Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  Simon stared at the screen, running the mouse over Vika’s trail.

  At 4:02 a.m., Princess Victoria Brandenburg von Tiefen und Tassis had climbed aboard a helicopter and flown east toward Italy.

  Chapter 64

  It was five minutes past eight a.m. in London when Roger Jenkins tapped on Zaab Sethna’s door. “In yet?”

  A snort greeted his words. Jenkins poked his head inside the office, where Sethna lay on the floor, his suit jacket folded to make a pillow, his hands clasped over his chest. His dark glasses sat on a book next to him, along with a glass of water. Jenkins stepped inside. Why would Sethna sleep on the floor when there was a perfectly good couch in the break room not ten steps away?

  “The break room smells,” said Sethna, sitting up. “That’s why.”

  Jenkins jumped out of his socks. “Zaab…Sorry…How did you know?”

  “Everyone asks the same thing.”

  In the morning light, Sethna’s eyes were puffy and mole-ish, lending him a shy appearance. He noted Jenkins’s intrusive glances and put on his eyeglasses. “It’s because of my back, actually. Broke it in a helo crash in Ramadi province ages ago. Still gives me a devil of a problem. Worth it. We got him.”

  “Who?”

  “AMZ. Zarkawi. Bad egg.”

  Jenkins nodded, the name conjuring images of roadside bombs and butchered bodies. “Is the crisis resolved? I didn’t catch anything on the news.”

  “As it should be,” said Sethna. “But yes…for now. And please: don’t ask.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jenkins smiled like an altar boy. “The cuff links?”

  Sethna unfolded his jacket, got up, and hung it behind the door. “Couldn’t get there, eh?”

  Jenkins shook his head. “‘Sword of God.’ ‘Eight two zero zero.’ ‘Judges seven.’ No, the pieces didn’t fit.”

  Sethna went to his desk. “Mossad,” he said, drawing a grand breath. “Israeli intelligence. Unit 8200 is their elite surveillance apparatus. Can hack anything. Listen to anyone. See everywhere. Best in the world by some accounts. Where did you get them, by the way?”

  “A friend found them.”

  “Where?”

  “Monaco.”

  “Figures.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “All those Israeli boys take their tech and flog it on the open market. Millionaires, the lot of them.”

  “And the writing?”

  “That’s what gave it away. It’s a name. Dov M. Dragan. Tell your friend that the cuff links belong to the former director of Unit 8200. The post goes to the number two man at the Mossad. If he really is a murderer, this wasn’t the first time.”

  Chapter 65

  CALL ME read the header on the email from Roger Jenkins at MI5.

  “What have you got?” Pen in hand, Simon sat at the desk, praying for news that might help him find Vika. He was operating in crisis mode, moving a heartbeat slower than warp speed. He’d showered, shaved, and put on fresh clothing. A second injection of codeine laced with B12 had him feeling better than a fresh batch of dilithium crystals. He’d phoned Harry Mason and asked him to bring over the Daytona as quickly as possible.

  After that, he’d spoken with D’Artagnan Moore, pulling him out of a directors’ meeting being held at Claridge’s.

  “You can’t be losing that much money,” Moore had bellowed when he’d picked up the phone.

  “D’Art. Listen to me. We’ve been had.”

  “By whom? How?”

  “Toby Stonewood. He’s played us from the start.”

  “Toby? The Duke of Suffolk?”

  “One and the same.” Simon couldn’t stand how the English never wanted to believe the worst of their landed gentry. Even the most casual perusal of English history showed them to be venal, dishonest, and without scruples. And those were the good ones.

  “Just listen to me,” said Simon. “And button it till I’m done.”

  He needed ten minutes to explain all that had happened since he’d arrived in Monaco and another five to calm Moore down. When some measure of calm had been restored, Simon played him the recording he’d made while dangling outside the second-floor window of the drop house.

  “What is that they’re speaking?” Moore asked petulantly.

  “Just wait. You’ll recognize one of the voices in a minute.”

  Moore quieted as Lord Toby Stonewood’s baritone entered the conversation.

