secretly sponsored by American interests or even the government itself, but various international investigators are pursuing all leads.’”

  Steele glanced toward the researcher and waited.

  “That’s an honest translation,” she said, faintly surprised.

  “That’s not how this article was represented to me,” Carson said. “It may be a respected newspaper, but this is a gossip column, not an investigative piece.”

  Carroll went back to looking at her nails.

  “The correspondent is a well-regarded journalist,” Steele said, “although that designation has different meanings in different places. He has excellent sources in the French political and security establishment, which is why his attack is so interesting. He has no particular reason to run the item, no news hook, as I believe you in the business call it. He’s just throwing mud.”

  Prosser winced.

  Martin began to relax.

  Carroll decided that she’d redo her nails in bloodred.

  “The attack on St. Kilda,” Steele said, “most likely comes from one of France’s largest energy companies. The company is seeking oil concessions all over Africa. In the past, the company has paid for such concessions with guns, bullets, aircraft, even machetes like the one that was used so many years ago to chop off John Neto’s hand.”

  “Wait a minute,” Brent Thomas broke in. “You’re saying that some French oil company is pulling strings behind the scenes, trading guns for oil with one hand and planting rumors with respected and influential journalists with the other?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s either crazy or the best damned news story I ever heard.”

  “It’s both,” Steele said.

  Carson leaned forward. “All I care about is Andre Bertone. He’s the man we’re putting in the UBS spotlight. He’s the one who’ll sue our balls off if he doesn’t like what we say.”

  “Bertone is the cutout for the oil company,” Steele said. “If you’re a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation with direct political connections, you don’t openly buy planeloads of guns and then hand them over to rebels who in return will give you multiyear oil concessions when they come to power.”

  Carson started taking notes.
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  “Andre Bertone is brokering the deal for the oil company,” Steele continued. “He used to be an ordinary middleman. Rebel groups would siphon barge loads of oil out of transnational pipelines and trade them to Bertone for cases of assault rifles. From there he bought planes and pilots. Now he’s an international energy broker who, if Neto is overthrown, will control millions of barrels of potential Camgerian production, which he’ll sell to the French for a long-term profit of a billion dollars.”

  Everyone sat up straighter.

  “Billion?” Prosser asked. “As in a thousand million dollars?”

  “Profit after bribes and kickbacks are paid, yes,” Steele said. “That’s why some very powerful and influential people in Paris are unhappy. They don’t want St. Kilda to interfere in a revolution that will enrich them so well.”

  “You can prove this, I suppose,” Carson said skeptically.

  “Not at all, Counselor,” Steele said, “which is why I advise you not to include any of this in your program. These kinds of charges are made only in intelligence briefings and later, much later, in history books. But that doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me,” Carson said.

  “Why? All your station has to prove is that Andre Bertone is, or has been, an international arms dealer, a ‘merchant of death,’ as Mr. Thomas calls him. Your reporter has already laid the groundwork for the story. Now I’m offering you the centerpiece for that program.”

  Steele reached into the leather saddlebag that hung beside his wheelchair and pulled out a heavy manila folder. He sent it sliding down the sleek table. The folder came to rest directly in front of Prosser.

  The executive producer hesitated, then opened the folder. Inside were computer copies of color photographs. They had about the same resolution as pictures printed on the inside pages of a newspaper. The first photo showed a burly Caucasian man in a white safari suit standing in the doorway of a transport aircraft on a dirt strip somewhere in a scrubland. The man was scowling directly into the lens.

  “Bertone?” Prosser asked.

  “Yes,” Steele said.

  “Deb, you have our only photo of the guy. Is this him?” He shoved the first print over to the researcher, who produced another file from her leather folio.

  “It could be,” she said. “This shot isn’t much cleaner than the one we have.”

  “St. Kilda’s photo was taken from a blind near a dirt strip in what was then the endless civil war/ethnic cleansing of the King’s Republic of Uhuru and is now the New Democracy of Camgeria,” Steele said. “The photo is five years old.”

  “Okay, our photo is a decade old,” Martin said. “In truth, we aren’t even sure it’s Bertone. It’s a possible rather than a probable ID. A pal of mine down in Langley got the photo for me. He said there was one positive ID photo taken five years ago, but he couldn’t get it for me. Looks like this could be the one.”

  Steele knew it was.

  Prosser was already sorting down through the other prints. Each one of them told a story—the loading of bags of contraband and the unloading of what were clearly cases of weapons.

  Then he flipped over a picture showing Bertone with a long sniper’s rifle in his hands, staring through the scope.

  “Mother,” he said, startled. “Looks like he was scoping the photographer.”

  “He was,” Steele said. “Notice that his hand isn’t on the trigger.”

  “Still, glad it wasn’t me.” Prosser blew out a breath. “These will make a great photomontage, if we can authenticate them.”

  “Look at the last photo.”

  Prosser turned over the last one. Everyone at the table except Steele crowded around to look over his shoulder.

  Bertone was somewhat shadowed inside the aircraft, but it was clear that he had shifted from watching to acting. His finger was on the trigger.

  “He fired a few seconds later,” Steele said. “A good young man died.”

  Prosser blew out another breath. “Shit.”

  “Pictures are easy to fake,” Carson said. “Remember the CBS National Guard memos.”

  Steele laughed out loud. “Those were badly done counterfeits. No intelligence agency would have bought them and no self-respecting journalist should have.”

