by Gayle Lynds
This information did nothing to erase her unease about Langley. If anything, she saw even less reason for Mac to lie to her. She kept herself calm. What exactly was Langley up to? Was Sarah’s life really a top priority…or was Langley following some private agenda she could not see?
Eleven
Zurich, Switzerland
Leafy and sedate, the legendary Bahnhofstrasse was not only one of Europe’s most elite shopping boulevards, it was the beating heart of one of the nation’s most lucrative and famous businesses—international banking. Despite that, few of the shoppers and tourists who stepped into the costly boutiques and elegant shops to ogle the five-thousand-dollar watches and the five-hundred-dollar socks guessed they were literally walking on a street of gold.
To the Swiss, secrecy in banking was only one example of the delicacy to be expected in the conduct of one’s affairs. Seldom did anyone mention that chambers—many five stories deep—lay beneath the Bahnhofstrasse, packed with ingots and the wealth of nations. In fact, this was the world’s largest gold market. The banks that faced the street or hid out on side avenues were so powerful that they not only dictated decisions in Switzerland’s capital but swayed others in metropolises around the globe.
Terrill Leaming was a senior executive at the Darmond Bank AG, located in a baronial building a block off the Paradeplatz. No windows faced the street. Only the address—not the bank’s name—showed on a brass plaque beside the ebony door. A guard in a dark business suit, a bowler squarely on his head and a subtle bulge beneath his armpit, stood on the marble steps. Walk-in trade was discouraged at Darmond.
Simon told the guard his name, and the guard announced him on a walkie-talkie. The guard never smiled. Simon hardly felt cheerful himself as they waited together on the steps. He had tried to block the horror of Viera’s death from his mind, but as the waiting stretched, it flooded back.
After his meeting with the anonymous man in St. Martin’s Cathedral, he had returned to his apartment to shower, change, and pound out his report for MI6. He left it rolled up inside a crushed Coke can at the foot of a maple near the old bridge. At the same time, he casually picked up a rumpled McDonald’s hamburger sack, advertising in Slovak, of course. Traditionally, public bathrooms were the most popular location for dead drops, but he had always favored the outdoors, where he could run if he had to. Once out of sight of the drop, he removed a tightly folded sheet of paper and tossed the sack into a trash can.
At a small café in the shadow of St. Michael’s Gate, he fortified himself with a fresh hard roll and strong black coffee before opening the paper. Inside was another sheet of paper. The first was a coded note from Ada, ordering him to a safe house in Florence, complete with street address and a curt message: Viera Jozef left a statement for the world. Copy enclosed. Under no circumstances leave Florence until contacted.
His throat tight, he took a long drink of the black coffee and opened Viera’s last words. He read slowly. They were a plea for the rich to give as much as they took, to practice humanity, not worship profit. It was all very biblical-sounding, although Viera had been an atheist. In the note, she asked her brother and comrades to understand, to fight on, and to forgive her. No mention of him. Odd that he was surprised; odder that he was hurt. What had he expected?
For a moment, the sight of her fiery end filled his eyes. He blinked back moistness, tore the paper into fragments, and let them drop onto the table. As he brushed them into a tiny pile like the ashes of a dead fire, he reread his orders. Nice of Ada to send him to Florence. Stunning city, full of distractions, far from the action, and where he had no intention of going. He had ripped that message into bits, too.
Now it was three o’clock in the afternoon, and he was waiting on the steps of the swank Darmond Bank. His bag was checked into a downtown locker, and his gun was holstered at the small of his back, beneath his tan sports coat. He had been able to carry it into Switzerland courtesy of his MI6 identification.
It was time to put Viera and whatever mistakes he had made with her behind him, although he did not know exactly how. As he thought that, there was a low beep from the guard’s walkie-talkie.
The fellow lifted it to his ear. “Ja?” He listened, his morose expression unchanged, and turned as a quiet click sounded inside the bank’s oversize door, indicating it was being electrically unlocked from somewhere inside.
