The Final Cut

by Catherine Coulter

  Mike said, “It’s only a flesh wound.”

  Menard gave each of them a long look. “I will try to trace the men in Geneva to Saleem Lanighan.” And he took himself off to deal with the mess downstairs.

  Nicholas’s computer chimed.

  It was Savich. Nicholas opened the chat.

  “Good to see you’re both still upright.”

  “We’re fine,” Nicholas said. “The man who attacked us is dead, and Menard is going to try to connect him and the two men in Geneva with Saleem Lanighan.”

  Nicholas and Mike filled Savich in on everything they’d learned from Couverel, to the Ghost, who was undoubtedly the man who’d murdered the Anatolys and Elaine York and Kochen. She told how they believed the Ghost was connected to the Fox. “But we still don’t know who he is or where to find him,” Mike said, “only that he exists. He could still be in New York.”

  Nicholas told him about Saleem Lanighan’s direct line back to Duleep Singh, the brother of the Lion of Punjab, and the newly discovered scandal about his affair with the Countess Wiltshire.

  Savich said, “I’m going to have to tell Sherlock she was right. She said she knew down to her size sevens we’d find the answer to the theft of the Koh-i-Noor in its English roots.”

  “Kiss the woman’s size sevens, Dillon,” Mike said.

  Savich laughed. “Now, for my contribution, I’ve found the money trail for one of the Fox’s accounts. Over the past three years, there have been four money transfers from the Bank Horim to a Smith Barney account, which then pinged out to a bank in Curaçao. The money left Curaçao and went to Israel, where it was disbursed back into five numbered accounts at a Horim branch in Tel Aviv. Clean as a whistle.”

  “For how much?”

  “Each transfer was for five million dollars.”

  Nicholas was impressed. “Twenty-five million bucks. That isn’t a half-bad payday for a single job, and I imagine there’s another equal share owed her on delivery of the Koh-i-Noor. Does it say who the accounts belong to?”

  “As you know the bank doesn’t have names attached to the accounts online, only numbers. You’ll have to get a warrant for the names tied to the numbered account. Though I wouldn’t count on it being anything other than multiple false identities, and therefore meaningless. The Fox seems to have plenty of identities.”

  Mike said, “You’re right, Dillon, she does. Assuming this is the Fox’s money, why would she circle back to the same bank? Is this the safest way to move the money around?”

  “With as many accounts as it pinged through, yes, it’s a very safe way to launder money. I wouldn’t have found it if I wasn’t specifically looking for these types of transfers from this specific bank and cross-referencing by the account numbers you found. All the Swiss banks are good, but she must trust this bank implicitly. I’d be willing to bet she has someone on the inside at the bank running these accounts for her.”

  Nicholas arched a black brow. “Marie-Louise Helmut, perchance?”

  “Probably,” Mike said, then turned back to the screen. “Dillon, did you see any direct ties to Saleem Lanighan?”

  “No, not yet, but I bet the originating account will trace to him. Since it’s been closed, there’s no foolproof way to tell. Maybe you’ll have more luck on your end. One more thing. Nick, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. But last week there was a money transfer from this Smith Barney account to Elaine York’s bank account as well. One payment of two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Nicholas felt the news like a punch to his gut. It was over, no more trying to pretend Elaine was innocent.

  He said only, “Thanks, Savich. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Be careful, guys.”

  They closed his computer, Nicholas looked at his watch. Nearly eight. Mike was watching him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course. The question is, are you?”

  “Like I said, ’tis only a flesh wound.”

  “You’re lying. I admire that. Okay now, we know Lanighan is based in Paris. Find out where he lives. Later tonight you and I are going to go watch his house and see if he has plans.”

  “What about the Fox?”

  “If she’s making a delivery to Lanighan, he’s the one we need to track. Like you said, she seems to have a sixth sense about us on this case. Who knows? Maybe she’ll come to us.”

