Remaining unpredictable was the first and most important security measure, Franklin Barnes had told Kohlhaas a year ago. Kohlhaas had hired Barnes to head up Pharma Synergique’s security department. Before Barnes, there was no security department. They had locks on their doors, and that was about it.
But things had changed. Paris was still a backwater, but one little leak had put Synergique on almost everyone’s map. They’d had to move offices. In fact, they’d had to gut an entire building and rebuild its insides around a high-security vault in the center, designed to keep the right people in and the wrong people out.
The heavy Mercedes pulled to a stop in front of a door marked only with a street number. There was no parking on the street, and the employees had to park a block away in a public lot, but Kohlhaas rated doorstop service. The driver opened the car door, Kohlhaas stepped out, walked to the building, and inserted his magnetic key card into the card reader adjacent to the door handle. He typed his twelve-digit identification number, received a beep and a green light in response, and waited for the latch to release with its characteristic clack.
He pulled the door open, stepped inside, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the anteroom, then placed his left eye over the retinal scanner affixed next to the second door. It beeped its approval and let him through to the third layer of external security, a slightly larger room filled with a full-body microwave scanner, just like the kind the US government had bought by the thousands in the wake of the 9/11 debacle. Kohlhaas had reluctantly authorized the ridiculous expense, and he had wondered every day whether the cost had been justified.
Three armed men manned the scanner. “Morning, Mr. Kohlhaas,” the tall one, Jacques, said in accented English.
“Bonjour,” Kohlhaas responded with a slightly forced smile. He was Danish by birth, fluent in four languages, a necessity in an interconnected world, but his employees usually defaulted to English in deference to Kohlhaas’ New York upbringing.
Kohlhaas went through the scanner, received an apologetic patting down around his chest pocket, where he’d mistakenly left his Montblanc pen. “Very sorry, Mr. Kohlhaas,” Jacques said with a small wince. Kohlhaas waved the inconvenience away with a tired smile.
Then he was through to the building’s interior. The long hallway took him past a heavy steel door secured with yet another layer of electronic locks, leading to what Kohlhaas jokingly referred to as the most expensive bugs on the planet.
In addition to their grievous cost, the bugs inside the well-secured incubators were among the deadliest on earth. They had been an absolute bitch to procure. All were heavily regulated. As a result, many of them had been acquired without authorization. Some had been bought under the table, obtained from an otherwise upstanding lab supervisor or chief of infectious diseases with a bit of a gambling problem, for example, or one too many alimony payments. Others had been grown in Synergique’s own labs. Still others had been stolen. Most of them had to be carefully hidden from the health inspectors, because Synergique didn’t officially own them.
They had procured just enough of the bacteria samples through official channels to provide plausible deniability for the elaborate biological containment facilities they’d constructed. But if Kohlhaas hadn’t taken matters into his own hands, they’d never be anywhere close to completion. They’d still be kissing government ass, bribing mid-level bureaucratic functionaries, and wading through miles of red tape.
Kohlhaas took the stairs to the executive offices. His secretary met him with a printout of the day’s agenda. Someone from the US Food and Drug Administration had called again, she said, still hoping for an interview. Kohlhaas waved a dismissive hand. And another venture capital firm had called. Kohlhaas didn’t care to hear the name. He had no interest whatsoever in taking on additional equity partners. He preferred his profits undiluted, thank you very much.
He stepped into his well-apportioned office, poured a cup of coffee, and sat at his gargantuan mahogany desk.
It was completely clean and devoid of lingering work, as was his custom, with one exception: on the middle of the desk sat a manila envelope. There was no writing on the outside, and it was sealed. “What is this?” he asked his secretary, waving the envelope.
She didn’t know. Was he sure he hadn’t left it there before his trip to New York several days earlier?
Kohlhaas was sure. Papers left on his desk implied loose ends. He hated loose ends.
He felt the package. Seemed harmless enough. It was full of papers. He retrieved the letter opener from the center drawer of his desk, sliced expertly through the flap, and emptied the contents onto his desk.
He looked at the pages. The blood drained from his face. Fear, hatred, and rage filled him. And a heartbreak nearly beyond a man’s capacity to bear. Kohlhaas’ hands shook. His words stuck in his throat. “Get Barnes,” he rasped to his secretary, his heart pounding.
It was clear that his world would never be the same.
4
Peter Kittredge sat alone in the interrogation room. It was simply apportioned, with two utilitarian chairs at a scratched table. There was no clichéd two-way mirror, but Kittredge did notice three video cameras, located in various spots on the ceiling.
He’d been in this kind of situation before. Several times, in fact. But unlike those occasions, which were ultimately of his own making, Kittredge knew that he had absolutely nothing to do with the grisly scene that he and Nora had discovered in his bed several hours earlier.
But they’d so far treated him more as a suspect than a witness, and that pissed him off. Fingerprints, photographs, the local version of the Miranda rights, even a ride in the backseat of the squad car to the station — it all smacked of intimidation. And Kittredge had had his fill of intimidation, which meant that he didn’t respond well to it these days. And who the hell were they, those smug Polizei in their little German eyeglasses with their German abruptness, to even hint at assigning guilt before asking any questions?