  “The bastard,” said D’Art when the playback ended. “I’m sorry, Simon.”

  “You and me both, brother. Just get me the financials I asked for. I want a cavity check of Toby Stonewood’s economic livelihood.”

  “I’ll put on the rubber glove myself,” said D’Art.

  “Be careful. He’s not the type to go down without a fight. We don’t know who he has in his corner.”

  “Consider it done. What about you?”

  Simon zipped up his bag and set it down next to the stainless steel attaché case. If Vika wasn’t welcome in the hotel, neither was he. It was a matter of time before they came looking for him. “Me? I’m going after the girl.”

  That conversation with D’Art had ended five minutes ago.

  “Did you get all that?” asked Jenkins after he’d finished relaying his information.

  “Mossad. Unit 8200,” said Simon.

  “Is it any help?”

  “More than you can imagine. I have one more thing to ask.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The other day when I called and you knew where I was: Does that software work for all carriers…I mean, for numbers outside the UK?”

  “Wouldn’t be much good if it didn’t.”

  “A friend has gone missing. She’s German. Her mobile has a Frankfurt area code. Don’t know her carrier.”

  “Give me the number.”

  Simon read off Vika’s cell number.

  “Nothing,” said Jenkins.

  “That fast?”

  “Speed of light.”

  “You can get a read on a phone even if it’s off. Isn’t that right?”

  “As long as the phone is in range of a cell tower.”

  “What if the phone is in the air?”

  “No go, I’m afraid.”

  “Keep trying. And let me know the minute you find out anything. She’s important to me.”

  Simon ended the call, his eyes on the words he’d written in neat block letters. He recalled being seated at his desk in the old office at the bank, reading the prospectus of an offering of shares in a new company called Audiax. “Our CEO holds a PhD in mathematics and worked for the Israeli government for twenty years prior to founding the company.”

  Of course it hadn’t said what Dov Dragan had done for the government. Spy chiefs were wise to keep a low profile after their retirement, especially if they lived where their government couldn’t offer year-round protection.

  Whoever wrote the program, Radek had boasted to Simon twelve hours earlier, is a mathematical genius.

  “I fear I sold too early,” Dragan had complained in the Bar Américain. “It’s hard to turn down a billion dollars.”

  Maybe the billion was gone and he needed to earn another.

  The trust is worth twelve billion, Vika had said.

  Dov M. Dragan, head of the Monaco Rally Club’s racing committee, founder of Audiax Technologies, and former chief of Unit 8200 of the Mossad. If Roger Jenkins couldn’t tell Simon where Vika was, Dragan could.

  A sharp knock on the door interrupted his violent machinations. Instead of answering it, Simon opened the French doors to the balcony and stepped outside. There was no way down except to jump. He went to the door.

  “Open up,” said Harry Mason.

  Simon showed the mechanic in. “Hello, Harry.”

  “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

  “Misplaced it for the moment.”

  “Car’s out front. Gave you a hundred more horses and enough torque to push your bottom right to the
floor. By the way, Lucy called. She can’t get ahold of you either. She asked me to tell you that a woman phoned the shop looking for you. She said it was urgent.”

  “Name?”

  Harry Mason scowled. “Knew you’d ask me that. Maybe something French?”

  “Isabelle?”

  Mason snapped his fingers. “That’s it.” His eyes fell to the bags set down next to the bed. “Leaving already?”

  “I am. And you should, too.”

  “What about the time trial?”

  Simon checked his watch. It was 9:05. The first car had gone off an hour ago. Dragan was set to go at 9:30. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t be there. Like everyone else, he thought Simon was in jail. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Reminding you? Isn’t that why we came?”

  Simon grabbed his bags. “I need a favor,” he said, then described how he’d left a laptop computer beneath the front seat of a car he’d parked near the botanical garden the previous night. He told Harry he wanted him to retrieve it. He didn’t mention that there were two men in the trunk.

  “A laptop under the front seat?”