The guard pulled it open, and Simon entered the hushed lobby. He repressed a whistle of appreciation. The lobby was three stories high, with Roman columns in white marble around the perimeter. The place was large enough for two cricket pitches and regal enough for a dinner party for the queen. A receptionist sat at a shamefully ornate desk a good twenty feet away. Above him, bankers and clerks rushed silently from office to office along open walkways lined with lacy black wrought iron. He imagined a rajah would feel right at home when he arrived to deposit his jewels and bullion.
“Simon?” To his right, a filigreed elevator door opened. Terrill Leaming walked out, grayer, more hunched, but looking sleek as an overweight otter. A worried otter.
They shook hands. “Good to see you, Terrill.”
“Wouldn’t have recognized you, Simon. How long has it been?”
“Dad’s funeral. Five years.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” He seemed to hardly listen, his mind somewhere else. “What can I do for you?” No invitation to go up to his office, where they could converse privately.
Simon kept his voice low. “I need to talk to you about Dad’s death.”
Leaming glanced nervously around, distracted, as if expecting wolves to attack.
Simon said, “It might not have been a simple suicide, Terrill. I’ve been told an assassin and blackmail were involved and that you have information I need.”
Leaming’s knees seemed to buckle. Simon grabbed his arm to support him.
Leaming cleared his throat. “My…my afternoon’s full. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow! Come back tomorrow.”
Simon leaned close. “You’re afraid of something. Mention of Dad’s suicide has increased it. Talk to me, Terrill. It makes no difference to me where. Or I can make one hell of a bloody scene right here.”
The receptionist scowled, her gaze on Simon’s hand, where he supported Terrill’s arm. She probably spoke not only the usual German and French but also English and several other languages.
Smiling, Simon announced heartily, “A walk, Terrill? That’s a splendid idea. A breath of the outdoors. Better than a stuffy office, what?”
Terrill finally looked him in the eyes. Simon saw the fear he expected but also an odd kind of acceptance and more—hope.
The banker gave an eager nod. “Yes, yes. Been cooped up here, that’s true. There’s a tea shop on the Paradeplatz you’ll like.”
Two minutes later, they were outside and walking fast. Gleaming Citroëns, BMWs, and Rolls-Royces glided past, windows darkened. People strolled under the trees, intent on shopping. Terrill peered anxiously around, walking defensively, like a spooked deer, still expecting those wolves to attack.
“Has someone been following you? Watching you? Is that the problem?”
Terrill nodded dumbly, as if too frightened to speak.
Simon used the reflection of a boutique window to inspect the sidewalk and street. “I see no one suspicious.”
“They’re here.” Terrill’s voice radiated doom. He seemed to make a decision. “I’ve heard rumors you’re MI6, Simon. Is it true?”
Simon studied the distraught banker. The first rule in intelligence was you revealed that to no one outside the life, no one at all, except your spouse, and not always to her or him. But Simon also believed there were times rules must be broken.
“Yes, it’s true. But it goes no farther, understand?”
Terrill nodded anxiously. “Of course.”
“What kind of trouble are you in?”
They were approaching Paradeplatz, where Zurich’s blue-and-white electric trams rimmed the square, nannies push
ed prams, tourists took photos, and young lovers swung shopping bags and exchanged excited, purchase-induced kisses in the sunshine. At the edge of it, the tea shop Terrill had suggested was an oasis of peace. They chose an outdoor table and ordered tea—delicate Formosa oolong for Terrill and strong, biting Lapsang souchong for Simon—and waited for the waiter to bustle away.
“I’ve…I’ve just arranged to put my entire estate in trust,” Terrill told him. His eyes were red-rimmed, exhausted. “I’d planned to go to the police this afternoon, but you arrived first. I believe my bank has set me up, and I’ll soon be arrested. Or worse.”
“Or worse?” Simon repeated sympathetically, repressing impatience. “No wonder you’re worried. I’ll tell you what…I’ll help you reach the police safely if you’ll fill me in about Dad’s death.”
Terrill peered down at the lace tablecloth and nodded. “Thank you. Yes, thank you very much. What do you want to know?”
