Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  Minutes later he was on a busy Paris street, taking in air that seemed to be from a whole other world. Not for the first time in the past few days, he felt almost dizzied by the reality of what was happening here, at the very heart of a civilized city. It bespoke such contempt for decent values, not to mention human life, that were it not so sick, it could almost be considered spectacular in its audacity. More disorienting still was the fact that such an operation even existed, never mind on such a scale. Just thank God it had been infiltrated by the intelligence organizations, though to what extent he had not been told, for his SIS contact, who had so painstakingly prepared him for this mission, hadn’t seen fit to inform him. Whether he would ever be able to report his findings he had no idea, for that decision would be taken by a far higher authority in the SIS than he was dealing with personally, and depended totally on the outcome of this extremely intense operation, which was as much about following the munitions as it was about tracking the money. At what point he might be given clearance to print, he had no idea, but he was already aware that no agents’ names could be used, which was only to be expected, and he’d also been advised to keep his own off the series of articles too, in order to lessen the risk of Franz Koehler’s people, or any of the other guilty parties, coming after him should they escape the trap.

  With that sobering prospect hanging over him, he strode briskly on along the Boulevard Saint-Germain towards the heavily guarded Musée d’Orsay. The walk back to his hotel took a little over thirty minutes. By the time he got there the early evening rush hour was under way, clogging up the streets either side of the Seine and the bridges that spanned it. When he reached his expensive, though unostentatious, room on the fourth floor he went to stand at the window, gazing down upon the historical and architectural splendour of this most romantic of cities. What would they all do, he wondered, watching the people, were they to be told that right now, at the heart of their beloved capital, a small, select group of men, operating under the guise of an international scientific research group, was involved in negotiations that would ultimately send thousands, if not millions of innocent people to their deaths, just so that one huge private equity firm could continue paying out big fat dividends to its investors?

  Turning back towards the king-sized bed where he’d dropped his briefcase and jacket, he saw the message light flashing on his phone. Since arriving he’d ignored it, not wanting, or even trusting, to have contact with anyone outside the peccant circle he was now a part of. Everything felt like a risk, from a mere walk in the street, to the private meetings he attended to discuss an interested customer’s specific needs. He’d been repeatedly warned before coming here how precarious, and life-threatening, this mission would be, and to be aware that issues he wasn’t prepared for would be sure to arise. For those he’d just have to think on his feet, and already he’d had to do plenty of that. He wondered how much more his nerves could take, though outwardly he appeared as calm and assured as any of them. However, that was no green light for complacency, and certainly he must not make the mistake of believing that Koehler’s agreement to let him attend the summit, or the interest in Mark Hastings’s ‘company’, was in any way a statement of trust. It was merely a beginning, the opening gambit of the most dangerous assignment he’d ever undertaken in his life, or probably ever would.

  Pulling a hand over his tired face, he was just crossing to the bathroom when he spotted a small card on the floor, next to the nightstand. Assuming it had been dropped by one of the maids, he stooped to pick it up, and gave a sigh of irritation when he saw it was a calling card for ‘Chantelle’ an anything-goes masseuse. Tossing it in the bin, he continued on to the bathroom, and was about to start the shower when he made a sudden U-turn back and snatched up the card. Sure enough, on the flip side was a handwritten number. It was a code he and Max had dreamed up, months ago now, should they ever need to make contact in difficult situations.

  Moments later he was knocking on room 448, only three along from his own. There was no sign of anyone as the door opened, not even of Max himself.

  Amused, Elliot stepped inside, saying ‘Chantelle. It’s been a long time.’ Then as Max quickly closed the door, ‘You’ve grown hairy.’

  ‘Funny,’ Max grunted, his closely cropped beard framing a thin, down-turned mouth, that soon revealed a healthy white grin as he clapped Elliot hard on the shoulder. His eyes were lichen green, his hair a wiry mass of silver, and his handshake as firm as any Elliot had known. ‘I got nervous when I didn’t hear anything,’ he explained. ‘Then Laurie told me you hadn’t been in touch with her either, so I took it upon myself to saddle up for the rescue. So what gives, my friend?’

