Clear Skies

by A. M. Murray

  He’d reached the conclusion of his thirty-minute presentation.

  “The era of peak oil is imminent. The world’s food production and supply system is flawed, and the demise of food has begun. Water is rapidly diminishing, and there is little time left to act. Water is, of course, at the center of life, but it’s also at the center of economic activity, just like oil. The inevitable scarcity of water alone—and we are seeing severe shortages already in China, India, and Egypt—will force the have-nots to invade nations still holding reserves, leading to aggression on a global scale.

  “The president must authorize our military services to embark on a strategy to secure stable supplies of our fundamental commodities. Let me be patently clear—the United States has to remain functional to maintain global order when environmental and social conditions deteriorate to the flashpoint when people start fighting to get hold of their share. As the world’s peacemaker, America’s needs are far greater than those of other nations, and we must be prepared.

  “I leave you with this thought. We are facing a grim, worst-case scenario—the end of oil, critical depletion of food and water supplies, unbreathable air, plunging global recession, intractable worldwide unemployment and poverty, economic chaos, and escalating violent competition among major oil- and food-importing nations. We are standing on the precipice of a perilous new world. Whether we fall over the edge or remain standing depends on how we act now.”

  Ashton eased through a group of enthusiasts congratulating him on his speech and caught sight of Deacon approaching the stage.

  “Bill. Pleased to see you here.”

  Ashton’s eyes were the color of pewter, cold and hard even when he smiled, reminding Deacon of the Washington, DC sky on a bitter midwinter day.

  “You’re not recommending we plunder countries with resources in the name of world peace, I hope. It certainly sounded like it.”

  “Anyone is free to interpret my words in whatever way they like,” Ashton said, his voice brittle with more than a hint of impatience. “I recommend what I think is the best course of action for the future. We need greater awareness. I’m just laying the groundwork for the mindset needed to meet the problem of the world’s dwindling resources head-on.”

  “Have you got time now for a drink? Let’s talk this out some more,” Deacon said.

  Ashton smiled again, and the effect could have chilled ice.

  “I have to leave right away. Sorry. Another time.” He hurried out of the building into a waiting cab and sat back to savor the drive to the airport.

  He believed the time to move was not at the moment of transition to an unsustainable state when fighting broke out in the inevitable battle for essential resources. The time was now. His government refused to act, but he’d put his survival plan into motion while the opportunity could still be taken. He’d set up his own safe haven and hired a cadre of strong-arm specialists, whose job it was to ensure that he could live there in unchallenged and peaceful luxury, while everyone else struggled to get their hands on basic daily necessities.

  His plan had swung into motion several years ago, but the real work had been done over the last twelve months. His desalination plant could provide enough fresh water to supply his small enclave indefinitely, and work on his self-sufficient farm and biomass treatment plant would start next month. He had also secured top-level security with skilled enforcers and sufficient arms to protect his enclave from attack from starving marauders.

  Now he’d reached the pivotal point of his scheme. Major challenges lay ahead in the next few days, but he’d prepared for it in infinitesimal detail. His words today would appear tomorrow in media outlets and his actions vindicated in a few years when the global struggle for survival roared to a start. Let the last act begin.

  # # #

  Deacon stood rooted to the spot near the stage where Ashton had left him. In a way, he admired the man for his concern about the fate of the environment. But that concern was driving his warped delusions about the need for US military control of dwindling global resources. The audience’s naïve enthusiasm bolstered Ashton’s discombobulated views. But there was no way the government would tolerate his action plan for dealing with the problem, and no amount of audience adulation would change that.

  Deacon’s cell phone buzzed as a message from a colleague arrived. John Miller, the disgraced former operative who’d once worked in his section, had leaped to his death earlier in the afternoon from the roof of the 40-story building housing Aculeus. An unlikely suicide, Deacon thought.

  CHAPTER 25

  (Sunday Morning— Monte Carlo)

  The sun chased away the rain that had shrouded Monte Carlo since early morning. It warmed Slade, Roche, and Fontaine during their short walk to the Hotel de Paris for their meeting with Richard Palmer’s wife. Slade looked at the sun-drenched tourists. He’d rather be holidaying here with Isa than poking around in an elusive yet potentially explosive case.

  His eyes, drawn to the ocean, focused on the play of sunlight on the water, which dazzled his vision for a few seconds before it adjusted to normal. That experience reflected the fluctuating grip he’d had on the unfolding elements of the case since the first murder in Tokyo. An ocean breeze picked up, and his jacket flapped open, snapping him back to reality.

  They arrived at the hotel, and the concierge directed them to the American Bar, where Mrs. Palmer sat planted on a stool drinking a peach daiquiri. Her long, thick, blonde hair framed her face and fell straight over her shoulders, stopping below her breasts. Her only makeup appeared to be glossy, ruby-red lipstick, contrasting with her low-cut white blouse. Her black jeans looked like a second skin. Slade wondered how long it took her to pull them on and, of greater interest, how long it took to peel them off. Not suitable attire for impulsive sex, he reflected.

