Clear Skies

  They went to the ground floor and entered the May Fair Bar. Ambiance generated from a combination of leather and rich wooden surfaces soothed Slade’s nerves, and he felt more on top of circumstances than when he started the day. The prospect of his first proper meal in the past thirty-six hours also had a settling effect.

  They ate a lunch of Scottish fillet steak with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sautéed fall vegetables. Slade declined an offer from Alex for wine to accompany their meal and ordered sparkling water to keep his head clear. Roche shook his head and ordered a 2007 Guigal Chateauneuf-du-Pape red, blended wine from France’s southeastern Rhone Valley.

  “Asking a Frenchman to eat steak without a red wine seems to be an even more serious faux pas than asking him to skip lunch,” Slade said with a grin.

  “C’est exact,” Roche replied. “Wine is great with or without food at any time of the day after eleven in the morning and depending on the occasion, even earlier. I love the wines from this part of France, which is where I come from, by the way. They’re earthy with aromas of fruit, flowers, and herbs and prime me for research in the bowels of cyberspace.”

  “But when you’re in Tokyo, don’t you drink sake with Japanese food?”

  “Rarely. White wine complements fish, and red wine goes well with meat, whether it’s Western or Japanese food. I drink my favorite wines wherever and whatever I eat. And also when I don’t eat, I have to admit. Although nothing beats hot Japanese sake after coming in from the slopes at the end of a day of skiing,” Roche said.

  They followed the meal with several coffees, planning a ski trip together in the Japanese Alps after the first heavy snowfall, then strolled to the lobby to wait for the embassy driver.

  The blue-plated vehicle slid to a stop outside the main exit. Roche climbed into the car, but Slade’s cell phone buzzed. He stood at the open door and listened to the caller without comment, then said, “I understand, sir.”

  He ended the call and followed Roche into the car.

  “That was Deacon. The Seattle FBI office uncovered death records for Mrs. Evelyn Harris and her second daughter, Carol Harris. They died in an unsolved hit-and-run accident two years ago. That means it could not be Carol Harris who was surgically reconstructed to look like her sister Chloe. So who the hell married Richard Palmer and caught a bullet in Tokyo?”

  Deacon also mentioned that Isa’s Aculeus handler, John Miller, dived off the roof of a forty-story building to his death a couple of days ago. Like Deacon, Slade thought it was an implausible suicide—more likely, an involuntary fall because his value when dead and silent now outweighed his usefulness.

  Old theories lay thick on the floor of the car as Slade and Roche considered the number of dead ends. Circumstances surrounding the current investigation had become even more obscure.

  CHAPTER 34

  (Monday Afternoon—London)

  Slade and Roche entered the familiar lobby of BFI, and the same trio of power-suited male receptionists directed them to seats beside the old fighter replica. Two o’clock came and went, and by two-fifteen, they were still waiting.

  A desk phone rang, and the head receptionist picked up.

  “Is he okay?” he said with a sharp intake of breath, his free hand moving to his chest. There was a pause while he listened to the response, his eyes widening. “Yes, I’ll tell them.”

  He walked over to Slade and Roche.

  “Shortly after Mr. Palmer returned to his office from a lunch engagement, he became ill, and to be on the safe side, his PA called an ambulance to the basement car park. Mr. Palmer is on his way to the hospital as we speak. Ms. Upton apologizes and asks you to wait a while longer, and she will come to meet you as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll wait because I have documents to give Ms. Upton.” Slade showed the receptionist his FBI credentials. “Who did he meet for lunch? Do you know?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We are not privy to that information. He received a visitor just after eleven, and all I know is they left for a restaurant at eleven-thirty in a company car. From the visitor’s accent, I believe he was an American. Ms. Upton may be able to tell you more if it is not confidential information.”

