by S L Shelton
“So, you think the accounting firm is legit…in the big picture anyway. And Loeff was recorded as just a revenue source?”
Wolf nodded again. “And who would a giant conglomerate that pulls in hundreds of billions of dollars, use to manage, audit, and control their flow of funds?”
John sat back sharply as if slapped. “One of the big four accounting firms.”
Wolf smiled and nodded.
“They’d still have to keep track of the money that flowed out of the blind,” John said. “Which means someone in the know is covering up the sudden appearance of all that invisible money…he’d still have to be a rare intellect.”
Wolf shook his head. “We have the smartest people in the world working for us. At best…at best, he’d be an even match.”
“Whoever it is has kept one of the biggest money laundering and corruption endeavors in history a secret…that’s better than smart.”
“No. That’s all they had.”
“What do you mean?” John asked.
“The secrecy is what kept it rolling. As soon as we spotted one account, we were able to track all of it.”
John shook his head. “Not all of it. And we still can’t pin anything on anyone but a few paid traitors in government…that’s not a solution.”
“We found their money and stole it from them. Their secret ain’t a secret anymore. That’s got to be freaking them the hell out. We just need his books to see where it came from and where it was going before we stole it.”
John smiled and nodded. “So, you’re looking for this mystery CFO.”
Wolf nodded. “But it’s not good enough to just get him. If I go straight for him, they’ll button him down…maybe kill him. That’s been their pattern.”
“So that’s why you want to target the leadership.”
Wolf smiled.
John sat back and shook his head. “So, you want to take them all down at once, and reveal the man behind the curtain, as it were?”
“I want to kill the man behind the curtain, cut his heart out, and impale it on his machine so no one tries to fill the power vacuum…But first, I want a sit down with his accountant so we have the proof we need to come in from the cold.”
John lifted an eyebrow. “And you see a path to that end…? With just we few?”
“A narrowing path, but yes.”
John blew a stream of air, clearly struck by the revelation. It took a few moments for him to articulate anything else, then a worried expression rippled over his features. “On this narrowing path, are there anymore sacrifices required?”
Wolf leaned forward and stared John in the eye. “The lack of sacrifice is what’s making the path narrower by the minute.”
John chewed on his bottom lip for a long while, a pained expression on his face as the information sifted through his mind. After a moment he nodded. “Go. Do what you need to do. Keep me as informed as you can.”
Wolf could tell he wasn’t sold on the plan, and it worried him that John was feigning cooperation. But he didn’t have time to unwind John’s paranoid mind. “You got the surveillance gear?”
“It’s in a duffel bag in the first bedroom on the right.”
Wolf nodded and left the table. When he returned several minutes later with the bag slung over his shoulder, he had a slip of paper and a flash drive in his hand. “If Seifert sticks to this list, you shouldn’t have any problems covertly accessing the systems we need. The thumb drive has all your portals.”
John looked up after reading the list. “What if I have trouble configuring?”
“You don’t have to. Let Seifert do it. After setting up twenty data and relay sites over the past two months, he should have it down. I’ll call in if I don’t see you up in a couple of days.”
“And what if something happens to you?”
Wolf shrugged with his shoulders and eyebrows. “Then we’re dead in the water. Take one of the accounts, find a nice beach somewhere, and wait for the end of the world.”
John laughed. “I’m wondering if we should do that anyway.”
“It’s an option. Just give me some notice if that’s what you decide to do.”
John rolled closer to Wolf. “How comfortable should we be getting here, and how many safe houses ahead should I be looking for?”
“If I know you, you’ve already set up a fallback within a hundred miles of here.”
John nodded.
“Good. Two more, within a hundred miles of each, should be good for now,” Wolf said, pulling on a jacket. “Once you’re set up here, have Seifert make identical purchases from different sources and set it up at the first fallback location.”
“What about the other two teams in the states?”
Wolf shook his head. “Don’t contact them unless there’s an emergency. You can read what they’re posting on the Craigslist city pages, but don’t reply or question them directly… If in the unlikely event Combine cracks our encryption, we don’t want them to know we have splinter cells running.”
John nodded. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“Not even close. In fact, what worries me most is how much I know we don’t know.”
“That’s inspiring,” John said as he folded the list and tucked it in his pocket. “You should write de-motivational posters.”
“Yep…in my spare time.”
John chuckled. “Where are you headed now?”
“BeauLac’s estate,” Wolf said as he walked to the door.
“Are you taking my transport or what you came in with?”
“I’m ditching ours…it’s stolen. I’ll find something new along the way.”
“Don’t get pinched for grand theft auto,” John said to Wolf’s back.
“If I do, you can start your beachfront retirement.”
“Well shit. I don’t guess it would do any good to suggest being discreet.”
Wolf smiled. “Sorry. We’re way past being discreet.”
Wolf stepped outside and closed the door. As he walked the two blocks to the stolen delivery van, he checked in all directions for prying eyes. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if their first safe house got compromised due to a nosy neighbor.