  She was brushing off advances from an Armani-clad, middle-aged man flourishing a thick wad of money. He would have won the attention of many women, but not Palmer.

  “I expected just you, Mr. Slade,” she said, raising her eyebrows when they approached and flashed their official IDs. “Shall we move to a window table, where there’s more space?”

  She was poised, self-confident with impeccable grooming, and physically identical to the corpse in Japan except for a mole on the left side of her neck. Large gold earrings concealed her earlobes. Despite her accentuated femininity, Slade likened her to an open steel trap that could spring shut any time and annihilate them.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting the man with the balls to upset my husband, not to mention wasting his valuable time with a story about a criminal shooting that killed me in Tokyo.” Her lips smiled, but her eyes didn’t bother. “You don’t match the image I’d formed of you.” She paused to signal a waiter over for immediate attention. “But I’m not disappointed.” She stared at him, scanning his features from head to toe, lingering a fraction too long below his belt. “In fact, I think I noticed you in the casino last night. Were you there?”

  “I have to admit curiosity about the iconic Casino de Monte Carlo got the better of us, so we were tourists last night,” Slade said, noting she could not be accused of inattention. Rather, her observational skills were acute, because he’d made an effort to meld into the casino crowd.

  The waiter approached, and she held up her empty glass. “We’re moving to a window table, and I’ll have another of these. What will you gentlemen have?”

  “Nothing for us, thank you.” With Richard Palmer’s wife in front of him, physically identical to the dead woman in Tokyo, and his memory of that arresting corpse still vivid, Slade had difficulty shedding a stygian sense of conversing with the dead. A stiff drink would have been welcome, but he needed to keep his intervention with her as essential and objective as possible.

  “You’re in Monte Carlo. It’s a place to play. Learn to relax, gentlemen.”

  “Another time, Mrs. Palmer. We’re here on official business. I have a few questions I would like to ask you,” Slade s
aid.

  “Fire away.”

  Her veneer of pomposity and exaggerated sense of her own importance were, for Slade’s money, as fake as her massive win at the baccarat table last night.

  “Where were you last Thursday night and Friday morning?” he asked.

  “My husband and I own a yacht. I sailed along the French Riviera coastline, between Monte Carlo and Marseille with a stopover at Cannes.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Hardly. It’s a large yacht, and we have a crew of more than twenty people. And my husband accompanied me on the days you mentioned as well. He disembarked at Marseille and flew back to London for an important company meeting.”

  Slade ticked off the key elements of her replies against his understanding of the facts. So far, they matched.

  “Can you give me the name and contact details of your vessel’s captain so he can corroborate what you have told us?” he said. “It’s just a formality, you understand.”

  Palmer hesitated before pulling out a business card from her handbag. She handed it to Slade. “You’ll find him at this address. He captains our vessel but works for others when he’s not needed on our yacht. We have a contract with him for a fixed schedule.”

  Slade looked at the card. It belonged to a Laurent Verdier, described as the Master Captain of the Chevalier, with an address in Marseille. He jotted down the details and handed the note to Fontaine and the card back to Palmer.

  “My colleague here, Ben Fontaine, will contact him.”

  “Was there anyone else on board besides the crew and your husband?” Fontaine asked. “You said it is a large yacht. Perhaps you entertained guests?”

  “The reason we spent a great deal of money to own our yacht, Mr. Fontaine, is to escape from the pressures of work and the world in general. Having guests on board is never relaxing. They have to be entertained.”

  A classic evasion, neither confirming nor denying the presence of the Chinese guests and their escorts they’d seen disembarking from the Chevalier. She’d be caught out later that evening when he and Fontaine crashed her private poker game with the Chinese.

  Slade decided not to pursue this line of questioning and changed direction to Tokyo and the killing of her reconstructed look-alike sister. He pulled out a photograph of the dead woman they’d first misidentified as Carol Palmer, née Chloe Harris, sitting across the table from them now.

  “Mrs. Palmer, this is the body we found in your Tokyo apartment.” Slade slapped the photo on the table in front of her. “You have to admit there is a remarkable likeness to you.” He allowed enough time to evaluate her reaction. “I understand that before your marriage to Richard Palmer, your name was Chloe Harris, and you have a younger sister called Carol Harris. Could this person be your sister?”

  Palmer’s expression did not flinch when she looked at the body in the photograph. It would need the opinion of an experienced psychologist to draw any valid conclusions, but to Slade’s untrained eye, she did not seem disturbed.

  “My sister and I have some similarities in appearance, of course, but you can tell us apart. With the surgical techniques available these days, this person could be anyone. My photo is available in agency brochures and advertisements, so any woman my age, build, and height could have undergone reconstruction surgery to look like me.” Palmer paused to sip her drink, her poise unshaken. “If it is my sister, I can guess her motives. She and I were not as close as most siblings, and she always envied my looks and achievements. I would not be surprised to learn she’d done something this extreme.”

  Palmer’s response was controlled and almost convincing. She’d probably rehearsed it.

  “Did you know she entered your Tokyo apartment last weekend? According to your story, you were here at the time,” he said.