  84

  New York, New York

  26 Federal Plaza

  Saturday afternoon

  Ben Houston was deep into Anatoly’s files when Zachery called him into his office.

  Ben gathered his things and walked the hundred feet to the executive suites on the twentieth floor. Normally at 2:00 p.m. the leadership would be in their daily big-dog meeting, but since it was a weekend, only a few stragglers were around. Even Maryann, the secretary to all the Criminal Division SACs since the late eighties, had gone home. But her boss hadn’t. When Zachery closed and locked the door behind him, Ben went on red alert.

  Something big was going down.

  Zachery gestured to the black leather couch instead of his round conference table. “You’ve been at it for hours. Take a load off.”

  Like everyone else working this case, Ben had managed only a few hours’ sleep for the past few days. Safer to take the chair. “If I get on that couch, you’ll never get me off it. What’s happening, sir?”

  Zachery stood at his window, staring out across the East River into Brooklyn, his arms behind him. “Nicholas and Mike found the buyer for the diamond; Savich has verified it.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A wealthy businessman, Saleem Lanighan, supposedly a direct descendant of the Lion of Punjab, who was the one who surrendered the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria.”

  “So Sherlock was right,” Ben said.

  “Yes, she was. However, we have lots more work to do, Ben. The NSA has sent over the trace of the phone number the Fox called from her plane. They confirmed the signal, and we’ve been able to track it. The owner of the phone has been in New York for the past week. He left the country last night, bound for Paris. We ran his face through the NGI facial-recognition database, and it matched the photo of a British national who tried to assassinate François Mitterrand two decades ago. Interpol believes this man is the Ghost. They’re sending us everything they’ve got, which isn’t much.

  “It seems likely the Ghost killed not only Elaine York, but Anatoly and his two sons and attacked Mike and Nicholas in the garage. We’ve also identified the man killed at Anatoly’s. His name is Jason Rathbone, and he works for Saleem Lanighan. There were no prints in the system, but there was a DNA match on CODIS.”

  Zachery said, “Savich told me Elaine’s bank accounts show a two-hundred-thousand-dollar deposit last week. So she was being paid, but for what? By whom?”

  Ben couldn’t bear it. He’d hoped everything would be explained, that Elaine would be exonerated. But no. Ben said only, “I don’t know, sir.”

  Zachery came over and sat in the chair opposite Ben. “I don’t know, either. We need to find the tie between the Ghost and Elaine and Anatoly. They’re all mixed together in this, but we don’t know exactly how.

  “Track this Ghost character, Ben, and find out what he took from Anatoly’s safe. Can you do that for me?”

  “Of course, sir. I’m on it.”

  Ben left Zachery staring out the windows, and went back to his desk. He called Mike first thing, to warn her so she’d know about the Ghost, but she didn’t answer her phone, so he left her a message to call him as soon as she could.

  And then he settled himself at his desk to mourn Elaine York and find a killer.

  85

  Paris

  Saturday evening

  Kitsune checked into a small, quiet hotel on the West Bank, took a room sight unseen, and was barely inside the door before she plugged the thumb drive into her laptop and watched the files upload. Hundreds upon hundreds of files, every one a valuable link to Lanighan’s enterprise. It gave her gr
eat satisfaction to hold the heart of his world in her hands.

  If Mulvaney was close by, she would find him in these files.

  She set the laptop down on the small desk and opened her bag. She wanted to hold on a bit longer, but there was no help for it, she needed fuel and rest. The hotel provided fruit at the front desk. She’d taken three apples and a banana, had jerky and granola bars in her bag from her stop at the travel center. She ate while the files began to load, then took a shower. She set her alarm for two hours of sleep and drifted off immediately.

  She woke refreshed, though still tired. She took a handful of vitamins loaded with ginseng to help her stay awake and focused. She drank water, stretched, and made a cup of herbal tea.