  “If Mr. Palmer became seriously ill after eating lunch, Scotland Yard would not regard anything as confidential information. And if his American visitor is affected too, which is possible since they dined together, my agency will also investigate the incident.” Slade paused before speaking again with as much gravity as he could muster. “I understand Mr. Palmer’s executive assistant, Mr. Hewitt, died in a shooting incident in Nice a few days ago. The circumstances of Mr. Palmer’s sudden illness might also be suspicious and perhaps connected to the top-secret nature of their work related to UK and US defense capabilities.”

  “I wouldn’t know much about that, sir.” The receptionist strode away before Slade could ask any more questions. He was desperate for information, but there was little to learn at this level. He resigned himself to wait for Upton.

  He glanced at Roche. “If Palmer’s critically ill, this could be an attempt to kill him as we predicted.”

  Twenty minutes later, after Slade and Roche inspected the ornamental fighter replicas in unnecessary detail and checked their emails several times, Jane Upton came through the security door and walked toward them.

  There was no doubt about Palmer’s fate. Her face, drained of color, was swollen around bloodshot eyes. There was no sign of the executive bounce to her walk seen at their previous meeting. Upton stood in front of them, at a loss for words, her fists clenched and eyes half-closed. She opened her mouth to speak, but tears streamed down her cheeks instead.

  They waited while she composed herself. “Mr. Palmer passed away in the ambulance before reaching a hospital and could not be revived. I’m told he had a heart attack.” Tears rolled down her cheeks again.

  “Please accept our deepest condolences.” He reached out and led her by the arm to sit down before he went on. “Where did they take him?”

  “His body is at the Royal London Hospital.”

  “Perhaps this was a case of severe food poisoning. What about his companion? Is he okay?”

  “He called from Heathrow Airport a short time ago and asked to speak to Mr. Palmer to thank him for lunch. I told him what happened, and he was shocked, so he’s not ill. As I said, the hospital believes Mr. Palmer died from a heart attack, and when a family member gives permission, they’ll carry out an autopsy to confirm their diagnosis. We informed his brother, who’ll arrive from Scotland tonight.”

  “What about his wife?” asked Roche.

  “We thought she boarded the Chevalier to sail back to London. You know, part of her vacation. But when we called, the captain told us she disembarked in Marseille. He doesn’t know where she went, and we haven’t been able to contact her yet.”

  Slade’s pulse quickened. Chloe Harris was now off their radar screen. He made a mental note to call Fontaine when this meeting ended and ask him to put a search of her current whereabouts in motion.

  “Who did Mr. Palmer meet for lunch?” he asked.

  “He’s an American government official liaising with the aeronautics industry. I don’t know more about him than that. I don’t even know his number. He and Mr. Palmer made their appointments directly with pre-paid phones for confidentiality. I do know that Mr. Palmer has met him at least thirty times over the past three years, both here at BFI headquarters and in the US.”

  “What is his name?”

  “I heard Mr. Palmer refer to him as Ray Short. I often wondered what such a tall, skinny man felt about having that name,” she said.

  An unsettling thought flashed through Slade’s mind—Upton’s description of the person she knew as Ray Short matched the physique of DIA Deputy-Director Neil Ashton.

  “How old do you think Mr. Short might be?” queried Slade.

  “I’d guess mid-fifties.”

  Just like Neil Ashton, reflected Slade again.

  “We understan
d that Mr. Palmer’s executive assistant, Tony Hewitt, died in a shooting incident at Nice Central Station,” Slade said. “It seems like an unlikely coincidence that both should die under suspicious circumstances a day apart, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything suspicious about it. BFI is having a lot of bad luck right now.” Her voice faltered, and there was an awkward silence while she brought it under control. “The company suffered a budget deficit—a huge deficit actually—caused by unexpected losses in peripheral businesses like property development, and that put Mr. Palmer under enormous stress.

  “And it got worse when he learned yesterday of Tony’s death. He was annoyed that Tony put himself at risk of a mugging, or as it turned out a killing, by traveling to Nice airport by train rather than taking a car. He carried important documents with him, and now they are missing.”

