The Devil's Banker

Chapter 43

Narrow, dank, and dripping with limestone sweat, the corridors of La Sante maximum security prison stretched before Chapel like the decaying passages of an ancient tomb. Five steps inside the place, he’d felt the walls close in on him and a grim weight fall on his shoulders. It was his first time inside a prison. He was a visitor, one of the good guys. Still, the place scared the hell out of him.

La Sante housed the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, terrorists. Carlos the Jackal was locked up somewhere inside its walls. Captain Dreyfus himself had spent a year here upon his return from Devil’s Island.

Chapel walked beside Leclerc, with Sarah a step behind, while the Frenchmen called out the particulars of the arrest.

“According to his passport, his name’s Charles François. He had a ticket to Dubai, round trip in the same name.”

“Who paid for it?” Chapel asked.

“Credit card. Claude François.”

François. The same alias for twenty years.

“He hasn’t talked?” asked Sarah.

“Not a peep,” said Leclerc. “He’s well trained, this one. Disciplined. He’s got some scars on him. I’d say he’s been to a camp. We ran the passport through immigration. All we got was a trip to Athens last summer.”

“Athens,” murmured Sarah. “The great jumping-off point for voyages into the unknown.”

“We only keep track of the first leg out of the country,” continued Leclerc. “He probably had a second ticket in a different name. He knows the tricks, this kid.”

Their steps had acquired a marching rhythm. They were an executioner’s party on its way to carry out the sentence.

“The girl’s still out?” Sarah asked.

“She woke an hour ago, but the doctors forbid us from speaking to her. They’ve got her doped up on steroids to stop her brain from swelling.”

“What did you do to her?” Chapel asked.

“The girl fell poorly. Hairline fracture of the skull. Ten stitches above the ear. She’ll have a bad headache for a couple of weeks. Serves her right for hanging out with scum.”

Leclerc stopped in front of a broad, black iron door. Rivets the size of quarters studded the surface. Except for the modern lock winking from inside an ancient keyhole, it might have confined Edmond Dantes in his cell at the Château d’If. Sounds emanated from other floors of the prison. A metal cup ricocheted against the walls. Water coursed through the pipes in unpredictable surges. But most disturbing was an inmate’s brief, excruciating howl, cut off mid-cry, as if the guillotine had done its work.

“You can listen from the next room,” said Leclerc, as he wrapped boxer’s tape around his knuckles.

“You said he was a kid,” protested Chapel.

“That’s no kid in there. Too bad you missed Dr. Bac. She just left. You two could have held hands and said a prayer for the animal. Now it is time for him to talk.”

Chapel put a hand on Leclerc’s chest. “Let me talk to him.”

“How’s your French?”

“He speaks English.”

“How do you know?” Leclerc pushed past Chapel, slipping the key into the lock.

“Call it a hunch.”

“Désolé, mon pote. No more time for hunches.”

Sarah leaned her shoulder against the door, lowering her face to Leclerc’s. Sweat beaded his lip, and in the dim corridor, he looked ashen and ill. “Come now, let Adam have a go.”

“What did you find in Zurich? Tell me that, then maybe I let your boyfriend go.”

Sarah looked at Chapel, then back again, as if choosing sides. “More of the same,” she said. “Another numbered account. Reams of documents. If it’s of any interest, the account in Germany was opened by a Claude François.”

“We were talking about Switzerland. The Bank Menz. That was a quick trip to Zurich for nothing.”

“You know Adam,” she said. “High hopes.”

High hopes. Leclerc’s eyes narrowed in bewilderment. The naive and sentimental tripe of a naive and sentimental country. He considered Chapel, as if measuring him for a suit. “Ten minutes,” he said, unlocking the cell door. “I’m also in a hurry. Santos Babtiste’s funeral begins at five o’clock. I’d like to pay my respects.”

“Is he cuffed?” Chapel asked.

“What do you think?”

Chapel held out his hand. Leclerc dropped a small key into his palm. “Ten minutes. Alors, bonne chance.”

The door slammed shut. Chapel took a step and he was in the center of the room. It was a small, confined, frightening place. The walls were painted a glossy mint green. A naked bulb dangled from the ceiling. It was exceptionally clean, but for a skein of blood that decorated a wall like a furious exclamation point. The young man who had tackled him in the hallways of the Hôpital Salpetitpierre sat at a brutish wooden table, hands cuffed behind him, head lolling on his chest.

“Hello,” said Chapel, taking the opposite chair. “I think we’ve met already. I wanted to say thank you, though. Personally. You know for…” Chapel cleared his throat, searching for the right words. For what? For not killing me? For behaving like a decent human being instead of a butcher with a holy cause? He looked back at the door. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk to the kid, after all-Leclerc was right about one thing: This was no kid, he was built like an NFL halfback.

Just then, the prisoner looked up, and Chapel got his first glimpse of his face. The right eye was swollen and purple. The capillaries on one side of the iris had burst, giving him a devilish look. His lip was cracked and bleeding. Chapel didn’t know if the injuries were from the arrest or from Leclerc. It didn’t matter. He felt offended and responsible. He couldn’t allow Leclerc with his taped knuckles and raging inferiority to have a go at him. He held up the key, then circled behind the prisoner and unlocked the cuffs. The young man shook his arms to regain circulation, but offered no thanks, no acknowledgment whatsoever that Chapel was even in the room.

Taking a chair, Chapel put his hands on the table, fingers clasped. A familiar nagging tugged at his shoulders and he sat up straighter. Even inside a prison, he was the one who needed to measure up. “You did a good job knocking the hell out of me. My shoulder’s a complete mess. You did a real number on it.”

The young man shifted. He seemed bored and tense.

Chapel fought for something to say. He felt ill at ease, beyond his competence. “So what’s it all about?” he blurted. “If you want to say anything, this would be a good time.”

It was no good. Chapel had about as much chance of reaching him as he did of finding Claude François. He was overcome with a sudden helplessness, a sinking feeling that made him want to pack it all in. Not just the interrogation, but the whole investigation. Let someone else have it. Maybe Sarah was right: It was too big for them. He studied the prisoner’s shirt with its stencil of a rapper’s leering face, capped teeth, and scornful eyes. Done in by the futility of it all, he was unable to suppress a laugh. “Oh, jeez,” he said. “I bet that T-shirt really pisses off your dad.”

The prisoner’s chin rose from his chest and Chapel saw he’d hit something. He remembered what he’d glimpsed in the hospital. As he lay on the floor with this hulk on top of him, there had been a moment when their eyes had met; a moment wedged between the kid’s surprise at having run into the very man he was supposed to kill and his decision not to kill him; a moment when the curtain dropped, and Chapel was given a clear view into what drove this guy. What he saw was a teenager’s frustration with his lot, a load of self-pity, and a dread resignation that said “I can’t believe this shit.” It was like looking in the mirror when he was nineteen.

“Yeah, my father was a stickler, too,” he said. “In my day it was glam rock and big hair. I was all over it. Whitesnake. Poison. Bon Jovi. You give love a bad name… bad name.” If Leclerc could sing, so could he. “Didn’t have the hair, though. Dad would have knocked the shit out of me. But, I had the T-shirts. You got Mr. Fifty Cent there. I had RATT. Probably ’bout the same talent level. Minimal, if you know what I mean.”

No response. The kid wasn’t even looking at him. Still, Chapel went on. What did he have to lose? If nothing else, he was giving the kid a few extra minutes to sort things out before Leclerc came in and beat the snot out of him.

“I know how you feel. There was no choice in my household, either. My dad had my career mapped out by the time I was nine. I took this test at school and it showed I was gifted. I had the highest IQ in my class. I couldn’t have cared less. I was trying to make friends, get on the baseball team, learn how to play handball, anything to fit in. Dad said, ‘No way.’ I wasn’t going to be like the other kids. I was too smart for that. He got me skipped two grades, and had me put in all kinds of enrichment classes. You know where I went in the summer? Math camp. Nine years old at math camp. And you know the scary part? I dug it. Or at least I thought I did. My dad loved it. I loved it. What was the difference? I was brainwashed. From then on, that’s how it went. Dad said ‘Jump!’ I asked ‘How high?’ ”

Chapel checked for some sign he was making a dent. A grunt. A nod. Anything. The young man across the table didn’t register a word. He sat staring at his shoes. Brand-new Nike Air Force hightops. Chapel rapped on the table and stood up. “All right, then. Well, it’s been a pleasure.”

For a second, he’d thought he was getting somewhere. Too bad. It had been a stupid idea. So much for his high hopes. “By the way, Claudine… she’s going to be fine. Her head’s banged up, but I promise that she’ll still remember you.”

He turned to the door.

“What happened?”

Chapel stopped dead, the muscles in his jaw and neck stiffening as a bolt of adrenaline ran the length of his spine. “What happened?” he asked, turning slowly. “To me?”

The prisoner, Charles François, or whatever his name was, nodded.

“I went to Harvard and Harvard Business School on a full ride… you know, a scholarship. I got a job at an accounting firm. I worked my butt off and became a partner. I made a million dollars when I was twenty-eight years old. That’s what happened. I did every single thing my dad wanted me to, and not a single thing for me.”

Chapel looked away, struck by a picture of his father, the struggling shoe salesman damned by his own mediocrity, tortured by his dreams of wealth, means, and position. A man who forever expected more of himself than he was able to give. A man who decided it was better to live dissatisfied than to alter his expectations. Why? What was so damned terrible about being ordinary? Average used to mean happily in the middle. When had it started meaning perilously close to failure?

“I quit my job the day he died,” said Chapel, returning to the scuffed table. “I never had the guts to stand up to him until then. Look at you. You’re twice the man I was. I can’t begin to imagine what it took to stand up to your dad.” He smiled appreciatively and extended his hand. “I’m Adam Chapel.”

The prisoner, the would-be murderer, the boy in a man’s body, looked away and Chapel thought he’d lost him. The ten minutes were over. It was time to hand him over to Leclerc. The taped knuckles could begin their grim, efficient work. Pain and anguish would overrule compassion and decency. Chapel stood up again. He was tired, but he knew there’d be no rest. His mind wandered ahead, already cataloguing the documents he’d need to start analyzing.

And then he saw it: the arm rising above the table, the palm open, a big soft mitt, the prisoner gazing up at him with some sad mixture of hope and trepidation.

Chapel grabbed the hand. “You are?”

“My name is George. George Gabriel. At least, that’s my French name. Our family name is Utaybi. We’re from Arabia. Never say ‘Saudi.’ The House of Saud is kuffar.” George knitted his brow with concern. “Did your father really hit you?”

“No,” said Chapel. “He never had to. I only talked back to him in my mind. I wasn’t what you’d call a stand-up kid.”

Gabriel took this in, eyes walking the room’s perimeter: “I think my father tried to kill me.”

“Your dad?” Chapel asked, uncertainly.

“Tell that French bastard that they just missed him. I heard him whisper my name on the street when the cops took me down. ‘Hakim,’ he said. It’s my real name, though we’re never allowed to use it here. I’m pretty sure I saw him getting the hell out of there.”

“You saw him? And you think he was going to kill you?”

“Crazy, huh?” George Gabriel tried to make it sound funny, an offbeat occurrence, but it was too much for him to pull off. The smile lost its mirth. The lips turned down and began to quiver. “He had the pen out… It’s poison… to kill…” He went on, his voice thick with emotion. “I betrayed him. He always said that’s what happened to traitors-even to his son.” Gabriel’s shoulders caved in. Dropping his face, he began to cry. “I want to tell him that I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Sarah listened in the next room with Leclerc and General Gadbois. Chapel’s naive arrogance had at first amused the Frenchmen, then angered them, and now the two had pretty much shut up, so she guessed Adam had impressed them. He’d found the path to the truth. A little honesty and understanding had worked more quickly, and immensely more cleanly, than Leclerc’s, or if she were to admit it, her own preferred methods might have.

“We let him go on?” asked Leclerc.

“Why not?” The question irritated Gadbois. “He’s doing our job for us. We should have him teach a class. An accountant. Maybe I’ll have to start looking outside the army for my recruits. What do you think of that, Sarah?”

“By all means. Actually, I’m rather surprised, myself.”

A cell phone chirped and Sarah pulled the compact unit from her pocket. “I’ll take it outside.” Closing the door behind her, she stepped into the corridor. “Hello?”

“This is your friend from Jerusalem.”

“Hello, friend.”

“Any luck with your research?”

“Nothing yet. Still looking, actually. You, too?”

Yossi answered the question in his own oblique manner. “He purchased a car in Vienna using the name John Herzfeld, his brother-in-law.”

“A BMW.”

A silence. “Yes, Meg. A BMW.”

“The Swiss,” she explained.

“Ah. So that’s who told you. A gold 750iL, in fact. We found it near Pale in Bosnia yesterday, along with four dead bodies. Robbery, hijacking… who knows? We have to assume that since he wasn’t there, he’s still on the move. He’s coming in your direction.”

“I appreciate the information.”

“Is he talking yet?”

The question stunned Sarah, but only for a moment. “A bit.”

“You know the rules.”

Sarah debated how far to go. “We found a tape the other day in the wreckage of Taleel’s apartment,” she said. “Rather scary piece of footage. Couldn’t let word get out. The target’s the States. New York, D.C., L.A, we’re not sure where. Forget Code Orange. This is Code Red all the way. We know it’s happening now, but we don’t know where.”

“Today?”

“Today, tomorrow, the weekend. What exactly did Kahn take from you?”

“Meg, this I cannot tell you.”

“Yossi… traffic goes two ways. We’ve got to know.”

“Just between us?”

“Cross my heart.”

“A neat little toy. One kiloton and fits in a cigar box. Some of the tough guys want to use it on the West Bank. Make Arafat disappear once and for all.”

“Jesus, Yossi, that small?”

