by Mark Burnell
'What?' I ask him.
'You got any idea of the kind of money this is going to involve?'
'None.'
'Okay, just to give you an idea. Let's take security and break it down. Given that this is starting in Iraq and ending in Israel, we can assume this would be an attractive terrorist target. That means security needs to be high. Normally high security averages out at one man per kilometre. A lot of work is now done by drones but they're not cheap – say $12,000 each for a camera with instant transmission, but a lot more if they're armed and you still require a physical response.'
'How do they work out the ratio?'
'They ask how long it would take someone to lay a charge on the line. Probably fifteen minutes. Which means any given stretch needs to be patrolled more frequently than that. So why don't we round it down and say one thousand men.'
'Okay.'
'The next thing to remember is that a pipeline is like the plumbing in your apartment. If the pipe blows that's very inconvenient but you can deal with it. You stop the flow, repair the damage, then turn on the tap again. But if your boiler goes, then you're in trouble. Same here. Blow up a pumping station and it really starts to get messy. For a line of this length call it another thousand men. That makes two thousand in total. The running cost of each of those men will come to around $1,000 a day. In other words, this is a contract worth $2 million a day, every day, for the next ten years. That's more than $7 billion but with a tail-off over the duration of the contract … let's call it five billion. Just for security.'
'On top of the four billion for construction.'
'Right.'
'And all the other stuff. I mean, how much will a new oil terminal at Haifa cost to build and protect? Or the infrastructure proposed for Mosul?'
'Plenty. The total value of this contract has to be $12 billion. It could be as high as fifteen billion.'
'What kind of profit margins could Amsterdam expect?'
'Probably somewhere between twenty and thirty percent.'
I turn back to Stern.
> What else. Oscar?
> Brand was proposing to go public with his objections to Butterfly.
> Which were what?
> I don't know. He never got the chance to say.
> But Brand's objections would be listened to, wouldn't they?
> More than that. They'd be acted upon. He may have been known as The Whisperer, but he was heard everywhere. The problem is this: trust isn't transferable. The alliances he helped to build, the truces he brokered, the assurances he extracted – they're fragile. Almost without exception. Now that he's gone – who knows?
> Supposing it was proved that he wasn't the man everyone thought he was – that would change things, wouldn't it?
> Dramatically.
> One more thing. What can you tell me about Otto Heilmann in relation to the Amsterdam Group?
Stern replies immediately; in other words, no need to hunt for the information. Otto Heilmann advised the DeMille Corporation on Warsaw Pact military capabilities in the aftermath of the collapse of Communism. That's the official version but the subtext is clear: Heilmann was a provider of cheap men and cheap weapons. Anything from an AK-47 to nuclear material. Not only valuable to DeMille, he was also close to some of the senior figures at the Amsterdam Group. From Stasi agent to prosperous capitalist entrepreneur, he built a reputation as a man who could always deliver. Until he ran into Krista Jaspersen and over-reached himself.
Five minutes later I bring our dialogue to a conclusion by asking Stern how much this information will cost.
> There's no charge, Petra.
> You waived your fee last time, Oscar. Look what happened. Let's keep this strictly business. I like to have my consumer rights intact.
> No. I insist. I owe you. And before you go, are you aware that the price on your head has gone up to $10 million?
Singerstrasse, a narrow street favoured by antiquarian booksellers, interior designers and Grumann Bank. A small brass plaque beside a nondescript door marked a modest entrance. Inside, a plain staircase led directly to the first floor. Gerhard Lander's office was large and comfortable. Just like Lander, who sat behind a desk of polished walnut; fat, balding, his piggy eyes were partly concealed by small oval glasses. He wore a large gold signet ring engraved with the bank's emblem, a double-headed eagle. He stood to greet them.
Stephanie ignored the proffered hand. 'Do you know who I am?'
Lander shifted from one foot to the other.
'Have you ever seen me before?'
'I think so. Thought so. Once. But now I'm not so sure.'
'My name is Petra Reuter.'
Lander nodded grimly.
