Double Vision Page 8

  Maybe his logic was flawed. He hadn’t been thinking clearly for weeks, but with Esther dead and Rina lying unconscious in hospital, there was only one strategy: bluff, delay for time while he tried to think of a way out of this mess. “Esther has—had— a photographic memory. If she wrote numbers down, there is only one reason. She would have given them to Rina so she could memorize them.” He let out a breath. “As insurance.”

  Bluff or not, nothing else made sense. She must have known Dennison was following her and panicked, otherwise she wouldn’t have risked involving Rina.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about Esther?”

  Lopez’s voice was soft and sibilant, his Colombian accent abruptly strong. Adrenaline shoved through Cesar’s veins, making his pulse thud jerkily and his fingers twitch. “I didn’t think it mattered. She didn’t know—”

  But she had.

  With a shock he realized that when Esther had confronted him on Monday night and the manila file with Lopez’s account details had scattered on the floor of his office, she must have gotten a look at the account number. It had only been a split second, but for Esther it had been long enough. He had been stupid, stupid—

  “When did she find out?”

  “Monday.”

  There was a deadly silence. Cesar rushed to fill it. “I didn’t know she’d seen the account number, if I had—” He swallowed. Just seconds before he’d been cold, now sweat was pouring off him. “She asked for time. She was my wife. I believed her.”

  The fist caught him in the jaw. When he came around he was lying on the concrete floor and music was playing.

  Dennison was crouched a few feet away, systematically going through the luggage from the Saab, which included a small antique music box Cesar could remember Esther buying for Rina’s first birthday. The presence of the music box hammered home the fact that Esther had not only stolen the money, she had been leaving him and taking Rina with her.

  Dennison upended the box with the lid open and shook it. The music stopped. A small compartment slid open. After a cursory inspection, he placed the box on the floor and picked up Esther’s jewelry case.

  “What do you know about Xavier le Clerc?”

  Lopez’s question cut through the dim shadows of the garage. He was leaning against the open trunk of the car.

  Cesar pushed to his knees. His head spun and his stomach cramped, the pain agonizing, and for a moment he thought he was going to throw up.

  Le Clerc? For a moment the name meant nothing, then comprehension hit. He swallowed the sour taste of bile in his throat. “Esther knew him in Bern years ago, when she investigated him for Bessel Holt. Aside from the stories in the paper, that’s all I know.”

  “Your wife rang a number in Bern on Monday.”

  Cesar used the wall to brace himself as he staggered to his feet. Lopez wouldn’t bring up le Clerc’s name unless he was somehow implicated, which was crazy; le Clerc had disappeared more than a decade ago. “I didn’t know that.”

  “We tried the number. It belonged to le Clerc’s sister. She’s since disappeared and the number has been disconnected.” There was a pause. “Do you know how to reach le Clerc?”

  “Why would I have any connection with him?”

  Lopez’s gaze was unblinking. “Your wife had a meeting with a former colleague from Bern on Tuesday. Dana Jones. She works at RCS.”

  Shock reverberated through Cesar. Now, finally—too late—he could see the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Dana Jones was in Bern at the same time Esther and Xavier le Clerc were there. Don’t you think that’s a coincidence?”

  “Yes. No.” Cesar shook his head, trying to clear away the heavy ache. “I don’t know. If I did, I would tell you.” He rubbed at his face. “If you can’t find le Clerc, maybe this Dana Jones knows something.”

  Lopez’s expression was cold. “Finally, you’re beginning to think.”

  Annoyed at being kept late when she needed to be home for her daughter, Dana Jones lifted her head as the branch manager strode into her office.

  Jeremy Prattwurst—Pratt for short—didn’t look happy. His mouth was tight, and his expression cold. There had been whisperings all afternoon that someone had slipped up, big-time, and signs of stress showed in the unusual length of time spent behind closed doors in meetings, but so far none of the executive staff had spilled any details. The lack of information was, in itself, worrying. In this place, rumors spread like wildfire.

  “You saw Esther Morell two days ago.”

