Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  “With a little luck, the mechanics say tomorrow she will be ready. I expect some systems will fail, but most are not critical. Redundancy is the hallmark of modern airliners. Anyway, there are other mechanics where we are going.”

  “So you have no worries?” said the ever-cautious Druze.

  “I always have worries. What kind of captain would I be otherwise? But once we get off the ground, I calculate we could lose an engine and still reach our destination.”

  Walid looked at him solemnly. “You realize I haven’t flown in a very long time.”

  “Can you raise a landing gear handle?”

  The copilot grinned. “The big knob shaped like a wheel?”

  “See? I knew I chose you for a reason.”

  Walid nodded toward the belly. “Do you think the system is still operable?”

  “How would I know? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Perhaps we should try to activate it once we get airborne.”

  “I think it looks simple. What could go wrong?” Tuncay gave a half-smile of his own, having asked the classic question pilots prodded one another with. “Now go upstairs, get familiar with the instruments. I am going to work on our flight plan.”

  Walid’s apprehension was clearly not allayed, yet Tuncay suspected it had nothing to do with the airplane. Finally the younger man said, “Do you think this will work? All of it?”

  Tuncay gave a thoughtful pause. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” He then added, “And neither would you.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  From Zurich they rode the A3 autobahn south and east, rounding the length of Walensee, the alpine lake that had inspired Liszt to compose his most subdued and lyrical piano piece. In the cast of a high moon, the Churfirsten mountains loomed ominously behind smooth waters, two-thousand-meter peaks lined like soldiers in neat parade formation.

  Slaton fought a running battle with the car, a rattletrap Peugeot whose manual transmission, tiny engine, and bald tires were wholly unsuited to climbing mountains in winter. It was a small consolation that his left leg had duty on the stiff clutch pedal, as his right thigh was still sore. Astrid herself had never owned a car, but a longtime friend, Crystal, who lived in Lachen on the south shore of Lake Zurich, had a husband who moonlighted doing automotive repair work. The man unfailingly kept a project or two stashed in his side yard, and when Astrid had asked for a loaner for the weekend, Crystal happily provided a key. Slaton had kept out of sight during the visit so Astrid wouldn’t have to explain the presence of a strange younger man.

  The Peugeot was shabby but serviceable, and in Slaton’s mind the ideal means of transportation—virtually impossible to trace to either him or Astrid. She’d been mostly quiet during the journey, and Slaton did nothing to intervene. He knew she’d need time to come to terms with what had happened to Walter Krueger. Slaton was equally sure that she was watching him, and he imagined her internal argument. Have I done the right thing, running away with a man I barely know? One who hours ago killed another man in cold blood?

  He was mildly surprised Astrid had not insisted on going to the police. He wouldn’t stop her if she tried. Perhaps it was this very message, presented through his calm demeanor, that caused her to stay. To some degree, Astrid trusted him. Trusted that he could protect her. And perhaps in some dark corner of her mind, hoping the killer she’d befriended might eventually impart justice for what had happened.

  Reaching the village of Landquart, Slaton steered carefully from the motorway. Another hour on a snow-covered secondary road, spanning the Prättigau Valley, put them in Klosters. Astrid, increasingly steady, gave directions to a yellow-lit A-frame building surrounded by thick evergreen trees whose branches were bent low by snow.

  She said, “This office manages all the chalets on the street. Walter picks up his key here. I’ve come with him a number of times, so they’ll know me.”

  He cast a sideways look. “Well enough to give you a key?”

  “I think so. Once before, I arrived early and Walter was detained. In the end he couldn’t come, and he arranged for me to pick up the key at the desk. At least two of the clerks would recognize me—I’m sure of it.”

  Slaton pulled to a stop in front of a small lobby.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll stay here and keep the car running. If anything feels wrong come back right away. We can find another way to get into the chalet.”

  Without comment she went inside. Astrid returned nine minutes later with a look on her face Slaton couldn’t quite place. “What happened?” he asked as she slid in beside him.

  “There was a new man behind the desk. I didn’t recognize him.”

  “So you didn’t get it?”

  Astrid held up a keycard, and her deadpan expression went to a slight grin. “I told him I was Walter’s wife. I said I’d left Zurich in a furor, forgetting my identification, because I’d just found out he was cheating on me. I called him a bastard and said I planned to take him for every penny.”

  “He gave you a key based on that?”

  “I was very distressed. He looked up Walter’s file, of course, and asked a few questions that I answered easily. Their address in Zurich, her maiden name. I might also have mentioned to the man that he had unusually nice blue eyes.”

  Slaton cocked his head, only then noticing that the top two buttons on Astrid’s blouse—prim and proper Astrid—were newly unhooked and showing a surprisingly deep display of cleavage. Not for the first time, he reminded himself that spies were not the only ones capable of subterfuge.

  “Second street on the right,” she said.

  Without comment, Slaton accelerated and made the turn.

