The Palace

by Reich, Christopher

  “He has balls, I’ll give him that.”

  “Big brass ones,” said London. “By the time Lester brings up PetroSaud, he’s already felt them out. He knows who’s clean and who isn’t. The one thing HW stresses is discretion. I’m sure he tiptoes right up to the line before crossing it.”

  “He really is a devil.”

  London stepped away from the desk, stretching her arms. A hunch came to her. Really just an inkling. Something she’d seen in the pictures that caused the rest of it to make a little more sense.

  “Do me a favor, boss. Type three words into the search bar. Humor me.”

  “Shoot.”

  Mandy Blume typed as London said the words. The results appeared. Mandy’s face dropped. “I have to tell Michael.”

  “You can’t.”

  “We’re ruined.”

  “Not yet.”

  Mandy sobbed. Tears began to flow. London put her arm around her managing editor. The words she’d asked her to type were “PetroSaud Hadrian Lester.”

  The first result read: HARRINGTON-WEISS VICE CHAIRMAN JOINS BOARD OF SAUDI ARABIAN INVESTMENT FIRM PETROSAUD. Dated one month before the Indonesian deal.

  The smoking gun.

  “Nail ’em,” said Mandy, gathering herself. “Crucify the bastards.”

  London said she would do her best. One question continued to nag at her, as it had for the past week.

  Who was R?

  Chapter 38

  Singapore

  As Hadrian Lester gazed from the window of his office on the fortieth floor of the Harrington-Weiss tower looking out over the city of Singapore, past the downtown core and the cricket fields, over Sheares Bridge, and east to the airport, he was thinking about prison.

  In February 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army, under the command of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, swept down the Malay Peninsula and crossed the Johor Straits to lay siege to the British colony of Singapore, known as the “Gibraltar of the East.” Eight days later, the British surrendered. Fifty thousand troops were taken prisoner. Winston Churchill called it the “worst disaster” in British military history. Some of the prisoners were shipped to camps in China, Burma, or Japan. Most, however, were incarcerated nearby at the prison complex at Changi, where the current airport had since been built.

  Lester’s grandfather, Flight Lieutenant Robin Lester, had been one of those imprisoned there. As a child, Hadrian had listened to his grandfather’s stories describing the deplorable conditions. Little food, severe overcrowding, rampant disease—malaria, beriberi, dysentery—and, of course, the rats. Rats that grew as big as cats and as mean as tigers with teeth every bit as sharp. The stories had given the boy nightmares for years. Changi was hell on earth.

  And so, today, when Hadrian Lester thought of prison, he imagined the horrors of Changi.

  Never, he swore to himself.

  “Mr. Lester, I have Minister of Finance Sukarno for you.”

  Lester walked to his desk, placing a hand above the receiver as he composed his thoughts. His father had been a military man, too, and before joining the bank, so was he, also a pilot, flying Harrier Jump Jets out of RAF Lossiemouth and, later, off the carrier HMS Illustrious. He operated under one principle: “L’audace. Toujours de l’audace.”

  He snatched the receiver and put it to his ear. “Calm the fuck down, Nadya,” he stated slowly in his warm, princely tone. “I have everything under control.”

  “The man killed in Bangkok worked for PetroSaud, and now I’ve learned another of their employees died in Switzerland just last week. Don’t tell me to calm down.”

  “Rafael de Bourbon was a blackmailer and a lousy one at that.”

  “What about the reporter? She’s called my office three times this morning. They know.”

  “They don’t know anything.”

  “She asked me about the oil leases in Saudi Arabia, Hadrian. The leases you instructed me to buy. You promised nothing like this would happen. You gave me your word.”

  “Darling, nothing is going to happen. I’m making the entire problem go away.”

  “When?”

  “As we speak.”

  “But how…I don’t want to ask too many questions, but this reporter…she’s with the FT. I’ve heard of her. She sends people to jail.”

  “Nadya, how much have I made for you?”

  “Hadrian, please, don’t change the subject.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know. A billion, maybe.”

  “Higher.”

  “Two.”

  “Higher.”

  “Four billion dollars.”