The interrogation room door opened. It was the small guy, the one with the face that was overly serious, even by Teutonic standards. This is going to be interesting.
“How long have you known Sergio Delafuentes?” Jürgen Strauss, the police investigator, asked after Kittredge stated his name for the record.
“I didn’t know his last name was Delafuentes,” Kittredge said.
“That is not the question I asked,” Strauss said, his face inscrutable despite what could certainly have been interpreted as a truculent statement.
Kittredge bristled. He wasn’t drunk, but neither was he sober, and the three large cocktails he’d enjoyed with breakfast still held some sway over his tongue. “No, Franz,” he said, knowing full well that the investigator’s name wasn’t Franz, “you didn’t ask me that question. But I was trying to illustrate for you that I didn’t really know Sergio very well at all. We met last night, as a matter of fact.”
If Strauss was put off by Kittredge’s petulance, he didn’t show it. “Where did you meet?”
“You’ve already asked me this twice before.”
“The answer should be easy in that case,” the investigator said.
Kittredge shook his head, cursed silently, and ran through the whole thing for what was now the third time. He and Sergio had met at a club, drank and danced, and one thing had led to another.
“This man slept in your bed?” Strauss asked with a look of disdain. Germany was famously tolerant of alternative lifestyles, but that was on average. This particular sample size of one didn’t appear to buy into the magnanimity, Kittredge observed.
“No, he Harry Pottered himself there, just in time to be beaten to death.” Kittredge knew he probably wasn’t helping himself out, but he couldn’t help it. This little prick was annoying the hell out of him.
“This is a very serious situation, Herr Kittredge.”
“You think? I found a man bludgeoned to death in my bed. There’s really no need for you to emphasize th
e seriousness with me.”
“How do you know he was bludgeoned?”
“Isn’t that the word you use when someone’s head is bashed in?”
“And you know this because you got a view of his head.”
“He was lying in my bed,” Kittredge said, barely containing his impatient annoyance. “I got a view of his head.”
“You weren’t in an argument?”
Kittredge was taken aback. “Of course not.”
“And you would have no reason to want to harm Herr Delafuentes?”
“None whatsoever. As I said, we had just met the night before.”
“But you knew him well enough to invite him to your bed,” the inspector said.
Kittredge shook his head. “I didn’t know him. I just wanted to sleep with him.”
The investigator’s look of disgust returned. “But there was also a girl.”
“Yes,” Kittredge said. “People do these things from time to time. The lucky ones do, anyway.”
“And the woman, Nora, had no quarrel with Herr Delafuentes?”
“None that I saw. In fact, I’d say she was more than a little sweet on him.”
“How long did she know him?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“Did she know that Delafuentes was not his original surname?”
Kittredge shook his head. “You should take better notes. I didn’t know Sergio’s last name before you told me. Now you’re asking me if I know whether Nora knows that Sergio was using a fake last name. How the hell would I know that?”
“So she did not know that Delafuentes was not his original surname.”
Kittredge felt annoyance turn to anger. “I didn’t say that, Franz. Maybe you should ask Nora what’s going on in Nora’s head, and leave me out of it.”
Strauss remained unruffled. “Have you ever been to Copenhagen?”
Left field. Kittredge shook his head. “What?”
“I want to know whether you have ever been to Copenhagen,” Strauss repeated.
Kittredge had to search his memory. He’d been somewhere up north, but he couldn’t quite remember where. There was a museum with Viking ships in it, and a park with a lot of sculptures of a famous children’s author, but that could have been just about any Scandinavian city. Oslo, he concluded finally. He’d been to Oslo. Not Copenhagen.
“No,” he finally said. His eyes returned to the investigator, who had evidently noticed — and possibly misinterpreted — the relatively long silence before Kittredge delivered his answer. This is not good.
“Are you certain, Herr Kittredge?”
“Fairly,” Kittredge said. “I’ve been to some city up there, and I was trying to recall which one. Turns out it was Oslo, I’m pretty sure. I was drinking a lot at the time.”
“Were you drinking a lot last night?”
Kittredge didn’t like where things might have been headed. “I enjoyed myself a little, yes,” he said carefully.
“How many drinks did you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it two?”
Kittredge laughed.
“Four?”
“I don’t know,” Kittredge said.
“Was it more than five?”
By noon, Kittredge didn’t say. He nodded.
“Is it then possible, Herr Kittredge, that you might have quarreled with Herr Delafuentes, and not remembered it in the morning?”
Kittredge shook his head. “Not at all. I did very many things with Herr Delafuentes, and none of them were remotely related to quarreling.”
“So you have complete recollection of the evening, despite drinking heavily?”
What was this guy getting at? “I’d say so, yes.”
“How did you get home from the club?”
Kittredge exhaled. “We drove.”
“Whose car?”
“Mine.”
“So you drove?”
Kittredge nodded.
“Drunk?”
Kittredge didn’t respond.
“Would you submit to a blood alcohol test?”
“Sure. But I’ve had a little hair of the dog this morning, so I don’t think it would tell you much. Anyway, what does my drinking have to do with Sergio’s murder?”
