The Final Cut

by Catherine Coulter

  Nicholas typed in a couple more words, then jumped to his feet. “You found her?”

  “We found where she was two hours ago. Bank Horim. It is across the way.”

  59

  Bank Horim was a block and a half down the street, along the lake. They hurried, Nicholas restraining himself from breaking out in a sprint. They were closing in, he could feel it. Could feel the Fox nearby like she was giving off a scent.

  Sirens began to wail. A cop car drew closer, summoned by Menard.

  Menard had short legs and a smoker’s lungs; he was puffing to keep up. “Swiss banking is a global business. Horim is very private, very discreet, has branches in Zurich, Geneva, Luxembourg, and Singapore, and offices in Russia, Hong Kong, and Israel.” He had to stop to catch his breath. “I hope they are as helpful as Monsieur Tivoli at Deutsche Bank.” But he sounded doubtful.

  They entered the building and asked for the manager. They were shown into a small glass office, and were quickly joined by a tall older woman wearing a sleek black suit. Her strawberry-blond hair was cut in an elegant bob. She didn’t smile, but she did nod to each in turn as they showed her their creds. She said in a lilting accent, “I am Marie-Louise Helmut. What can I help you with?”

  Menard said, “Madame Helmut, we are looking for a woman who came into the bank two hours ago. We need to know what business she had here.” Nicholas showed her Browning’s photo.

  She said, in a formal voice, “Assuming I’ve seen this person, you know I cannot share this information with you. We have the strictest privacy policies to protect our customers. Without the proper papers, I will not be able to speak to you.”

  Nicholas took a step toward her, aggressive as a wolf. Helmut immediately recoiled, obviously alarmed.

  Mike saw the look on his face and the way he readied himself, but when he spoke, his voice was very quiet. “This is a matter of the utmost urgency, madame. Look again.”

  Despite being wary of him, Helmut stared him down. “We need the appropriate paperwork.”

  “Hold on.” Menard whipped out his mobile and made a call to the local police. “This is Menard. I am at Bank Horim. We need armed men at the entrances. In case our suspect returns.”

  He hung up and smiled pleasantly at Helmut. He handed her a card. “If you change your mind about cooperating, call. Otherwise, it is going to look like a siege in here until the warrants are executed. And you will not get any banking done because we are going to interview everyone who was in the building, all morning long.”

  “See here, Monsieur Menard, there is no call to be this way. I am bound by our privacy laws—”

  Nicholas shoved the photograph in front of her face. “What did she do while she was here? Tell us now or you’re going to be tied up for weeks with regulatory checks on each of your accounts. Your bank participates in the International Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Acts. We have the right to discovery on your clients, the money you move, everything. And we’ll spend all the time we need being very, very thorough.”

  She looked like she wanted very much to shoot them but couldn’t. So she said, “She did no business with us. She simply asked for directions.”

  Nicholas said, “Stop wasting our time.”

  “It is true. She did no banking.”

  Mike stepped in. “This is a matter of life and death. This woman is fugitive; she is extremely dangerous. We need to know what she was doing here.”

  Helmut closed her eyes for moment. A small frown crossed her face, then her shoulders straightened, her decision made. “The lady in the photograph inquired about the purchase of a safe-deposit box. I informed her there was a waiting list of over two years for the security section.” She looked down her nose. “We don’t do ‘walk-ins,’ as you like to say. She was very upset. I sent her to Sages Fidelité, on Place de Chevaleux. They perform a similar service without the wait. Or the security, but this did not seem to matter. She was quite urgent about it.”

  She gestured toward the door. “This is all I know. Please, I must return to my work.”

  Nicholas was vibrating with anger. “After all that, you mean to say you’ve been stalling us over a matter of directions?”

  Helmut crossed her arms over her chest. “I am protecting my bank and my clients. I would prefer for you to leave now.”