  “It’s very important, Harry. After you get it, go directly to the airport and jump on the first plane home. I’m not a popular man in this town.”

  Simon held the door for Harry and they left the room. “And one more thing,” said Simon. “I’m going to need your phone.”

  Chapter 66

  The helicopter brushed the treetops, flying so low that Toby Stonewood was sure the uppermost branches would scrape its belly. He didn’t know how the pilot could see. The rain had grown steadily worse as they’d crossed the Lombardy plain. The wind had picked up, too, batting the aircraft about like a toy on a string, the engine oscillating wildly, screaming and groaning as the rotors sought purchase. The moisture had turned to sleet and then to snow as they’d passed Como and climbed into the Alps. And now cloud. Dense, unfriendly, dark, restless cloud that played hide-and-seek with them. One moment blinding them, the next vanishing to reveal the valley floor.

  Toby sat facing backward; Victoria, his stepdaughter, was opposite him, Ratka beside her. All wore headphones to drown out the engine noise. A microphone allowed them to speak to one another. Ratka was not a “good flyer,” as the saying went. His complexion had gone green a while back. He sat, eyes closed, head against the window.

  Toby gazed at Victoria, keeping a faint smile on his lips, as calm and relaxed as if they were all sharing a ride to Heathrow. Stonewoods learned at an early age never to betray weakness in any way. He’d kept a check on his emotions for so long that he wondered if he still had any.

  Even so, the first few minutes of the trip had been rough. They’d had to tell her they had her boy. Ratka had done the honors, striking her across the cheek and warning her to behave herself after she’d begun threatening them with all manner of ridiculous punishments should the boy be harmed. It was a little embarrassing, actually. Toby nearly felt sorry for the girl.

  Even now, Toby could sense the anger brewing beneath the composed surface. Who wouldn’t be upset that her son was kidnapped? He had a hard time bringing himself to think about what was to come. There was a word for it. Familicide. In the best European tradition, he was guaranteeing his inheritance by the most reliable means known. If it had worked for the Borgias, why not for him?

  Toby gazed down at the mountains, the swath of pines covering the slopes. He’d become quite the expert on timber of late. He knew the price that spruce brought at market, and oak and birch. It paid to learn about the commodity that stood to make you rich. On behalf of the family, he’d already conducted exploratory discussions with the chairmen of several of the world’s largest logging concerns. The consensus seemed to run to a billion dollars per million acres of old growth forest. It was a start, enough to pay off Ratka and Dragan, have a few crumbs left over to satisfy his creditors, at least partially.

  The helicopter dropped abruptly, like a man putting his foot in a puddle and discovering it was a trench. Ratka moaned and shifted in his seat. Poor fellow. He had a hand on the safety straps, his knuckles so white they looked as if they were about to pop through the skin. Toby didn’t like turbulence any better, but he’d be damned if he showed it.

  It had been a bumpy enough road to get to this spot. He tried to think when it had started going wrong, “it” meaning his life: his loves, his friendships, and mostly his finances. Fifty, he decided. Maybe forty-eight. That was when demon drink began to rule his life and he’d discovered that he was more or less broke. He told himself he should be proud that he’d made it that far.

  The family had a motto: Intra si recta, ne labora. If right within, trouble not. The problem, Toby thought as he pondered all he’d done and what he was about to do, was that he no longer knew, nor frankly cared, what was right. A better motto might be “Do right for yourself, trouble not.”

  Toby realized that Victoria was staring at him.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Always the same reason,” he replied.

  “It was you who refused the divorce.”

  “Thought it was the safe play,” said Toby. “Keeping my options open.”

  “And the Holzenstein fortune?”

  “Never quite what it was made out to be. Grandfather sold off most of the land after the Second War. There was some decent art. A few Rembrandts, Turners, a Sargent. Those went, too. I did the rest. If you’d agreed to your mother’s prenup, none of this would have been necessary.”

  “No,” said Vika, admonishing him. “You would have gone through that as well.”

  Toby shrugged. “Probably right.”

  “And Fritz?”