  Going straight for the minibar, Elliot took out four miniatures of Scotch and two glasses. ‘It’s a lot worse than we thought,’ he stated, unscrewing the caps.

  Max’s face was immediately serious. ‘Tell me you’re not talking nuclear,’ he said, watching Elliot empty two bottles into one glass.

  ‘Not yet,’ Elliot responded, passing him a drink. ‘But don’t rule it out.’ He swilled his Scotch round the glass then downed half of it in one go. ‘The rest of the world might like to think of Africa as a bunch of warring savages,’ he said, ‘but with these brains behind them I’m telling you, they’re anything but. So if they get the funding, and from what I’ve been hearing they could, they’re certainly not going to have any problem getting the experts.’

  Max’s eyes remained on Elliot’s as he drank again. ‘So what was on the agenda?’ he said, going to sit at a desk next to the TV.

  ‘What we expected. A lot of traditional weaponry, handguns, rifles, grenades, but the chemical and biological variety were mentioned fairly often too.’ Then throwing back the remainder of his drink, he reached into the Frigo for two more bottles.

  ‘So what’s the brief?’ Max asked. ‘Are they going for exposure, or close-down? Where do they go with this?’

  ‘You mean the SIS? I’m not sure. No one’s mentioned the endgame to me, but it’s probably up to the Americans. Their intelligence units have been monitoring the project virtually since its inception, I’m told, but I think that’s all they do, because Phraxos is so deep inside the current administration that no one’s going to rock the boat. They just want to keep tabs on what Koehler is up to.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Max murmured.

  ‘I don’t know if the Brits are any better,’ Elliot said. ‘They’re not as riddled with Phraxos money, but they know what’s going on and so far they’re doing nothing about it. They’re even supplying some of the product themselves, like the stuff I’ve been peddling – though that won’t get under way for at least a year, I’m told. And believe me when I tell you it really does get shipped, because it’s the only way they can follow the trail right to the bitter end and find out who the middle men, like Bombola, are representing.’ He shook his head and stared down at his drink. ‘It’s one hell of a fucking gamble,’ he muttered. ‘I guess we just have to trust that they know what they’re doing.’ Then swallowing more whisky, he went to sit on the end of the bed.

  ‘So when do you get out of here?’ Max asked.

  Elliot’s eyes came up. ‘Tomorrow. I’m taking the train back. Rudy, my personal pilot, has apparently got other commitments.’ Again he shook his head. ‘I assumed he was on our side,’ he said, ‘but now I’m guessing I got thrown straight in at the bad guy deep end, because he’s obviously one of Koehler’s inner circle.’

  ‘So what do the good guys want in return for this little world exclusive?’ Max asked drily.

  Elliot drank some more. ‘Whatever information I manage to acquire, naturally,’ he answered. ‘And a promise not to go public until they give the go-ahead.’

  ‘Which might never happen.’

  ‘Which might never happen. But just in case it does, I was in there, witnessing first hand what goes on, which some might call a privilege, though I’m not sure that’s the label I’d give it right now. Anyway, they want it told fro
m another perspective, not just their own, and obviously none of their names ever get mentioned.’

  Max’s smile was grim. ‘Sounds like they got themselves a pretty good deal,’ he commented wryly. ‘So tell me about Koehler. I take it he was there.’

  ‘Oh, he was there all right, and he’s got to be operating some kind of network of his own, answering directly to him, that does the basic organizing, recruiting, money laundering, etc. They’d be like the set of actors in The Magus, who Maurice Conchis hired so he could play God with everyone’s minds … But this version definitely doesn’t restrict itself to a Greek island. This has got the entire African continent as its stage.’ He paused for a moment, then said, ‘Shit, it’s like they’re waging their own personal war against the whole of civilization, and all just to make money.’ He went on, incredulously, ‘I can get religion, or revenge, or even self-glorification and power, but money! Don’t they get it, we’ve already had the Islamic world erupting like the first act of Armageddon around our ears, so if they go on arming the world like this there won’t be anywhere left to spend their fucking spoils!’

