by John Gubert
“That was close,” said Maria. She lent over and stroked my chest through the unbuttoned shirt. “Shall we finish it? It was getting rather nice.”
“I don’t think so,” said a quiet voice behind us. It was Claire. “Although you actually were quite convincing. At least you were once you both stopped acting. But Maria, someone else will have to enjoy the climax. We have things to do.”
Alberto returned as well. “There is one rear door and the front door. The only other exit points are the windows. They appear now to be all in one room watching television. We go in with stun grenades. We need them alive. They cause us a problem dead, if only because Charles and Maria could be recognised now the police have seen them.”
I covered the road and heard them as they went in. There was the blast of the stun grenade and then I waited for the shots. There were none. Everything was silent. Maria called me over.
The three Russians were trussed up. They looked dazed and a bit frightened. Maria said, “I’ll search upstairs, just in case. They say there’s no one else there.”
“Don’t take too long,” called Claire as Maria indicated for me to accompany her.
We went upstairs. There were four doors at the top of a hall. We hit them one by one. The first was a small bedroom. The second was a bathroom. We then hit another small bedroom. On the fourth room, Maria pushed open the door and appeared to dive straight in.
I glanced nervously through the open door. She was lying on the bed, laughing at me. Her skirt had ridden up her legs and her whole body was inviting me over. “Come on. Let’s have a quickie. I feel randy from earlier. Another minute and we would have done it.”
She was pulling at her panties as she talked. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. I started forward. Then I stopped. I turned away saying, “I want to, but I better not. We’d both regret it if I did.”
She came up behind me, her hands moving down from my chest. “You want me, Come on. I’m not going to regret it.”
I shook her off. I wasn’t rough. She wasn’t insistent. The next minute we were on the stairs. “Nobody around,” called Maria. “We can have a go at our prisoners.”
Alberto tackled the Russian from the airport. He looked even worse than before. He still hadn’t shaved. His clothes were still crumpled. His jacket had been discarded and his shirt tails hung out of his trousers. He had sweated in the heat and the stains on his clothes gave warning of the stale smell that surrounded him.
He was co-operative. He claimed that their boss had sent them. Since Rastinov had been killed, a man called Turpin was their leader. Turpin was a second generation American of Russian origin. He had changed his name to anglicise it. “There’s a group who want revenge on Di Maglio. There are five of them in the group. They all were on the drug distribution side. So they lost out on the deal. They want to scuttle it. Our job is to eliminate them.”
Alberto accepted this easily. That surprised me, Claire whispered over to me that this tied in with other information they had received.
“Who were you looking for here?” asked Maria.
“Just one man. We call him Boris the Bear. His real name is Boris Mikov. There were two over here. We killed the other one but Boris escaped.”
“Describe him,” Alberto ordered.
The description fitted the man in the boat. We thought it would. Claire lent over to me. I noticed she touched me on the arm. That surprised me for she had always avoided contact before. It was as if Maria had declared open season and they had both come on heat. It wasn’t so much that she touched me on the arm. It was more as if she stroked me. The atmosphere was getting highly charged. I needed to get back to Jacqui and to reality.
Claire said, “That’s our man. We got a reading on him earlier from the photo and fingerprints. We scanned them and sent them over the satellite link for checking.”
“We know him,” said Alberto. “He provided a cholesterol rich lunch for some sharks earlier today.” He threw them over the photo of Boris on the deck of the boat.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“We head back,” said the man.
“What about the others in the assassination group?”
“They are all dead already. They didn’t even leave New York.”
Claire asked, “Are there more?”
He held his hands out, “How could we tell? But we don’t think so. This is drugs. It’s not a bonbon shop.”
“When do you leave exactly?” asked Claire
“There’s a plane to Miami tomorrow first thing. If we can get on board, we’ll take that,” he said.
“We should stay with you. You could have some phone calls. We better all stay.” said Alberto. “Four guarding three is easy and safe.”
The Russian made a call. There were plenty of seats on the way out and they were all booked in. They would need to leave at seven to make the airport. We would accompany them. Claire and I headed outside and moved our cars behind the house. When the police came later, they would think we had gone.
I called Jacqui and explained what had happened. “We want to monitor the place till they leave. It will be best,” I said. She agreed she would get a room at the hotel. Even if they have nothing, I can sleep in the lounge area of your parents’ suite.”
The Russians were untied. They watched television. We had given instructions that they should not answer the phone. They must not move without our consent. They agreed. They didn’t want any trouble. I thought Alberto was being over cautious but decided not to query it. He usually had a good reason.
Alberto said, “There are rooms upstairs. We’ll split into shifts. I’ll do the first one with Claire. Then Charles and Maria can do one. It’s nine o clock now. Charles and Maria should each grab a bedroom and get some sleep. We’ll wake you at two in the morning.”
“No naughties,” called Claire as we headed upstairs.
“No naughties indeed,” I said as we headed up the stairs.