“Wake up, Meg. Look at your phone. It can do everything but deliver a baby. We had it down to a suitcase thirty years ago. You think we gave up working in that area once Russia fell apart?”

Sarah leaned against the concrete wall, the cold and damp sobering her. She had a hundred questions she needed to ask: How? When? Who else knew? None of that mattered now.

“Between you and me,” Yossi went on. “Find this guy, get our material back, and make him disappear. There’s a place you might check. Something we found on Kahn’s credit card. A hundred euros to an establishment called Cleopatre in Paris. We sent one of our boys over to have a look. It’s a sex club. Open only at night. Some kind of porn thing. Ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“Probably nothing. He had strange charges from all over Europe. Prague, Berlin, Madrid. Setting up his escape. Still, you might want to check it out.”

Coming from Yossi that was an order to get the hell over there.

“Maybe,” she said. There was only so much honestly between spies and she’d used up her quotient.

Chapel waited until George Gabriel had regained his composure to continue. “Your father’s name is?”

“Omar al-Utaybi. He calls himself Marc Gabriel. He’s an investor. His company’s called Richemond Holdings.”

For the moment, Chapel wasn’t interested in Gabriel’s legitimate undertakings. “What about Hijira?”

George Gabriel showed no surprise that Chapel knew the name. “It’s crazy,” he said. “I mean, the whole thing.”

“What’s the whole thing?”

“Nothing.” George Gabriel wiped at his eyes and took a few deep breaths. A stubborn stillness had settled over him. Chapel could feel the resistance building. Gabriel had been caught out once, but that was that. His breakdown had shamed him and now he was intent on proving that he was made of tougher stuff. “I’m a terrible son.”

“I’d say you’re a good man.” Chapel put his elbows on the table and craned his neck forward. “What exactly is your dad planning?”

George Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and laughed to himself. “You’re good. You’re very good. You made me feel sorry for you, as if you and I might have something in common. You are clever. I’ll give that to you.”

“Listen, George… I can call you George?”

“Better than Hakim.”

“George, look… four of my friends died Monday afternoon. Good guys. Fathers-”

“Taleel was very brave,” George cut in, chin raised pridefully. “He gave his life for my father.”

“He was a-” Chapel harnessed his anger at the last minute. Emotion was their tool. “A lot more people are going to give their lives for your father whether they want to or not,” he explained as calmly as he could. “I know that much about your father’s plan. You couldn’t kill Dr. Bac. You couldn’t kill me. You know what’s right and wrong. Keeping quiet is no different from pulling a trigger. If your father succeeds in killing more people… I don’t care how many-one, ten, a thousand… you are as responsible as he is. If that comes to pass-if you sit here without raising a finger to stop it, I can promise that you are going to spend the rest of your life in a room a lot less comfortable than the one we’re in now. The rest of your life, George.”

George Gabriel squirmed, the boy in him now visible, protesting such callous treatment. “I didn’t do anything.”

“But you know,” Chapel said painfully. “You’re part of it.” He pointed at the door. “The French bastard out there is pretty sure you’ve been to a camp in the Middle East, and I don’t mean a math camp. Dr. Bac, she said you knew your way around a knife. You’re not a regular kid, George. Just the fact that you went to that camp could land you in jail for twenty years. This isn’t about your father anymore. It’s about you. You’ve got to make choices to help yourself. And don’t go shaking your head like that. Don’t ask me for time to think about it. You and me both know that Hijira is happening now.”

Gabriel stared sullenly at the floor.

“Does the name Mordecai Kahn mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“A teacher. A scientist from Israel?”

“No.”

“You’re sure? Maybe a professor.”

“A professor? No.”

Chapel bit back his disappointment. “What can you tell me, then?”

“Get real,” said Gabriel. “He kept everything secret. He told me what I needed to know, and that was all.”

“You’re his son. He shared his dreams with you. I don’t believe he kept it quiet.”

“All I know is that you were getting too close. That’s why I had to kill you.”

“Why you? He has other men.”

“Does he? Then you know more than I do.”

“Bullshit!”

“I am his son,” Gabriel shouted back. “It was a test. I failed it.”

“What’s your father planning?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know.”

Chapel reddened. Somehow he managed to guard his calm. “You’d better know or you’re going to jail for the rest of your life. You may never leave this building again except for a ride to and from the courthouse for what I promise you will be a very short trial. Look around you. This is your life. You ‘get real.’ Let’s try it again. What is he planning?”

“We’re going home.”

“Where’s home?”

“The desert. Saudi Arabia. Where do you think? We’re Utaybis.”

“And that’s his plan? To go home. I don’t buy it. What’s his plan?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me!” Chapel slammed his fist on the table.

“Don’t you see?” asked Gabriel, angry tears staining his cheeks. “To get even! The plan is to get even!”