  “The point is—” Carson began.

  “Photographic prints can be doctored, particularly in this day of digitization,” Steele interrupted. “The prints I brought are computer reproductions. I have the original prints in my safe.”

  “Talk to me about negatives,” Prosser said. “You can screw with prints, but negatives are real hard to fake convincingly.”

  “When and if UBS agrees to my terms,” Steele said, lying with the ease of the diplomat he’d once been, “I’ll produce the negatives. I’ll also see that you get an on-camera interview with the photographer.”

  “You told us he was killed,” Carroll said.

  “I said someone was killed. It was the spotter. The man who snapped the photos is still alive.”

  Martin grinned. “Okay! When can we have the interview?”

  Steele looked at his cell phone. No messages. Damn it, Faroe, is it too much to ask for you to check in occasionally? “In the next forty-eight hours. But first you must agree to the terms.”

  “Nobody edits my stuff,” Martin said.

  “I wouldn’t care to,” Steele said distinctly. “But if it comes to filming any St. Kilda employees, you will disguise their faces, and in some cases their voices. This isn’t negotiable.”

  Prosser grimaced. “But—”

  “Not negotiable,” Steele repeated. “Martin has known that from the beginning. And before you think about screwing me or my employees, think about what St. Kilda Consulting is: a good friend, a bad enemy.”

  Prosser looked irritated but didn’t argue. “What’s in this for you?”

  “Journalists rarely inquire as to the motivations of a good source,” Steele said evenly. “Gift horses and such. All that journalistic ethics requires of you is the belief that my information is valid. It is.”

  “We’ll be checking,” Prosser said, looking at Carroll. “You can count on it.”

  Steele smiled. “I do.”

  Prosser drummed his fingers on the table and looked past Steele, thinking hard. “What we have now is maybe a ten-minute segment, maybe less,” he said finally. “We need more.”

  “Bertone’s backers are getting restless,” Steele said. “The window of opportunity is closing. You’re either in or you’re out. No more meetings.”

  “Okay. If we got some modern pictures of Bertone, here in the States,” Martin said quickly, “stuff from the inside, it would juice up the segment. Otherwise, people won’t believe philanthropist Bertone was once a murderous gun smuggler.”

  Steele sighed and gave in. “The Bertones are having a big party at their Pleasure Valley house on Saturday, plein air artists in some abominable contest. Would that do?”

  “If Bertone is in the pics, okay,” Martin said. “And we need some idea of how Bertone is getting around our banking laws. The kind of money you’ve talked about can’t be moved around legally without leaving a trail.”

  Steele’s pale eyes narrowed. If Kayla Shaw talked to save her own neck, she’d give them her boss…. “We’ll do our best.”

  Martin looked at Prosser.

  “You’ve got a deal,” Prosser said.

  “Okay!” Martin said.

  6

  Pleasure Valley, Arizona

  Friday

  10:31 A.M. MST

  Kayla Shaw drove quickly up to the gate of Elena and Andre Bertone’s Tuscan-style estate. The five-acre building site for Castillo del Cielo had been blasted out of dry, rocky hills less than two years ago. Now the acres were green and white, lush and expensive. Glass, art tiles, and copper gleamed among columns of imported Italian marble.

  She suspected that beneath the marble was good old Arizona stucco.

  According to bank records, the Bertones had paid mo
re than five million dollars for the land. They had spent another ten million on construction of the house, guest casita, staff quarters, pools, gardens, and a guarded gate at the bottom of the hill. They even had a heliport out beyond the pool, complete with a racy little helicopter tied down and waiting for the royal whim.

  The people who served the royal whims weren’t all directly employed. The Bertones had more than $125 million on deposit with American Southwest, which entitled them to an unusual level of service. Kayla paid bills for the Bertones, she moved money among their many accounts, she covered overdrafts and shortfalls, and she made house calls to Castillo del Cielo to pick up deposits and drop off receipts.

  In short, she was a gofer. It wasn’t what she’d thought banking was all about, especially private banking, but it paid the bills.

  As she waited for the guard to come out of his “shack” and buzz her through the gate, she looked at the tumbling, glistening wall of the water feature next to the guard building. Castillo del Cielo’s annual water bill for squad-sized showers, epic water features, and three swimming pools was almost as big as the escrow check in Kayla’s purse. As a desert girl that kind of extravagance made her uneasy, but the child in her delighted in the play of sunlight and dancing water, and the scent of water in the desert.

  Even if it was tainted with chlorine.

  She glanced through her open window at the guard shack, where a young man stood listening patiently to the phone held against his ear. Jimmy Hamm had been working for the Bertones for two months. He was a young, chatty former minor-league ballplayer who stared at her legs every chance he got.

  She wondered if he’d be so flirty if he knew she made out the employment checks Elena signed.

  “Mrs. B. says you can go up, but please hurry,” Hamm said, coming out of the shack and smiling at Kayla. “Are you late? You’re never late.”

  Kayla glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Nope.”

  “She’s been edgy,” Hamm said, leaning against the Explorer’s door. “The old man is back.”

  “Mr. Bertone?”

  “He got in late Thursday night. At least I think that was him in the back of the limo. Never seen him to swear to it.” Hamm leaned close and whispered, “Never seen him in daylight, either. You think he’s a vampire?”