“Did he kill himself because he’d once hired an assassin and was being blackmailed for it?”
“I’m afraid that’s true.” Terrill looked up. “He wasn’t proud of what he’d done, you understand, but he felt it necessary. He told me he’d accept the consequences in this world and the next. When the time came…when he was being blackmailed, that’s what he did. A strong man, your father.”
Simon’s chest tightened. It had been necessary? Bullshit. Whacking a killer was a stopgap answer for an ongoing institutional problem of favoritism, irresponsibility, and dishonesty that invited heinous crimes, then covered them up.
“How is what Dad did connected to your trouble?”
They paused as their tea arrived.
As soon as the waiter left, Terrill shifted in his chair, sipped from his cup, and checked out the Platz. “Do you know much about the Darmond Bank?”
“Old money, old social standing, quiet power. Infamously elite. I read that a would-be client with a net worth of less than a million Swiss francs tried to make a deposit once. Apparently, your bank declined, put him in its Rolls-Royce, and drove him to a crosstown competitor.”
Terrill almost smiled. “The story’s true. The Darmond Bank operates at a rarefied fiscal level. For thirty years, I worked closely with the chairman, Baron de Darmond, handling money matters for Europe’s most prominent citizens.” His shoulders slumped, and he whispered, “While serving these clients…the baron, the bank, and I barely eluded being swept up in some of the shabbiest financial scandals in recent times, everything from BCCI to Banca de Tebaldi.”
“You were involved in BCCI and Tebaldi?”
“In other questionable matters as well. Some of our top Italian families wanted to evade Italy’s capital controls and taxes, so the baron and I founded fake companies to hide the true ownership of their assets, and then we lied about it to the Italian courts. I’m not proud of this, but at the time it seemed to make business sense.”
“Somehow, it always does,” Simon said with barely concealed scorn. He drank tea and put down his cup. “Is that why you’re afraid?”
“I wish it were only that. Do you know the name Giovanni de Tebaldi?”
“The banker found hanged to death under Blackfriars Bridge back in ’82?”
Terrill took out a silk handkerchief and mopped his face. A diamond ring—at least a full two carats—glinted on his thumb. “Yes. He was a criminal. A maverick who refused to cooperate with Europe’s financial community. When the baron decided he had to be eliminated, I delivered a suitcase containing a half million dollars to a professional assassin. Now Italy’s tax authorities are inquiring again, and this time the prosecutor wants blood. The baron’s terrified something about Tebaldi’s murder will come out. I think he’s setting me up to be his scapegoat.” His haunted gaze fixed on Simon. “And I’m being blackmailed about Tebaldi’s murder, too, just like your father five years ago.”
So that was why Terrill had nearly collapsed at the bank—blackmail. “You both hired the same assassin,” Simon guessed.
“Yes. I told your father I was in a similar position, and he put me in touch with his man—someone named the Carnivore. I can’t believe I followed through.”
The Carnivore. Simon controlled his expression, showing no sign of the jolt that had given him. His father had retained his own brother-in-law. He wondered whether Sir Robert knew that.
Rage flashed in Terrill’s eyes. “But I’m not finished. I’ll confess everything and take the bloody baron, the bank—everyone—down with me.” He had managed to avoid all references to ethics and morality. What propelled him were fear and revenge.
“I’ve heard of the Carnivore,” Simon said cautiously, since Terrill seemed not to know the relationship between the Carnivore and his family. “As I recall, he was something of a legend. But he’s dead now. He can’t be your blackmailer.”
“True. But your father believed he kept files, and that the blackmailer had them. There was no other way anyone could have learned what Sir Robert had done.”
“And what you did.” Simon’s mind moved quickly elsewhere, grappling. Christ! The Carnivore had made a record. That meant the highest level of names, dates, places. Perhaps not only who hired him but also the people around the targets—innocent people as well as those involved in embarrassing peccadilloes they wanted to keep private or felonies or even homicides.
Simon’s voice was neutral. “So whoever has the files is the blackmailer. Did my father have any idea who that might be?”