  “You mean Robert. What about him? He’s the rightful heir. You know how it goes. Princes in the tower and all that. Whole thing doesn’t work if he’s around.”

  She steeled herself, tilted her chin. “And it doesn’t bother you?”

  He thought about lying, but decided he was past that. “Not in the slightest.”

  Vika nodded toward Ratka. “And him?”

  “Ratka? He’s got the manpower. I needed his men to raise the funds to pay the death duties. Your German authorities up and raised the ante last week. Some bill to fund that immigration nonsense. Someone’s got to pay for all the darkies coming into the country—oh, excuse me, I mean the ‘refugees.’ Might as well be the rich.”

  “You’re horrible.”

  “The truth, Victoria. Only telling the truth. Smart of you to take advantage of that provision to avoid inheritance taxes if you keep the entire estate intact for two generations. You can’t touch the assets, but Robert can do whatever he likes. Or the presumptive heir. That would be me. Assuming, that is, I can cover the tax bill.”

  “So you cheated your own casinos?”

  “Riske tell you that?”

  “Why did you bring him in, anyway?”

  “Didn’t have a choice. I’m the chairman of the company. The first man we brought in was an expert. Had it figured out the first night.”

  “So you killed him.”

  Toby shot a finger at Ratka. “Not me. Him. That’s his line of work. Riske was the perfect alternative, at least at the outset. Good record of working with businesses. Strong recommendations. Honest to a fault. I argued that we needed someone from outside the industry. I wasn’t kidding when I said he had a checkered background. He’s done serious time. Used to rob banks. Almost killed a few policemen. The board liked that. Takes-one-to-know-one kind of thing. Turned out he was everything he was cracked up to be. Couldn’t have that. Problem was that he met you. A little taste of schnitzel got him all fired up.”

  Vika slapped Toby across the face.

  Toby grabbed her wrist. “Vorsicht, meine Prinzessin,” he said. “Be careful.” He released her and continued. “Anyway, Riske’s in jail. He won’t be getting out for a long time. Le Juste is making sure he has all the evidence he needs to put him away.”

  “Le Juste is with you?”<
br />
  “Everyone is with me, Victoria. Everyone is together on this.”

  “And what will you do?” she asked. “When you have it all.”

  “Sell,” said Toby. “Sell, sell, sell. The forest. The castles. The art. The furniture. All of it.”

  “How much are you giving to him?” she asked, looking at Ratka.

  “He gets his rightful share. None of your concern. Besides, we’re going to be close for a while to come.”

  A gust rocked the helicopter and it danced sideways, the tail swinging out wide. His stomach went with it.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Vika.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Chapter 67

  It was nine kilometers up the hill to La Turbie. Simon drove like a madman, not stopping for lights, passing when he could and when he couldn’t. He could feel the changes Harry had made to the Daytona. The car had always been fast. Now it was dangerous.

  He’d put the phone on the center console. He had Isabelle Guyot on the speaker.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she began. “You know that, don’t you? It’s against everything I stand for.”

  “I’m grateful.”

  “As it turns out, it’s me who should be grateful. Or rather the bank. How did you know?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “You said you were interested in Dragan for personal reasons. But surely it’s connected to whatever you’re investigating down there. Our side missed it completely.”

  “Glad I could help,” said Simon, though he remained at a loss regarding what Isabelle had discovered. “Dov Dragan gave me a bad feeling. Something didn’t mesh.”

  “As usual, your radar is accurate,” replied Isabelle. “Initially, we viewed him as another successful executive and investor. Following the IPO of his company, Audiax, he opened an account with an initial deposit of just over one billion dollars. That was ten years ago. He’s always been a player. He bet heavily on currency plays. Placed money with the riskier venture cap funds. Funded a few start-ups himself. If there’s the opposite of a Midas touch, Dragan had it. Everything he touched went belly-up. Every month his account lost value. He started taking out large sums of cash over the counter. A million euros at a time. Maybe there was a drug habit or a gambling problem. Over the last two years, the decline became precipitous. He was hemorrhaging money. He started carrying a negative balance.”