The Palace

by Reich, Christopher

  Shaka pulled his knife from his ankle sheath, slipping the blade between his ring and middle finger. He tried the door. Locked. There were too many keys to try one at a time without alerting the reporter. He couldn’t knock, as they would see him through the peephole.

  He took a step back, recalling the apartment’s layout, rehearsing his moves. Living area, kitchen to the right, past that a bedroom, an office area, and a bathroom. He studied the doorway and lintel. Both were wood, unreinforced. He lifted his leg, drew a breath, and with all his strength, aided greatly by the knowledge that should Simon Riske or London Li get one step closer to Luca Borgia, to jeopardizing the work of Prato Bornum, he, Solomon Kruger, would be a dead man, kicked the door at a spot immediately below the handle. The frame splintered. The door flew inward.

  Shaka entered the apartment. Living area: empty. Kitchen: empty. Bedroom: empty. They were in her office. Of course they were. He charged down the hall, fist cocked, angled horizontally, the fat blade facing outward.

  A man came out of the bathroom. Tall, dark haired. He held a plastic bag, a cat’s paw dangling over its lip. Seeing Shaka, he froze. A handyman or janitor wearing dark coveralls. He was not Simon Riske.

  Shaka peered into the office alcove to his left. Empty. The journalist was not here either. An unimaginable rage surged through him. He advanced on the man, who was shaking now, eyes blinking behind his glasses. One of his earbuds fell out. He must have been singing as he cleaned the apartment. It was his voice Shaka had heard.

  “Keep things nice and neat.”

  Shaka let the knife drop to his side. With his other hand, he hit the man in the jaw. He fell to the floor unconscious, the dead cat sliding out of the bag.

  Sixty seconds later, Shaka was back on the street walking down Fort Road.

  Where were they?

  Chapter 57

  Singapore

  Simon walked alongside London through Terminal 2 of Singapore Changi Airport. It was nearly eleven. At the sales counter, he’d purchased two business class seats on the midnight flight to Zurich and onward to Nice. The clerk informed him with a gracious smile that he must be a lucky man. Until a minute before, the flight had been entirely sold out. They’d just that second had two cancellations.

  “Imagine that,” Simon said.

  He had traded Michael Blume’s ill-fitting suit for an outfit from a men’s boutique in the airport’s vast shopping emporium. Heather trousers, a navy polo shirt, and navy zip-up jacket. He carried a leather valise with toiletries, a change of socks and underwear, sunglasses, and a second outfit. He’d even found a pair of driving shoes like he wore at home.

  “What happened at the embassy?” London asked him.

  “I told you,” said Simon.

  “How were you the only one to make it out?”

  “How did I make it out?” Simon shrugged. “Dumb luck.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “He just shot the other people first. It could have just as well been me.”

  “Do you feel guilty?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  “Of course not.”

  “At least now I’ll have something to discuss with my therapist.”

  “You don’t strike me as the type.”

  “Really? You probably know him. Dr. Jack Daniel’s of Lynchburg, Tennessee.”

  “Who…oh, very funny. That’s no way to solve anything.”

  “Well, then I have you to talk to.”

  They walked past an indoor waterfall, four stories high, some kind of engineering wonder, a little rainforest surrounding it, a fine mist cooling the air.

  “You know,” London said as they approached the security barrier, “I haven’t thanked you properly.”

  “Really you don’t have to. I was only—”

  “Without the flash drive, we’d have a much more difficult time proving the case against Lester, HW, and all his co-conspirators. Rafael de Bourbon only gave me enough to get started. What I’d dug up was more supposition than anything else.”

  “It wasn’t me. It was my friend in London, the kid who was able to break the code. He’s the person to thank.”

  “I’m not used to people who don’t like talking about themselves.”

  “There are a few of us left.”

  “When this is over, I want it all. Every last detail.”

  “Or else?”

  “I’ll do to you what you did to Hadrian Lester.”

  Simon stopped walking. “Promise?”

  London, looking at him a second too long, was standing a little too close. He could feel her body touching his. She nodded, her eyes saying, Oh, I promise. I’ll do worse, even.

  London’s phone buzzed. She broke away, yanking it from her pocket. “Text,” she said. She read it, her face clouding.

  “What?” asked Simon.

  London read it aloud: “‘Solomon “Shaka” Kruger has been released from the Singapore detention center. On orders from Luca Borgia, he is to find and kill you and Simon Riske. Take appropriate precautions. Signed, Gabriel.’”

  “Do you know a Gabriel?”

  London shook her head, eyes glued to the phone, fingers banging at the screen. Who is this?

  A response came back immediately. Keep your phone on for further messages. Others are now involved.

  Please. Who is this? she typed once more.

  No further text came back.

  “Shaka is out,” she said.

  “I heard.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  Simon didn’t answer, his expression saying enough.

  “He can’t be, I mean…” London trailed off, shamed by her boasts about her countrymen’s incorruptibility. “Of course, you’re right. We have to believe it.”

  “These people,” said Simon. “Borgia, Prato Bornum, they mean business.”

  “What does he mean, ‘others are now involved’?” London asked.

  “Not sure,” said Simon. “We have to assume that Gabriel is a friend. My guess is that he is an intelligence professional.”

  “From where? Singapore?”

  “Right now it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that he or they know about Borgia.”

  “But how?”

  “There’s always a way, London. You know that.” Simon motioned toward the security line. “Let’s make our way to the gate. I’ll feel better once we’re there.”

  London began to check around her. “This is the airport. There are police everywhere.”

  “Lester said that Prato Bornum came from all levels of government, business, the military. If Gabriel is correct about Shaka having been released from jail, it’s not a big leap to imagine someone helping him get into the airport. It’s not like there’s only one way in and out.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “What are you going to do if you see him?”

  “Let’s go,” said Simon. The fact was, he had no idea.

  They reached their gate fifteen minutes later. Most of the passengers had already arrived. Seating in the waiting area was limited. Simon led them to a far corner against the windows. Their aircraft, an Airbus 380, the largest commercial airliner in service, seemed almost to press itself against the glass. Simon surveyed the area, then excused himself to place a call, moving several strides away. He checked his watch. Four thirty in London. Harry Mason answered on the first ring.

  “There you are.”

  “Thought I’d better check in.”

  “Glad you did. Just got off the phone with Lucy’s clinic.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Doing a bit better, actually, last I heard. But I wasn’t talking to the doctors. Billing.”

  “Christ.” More jolly news.

  “They wanted to let you know that they’ll be needing another fifty thousand pounds at the end of the month. Sooner if possible. Do you have it?”

  Simon said he did. Barely. “Tell them not to worry. I’ll w
ire it in the morning.”

  “Got it.”

  “What about her condition? They promised to know more by now.”

  “No change, but apparently that’s something.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Was by the clinic yesterday. She has some color in her cheeks.”

  “Was her mother there?”

  “No. No one mentioned seeing her either.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Am I allowed to ask where you are or when you’ll be back?”

  “Far away and as soon as possible.”

  Simon ended the call, noting that London was also on her phone. Probably her editor.

  The first boarding announcement was made. Simon suggested they be among the first in line. He picked up his bag and walked to the gate, where an agent had begun scanning boarding passes. A group of well-dressed passengers swept past in the first class line, entering the aircraft through a designated door. Among them, a proud, iron-jawed woman with jet-black hair in traditional Indonesian dress.

  “Did you see who that was?” said London. “Nadya Sukarno.”

  “Two guesses where she’s going.”

  “Zurich with a connection onward to Nice and a room at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc.”

  “It’s going to be quite a gathering.”

  “The Cannes Film Festival is going on right now, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  London watched as Sukarno disappeared down the gangway. “I remembered something. I took a look at all the earnings reports issued by HW for its first Future Indonesia fund. One of the investments they made was in a film company, Black Marble. I thought the beta on that one was a few standard deviations above the norm.”

  “The ‘beta’?”

  “The risk. You have to be crazy to invest in the movie business, right?”

  “How much did they put in?”

  “It didn’t say, only that they held a majority stake in the company.”

  “I know a little about Black Marble,” said Simon.

  “You do?”

  “It’s run by a man named Samson Sun. Strange guy. That answers my questions about where he got his money.”

  “Sun is Sukarno’s nephew. He’s been popping up in the local papers’ entertainment pages.”

  “That right? I did a small job with him just last week.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “File it under ‘small world.’ He invited me to the premiere of his first movie the final night of the Cannes Film Festival.”

  “Do you remember what it was called?”

  “The Raft of the Medusa.”

  “Like the painting?”

  “You know that one?”

  London gave him a look. Who didn’t know that one?

  Simon was thinking back to the afternoon in the Louvre, admiring the painting, an enormous canvas, the figures depicted larger than life, and Delphine saying it was too gruesome, which of course made him want to study it longer. “Apparently, the movie is about a boat that went down in the Mediterranean five years back.”

  “The Medusa. It was a big story. Five hundred refugees drowned. Only ten survived after a harrowing ordeal. I’m not surprised they turned it into a movie.”

  They boarded the aircraft and took their seats on the upper deck. No sign of Sukarno. Business class not quite up to her standards. Why should it be when you can afford ten thousand dollars a seat?

  After stowing their bags, London consulted her phone again, looking up all mentions of the film. There was a transcript of an interview with Samson Sun and the cast, most of whom played themselves. Simon recalled seeing them on the boat, seated at Sun’s table.

  Chapter 58

  Singapore

  The luxury towers at 22 Drake Court, Sentosa Island, stood on a rise at the end of a long drive, surrounded by dense forest on every side. Shaka crouched among the trees, draped in shadow, waiting for a car to approach the gated entry. Besides the gates, there were walls to keep intruders out. He could scale them easily enough. But a place like this had cameras, trained security. He needed a better way to get inside. Headlights approached. The sound of a well-tuned motor. Shaka felt his heart beat faster. “Come on.”

  Someone had told Simon Riske about London Li’s rendezvous with Hadrian Lester. It couldn’t have been the journalist herself or Riske would have warned her not to go. Therefore, it was someone else. Someone close to her. Someone at work. Most likely her boss. It took Shaka all of ten minutes to find the FT’s webpage and learn the name of its two managing editors: Anson Ho and Mandy Blume. He checked publicly listed property records and found addresses for both of them. He looked for pictures of them. Ho was Asian, light-skinned, probably fifty. Blume was European, blond, rough around the edges. Then—Bang!—he saw it. A photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Blume taken at a black-tie dinner given by Harrington-Weiss. He had no doubt who Simon Riske had spoken with.

  The car slowed, dimming its high beams. A BMW. Four doors. The gate began to open. The car came to a halt.

  Shaka dashed from the shadows, assaulting the car as if it were an enemy vehicle, throwing his elbow through the driver’s window, needing a second blow before the safety glass crumbled and fell away. He thrust his knife into the man’s chest, once, twice, three times. With his free hand, he opened the door and folded the driver, dead or close to it, headfirst into the footwell of the passenger seat, the car still in gear, beginning to pull forward. He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

  The gate stood open. He continued up a long curving road, then to the left into the covered garage. No keys at Drake Court. Magnetic keycards.

  He parked the car, then took the elevator to the forty-second floor. The doors were stronger here. He partially covered the peephole with a corner of his thumb and knocked.

  “Coming.” Then: “Who is it?”

  “Simon Riske.”

  The door opened. The blond woman held a phone to her ear, saying, “Simon? But I thought you were—” the words catching in her throat.

  “Hello, Mandy. We need to talk.”

  Chapter 59

  Paris

  Mattias rolled into Paris early Friday evening. A pewter sky hovered low, the streets slick after a spring downpour. They’d come from the east, across the German plain, over the Rhine, through Saarbrücken, then into France. Omar, the driver, had found asylum in Sweden like him. Hassan, whom they’d picked up at the refugee center in Ingolstadt, had been denied entry to Europe after the tragedy. His path had led him to Syria, Greece, then northward up the Balkan Peninsula—Macedonia, Albania, Croatia—and finally, after seven months, Germany.

  To look at, the three were brothers. All came from North Africa. Mattias and Omar from Tunisia, Hassan from Mauritania. Their features were markedly European—straight noses, prominent cheekbones, slim, well-defined lips. Their eyes, though brown, were light. It was the color of their skin that marked them as foreigners.

  Mattias called out instructions as they drove. Straight on the Boulevard Macdonald. Left on Rue d’Aubervilliers. He had never been to Paris, and though he knew it as a great world capital, he was unimpressed. To him, it was an endless parade of soot-stained concrete, abominable traffic, and hostile faces.

  “Porte de la Chapelle,” said Omar, banging his hand on the wheel. “How hard can it be to find?” Traffic slowed and he laid on the horn, to no effect. In his former life, he’d been a taxi driver, an excellent one in his own estimation.

  “Right at this street,” said Mattias, motioning for Omar to turn. “And here, right again.” It was at Porte de la Chappelle on the northern rim of Paris that the immigrants had taken up lodging.

  Omar spun the wheel. The car disappeared into the shadow of the Périphérique, the elevated eight-lane highway that circled the city perimeter. They rounded a corner. In an instant, they’d reached their destination.

  In the dank, shadowy enclaves beneath the highway, a patchwork encampment of domed tents h
ad been set up, hundreds of them, multicolored mushrooms springing from every crevice for blocks. Their occupants milled about in droves, spilling onto the streets, unmindful of the traffic passing within inches. The smell of burning wood and unwashed hordes penetrated the car.

  “Keep going,” said Mattias. “Turn left here. Find a place to park, then we can call him.”

  “A place to park,” said Omar, surveying the uninterrupted line of automobiles filling every space. “You might as well ask me to fly to the moon.”

  They made six circuits of the surrounding area before finding a space. Omar killed the engine and the three men climbed out of the Volkswagen Polo. It was a small car for the tall men and the long drive had been taxing. They stretched and clapped their arms and joked around. Mattias spotted a boulangérie and went inside to buy them sandwiches and drinks.

  “You must pay,” shouted the clerk, his arms gesturing for him to get out.

  “I have money,” said Mattias in his soft voice.

  “Pardon me,” said the clerk. “I was rude. It’s just that…” He shrugged, motioning to the camp city outside his window.

  Mattias purchased three cheese sandwiches, soft drinks (Fanta orange—his favorite), and an éclair for them to split. His companions devoured the food as if starving.

  Omar tried the number for Mohammed, then frowned. “No longer in service.”

  “He said he was selling cigarettes,” said Mattias.

  “In a kiosk? He doesn’t have a work permit.”

  “I think he meant on the streets. Loosies.”

  “Spread out,” said Omar. As the driver, he had assumed the role of de facto leader.

  Mattias crossed the road and started along a band of asphalt skirting some of the tents. The men were from everywhere. Tunisia. Algeria. Egypt. Libya. Sudan. Somalia. Ethiopia. “Do you know Mohammed from Tunis?” he asked over and over again, stopping at each knot of immigrants. It was like asking a European “Do you know Pierre from Paris?” The answer was either a laugh, a dark look, or a simple “No.”

  He continued another two hundred meters, arriving at the end of the encampment. He found no sign of Mohammed and, to be honest, was no longer sure he remembered him. It had been a long time and not something he cared to remember. Still, a small, wiry man with an eye patch shouldn’t be too difficult to find.