Terrill shook his head. “No, but he thought he knew how the bastard got them.”
Simon’s brows raised. “How?”
“From the Carnivore’s wife. It seems your father knew who she was. She died in an accident six months before he was blackmailed.”
Aunt Melanie. “Dad thought she’d given the files to someone?”
“No, someone else in her family might’ve taken them. He suspected one of her brothers, but he refused to tell me who, because he had no evidence. He said it’d change nothing, and innocent people would be hurt. As I said, he was a strong man.”
“How does the blackmailer contact you?”
“First, it was a whispering voice on my cell. Unrecognizable, naturally. The second time, just this morning, it was secured e-mail on my home computer. The prick had sent me what looked like actual entries from the Carnivore’s records, covering everything from when I’d first hired him to when he hung Tebaldi under the bridge.”
“Did you save the e-mail?”
“Are you mad? Of course not!”
“What did the blackmailer want?”
Terrill sighed heavily. “For me to go to Italy and take full responsibility for the bank’s crimes. It’d be a far lesser sentence than if I were exposed as the man who set up Tebaldi’s murder. In exchange, I’d get to keep the money I’ve earned, and there’d be no mention of my role in Tebaldi’s murder.”
“If you’re right, the baron could be your blackmailer.”
Terrill’s voice was almost lifeless. “Yes, or they’re working together somehow. I told you they were going to scapegoat me. My guess is they’re arranging things so it’ll look as if I were completely responsible for both.” He peered at his watch. “Will you take me to the police station now?”
Simon wanted to walk away and let the self-serving coward find his own fate. Instead, he said, “Of course.” Besides, Terrill’s confession would put more pressure on Baron de Darmond and the blackmailer.
They left money on the table and pushed out among the shoppers and tourists. Terrill continued to condemn the baron, the blackmailer, Tebaldi, everyone and anyone but himself.
“I’ll tell the authorities everything!” he raged. “The baron will be sorry he—”
They were moving through a mob of tourists off one of the blue-and-white trams, when Terrill’s face tensed, and he stopped. His body seemed to shiver. He rose up on his toes and gave a gasp…a raw cough—
Simon stopped with him. “What’s wrong, Terrill? Do you feel sick?”
But Terrill said nothing, his eyes wide as he slammed a fist against his chest once.
Simon grabbed him from the side, propping him up. He was a deadweight. Instantly, Simon pressed two fingers against the banker’s neck, where his carotid artery was.
There was no pulse. Terrill was dead. In seconds, without warning, with no indication of feeling ill or weak or even uncomfortable, Terrill Leaming had simply coughed, pounded his chest, and died. Still propping him up, Simon scrutinized the throngs, sorting through adults and children, tourists and locals, off for business and shopping, until he focused on the back of a man dressed in a conservative dark suit. He was solid-looking as he walked off. Not hurrying. His step firm. Not looking back.
But what attracted Simon’s attention was a black cane with a silver handle that the man gripped in his right hand, holding it out in front of him. As Simon watched, he let the cane slide down through his fingers until the tip touched the ground. At which point, he began using it properly, stepping rhythmically along, the tip tapping the pavement.
Simon dropped the corpse and tore after him. Behind him, he heard a muffled gasp, then a shout in German.
“What’s happened?”
“Is he hurt?” someone else called out, also in German.
More shouts followed in other languages. The cries were taken up across the Platz.
“Stop him!” someone shouted at Simon’s fleeing back.
But there was too much confusion—too many people, too many trams, too much fear in the few hands that clutched at Simon—to interrupt his headlong run.
The man with the cane, who should have reacted to the first scream as the rest of the crowd had, made a second mistake. He glanced back. As soon as he saw he was being pursued, he broke into a run.
The tall spire of the Fraumünster Church rose ahead, sharp against the blue Alpine sky. Simon pounded alongside thick traffic heading toward the Münster Bridge over the Limmat River. As horns blasted angrily, the assassin suddenly darted among the vehicles, slapping fenders and dodging with the skill of a star soccer player.