  While she was sipping her tea, the files finished uploading. She scrolled through them, down to the S files—the security folder—hoping there were protocols of the security systems from Lanighan’s warehouses. She was in luck; there was a folder inside labeled DropCams.

  There were at least fifty camera feeds to go through. With a sigh, she settled deeper in her chair and began opening them one by one.

  She hit pay dirt on the eighth folder. The screen was separated into five squares, two large showing the first-floor interior of a warehouse, and row upon row of what she knew must be artwork, and three smaller squares on the bottom showing individual rooms on the top floor, one a very large office. And in the office, she saw Mulvaney, tied to a chair, his arms stretched tight behind his back, a gag in his mouth. He was slumped over, asleep or dead, she couldn’t tell. The video was too grainy to see if his chest rose and fell. She saw flashes of light, shadows moving outside the range of the cameras. She realized whoever was in the room with him was taking photographs.

  She took a deep breath to calm her rage, looked at the file, saw the address—it was a warehouse in Gagny Neuf-trois. Forty minutes away.

  She hadn’t wanted to believe Lanighan, but now she had no choice—she’d seen Mulvaney with her own eyes. She felt tears burn her eyes, shook it off. She’d save him, she had to.

  She scanned the remaining files, saw a few more attached to the Gagny warehouse. She opened them and read through the information, found the corresponding video feeds for the cameras on the grounds.

  She wasn’t surprised the outside cameras showed armed guards patrolling the perimeter. She counted fourteen men in fatigues, cradling AR-15s to their chests, all in a state of readiness she’d seen from professional soldiers. They fairly screamed mercenary.

  It made sense to have security, of course, with the treasures he had inside the warehouse. But this—fourteen heavily armed men sweeping around the building in a clearly coordinated pattern, this was overkill, and done for a reason: Lanighan knew she was coming.

  If it was a war he wanted, she was happy to bring it to his door. One against fourteen wasn’t the best odds, but she’d dealt with worse.

  She spent the next fifteen minutes drawing up plans, making lists. She had a storage unit near Paris that held everything she’d need, units similar to ones she had all over the world. Tools were needed for her work, and it paid to be prepared.

  She looked at her watch; she was supposed to meet Lanighan at 9:00 p.m. back at his apartment on Avenue Foch, but she had no intention of doing that. She put away her computer and called him.

  86

  Paris

  Avenue Foch

  Saturday evening

  Lanighan answered on the first ring.

  Kitsune said, “Change of plans. I want to meet at the warehouse in Gagny where you’re holding Mulvaney. Meet me there at midnight. I will bring you the stone, and I will take him out with me.”

  He showed no surprise, not that she’d expected him to, because he knew by now she’d been the one to break into his office and found where he’d hidden Mulvaney. A showdown, then, not an exchange. She knew he would try to kill both her and Mulvaney and take the diamond. No doubt in her mind.

  He said, “Aren’t you the clever one? No more tricks, Kitsune, or he dies slowly, one piece of him at a time.”

  “I want Mulvaney released first, then I will give you the diamond. You must show me proof, Lanighan, that he is alive. Then I want the remainder of my money.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. I want to be there when you unite the three stones. I want to see the legend come alive before my eyes.”

  She heard his breath catch, but when he spoke, his tone was cool. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Saleem Singh Lanighan, son of Robert Lanighan, grandson of Alastair Lanighan. Four generations back, your great-great-grandmother lay with the son of the last Lion of Punjab and got pregnant. She passed the child off as the son of her husband, but her maid knew the truth, and she talked.”

  “You simply recount the scandal the British rags have sensationalized.”

  She continued, her voice calm and slow. “Blood runs true, Saleem. Unless I am totally mistaken, you already have one-third of the great stone, the largest piece, kept hidden by the males in your family for hundreds of years. I have another third, the Koh-i-Noor. May I assume you hired another thief to steal the last third of the diamond from that piece of rotted horsemeat known as Andrei Anatoly?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I thought so. You should have hired me to steal both parts of the diamond, but you didn’t. You hired Mulvaney. And then what did you do? You repaid him with treachery. Of course you always planned to betray me as well. You’ve already proved that.