Maria said “I’ll take the room on the right. You can take the big one. The middle one had only a camp bed. I had not noticed, but did not question her. It had been a tiring day and I could do with a few hours sleep. The sheets were clean. Nobody had slept here. I stripped off, placing my gun under the pillow. I must have soon fallen asleep.
The next thing I remember was a cool breeze on my body. Someone cuddled into the bed beside me. A hand was over my mouth and someone was saying, “Shh. It’s just me.”
“Maria, we shouldn’t.”
“Just this once. I can’t get you out of my mind. I want you.”
I gave in. Any resistance flooded away. I had desired her so eagerly before. Now we came together with our desire heightened by the memory of the sudden interruption earlier in the evening. The thought of the others downstairs, not suspecting what we were doing, further added to the feeling of illicit excitement.
We fell asleep together as Maria mumbled, “It wasn’t just tonight. I’ve wanted to sleep with you since I saw you look at me when I stripped off on the boat on the first day. I am glad we did. Even if it may have to be a one-off.”
“Hey, what have we got here?” said a voice. I turned over to see a grinning Claire looking down on us.
“I was uncomfortable. You and Alberto should sleep here. You’ll sleep better.”
I don’t think I’ll even comment on that one,” said Claire. “Alberto wants to stay up. He’s talking to the Russians and getting a lot of information from them. I was looking for you to relieve me.”
Maria jumped out of bed and seemed to hop into her clothes. She kissed me on the head. “Sleep tight.” Then she was gone.
Claire stood there looking at me. “I didn’t think that she could hold back. The poor girl has been celibate for three months. Mind you I have too. Are you exhausted or could you do a little girl a good turn?”
And I found myself, for the first time in my life, without being high from drink or drugs, in bed with two girls on one night. Claire was less excitable than Maria w
as. She was gentle and comforting. Her naked body was cool to the touch.
She said afterwards, “Most people need a lot of sex after a kill.” I had not thought of it that way. I wondered if that included me. It was with that thought that I went back to sleep.
The next morning we all acted as if nothing had happened. I walked down to the shore in the early morning and stripped off before walking into the surf and relishing the cool spray. The girls came too. Alberto was relaxed about keeping guard. The Russians were not dangerous.
The girls joined me and we washed away the evidence of our night together. It would never be mentioned. It was a fleeting episode. I felt a bit guilty. At the same time I felt a sense of relief. Somehow the girls had allowed me to relax after the stress of my murderous tussle with Boris the Bear. Perhaps Claire was right. One needed to make love after a killing to clear the horror away. And I did not want my love making with Jacqui to have such a purpose. And I knew Jacqui would never know. Alberto may have realised. But he would not talk. And the girls knew better than to boast about their love lives.
The Russians left on schedule and we were back in the hotel mid-morning. Alberto had been able to get all the information he could from the Russians. That had been the reason for spending the night there. The girls would have helped if needed to get the information. But they were unnecessary. It may well have been the thought of these services they could have offered that turned them to me. I would not ask and I would never know.
We took the scooters over to the boat and climbed on board. I drove one and Claire the other. The two girls then returned and brought my parents to the boat. We decided to cruise around and show them the coast. My father had a mobile and occasionally took calls. But generally all was quiet.
I asked what his plans were once we had returned to Switzerland. He wanted Jacqui and me to continue to act as the formal investment managers for our hedge fund. “You should stick to currencies and blue chips.”
He would deal for the other fund, keeping a low profile and operating almost incognito, ramping up the price of his selected stocks and borrowing from United at the inflated prices. When they declared their results he hoped they would take a billion dollar hit. “That will put them into loss for the year. And that will hit their reputation and their share price.” We would then enter the final part of the scam.
“But, as you get publicity, someone may recognise you. It will be difficult then to keep the Ryder name out of it. What are you going to do about Associated Financial? If they get to hear about you, that will be a problem. And it is always possible, if they see pictures in the papers, that they could recognise you. Surely the performance of the fund is likely to get you some notoriety.”
Associated Financial was the holding company that owned Associated Bank for whom he had worked.
“Let me let you into a secret. I know they’ve been stalking United for some time. So if we have the thirty per cent, we can offer it to them at a profit and with a bonus. The bonus will be my freedom. It’ll work. Don’t worry. And I think I can avoid the press.”
As usual he was supremely confident about his plans for himself. We did not talk business again but lounged on the boat for the rest of the day. The girls were as unobtrusive as they had been before. They were hardly in evidence. I occasionally watched them for a provocative wiggle. But it was to no avail. Jacqui and I hung around the upper deck. We acted quite demurely in front of my parents.
In the evening, I suggested an early night. My parents agreed as they had flown through the night before. The girls took them back to shore and we remained with our boat and the stars.
Jacqui rested her head on my shoulder. She was so trusting. I felt as if I had been disloyal. But it was done. I stroked her back. We remained on the upper deck, looking at the lights gleaming on the shore from the hotels in the distance. The sea lapped against the boat, rocking it backwards and forwards.