  “It’s not just a story. I was here. And no, I did not know. But I didn’t need to know because she had a key and an open invitation. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since I married Richard, but she knew she’d always be welcome to come and stay with me. She must have made an impulsive decision to visit and became an unintended shooting victim of a robbery.”

  Her face showed a fleeting semblance of concern, though Slade doubted her sincerity.

  “That would make sense, except we have found no evidence to suggest a break-in or a robbery,” Slade said.

  “Does that mean you haven’t found the killer yet?” Palmer emptied her glass before summoning a waiter to bring another drink.

  “Our investigation is proceeding, and we are following a number of significant leads, but I have nothing I can tell you yet,” Slade said, giving her the standard CIB response to relatives of victims of similar crimes. “I understand your agency started in Tokyo twelve months ago. Was that when you married Richard Palmer?”

  “Yes. We married a month earlier. He provided capital for the venture, and we spent our honeymoon in Japan setting it up. I stayed, and he went back to London.”

  “Isn’t it rather unusual for newlyweds to work on opposite sides of the globe?” Slade said.

  “Mr. Slade, you sound like a throwback to a previous age. I’d formed the impression from your looks that you were much more open to the unconventional,” she said, feigning amusement. “My husband and I are mature adults, not lovestruck teenagers. And Richard recognizes a good business opportunity when he sees one. The market for top-level foreign fashion models in Japan is underdeveloped and their availability uncoordinated. I wanted to run an agency to fill the niche, and he supported me. I employ a competent manager, and that allows me to travel back to Europe every few months. And my husband visits Japan as often as he can.”

  It was not Slade’s idea of the perfect marital relationship. It sounded more like a calculated business arrangement.

  “Can you tell me when you will return to Tokyo?” he asked. “We’ll require your help to clarify the victim’s identity with a DNA test and deal with administrative details. And I want your cell phone number in Europe and email address, so I can contact you at any time if the need arises.”

  She reached into her handbag and gave Slade a name card with her private contact details, leaning in so close, he could smell the peach daiquiri on her breath. He sat back to put distance between them.

  “I plan to return to Tokyo in one month’s time. I have a busy schedule in London and Europe and would prefer not to rearrange my appointments, but contact me if you feel it’s absolutely necessary. I would be more than happy to meet you again, perhaps one-on-one next time.”

  “One more thing.” Slade ignored the unsubtle undercurrent to her words. “Could you show me your passport, please?”

  Palmer took a leather travel wallet from her handbag and extracted a UK passport. The name of the passport holder was Carol Palmer, and the photograph matched her facial features. It was issued one year ago. Slade looked through it and jotted notes on his pad.

  “Do you also have a US passport?”

  “Yes, I do. It dates back to my pre-marriage days. It’s still valid, but I don’t have it with me now.”

  “Thank you. That’s all we need for now, but I will be in touch with you again,” he said without looking up. He fingered through the passport before handing it back to her. “We appreciate your cooperation today.”

  The three men stood up and walked through the hotel lobby, exchanging glances with Miles seated near the American Bar, waiting to pick up Palmer’s tail again.

  They stepped outside into the warm late morning sun.

  “That was a smooth performance,” Fontaine said. “Step into her world, and you can lose your hold on reality fast. She didn’t put a foot wrong. And she has the hots for you, Dan.”

  They strolled a short distance from the hotel to a plaza behind the casino overlooking the sea, and a stunning view greeted them. The Mediterranean, transformed under the improved weather, stretched away until the haze on the horizon merged it into the sky. A soft gust of wind disturbed the water’s surface in spasmodic bursts, and crests
of small waves unfurled as they approached the shore. The sea along the French Riviera is famous for its sparkling sapphire-blue water, Slade mused, but it’s nothing more than an optical illusion caused by tiny particles suspended in the water scattering sunlight. The water is calm but full of danger and deception below. The parallel with Palmer is uncanny.

  “That come-on was just an act to distract me. In the end, she distracted herself and did put a foot wrong,” Slade said. “She knew the victim had been shot and mentioned it twice, but that information has never been made public. The photograph I showed her just now and her husband at BFI before did not display the bullet wound, yet she knew how her sister was killed. And we know she doesn’t have a manager in Tokyo.”

  CHAPTER 26

  (Sunday Morning— Monte Carlo)

  They strolled back to the Place du Casino, bordered on three sides by the Hotel de Paris, the front entrance of the casino, and the street-side Café de Paris. The sea air stimulated Slade’s appetite, and he steered Roche and Fontaine across the plaza to the Café de Paris just before eleven-thirty for coffee and sandwiches. Before their food arrived, Fontaine’s phone buzzed.

  When his short conversation ended, he said, “An unknown perp shot a passenger this morning at Gare de Nice SNCF Centrale on the platform for trains inbound from Monaco. That’s Nice’s central station, where Isa will have transferred to another train for Paris. Local authorities brought in my FBI office in Marseille because the victim’s nationality is American and they thought the incident might be connected to our case. They don’t have much information at this stage, though,” Fontaine said.