The Secret Agent

by Francine Mathews

  “So he’s claiming he was framed? That someone else murdered her? Do you believe his story?”

  “I believe nothing I have not proved for myself. And yes, that includes the existence of God—Pascal notwithstanding.”

  “But is Roderick the sort of guy who’d hire a whore? Much less kill her?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I know quite little about the man beyond the usual paparazzi pap. Max lives alone—the last woman in his life left him abruptly two years ago and sued for damages. No one has taken her place. Rumor also has it that Max took a mental dive when he failed to qualify for the ’98 Olympics—and that he’s been searching for his soul ever since. Physically, he’s capable of strangling an adolescent. Whether he’s emotionally likely to do so …”

  “Have you met him?”

  “Once.”

  “And?”

  “He’s attractive enough, though rather guarded-used to keeping people at arm’s length. Difficult to read, as a result. But—”

  “What?”

  “He struck me … as a man in the grip of an obsession.”

  “About …?”

  Oliver shook his head. “That’s just it, heart. I’m not entirely sure.”

  “Was he charged with murder in Geneva?”

  “No. His personal lawyer—an old chum from the World Cup Circuit named Jeffrey Knetsch—ensured that the business was tidied up and presented by the Swiss police as a gross misunderstanding. Max was allowed to toddle home in all the sanctity of innocence. What are friends for?”

  “I can’t believe the Swiss police are pushovers.”

  “Nor are they,” Oliver admitted judiciously. “They confessed that the case presented certain … irregularities. Even Max insists that the door to his bedroom was locked when he entered the shower that morning, which contradicts his protestations of innocence; but anybody possessed of ingenuity might have found a way to circumvent the electronic code.”

  “Is that what Max suggested?”

  “His lawyer did. I shan’t weary you with a recital of the hotel uproar and the subsequent investigation. Suffice it to say that the Swiss police applied latex lifts to the girl’s neck and found not a single fingerprint. Her murderer wore gloves. No gloves anywhere in Roderick’s room. Police reckon that if Max got rid of the gloves, he might as well have got rid of the body. Never mind that one’s a trifle larger than the other; the elevator shaft adjacent would have done in a pinch. And why go to the trouble to suggest a crime of passion and then premeditate it down to the gloves? If Max was coldhearted enough to plan the whore’s demise, he would hardly lose his head and discover the body next morning in his own room. Disordered thinking, what? Swiss can’t abide that.” “A hotel employee ought to have seen her enter.” “Service lift,” he supplied promptly. “Employees paid off. Wee hours of the morning. Probably already dead when she rolled down the hall on a breakfast tray.” “Can they trace Roderick to the girl’s bar?” “Of course. Roderick’s Swiss clients took him there for a spot of fun after the day’s meetings. An hour into the show, Max got bored and went back to his hotel. End of story—or Max’s version of it.”

  “Oliver—if Max didn’t kill the girl, who did?” He gazed at her owlishly. “Don’t admit, old thing, that you’re jumping ship! You’re never going to sell FundMarket down the river and throw in your lot with Krane?”

  “I’m just interested in the story, that’s all.” “Not good enough, ducks. Put out or get out.” She crushed a leaf of cilantro between her thumb and forefinger. A pungent scent, half pepper, half rain-wet asphalt. “Say I was considering a move …”

  “That’s why we’re dining in this chummy fashion, I presume.”

  “Would I be working on Roderick?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Have I said anything to suggest that the man is of interest to my firm? Krane’s never deals in murder. Not the personal kind, at least.”

  “But is murder really the point?”

  “Got it in one, Stef. Ever been to a shooting box in the Central Highlands? Walks along the loch? Salmon fishing? A round of bagging pheasant?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Thought you might look jolly well in oilskins, that’s all.”

  “Oliver—”

  His gaze turned bland, suggestive of the angelic.

  “You sent me Ski magazine, Oliver. My name’s written all over it, your note said.”