  Menard said, “Not yet, Madame Helmut. My officers are on their way. You will understand we cannot take your word for it. We will need your video feeds for the day.”

  Mike’s phone dinged with a new text message. She looked at it and breathed in hard. Nicholas looked over at her.

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. Menard, Ms. Helmut, please excuse us for a moment.”

  Menard nodded at them and stayed to face off with Marie-Louise Helmut. Mike walked out onto the street, Nicholas behind her.

  “What is so important that you’d pull me away from a suspect in the middle of an interrogation?”

  She merely showed him the message from Ben.

  Nicholas read it aloud. “Andrei Anatoly and two of his sons are dead. Call me when you can. Savich has news for you, too.”

  Menard joined them.

  “She is lying through her teeth but is handing over the video feeds. What has happened?”

  “News on another facet of the case, in New York,” Mike said, “and it’s a doozy. One of our initial suspects has been murdered. A mobster named Andrei Anatoly. Heard of him?”

  “I do not know this name. What would you like to do?”

  Nicholas said, “Tell us about Sages Fidelité.”

  “They are much less intransigent. They would do business with a rhinoceros, should it have the right amount of money. I must stay here and gather the video. You should take a taxicab, they are a long walk from here.”

  A cab pulled over at nearly the same time Menard raised his hand. Nicholas said, “We’ll be back as soon as we find anything.”

  The moment she saw the three police officers walk away from the front of the bank, Marie-Louise Helmut calmly picked up the phone.

  60

  Mike called Ben from the cab as they raced through the streets of Geneva, put him on speaker so Nicholas could hear.

  “Hey, Mike. Good timing.”

  “What in the world is happening there?”

  “Other than I’m up to my butt in dead mobsters and wished I had a beer, nothing much.”

  “Ben, quit being funny and tell me what happened.”

  He did, then said, “Sherlock thinks it’s the same guy who killed Kochen and Elaine. He could also be the guy who attacked you and Nicholas last night in the garage. As for his dead partner, he simply left him to bleed out. Savich thinks he found what he wanted.

  “Two more sons, Yuri and Toms, came in, saw their father and two brothers dead and attacked straight off. Savich put them both down, neat as you please. So far no one in the neighborhood saw anything.

  “Now, back to the Fox. The bomb boys have a signature on the C-4 explosive from the Met exhibit. It’s out of Tunisia. They’re looking to compare it to the explosive used on Anatoly’s safe. No tests yet, but they think it’s the same.

  “Neither Yuri or Toms Anatoly know what was in the safe. There are three more sons. We’ve called them to come in and talk to us. Paulie and Louisa are tearing the place apart, but so far, nothing you wouldn’t expect in a huge house like this one.”

  Nicholas said, “Ben, we have a tentative ID on the man with white hair—we think he’s another master thief called the Ghost. Could be he’s partnered up with Browning. We don’t know exactly how he ties in to the theft of the Koh-i-Noor, but he does.”

  Ben whistled. “Lot of coincidences piling up. And you know how we feel about coincidences.”

  “There aren’t any. You got anything else, Ben?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, one other thing. We got a warrant in, and I tracked Elaine’s funds. She paid Kochen three equal installments of five thousand dollars apiece.”

  Nicholas said
, “Any indication why she paid him this money?”

  “No. You guys watch your backs, okay? There’s some bad people around.”

  “We will. Call me if you find anything else.”

  She punched off her cell and turned to Nicholas. “Ben’s right. Talk about a case twisting in on itself.”

  She saw his expression was remote. When he replied, his voice was distant. “So Elaine was paying Kochen.”

  She lightly touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He shook himself. “Doesn’t means she’s guilty of anything yet, Mike.”

  The cabdriver slowed, slid to the curb, and grunted at them, “Three euros.”

  Nicholas handed the money through the slot. “Here’s our stop. Let’s go see what the Fox was up to, and maybe things will begin to make sense.”