He got in and sat for a moment in the quiet before starting the engine. He looked around and tried to pacify the paranoid vibration working its way up his spine. Each moment produced more emotion than the moment before, and each new tingle of emotion distracted him from the things he needed to focus on.
“Damn you, Nance. Why couldn’t you just take the bullet out and leave the rest to me?”
Realizing that question was nothing more than self-pity, he wrestled the feeling to the side and turned the key on the van. As he drove out of the small, lower-middle-class neighborhood, he pictured his route to Avignon. “Okay, Adolphe BeauLac…let’s see what you know.”
ten
Tuesday, May 3rd
8:45 a.m.—Rue de la République, Avignon, France
WOLF had almost missed an opportunity. After spending hours ditching his stolen transport, finding a new vehicle, and traveling south to Avignon, he arrived in place to surveil BeauLac’s Estate—just as BeauLac stepped into the back of his limousine to leave the property.
He made a mental note of the increased security presence, seeing three bodyguards accompanying BeauLac to his limo, then ran for the vineyard over the low hill behind him.
A few tense minutes passed as Wolf raced across the property in the early morning light, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted. By the time he reached his newly acquired vehicle—a gray Mitsubishi Outlander parked on the side of the road—he had almost abandoned hope of catching up to BeauLac. But like a big cat stalking prey in tall savanna grass, he slipped in and out of traffic with increasing speed until the limo came into sight.
He gripped his wheel tightly as he let the speed bleed off and blended in with morning commuters, relaxing only after comfortable he hadn’t been spotted. Once he was within the city limits of Avignon, he closed the d
istance between himself and the limo, keeping only four or five cars between them.
When the limo turned on Rue de la République and stopped in front of the Prince-Underthall Building, he drove past without even a sideways glance. He nosed into a parking space at the corner. The driver who had been waiting for the spot blasted his horn indignantly as Wolf slipped in.
Ignoring the rebuke, he waited for the driver to screech away before checking his mirrors for the limo.
BeauLac and three black-suited security men stepped out of the back before the driver pulled away. Prince-Underthall was one of the big four accounting firms. If Combine was using them, BeauLac might be the Combine board member managing the funds. That would certainly make it easier for Wolf to pin down their accountant—he wouldn’t have to break BeauLac for Combine board names, he could just get to work on squeezing the accountant’s identity out of him.
Am I sensing a tiny shift in luck here?
He got out and crossed the street, careful to wait until the limo was well out of sight before approaching the building. As he passed a small café two doors down from the entrance, one of BeauLac’s security men stepped from the recessed entry alcove and lit a cigarette.
Wolf stopped cold and turned his back, instead, reaching out for a chair in the outside seating area. A strange feeling began to rise in his chest as though his heart no longer beat at full strength.
He gripped the back of the café chair as the rhythm of his pulse filled his ears. His awareness drifted away, and the sound of his heartbeat grew louder.
So much for ‘a shift in luck’.
As the street began to spin before his eyes, he moved to sit but inexplicably missed the chair. Genuine surprise—as well as the brick sidewalk—struck him as he fell.
He closed his eyes and lost track of time as a tunnel of darkness closed on him. When he opened them again, there was a small crowd of concerned passers-by. All nearby attention lay on him. He looked at his watch—only a minute had passed, but he had lost his opportunity.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, rushed and dismissive as he pulled himself up, still dizzy from the episode.
The crowd parted and made room for him to rise. Someone extended a glass of water, but he gently pushed past it and stumbled back the way he had come, looking over his shoulder only after he had reached the corner. BeauLac’s security man was staring at him.
Shit.
As Wolf rounded the corner, the man dropped his cigarette to the sidewalk and smashed it under his toe before taking a few steps toward Wolf, an expression of suspicion on his face. Wolf realized he’d have to move fast—he’d been made.
If they’re looking for my face, the heat might be off of Storc and Jo, but my task just got harder.
He dashed into a tailor shop and hopped the counter, drawing confused looks from the woman sitting at a sewing machine there. A man’s voice followed him through the back of the small store. When Wolf looked back, he was relieved to discover it wasn’t the bodyguard, but an older gentleman with a yellow tape measure draped across his shoulders.
If they’re not looking for my face, then I’ve still raised the level of awareness.
He avoided regret over the fainting spell but found it difficult not to feel resentment. It occurred to him that Scott’s emotional states had already begun to trickle into his consciousness. That worried him. Aside from the fact that it would make his task much harder, it also reminded him that he had very little time left—time left to exist.
A pinch of fear surged across his chest before he refocused on the task of evading BeauLac’s people.
That’s not helpful, he thought to himself, shoving the fear back where it belonged—in Scott’s corner. It’s not mine, bucko. You can have it back.
Wolf left the shop through the back door and into a narrow alley. After returning to the street he had come from on the opposite side of the block, he glanced around the corner. BeauLac’s man was just returning to his previous position in front.