Jacqui swayed against me as the boat moved. I swayed against her. We kissed and my hands went instinctively to her back. I caressed her through the light material of her dress. She ran her hands down my body, slowly lingering whenever she felt me breathing harder than before. We revelled in the silence. We breathed in the coolness of the evening. We felt the salt on our lips as we kissed. We enjoyed the warmth of our bodies.
A plane droned overhead somewhere in the distance. A noise seemed to come from the shore. But otherwise we enjoyed the splendid isolation of the evening. Without thinking I played with the straps of Jacqui’s dress. It was a short blue dress with two straps that tied in a bow on each shoulder. I absent-mindedly undid one and the dress fell away. My hand went for the other bow and the dress fell to the ground.
Her fingers undid the buttons of my shirt and pushed that off my shoulders so that I too could feel her full body against me. We caressed again and again, gradually taking off the remaining few items of clothes. We stood by the handrail and kissed, nakedness touching nakedness at mouth, breast, hip, stomach and legs. We grazed each other with our bodies, working ourselves up into excitement at the rhythm of our bodies blending with the rhythm of the sea. We stood there for some time, before gently sinking down onto the bare wood of the deck. We touched each other lying side by side. We made love with our minds and our bodies in unison.
That idyllic night was one of many that we spent that Christmas. We often saw my parents but they knew not to intrude. We saw the girls but they had moved further into the background. I saw the world behind Jacqui. And we came as close as we would ever be. But time was passing by. And we knew as the New Year was welcomed in over champagne on the boat out at sea, that the time was coming to truly put the last act into play.
THE FINAL ROUND
Geneva seemed grey and uninviting in the early morning mist that came from the lake. Its burghers had switched off the Christmas lights with the advent of the New Year. They now got down to the serious business of making money. Fucquet and United were hard at work. They were keen to deal with us.
My father had rented offices, very Swiss and very discrete, for you would not have known who worked behind the main doors or what they did for a living.
Jacqui and I started dealing in the markets in earnest and over the month we made enough money to pay the rent. But that was a side-show. The brokers loved us for, in their words, we churned our funds. Whenever there was an opportunity, we were seen to be hot to trot. They made more money on commission than we made on profit. As we both came out on the right side and with a profit, nobody would care. They also believed that others were doing more with us. We carefully acted as if each broker with whom we dealt were a mere side-show. That made everyone think we were bigger than we were. And it made it easier to finalise the main scam.
My father had already accumulated about a hundred and fifty million dollars of stock in his target companies. He decided it was time to strike. He carefully planted rumours across the markets. We called the brokers we had used and asked them to confirm the alleged rumours. Within the hour we would get calls from others stating the rumour as a fact. The hunger for commission was stronger than the hunger for the truth.
We fed these calls with fresh rumours. Our first target, a Far Eastern oil exploration outfit, was soaring. There was no market. It had a capitalisation of thirty million dollars. That was more than it was worth as its entire assets consisted of an old dredging boat and some lifting gear. The rest of the capital had been diverted to more personal assets of the founder and Chairman. Another target, a Middle Eastern mining concern had struck a rich seam of copper. It could be the largest mine in the world. Nobody seemed to think that the alleged copper find was unlikely and perhaps even not exploitable. But they had not looked carefully at the map. Most of the property lay within Iraq and the owner’s title to the property was tenuous at the least.
But we happily encouraged the rises in the shares and then it became time for the new fund to be put into play. My father called United and confirmed the arrangements. He told them he w
as negotiating some direct deals with some big investors to take in shares. He had convinced them that the fund would go for fast track companies on the way up. The moment they saw what he was buying, United tried to buy for their own account. They would also warehouse stocks to place later, at a higher price, into their client portfolios. Such activity was definitely frowned on and illegal. But we could hardly blame them for not complying with the spirit of the law.
The rumours in the market in our selected shares were stronger than we had expected. By the time the fund had completed the official purchase of all my father’s holdings, we had made more profit than we had thought possible. In the end the market value of our original hundred and fifty million of investment was just over four hundred million as the shares were ramped higher and higher. I helped in the process by repeatedly putting in sizeable buy instructions at just under the market price. They were never executed but encouraged others.
United lent two hundred million to the fund. We placed two hundred into its books. The whole four hundred came back to us for the shares we had already bought, albeit through a circuitous route and using almost every tax haven in the world. We had made money unexpectedly on our original purchase. We then hit the market in a big way. We splashed out several hundred million dollars on the back of further loans from United as the prices of our shares soared. The movement was so frantic that I was concerned someone would smell a rat. But they didn’t. The financial press merely stoked the speculative flames the next day by reporting the stories that were going around. Our Far Eastern oil exploration company was now worth three hundred million dollars. It had risen ten fold and was the star performer. And we were sure that many in the market were short of stock.
In the end the fund was worth just under a billion and United had lent us five hundred million of them.