by Fiona Brand
Abruptly the voice was replaced with blaring pop music. Wincing at the assault on her ears, Esther stared at the Walkman. She’d been so busy listening to the content of the recording she hadn’t registered its full value. The tape was manna from heaven on three counts. It was vital evidence—she would retain a copy of the tape to hand to the police—but it was also exactly what Xavier needed to help his actor replicate Lopez’s voice. On top of that she was almost certain Lopez’s unwitting testimony would buy Cesar some leeway in court when the feds closed in. “I need that tape.”
Rina’s gaze was wary. “I know I’m not supposed to tape conversations.”
“No punishment, I promise.” Relief at the discovery of the tape and the doors it opened made her feel light-headed. Cancel business; the kid could go into politics.
Dennison sat in his office, studying Collins’s surveillance notes.
Esther Morell had had a busy day, but that was nothing unusual. For the past month Collins’s daily report had contained a long list of appointments, lunch dates and trips to and from the fancy school the kid attended. However, the fact that Esther had left the house that morning, driving a battered Chevy instead of the Saab, had rung alarm bells. Collins had followed her, but he had lost her in a traffic snarl-up in town. He had picked her up just as she’d left the school, in time to catch her detouring from her usual route.
He slipped the security video for Lopez’s house into the VCR, then rewound it and began skipping through until just before the time recorded in Collins’s notes. Over a five-minute period, a number of vehicles had driven past the house, which was normal. At that time of day, with school just out, there was always plenty of traffic.
Dennison frowned. The quality of the security tape was abysmal. To avoid being spotted or stolen, the camera had been set back too far from the road, and the angle wasn’t helpful. Consequently the film was grainy and it was difficult to read license plates or get any kind of accurate description of the occupants of cars. A brown Chevy appeared. Dennison could make out two people, but no more detail than that. Seconds later, Collins’s charcoal-gray car appeared on the tape, confirming that the driver of the brown Chevy had been Esther.
Dennison picked up the phone and dialed through to Lopez’s office, which was located on the first story of the house, then rewound the tape and played it through again. He didn’t like the fact that Esther had driven by the house. Maybe there was a good reason why she hadn’t used her own car today, but he didn’t think so. More and more, he was beginning to believe that they had underestimated her.
Lopez arrived halfway through the segment of tape and took a seat. Dennison passed him Collins’s surveillance report, rewound the tape and ran it through again.
When the relevant portion of the tape had played, he hit the stop button and ejected the videotape from the VCR.
Lopez got to his feet, his expression cold. What he wanted was old news: Esther watched more closely and researched more fully. He didn’t trust her. Hell, neither did Dennison. Any woman that gorgeous…there had to be a catch.
He picked up the phone and put a call through to Collins. They were going to need a second man on the job, and a wire on the phone.
Lately he had been working 24/7 on Esther Morell, but obtaining concrete information about her was difficult. When it came to business, Cesar was the head of the Morell Group, and every company report and legal document was signed by him. The only place Esther showed up on paper was in the private legal agreements that existed between her and Cesar, but those agreements in themselves were a piece of work. In terms of financial security, anything with Esther’s name on it was ironclad. She didn’t feature in the business—unless Cesar died, in which case she inherited everything—but legally she owned a sizable chunk of the Morell Group, and in the marriage, she definitely wore the pants.
If Esther and Cesar ever divorced, he got the Corvette and a whole lot of cold air. Mrs. Midas took all the real estate, including the apartments in Monte Carlo and London and the holiday home in the Bahamas. She also qualified for a solid cash payout, the Saab and the kid, and she retained her twenty-five-percent share of the Morell Group.
Morell was a clever man, unafraid of taking risks and with a knack for making huge sums of money, but he lacked the tough savvy and edge Dennison had been sure he would have. Dennison was now certain that “edge” was his wife. When he received the telephone call from Bern he was waiting on, he would have his confirmation.
The following day, Xavier le Clerc picked up the phone in his suite at the San Francisco Royal Pacific Hotel, placed a call and waited while the receptionist put him through to Vincent, the telecommunications expert selected for this particular job.
At ten past one that afternoon, as arranged, Vincent walked into a small café a block south from his place of work. Xavier rose to his feet and waved him into the booth he’d chosen, one well away from the door. He had already ordered coffee for them both, which tasted terrible. As soon as Vincent was seated, Xavier got down to business.
He needed to “borrow” Alex Lopez’s phone number for the few minutes it would take for the bank to ring and satisfy Lopez’s security requirements for the transaction. He wrote the number of the new phone line he’d set up on a sheet of notepaper, along with the exact time he needed the swap to take place, and slipped it across the table. “I need twenty minutes exactly, no more.” Any longer and it was possible Lopez would understand that his telephone line had been hijacked.
He slid an envelope across the table. It contained a substantial amount of cash. Half now, half when the job was done.
Xavier unlocked the door of an empty apartment with a pleasant but distant view of San Francisco Bay. The young actor he’d hired to impersonate Lopez followed him into the cramped sitting room and leaned against the wall while Xavier picked up the receiver of the cheap phone he’d previously had installed and dialed Vincent’s extension. After a short conversation, he set the phone down.
Minutes later, Vincent rang back. The switch had been made. Lopez’s phone was still active, but he would be operating on a different number for twenty minutes. Lopez would be able to call out, but all of his incoming calls would be directed to Xavier’s phone. Xavier had twenty minutes, and counting.
Xavier set the receiver down, then picked it up again and dialed. He checked his watch as he waited for the first person to pick up: two-fifteen. The next few minutes would be an interesting and intricate dance. Success depended on the precise timing and the greed of the people he had paid.
Dennison paced the floor of Lopez’s study, avoiding his cold stare and Vitali’s raw impatience. He checked his watch—two twenty-five—and resisted the urge to jerk at the collar of his shirt. The temperature was in the nineties, but that wasn’t the only reason he was sweating. They were waiting for a call from a source in the FBI, and confirmation about a two-year period Esther Morell had spent overseas.
Frowning, he tried his contact’s number again and received the same reply. Johnson was away from his desk, which he already knew, since he hadn’t been able to reach him for the past half hour. Johnson had driven to a pay phone to make the call, and if Dennison were in his shoes, he would do the same. There was no way he would use his office or his home phone to pass on information that could be incriminating, but that kind of logic didn’t help Dennison where Lopez was concerned.
He set the phone down. Almost immediately it rang.
He snatched up the receiver and hit the speakerphone function. “What took you so long?”
Johnson’s voice filled the office. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes. Your line’s been engaged.”
Dennison frowned. It was possible Johnson had tried to call at the same time he had been calling him, but that only amounted to a couple of minutes over the past half hour. They hadn’t had any other incoming calls. He should have gotten through.
Lopez spoke. “What have you found out?”
Johnson he
sitated, no doubt put off his stride by the different voice. “Uh…all the records I have show what we already knew, that she worked as a banking executive mostly around the L.A. and San Francisco areas, but for two years while she was overseas she worked for a big international banking conglomerate. The reason we had trouble getting a job description was that she was never on their payroll. She set up her own consultancy company and billed the bank. The money was paid to a numbered account in Switzerland. No income was ever registered under her name or reached U.S. shores.”
Johnson’s voice flattened out as he repeated the information he had received from his source in Bern. Like he’d said, Esther Morell hadn’t been involved in day-to-day banking, she had been contracted by Bessel Holt to investigate their client base. Apparently, she had a photographic memory and a knack for research, with particular regard to South America. He could also confirm that Esther had been instrumental in blocking a number of offshore transactions out of South America, including a substantial movement of funds by the Chavez cartel. “And get this. She used to date le Clerc. As in Xavier le Clerc.”
Dennison’s stomach did an odd little flip-flop. Some agents talked endlessly about their “gut.” They would have a hunch about this, an instinct about that. As far as Dennison was concerned, human desires and sheer greed, along with good information, were a much more reliable map to follow than some airy-fairy premonition, but suddenly the weird feeling he’d had all day that something was wrong made sense.
Le Clerc’s name wasn’t big here, but it was legendary in Europe. He was a coldly efficient thief who had done the unthinkable: collapsed a Swiss bank that had refused to disclose or release funds allegedly belonging to Jewish families that had survived the Holocaust. Simultaneously, he had engineered a bank heist that had removed certain items from the vault and safe-deposit boxes, all of which were said to have belonged to Nazi political leaders and war criminals.
Lopez terminated the call, cutting Johnson off in midsentence. He handed the receiver to Vitali. “Check the account.”
The whiplash command jerked Vitali out of his seat. “There’s no way we’ll get access to her Swiss—”
“Not her account. Mine.”
Six
Esther parked her car outside Rina’s school, slotting into a space beneath a shady tree. She slipped dark glasses on the bridge of her nose and strode to the school’s office. The brief flash of her reflection in the glass doors told her that outwardly she looked cool and collected, despite the steamy heat, but ever since Xavier had rung with a bogus message from the school that Rina was unwell—the prearranged code for her to get out of town—she had been a bundle of nerves.
When she had left the house she had followed Xavier’s instructions to the letter. It seemed ridiculous to place her trust in him, but his precise list of what to do—and what not to do—had helped. As soon as she had hung up, she had informed Carmita that she was driving into town to pick Rina up from school. Xavier’s logic was that it was best to construct a story that allowed her to stay within the bounds of normality, so that if she was being followed her movements wouldn’t be perceived as out of the ordinary until the last moment, when she took the turnoff to San Jose and the airport.
She had changed into a lightweight linen pantsuit and stepped out of the house, taking with her only the things she normally carried, her handbag and briefcase, nothing that would signal that she was leaving town. The previous evening she had placed a suitcase of clothes and personal items in the trunk. They were due to fly out in just over an hour in a chartered private jet, not a scheduled flight. She had taken the precaution of also booking a regular flight, though, just in case anyone checked the airports.