  Minutes later they reached the chalet, two stories of timber-framed gingerbread set amid a row of the same, the whole street outlined in the luminous spill of faux carriage lamps. A wilderness of style amid a forest of money. Smoke wafted from nearby chimneys, lazy strings of soot disappearing into a lusterless black sky, and the rooflines between them were caked in two feet of snow. At the height of the season, lights burned in windows and steam swirled from deck-mounted hot tubs. Hours ago the sidewalks would have been busy, skiers trudging awkwardly in heavy boots, skis and poles slung over their shoulders. Now, against the chilled evening air, après-ski activities prevailed in lodges and nightclubs.

  Slaton pulled the car to a stop in front of a single-stall garage. “Can you open it?” he asked.

  Astrid got out, walked cautiously over the icy pavement, and entered a combination into a security keypad. The door rose, and minutes later they were inside Krueger’s chalet.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Slaton stoked a fire to cut the chill, and then went about his usual safe house walk-through. He found two bedrooms, two baths, and a back door that led to a spruce balcony where a snow-encased hot tub commanded a stunning view of the mountain. While Astrid was in the bathroom, he discreetly checked the closet shelf, desk drawers, and nightstand—the three most likely places for a civilian to keep a weapon. Finding none, the Glock 9mm he’d acquired this morning was ever more a comfort in his waistband. He made one discovery of note—a rack of clothing on one side of the closet that he estimated to be very near Astrid’s fit and style. He’d already concluded that she was Krueger’s mistress, yet Slaton never passed judgment on the indiscretions of others—not given the body of sins he had accrued over the years.

  “How long will we be here?” she asked on returning to the main room. Her voice was freshly unsettled, and he imagined her having taken a long hard look in the bathroom mirror.

  “That depends on what we find.” He turned on the computer, it whirred to life, and he soon saw a security screen. “Do you have Walter’s password?” he asked.

  A pause. “Yes. But let me do it.”

  She typed quickly, with a secretary’s aptitude. Slaton registered her keystrokes with the corresponding talents of a spy: SEXYASTRID. Would he ever have guessed such a password from a staid banker and his well-organi
zed assistant? Probably so, which was cold comment on his late financial manager’s cyber-security measures.

  “These are the files you want,” she said, helping him navigate. He saw eleven, each electronic folder sided by a padlock symbol. “Seven of the trusts are strictly financial and comprise the bulk of your holdings—bonds, equities, cash, precious metals. The other four represent real estate and … well, what Walter referred to as ‘inventory.’”

  “I imagine he was more specific.”

  Astrid sighed. “The late Monsieur Grossman was a dealer of arms—guns, ammunition, explosives. Walter said there were warehouses, long owned through a series of shell companies. He did nothing to alter those arrangements. Apparently Grossman had no desire to answer to landlords regarding his inventory.”

  “What about security?” Slaton asked.

  “Grossman had made arrangements in each location—he paid handsomely for private guards who would not ask questions. Walter kept to these contracts as best he could, but I remember there were issues at one or two of the warehouses. It’s not the kind of thing he knew much about—after all, he was only a banker.”

  It made sense to Slaton. He looked at the eleven files and saw ambiguous names, albeit with loose commonalities. TriStar Holdings. TriStar Trust Management. TS Management Group. He suspected there were other telltale associations. If publicly registered, even in different countries, any supercomputer could link these accounts without breaking a cyber-sweat. Again, security was lacking.

  “These files are encrypted?” he asked.

  “Yes, Walter managed things either from here or his office, never at home. There are codes to manage the encryption scheme between the two computers.”

  “He kept them in his office safe in Zurich?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to assume the men we encountered today have them. What about here at the chalet?”

  This question was met with silence.

  He spun the chair a half-turn and met her eyes. “Astrid, none of this is any good to Walter now—he’s gone. But if we can see these accounts it will help us understand what’s going on. Not to mention the fact that I am their rightful owner.”

  She nodded and disappeared into the master bedroom. Slaton made no attempt to follow her. There was no safe or lockbox—he had already concluded that much—so the critical codes were likely tucked into a sock or written on the bottom of a tissue box. He turned back to the screen and rubbed a hand under his whisker-encrusted chin. It made a sound like sandpaper. He felt weariness seeping in, and tried mightily to keep his focus.

  Astrid returned with a small notecard that had been creased by multiple folds. “Here,” she said.

  Slaton took it and saw eleven alphanumeric character sets correlated to the file names. It could not have been more simple. He typed in the first, and as they waited for results, Astrid said, “Those men who came—do you think they were after your money? Or perhaps what’s in the warehouses?”

  “A very good question,” he replied. “Possibly both. Let’s just hope they’ve been too busy running to take control of the accounts and lock us out.”

  Fifteen seconds later the first financial file blossomed to the screen. “The funds in this one are still in place,” he said. “Nothing has moved.”

  “Could it mean they don’t have the codes after all?”

  “Possibly.” Slaton called up the remaining financial files, one by one, and each was the same. He was staring at the last one when a message in the corner of the screen caught his eye. ADMINISTRATIVE SETTINGS UPDATED. This was followed by a date and time. “Wait a minute—somebody altered the account settings three hours ago.”

  “So they do have access.”

  “Apparently.” He navigated to the administrative page, and the recent change was annotated on the bottom. The old trustee, a Bahamian law firm, was out, and the new guardian’s name was listed in red—a name that stood out like a bolt of lightning in the night sky.

