by Greg Rucka
"You taking advantage of my generous nature?"
"Like I said, it's a rental fee. The people I got this information from, they did it as a favor to me, but they didn't do it for free. I'm covering my expenses." He folded his overcoat once and draped it over the back of the nearest chair. "I'm keeping this business."
"I'd like to see what I'm getting for the money."
"You're not getting anything, you're borrowing." He picked up the case and laid it flat on the bed, then popped open the locks. Inside were several folders, manila with red stenciled warnings about violations of The Official Secrets Act. Moore looked at me to see if I understood.
"When do they have to be back?" I asked, gesturing at the folders.
"By oh-five-hundred, no later, otherwise they'll be missed. Gives you shy of eight hours to review them."
I dug out my wallet and handed over the bills. Moore pocketed the money, this time without counting it, then removed the folders from the case, handing them to me.
"Where will you be?" I asked.
"Right bloody here. Those don't leave my sight."
"I'm not going to steal them."
"I'm committing an act of treason for you." He sounded angry. "That should give you some idea of the measure of my trust. But trust you as I do, I don't want to leave and find out someone else blew through here and walked out with Her Majesty's documents. So I'll stay. You can order up some dinner. But those papers never leave my sight."
"The menu's by the phone," I told him, and then sat down at the desk and opened the first folder.
***
The files had been prepared by someone in military intelligence, using data compiled from a wide variety of sources that included British Intelligence, Interpol, the DEA, and the CIA. As I began working, Moore told me that one of the problems had been in actually assembling the data; apparently no one had ever bothered to try and track down Oxford's money man before.
"Bloke who helped me on this didn't give you much hope," Moore told me as I got started.
There were files on five men, each of whom had earned government or law enforcement attention through their financial dealings. The files were piecemeal assemblies, printouts and copies and faxes and copies of copies and copies of faxes, slips of paper stapled together, the occasional photograph. It took me nearly an hour just to get everything sorted into usable piles. Once I had that done, though, things went fairly quickly, mostly because I knew what I was looking for.
The first file was of an Englishman named Meadows living in London and employed by Lloyd's. A notation in the file said he was on his third marriage, no children. Along with the personal data were copies of various police reports, indicating two arrests for drunk driving and one for the solicitation of a prostitute who had turned out to be an undercover officer. Meadows had earned his file courtesy of the DEA, who suspected him of laundering money for a group of arms dealers out of the Middle East.
There was no way Alena would have trusted this guy with her money.
The next file was on a Swiss named Junot, an attorney in his early forties, living in Geneva, on the lake. Employed by Brunschwig Wittmer, twenty-two years of service. His personal information was at the bottom of the file, stated that he was divorced and that his ex-wife and their nine-year-old son had subsequently died in an avalanche during a skiing holiday in the Alps. He had earned Interpol's notice by purchasing a marble bust of Nike at an auction three years earlier, and the only reason they'd noticed him at all was that the seller had been the point man for an organization out of Turkey that trafficked in a lot of heroin. A note queried where Junot had gotten the money to purchase the statue, but the investigation had apparently ended there when no one could find a connection between him and the seller other than that single transaction.
He was a possible, and I set him aside.
The third was an American named Collier who worked for Bank of America, which I found kind of amusing. Collier specialized in loans for foreign development, was in his late thirties, married with three children, all girls. He was also financing foreign loans, and while many of those loans had been high-risk, that wasn't what had earned him CIA attention: six years ago he'd gone to China on some sort of trade junket and begun an affair with a woman who said she was in software development in Taiwan, but was actually part of the Chinese Security Force. Collier had been leaking her technology information as opportunity allowed.
Another discard.
The fourth was another Swiss, living in Zurich, named Blanc. I discarded him immediately when I saw that he had served ten years for killing a pedestrian in a hit-and-run accident. I never bothered to see why he'd made the file.
The fifth was a South African named Martins, single, never married, fifty-six years old. He was another banker, and had been identified by Interpol, the DEA, and the CIA as a bookkeeper for the Sicilian mafia, though apparently that employment had ended some ten years ago.
He, too, was a possible.
***
It was nearly one when I finished going through the paperwork.
"Any joy?" Moore asked.
"Maybe. I've got two guys here that I'd trust to do the job if it were mine. The others are all too unreliable – either histories with drugs or the authorities or potential personality problems that would make them untrustworthy."
Moore moved from where he'd been slumped on the couch, watching television, and came to the desk, looking over my shoulder. "Fifty-fifty chance."
"Problem is I don't have time for those odds," I said. "I'm leaning toward Junot."
"Let me see."
I handed the folders over, then got up and went to the window. There wasn't much of a view, just scattered lights filtering through the fog. I heard Moore rustling papers as he flipped through the files.
"Why Junot?" he asked.
"No prior history."
"Martins is pretty clean."
"But he's known."
"Oxford an American?"
"I'm pretty sure he is."
"That would connect him with the CIA."
"And Martins is known to the CIA."
"What I'm thinking, yes."