  They both sat quietly with that, until finally Elliot finished his drink and said, ‘You’ve spoken to Laurie?’

  ‘She’s in Washington. Left today.’

  Elliot suddenly looked tired. ‘You’ve got to get in touch with her,’ he said. ‘I can’t yet, my mobile’s only local, but you’ve got to tell her again to keep away from Bombola. It might not be a bad idea for her to forget she’s ever heard of him, though I know she won’t.’

  ‘So how do I persuade her?’

  ‘With the truth. I don’t know where the intelligence agencies are at with him, but obviously if they wanted his name out there, they’d have let it go at the time of Hendon’s murder.’

  ‘Did you manage to ask Bombola anything about the meeting with Hendon?’

  Elliot’s expression was sardonic. ‘Believe me, to bring that up would have been like signing my own death warrant,’ he responded. ‘I had no good reason for asking, and how would I explain even knowing it had happened?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Laurie found out from a receptionist at the Kensington Palace. But I’ve since had it confirmed by my SIS insider. Don’t ask me if they know what it was about, because if they do, they’re not saying. One person who does know, of course, is Katherine Sumner, because she was there.’

  ‘Any mention of her in the last three days?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Max fell silent again, drinking slowly as he assimilated everything Elliot had just told him. Even being as involved in this as he was, much like Elliot, he couldn’t always suppress the feeling of unreality that seemed to shroud it, for it was hard to get to grips with the fact that Western greed was playing such an iniquitous and effective role in its own ultimate destruction.

  Chapter 19

  ‘LAURIE! IT’S RACHEL. Where are you?’

  ‘Where am I?’ Laurie cried into the phone. ‘Where are you?’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch,’ she said. ‘I got your text messages, but actually, you haven’t been that easy to get hold of.’

  ‘I was in transit,’ Laurie reminded her. ‘We’re in Washington now, just about to interview Landen the ex-lover at our hotel.’ To Danny, who was coming in the door with camera and tripod: ‘Put it over there, next to the chair facing the window, and try to get some background of the Pentagon, if you can.’ Then to Rachel again, ‘How’s it going down there? Have you found anything yet?’

  ‘I’ve just sent you an email, bringing you up to date,’ Rachel answered, ‘but if you’re asking have we actually found Katherine, the answer’s no.’

  ‘Pity. What else? Give me the highlights.’

  ‘OK. The police, or someone, have already been here, asking around. Did you mention anything to Elliot, or anyone else, about Katherine being at the villa, because I thought we were the only ones who knew.’

  ‘To Elliot I did, yes.’

  ‘Do you think he’d have told anyone?’

  ‘I doubt it. I’ll check when I speak to him. What about Chris, did he tell anyone?’

  ‘He says no, so I don’t know how the police found out, unless they’re intercepting my emails, or listening in to my phone calls.’

  ‘Elliot’s got a great person, Sam deBugger, who can check that out for you,’ Laurie told her. ‘So what about the bogus Mr Hendon, anything on him?’

  ‘Mrs Willard says he’s an older man, and we know Katherine goes for them, because of Patrick Landen and Franz Koehler. A father figure type, though in this instance they apparently didn’t sleep in the same room, so we have to deduce no romance. Which was when I got to wondering if this Xavier Lachère, presuming that’s who it is, might, in some way, be connected to her father. Mrs Willard says he was very dark, she thought Indian looking, but that could work for Iranian. Long shot, I know, but what do you think?’

  ‘I’ll get Gino, or someone at Elliot’s office, to carry out an in-depth on her father’s time in Iran,’ Laurie responded. ‘There was no official inquiry into his murder, as we know, so it won’t be easy. Anything else?’

  ‘It’s all in the email. Now tell me, have you actually met Patrick Landen yet?’

  ‘No, but I spoke to him on the phone last night. As usual he sounded quite charming, in that all-American, I’m-Mr-Powerful way. Very patient, eager to explain every point he’s making, in case he’s speaking to an idiot –’

  ‘Which is another way of slowing things up to avoid making a mistake,’ Rachel interrupted.