Shit. Can’t catch a break.
He walked across the street at the intersection and returned to his car. There, he reached into the back seat and took the small duffel bag containing the surveillance equipment John had procured. It was time to do it the hard way.
The building across the street from the accounting offices was a mix of residential and business units above a line of first floor shops. He angled for the business entrance and went up the stairs as if he belonged there.
At the top of the stairs, he burst into an office—a real estate office by the looks of it—and rushed in, grasping his gut cradled in his arms. “Toilette! S’il vous plaît, où toilette!”
He didn’t even bother trying to hide his American accent, instead throwing a southern twang into his pronunciation to add to the desperation.
The woman behind the desk hesitated too long for his taste, so he rushed to her trash can and made a gagging noise, arching his back as if retching.
That seemed to put an urgency in her step. She hooked her arm through his and led him down a short hallway to a bathroom. As they went, he glanced at an empty office on the side facing the accountant’s building. At the bathroom, he stumbled in and hugged the porcelain as if it were a long-lost love.
The woman shivered and closed the door behind him while he mimed and mimicked throwing up in the bowl. There he continued to simulate the disgusting noises until he heard the woman move away and back down the hall.
He checked the door before quickly opening his duffel bag and extracting the laser microphone. He assembled it and switched it on before testing the remote directional motors.
Satisfied it worked properly, he stealthily slipped out of the bathroom and crossed the hallway to the empty office. The room looked as if were only used as storage.
After sliding a small stack of cardboard document boxes in front of the window, he lifted the bottom sash and placed the microphone unit in front of it, perched on a short, expandable tripod.
He paused frequently to listen for the woman, and after just a few seconds of concealing his device, turned and went back to the bathroom.
A moment later, the woman returned and knocked on the door. “Vous êtes bien?”
After splashing water on his face and rubbing it dry until he looked flushed and inflamed, he opened the door. “Thank you,” he said, continuing his southern accent. “I don’t know what I got hold of, but it didn’t agree with me.”
The woman nodded as if she understood and moved aside with a sweeping gesture of her arm, indicating her hospitality had run its course.
He exited, leaving his duffel bag in the corner of the bathroom. He’d need an excuse to come back and gather his belongings.
He thanked her again and left the office, walking down the stairs slowly until she had closed the door. As soon as she was out of sight, he changed direction and continued up the stairs. At the top of the stairwell, he found a quiet corner out of sight, and tucked himself into the recess.
“Okay. Let’s see if we can find which office you’re in,” he muttered as he attached the earbuds to the remote for the mic.
In a methodical, grid-search-pattern, he swept the mic from one window to the next, on each floor until he heard BeauLac’s voice. His memory of the man’s tone and inflection was locked in his mind as permanent data from the recordings and the one in-person exposure to the man. There was no need for voice recognition software when you had a comparison engine running in your head.
“I will not!” BeauLac said, his French accent lending only a mild softening to his outburst.
“You will, and you know why you will,” came an American voice over what sounded to be a speaker.
A conference call, Wolf realized.
“It is too much. I spent my entire life building what I have.” BeauLac’s voice sounded angry and desperate.
“Bullshit, Adolphe. You got it from your grandfather, and he got it from his grandfather, just like the rest of us.”
There was a short pause, then, “It’s too much.” There was less conviction in his voice that time.
“Fine. I’ll get Harp on the phone and you can explain it to—”
“If I might intervene,” a new voice in the room interrupted. “There’s no need to liquidate anything. Leveraging fixed assets would more than cover the cost and would not interfere with day-to-day operations of the BeauLac empire.”
“Adolphe?” came the voice on the speaker.
“I’m thinking.”
Several moments passed before a huff of impatience sounded through the speaker. “Should I get Harp to help you decide?”
“Do it,” BeauLac said, sounding defeated.
“Excellent,” the other man in the room said. “I can have the forms ready to sign by tomorrow.”
“Good. Do you need me for anything else?” the man on the speaker asked.
“No, sir. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Phillip,” BeauLac said.
“Yes?”
“This goes against everything we stood for. William and Edward were bad enough. But this…this is…”
“George knows what he’s doing. I have complete confidence in him.”
“Ten billion, Phillip,” BeauLac said. “He’s gambling everything on this one move.”
“It’s not a gamble, Adolphe. It’s an investment in a sure thing.”
BeauLac scoffed. “Sure thing.”
“Look. Everyone else has contributed to the cause. As you well know, there can be no holdouts. It’s all or nothing…two billion each is a small price to pay for seeing the fruition of our plans.”
“That wasn’t the option I was given.”
“Enough! If you wish to withhold your contribution—”
“No,” BeauLac said. “It’s done. I just wanted to register my displeasure.”
“Duly noted. You won’t regret it, Adolphe.”
BeauLac scoffed again as the speaker noise returned to a dial tone.