  “What the hell?” he murmured.

  “David?” Astrid said, peering over his shoulder to read the screen. “Is that you? David Slaton?”

  He saw no point in denying it. “They made me the new administrator of the account.”

  “But why?” she said, her voice laced in consternation. “These men killed to gain access to the accounts. They were yours to begin with—all they’ve done is uncloud the ownership and put them directly in your name.”

  Slaton was silent, contemplating a more basic question. How do they even know my name?

  He checked the other accounts and saw the same thing. In the last hours his name had been placed on each account. Stymied, he moved on to one of the arms warehouses, and was about to type in an encryption code when he paused. To the side of the files was a date and time—a record of when each had last been accessed. All the financial accounts had been opened today. Yet of the property holdings, only one of the four had been accessed. He elected to view the three that had not been touched, reasoning it was the best way to recognize what was different about the fourth.

  Astrid pored over the screens with him. “Where are these warehouses?” she asked as he scrolled through pages of deadly inventory.

  “Kinshasa, Cali, and Jakarta. According to the files all three remain intact.”

  “Do you think that’s true?”

  “No way to tell—not without physically going to each location and busting down the doors to see what’s inside. It’s possible they’ve been raided. Grossman had a low-tech, high-volume business model. Thousands of AK-47s, millions of rounds of ammunition, crate after crate of rocket-propelled grenades. There were a few more exotic items, things like plastic explosives and night optics. Altogether it’s enough to start a good-sized war. Enough to finish a small one.”

  “If everything is still there—what will you do with it?”

  He heaved a sigh. “I never gave it much thought—but I should have. The best thing would be to destroy it all, but that’s not as easy as it sounds. Arson is out of the question, too many explosives. Maybe scuttle everything in the deep end of the ocean.”

  They both stared at the last remaining file.

  “What about that one?” she asked.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  He opened the eleventh file and, if the information was correct, it could not have been more different. There were no weapons caches, indeed no inventory of any kind. Aside from the administrative page, the Beirut file consisted of no more than a lone street address that meant nothing to Slaton. Was it an abandoned cache? A warehouse Grossman had put in place but never stocked?

  He let go a long breath and rubbed his hands over his face. He was bone-tired. “I can’t think straight. I have to get some sleep.”

  “Yes, I’m exhausted as well.”

  “Why don’t you take the main bedroom.”

  “All right. And in the morning?”

  “To begin, we check the accounts again.”

  “You have access now. Why not take control and freeze these people out?”

  “No,” he said, “definitely not.”

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons. First, they probably think they have the only code set. If we interfere they’ll know we’re watching.”

  “And second?”

  “I don’t give a damn about the money.”

  She gave him an odd look, as if he’d just told her the sun would rise in the west.

  “The money in these accounts was never mine to begin with. It’s as dirty as money gets, bloody from warlords and drug smugglers and terrorists. It’s almost certainly the reason you and I are here hiding out in this chalet. I’ve killed two people this week, and took a new piece of shrapnel in my leg. Walter is dead, his wife a widow, and his kids have no father—all because of that money. So if it disappears today, I won’t miss a dime.”

  “Yes, I see your point.”

  “We’ll wait and watch. So far these people have done nothing but put the accounts in my n
ame—for reasons I don’t understand. But I still think the money will move.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Slaton thought about it. “Then I’d really be worried. It would mean these people are ignoring nearly a billion dollars in liquid assets for something else. It would mean they’re after something even more valuable.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Anna Sorensen was changing into workout clothes, her sweatpants on her boyish hips but only a sports bra on top, when her office door burst open.

  Jack Kelly, her assigned protégé, bustled in with a ream of paper in his hand. Quickly realizing his error, he turned away and said, “Sorry, boss.”

  Sorensen slid a T-shirt over her head, and then on a whim slingshotted the 34C bra she’d just removed at Kelly. It ringed his neck and came to rest over one shoulder.

  “You know,” he said, “in today’s CIA that could be construed as sexual harassment.”

  “You’re damned right it is. It’s seven o’clock on a Friday night—shouldn’t you be at the Brew Pub with Ciarra by now?”

  “What about you?” he countered. “This is your idea of a hot Friday night? Hooking up with a treadmill?”

  When Jack turned around the ever-present smile was there on his face. He was a good sort, only two years out of Cornell, and still full of—whatever they filled kids up with there. He was tall and good-looking, and had a girlfriend who liked that he worked for the CIA, but not that his boss was blond, pretty, and single, notwithstanding the fact that Sorensen was ten years older.

  “We’re having some luck with that NSA alert we were given last week,” said Kelly.

  “What alert?”

  “The Iranian forgery mill they hacked into—some guy selling passports out of a dentist’s office.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, remembering. The NSA, in the course of its daily analysis of terabytes of data scooped out of Iran, had discovered a computer in a small dental office in Ahvaz that curiously kept on its hard drive a comprehensive sampling of passport images from countries around the world. Further inspection revealed that the office filled few cavities, and was quite possibly an arm of MISIRI, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran.