The Devil's Banker

Chapter 42

At the same time as Swiss International Airlines flight 765 touched down in Paris, Marc Gabriel was standing in the center of his office, surveying the naked space. The last boxes had left a few minutes earlier. The desk, the computer hardware, the phones, the photos: everything was a memory. Gabriel was left alone with his view.

To his mind the last three days had stretched into one. Taleel’s death. Ciudad del Este. George’s treason. By all accounts, he should be exhausted, both physically and mentally. Instead, he felt refreshed, invigorated, and alive to the challenges that waited. Catching his reflection in the glass, he smoothed his white shirt and flirted with his Hermès cravat. If his expression did not convey the direness of his situation, it was because he had won. The footrace was as good as over. A single call had put his worries to rest.

“The city is more beautiful than I had expected,” Mordecai Kahn had said when he’d phoned an hour earlier.

“Summer is a kind season.”

“I take it you are free this evening?”

“Of course.”

“Say, eleven o’clock?”

“Eleven would be wonderful.”

Kahn gave Gabriel the name of the establishment where he proposed they meet.

“You’re certain?” Gabriel asked, peeved at the choice.

“Neither of us can take any chances.”

Marc Gabriel had no intention of it. “Very good, then. Till eleven.”

“Bilitis’s Vineyard. It is on the third floor.”

“Bilitis’s Vineyard,” Gabriel repeated.

The package had arrived.