supposedly public documents, but they’re kept on a secure server,
honoring one of the two great Swiss passions those being for chocolate
and for secrecy. I myself have a user ID and password that will provide
access. Not so long ago, you see, the town fathers hired me to write
something for a brochure to mark the six hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of Zurich’s joining the Swiss Confederation. A bit more
local than my usual research, but they were openhanded with the francs.”
An hour later, Ben had an address, a residence decidedly more modest
than Rossignol had formerly inhabited. Two hours later, after immersing
himself in a series of tax documents of astounding intricacy, he had
satisfied himself that it was Gaston Rossignol’s. For one thing, the
title was in Taille’s name, and yet it was not his primary residence. A
country house? No one would have one in Zurich proper. A pied-a-terre
for a mistress? But it was too grand for that. And what of the
real-estate investment trust that maintained co-management privileges?
Taille did not enjoy unilateral control over the property’s disposition;
he could not sell it or transfer the title without permission of the
trust. And where was the trust headquartered? In one of the Channel
Islands, Jersey. Ben smiled. Nicely done a tax haven but not one of the
truly infamous ones. It wasn’t as notorious as Nauru, but its banking
establishment was even more tightly knit, more difficult to penetrate.
Ben glanced again at the address he had jotted down. It was incredible
to think that a brief car ride would take him to one of Sigma’s
founders. Peter had tried to hide from Sigma, and it had destroyed him.
Ben took a deep breath, and felt his stores of anger burn within him.
Well, there’s been a change of plans, he thought. Now let Sigma try to
hide from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
Ben found Gaston Rossignol’s house in the area of Zurich called
Hottingen, a steep, hilly area overlooking the city. The houses here
were situated on large lots and hidden by trees: very private, very
secluded.
Rossignol’s house was on Hauserstrasse, close to the Dolder Grand Hotel,
the grande dame of Zurich hotels, generally considered the finest in all
of Europe. The house was wide and low-slung, built of brownish stone
apparently in the early part of the century.
It didn’t look like any kind of safe house, Ben reflected, but perhaps
that was what made it so effective. Rossignol had grown up in Zurich,
but spent much of his career in Bern. He knew certain Zurichers of
power and influence, of course, but it was not a place where he had
casual acquaintances. Besides, the residents of the Hauserstrasse were
the sort who kept to themselves; this was a neighborhood without
neighborliness. An old man who cultivated his own garden would never
attract notice. It would be a comfortable life, but an effectively
obscure one, too.
Ben parked the Range Rover on an incline down the block and set the
emergency brake to keep it from rolling. He opened the glove
compartment and took out Liesl’s revolver. There were four shells
remaining in the chamber. He would have to buy more ammunition
somewhere if he wanted to use the weapon for protection. Making sure
the safety was engaged, he slipped it into his jacket pocket.
He rang the doorbell. There was no answer, and after a few minutes, he
rang again.
Still no answer.
He tried the knob, but the door was locked.
He noticed a late-model Mercedes parked in the carport at one side of
the house. Rossignol’s car or someone else’s, he couldn’t know.
He turned to leave when it occurred to him to try all the doors, and he
went around the side of the house. The lawn was newly mown, flower
gardens well tended. Someone took good care of the property. The back
of the house was grander than the front, a large sweep of land bordered
by more flower gardens, bathed by the morning sun. A cupola sat in the
middle of a large terrace at the back of the house, near an arrangement
of deck chairs.
Ben approached the back entrance. He pulled open a glass storm door and
then tried the knob.
The knob turned.
He opened the door, his heart hammering, and braced for an alarm to go
off, but heard none.
Was Rossignol here? Or anyone else, a servant, a housekeeper, family?
He entered the house, into a dark, tiled mud room. A few coats hung on
hooks, along with an assortment of wooden canes with ornamental handles.
Passing through the mud room, he entered what looked like a study, a
small room furnished with a large desk, a few bookcases. Gaston
Rossignol, once the pillar of Switzerland’s banking establishment,
seemed to be a man of relatively modest tastes.
On the desk was a green blotter pad, next to it a sleek black Panasonic
telephone with modern gimmicks built in: conference, caller ID,
intercom, speakerphone, digital answering machine.
As he was staring at the phone, it rang. It was ear-splittingly loud,
the ringer turned up to maximum volume. He froze, expecting Rossignol
to enter, wondering how he would explain himself. It rang again, three
times, four, then stopped.
He waited.
No one had picked up. Did that mean no one was home? He glanced at the
caller ID screen, saw that the number was a long series of digits,
obviously long distance.
He decided to move on farther into the house. As he walked down a
corridor, he heard faint music playing Bach, it sounded like but where
was it coming from?
Was someone in fact home?
From the far end of the hall he saw the glow of light coming from a
room. He approached, and the music grew louder.
Now he entered what he immediately recognized as a formal dining room, a
long table in the center of the room covered with a crisp white linen
tablecloth and set with a silver coffeepot on a silver tray, a single
place setting at which was a plate of eggs and sausage. Breakfast
appeared to have been served by a housekeeper, but where was he or she?
A portable tape-player on a buffet against one wall was playing a Bach
cello suite.
And sitting at the table, his back to Ben, was an old man in a
wheelchair. A tanned bald head, fringed with gray, a bull neck, round
shoulders.
The old man didn’t seem to have heard Ben entering. He was probably
hard of hearing, Ben decided, a guess confirmed by the hearing aid in
the old man’s right ear.
Still, taking no chances, he slid his hand into the front pocket of his
leather jacket, felt the bulk of the revolver, pulled it out, and
released the safety. The old man didn’t move. He had to be seriously
deaf, or his hearing aid was turned off.
Suddenly Ben was jolted by the ring of the telephone, just as loud in
here as it had been in the study a minute ago.
Yet the old man didn’t move.
It rang again, a third time, a fourth, and stopped.
Then he heard a man’s voice coming from down the hall, the tone frantic.
After a moment, Ben realized that the voice was coming from the
answering machine, but he couldn’t make out what it was saying.
He took a few steps closer, then placed the barrel of the revolver
against the old man’s head. “Don’t move.”
The old man’s head fell forward, lolling on his chest.
Ben grabbed the arm of the wheelchair with his free hand and spun it
around.
The old man’s chin was on his chest, the eyes wide and staring at the
floor. Lifeless.
Ben’s body flooded with panic.
He felt the food on the plate. The eggs and sausage were still warm.
Apparently Rossignol had died just moments ago. Had he been killed?
If so, the killer could be in the house right now!
He raced down the corridor from which he had come, and the telephone
rang again. In the study, he looked at the caller ID screen: the same
long series of digits, beginning with 431. Where was the call from? The
numbers were familiar. A country in Europe, he felt sure.
The answering machine came on.
“Gaston? Gaston?” a man’s voice shouted.
The words were in French, but spoken by a foreigner, and Ben could make
out few of the heavily accented words.
Who was calling Rossignol, and why?
Another ring: the doorbell!
He raced to the back entrance, which he’d left partially open. No one
was there.
Move it!
He stepped outside and ran around the side of the house, slowing when he
got near the front. From behind some tall shrubbery, he could see a
white police cruiser passing slowly by, patrolling the neighborhood, he
guessed.
A low wrought-iron fence separated Rossignol’s yard from the neighbor’s.