genuine one.”
“How do you mean?”
“It should have been so obvious! I can give you a hundred instances
from my Wall Street days. In 1992, one guy ousted another rival to
become the sole CEO of Time Warner, and his first order of business was
what? To purge the hostiles from the board of directors. That’s what
management does. You get rid of your adversaries!”
“But the Time Warner guy didn’t kill his opponents, I assume,” she said
dryly.
“On Wall Street we have different techniques for eliminating enemies.”
Ben gave a twisted smile. “But he eliminated them all the same. It’s
what always happens when there’s an abrupt change in management.”
“So you’re suggesting there’s been a ‘change in management’ at Sigma.”
“Exactly. A purge of what you might call dissident trustees.”
“Rossignol, Mailhot, Prosper!” and the rest–you’re saying they were
all dissidents? On the wrong side of the new management?”
“Something like that. And Georges Chardin was known to be brilliant. No
doubt he saw it coming, and so he arranged to disappear.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. But it’s still all in the realm of wild
speculation.”
“Not quite,” Ben said softly. He turned to face Anna directly.
“Beginning with the time-honored principle “Follow the money,” I hired a
French investigator we’ve used before at Hartman Capital Management. A
wizard named Oscar Peyaud. We’ve used him for due diligence work in
Paris, and every time he blows us away with the speed and quality of his
work. And the size of his bill, but that’s another matter.”
“Thanks for keeping me in the loop about what you were doing,” Anna said
with heavy sarcasm. “So much for being partners.”
“Listen to me. A man can’t live without some form of financial support.
So I got to thinking, what would happen if you could track down the
executor to Chardin’s estate–see in what form he left his assets, how
he might have retained access to them.” He paused, took out a folded
sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “An hour ago this arrived from
Paris, from Oscar Peyaud.”
The page was blank except for a brief address:
Rogier Chabot
1554 rue des Vignoles
Pans 20
Anna looked up, at once puzzled and excited. “Chabot?” “Georges
Chardin’s alias, I would bet. I think we have our man. Now it’s just a
matter of our getting to him before Sigma does.”
An hour later, the phone on Walter Heisler’s desk rang. A cycle of two
short rings: an internal line. Heisler was drawing deep on a
cigarette-he was working through the third pack of Casablancas of the
day-when he picked up, and there was a two-second pause before he spoke:
“Heisler.”
It was the tech from the small room on the fifth floor. “Did you get
the bulletin on the American, Navarro?”
“What bulletin?” Heisler slowly let the warm smoke plume through his
nostrils.
“Just came in.”
“Then it’s probably been sitting in the message center all morning.” The
Sicherheitsburo message center, operating with what he regarded as
third-world inefficiency, was a bane of his existence. “What’s up,
then? Or do I need to find out by listening to the news on the radio?”
This was how he had taken to formulating the complaint. Once he really
did find out the whereabouts of a fugitive from a local radio station,
the messengers having misplaced the morning’s faxed bulletin somewhere
enroute to his desk.
“She’s a rogue, it seems. We’ve been used. The U.S. government has a
warrant out for her. Not my department, but I thought somebody should
give you a heads-up.”
“Christ!” Heisler said, and let his cigarette drop from his mouth into
his mug of coffee, heard the quick sizzle of the quenched butt. “Shit!
A fucking embarrassment.”
“Not so embarrassing if you’re the one who brings her in, eh?” the tech
said carefully.
“Checking out of Room 1423,” Anna said to the harried-looking clerk at
the front desk. She placed her two electronic key-cards on the black
granite counter.
“One moment, please. If I can just have your signature on the final
bill, ja?” The man was weary-looking, and fortyish, with slightly
concave cheeks, and dirty-blond hair–dyed?–combed forward, flat
against his skull, in a seeming attempt to simulate youth. He wore a
crisp uniform jacket of some sort of brown synthetic, with slightly
fraying epaulets. Anna had a sudden vision of him as she imagined he
became after hours–dressed in black leather, heavily spritzed with
musky cologne, haunting nightclubs where the dim light might help him
get lucky with a sc hone Madchen.
“Of course,” Anna said.
“We hope you enjoyed your stay, Ms. Navarro.” He typed numbers on a
keyboard, and then looked up at her, showing a toothy, yellow tinged
smile. “Apologies. It’s going to take a few moments to bring the
records up. A problem in the system. Computers, right?” He smiled
wider, as if he had said something witty. “Wonderful labor-saving
devices. When they work. Let me get the manager.” He picked up a red
handset, and said a few words in German.
“What’s going on,” asked Ben, who was standing behind her.
“A computer problem, he says,” Anna murmured.
From behind the counter, a short, big-bellied man emerged in a dark suit
and tie. “I’m the manager, and I’m so sorry for the delay,” the man
said to her. He exchanged glances with the clerk. “A glitch. It’s
going to take a few minutes to retrieve the records. Phone calls, all
of that. We’ll get it for you soon, and then you can take a look and
make sure it looks right. Wouldn’t want you billed for the phone calls
in Room 1422. Sometimes happens with the new system. Miracle of modern
technology.”
Something was wrong, and it wasn’t the computer system.
The manager was jovial and reassuring and effusive, and yet, despite the
lobby’s slight chilliness, Anna noticed the beads of sweat on his
forehead. “Come and sit in my office while we get this straightened
out. Take a load off your feet, yes? You’re off to the airport, yes?
You have transportation arranged? Why don’t you let the hotel car take
you our compliments. The least we can do for the inconvenience.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Anna said, thinking that she recognized the
type well from her years of investigations the type of person whom
tension made talkative. The man was under orders to detain them. That
much was clear.
“Not at all. Not at all. You come with me, and have a nice cup of
coffee. Nobody makes it like the Viennese, yes?”
Most likely, he hadn’t been informed why, or whether they were
dangerous. He must have been instructed to notify security, but
security must not have arrived yet, or he wouldn’t be so anxious. She
was checking out of the hotel prematurely. Which meant… well, there
was more than one possibility. Perhaps she he? they? had only
recently been targeted. In which case, preparations would not be fully
in place.
“Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you just figure it out on your own time
and send me the bill? No biggie, huh?”
“It will be just a few minutes,” the manager said, but he was not
looking at her. Instead, he was making eye contact with a guard across
the lobby.
Anna looked at her wristwatch ostentatiously. “Your cousins are going
to be wondering what happened to us,” she said to Ben. “We’d better get
a move on.”
The manager stepped around the counter, and placed a clammy hand on her
arm. “In just a few minutes,” he said. Up close, he smelled
unappetizingly of grilled cheese and hair oil.
“Get your hands off me,” Anna said in a tone of low menace. Ben was
startled by the sudden steel in her voice.
“We can take you wherever you want to go,” the manager protested, in a
tone that was more wheedling than threatening.
From across the lobby, the security guard was reducing the distance
between him and them with long, fast strides.
Anna hoisted her garment bag over her shoulder and headed for the front
door. “Follow me,” she said to Ben.
The two made their way quickly toward the entrance. The lobby guard,
she knew, would have to confer with the manager before pursuing them
outside of the building.
On the sidewalk in front of the hotel, she looked around carefully. At
the end of the block, she saw a police officer speaking into a walkie
talkie, presumably giving his location. Which meant that he was likely
the first on the scene.
She tossed her bag to Ben, and headed straight over to the policeman.
“Christ, Anna!” Ben snapped.
Anna stopped the policeman, and spoke to him in a loud, official
sounding voice. “You speak English?”
“Yes,” the cop said uncertainly. “English, yes.” He was crew-cut,
athletic, and seemed to be in his late twenties.
“I’m with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Anna said. “The