"No. The more I think about it, the more it's got to be Junot if it's any of them."
"You don't think the dead wife and child would be a problem?"
"It's a bonus, actually. Junot's isolated, doesn't have people. Won't be talking to anyone about the money."
"People who collect ancient pieces of art tend to show it off."
"Depends why they like the art. You look at Junot's file, you tell me if that looks like the kind of man who shows off. To me it reads like a man who spends an awful lot of his time alone."
"Martins…" Moore mused. "Looks like he's a homosexual. Mid-fifties, never married. Could mean he's discreet."
"Problem is that the file doesn't actually say that he's queer," I said. "Which could mean he's so far in the closet, it's an issue for him. That could be used against him as blackmail. It would make him a potential risk."
"In this day?" Moore asked.
"I've never been to South Africa, I don't know what the public perception of gays there is." I turned and went back to the desk, gathered up the remaining files and handed them to Moore, who dropped them back in the briefcase. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." He latched the case shut. "This isn't the kind of thing I do for just anyone, you understand that."
"I do. And I appreciate the risk you've taken."
"It levels the field."
"I thought this was just business."
"If it was just business, I'd have told you to sod off when you called this morning. You need anything else?"
"Actually, I do," I said. "This should be easier, though. I need a contact in Austria, someone who'd be willing to make a couple bucks doing something marginally illegal."
"How much and how marginal?"
"Say ten grand? They'd have to open an account for me at a bank, a specific kind of account. The account has
to be opened by an Austrian national, and I don't have the German or the papers to do it myself."
He took his coat from the back of the chair, slipping into it, thinking. "There's a woman I know, she could do it. I'd have to ask her first, of course."
"Of course," I replied. "It may be a couple of days before I need her."
He took the briefcase off the bed. "Give me a call when you do."
"I will," I said.
When he reached the open door, Moore said, "You're walking a very narrow rope. Be careful you don't fall off."
"I'm not going to kill anyone, Robert…"
"See that you don't."
"At least no one who doesn't have it coming," I said, shutting the door after him.
Chapter 6
The alarm began sounding a warning the moment the man opened the door for me, and before he got any ideas I shoved him the rest of the way through, jamming the barrel of the Browning against his neck. He nearly fell as we came over the threshold but I jerked him back to his feet and when his ear was closer to my mouth, I said one of the phrases I'd been practicing since leaving London almost fifteen hours earlier. I'd practiced it in French, German, and Italian, not knowing which language I would need, and while I wasn't sure I had captured the letter of my order in each language, I know my tone made the spirit plain.
"Shut off the alarm or you're fucking dead," I said in German.
He nodded vigorously, already straining to reach the keypad, and I waited while he punched in the numbers, six of them. The keypad had an LCD and three lights, and right now one of the lights was bright red, and getting angry. Then the last number went in and the pad chirped and the red light went out, and another, green, came on.
The man with my gun against his neck began whispering a rapid and frightened string of German, and he strained to see me without turning his head, his eyes white and wide. I pulled the gun from his neck and then clubbed him with the barrel, which was bad for the gun but worse for him. He went down on his knees, caught himself on his hands. I saw blood seeping through the thinning black hair at the back of his skull, and before I looked at it too long and really started thinking about what I was doing, I hit him again.
The man fell to the floor, still.
I dropped a knee onto his back, holding the Browning out, sighting down the hallway, into the darkness of what I took to be the kitchen, but there was nothing, no movement, no noise. With my free hand I felt for his pulse, got one off the carotid, strong and rapid. Assuming that the blows to his head didn't cause a cerebral edema or a sudden clot, he'd be okay.
The carpet in the hall was thick and silk and looked like it had come from Turkey, or maybe farther in Asia, and when I set the gun on it there was no noise. From the left pocket of my coat I removed the duct tape and wound it rapidly around the man's wrists, binding them behind his back. I did the same with his feet, then pulled off his necktie and gagged him with it, tight. I didn't want to use the duct tape and risk him suffocating, but I didn't want him playing possum and raising an alarm as soon as I moved away. I probably didn't need to worry, but it made me feel like I hadn't hit him all that hard, wasn't being all that callous, if I kept telling myself he wasn't truly unconscious.
But he was, and when I rose, he didn't move.
I put the duct tape back in my jacket and listened again. From above I heard the sound of water as it began running through pipes. Past that, the only noises came from a grandfather clock at the end of the hallway and the muted slap of Lake Geneva as it met the shore outside.
My shoes silent on the expensive rug, I started down the hall, looking for my target.
***
I'd given it twenty minutes after Moore left before heading down myself, checking out of the room and then catching a cab back to the Burns and falling into bed. At six I was up again, and by seven I was at Heathrow with a Swissair ticket to Geneva. I was still moving as Dennis Murphy, and passed through passport control without the slightest hitch. Outside, I caught the train into the city, a ride of seven minutes that let me off in the downtown of one of the world's nerve centers. The last time I'd been through Switzerland I'd been in my teens, with a EurailPass in my pocket and a list of youth hostels in my hand. The places I'd stayed had been utterly without frills but absolutely clean. This time I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel on Petit-Saconnex, a huge and modern high-rise, where everything was just as clean as the last time, but far more welcoming. My room had soft beige carpet and the bedspread was the color of brass, and out the window I could see the lake and the Alps and the city.
