The Financial Terrorist

by John Gubert

  “And why was I in London? But if you can’t find Juliet, I’ll call it off. I’ll tell the world that she’s been kidnapped. I’ll say it’s because of Mafia links to the banks. I’ll say the Russian Mafia wants control of your US operations. You’ll have a worthless asset on your hands. There’ll be a run on the banks. Find Juliet or we reconsider the deal.”

  “I don’t believe you. The rest of your scam then fails.”

  “No, the rest of the scam is deferred. I can wait. I can do it later. I’m young enough. I’m not a warped old man like you.”

  “You don’t talk to me like that,” Di Maglio bellowed. This time he had really lost it.

  “You think how you talk to me. When you’re civil, I’ll be civil. When you’re useful and get your scum to find Juliet, I’ll be polite. But till then keep out of my life and we’ll keep out of yours. We leave tomorrow. And we leave for good.”

  With that Charles stalked out and Jacqui followed in tow. They walked along the hall and up the stairs to their room. She was trembling. Charles whispered in her ear, “I had to do that. That will have frightened him. He needed to be thrown off balance. If we find Juliet here today we snatch her and leave anyway. If we don’t, we need to scour the neighbourhood, as she could be close by. For that we need to go.”

  “When will you put the scanner over the house?”

  “I need everyone to be in bed as otherwise it’s difficult to operate. I would guess around one or two in the morning. I’ll do it from the entrance to our room. If this place is bugged the bugs are more likely to be in the centre of the room and the lounge than elsewhere.”

  They got into bed and watched television until around one. There was a decent film on cable and that helped pass the time. Charles lent over and kissed Jacqui before picking up the case and walking over to the little lobby by the door. He sat on a chair there and unlocked the case. The bedroom light was on and that gave him enough light.

  He would need to work in the dark to avoid the reflection of the light on the miniature screen. He carefully followed his notes as he set up the scanner. It was a delicate device and the latest in high tech. He had had it well explained. He pressed the on button and it worked.

  “Clever guys these NASA engineers,” he muttered to himself as he switched off the light and started to move the sensor around the house. He went through one floor at a time.

  The ground floor was quiet. There was nobody around. The place was deserted. He moved up a flight to the floor below them. He found people but they were all adults. The machine identified their body mass and he carefully eliminated them. The floor completed, the machine checked the floor area against the floor below. It tallied. There were no secret rooms. He had missed nothing.

  He sent the scanner again around the secret West Wing, for that section was only two storeys high. He had hoped they’d find signs of Juliet there, but no luck. There was a mass of electronic equipment in that part of the house and two people sitting at monitors. But otherwise it was empty and quiet.

  He moved on to the third floor. The North Wing was Di Maglio’s quarters. It also housed his people. Again he drew a blank. There were people there but no child. He moved to their Wing. He checked their room and could make out Jacqui in the bed and him on the scanner. He crossed the hall and realised he was in Claire’s room. She seemed to be asleep. She was alone. He moved through the other two suites but they were both empty.

  He moved up into the roof area but that was totally deserted. He sent the scanner outside and checked out the few outhouses and garages but there was no sign of Juliet. She had either been moved away since their arrival or she had never arrived at the house.

  That could only mean that she was in a safe house in the neighbourhood. There was no doubt that they had followed the car to here. And there was no doubt that the car had contained Juliet.

  He went back to the bed. Jacqui looked, but she already knew. She bit her lip as he shook his head. Her head leant on his shoulder.

  “We scour the region tomorrow. We’ll go for a drive in the morning. We can always take one of the cars here. It won’t look strange after the row with your father. Let’s leave early. We can skip breakfast and head off before they realise that we’re going. I’d have liked to take Claire with us but that may look suspicious. She doesn’t know about the row yet. It’s useful if he trusts her.”

  They slept an uneasy sleep that night. Charles kept thinking of Juliet. And now the nagging doubts came to mind. Perhaps they had made a mistake after all? Perhaps they had failed to see something whilst they were in the barn? Perhaps Di Maglio was telling the truth and Juliet had been kidnapped by the Russians?

  Then he thought of the strange effects. They had had no calls. Di Maglio had had no calls. It was now more than a week. That was long. Usually, the calls would have come as they got really anxious. In the case of kidnapping a child, that would be two or three days.

  Charles could not identify any Di Maglio activity. Normally, there would have been a meeting to review things. There would be reports on police activity. It was impossible that there was so little going on. And it was unlikely that he would keep any information from them if he really were looking for her.

  In the end, Charles dozed off. Jacqui woke him. It was just after seven. They both got ready and made their way downstairs. The house was quiet. The kitchen was empty and Jacqui quickly made them a coffee. They drank it standing up. She knew where the car keys were and they took one for a Range Rover.

  They headed out. A man appeared and Charles recognised him as a Di Maglio driver. He queried where they were going. “We’re going for a drive,” Jacqui said and walked past him. He headed back into the house. No doubt he would make a report to Di Maglio. He might wonder why Charles was carrying a large briefcase. It held work papers but they covered the miniature scanner.