  “That’s correct.” She had made sure that was no big secret. If she managed to pull even a fraction of the Morell resources under the RCS umbrella, it would be a major coup.

  “Esther Morell’s dead.”

  “What?” For a second Dana thought he wasn’t serious. When his expression didn’t change, she shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

  “A car accident. The thing I’m trying to work out is why she came to see you when the Morell Group banks with Bessel Holt.”

  Dana blinked. The fact that Esther still dealt with Bessel Holt was, to put it mildly, shocking. Dana had had the distinct impression that she had cut her ties and was dealing locally. “She said she was interested in making some investments.”

  “She wasn’t interested in making an investment. She stole a client’s money.”

  By the time Pratt had finished detailing how Esther had managed to bypass the account security features and transfer the funds, Dana understood exactly what Esther Morell’s visit had been about. She had been using her. She had remembered her terrible memory and her trick with the card. The whole thing with the coffee spilling, and Esther helping mop up the mess, had been staged so she could lift her keyboard and get a look at the access codes.

  Pratt seated himself on the corner of her desk and hitched up a trouser leg. The movement was calm and studied. “What I’m interested in,” he said slowly, “is how, exactly, she managed to get hold of our access codes. The only conclusion I can come to is that she got them from you.”

  Dana swallowed. “I didn’t give her anything. I wouldn’t. It’s more than my life’s worth—”

  He leaned forward and lifted her keyboard. Adrenaline pumped and for a raw moment she couldn’t breathe. The card was sitting right where she always kept it.

  He picked up the card. “Della told me about your little habit. It looks like she wasn’t the only one who knew.”

  Dana sucked in a breath, trying to control the rapid pounding of her heart. Della worked in the adjoining office. She must have spotted Dana slipping the card under the keyboard.

  She swallowed and blinked. Her nose had begun to run. She couldn’t believe it, she was crying. She hadn’t cried in years. In a convulsive movement she grabbed at a tissue, and in that moment saw an instant replay of Esther Morell doing the same thing. “She spilt some coffee and lifted the keyboard. She saw the card, but only for a second. I grabbed it and slipped it in the drawer. There was no way she could have remembered that many numbers.”

  “Are you telling me that you didn’t know Esther Morell had a photographic memory?”

  Dana blew her nose, discarded the tissues and pulled some more, her mind frantic. A photographic memory? If Pratt had thrown a brick at her head she couldn’t have been more stunned. “I didn’t know that,” she said tightly.

  Pratt was silent for a moment. “If you really didn’t know, that might be the only thing that saves you.”

  The door opened. A lean, dark man of average height entered the room. Dana had seen him before on a couple of occasions, but only fleetingly. Alex Lopez usually dealt directly with Pratt.

  Pratt straightened, handed the man the card and left the room, closing the door behind him. Warily, Dana pushed to her feet. Lopez was young, in his early twenties, and expensively dressed in a charcoal-gray suit with a diamond tiepin. He was wearing gloves.

  He stared at the card for a moment, then slid it into his po
cket. “Because of you, Esther Morell was able to access my account and remove a substantial sum of money.”

  He mentioned the amount and Dana’s head reeled. Despite working in banking for most of her life, she didn’t know it was possible for any one person to hold that much money in liquid funds. If anyone did have that much legitimate personal wealth, it would usually be split into various forms: property, bonds, shares, blue-chip investments, mortgage funds. If a large amount of capital was available for even a few hours, it went on the overnight money market, or for longer periods on the short-term money market. For Lopez to have that amount in liquid funds meant the rumors in the office that he was involved in organized crime were true.

  The slap came out of left field, snapping her head sideways. The back of her legs hit her office chair and she stumbled off balance, clutching at the desk to stay upright.

  “I could break your neck.” His voice was calm, even casual. “But that’s not what I need right now.”

  Half-formed and horrifying visions of what he might possibly need made her feel physically sick. That amount of money could only come from one source: drugs. Despite the bank’s reputation, she hadn’t expected to deal with criminals. People wanting to reduce their tax bill, yes, but not real criminals.