  61

  Loire Valley, near Chartres, France

  Lanighan estate

  Thirty years ago

  Saleem was eight when his father took him to visit his grandfather one last time before the old man was expected to die. At his request, Saleem was left alone in the study for an audience with the dying Lion.

  The fire was the only light in the room. His grandfather’s chair sat squarely before the fire, close enough for the old man to warm his bones. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. The moment the servants softly closed the door behind them, he commanded, “Come here to me, boy.”

  Saleem edged forward. His grandfather had changed so much since their last visit. The man who’d held him on his knee and hugged him close was gone, replaced by this ancient gray thing sitting too close to the fire.

  He knew his grandfather was very sick, and suddenly Saleem was scared of him. He smelled wrong, and his eyebrows were thick, like hairy caterpillars, with stray hairs growing out like feelers.

  When he was within a few feet, his grandfather’s arm snaked out and grabbed him, pulling him close. The musty smell of death overwhelmed him, and Saleem coughed.

  “I need to tell you a story, Saleem. I am dying. It is important for you to know what this means.”

  “Why are you dying, Grandfather?”

  “My heart is broken, young Saleem. It has a hole that cannot be fixed. So it slows and doesn’t push the blood through my body. Feel how cold my hands are, how blue my nails.”

  He touched the boy’s forehead, and Saleem jumped. It was like setting a large cube of ice against his skin.

  “Shall I add more wood to the fire, then? Will it help warm you?”

  The old man shook his shaggy head. “It will not work. Now listen to me, and listen well. You are about to be given a secret so important you can never share it with another soul. Do you understand what I mean when I say a secret?”

  “I can’t tell anyone, or I’ll die.”

  A spark of humor showed in the old man’s eyes, and Saleem briefly saw the man he remembered, peeking out from the gathering black. He smiled, pleased to make his grandfather happy, and said, “Tell me, Grandfather. I will never tell a soul.”

  “Good, Saleem, good. I must whisper these words to you. Come closer.”

  Saleem bent his head, and his grandfather spoke, his old-man breath foul and hot on his face. “You are of a long line of men whose one job in this life is to guard a most ancient and valuable secret. See the box on the table there? Fetch it to me.”

  The rosewood box was small and brown, with an intricate lock. “Where is the key, Grandfather?”

  “I will show you. Bring me the box and the small knife lying beside it.”

  Saleem did as he was asked. His grandfather took the box in one feeble hand, set it on his lap. His fingers were gnarled, but he cut his thumb surely with the ivory-handled knife. The blood welled from the wound, and instead of wiping it away, he laid his thumb against the latch of the box. Saleem heard a deep clicking noise, and the latch sprang free.

  His voice shook. “Blood? Blood opens the box?”

  His grandfather smiled. “Not any blood, Saleem. Our blood. The blood of the Lion. We are the descendants of the Lion of Punjab, and it is our line which was given this great gift. We, and we alone, are the guardians of the stone.”

  He lifted the top of the box, and within lay a crystal-clear rock, slightly misshapen, not quite an oval, and the size of his grandfather’s fist. It didn’t look grand or exciting, and Saleem was disappointed.

  “This is your destiny, Saleem. It is one part of the most ancient diamond in the world. Once, our ancestors possessed a great stone, given to Krishna himself by Surya, the sun god. He who owned the stone had the power of the world in his hands. This power could not be bought, it could only be given, or”—his voice hardened—“taken by force.”

  He took the stone from the box, held it up. The flames reflected off the diamond, and Saleem looked into its depth. He could swear he saw marauders riding horses, heard their screams as the dust rose beneath their hooves, heard the steel swords clashing and clanging.

  Saleem jumped back, but his grandfather’s hand was hard on his arm, and he pulled him close again. He smiled. “The stone speaks to you, Saleem, for you are the rightful descendent.

  “Look. Now you will see the effect it has on me. Holding the stone makes me young again, heals my broken heart.”