  “Something decorative to stick in your loo, darling, nothing more.” He thrust his hand into the depths of the takeout bag and withdrew a sheaf of paper and a black pen. “Now, if you were to sign on the dotted line…”

  Stefani frowned. “A contract? Somehow that seems …”

  “… Overly binding? Touchingly archaic?”

  “I expected an electronic print of my voice pattern. A computer chip embedded in my scalp.”

  “We’ll come to those,” he said soothingly. “I like contracts, darling. Paper suggests history, somehow—the Inns of Court, the Magna Carta. The English bourgeois will rear his leonine head, despite all the money spent on Italian suiting. And besides—the payroll department insists. Something to do with the Internal Revenue Service. Your Social Security number, if you please.”

  “You’ve known it for ages,” she said dryly.

  “But I want it in your handwriting.” He exited to the kitchen with a tray full of food. Whistling.

  She scanned the contract. From its idiosyncrasies, she judged that Oliver had drafted the language himself. She was afforded full access (through Oliver) to Krane’s staggering array of security resources without the slightest public affiliation, until such time as she and Oliver mutually agreed to disclose her employment. Her salary, a modest 1.5 million dollars per annum, was to be wired monthly to bank accounts of her naming. Oliver had elected to pay her exactly half a million more than her pre-bonus salary at FundMarket, she noted wryly. She could be terminated immediately at his discretion, with the benefit of a year’s pay. True to his word, he had given her enough freedom and rope to hang herself several times over.

  “You want a secret agent,” she murmured, as he reappeared with a glass of wine. “Don’t you?”

  “I find, heart, that the cost of excellence is a certain amount of fame. I do my job too well. Any number of nasties and ghoulies can track my people coming and going. For this job, I need someone who’s clean.”

  “Because a hooker died on Max Roderick?”

  He did not reply.

  “Who hired you, Oliver? The Swiss? Or Roderick himself?”

  “Use the pen, old thing,” he said gently. “The paper.”

  “You think I’m going to turn my back on all the security I’ve forged at FundMarket in the past four years? Walk away, just like that?” She snapped her fingers under Oliver’s nose.

  “No,” he admitted. “I think you’ll run.”

  “You flatter yourself.”

  He was whistling again, a hiss of air between his teeth. “I notice your pet Galileo is sinking further into the NASDAQ swamp.”

  Galileo. God, she was bored with Galileo.

  Stefani uncapped the pen and scrawled her name on the contract. Boredom was the one sin she never forgave herself. “Now tell me who hired you.”

  “The Thai government, I think.” Oliver said it doubtfully. “Though with the Thais, one can never be sure. Devious little beasts, behind their smiles.”

  “Surely they’re not concerned about a prostitute murdered on a different continent.”

  “Particularly when they or their assigns might be responsible for killing her,” he added pensively.

  Her head came up at that. “Your clients? You think the Thai government may have set Roderick up? But what does an American skier resident in France have to do with Thailand?”

  “Precisely what I asked Max when he rang me two days ago. He’s also decided to hire Krane’s, you see. Or rather, he’s hired you.”

  A jolt of feeling shot through her like an arrow. Excitement? Fear? “—I being not pr
ecisely Krane?”

  “Not yet,” Oliver agreed cheerfully, “and not so’s the Thais will ever notice, God willing.”

  “What am I expected to do?”

  “Recover a fortune. Max believes he’s owed one. The Thais disagree.”

  “And you’ve been hired to establish the truth of their claim?”

  “Precisely. Spot of forensic accounting. Old hat.”

  Her shrewd brown eyes swept his face. “Are you also being paid to discourage Roderick?”

  Oliver adjusted his spectacles with an air of distaste. “I am not a thug, my sweet, although on occasion I have employed them. At the moment, I’ve decided to employ you.”

  “You think I can get Roderick to take his ski boots and go home to France?”

  “On the contrary! I hope you’ll follow him right down into the crevasse.”

