“That was back when I was still young enough to do that type of work,” Fitzmaurice said. “Some days I would go home wondering if Edna and the boys would still be there when I arrived. I rarely saw them.”
Sara nodded sympathetically, her thoughts suddenly riveted on Kerney and Patrick. The emptiness that came from seeing Kerney so infrequently often weighed on her, and the unhappy prospect of being separated from Patrick for two weeks only served to enlarge that feeling.
Fitzmaurice read her gloomy expression. Sara quickly hid it with a forced smile.
“ ’Tis hard on family life, this work we’ve taken on,” he said.
Sara nodded. “Yes, it is. Will we have full access to Spalding’s bank records?”
“Indeed,” Fitzmaurice replied, noting Sara’s shift away from private thoughts. He understood completely. When family worries gnawed at the back of one’s mind, it was always best to focus on the work at hand. “The order allows a search through all records bearing the name of George Spalding and any of his known aliases.”
They flew into Galway City and in the distance Sara could see the banks of the river fed by Lough Corrib, which was apple green in the distance, ringed by fields and wetland thickets.
She remembered her day in the city with Kerney; visiting the museum at Spanish Arch, walking the nearby pedestrian streets, wandering in and out of the shops, gazing at the many medieval buildings, and listening to the Irish folk tunes played by buskers for spare change.
She recalled Kerney’s amazement at the fast-flowing rivers and waterways that coursed through the city, the lush green of the surrounding countryside, the delicate blue sky that turned the bay silver. The thought of that lovely time together with him cheered her.
After landing they were driven to the bank by a uniformed officer. In a sixteenth-century building on the corner of one of the pedestrian streets, the bank was beautifully preserved, with an arched window front and decorative stone carvings above the ground floor.
Inside, they were met by the bank’s solicitor, a tall man with a mustache who wore standard corporate attire: a dark suit, white shirt, and a conservative necktie. He inspected the order and escorted them to an upstairs room where two revenue officers from the Criminal Assets Bureau waited, seated at a table with desktop computers. Introductions were made and after Fitzmaurice politely dismissed the solicitor, work promptly began.
As the computer files were accessed it became apparent that Spalding, using the alias of Calderwood, his ex-wife’s maiden name, had been a client at the bank for a number of years, long before Kerney unmasked him. Millions of Canadian dollars had flowed into his original account from Swiss and offshore banks, converted first into Irish punts and later to euros when Ireland switched to the new currency.
From the original account the money had then flowed into various investment portfolios managed by a wholly owned subsidiary of the bank. At that point the audit trail became murky until well after nightfall, when the revenue officers linked a hedge-fund account to the new accounts Spalding had opened under his Bruneau and McGuire aliases.
During a short break for a meal of fast food takeaway one of the revenue officers had fetched, Fitzmaurice leaned back in his chair and flipped through a stack of hard-copy investment records.
“He’s been electronically siphoning off profits from his investments for years,” he said, “and sending the funds out of the country. It all looks on the up and up. The paperwork is in order, taxes on the earnings have been paid, and the money deposited into a numbered Swiss account.”
“Can we identify the owner of that account?” Sara asked.
“Yes,” Fitzmaurice replied, “but not until tomorrow morning when the Swiss bank opens. Do you have a particular person in mind?”
Although Fitzmaurice’s tone was mild, his eyes were watchful as he sat slightly forward in his chair, poised and waiting for her reply. Over the past three days he’d been more than patient with her, never once asserting the authority he could rightly have claimed over the investigation. Instead, he had done all in his power to help her and for that he deserved an honest answer. She wrote down a name on a slip of paper and handed it to Fitzmaurice.
Fitzmaurice’s eyes lit up. “Thomas Loring Carrier. I take it that this is the gentleman who is beyond my reach.”
Sara nodded.
Smiling broadly, he slipped the paper into his shirt pocket and turned to the revenue officers. “Let’s gather and compile the evidence we need.”