  “And change,” said Lester. “And we have another fund on deck. The biggest yet, don’t we? Anyone asking questions about that?”

  “That’s all well and good, but—”

  “Calm, my dear. You didn’t think there might be a few questions? Really?”

  “Well…”

  “And I’m here to take care of them. Why do you think you pay me so much?” A laugh to soothe the rawest nerve. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Ignore the reporter. Forget about what you saw on the telly about Bangkok. Dreadful things happen. None of our concern.” He paused, excited now. “Why don’t you buy yourself something nice? A new Gulfstream. I know just the designer who can really trick it out for you. Or maybe a yacht like the one you bought your nephew. Better yet, why not the Hope fucking diamond? God knows you can bloody well afford all of them. Now listen, I’ve got a bank to run. Be well. Beatrice and I send love.” Pronounced Bay-ah-treee-chay because his wife was Italian. “Ciao, bella.”

  Lester put down the phone, sighed with feigned exhaustion.

  A finger snap later, his secretary came back. “London Li, Financial Times. Again.”

  “Where did she get my direct number?” he muttered, then once again the soul of politeness. “Tell her again that I am otherwise occupied but that she should feel free to contact Debbie Whatshername in investor relations who’d absolutely adore helping her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lester placed his hands on his hips, his face set in a scowl. Journos: hated ’em. In fact, at the moment Lester hated pretty much everyone who wasn’t family or a close friend. Nadya Sukarno wasn’t the only one rattled. He’d had calls from Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia, and from his boss, Sir Ian, asking if there was anything to be worried about. And all of it because of a minuscule bonus that a hired hand in Geneva had pocketed for himself. Greedy little peckerhead. Lester wished he could have pushed Paul Malloy off that cliff in Switzerland himself.

  He turned, running a hand over his hair, and caught sight of himself in the mirror. White shirt. Navy-blue tie. Charcoal suit. A fighter pilot’s posture. A man in charge. He liked this uniform a helluva lot better than an orange one with a number stenciled on the back.

  He slid his phone from his pocket—what time was it in Italy, anyway?—placed a call, speaking Italian. “Luca, old man, we need to act. I’m worried about Nadya.”

  “Is he with you?”

  Lester kept his eyes to the floor. “Yes, he’s here in my office.”

  “Do as I told you.”

  “You’re sure…reporters, messy business.”

  “Nothing else to be done. And this time tell him to keep things manageable. None of this savage nonsense. Nice and neat.”

  “Understood.”

  “I know you’re worried, Hadrian. In a few days, this will be behind us. The world will have more important things to think about.”

  “Cheers to that.”

  Luca Borgia lowered his voice. “Did you put the shorts on?”

  “A hundred mil in our joint account. Mostly index funds. Dow, DAX, Hang Seng, Nikkei. All the big ones. I’m guessing markets will tank five to seven percent Monday morning before bouncing back.”

  “Is this considered insider trading? Wouldn’t want to do anything illegal.”

  “Just admirable foresight. Something like it was bound to happen sometime.”

 
; “Exactly my thoughts, Hadrian. Anyhow, I will see you and Bea soon enough. Give her a kiss from me. And remember, tell him it must appear to be an accident. Like our friend, Malloy. He’s a commando, for goodness’ sake. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “I will and I will.”

  “Prato—”

  “Luca, stop. Remember, I’m just in it for the money.”

  Lester hung up. Forcing a smile, he poked his head out of the office. “Darling, get me that journo on the line…London Li. I’m going to make her day.”

  A minute later, Lester’s phone rang. He swooped in to answer. “Ms. Li, Hadrian Lester. What a pleasure. Tell you what. Why don’t we meet and have a chat? I understand you have some questions about a few of the sovereign wealth funds we’ve brought to market…No, not here. I can’t spend every hour of the day cooped up in this velvet birdcage. How about Tanjong market? My schedule opened up unexpectedly. We can talk as we stroll, maybe grab a bite. On me…or does that count as bribery? How does four o’clock sound? Perfect. Cheers.”

