The Devil's Banker

Chapter 48

Sarah Churchill turned down a street and craned her neck to read the addresses. “We’re looking for number sixteen.”

“Two… four,” said Chapel, calling out the numbers. “It’s still a couple blocks up.”

Sarah hit the accelerator as the Cyclops lamp of Leclerc’s motorcycle trailed in the rearview mirror.

“Just the three of you go,” General Gadbois had said, after Chapel had finished with George Gabriel and Sarah had revealed the crux of her conversation with “Yossi,” better known as Colonel Yigal Blum, chief of the Mossad’s European Intelligence Directorate. “Take a look. Ask some questions. If you find our men, back off. We’ll send over some boys from the Action Service to lend a hand. We can’t risk the same clusterfuck that killed Santos Babtiste. This one stays with us.”

Leclerc had caught Chapel’s accusing glare. “Still think it was us who blew the whistle?” he asked. “Think again. Leaks are an American specialty. Maybe you should look closer to home.”

“Enough,” Gadbois had barked, adding in a pussycat’s growl, “Allez maintenant. Mais doucement.”

If he could be accused of not taking the threat of a rogue nuclear weapon in his jurisdiction as seriously as he might, it was because he had been deceived. Sarah had neglected to mention the stolen weapon. Kahn was on the run, she’d said, but he was carrying plans, nothing more.

Entering the next block, Chapel resumed his search for addresses. He spotted number eight. Number ten. All were three-story town houses with short flights of stairs leading from the street to large front doors and narrow alleys between them. The façades were identical: sandblasted granite, dark shutters, steep mansard roofs.

“By the way, you were very impressive back there,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, we had a moment, didn’t we?”

Chapel felt winded by his victory; a sprinter who against all odds had come from nowhere to capture the race. George Gabriel had opened up. He had talked. The problem was that he hadn’t answered the hard questions. Who? What? When? How? To say his father wanted to “get even” got them precisely nowhere. “Getting even” wasn’t enough. Not from a son who lived under the same roof as the architect of a plan that “would bring a flood tide of blood” to the United States.

George Gabriel had offered other nuggets, but they had confirmed what Chapel and Sarah had already pieced together. His father had flown to Buenos Aires two days earlier. A check of flight logs showed one Claude François, first-class passenger, continuing to Asunción, Paraguay, returning to Charles-de-Gaulle early this morning. The mention of the name Inteltech provoked a positive response from the prisoner.

Even as the interrogation continued, the Gabriel home in Neuilly was raided and found deserted, picked as clean as if a swarm of locusts had been through the place. A team of Leclerc’s colleagues was currently examining the phone records to determine if Gabriel had slipped and phoned one of his coconspirators on the landline. Chapel doubted that he had.

The offices of Richemond Holdings, likewise, were discovered to be empty. It would take months, if not years, to track down the firm’s investments. A corporation was a different beast than an individual. Financial institutions were less likely to succumb to the type of arm-twisting that had opened the door for Chapel and Sarah earlier in the week when it was a fellow investment house being investigated.

One of Leclerc’s buddies was with George Gabriel now. Another man who taped his knuckles and got them bloody before he began asking questions. Did Gabriel know more? Chapel wasn’t the one to answer. It was a serious game they were playing. He didn’t think any of his friends’ widows would object if things got rough. In the end, they simply had to know whether George Gabriel was holding anything back. Chapel had learned the cardinal rule of interrogation. No one finished talking until they told you what you wanted to hear.

In the absence of hard facts, they had Marc Gabriel’s actions to console them.

He was in Paris. His decision to kill his son rather than risk his exposing what he knew spoke volumes about the immediacy of the plan. Or had he, as George claimed, tried to kill him to exact his own brand of justice? If nothing else, George Gabriel had been able to confirm that his father’s plan was under way-that he had gone tactical.

Hijira was happening now.

“Here we are,” said Sarah, pulling the car to the curb. “Sixteen Boulevard des Italiens. It’s the house two up.”

On the sidewalk, Chapel, Sarah, and Leclerc formed a tight circle. “Follow my lead,” she said. “My guess is Kahn wants to be as anonymous as the other clients. That’s the way I’d play it.” She shook her head. “Thousand to one he’s not even there.”

“What do you think he got the membership for?” Chapel asked.

“A sex club’s a private place,” said Sarah, who had assumed the leader’s role. “Not a lot of room to carry a piece if you’re starkers. Perfect spot for a handover.”