  Something warm trickled down her chin. Dana touched her mouth. Her bottom lip was stinging and she could taste blood. “What, then?”

  His gaze flashed and she realized she’d pushed his buttons with that reply. A shudder worked its way down her spine. He had just assaulted her and threatened her; she could go to the police. She was sorry she had made a mistake, and sorry that he’d lost his money because of it, but hey, she only worked here. There was no reason she had to put up with any of this. She would lose her job, but that wasn’t a problem. She no longer wanted anything to do with RCS.

  “Where is the money?”

  She flinched, expecting another blow. When it didn’t come, she let out a breath. “I don’t understand what makes you think I had anyth—”

  “Where is the money that you and Esther and Xavier le Clerc stole from me?”

  She stared at Lopez. Now she knew he was crazy. She had known Xavier, but years ago. She hadn’t heard anything about him for more than a decade, ever since the tabloids had lost interest in a story and a trail that had gone cold. “What has le Clerc got to do with this?”

  A flush stained his cheekbones. A gun appeared in his hand. He jammed the barrel against the side of her neck. “Give me the account numbers.”

  The instant cold metal touched her skin, she froze. “I don’t know the account numbers. I don’t know what Esther did with the money. And I don’t know anything about le Clerc.”

  His gaze didn’t waver. “I have your daughter.”

  Her heart slammed against her chest. Panic turned to sheer terror. Taylor. She should be at home, watching TV or doing homework, not—

  Her jaw clamped. She had to stay calm, work this out. He could be lying. She had done a training course about coping with armed offenders. She knew the tactics: stay quiet, stay still, use soothing language, give him what he wanted. But in this case she didn’t have what Lopez wanted. “I don’t understand how I can help you. I made a mistake writing the access codes down, but I had nothing to do with Esth—”

  The barrel jabbed into her throat, choking off her breath.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said with deadly calm. “And until I’m satisfied that you don’t know where the money is, you and your daughter will do exactly as I say.”

  Nine

  Colombia, one week later

  Heat enveloped Dennison as he stepped out of the Cessna onto the rough grass of a private airfield, the only clear strip of land he’d seen for mile upon mile of thick, impenetrable jungle, except for the arid moonscape that surrounded the Chavez stronghold.

  Lopez exited the plane as a dust-covered vehicle came to a stop just beyond the inky shadow cast by the plane. Draping his jacket over one shoulder, Dennison waited for the pilot to unload his overnight bag and studied the vehicle, which looked remarkably like an ancient Rolls-Royce.

  The driver, a young Latino, requested their weapons, then held the door. Shaking his head, Dennison waited for Lopez to take his place, then climbed in. As the Rolls-Royce bumped across the airfield, a second vehicle, this one a jeep bristling with a motley assortment of men and automatic weapons, fell in behind them. If he had needed a reminder that he’d left civilization as he knew it behind, that was it. The Chavez compound was situated at Macaro, hundreds of miles east from Bogotá on a mesa overlooking the Vaupés River, smack in the middle of coca country.

  The Rolls proceeded at a slow pace through the small village, working its way ever higher. The blunt lines of the compound wavered in the distance; the heat shimmer giving the sprawling casa bounded by high, thick walls an almost mystical aspect.

  Fifteen minutes later, the car rolled to a halt outside what could only be described as a castillo. From the air, it had looked impressive. On the ground, it was big enough to take up an entire city block.

  A plump woman dressed in faded black, reminding Dennison of a dusty crow against the pristine white of the walls, hurried down the steps. The woman, who he guessed was Marco’s housekeeper, opened the door for Lopez. Dennison opened his own door and stepped out of the creaking luxury of the Rolls, gaze narrowed against the glare of sunlight off the building as Lopez spoke to the woman. He noticed that she stepped back, her head bowed respectfully. The conversation was brief, the dialect difficult to understand, but Dennison was fluent in Spanish. The woman had indicated that Marco was waiting in the study.