  She allowed Oliver to consume a remarkable quantity of Indonesian curry—to talk of Venice and the art trade in Stockholm and his favorite anchorage at Bitter End-while the sky overhead blackened to navy and the first warm wind of spring stirred the dead leaves. The roar of traffic throbbed beyond the enclosed terrace like a massive bloodstream. Stefani pulled a silk sweater about her shoulders and warmed her fingers at the candle flame. Oliver poured her a third glass of wine.

  “What kind of fortune is the ski champ hunting?”

  “A priceless Southeast Asian art collection, presently housed in Bangkok’s most elegant little museum. The museum itself is at issue, I might add.”

  “And why does Roderick care?”

  “Something to do with blood, I imagine.” The cool eyes were locked on hers. “Know anything about friend Max? Beyond the ski-circuit chatter, I mean?”

  “You would hardly have hired me if I came with predispositions toward the case.”

  Oliver sighed. “Too bloody smart for your own good. Of course I knew you weren’t acquainted with the man. He’s not your type.”

  She shrugged.

  “And yet … curiously compelling. So austere and shining in his self-isolated perfection, he’s like the north face of the Eiger to an Aryan Youth: something to be scaled. Smashing muscle tone. You want to strap on your crampons and climb all over him, Stef. Admit it.”

  “The fortune, Oliver.”

  “Max Roderick is the last of a line of rather daring chaps who suffered difficult ends. His father, Rory, flew bombing runs over North Vietnam and died in the Hanoi Hilton. His grandfather was a true legend in Southeast Asia—an adventurer, a potentate, a glamorous rogue. Jack Roderick. He trained with the OSS during the Second World War then settled permanently in Bangkok in ’45.”

  Stefani’s eyes narrowed. “To do what?”

  “Run agents for the CIA,” Oliver replied carelessly. “Jack Roderick was Bangkok intelligence chief right after the war. Took to the people, the food, the khlongs like a duck. Found God a few years later and abandoned spies for Thai silk—he’s credited with reviving the craft there. Started a company called Jack Roderick Silk, still famous the world over. Made a great deal of money. Bought or stole every Khmer antiquity on offer during the course of twenty-odd years. Stored them in his house—an antique itself, shipped down-river from the ancient capital of Ayutthaya—and when he disappeared one day without a trace, the Thai government seized the lot.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Like so much smoke,” Oliver assured her. “Jack Roderick went on holiday to the Cameron Highlands-old British hill station in Malaysia—and took a stroll around cocktail time, all by himself. Never came back. Body never found.”

  The same surge of feeling—fear? excitement?—knifed through her again. “When was this?”

  “Easter Sunday, 1967.”

  “The height of the Vietnam War.”

  “Hanoi declared son Rory dead two weeks after Roderick disappeared. No obvious connection.”

  “And his entire fortune was—seized?”

  “The Thai government claims Roderick always meant to leave his personal collection to the people of Thailand. He’d burbled on about it quite often, apparently. His will—or should I say, his first will—provided for just that.” Oliver smiled. “They’re quite proud in Bangkok of having preserved the Roderick house and gardens—the whole kit and caboodle, including books on a bedside table—just as it was when he vanished in ’67. Jack Roderick’s House is now a major tourist attraction.”

  “And his grandson wants … what? Financial compensation? Or the collection returned?”

  “Our Max wants everything, ducks. That’s his opening bid. Everything that belonged to his grandfather returned with interest. Max claims, you see, to have found Jack’s second will. Quite recently. The will leaves the estate to the Roderick heirs, and the lawyers are calling it good.”

  She expelled a deep breath. “Hence the Thai prostitute in Max’s Geneva hotel room. A warning from your precious clients: Back off, Golden Boy, or you’ll be mauled.”

  “If we believe Max’s version of events,” Oliver rejoined gently. “Which I’m not sure we do.”

  “Why should a bunch of American lawyers strike fear in the hearts of the Thai government, thirty-five years after Jack Roderick’s disappearance?”

  “Dunno. That’s not my end of the deal, heart—it’s yours.” He was studying his chopsticks.

  Stefani tossed back the last of her wine. “You talk about these clients as though they were a corporate entity. Whom do you really mean?”

