Upon A Pale Horse

THIRTY-TWO Shaking the Tail

Saturday, Jeffrey’s first stop was at one of Zurich’s many jewelry stores, where he traded his Rolex in a terrible deal for a Hublot on a black rubber strap that cost him his brother’s watch plus seven thousand dollars on his American Express card. Which was exactly as he wanted it — a foolish purchase for a bauble; where his surveillance committee would readily believe he’d gotten screwed by the store.

Jeffrey had decided there was a better than good chance that a tracking device had been inserted into the Rolex while it had been ostensibly sitting securely in the condo safe, and he wanted to take no chances. But he couldn’t just ‘forget’ the watch along with his phone, so he needed a bit of theater to explain its disappearance. He’d already set the stage for going to Paris, so now the only thing left was to dump his phone — which he would do once in France, so it didn’t look like he was shedding his belongings all at once. For now, he’d left it at the hotel, continuing the pattern of absentmindedness he’d been cultivating.

He found a quiet internet café near the university, logged onto a travel site, and plotted the best way to get to Frankfurt from Paris. There were numerous options, but several mentioned cursory border security in the comments, and those were the ones that drew his interest. His plan was for the trail to end in France, and for any watchers to believe that he was still the clueless young attorney seeking out additional medical attention there.

Which brought him to neurologists. There were any number of prominent ones serving the city, and he selected two, memorizing their numbers and addresses so he could make calls later from his cell. Even with a damaged brain, he was beginning to get the hang of leading a double life — a life that Monica had to have been living for some time.

He brushed aside the rising anger and concentrated on his errands, the last of which was to research the Italian. Within three minutes he’d read the latest article bemoaning the great man’s untimely demise — only a day after Keith’s plane had gone down. Another thread, another coincidence, another corpse. He sat back, thoughts whirling chaotically, outwardly calm but near panicked inside.

Jeffrey finished his surfing, wiped his browsing history, and restarted the machine before rising and paying the stern woman behind the counter, who took the money and didn’t tender any change. When he walked out he was struck by a small bout of nausea and dizziness, and had to lean against the building to steady himself. He took the opportunity to scan the street, but didn’t see anything suspicious — which didn’t surprise him. Jeffrey wasn’t confident that his unskilled eye would detect experienced operatives, but he figured it was never too early to try — that had been one of Jakes’ bits of wisdom. Apparently spying was like anything else, and he would only improve with practice. Jakes had also pointed out that if he was a pathological liar it would help, and had joked that being attorney might be close enough to give him a leg up.

Pity he was the wrong kind of lawyer. Another item to store away in the regret locker.

At his hotel he had lunch in the lobby restaurant, his conflicted thoughts revisiting that newspaper account of the professor’s suicide, and after chewing a surprisingly tasty sandwich, he retired to his room for a long nap. He wanted to depart soon, but his bouts with concussion-related instability were too severe, and he reluctantly opted for another evening in Switzerland, with a train trip the following morning.

“You don’t smell a rat?”

“No — if you look at his behavior, it’s consistent. The only question mark is what he was doing at the bank, and we’ve unfortunately made no inroads there. The damned Swiss take their bank secrecy seriously, and our overtures to the bank officers were rejected out of hand.”

“Offer them more.”

“That’s not the issue. It’s an ethical thing with them.”

“Offer them a lot more.”

The head of the surveillance team shook his head even though he was on the telephone and the other speaker couldn’t see him. “I did. It’s a non-starter. But there are plenty of reasons he could have been there. Handling something for his old firm being one of the most likely. Or for himself. We have no real idea what he’s been doing with his money for the last ten years. Remember that he’s an asset specialist. It could certainly follow that he’s structured something for himself, too. Do you have any results on the analysis of his bank records?”

“Inconclusive. As you know, if he was smart, nothing would show up. That’s kind of the whole point to what he does for a living.”

“So far, all he’s done is buy an expensive new watch. We tracked that down about an hour ago. Traded in his brother’s. Which is completely consistent with a young man on the way up with more money in his pocket than sense.”

“The girl said he sounded… distant.”

“A concussion can do that. Look, we’ll keep an eye on him, but so far everything points to a waste of time. He was clean when he came out of the bank. He hasn’t done anything suspicious in weeks of watching him. My money says he doesn’t know squat.”

“All due respect, analysis isn’t your job. It’s mine. Just stay on him and report back anything that seems odd. He mentioned he was considering a second opinion.”

“We intercepted a call to a French specialist, so again, entirely consistent. He made an appointment for Monday. In Paris. So we know where he’s going next.”

“Why can’t he just stay put? We didn’t anticipate that.”

“Free will. It’s a big pain in the ass. But don’t worry. I’m all over it. If he so much as farts, we’ll know about it.”