'And I don't take kindly to people using my name in vain.'
'Who would?'
'That's what I'm here to find out. Who was she? And what has she been doing in my name?'
The squirm was predictable. 'Ah … that will not be so easy … questions of confidentiality, you understand.'
Stephanie pictured Rudi Littbarski peddling the same threadbare defence.
'What about my confidentiality, Herr Lander? I'd say that's been breached rather spectacularly, wouldn't you?'
'Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is, after all, the issue of verification. The one who was here before said she was Petra Reuter. Now you say you are Petra Reuter. Who am I to believe? Perhaps neither of you are Petra Reuter.'
Stephanie held him in her gaze. Very quietly, she said, 'Tell me honestly: do you think the woman – the girl – you saw before was Petra Reuter?'
'Well at the time …'
'Not then. Right now.'
He was aching to look away. But didn't. Or couldn't. 'You're putting me in a very awkward situation.'
Stephanie smiled coldly. 'I hope so, Herr Lander. But not as awkward as the situation I'm in, I'm sure you'll agree. Do you know who Bruno Kleist is?'
'I know the name. Yes.'
'You know what he does?'
'I've heard.'
'And that his reputation speaks for itself?'
'I've heard that too.'
'Kleist will vouch for me. Call him now.'
Lander sat down in a leather chair as plumply padded as he was and touched a button on the intercom. He asked his secretary to call Kleist and put him through. Beside the console were four photographs in plain silver frames featuring a slender ash-blonde woman in her forties and three teenage children.
'The one who was here before,' Stephanie said, 'she came with a lawyer, right?'
'Yes. An American.'
'This is my lawyer. Another American, as it happens. Please believe me when I tell you that the difference between the two of them is far greater than the difference between me and my imitator.'
Newman said nothing but played his part perfectly, standing motionless, looking directly at Lander, eyes as blank as he could make them.
There was a buzz. Lander picked up the handset and introduced himself to Kleist. Faint electronic twittering leaked from the earpiece. Lander put his hand over the mouthpiece and asked, 'Do you have any distinguishing marks?'
'I have a scar on my left shoulder.'
Lander relayed the information, got the response, then said, 'How did you get it?'
'A car crash.'
Another pause, then: 'Where?'
'Sri Lanka.'
'Herr Kleist says you're a fraud.'
'Tell him he should know.'
Lander did and Stephanie heard the laughed endorsement. Lander replaced the handset and looked pale. Stephanie and Newman sat down opposite him. She said she wanted a complete record of the account. Lander asked his secretary to produce one immediately.
'How long has it been in existence?'
'Since late last year. I don't know the exact date. I can check it for you.'
'Was it established before the two of them came to see you?'
'Yes. About a month earlier. The meeting occurred because we needed some means of visual identifi
cation. It's not a requirement for all our accounts but it was a condition specified by Herr Ellroy.'
Stephanie understood why. So that there could be photographic evidence, if required, of Petra going in and out of Grumann Bank.
The account details were brought in by a pencil-thin secretary with pinched features and dyed black hair. She handed over a burgundy leather folder that Lander passed to Stephanie. The account had been opened with a two hundred thousand euro cash deposit. Since then there had been five deposits and three transfers out, leaving a current balance of just under three hundred thousand euros. All the activity had been conducted electronically.
Stephanie gave the folder to Newman who examined it in detail. Lander's forehead began to shine. Stephanie gazed out of the window behind him and saw pigeons circling the spire of the church on Franziskaner Platz.
Lander cleared his throat and said, 'If I may say so, there's nothing illegal about the account.'
'Just the account-holder,' said Stephanie sharply. 'I trust that Grumann Bank values discretion above all things.'
'Naturally.'
'Good. Because we were never here today. No matter what happens to the account. Or to Mr Ellroy.'
'I understand.'
'I hope so. I can't imagine I'd find it difficult to discover where you live, Herr Lander. Or where your wife has lunch. Or even where your children go to school.'