“Doesn’t sound like he trusts Gabriel.”

“Smart of him,” said Sarah. “Kahn’s way out there on the political fringe, as far right as right will go. A former officer. Lost both his children to the Intifada. I don’t see him selling anything to an Arab.”

“Neither do I,” said Leclerc. “It’s probably a false flag operation. Gabriel made himself out to be someone he wasn’t. A South African. An American. Most likely, a Jew.”

Chapel felt the presence of others nearby, but when he looked behind Leclerc he caught only shadows. The street was too quiet. It bothered Chapel. It was the still before an earthquake.

“Shall we, gentlemen?” said Sarah. “And, boys, remember, we’re a jolly trio. No squabbling.”

“I take it we exchange keys,” Gabriel said.

“Simple, but effective,” replied Kahn.

Gabriel had forgotten how haunted the man looked, how frightened by his chosen responsibility, how serious. He had aged ten years in the months since they’d last met. “You must learn to trust,” he said in a voice suggesting sincerity and good fellowship.

“I have the rest of my life for that.”

Gabriel slid the elastic band off his wrist and handed it to Mordecai Kahn. “You’ll find it all there. I think it best if we retrieve our goods separately.”

Kahn stepped uncomfortably close to Gabriel, given their state of undress and the establishment. At this distance, the man smelled rancid. It was obvious that he had not bathed since leaving Tel Aviv.

“The device can be detonated in four ways,” said Kahn. “A proximity fuse, a velocity switch, a timer, or manually. It is not my business to pry, but it would be better if you let me know which method you find the most interesting.”

“A patriot will deliver the weapon.”

“It would be best if I showed you personally, however, I do not think either of us can take the risk. I can only explain.” Kahn set out three precise steps how to access the bomb’s CPU and detonate the device. “Rather simple, actually.”

“So then,” said Gabriel, extending an open palm. He’d been in the club too long. Years of survival had taught him that his presence in foreign environments was to be limited. He noticed an odd man eyeing them from the next room. He was pale and slender, with ginger hair and girlish hips, and-Gabriel could not help but notice-an insignificant manhood.

“There is one more thing,” said Kahn.

“Oh?” Gabriel sensed a wrench tumbling into the works.

“You will need a code to unlock the CPU.”

“What is it?”

Kahn smiled regretfully. “You will have to wait until tomorrow to receive it. Think of it as my fail-safe.”

Gabriel stood rooted to the spot. He thought of the satchel in his locker, the neatly bunched packets of hundred-dollar bills sitting atop a half kilo of Semtex. There would be no tomorrow for Mr. Kahn. The thought crossed his mind that the Israeli had outsmarted him. A code. Gabriel should have imagined as much. He would have done the same.

“The deal is off,” he said, snatching the key out of Kahn’s hand. He brushed past Kahn and found the stairs, never once looking back. There was only one way to play this game. Full-throttle or not at all.

He made it down three stairs before he heard the scientist padding next to him. “Please, stop,” Kahn panted. “I was wrong. It was foolish of me. Stop. Please!”

Gabriel ignored the entreaties a few seconds longer. “It was worse than foolish!” he spat, pushing Kahn against the staircase wall. A passing couple recoiled in fear. “It was dishonest. Ask someone else to strike freedom’s blow on your behalf. My people can wait.”

“Really, I apologize. It is difficult to trust in this day and age.”

Gabriel huffed angrily, then relented. “The code?”

“One, twenty-two, two thousand and one. The day my David was killed.”

At the entry, Sarah spoke for the three of them. “Good evening. Is a girl permitted to bring two boyfriends?”

A washed-out brunette replied with brittle alacrity, “But, of course. You are members?”

“Not yet.”

“One hundred fifty euros for a couple. One hundred for single men.”

“But we’re an extended family,” pleaded Sarah in a loopy voice. She was playing the drunken slut, a personality the club couldn’t get enough of. Always too many pegs and not enough slots.

“All right, then. Two hundred euros for all of you. And no more bargaining, or you can get lost.”

Chapel set the money on the transom.

“Actually, we’re looking for a friend,” confided Sarah, leaning into the smoky cubby as she suppressed a giggle. “A foreign gentleman. Tall, grayish hair, very serious.” She had a picture with her, but to show it was as good as announcing themselves as the police.

And Gabriel? Chapel wanted to remind her. Ask if he’s here, too. George’s description of his father would do nicely: forty-five years old, black hair worn short, brown eyes, handsome. But the woman answered before Chapel could protest.

“You’re late, honey,” she rasped. “He came in an hour ago. A vieux like him. He’s already exhausted.” Standing, she raised a hand in the air and snapped her fingers. “Véronique will show you the way.”

Chapel climbed the stairs eagerly, another sex-starved exhibitionist on the way to an illicit assignation. The holster chafed his ribs, the square butt of a French-issue Beretta nine millimeter pressed against his arm. He was finished with the legwork, done being Chapel the accountant, Chapel the dogged bookworm. This was the other part of his training. To enforce and apprehend. This was the part he had no practice at, except to lunge at the flailing feet of a fleeing terrorist and miss.

Leclerc had called Gadbois to alert him of Kahn’s presence. The hard boys from the Action Service had secured the perimeter. Agents waited at every door, discreetly hidden submachine guns at the ready. It was to be a silent arrest. No sirens. No shouts. A raid that never happened. A bomb that didn’t exist.

“You can’t set it off at the drop of a hat,” Sarah had whispered. “But be careful. He won’t be taken alive.”

It wasn’t Kahn she was talking about. It was Gabriel. He was here, too. Leclerc had asked, and the woman had had enough experience with les flics in her lifetime to know a cop when she heard one, and to know when it was time to tell the truth.

The tinkling of a piano drifted to him from the second-floor landing. Chapel headed toward the music, his eyes adjusting to the dim lighting. He entered the lounge shyly, as if unsure he was in the right place. An older man sat on the piano bench, his right hand noodling the melody of “It’s Impossible.” Chapel was relieved to note that he was wearing clothes. A pall of cigarette smoke hung in the air. Several men and women circled the baby grand, making small talk and nursing colorful cocktails with umbrellas. Were they getting up the nerve? Chapel wondered. Or dissecting their performances? He searched their starchy, bored faces, but knew immediately that neither Kahn nor Gabriel was among them. Neither had come for the advertised specials.

Across the landing was a boutique selling the usual embarrassing accessories and undergarments. Leather bustiers, rubber corsets, an entire wall devoted to whips, chains, handcuffs, and hoods. Chapel was surprised to see the boutique had a second room. He went inside, eyes strictly on the merchandise. Another few steps brought him to the hard stuff, the toys that he had always found more ridiculous than repulsive. The boutique’s customers had gathered at the far side of the room, their eyes glued to a dusky mirror. As Chapel approached, the mirror grew transparent. A thin, gangly woman ten years past her prime stood on the other side of the mirror, trying on a bra and a pair of panties. It took Chapel a moment to notice that she was moving in time to music. Her exaggerated motions were the tip-off: the coquettish swirl of the hair, the methodical removal of the brassiere. She knew she was being watched.

More amused than disgusted, Chapel turned to leave. A shadow flitted at the corner of his eye. A man dressed in business attire moving quickly, athletically. Turning back, Chapel stared past the woman at the slim, dark man moving across the room on the other side of the glass. Chapel put his hand to the glass and looked closer. He saw Marc Gabriel nudging his shoulder against an emergency exit. Mid-forties, short black hair, fit, handsome. Who else would be carrying a leather briefcase in a sicko’s pleasure palace? Gabriel pushed again, but the door didn’t budge.

Chapel dashed from the boutique. In the corridor, a naked man hairier than a Canadian grizzly stared at him, gasped, and backed away. It was the gun. Didn’t expect to see one of those in here, did you, pal? Chapel was running now. He was in a plush maroon tunnel. Framed prints of Egyptian motifs traded places with black-and-white photos of engorged human appendages. A hall appeared to his left. He ducked into it, slowing, pistol raised in his hand, safety off, round chambered. His training was coming back to him. But training had never been the problem. Shooting was. He couldn’t hit a barn door outside of ten feet.

Leclerc was upstairs checking the fuck rooms. Sarah was making a sweep of the restaurant and kitchen. He’s here, Chapel felt like yelling. Get your asses to the second floor.

Chapel spotted the emergency exit, obstructed by a potted Kentia palm. Gabriel was gone. Chapel tried the door. Locked. In the changing room, the woman was finishing up her striptease, strapping on a pair of three-inch pumps with her sad, bony bottom pressed against the window. No other hallways issued from the corridor. It was a dead end. Chapel looked left and right.

Gabriel had disappeared.