  Slade knew of Palmer’s string of losses from the FBI report he’d read while they’d waited in Monte Carlo for the Chevalier to arrive, but it did not say the funds Palmer squandered in his ill-fated investments came from the company pot. In his most recent investment debacle, Palmer must have sunk an enormous chunk of money from BFI’s profits into constructing massive residential towers of glass, metal, and concrete sandwiched aggressively between preserved Victorian buildings in Hyde Park. They were built on the promise of a money surge from peripatetic Russian investors who’d buy without any concern for the area’s past.

  The apartments would have to sell for a fortune just to break even. But when the time came to pay, potential investors had lost too much in the banking meltdown in Cyprus, where assets of the local banks had inflated to abnormal levels with waves of cash over many years from these same wealthy Russian oligarchs. They’d stashed their money in no-questions-asked banks in a country they believed was a safe tax haven, only to lose a bucketload when the banks froze and reorganized.

  The consequence—they did not honor their apartment purchase contracts. Other aesthetically impaired buyers with a taste for the cultural and historical dissonance of the overpriced building and sufficient funds to buy had proved elusive over the past three years, causing Palmer’s economic woes to shoot out of control.

  Slade could see that Palmer signed onto the Clear Skies operation to compensate for his accumulated losses. Equally clear was that Chloe Harris had other plans for the money, but talking to Upton about criminal activity would be futile, Slade thought.

  He remembered the envelope containing the confidential documents.

  “I think these are your missing documents. It seems that one of our associates visiting London planned to deliver them to you. Since she is not available today, we brought them for her. I’d file them in a secure place if I were you.”

  “Thank you. I will. I intended to collect the envelope from the reception desk at the May Fair, but I’ve been busy all morning. I had no idea it contained our documents.” Upton clutched the envelope to her chest like a precious memento of her late boss. An uncomfortable silence elapsed before she spoke again. “Well, I should go upstairs and start the process of putting Mr. Palmer’s business affairs in order.”

  Slade held out his business card. “Thank you for coming down to see us under these distressing circumstances. Here are my contact details in case anything out of the ordinary turns up.” He paused, considering for a moment, then went on. “We are in London to investigate a series of incidents, including three homicides in Tokyo, and these may be related to Mr. Hewitt’s and perhaps even Mr. Palmer’s death.”

  Upton opened her mouth to protest, but Slade continued. “I know it seems like a stretch, but believe me when I say there’s a connection.”

  CHAPTER 35

  (Monday Afternoon—London)

  Slade and Roche left the building, sure that foul play underscored Richard Palmer’s death.

  Slade believed the perpetrator was Palmer’s lunch companion, Ray Short. He also thought Ray Short was Neil Ashton. A highly trained, experienced DIA covert operative in a position of high-level authority, Ashton had access to an arsenal of undetectable poisons and delivery devices for sanctioned assassinations. He also had a ton of experience in using them with finesse. He’d have found ample opportunity during the meal to poison Palmer’s food or drink or prick his hand with a concealed needle when handing him a business document to read or sign.

  And just like all covert operatives, he’d have a stockpile of authentic passports issued by a little-known section of the US Department of State to allow agents to function offshore undercover.

  Before they flagged down a cab to take them along a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree tangent from aeronautics to the world of fashion, Slade called Fontaine to brief him on Richard Palmer’s death.

  “His PA says he died of a heart attack, but I’ll put my money on poisoning by his lunch companion, an American calling himself Ray Short. I’ll ask our FBI guys here to tap their MI5 contacts for the autopsy results and share them with us. And I’ll get Bill Deacon at HQ to pull up whatever his researchers can find on a Ray Short.” Slade paused when he caught sight of a cab coming their way and pointed it out to Roche, before continuing.

  “One more thing, Ben. Chloe Harris left the Chevalier. The captain told BFI that Palmer’s wife disembarked with her luggage at Marseille earlier today. No one knows where she is, and she hasn’t responded to calls. We need you and your cyber-specialist to pinpoint her current whereabouts and final destination. Start with the captain. The Chevalier could still be hugging the coast, so you might catch his cell phone.”