  Saleem stared. Gone was the old man, and in his place was another, younger man bursting with health.

  “Grandfather, what has happened?”

  His grandfather didn’t answer him. He set the stone back in the box, and the din died down. The latch clicked shut of its own accord.

  Then he said, “Without its brothers, it won’t heal me for more than a moment.” Saleem watched him drain of life again and become once more gray and slack and smell of death.

  “This is only one piece of the original stone. The most secret piece, one no one knows of except the carriers of the stone’s blood. You are a carrier, Saleem, and with my death, it falls to your father, and to you. You must fulfill your destiny, Saleem. You must unite the three stones.”

  “If you had the three stones, Grandfather, would you be well and young again? Would you never die?”

  “Do not think like that, Saleem. Each man’s life must have a beginning and an end.”

  62

  Young Saleem was confused. “I don’t understand, Grandfather.”

  “I mean a man should not extend his life through magic. Let me tell you the story of the three stones.” The old man took a sip of his tea. “The original diamond was cleaved in two by our ancestor, Emperor Aurangzeb. He owned the stone, as his father and grandfather had before him. Word spread of the stone’s value, and it became known throughout the lands. It was written that the stone’s value could sustain the world for two days. The entire world, not only a small part of it, Saleem. You realize what this means? If you held the stone, you would be seen as a god, and so he was.

  “Holding the stone also gave Aurangzeb the sight. He knew what was coming, knew his kingdom would be ransacked, his diamond stolen from him, and the lands would fall to strangers and he would not be able to prevent it. He came up with a plan. He engaged the Italian lapidary Borgio to cut the stone, ostensibly so that it would be made more beautiful and be remarked upon by all with more envy and awe.

  “Publicly, it was said that Borgio mangled the job, taking the incredible seven-hundred-and-ninety-three-carat diamond down to a mere hundred eighty-three carats. Despite the huge mistake, Aurangzeb displayed this smaller stone for the world’s amazement.

  “Privately, however, Borgio had been instructed to cleave the stone into two parts. Aurangzeb kept the larger piece for himself. He placed it in a small rosewood box for his descendants and hid it until he was dying and told his son, and so it passed from generation to generation.”

  He tapped a long finger on the rosewood box on the table.

  “Later, when the British stole the smaller stone, now called the Koh-i-Noor, from Duleep Singh, your great-great-great-grandfather, they cut it further still, to make it pretty for th
e paltry British.

  “Hear me well, young Saleem. The stone cannot be destroyed. And the dust from this final cut was gathered into a bag, and overnight, it healed itself, and thus became the third brother.”

  The old man coughed, and Saleem gave him more tea, wiped his chin. He sank back in his chair, his voice growing softer and further away.

  “Not only will it forever heal itself, it will heal man, as well.” He pointed at the box. “This is only one piece of the original stone, the largest, as I’ve told you. You must find the other two and unite them. If you cannot, it is your sacred duty to pass this piece of the precious diamond and the truth behind it to your son, so he may continue the quest. Why have I told you, instead of waiting for your father to pass the legend along?” His grandmother smiled, a funny smile that made Saleem want to laugh. “I do not believe in chance, Saleem. I believe in redundancy. Now both descendants know. It is safest, I think.”

  Saleem was very quiet. He was confused and upset. All this talk of stones and death and healing, he did not know what to make of it. His grandfather was a very old man; perhaps he was raving mad. He did not understand this redundancy.

  Saleem tried to pull his arm away from his grandfather’s clawed grasp, but the old man held tighter.

  “The diamond’s prophecy, Saleem. You must remember the prophecy. The world only knows part of it, the curse of the Koh-i-Noor:

  “He who owns this diamond will own the world,

  but will also know all its misfortunes.

  Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity.

  “Only our family knows the second part of the prophecy. This is our secret:

  “When Krishna’s stone is unbroken again,

  the hand which holds it becomes whole.

  Wash the Mountain of Light in woman’s blood,