  “That,” Oliver returned, “I cannot tell you. Compartmentalization is the first rule of warfare. Less said, the better for all of us.”

  “So you’ve arranged for me to work against Krane & Associates, on the basis of no investigative experience and partial information?”

  “You’re not the enemy, Stefani. You’re just tackling one end of this naughty little problem while I manipulate the other. Experience is overrated, you know.” “I’d have to be mad to accept such an offer.” “You already did.” A fingertip grazed her cheek, fleeting as a wasp’s sting.

  3

  Krane Associates engineered her downfall. That was part of her cover story—the complete disintegration of her public life, the end of Stefani Fogg as Wall Street knew her.

  “I promised Max you’d arrive in Courchevel in a week,” Oliver Krane mused. “That gives us very little time. It shall have to be Monday, I’m afraid.”

  Stefani arrived for work rather late that Monday and paid scant attention to the multibillion-dollar fund she was allegedly managing. She spent considerable time chatting up old friends on the phone and took a very long lunch. Then she pled an afternoon meeting with clients and went shopping at Bergdorf’s. Oliver had mentioned Scotland. She figured she’d need some boots.

  Two hours later she arrived back at her office with a Persian lamb coat, four pairs of shoes, and a hatbox dangling from her wrist. Sterling Hayes, the chairman of FundMarket International, was waiting for her.

  “Stefani.”

  She had always despised Hayes—not simply for his expression, which was cadaverous, but for the caution that compelled him to wear braces embroidered with foxes and hounds.

  “Sterling!” she cried gaily. “It’s been ages! What can I do for you?”

  He did not shut her office door, but stood uneasily before her desk like a paid mourner. “I’ve been talking to Oliver Krane.”

  She frowned. Set down the boxes and bags. “That awful pseudo-Brit with the security service? He went public last year, right? How’s his stock doing these days?”

  “I retained Oliver Krane thirty months ago when I took over the chairmanship,” Hayes informed her dryly. “Krane designed the architecture of FundMarket’s security system. It’s highly sophisticated. We track electronic trades. Screen employee e-mail. Record phone conversations.”

  Stefani kicked off her shoes, opened one of the boxes and pulled out a pair of brown suede boots. “Yeah? So?”

  “Stefani—” He hesitated, his eyes on her feet. She was wearing houndstooth s
tockings, expensive and transparent, a checkerboard haze over instep and ankle. “We record every phone call. Every trade. We analyze the tapes for patterns on a daily basis. It’s the best defense we’ve got. You understand, don’t you?”

  She glanced up at him. “What are you trying to say, Sterling?”

  “This morning, Krane showed me his computerized records. He made the case that you’ve been trading on inside information, Stefani. For at least three weeks. You’ve been trying to beat the system.”

  An appalled silence.

  “I understand the pressure—your reputation, the Galileo slide—”

  “There must be some mistake,” she cut in.

  “Krane doesn’t make mistakes. I’ve seen his data. I can’t turn a blind eye, even for you. I can’t risk the SEC breathing down my neck. You know that, Stefani. You have to go.”

  She sat motionless, one boot on, the other dangling. “Over my dead body. Who the hell is this bastard Krane, that he can suddenly fire a major player at FundMarket International?”

  “He’s the bastard we pay to keep us clean.”

  “To do your shit work, you mean,” she slashed. “You can’t just throw me out like a used condom, Sterling. Fuck Oliver Krane!”

  Hayes glanced apprehensively at the trading room beyond Stefani’s door. Heads had swiveled in their direction. “Please. For the good of the firm …”

  “… You want me to roll over? Not a chance in hell, buddy.” Stefani tossed the suede boot to the floor and stood. “What’s really going on? Did Krane lose too much money in Galileo and scream for my head?”

  “This isn’t about Oliver Krane,” Hayes told her quietly. “It’s entirely about you.”

  “Right,” she retorted with a harsh laugh. “Me, and Sterling Hayes. The Board almost handed me your job last year—remember? The Board loves me. One phone call to the right desk, Sterling, and we’ll see who’s walking out the door—”