The investigator’s eyebrows raised slightly. “That is what I am hoping to ascertain.”
“Let me help you out. It had absolutely nothing to do with it. Not a damned thing. Unrelated entirely. Nora and I went to breakfast. When we came back, Sergio was dead. Next question.”
“You seem agitated,” Strauss said.
“How the hell am I supposed to feel? He was killed in my own damn bed! His brains and blood are all over my sheets! And you’re giving me the criminal treatment?”
The investigator rose. “Thank you, Herr Kittredge. Here is my card. Please call me if you think of anything else that might be important.”
Kittredge nodded, rose, and followed the investigator out of the interrogation room. “Hey, one thing,” he said.
The investigator turned around.
“Two things, actually,” Kittredge corrected himself. “What is Sergio’s real last name, and what does Copenhagen have to do with it?”
The investigator shook his head. “I’m afraid that is information that I cannot discuss with you, Herr Kittredge.” He turned on his heel and walked into an adjacent office, shutting the door behind him.
Kittredge waited half an hour for Nora, only to subsequently discover from the desk officer that Nora’s interrogation had wrapped up several minutes before his. She hadn’t waited for him, and he found that he was a bit hurt by that.
And he didn’t have her phone number, which he wanted very badly. Conventional wisdom had it that relationships that began under traumatic circumstances were more likely than average to end in heartbreak, but Kittredge didn’t pay much attention to conventional wisdom. Wisdom wasn’t conventional, he was fond of saying, and whatever the masses thought, it usually wasn’t wise.
He had an almost unbearable urge to compare notes with Nora. His interrogation had been decidedly unpleasant, at least in his estimation, and he wondered whether hers was similarly hostile.
Kittredge went straight from the police station to his favorite Kneipe, or public house. He wanted nothing to do with his apartment at the moment. The police had gathered all of the bed linens, and had even taken the mattress, so there wouldn’t be much in the way of blood and guts for him to clean up. But he still had no desire to be alone in the place where someone had been murdered.
His favorite spot was open at the Kneipe, as it usually was shortly after noon. He eschewed beer, which was a German passion, almost its own food group, but failed to get the job done with sufficient speed. He favored schnapps, which he considered to be the local vodka equivalent. It was often flavored, which made for interesting vomit when he overindulged, which seemed to be upwards of a couple of times per week these days. He ordered the usual, downed it with gusto, and smiled as the bartender brought the second round.
As the alcohol hit his bloodstream, Kittredge seemed to gain a little perspective on his police interrogation. Had the investigator really been all that unreasonable? After all, Sergio was found in his bed, and his only alibi was someone he’d met the night before, someone whom the police might easily consider to be a likely accomplice. Hell, if he didn’t know the truth, he might be tempted to suspect himself, too. From the outside, it sure looked an awful lot like Kittredge could be the guy who had killed Sergio.
That wasn’t all. Whoever had killed Sergio had somehow gotten into Kittredge’s apartment without breaking in. There was no sign of forced entry, and Kittredge was positive that he had locked the door when he and Nora left for breakfast. Did they have a key? Had they bribed the building’s super?
And why hadn’t they stolen anything? They hadn’t even taken Sergio’s wallet. Kittredge had expensive audio equipment, a high-end television, and an authentic Rolex on the nightstand. Nothing h
ad been disturbed, much less taken.
The German police had been thorough, with the same plodding Teutonic eye for detail that produced BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes, the same inexorable German-ness that had nearly exterminated an entire race of people. That had pissed Kittredge off as much as anything — the machine-like march through the facts, never once acknowledging the devastating emotional aspect of the hideous travesty Kittredge had discovered in his bed.
The whole thing was miles beyond messed up. Meet a nice boy, have a nice time, go to breakfast, come home to brains splattered all over the bedroom. The violation of it, the sense that there was nowhere safe for Kittredge to go, no place that couldn’t be accessed, no way to keep his possessions or his life safe from harm, was reminiscent of… Venezuela. Quinn, the giant assassin with wolf’s eyes. Bill Fredericks, the fat, vile piece of shit CIA case officer who still held Kittredge’s hand receipt. A dead Venezuelan with a ridiculous nom de guerre, El Grande.
And her.
He couldn’t get the image of Sergio’s bloody body out of his mind. It was horrible enough on its own. But it reminded him of her, of the whole thing, the thing he’d been trying desperately to drink from his memory, the thing that he’d been running away from for the past year. Unsuccessfully. Kittredge had discovered, like so many others who had enlisted geography’s assistance to cope with internal problems, that no matter where you went, there you were.
Could it have been them? Could they have found him? Could the whole thing have been a bloody message, a murderous calling card with an unambiguous caption: we still own you, bitch?
It was certainly possible. There were bad people in Kittredge’s past. And try as he might to think and drink it different, there was no escaping the fact that he still belonged to them. Lock, stock, and barrel, Kittredge was owned.
If they ever found him.
Goddamned Venezuela. He hadn’t been in terrific shape before the whole thing, but afterwards, he was a complete mess. He had simply walked away from his job, not bothering to resign, not caring enough to collect a severance check, just needing to get as far away from the whole situation as possible.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 88