  Lester dropped the phone in the cradle. When he turned, the smile was gone from his face. He strode across his palatial office and looked at the man seated by the window. “Well, well, Mr. Kruger,” he said. “Looks like you’re back in business. The boss is none too happy with how things went in Bangkok. Asked me to tell you not to muck it up this time. ‘None of this savage nonsense’ were his words. She’s the last of our problems. With her out of the way, it’s smooth sailing. Oh, and if you can find a way to gather up her papers, computer, that sort of thing, all the better. Tanjong market. Four p.m. Not far from here. Know it?”

  The killer’s pale blue eyes met his. Damned unnerving, though he’d never admit it.

  “Here’s an idea. Don’t you boys in South Africa have some type of dart gun you can use?” Lester mimicked putting a tube to his mouth and blowing. “Nice and neat. Curare, isn’t it? Oh well, you know better than me.”

  Shaka smiled. Not a bad idea, but…“Actually,” he said, standing and approaching Lester, menace in his eyes. “We natives have something better than a blow dart. It’s called a panga. Like a machete, but longer and sharper. Very helpful in the bush where I come from.” He threw a hand up and took hold of Lester’s neck, measuring it, squeezing and squeezing harder. He could lift the man off his feet if he wanted to. “A tall runt like you, I could take your head off in two blows. Chop. Chop. Maybe not as neat as you’d like, but more fun.”

  He released Lester and walked to the door. A look over his shoulder. One last thing: “Don’t ever tell me how to do my job.”

  Chapter 39

  Singapore

  Simon stood on the sidewalk looking up at the apartment building. A tall metal gate guarded access to the driveway. An attached mesh door to admit pedestrians was locked. He walked a short way down the block, considering his options. It was past one in the afternoon. The sky was growing hazy, clouds moving in from the south, the salt tang from the Straits of Singapore sharp in his nostrils.

  It had been a difficult night. On Major Rudi’s advice, he’d chartered a twin-engine turboprop to fly down the Malay Peninsula. An hour out of Pattaya, they hit rough weather. A cell of thunderstorms forced them to seek out the nearest airstrip. Winds buffeted the plane up, down, and sideways. The stall alarm sounded, as loud as a foghorn. With an unsteady grin, the pilot assured him this was only moderate turbulence. That was when the water bottles and the maps and everything that was not secured bounced off the ceiling. Simon thanked him and made use of his air-sickness bag. He decided that he and the pilot had different definitions of “moderate.” Twelve hours later, his forearms still ached from clutching his armrests. Until then, he’d thought himself a good flyer.

  The pilot put down on a jungle airstrip, having to buzz the runway twice in order for his radio to remotely activate the landing lights. There was no tower. On the ground, they’d sought refuge inside a large palapa hut, no windows, the rain slashing horizontally through the place, drenching them. The pilot tasted the wind, let Simon know that they were not going anywhere soon, lay down beneath a wooden picnic-style table, and, after flicking away a centipede as long as a bobby’s nightstick, declared that there was room for Simon, too.

  With nowhere else to escape the downpour, Simon lay down beside him, where he spent hours reading through Rafa’s stolen files. He flitted between emails, texts, memos, notifications from financial institutions, and much more. It didn’t take much time for him to gain a clearer picture of PetroSaud’s activities. The company had been created as a front to camouflage theft on a massive scale. It wasn’t entirely dishonest. It actually conducted a fair amount of reputable business. In other words, it really did sell leases to extant wells. But Rafa hadn’t died to protect the honest side of the business. He’d been killed to stop outside parties from learning about the other side.

  Like any good piece of thievery, at its core it was simple. You want money, rob a bank. You need wheels, steal a car. In other words, go to the source. The plan had been hatched by an executive at HW named Hadrian Lester, who with the help of a friend in Switzerland, a Saudi national named Tarek Al-Obeidi, had set up PetroSaud with the express purpose of stealing money from sovereign wealth funds. What made it so ingenious was how few people were required to steal so large an amount of money. Three: Lester, Al-Obeidi, and the individual who ran the wealth fund. Each took their cut. Later more were brought in, namely Rafa’s colleagues, like Paul Malloy. Simon had worked in a bank. He knew that Lester had to have a few helpers at HW on his payroll as well. Lots of intelligent people would be reading the documentation. If no one else, the legal eagles at the investment bank would spot something amiss. But not right away.