  “I’ll do that right after this call, but I’ve got information for you too. We traced the movements of the two Aculeus operatives after they arrived in Paris by train from Nice. From there, Fox must have gone to Charles de Gaulle Airport on the airport shuttle bus from Gare de Lyon because he took a late afternoon flight to Washington, DC. Maine did not. A search of hotel registrations traced Maine to a four-star hotel not far from Gare de Lyon. He paid for three days in advance when he checked in and hasn’t been seen there since.”

  “Hold on, Ben. We’re getting a cab right now.” Slade stepped onto the road with Roche to get the driver’s attention.

  “Okay. We’re on our way now to meet Isa. Go on.”

  “There’s been a significant development that will interest you. Sakata turned up dead this morning, floating in shallow water off the Nice Marina. The police identified him right away since they were on alert for the Japanese authorities. They called us because they know we’ve got a stake in his case.”

  “How and when did he die?” Slade closed the cab door.

  “The initial assumption was drowning, but the preliminary autopsy found only a small amount of salt water in his lungs. The ME ran Sakata’s blood, and early test results suggest an intense level of a substance he thinks could be ricin or abrin. He’ll confirm in due course, but he says at that level, death would have come fast. He found an entry wound consistent with an injection to the back of his neck. He must have been dumped in the water after he died to make it look like drowning. The estimated time of death has been put at four-thirty to five o’clock in the morning, three hours before his body was found.”

  “Maybe this is why Maine didn’t leave France with Fox and why he’s not been seen in his hotel. He might have waited for further instructions to deal with our Japanese friend. But I wonder how he got close enough to poison a consummate professional hitman like Sakata.”

  “I have a theory about that,” Fontaine said. “We’ve checked security camera footage from the Nice Marina where they found his body and from the Monte Carlo Marina when the Chevalier left. I followed up the photint generated in the frames. The trail I’ve identified so far might tie in with what you’ve told me about Palmer and Ray Short.”

  “Sorry to cut in again, Ben. We’re approaching Somerset House, so I’ll call you back.”

  “I’ve written a short report and am sending it to you now. I have a meeting in five minutes, so we’ll talk
again after you read it. Have fun at Fashion Week,” Fontaine laughed and ended the call.

  When they stepped out of the cab, Slade called the head of the FBI team stationed in the US embassy. Briefed on the case earlier by Fontaine, he promised to follow up on Slade’s requests and call back later. Slade was certain now about the cause of Richard Palmer’s death.

  He knew from his FBI training on poisons that abrin, extracted from the rosary pea plant, is more lethal than ricin, particularly at ultra-high concentrations, yet is one of the lesser known poisons of choice for government-sanctioned assassins.

  Slade believed someone with superior skills and access to a sophisticated killing toolkit engineered the Japanese assassin’s termination. Then he’d come to London and eliminated Richard Palmer in the same way.

  CHAPTER 36

  (Monday Afternoon—London)

  It had turned to a blustery early fall afternoon in central London, chilling throngs of tourists window shopping or queuing for cabs outside the leading hotels. But inside the sanctuary of Somerset House, located on the banks of the Thames, an entirely different climate prevailed.

  Slade thought London Fashion Week dispelled the rumor that the British have a disinclination to sparkle. The crowd was edgy, polished, and dressed to kill.

  The choice of Somerset House as the venue for an event showcasing cutting-edge fashion, much of it futuristic in design, struck Slade as enigmatic. It could have been a smart strategy to add exclusivity to what, in essence, was a trade event. Or it could have been simply a choice born of crass insensitivity. He was inclined to believe the latter.

  He read the plaque outside the building.

  “Before they constructed Somerset House in the eighteenth century,” Slade said to Roche’s disappearing back, “Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, built a Tudor-style palace on this site in the 1500s. There’s lots of history here.”