  Charles jumped into the driving seat and Jacqui sat next to him. The car roared into life and he headed for the outside gate. He pressed the remote control button on the dashboard and the gates opened wide. But, from ten yards away, he noticed that they were closing again. Someone had over-ridden the controls. He accelerated and squeezed the car through, with a grinding of the door on Jacqui’s side as it skimmed the metal of the closing gates.

  He turned left and headed down the narrow road that led to the main route for Geneva. There were no houses here. They turned left at the bottom of the lane. There the road widened but it was a winding section of road that cut between the wooded slopes of the hills. He turned a bend and almost hit a car coming in the opposite direction.

  Neither of them had expected another car on the road at that time of the morning. They both swerved away from each other at the last moment. Charles hit the verge but the four-wheel drive took that in its stride and, after bumping once or twice, he pulled the car back onto the road. The other car had skidded and then also straightened out. It was disappearing round the corner.

  As Charles thought that was close but no damage was done, Jacqui cried out, “It was the nanny.”

  Charles slammed on the brakes. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw her in the car, in the passenger seat. It was the nanny. I recognised her. I don’t know if she saw us.”

  Charles reversed onto the verge and spun the wheel round. He jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the car jerked forward. The road was too narrow and windy to allow fast speeds but he accelerated nevertheless. They had to catch up with the car before it got to the compound. Charles then remembered that there were some houses just beyond the place where they had turned left. He wondered if they were heading there.

  The car screeched round the bend on the wrong side of the road. Charles pulled it back over again. Jacqui was looking pale in the seat next to him. She was holding onto her bag. Her knuckles were white.

  “Get your gun ready. We may have to shoot out their tyres.”

  “Juliet could be in the car,” she screamed back at him.


  He had not thought that. All the same, she had her gun ready.

  “Bend forward at the next straight stretch of road and get me mine. It’s in the leg holster. My right leg.”

  There was no chance for her to do that just then for they were swerving left and right as they screeched round the bends on the road. They were betting their luck on two things. First, they hoped that nobody would be coming in the opposite direction at that time of morning. Second, they hoped the people in the other car hadn’t recognised them and were driving normally. If that was the case, and they didn’t hit someone coming the other way, they would catch them up in the next few minutes.

  They hit a straight piece of road. Jacqui lent forward and pulled up Charles’ trouser leg. She took the gun from its holster and wedged it under his thigh. He saw she had pushed herself back in her seat, her feet straining against the floorboards as he spun into the next bend.

  “Ahead of us,” she shouted. The car they had nearly hit was there. It was just thirty or forty yards ahead of them. It hadn’t noticed them yet, or at least it hadn’t reacted. They needed to get next to it to allow Jacqui a good look at the car. If Juliet wasn’t in it, Charles would force it off the road. There was no way he could trail it without being noticed.

  He accelerated again into a bend and then out of it. They were now just a few yards behind. He powered the engine forward as they got to the next bend. He was fully on the wrong side of the road. He was almost alongside the car. He saw two cyclists ahead and jammed the brakes, wrenching the wheel to pull the car behind his target. One of the cyclists was wobbling dangerously as they passed. He saw him fall off in his rear mirror. The other was just looking back at them in amazement.

  They then went into another bend and again he pulled to the other side to overtake the car. The other car, alerted to the danger, was going as fast as it could on the winding road. Its rear wheels were swaying dangerously as they drew alongside again. This time they pulled next to it just as they both entered a blind bend. This time, though, luck was on their side and there was nobody coming the other way.

  “Back’s empty,” yelled Jacqui. “Nanny and man are in the front. There’s nobody else.”

  Charles saw the road on the far side went into a narrow ditch. There was a slope down to it as well. He pulled the Range Rover into the side of the car and forced it gradually off the road. The driver fought against him but his car was lighter and less stable. Charles saw his wheels were inches from the ditch and rammed him again. The car swerved over and then, in a cloud of dust, tipped to one side. The roof was held by the slope. The wheels on the far side were in the ditch. The ones on the near side were in the air.

  Jacqui leapt out before Charles had stopped. She stumbled a bit and then ran over to the car. Her gun was at the ready. He jumped after her. There was no sign from the car other than a terrified sobbing of a girl.

  Charles pulled open the door. The driver was unconscious. Blood was pouring from a cut on his head. He must have hit the windscreen. Charles lent over to him, ignoring the petrified girl other than to cover her with his gun. He went through the driver’s pockets and took the gun that he had expected him to be carrying. He slipped it into his pocket. The girl stirred.

  “Don’t you dare move or I’ll shoot,” he snarled with all the anger and hatred that he felt towards her. Jacqui was right. The trembling girl in front of him was none other than their former nanny. He checked the front of the car and felt under the seats. There were no more guns.

  “Climb out of the car,” he ordered the girl. She knew better than to disobey. He undid the man’s seat belt and pulled him out too. He checked him over again while Jacqui covered the girl. He would be all right once he came round. He’d hit his head, but that was all. Charles dragged him to their car and placed him in the rear seat, then took off his belt and tied his hands and one leg together with it to immobilise him. Jacqui was glaring at the girl and saying, “Tell me where Juliet is.”

  The girl shook her head, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Get her in our car,” Charles said. “Let’s get off the road and away from the car before anyone passes by.”