  ‘Precisely. Oh. Hang on. There’s someone at the door.’ Pulling it open, Laurie waved in a waiter and pointed to a desk for his coffee tray, then watching to make sure he didn’t trip over any cables she said to Rachel, ‘Back with you. Where were we? Oh yes. He wanted a list of questions in advance, not surprisingly, so I faxed them over, with the exception of the few I intend to left-side him with. Even if he doesn’t answer them, his reaction could speak volumes. What on earth’s going on down there. It sounds like you’re having a party.’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Hardly that,’ she responded. ‘I’ve just walked from my bedroom across to the main house, so what you can hear is the radio in the kitchen combined with a gale force wind that howls like a chorus of spooks all day and all night. The weather’s horrible. It’s barely stopped raining since we got here. And when I say raining, I mean raining.’

  Laurie was stooping to look through the viewfinder. ‘Great,’ she said to Dan, satisfied with the angle. ‘Final adjustments when he gets here. Meantime, we should get some close-ups of the Pentagon.’

  ‘What time’s he arriving?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Actually, any minute. We’ve got four other interviews whilst here, all egghead types who should add some interesting perspectives on defence industries, Phraxos, arms sales policies, etc, plus as much as we can get about Katherine. Have you managed to shoot anything your end yet?’

  ‘Just an interview with Mrs Willard, and some general shots of the island. We’re seeing someone later though who we’re quite hopeful about.’

  Hearing the ‘we’ Laurie was tempted to get into more detail about how it was going with Chris, but now just wasn’t the time, so letting it pass she said, ‘Do you want to do a quick run through the questions for Landen? You might come up with something I haven’t thought of.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Rachel responded. ‘Shoot.’

  As Laurie began listing them off she could still hear the angry rush of a storm in the background, together with the occasional sound of a male voice, though whether it was the radio, or Chris Gallagher, she had no idea. Certainly Rachel didn’t speak to anyone, except her, so she had to assume it was the radio, until Rachel suddenly laughed in a wrong place, then apologized and told her to continue.

  Laurie glanced at her watch. She’d have to wrap this call up now, since Landen was due in less than five minutes, and she’d received a message from Max
telling her to call before she did the interview, which she’d been about to do when Rachel had rung.

  ‘What about Professor Bombola?’ Rachel was saying. ‘Are you going to ask about him?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Laurie assured her. ‘But listen, I have to go, he’ll be here any second. I’ll call when it’s over. No, hang on, you’d better give me another number besides your mobile.’ As she grabbed for a pen, she said, ‘By the way, have you been in touch with Anna? I had a message from her yesterday wanting to know if I’d heard from you.’

  ‘I spoke to her about ten minutes ago,’ Rachel replied.

  ‘Good. OK, number.’ She’d just finished jotting it down when the hotel phone rang. ‘That’ll be him,’ she said to Rachel, and clicking off the line she snatched up the other receiver.

  ‘Miss Forbes?’ an American male voice said. ‘Mr Landen’s arrived. We’re on our way up.’

  Deciding that the call to Max would just have to wait, she quickly went over a few last-minute details with Dan, then stepped out into the corridor to greet the ex-Senator. A first glance both ways showed only a housekeeping trolley, but then the ding of the lift arriving, followed by the muted swish of the doors, preceded two grey-suited men emerging into the corridor.

  Recognizing Landen immediately she started forward, hand outstretched. ‘Mr Landen, it’s a pleasure to meet you,’ she told him, smiling warmly, though thinking what a prat he looked with his dyed and woven rust coloured hair. There was also a good chance that his smooth, tanned features owed as much to a surgeon and a heat lamp as they did to genetics, but the patronizing friendliness in his eyes seemed genuine enough.

  ‘Miss Forbes,’ he responded, in avuncular tones. ‘I hope it wasn’t inconvenient for you, coming all this way, but my schedule doesn’t see me in London again until late next month.’

  ‘Really, it’s no problem,’ she assured him, glancing politely at the aide who was at least a foot taller than his boss and so thin he might snap.

  ‘I’ve ordered coffee, if you haven’t already had any,’ she said, waving them towards the room. ‘I hope you got the fax outlining my questions.’