“What will you do with it?” Sara asked.
“Present it to a judge and ask for Spalding’s assets to be frozen and the villa and the motor yacht to be seized. That should put a damper on his plans to start a new life here.”
For the next hour the revenue officers printed hard-copy information from the bank’s mainframe files, while Sara and Fitzmaurice entered it into evidence. After the material was boxed and carried away by the revenue officers for further inspection, Fitzmaurice presented a list of the seized records to the bank’s solicitor on their way out the door. The man looked none too happy to receive it.
Outside, they hurried across the dark street through a light rain to a waiting Garda vehicle that would take them to the airport for the return flight to Dublin.
“Were I to do a computer search on Thomas Loring Carrier, what might I learn?” Fitzmaurice asked as he slid into the backseat next to Sara.
“Enough to confirm your suspicions about my assignment,” Sara answered.
“Why did you tell me about Carrier now?”
“Because I may need you to cover my back,” Sara said.
“Exactly who might I be protecting you from?”
Sara carefully considered her response before she answered. “They think of themselves as patriots,” she said.
“Ah,” Fitzmaurice said with a knowing nod. “We had our fair share of those during the Troubles.”
Each day that passed with no word from Sara made Kerney more anxious and worried about her. Patrick, who missed his mother badly, intensified Kerney’s unspoken concerns by constantly asking where she was and when she would return. Sara’s absence had shaken Patrick and made Kerney realize that up until now he’d been a sorry excuse for a parent.
Clearly, Sara was the linchpin in Patrick’s world and Kerney the absent father seen only occasionally. That point had been driven home to him midmorning when he’d been called to Patrick’s preschool. A mean, bossy kid had pushed Patrick down and kicked him during playtime. Patrick had thrown a tantrum and tried to run away. When Kerney got there, he found his son teary eyed, sullen, and miserable, demanding his mother, wanting to go back to his real home, his real school, his real friends.
Kerney took Patrick home immediately and tried to soothe him, but it wasn’t until after lunch, when he suggested an afternoon ride, that Patrick broke into a smile. After Kerney saddled up Hondo, a gray gelding, and put Patrick on the saddle in front of him, his son’s spirits lifted enough for him to start in again about wanting his very own pony. By the time they reached the pond, fed by a natural spring, surrounded by marsh grass and cattails, Patrick seemed to be over his preschool ordeal. In the coolness of the cloudy afternoon, with a slight breeze tinged with enough humidity to promise rain by evening, Kerney dismounted and led Hondo up a hillock, with Patrick still in the saddle clutching the pommel. At stone ruins that looked out at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, knife-edge sharp in a shaft of sunlight that cut through the cloud bank, he tethered Hondo to the thick branch of a cedar tree.
“Do I have to go back?” Patrick asked as Kerney lifted him out of the saddle.
Kerney studied his worried son’s face before he set him down. “To preschool?”
Patrick nodded somberly.
“Only for a few more days.”
“I don’t want to,” Patrick said stubbornly.
The look on Patrick’s face almost broke Kerney’s heart, and he made a snap decision. “Okay, you don’t have to go back there.”
“Ever,” Kerney replied as he ruffled his son’s hair and unclipped his cell phone from his belt. Patrick smiled and scrambled gleefully to the top of the low stone ruins. With one eye on his son Kerney called Deputy Chief Larry Otero and told him that he was starting his vacation effective immediately and wouldn’t be back until after he returned from the Bootheel.
“You deserve it, Chief,” Otero said.
“It’s more that my son deserves a father,” Kerney replied.
After a short but fruitless search for arrowheads and potsherds at the ruins, which were purported to be the site of a Native American sweat lodge, Kerney rode, with Patrick in front of him, to the barn, where he unsaddled Hondo, put him in the paddock, rubbed him down, and fed him some oats. Then, as a treat, Kerney fixed strawberries and ice cream for Patrick and spent an hour reading to him until it was well past his nap time. When Patrick’s head drooped and his eyelids fluttered and closed, Kerney carried him to his bed.