  Jacqui moved the girl to their car while Charles quickly cleaned off any prints he may have made. Door handle. Dashboard. Seat pockets. Storage boxes. Seat area. He kicked the door shut again and went back to the jeep. Then, as an afterthought, he went back. He opened the door with the rag he had used to get rid of the fingerprints. He took some matches that he had noticed by the driver’s side.

  Opening the petrol cap, he stuffed the rag into it and set it alight. It was burning and he ran the twenty yards to their car. Jacqui had realised what he was doing and the engine was running. He slammed the car into gear and drove on. Just as they rounded the bend, there was an explosion and he caught the flash in the rear mirror. Then the turn in the road obscured everything but a trail of smoke that rose from the destruction of the car.

  He turned off the road on a small country path and followed it into some dense trees. He stopped. He ordered the girl out. The driver was groaning and he had overheard her asking him anxiously if he was all right. He guessed it was her father. He now had a way of getting her to talk.

  He pulled out his gun and calmly shot the man in the leg. He chose the fleshy part. It didn’t look nice but would cause no lasting damage. She screamed when her father cried out in terror and pain.

  “Next time it will be his knee. Then his stomach. After that I’ll target the other knee. I might then add another bullet to his collection. And I’ll carry on doing it till you tell us where Juliet is.

  “Once you’ve told us we all go there and, if she’s not there, I kill him. If you double cross us, and there are others there who cause us trouble, I kill you both. I’m a good shot and so is Jacqui. So make your choices. Live, let him live or you both die. Choose. And fast.”

  She hesitated again. She was torn between fear of them and the consequences of any action she took. Charles aimed at the father again. “Your child is safe. I wouldn’t hurt her. She’s in a house along the road. She’s with my mother. She’s well looked after,” the nanny sobbed.

  “OK. We pick her up. You know what’ll happen if you cheat us. Get back in.”

  She scrambled back next to the injured man and Charles told her to direct them. He drove back onto the road and followed it past the bend they had taken from Di Maglio’s place. She directed them to a house that was about a mile further on. There were no cars there. It looked peaceful.

  Jacqui got out, gun in hand. “Leave this to me just in case my father’s people are here.” That was sensible as they would all recognise her.

  Charles ducked out of view, but covered the groaning and bleeding man in the back with his gun. The girl looked on, crying.

  Jacqui came back moments later. She was carrying Juliet. A crying woman was begging her to do something but she shook her off angrily.

  “You sort yourself out. Get out of my way. If my father kills you and your family, that’s your problem. We didn’t ask you to get involved. Now get lost.”

  Juliet was clinging to her. She saw Charles. “Daddy, you came,” she sobbed. The picture in the lane in Sussex flashed back to his mind. The look of disbelief on the little girl’s face as she thought he wasn’t going to help her.

  “Of course, I did, sweetheart,” he called to her. “Don’t worry, Mummy and I won’t ever let you down.”

  They told the ex nanny to get out. They told her and the woman to pull out the wounded man. “And give me my belt back while you’re at it.” The poor guy was still tied up. They pulled him out. They begged for mercy. They begged them to see that Di Maglio would be merciful. They were frightened. If they hadn’t been, and if Juliet hadn’t been there, Charles suspected he would have killed them.

  As he started the car and it moved slowly forward, the ex nanny ran to them and begged one last time for help. Jacqui looked at her with disgust. “Never,
ever come near me again. This will be nothing to what I’ll do next time.” And with that she shot the girl in her stomach. Charles drove off. Juliet didn’t seem to notice. As the bullet hit the girl, she had clutched her stomach in astonishment. Juliet hadn’t seen her fall on the ground in pain. They knew the wound would not be dangerous. Jacqui’s gun would not cause a large wound. But it would be painful and Jacqui was right to give her the warning. More importantly, it was a warning to Di Maglio, just as the father’s shooting had been.

  “You have your passport?”

  “Of course, I never leave it behind in a foreign country.”

  “We go to the airport?”

  “I guess so. But don’t go to Geneva. That’s too dangerous. If my father has wind of this he’ll try to cut us off.”

  “We can take the back streets to Geneva and then get a train. There’s a regular service to Zurich or Milan. We can chose when we get there.”

  “Good idea. Let’s move. They’ll never think of the station. At least not immediately. They may wonder if we decided to take the car once they find we haven’t appeared. But in the end it’ll be found. I’ll leave it in the centre.”

  They drove at break-neck speeds through the small roads to the outskirts of Geneva. Charles saw a taxi rank and pulled into a parking lot opposite. It was empty on a Sunday morning and he left the car on the ground floor. He picked up Juliet and his case. Jacqui got out.

  “I’ll leave the keys. With a bit of luck it’ll be stolen and confuse your father more.”

  A taxi was available immediately and took them to the station. They checked the trains. One for Zurich left in a matter of minutes. They bought their tickets and then they were happily ensconced in the first class carriage and on their way there.

  “The only risk we have is that the car is found too soon and they then know what we did next. The taxi rank nearby is the obvious place. We could be traced through the driver. But I’d be surprised if things moved that fast.”