Newman set it out for her over lunch. The bank account was the same as the apartment at Stalingrad, the film shot at the George V or Julia's apartment overlooking Mexikoplatz; an individual component of a larger mechanism to discredit Anders Brand. He drew attention to the depositors to her account at Grumann Bank.
'The names are listed,' he said.
'So?'
'There's no need. A number would have been fine. These companies are listed because they're supposed to be identified.'
Which made sense. There was no point in laying a trail so obscure that it couldn't be followed. The trick was in finding the balance.
They were in a café on Operngasse. A pretty girl with blond highlights brought their food. For Stephanie, leberknödelsuppe, a clear beef broth with dumplings. Newman had opted for something more substantial; tafelspitz with fried grated potatoes and horseradish.
For a while, they ate in silence. Stephanie thought about what Rudi Littbarski had said. A man had come from London to provide Peltor with photographs of her and Komarov so that her scars could be replicated on Julia at the Verbinski clinic. Photographs that were the property of Magenta House. Perhaps they had found their way into the open. That was the easiest and least unpleasant option. Yet even as she considered it, she knew the truth: a statistical possibility, yes, but nothing more. The man had belonged to Magenta House. But she couldn't think of anyone who that might be. Except for Alexander, who was dead.
She turned her thoughts to Otto Heilmann. Kleist's revelation and Stern's information made perfect sense when one factored in John Peltor. She'd eliminated an Amsterdam asset in Russia and had been identified by Peltor after their chance meeting in Munich. When someone had decided upon a strategy to discredit Brand she must have been the ideal choice. Petra Reuter, a woman guaranteed to contaminate by association. The opportunity to exact retribution for Otto Heilmann's death must have been an appealing bonus.
Somehow Peltor had discovered that Stern was Reuter's favoured source. After that, setting her up for Golitsyn must have been simple. Peltor would have known that she'd turn to Stern after Sentier. The question was this: how had he found out about Stern in the first place? Stern hadn't been able to provide an answer to that and Stephanie couldn't think of one herself.
When Newman had finished his food he opened the Petrotech information pack he'd collected the previous day.
'What time did you say it was?'
'Three-thirty,' Stephanie said. 'Hall D, Blue Level.'
'Here it is. Discussion forum, the second of six debates spread over three days. American Power Exported: the Axis of Capital.' Newman chuckled. 'I like that. The Axis of Capital.'
'Makes a change from the Axis of Evil, I suppose.'
'That depends.'
'On what?'
'Your viewpoint. I mean, as a general rule democratic governments are determined by the requirements of business, not by the wishes of liberal humanists, let alone the public.'
'So?'
'Well it's not exactly a secret that the world is run by corporations and markets. In that sense, corporations have outgrown nations. They've slipped the bonds of national boundaries. They have their own laws, their own security interests, their own intelligence networks. For some people this is a truth so ugly they'd sooner accept any alternative. For them, the Axis of Capital is the Axis of Evil.'
'Very neat.'
Thank you.'
They took the U-Bahn out to the Austria Center.
Sleeping with Newman had been a mistake. A mistake Stephanie knew she'd repeat as frequently as she could. The problem was that she felt genuinely attracted to him which was not how it was supposed to be. Relationships born under fire died in the aftermath. Adrenaline was the aphrodisiac and then the oxygen. Starved of it in tranquillity, the passion died, suffocated by the mundane. Usually that was a blessing, not a curse.
As the train pulled out of Schwedenplatz, she said, 'Ever wondered what kind of father you'd make?'
'Sure.'
'And?'
'I don't think I'm made of the right stuff.'
'Why not?'
'I'm never in one place.'
'A cheap excuse, Robert.'
'I agree. Also, I don't have the time.'
'That makes two of the lamest reasons I've ever heard.'
'I know. But they are the reasons.'
'I doubt either of them needs to be true.'
'You don't know me well enough to know.'
'I know that any man who can remain faithful to a woman who's been dead for twenty years has a head-start on most potential fathers.'