  After the glaring heat, it took Dennison long seconds to adjust to the dimness of the casa, which was built along medieval lines with flagstone floors, vaulted ceilings and enormous fireplaces. Dark, heavy furniture gleamed in clusters, decorating a seemingly endless succession of reception rooms and halls. Faded tapestries and what looked like the weapons and armor once used by the conquistadors hung from the walls.

  A servant scurried ahead, dressed in what Dennison now recognized as a uniform of sorts—black pants and a white shirt with a black waistcoat. A set of double doors swung open and the servant backed away, melting into the shadows.

  Despite all the research he’d done before this meeting, Dennison’s stomach tensed as a white-haired man, much smaller than he had imagined, rose to his feet and walked toward them.

  Despite having the heavy features and thick build of a peon, Marco Chavez traced his ancestry back to the first conquistadors, claiming that his blood was royal. He enjoyed the connection and the rich history, and he enjoyed the wealth of his empire, originally forged from Mayan and Inca gold and now rejuvenated with the new currency, coca. In a country dragged down by poverty, he lived like a king.

  He had taken his obsession with royalty a step further by traveling to Spain for a wife. Maria Beatriz had been chosen for her bloodline, which could be traced back to the House of Aragon.

  When Maria had eventually died after a series of miscarriages, Marco hadn’t replaced her. He had been nearing sixty and he had what he had wanted, a son.

  Lopez moved forward. Marco opened his arms for the traditional embrace, revealing the butt of a shoulder-holstered weapon, and Dennison experienced a curious moment of awareness.

  The driver of the Rolls had taken his Glock and Lopez’s knife. When they had arrived at the walls of the casa, the jeep load of armed men had peeled off. From the time they’d stepped into the dim entrance hall, he had noticed a number of people, servants mostly, and the security personnel who had kept pace with them as they’d walked. At no time had he seen a weapon on anyone within the environs of the house, and he had been looking.

  He logged the movements around him, the weird sense of premonition strong enough to make him break out in a sweat. Two men were behind him, one in the far corner, and at least ten that he’d counted within calling distance.

  With a smooth movement, almost in
slow motion, Alex loosened off the old man’s clasp, slipped his hand inside Marco’s jacket and pulled out the automatic pistol. Jabbing the barrel against Marco’s chest, he pulled the trigger and stepped back.

  Shock reverberated through Dennison as he watched the old man crumple. Breath held tight in his lungs, his hand reached for a gun that was no longer there, the moment impossibly vivid as he tensed against the anticipated punch of bullets as Marco’s soldiers reacted.

  The silence following the detonation of the gun stretched, and the moment took on a surreal quality. Dennison was reminded of the first time he had killed; the thump of adrenaline almost stopping his heart, the weirdness of space and time when, for those few fractured seconds, everything had culminated in a series of freeze frames. But this wasn’t a dealer in a back alley in Chinatown. They were in Colombia and this was Marco Chavez.

  Dark eyes, blank with shock, centered on Lopez. No one could shoot except Lopez. He had the only gun in the house. Dennison studied the hole in Marco’s chest. The lack of movement indicated that the old man had been killed outright.

  The irony of the way he had died didn’t escape Dennison. Marco had fallen prey to the one weakness in his rigid security regime. He had had the only weapon, but it had been taken off him.

  Of all the scenarios he had projected when they hadn’t been able to recover the money, this hadn’t been one of them. In theory, the loss of billions of the cartel’s cash reserves should have signed Lopez’s death warrant. If he had belonged to a “normal” crime family, he would be dead already. But there was nothing remotely normal about either Marco or his son.

  Dennison hadn’t thought that Marco would kill Lopez. For the past twenty-four years, Alex had been Marco’s entire focus. The wholesale slaughter Marco had ordered to force Alex’s release from a Colombian prison was a case in point. To preserve his son, Marco had destroyed his standing in his own country, necessitating that he live in a virtual state of siege. The hatred the massacres had sparked had been so intense, he had had to take Alex out of the equation altogether and remove him to the States under a false identity.