The cache was actually twenty-nine kilometers outside of Geneva, near Nyon, on a small boat berthed at one of the tiny marinas that dotted the shores of the lake. I caught a cab and managed to convey to the driver where I needed to go with a combination of English and French, and when we reached our destination it took me another three minutes to make him understand that I wanted him to wait for me. There were perhaps sixteen boats moored to a floating pier that jutted out over the clear and cold water, the access from the road blocked by a token gate, the kind of structure that is more a polite request to keep a distance than a warning to steer clear. I walked out over the water, not seeing anyone, counting berths, until I found the craft I wanted.
The boat was named La Petite Marie, and the deck was clear and empty. The cabin door was held shut with a combination lock, and for what felt like a lifetime I stared at it, racking my brain for the numbers Alena had given me, the numbers she'd told me I mustn't write down, that I had to memorize. It took me three tries before I got it right, and the relief I felt when the lock snapped open left me wanting to laugh.
The boat had been built to hold two people intimately at best, and the interior smelled of musty fabric and mildew, and something vaguely fruity, as if the last occupant had eaten an orange and forgotten to throw out the skin. A cushioned bench ran along one side of the cabin and against the far wall, where it met with a narrow closet. Pulling the cushions back revealed cabinets built into the side of the boat, and in the one nearest the prow on the starboard side I found a powder blue grip made of vinyl. I took the bag, replaced the cushions, and locked the door on my way out.
A boy, perhaps fourteen years old, stood at the end of the pier as I came back, and he watched me approach. When I hopped the fence again he asked me a question in German, and I answered in the best French I could manage that I didn't understand. He gestured out to the La Petite Marie, asking another question, and I shrugged and grinned and climbed into the cab. The boy watched as we departed, and as the car turned to take me back to Geneva, I saw him walking out on the pier, presumably making for the boat.
I doubted that the kid worked for Interpol or even the CIA, but all the same I had the cab drop me off at the headquarters for the International Red Cross, then walked a couple blocks until I found an open clothing boutique. I purchased a pair of leather gloves that weren't so thick that they would impede my manual dexterity, then got directions to an English language bookstore on Rue Versonnex, where I purchased a French-English phrase book. I made my way back to the hotel, and was in my room, behind its locked door, before I ever opened the grip.
Alena had cached two pistols – a Browning and a Beretta – with ammunition for each. The money came to almost thirty thousand in Swiss francs, with another ten thousand in dollars. There were also papers for Genevieve Pontchardier, a young woman who lived in Bern and worked for one of the banks there, as well as a mix of toiletries and clothes. There were also binoculars and a thirty-five millimeter camera. Except for the weapons and the cash, it was the kind of bag someone might pack for a weekend excursion along Lac Leman.
I burned Genevieve Pontchardier's papers over the toilet, then moved everything to my bag, except for the money. This I put into three hotel envelopes, then put the envelopes inside my coat. I dumped the grip in the trash and went down to the lobby. Most of the staff spoke English fluently. The concierge smiled knowingly when I asked him if he could suggest
a discreet bank nearby.
"All of our banks are quite discreet, Monsieur Murphy," he told me, and then he took one of the paper maps of Geneva he kept by his desk, and conscientiously traced out my route for me. "Their English is very good, and you will find them extremely helpful."
I thanked him, then asked if he could suggest someplace for lunch. He could and I enjoyed some of the finest trout I've ever eaten at a restaurant that charged me more for fish than I'd ever paid. Then I went to the bank, and less than an hour later I had my very own numbered account, with a starting balance of thirty thousand Swiss francs and ten thousand American dollars. It was distressingly simple to do. I'd given basic, anonymous information, and then been asked to sign a form declaring that the money I was depositing was, in fact, legally my own. That was pretty much it, and I left wondering if all of the things I'd read about the Swiss tightening their banking laws hadn't been just smoke.
Finally, with all of my groundwork laid, I returned to my room and loaded the Browning, then stuck it in my coat. I unwrapped my new gloves and stuffed them in another pocket, along with the roll of duct tape. I took the binoculars, and then I headed out again, this time behind the wheel of a rented car, and went to see the villa of M. Laurent Junot.
***
If I'd had time, if Oxford hadn't been breathing down our necks, I would have hired five people through Moore and put everything under a magnifying glass, would have worked the whole thing up as if I'd been preparing the advance for someone like Antonia Ainsley-Hunter. I'd have put Junot under surveillance for at least six or seven days, watching him while he went from home to work to play, noting who he met, where, and when, and why. I would have invested in some pricey electronics and tried to tap the phones and bug the house, and I certainly would have devoted a fair chunk of time and resources to learning the details of the alarm. I'd have taken a small mountain of photographs. In short, I'd have been very careful.