  One element, however, defied Simon’s every effort to understand it. Lester had insisted that fund managers transfer a significant portion of their ill-gotten gains to a numbered account at the Bank of Liechtenstein—flagged in the “special instructions” box of wire transfers as either “PB” or, on two occasions, “Prato Bornum.” Intrigued, he’d looked up the term but was no more satisfied than before. It was only when he remembered Shaka’s words at the riverbank that he began to have some understanding of what he might be looking at, however vague.

  Finally, he’d fallen asleep.

  At dawn, under clear skies, they took off for Johor Bahru, landing at an abandoned airstrip on the eastern edge of the Malay Peninsula two hours later. There was no customs control and Simon took a taxi to the ferry, then crossed the channel and touched foot on Singaporean soil. A tense moment as Simon’s passport was scanned by immigration control and the machine failed to read its biometric chip. Officials were summoned to diagnose the problem. At one point five men in the navy-blue uniform of Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority huddled around the errant machine. Standing there like a sheep led to slaughter, Simon remembered Major Rudi patiently unfolding the sheet with his likeness on it. Strangely, he felt only calm. It was too late. He couldn’t run. If Thailand had shared Simon’s likeness with its neighbors, he would be identified and arrested.

  It was not to be. After a few knocks, the reader came back to life. Simon’s passport sailed through with flying colors. Down came the stamp.

  “Welcome to Singapore, Mr. Ledoux.”

  Khop khun, Major Rudi.

  Khop khun, D’Art, for sending the twenty thousand in U.S. “grease.”

  A thirty-minute taxi ride took Simon across the island, north to south, to London Li’s apartment: “14 Fort Road, unit 6F, purchased by London Li 12 July 2019—for S$2,100,000,” stated the publicly listed property records.

  Yesterday he’d sent an email to her FT address. It had read:

  Rafael de Bourbon, Spanish national killed in the Bangkok embassy shooting, was the individual who supplied you with confidential information regarding crimes he discovered while an employee of PetroSaud in Geneva, Switzerland. His murder, that of Paul Malloy, another PetroSaud employee, in Switzerland several days earlier, and the
other victims killed at the Spanish embassy yesterday were ordered to prevent knowledge of PetroSaud’s role in helping multiple sovereign wealth funds defraud investors of billions of dollars from becoming public. Others know of your involvement. Your life is in imminent danger. Seek protection.

  Upon landing this morning in Malaysia, he’d phoned the FT at the first available moment and left a message on London Li’s voice mail.

  He had not attached his name to either message. He had to assume her email had been compromised, as he’d assumed his own was. For now, Shaka and those he worked for thought Simon dead. He did not want to disabuse them of the notion.

  As of yet, he’d had no response to either communication.

  A gate squeaked and Simon turned to see a man passing through the side entrance. Simon moved quickly, catching the handle before the gate closed and entering the compound. The front door to the building stood open. He walked in uncontested and took a waiting elevator to the sixth floor.

  He knocked, checking his phone, seeing that she had still not responded. “Ms. Li. Are you home?”

  He waited an appropriate time, then tried the door. The handle turned easily. Unlocked. Simon opened the door warily, cocked his head to listen. The place was silent except for the thrum of the air conditioner. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  It was a small flat, modern, aggressively clean. He had a view across a sitting area—L-shaped sofa, stone coffee table, Kentia palms in the corners—and into her bedroom. An upright piano stood against the opposite wall. The sheet music was for a Chopin nocturne. It was also upside down.

  He noted that the pillows on the sofa and chair were askew. A man’s touch, to be sure.

  Someone had been here before him.

  Adjacent to the sitting area was an open-style kitchen, as large as a sailing boat’s galley. He found a recently used Keurig in the trash and a fresh banana peel. London Li was in town. To be safe, he slid a carving knife from the block. He’d been premature to believe the apartment to be unoccupied.