Newman held up his hand to halt her. 'Two things. One: I'm not a potential father. Two: I wasn't faithful over twenty years because Rachel was dead and because … well – how can I put this? – I got my share.'
Stephanie giggled. 'Oh, that's nice. That's really nice.'
'You know what I'm saying.'
'I know this: all those women – your share – they're an irrelevance. In your heart, you were faithful.'
'Suddenly you're an analyst?'
'Trust me, Robert. I recognize the symptoms. Over twenty years I'll bet you haven't changed at all. You're just wearing a better suit.'
The Austria Center. Stephanie and Newman picked up their McGinley Crawford guest passes from the information desk. The name on Stephanie's pass was Marina Schrader. The ground floor, Yellow Level, was swamped by exhibitor stands. They made their way through them, trying to get a feel for the place. The public address system echoed eerily over the din of the crowd.
Although Petrotech focused on the oil services industry, the first two stands they saw belonged to Qatar Petroleum and the Kuwait Oil Company. They'd barely reached them before Newman ran into his first acquaintance, a lawyer from Baker Botts of Houston. Stephanie was happy to play the shadow, speaking only when spoken to, smiling blandly when necessary.
Newman knew plenty of people; Hong Kong financiers, Saudi vinyl producers, Iraqi oil reservoir engineers, Siberian gas barons, Nigerian geologists. By the time Stephanie had him to herself again, they'd reached a stand belonging to a company named Provisia, just by the escalators rising to the Green Level. Newman tapped the display board to the right of the stand. At the bottom of it, printed in small red capitals, it read: A KPM FAMILY MEMBER.
'The KPM Family,' he said. 'A strange way to describe a network of companies dedicated to the design and manufacture of military hardware, don't you think?'
Energy giant ConocoPhilips had a stand to showcase some recent technical innovations for the forthcoming development of oil and gas fields in Kaz
akhstan, the Caspian and Venezuela. Remington Industries had erected a vast billboard announcing a new contract for equipment sales to Chevron-Texaco's liquefied gas facilities close to their fields in Australia and West Africa.
By the escalators Stephanie came across Mirasia. She recognized the name immediately. The Russo-French firm's brochure had been in Leonid Golitsyn's attaché case. Their display focused on the new Mir-3 pipeline drone. The list of advance orders included Exxon Mobil for new projects in the Middle East and Russia, Apache Corporation for their existing facilities in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and Burlington Resources for expanded operations in the North Dutch Sea and Canada.
'Robert! I don't believe it. Is it really you?'
The man coming over to them from the next-door stand spoke English with a thick accent. Stephanie knew where he was from before Newman uttered his name.
'Sergei. My God.'
'I know. How long has it been?'
'Too long. This is Marina Schrader. A colleague of mine. Marina, Sergei Volkov.'
They shook hands as Stephanie took another look at the name on the board behind the man. Vostok-Energo.
'Still in Moscow?' Newman asked.
'No. I'm out in Khabarovsk. Been there three years. I love it out there.'
'Really?'
'Really.'
Newman explained for Stephanie's benefit. 'Vostok-Energo is the Far Eastern export arm of Unified Energy System, which is Russia's electricity monopoly.' He turned back to Volkov. 'Let me guess. China?'
'That's right. And both Koreas. We're looking to sell seven billion kilowatt-hours a year by 2010. Longer term we're hoping to ramp up to fifty billion. Still living in Paris?'
'Yes. But I don't get to spend as much time there as I'd like.'
'You never did. What about Scheherazade?'
As they walked away from the Vostok-Energo stand, Stephanie said, 'That's twice.'
'What is?'
'That someone's brought up her name. Kessler asked after her last night.'
'So?'
'Exactly. So?'
'So nothing.'
They entered Hall D on the Blue Level. There were several hundred people in the audience. At the front a moderator sat between two groups of three. To his right, Stephanie saw Richard Rhinehart, Elizabeth Weil and a third man. She didn't recognize the three to the left but Newman pointed out two of them; Ron Walsh of The New Yorker and Maria Montero, a political academic from Princeton. There was a large screen behind them: