The Palace

by Reich, Christopher

  “Did he? I believe Mr. Al-Obeidi is in Zurich at the moment. I hope you aren’t inconvenienced.”

  “I’ll catch up to him sooner or later. He told me about the new fund. Said something about you having an interest in investing with us. I run my family’s natural gas concessions.”

  Not his country’s. His family’s.

  Hadrian pulled a face, not impressed. “I’m afraid Indonesia is a bit overweighted in the energy sector. We’re looking to diversify.”

  “Pity. Between you and me, we’re about to announce a new find. Biggest yet. We’re looking for partners to develop it. Tarek was certain you’d have an interest, Lester. You know, get in on the ground floor, so to speak.”

  “Hadrian, please.”

  Al-Thani ignored him. “Mentioned that Minister Sukarno would most likely come aboard as well. Oh well…up to you. Perhaps another time.”

  The Qatari finished his drink and grunted a command to his wife.

  “Don’t be hasty,” said Hadrian. “HW is always interested in a profitable venture.”

  “Don’t make me twist your arm.”

  “Not at all. If Tarek suggested I should take a look…”

  “In fact, I may have some documentation in my suite.”

  “You’re staying here?”

  “Royal Suite. Cramped, but it will do. Why don’t we have a look? I think you’ll find it quite remunerative. Make my visit worthwhile. Keep Tarek out of the doghouse. You’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Hadrian checked the room. He was due to give a speech at seven, just something off the cuff. He looked at his phone, wondering once more why the hell Kruger hadn’t checked in, finding it impossible to imagine something had gone wrong—who could stop a man like him?—then thinking there was just time to hear the sheikh out. If he was a close friend of Tarek, he had to be crooked as the day was long. New gas fields. Ha! Maybe he was even telling the truth.

  “Shall we, then?” said Tamani Al-Thani.

  “After you.”

  The three got off at the seventy-third floor. The sheikh led the way into the suite, his obedient wife bringing up the rear. They walked through one room to the next, arriving at a sprawling sitting area big enough to hold the Glastonbury music festival. Cramped indeed.

  “Sit down. Get yourself a drink,” said Al-Thani. “Be right back.” The sheikh disappeared into the bedroom.

  Hadrian dropped into a quilted armchair. The sheikh’s wife sat nearby, facing him. Frankly, he was surprised she was present. Then again, Qataris prided themselves on being quite modern in certain respects, the abaya notwithstanding.

  “Enjoying your stay?” he asked the woman. “First time in Singapore? Amazing city, isn’t it?”

  The woman didn’t respond. He caught a flash of her eyes behind the gauzy veil. It was nice to know that there was a human in there. It was hard to tell much about her figure. At least she wasn’t one of those beasts of burden you so often saw trailing behind her husband. As big as camels some of them.

  He heard the door to the bathroom open, adjusted his posture. This was business. Back to being vice chairman of the most profitable investment bank in the world. If Al-Thani wanted him as a partner, Hadrian damn well planned on driving a hard bargain.

  A fit, well-dressed man entered the room. Dark suit, broad shoulders. Then he noted the three-day stubble, the green eyes he’d glimpsed behind the sunglasses. Could it be?

  “Sheikh Al-Thani?”

  The woman lowered the hood of her abaya. She wasn’t an Arab at all but a striking Eurasian woman. In fact, he recognized her. Lester felt his stomach drop.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “but he’s not really a sheikh.”

  “Actually, the name is Riske. This is Ms. Li. We’re going to have a little talk.”

  Chapter 49

  Singapore

  Simon sat perfectly still. Blood coursed through his veins as it never had, making his heart pump wildly, flushing his cheeks, bringing a terrible pressure behind his eyes. If he moved, if he lifted a finger, he would lose control.

  You, he thought. You did it.

  He had not been prepared for the flood of emotion unleashed by the sight of Hadrian Lester, the knowledge that he was one of the men responsible for Rafael de Bourbon’s death and the carnage in Bangkok. He’d met more than his share of white-collar criminals—they were his stock-in-trade, so to speak. A thief was a thief, whether he stole a thousand, a million, or a billion. The only thing that changed was the cut of his suit and whether he wore it on the left or the right.

  But Lester was a murderer. He’d sent Shaka to kill London Li. Simon had every reason to believe that he knew about the embassy in Bangkok. Oh yes, he knew, thought Simon, having read the slew of emails between Lester and Al-Obeidi and Sukarno and all the other fund managers he was in cahoots with. Lester was the mastermind, or at least one of them. Nothing happened without his knowledge. It went without saying that he would go to any lengths to prevent the discovery of his crimes.

  There he sat, close enough to grab by the throat and strangle. Simon stared at the man—smug, confident, arrogance oozing from his every pore—not knowing that his world had changed. Simon saw through Lester and imagined Rafa, looking at him in the ambassador’s office, bewildered, frightened, wondering who had shot Colonel Tan if it wasn’t him, realizing, of course, in that short, agonizing moment, that he was next, and then the gunshot, the weight of Rafa’s body falling against him, the viscera splattering Simon’s face.

  The shock had been too immediate to register. Seconds later, Simon had been running for his life. But now, fifty-some hours later, it came to him. The horror. The anger. The rage.

  Simon considered killing him. Not as an abstract thought. What if…? But as the next action he might take, as if hefting a stone in his palm, assaying its weight, readying to throw it. He could use the paring knife he’d found in the mini bar. He would stab him in the chest, making sure to point the blade upward to nick the heart. It would not be the first time he’d killed a man.

  Twenty years ago he’d cut a man’s throat in a steaming prison shower, slit it with a razor blade clenched between his teeth. He knew what it felt like to have blood run over his hands. Then, he hadn’t had a choice; it was kill or be killed. Not for a second had he felt remorse. In fact, he hadn’t felt anything except relief—an obligation fulfilled.

  It was this thought that prevented him from acting. The knowledge that he would feel no better afterward.

  He felt the stone drop from his hand. Another day, perhaps.

  “What do you want?” Lester was saying. “I’ve got one hundred people upstairs waiting for me. Let’s make this quick.”

  “They can wait,” said Simon.

  “Who did you say you were?” Lester pointed a rude finger at him, one more underling to be ordered about. “Her, I know. Oh hell. I don’t have time for this nonsense. Goodbye, then.”

  Lester rose from his chair. Simon hit him in the stomach before he’d taken a step. A steam piston to the gut. Lester doubled over, the wind knocked out of him. Simon grabbed him by the collar and manhandled him back into his chair, yanking him upright.

  “I said they can wait. Now sit still and pay attention like the gentleman you never were.”

  “You can’t…” Lester blustered as his breath came back to him. “I’ll call the police.”

  Simon slapped him across the face. “You’ll do what I tell you.”

  Simon looked at London. “You need to leave now. Mr. Lester and I are going to have a private talk. Man to man.”

  They’d discussed it earlier. Lester was never going to talk voluntarily. They could accuse him of all the crimes in the world. They could brandish evidence, drag up Rafa’s ghost to testify, and still Lester wouldn’t say a word. London could write her story. She could expose Lester, PetroSaud, Harrington-Weiss, and all the others. Eventually, charges would be brought. Lester would be arrested. No question. But between now and then, time would pass.
Months. Maybe a year. Simon needed answers now. This minute.

  On the banks of a river in southwestern Thailand, Shaka had all but admitted it. It was happening now. It was up to Simon to find out what and put a stop to it.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said London. “I just realized that he tried to have me killed. I’m staying.” She looked at Lester. “As you can see I’m alive. The man you sent after me—I believe his name is Shaka—is in police custody. I don’t need to interview you any longer. Mr. De Bourbon made sure we’d have everything we needed.”

  “De Bourbon…who’s that?” said Lester, looking between his two captors. “Never heard of him. What do you want, anyway? Think I scare easy? I was in the military for ten years. Pilot. Had my share of scrapes.”

