The Devil's Banker

Chapter 52

Adam Chapel was running. His stride was fast and loose, his legs fresh, with no sign of cramping. His breath came easily. His arms, tucked at his side, pumped with short, efficient strokes. It was his habit to keep his eyes trained on the twenty feet of pavement in front of him, to disappear inside his mind to a tranquil place he had prepared in advance, a quiet corner where he’d set aside his treasured memories. But today, his mind was a crowded, chaotic place, and he let his eyes meander from the pavement toward the vast expanse of ocean that spread to his right. Over the great blue Pacific. Over the whitecaps cresting the late afternoon chop. Over the dolphins jumping in great arcs and the seagulls wheeling and diving into the sea.

“It will be over soon,” Chapel repeated to himself.

The swim and the bike were behind him. The wind was at his back. Thirteen miles along the superheated roadway of the Kilauea Highway would carry him across the finish line. The pavement stretched like a silver ribbon across the black pumice stone and the red volcanic ash. His body had weathered eight hours of constant physical strain. It could endure two more hours of abject misery. Time, effort, discipline, and the will to survive would see him through.

“How much longer can you take it, Chapel?”

It was not his voice that demanded he give in, but the corrugated baritone of General Guy Gadbois. “Eight hours. It’s a record.”

Chapel squeezed his eyelids tighter, as if blackness would block out the voice. He knelt upright on the cold concrete floor of an interrogation cell at Mortier Caserne. Handcuffs pinned his hands behind his back. A round three-inch-diameter pole nestled in the craw of his knees. If he sat up, the kneecaps dug harder into the unyielding floor. If he sat back, the pole cut all circulation to his feet. Either position promised an excruciating result.

“Twenty-one dead in a week,” Gadbois continued as he circled Chapel, his toad’s head lowered to seek out the prisoner’s eyes. “That’s good work for anyone. A record to be proud of. Come now, Mr. Chapel. It is time to rest on your laurels. To pass on the baton to someone else.”

“Sarah,” Chapel muttered. “I want to see Sarah.”

“But you can’t. Whatever remains of her is back in the building you and your colleagues saw fit to blow up.”

“No. She isn’t dead.” When the pain had grown too intense, and the world had dissolved in a freakish kaleidoscope of white noise and unbearable sensation, he had seized upon the idea that she was still alive. The notion of her waiting for him somewhere after this was over was the only thing keeping him going. He had not seen her body, therefore she was alive.

“Perhaps you should have taken your feeling for her into account before embarking on such rash actions? Or did you have a choice? Did Marc Gabriel order you to lead us into Cléopatre in order to kill us off, just as he ordered you to lead my men into the Cité Universitaire?” Gadbois put a foot on the pole and allowed his full weight to rest on it. “Santos Babtiste deserves an answer! Herbert Leclerc deserves an answer! Sarah Churchill deserves an answer! Tell me now, Chapel. Clear your conscience. You loved the girl. Tell me, for her sake!”

Chapel moaned as the blood left his feet. His flesh was slowly dying. Every cell screamed for oxygen, the nerves firing off their emergency flares. He was kneeling on razors. Sweat beaded his forehead. He began to shake.

“No,” he said. “No.”

He’d already given his answers. He’d sworn his innocence. No one had paid him two hundred sixty thousand dollars. If it was in his account, it was a setup; more of Marc Gabriel’s handiwork. Chapel began to shake his head violently. No, he had not tipped off the police. No, he had not sent George Gabriel to the Hôpital Salpetitpierre to boost his own credibility. No, he had not warned off Dr. Mordecai Kahn.

“The problem, Mr. Chapel, as you know, is that as lead investigator on this case it was you who determined which directions we were to follow. It was you who led us every step of the way. It was you who told us what was black and what was white. We simply have no way of knowing what was clean and what was dirty. You leave us no choice but to believe that this whole thing has been nothing but an elaborate wild-goose chase. From bank to bank we hopped, but what did we find? Names? Addresses? Any live person who might bring us one step closer to figuring out what Gabriel was discussing on the tape? That was him, wasn’t it? You see, we’ve come up with some photos of the man, and I’ve been told he hasn’t aged a day. We found exactly nothing.”

“Kahn,” said Chapel. “We found Kahn. We found the Holy Land Trust. We found François’s account in Berlin.”

“Window dressing,” complained Gadbois. “Diversions. I called the Mossad myself, and they deny ever talking to Miss Churchill. ‘Bomb?’ they say. ‘There’s no bomb. Kahn is still at work in Tel Aviv.’ He released his weight from the stick. “Come now, Chapel, let’s be gentlemen about this. Tell me what you know-everything from A to Z-and I’ll take you down to the officers’ mess and buy you a steak frites and a glass of beer. Hmm? What do you say? I told you that I’m impressed. Eight hours. I’ve never had anyone hold out on me like this. You’re a tough bastard. I could’ve used more like you in Algeria.”

Chapel continued to shake his head, the steady rhythmic motion comforting him, transporting him. It was a denial of his complicity, a refusal to acknowledge his plight. It was a dying heart’s plea to bring Sarah back. Yet, even as he fought the pain, he freed a corner of his mind to unravel the insanity of his predicament. Gabriel’s sleight of hand did not interest him. Cybercrimes were a trivial menace. Hacking into commercial bank accounts was a daily occurrence. The crime could be uncovered in hours.

What bothered Chapel was his colleagues’ lightning access to his account at the Hunts National Bank. They had no right to pry into his personal affairs without a court order. Evidence suggesting that Chapel had been receiving money from a known or suspected terrorist was to be brought before a federal magistrate; a warrant obtained. If they’d just given him an opportunity to explain, he would have happily presented his monthly statements showing the receipts of his federal paycheck and nothing else. If they wanted to look at his assets, he’d let them see that, too. Two million dollars tied up in government bonds and a fifty-acre lot on the slopes of Mount Haleakala on the island of Maui. Nowhere would they have found Gabriel’s black money. By subverting Chapel’s chance to defend himself, the U.S. government had become one more of Marc Gabriel’s dupes, blind pawns in Hijira’s network.

You know what they say: If you’re not violating a few rights, you’re not doing your job. It was Glendenning’s favorite joke, and Chapel was the prime offender. When he wanted information, he wanted it right away. He’d never given a rat’s ass about rights and the issues of personal freedoms. Chapel decried his hypocrisy. What court had he spoken with to obtain access to Taleel’s accounts? How else had he explained his exasperation at Manfred Wiesel’s refusal to force the Deutsche International Bank to reveal their client’s records?

“You leave us no choice but to return to the young Gabriel,” declared Gadbois, starting toward the door. “We are pressed for time. I’m afraid he’ll receive a rougher brand of treatment than you. Then again, he’s neither a French nor an American national, so who gives a damn? Just a bloody wog. Isn’t that what Miss Churchill might have said?”

Chapel strained at his bonds. “He isn’t involved,” he pleaded. “He was manipulated by his father.”

“Just like you? What a merry duo you two make.”

Gadbois approached with a cobra’s speed and slammed his heel onto the rod.

“What is Hijira’s plan?” he shouted when Chapel had finished screaming.

“A bomb… they’re going to detonate a bomb.”

“Where are they going to strike?”

“I don’t know.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“I don-” Chapel’s mouth froze, his teeth bared, muscles constricted by the pain. The light faded. He was drifting over a blue sea, back to the highway on the Big Island. Faster, he told himself. Faster. He lunged for the tape and fell into darkness.