The receptionist consulted the school timetable, then found someone to escort her through manicured gardens to Rina’s classroom. After making excuses to Rina’s teacher for removing her from class a few minutes early, Esther hurried Rina out to the car. An internal clock told her that everything was taking too long. The holdup at the office had been longer than she’d anticipated, then Rina’s class had been at the far end of the school grounds, taking more precious time.
Rina dumped her schoolbag in the backseat and strapped herself in. “What’s wrong?”
Esther shot her a glance as she pulled out of the school gates and turned in the opposite direction than they usually took, frowning as she noticed the huge bank of clouds that had rolled in off the sea. It was early in the day for fog, but the weather had been extra hot and humid, and cloud had been slowly building all day. “We’re catching a flight out.”
She frowned. Already a fine gauze of mist was filtering out sunlight. It was just as well they were flying out of San Jose; San Francisco and Oakland airports would be closed within the hour.
Rina’s gaze was sharp. “Is Dad coming?”
“Not right now. Maybe later. Don’t worry,” she said quickly.
“What’s wrong? Are the police going to arrest Alex Lopez?”
The accuracy of Rina’s observation and the mention of Lopez’s name made Esther’s fingers tighten on the wheel, sending the Saab over the centerline. A truck swerved, its horn blaring. Heart pounding, she corrected her course and forced herself to slow down. She had to remain calm and take care not to draw any attention. She couldn’t afford the delay an accident or a traffic ticket would entail. With jerky sentences she explained what had gone wrong and why they had to leave town. “The police will arrest Lopez, after we’re gone.”
An intersection loomed. Esther braked, jaw clamped, fingers tapping on the wheel as she studied the thickening fog while she waited for the lights to turn green. A car nosed close behind and she frowned, trying to remember if she had noticed the charcoal-gray sedan before she’d stopped off at the school. In the murky light, colors could be deceptive. Seconds later, she accelerated smoothly across the intersection.
When she got to the airport she would ring Cesar and tell him to get out, but she wouldn’t do that until just before they boarded the flight. She couldn’t risk being stopped, or found. Despite the danger he was in, Cesar had forfeited any right to her loyalty. Rina was her priority.
Vitali’s face was oddly blank as he handed the receiver to Lopez. “It’s gone. The account’s empty.”
Dennison’s gaze sharpened as he listened to Lopez’s clipped conversation and the replies, which were audible on speakerphone. Paperwork authorizing the transaction had been received via special courier just after two that afternoon. The signature matched the sample they had on file.
Lopez’s expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes looked strange, the pupils fully dilated, blacking out the irises. “Who rang to clear the transaction?”
“You did, sir. We followed the instructions.” There was a pause. “I spoke to you myself, just a few minutes ago.”
“I haven’t called you. I didn’t authorize the movement of any funds and I haven’t received a phone call.”
“The call was made.” He cleared his throat. “We have it on tape. I’ll play it back for you.”
Dennison listened, studying the taped conversation. The sound quality wasn’t great, but whoever it was, he was good. The voice was almost indistinguishable from Lopez’s own; close enough to match the sample tape the bank had been instructed to keep as a check.
With cold precision, Lopez ended the call, disengaged the speakerphone and made a number of calls in quick succession.
Dennison retreated a step, on the pretext of propping himself on the edge of the desk. He had never viewed Lopez, who was lean and slight and had an aversion to physical contact, as physically dangerous, but he was revising his opinion. The change in Lopez’s eyes had literally made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Dennison wasn’t normally privy to Lopez’s financial arrangements—that was Vitali’s area—but what had happened was now clear. Approximately thirty minutes ago, someone with the expertise and knowledge to access Lopez’s bank account and security details had stolen an amou
nt so huge that when he’d heard the figure, Dennison had broken out in an instant sweat.
The scam was multilayered and complex. Given the bank’s dual controls and the extra security measures Lopez had put in place, it shouldn’t have succeeded—and wouldn’t have, if the phones hadn’t been tampered with.
The reason for Johnson’s inability to ring in was now clear. They had been outmaneuvered. Whoever had stolen the money had gotten into the phone system and rerouted the number to another address for the brief window of time in which the bank’s security call had been made. Lopez’s phone hadn’t been disconnected, so a new number would have been issued for the few minutes required, which was why Dennison had been able to ring out but no one had been able to contact him.
When Johnson had tried to call him, claiming the line was engaged, it had been because Lopez’s number had been busy; the funds transfer had been taking place.
Lopez stared at Dennison, sending an involuntary shudder down his spine. “Where is Esther Morell?”
Dennison checked his watch. That, at least, was covered. Mistakes had been made, but not by him. “She should be on her way home from school.”
The phone rang, breaking the eerie intensity of Lopez’s stare. The call was for Dennison. Stomach suddenly tight, he took the receiver. Seconds later he barked out a precise set of instructions and set the receiver down. “Collins just lost her on the Bay Bridge in fog. He thinks she could be headed for Oakland International.”
Esther glanced in the rearview mirror. Adrenaline pumped. Despite a few unscheduled twists and turns, the charcoal-gray sedan she thought she’d managed to lose had slotted back into traffic behind her. The probability that whoever was driving the vehicle was taking the same route out of sheer coincidence had just played itself out.