In the study Kerney checked his e-mail. There were still no messages from Sara, which, since he still didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, left him with a growing sense of alarm. He fired off a note to her, saying all was well at home but that he really needed to hear from her, and went to check on Patrick. The events of the morning had worn him out and he was fast asleep, but his face was clear of worry. Kerney closed the door quietly and went to the kitchen to clean up the lunch dishes, marveling at the resilience of the young, wishing some of it would rub off on him so he could rebound from his present funk.
Upon their late-night arrival in Dublin, Fitzmaurice received a message informing him that the calls Spalding had made to London were to a very expensive, independent personal escort named Victoria Hopkins, who operated out of a flat in St. John’s Wood and advertised herself on the World Wide Web as a “courtesan of distinction.” Inquires made of her neighbors by the police revealed that Hopkins was traveling in Wales and due to return home tomorrow.
“Apparently,” Fitzmaurice said after he filled Sara in, “yachting isn’t Spalding’s only preferred leisure-time activity. I would imagine he’s anchored in a lovely cove somewhere near Holyhead, rocking the boat—so to speak—with his for-hire courtesan right now.”
“Can you arrange for overnight surveillance on the villa in case Spalding arrives early?” Sara asked.
“Consider it done,” Fitzmaurice replied as he eased to a stop in front of Sara’s hotel. “And I’ll alert the Coast Guard and ask them to be standing by so that he can’t slip away to sea.”
“Perfect,” Sara said as she opened the door. “You really have been a prince, Detective Fitzmaurice. I appreciate all that you’ve done.”
“ ’Tis the company I’ve been keeping, Colonel,” Fitzmaurice said with smile. “Till the morning, then.”
In her room Sara kicked off her shoes, read her e-mail, and immediately called Kerney.
“Everything is fine,” she said when he answered. “I’m safe and sound, and there’s nothing for you to worry about. How is Patrick? How are you?”
“All is well here,” Kerney replied. “But we’ve been missing you a lot.”
“Me too,” Sara said. “Tell me what the two of you have been up to.”
After the call Sara sat for a long time trying to figure out why Kerney had sounded a little strained behind his cheerfulness. He’d told her about his daily horseback rides with Patrick, his plan to take him to the Albuquerque zoo, and how Patrick loved to help him in the barn when it was time to feed the horses. But he’d skirted around her questions about Patrick’s adjustment to the Santa Fe preschool.
It wasn’t like Kerney to hold things back from her. She wondered if he’d deliberately avoided discussing some difficulties Patrick might have experienced. The thought stayed with her long after she set the alarm clock, turned off the light, and went to bed.
Chapter Ten
With the Sapphire anchored off the coast of Llanddwyn Island just south of Holyhead, George Spalding was spending a lovely morning after. As always, Victoria Hopkins had been a delight. In her early thirties, she was tall with long dark-blond hair, classy features, naturally perfect breasts, and a slender, fit body.
The evening before, after several hours belowdeck, they had lolled on the flybridge, sipping wine and watching terns fishing in the bay and sandpipers wading along the rolling dunes sprinkled with spiky beach grass at the edge of the rocky coastline. At the topside barbecue Spalding had fixed Victoria a dinner of grilled marinated chicken and chard, spinach, and beetroot leaves wilted to perfection in olive oil with a touch of garlic. They talked until a chill in the air forced them once again belowdeck, where Victoria gave him a long kiss and told him to wait for her in the master cabin. A few minutes later she came out of the head dressed as a provocative schoolgirl, wearing an unbuttoned white shirt that exposed a good deal of her breasts, a tie loosened at the collar, a short plaid skirt, and white stockings with a touch of lace that showed at her thighs. With her hair in braids and a pout on her mouth, she told Spalding she had been a bad girl who needed a spanking. It had been a memorable after-dinner treat.