  “Now you’ll have another to compare them against,” said Simon. “I’m guessing they’re going to come up shy.”

  He pulled up a chair so the two men faced one another, in fact were uncomfortably close to each other.

  “De Bourbon…name doesn’t sound vaguely familiar?”

  Lester shook his head furiously as Simon took Lester’s right hand in both of his, separating the fingers, massaging each one. “What are you doing…now, hey there, stop this…”

  “You asked who I was. The only thing you need to know is that Rafael de Bourbon was my friend. When he died, I still owed him a favor.”

  Meeting Lester’s gaze, he grasped the middle finger and wrenched it violently clockwise. The bone fractured, the sound as loud as a nutcracker crushing a walnut. Lester’s cry was louder still.

  London Li looked on passively, as if she’d witnessed this kind of thing a thousand times before.

  “Go ahead,” said Simon, as the banker groaned and whimpered. “The suite takes up half the entire floor. Your party is above us. They won’t hear a thing. Anybody else does, I’ll take my chances. We’ll be finished by the time security arrives.”

  “What do you want? Is it money? Tell me how much. Done deal. Ten million. Twenty.” He tried to smile, friend to friend, his pain making the smile a grotesque facsimile. “What will it cost me to make this go away?”

  “Right now, I could ask you for it all and you’d give it to me.”

  Simon grasped the ring finger, gave it a little shake to let Lester know what was coming, then twisted it viciously. Another crack. Another horrible protest. Lester began to cry. Perspiration ran down his forehead mingling with his tears.

  “Come on, then,” he pleaded. “Tell me what it is you want…anything. Be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable?” Simon took the index finger. Lester cried out before he’d done anything to it. “Is two enough? Or should we move on to the fingernails and really get this party started?”

  “Two’s enough!”

  Simon let go of the man’s hand and Lester held it to his chest, trembling, breathing labored, pain creasing his features.

  “You, sir, are done. Out of the game. Finished. For your information, Rafa copied over a million files from PetroSaud’s servers. Your name is everywhere. You know what you did. Ms. Li thinks it’s going to be the biggest case of financial larceny in the last fifty years. Once murder is thrown in, you’ll be looking at twenty-five years, no parole. They’ll all be fighting for you. My guess is that you’ll end up in the States. New York. Are you getting this?”

  As he spoke, London Li passed along a variety of documents, first the ones that Rafael de Bourbon had sent in his initial email highlighting the monies stolen from the first Future Indonesia fund, then other documents highlighting other crimes. Lester studied them with increasing interest, his eyes shifting occasionally to Simon, then back to the damning evidence.

  “We know all about the money,” said London. “How you stole it from the different funds by creating false investments with your associates, wiring money in and out, and back to managers like Nadya Sukarno, all the while taking your cut. It’s all there. Wire instructions. Bank transfers. Commission statements. Notes confirming the wheres and whats and hows. I commend your bookkeeping. It’s going to be very helpful.”

  “All that,” said Simon, “that’s Ms. Li’s side of things. Me, I want to know the bigger picture. I have just two questions. What is Prato Bornum? And, who is Luca?”

  Lester fidgeted, face red, sniffling, struggling to regain a measure of dignity. “Riske…that’s your name, right? Listen to me. I wasn’t kidding about the money. Go someplace quiet, out of the way. Maybe they won’t find you, but I doubt it. These people you’re asking about, they’re everywhere. Government. Military. Finance. Europe. Asia. The States. Ask me, they’re all a little crazy. Think the world’s coming to an end because of a few immigrants, refugees, whatever. Me, I’m in it for the money. But them…they think otherwise. It’s all about stemming the tide. More than that, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Now, please, I’ll wire you twenty million. Got the cash in my account. You two can split it. Go away.” He leaned closer to Simon, speaking to him as if London weren’t in the room. “If she thinks they’re going to allow her to write her story, she’s got another think coming. She may try, but they’ll get to her. Christ, they’ll buy the bloody FT if they have to.”

  “And Luca?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “We’re past that point.”