  “You are beneath contempt, Saleem. Your father would be disgusted at what he spawned.”

  He held silent.

  “As I said, I want to see you unite the three stones.”

  Saleem said, “I do not know what you’re talking about.”

  She said,

  “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.

  “That is the curse passed down, the curse all know, but it isn’t the end to it, is it, Saleem?” And she softly spoke the two sentences he thought he was the only living person to know.

  “When Krishna’s stone is unbroken again,

  the hand which holds it becomes whole.

  Wash the Mountain of Light in blood,

  so we will know rebirth and rejoice.”

  “How do you know my family’s legend, Kitsune?”

  She laughed softly. “I told you when we first met I knew everything about you, Saleem. I meant it. You are not the first Lanighan I’ve done business with who sought the diamonds. You know I worked for your father. I know he must have told you of me—the Fox. He needed the stones as well, and like you, he was running out of time.”

  She heard his breathing become hard and fast as he realized the truth.

  “He hired me to find the third stone, but he died before I could locate it. He also told me why having the three stones was so important to him.”

  Saleem couldn’t take it in. Why hadn’t his father told him what he’d done? He’d told Saleem about the Fox, but not that she was a woman, that she was Kitsune. He tasted his father’s deceit, his betrayal, and it was hot and rancid. His own father, sharing their precious family secret with a common thief. He could do nothing to his father, but he would kill her with his bare hands.

  Kitsune said, “You should know by now I am a woman of my word. It is a simple bargain. You will share the moment with me, and I will walk away, with my money, and my friend, and I will be satisfied.”

  He realized then that his father had not told her about needing a woman’s blood. Why hadn’t he? He smiled into the phone. Her request was too good to be true. He no longer had need of Colette.

  He said, “Meet me at Gagny at midnight, and we will both gain what we want.”

  87

  Ritz Paris

  15 Place Vendôme

  Saturday evening

  Mike was typing one-handed on her computer, the light
from the screen making her skin glow. She was tough, and he admired that. He knew how much a bullet hurt, but she had barely missed a step.

  Nicholas said, “Any luck?”

  Mike nodded. “Lanighan has offices in La Defense, and he lives on Avenue Foch.”

  “Not a surprise,” Nicholas said, “Avenue Foch is one of the posher areas of Paris. Residential neighborhood, very expensive, perfect for our Mr. Lanighan.”

  Mike said, “He has several warehouses where he stores all his art. The biggest is in Gagny, east of downtown Paris. He has over twenty-five hundred paintings and sculptures, both religious and secular, in his possession at any given time.”

  She turned the laptop around so he could see the warehouse at Gagny. “For a crook, he’s incredibly legitimate. He’s on the cultural advisory board at CERN, bankrolled an exhibit at the Louvre, is a majority shareholder in a startup fashion business which has gotten serious legs, even made a failed bid to buy Christie’s auction house. He owns several smaller entities, including—drumroll, please—Sages Fidelité. They have over one hundred branches across Europe and Asia. Lanighan has serious money. He could afford to buy pretty much anything; last year he beat out Qatar’s ruling family on a lost Pissarro painting. Forty-eight million dollars.”

  Mike sat back and shifted her arm to a more comfortable position. “There’s one other thing I came across you might find interesting. Lanighan’s been married three times, had a slew of affairs. He’s been connected to any number of rich and elegant women. Yet he has no children. He was sick as a kid, leukemia, and had chemotherapy treatments. It worked; he was cured, and obviously survived. But if you’re right about him being the last in a long line of descendants, and he has no siblings, and no children—wait, maybe his wanting the Koh-i-Noor isn’t about the obsession to own a unique artifact, maybe instead it’s about something else entirely, something very personal, something he believes connects only to his family, to his line.”