Whenever Spalding availed himself of Victoria’s services, he always specified the schoolgirl role-play as part of the package. It was a total turn-on, in and of itself well worth the thousand euros a day, plus expenses, Victoria charged for her services. But aside from the naughty, playful sex Spalding also appreciated Victoria’s charm and sophistication. She was university educated, well read, conversant in the arts, and an excellent companion.
She was still asleep in the master cabin when Spalding went on deck. Dawn had yet to break on the horizon, the night sky shimmered with stars, and a pale quarter moon hung above him. He’d awakened from a sound sleep much earlier than usual, prompted by his eagerness to see his villa again. For far too long he’d lived as a transient in ratty furnished flats and apartments, moving from place to place across Europe until he was sure the U.S. Army and the Canadian cops were no longer actively looking for him.
He’d carefully kept a low profile while he invented a new identity, had been cautious with how he used his money to avoid drawing attention to himself, and had exhaustively researched where he wanted to settle down and start anew. It had all been worth the effort. Now the time was drawing near when he could once again have a normal life, come and go as he pleased on the Continent, travel the seas, and enjoy himself to the fullest.
The boat rocked gently in the tidal current as Spalding sat in the cockpit and looked out the windscreen. For a moment he thought back to his time in Vietnam, the Tan Son Nhut mortuary, and the smuggling ring he’d put together. All of the guys in the ring, including Tom Carrier, had been patsies, only interested in having ready cash waiting for them so they could buy new cars, chase skirts, or keep getting high once they got back to the States. They’d accepted without question his accounting of the profits, never realizing that Spalding’s father was the Stateside “gem dealer” in the scheme who skimmed fifty percent of the proceeds off the top. In a few short years he and his father had become rich men.
Spalding heard footsteps and swiveled in the pilot’s chair to find Victoria, with her hair still in braids, standing a few feet away wrapped in his terry-cloth robe.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked with a smile.
Spalding shook his head. “You must have energized me.”
“Turn on the lights.”
Spalding flipped a dashboard switch and the cockpit lights flickered on. Slowly, Victoria opened the robe. She was naked except for the black seamed nylon stockings and the garter belt he’d given her as a present.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked.
“You’re a bad girl to wear such naughty things,” Spalding said sternly.
“I know.” She let the robe drop to her feet. “I shan’t do it again.”
“Turn around.”
She handed him an unwrapped condom. “Are you go
ing to punish me?”
“Mind your elders and turn around.”
Shivering slightly in the cool air, Victoria turned and bent over to be spanked.
Ten minutes before Sara was due to meet Fitzmaurice outside the hotel, a knock came at her door. She opened up to find two men, one of whom flashed a Department of State special agent shield.
“Colonel Brannon,” the man said, “I’m Daniel Withers, with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security assigned to the American embassy, and this is Major Stedman, assistant military attaché. You are to come with us.”
“What’s this about?” Sara asked, eyeing the two men. Withers, a man nearing thirty with a receding hairline and a dimpled chin, nodded at the major, who wore civvies.
Stedman stepped forward and handed Sara a paper. “The deputy secretary of defense has ordered your immediate return to the Pentagon, Colonel. You are to cease all current activity and accompany us to the airport for a flight to Washington.”
Sara read the order. It was original and authentic, most likely delivered overnight by courier. She looked at the major. No older than Withers, he had an intelligent face and close-set, baby-blue eyes that gave nothing away.
“Let me see some identification, Major,” Sara said.
Stedman fished out his military ID and gave it to Sara. He was a Marine officer, but what else? She guessed he was with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which routinely assigned personnel to embassy duty.
“May we come in, Colonel?” Stedman asked, smiling affably.
Sara handed him back the DEPSEC order and his ID. “I see nothing in the order that authorizes you to take me into custody, Major.”
“No, ma’am,” Stedman replied. “Our orders are to see you safely on your way home.”
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