  “Please. Just go. They’ve been planning this for years. They won’t let two nobodies get in the way.”

  “I want to know it all. Hear me? Everything. What’s Prato Bornum?”

  “Load of bullshit. Like I said.”

  “That’s not going to cut it.”

  “I always told him. I’m only in it for the money.”

  “Tan wasn’t in it for the money. Llado wasn’t in it for the money. Too many people are already dead because of Prato Bornum. Don’t tell me it’s a load of bullshit.”

  “They want to clean things up. Send people back to where they belong. Tighten up borders. It’s out of control. That’s what they say. Me, I live here. Everything couldn’t be more in control. But in Europe, the States, other parts of Asia, it’s a free-for-all. People think they can go wherever they like and expect others to care for them. It’s bankrupting the system, the poor countries dragging the rich ones down to their level, not bothering to solve their own problems. You’ve seen the pictures. Internationalism is finished. Isolationism is the order of the day. Everyone to his own. White to white. Brown to brown. Yellow to yellow.”

  “Sounds pretty dull,” said Simon. “I wouldn’t want to live in a place where everyone looks like you.”

  London said: “And so you make them send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Bank of Liechtenstein. What’s the purpose of those transfers?”

  Lester’s eyes darted to London’s, then ducked away.

  Yes, Simon thought, we know about that, too. “What is happening in a few days’ time?”

  “Nothing. No idea. What do you mean?”

  Simon backhanded him. Very hard. Lester raised his hands to protect himself, too late. They remained up, trembling.

  “Let’s try that again.”

  “I don’t know. It’s his deal. No one knows except him.”

  “Luca?”

  “Why do you ask me if you already know?”

  “Luca who? Or don’t you want to tell me because you think it might put your life in danger? Sorry, my friend. Your life is in mortal danger right this second.” He grabbed a handful of Lester’s hair. “Talk to me.”

  “All I know is that it’s going to be in Europe. Italy, France, Germany. I don’t know where exactly. He’s got them all lined up and ready to go. The money is for them. Payoffs.”

  “To who?”

  “Prato Bornum. Them. Military. Government. Police. Businesses. He said it’s ‘a spark to light the fire.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “A lot of people are going to die.”

  “When?”

  “
Soon.”

  “When?”

  “Goddammit. I don’t know. This weekend maybe.”

  “Is it or isn’t it?”

  Lester nodded. “Tomorrow. Maybe Sunday.”

  “You have to do better than that.”

  “That’s all I know. He only told me so I could short the market.”

  Simon drew a breath. Had he really said, “short the market”? It wasn’t enough to be complicit in the death of innocents; Lester planned on profiting from it. It was all he could do not to pummel the man.

  London appeared shaken. “You…you…” She looked to Simon. “Break another finger. Break his neck. Go ahead. Do it.”

  Lester met their gazes unrepentantly.

  “Who’s Luca?”

  “Family.”

  “I want a name.”

  “I told you. Family. That’s why he can’t hurt me. He’s my brother-in-law.”

  “Your wife’s side?”

  “Beatrice…she’s his sister. Luca Borgia.”

  London’s face creased in surprise. It was a name she recognized.

  “What the hell else do you want?” said Lester.

  “Nothing. We can take it from here. It’s over.”

  Lester gave them a look, all hate and disgust. “It’s not over until he says it’s over.”

  Chapter 50

  Tel Aviv

  No time like the present.

  Danni Pine popped her head into accounting. “Anyone home?”

  Goldie Levin answered without lifting her eyes from her work. “Busy.”

  Danni entered the office and took up position in front of her desk. “Ahem.”

  Goldie raised her eyes, met Danni’s gaze. “Sit. I’ll be with you when I can.”

  Goldie was sixty if a day, a wrinkled, gray-haired refusenik from the former Soviet Union and, if Danni wasn’t mistaken, this company’s second employee, not counting her father. Danni could intimidate software engineers. Clients she could tell what to do. But Goldie? Not a chance. The woman might as well have founded the company instead of her father.