Cleanliness, however, did not change the fact that he had been killed with sarin gas and that the gold plaque with chess references had been left for all to see. There had to be something that Frank was missing, because in a long and detailed history of unfortunate circumstances, Clearwater’s murder was never going to run the risk of being described as ‘ordinary’. Clearwater might not be Frank’s case, but Bernstein was; albeit a tiny portion and that was enough for him to let one more home cooked meal find its way into the trash before he got home.
Frank shrugged. It was probably the scenario that Kyle had already suggested. If Clearwater’s death was nothing to do with Flight 320 then it was going to be some weirdo who probably thought that Bernstein’s attempts at artificial intelligence was a further attempt to eliminate all human thinking. If an unstable guy didn’t like the fact that a new computer had outwitted the chess grandwizard or whatever he was called he could now be targeting IntelliSoft’s employees. It would probably not transpire to be an isolated incident. It might even develop into a campaign.
In a manner presumably dictated by the words of his etched plaque, the killer would start with the more ‘inconsequential’ employees and work his way up - saving the best, presumably ‘The King’, for last. If that was the case and he was not caught soon, then Bernstein himself was almost certainly the final target. And, if that was the case, then it was undoubtedly somebody else’s case. Frank was assigned to Flight 320 for the time being, and nothing else.
He would make sure that Kyle kept him up to date on progress into Clearwater all the same, just to see what happened. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. It creaked like old wood.
Shit it was late, he’d speak to Kyle tomorrow.
He shut down the computer, took one last glance at the picture of his wife and son and reached for the switch on the anglepoise. The room was thrust into a claustrophobic darkness but he knew its layout by heart and even through the undulating piles of long-dead reports he could make his way to the door without breaking his leg. He stood, rubbing the backside that had been wedged into ‘old squeaky’ all evening, then pushed the chair back under his desk.
As he made his way to the door the phone rang. It sounded twice as loud as normal in the rich silence of complete darkness and it startled him. He tripped, scattering the reports and almost breaking his leg.
He was forced to crawl back to the desk on his hands and knees. He picked up the receiver and heard a clicking sound, indicating that this was an international connection. Then a voice speaking his name. He recognised the man from his strong accent alone.
“Guido, how are you?” he asked breathlessly. Guido Esperan was the agent in Rome who had taken a look into Jack Bernstein’s visit to the city on Frank’s behalf.
“I am very well Agent Warner,” the deep, grainy voice replied. “Very well and good.”
There was a pause on the end of the line which Frank used to lift himself back onto his feet and dust down his pants.
“I presume you know what time it is here?” Frank said. It was meant as a statement not a question, his tone implying that Guido must have telephoned him for a reason. Whatever that reason was, he would prefer to know whether it was a good one or not. Sooner rather than later.
“Oh, yes, yes, sorry,” Guido said. “It is about the work I do for you before. When I look into your Bernstein man I go to all five car hire desks. The man at EuropCar said he, I mean your Bernstein man, had ask for a map to a town. Montecastrilli. Very small in the hills. Used-up mileage on the car say that he had indeed visit the town.”
Frank was losing what little patience he had. “Yeah, yeah, Guido. You told me that already.”
“I believe that he visit the monastery and stay one night only, but I did not know who he might see or why. Well, now I know I was right and I know who he see. He went and speak with a ‘Brother Frederico’. Old monk who live there. Very old. I now know things. Like he went to talk to him about eresia; Heresy.”
“I told you not to arouse any suspicion, Guido,” Frank said with a sigh. “You’d already told me as much as I needed to know for now; there was no need to question any of the monastery inhabitants themselves. That’s just looking for the kind of trouble that I don’t really want to find myself in right now.”
“But I had to speak to them, Agent Warner,” Guido’s distant voice protested. “I had to speak to them all.”
In the darkness of his office Frank was shaking his head. He had told Guido to keep an extremely low profile and his hot-headed and eager-to-please Italian contact had obviously completely ignored the request. “And why exactly did you have to do that?” he asked.
Guido gave the reply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. As if Frank should have known already. “Because this Brother Frederico has been killed,” he said.
in the vine [were]
three branches
Genesis 40:10
“Come on, you bastard,” Jack growled. “Give me something.”
He neither knew nor cared whether his request was subliminally aimed at the computer, at Simon or indeed at his own failing abilities, he just needed to find a significance that was currently locked out of sight. It was there, he was sure of it. Hidden somewhere within the fifteen sheets of paper were answers, but he felt as though he was playing ‘Jeopardy’. He needed to find the questions first and they didn’t want to come a-knocking.
He had long since stopped caring about the ‘book’ or why this Simon guy should be so desperate to obtain it. He cared only for the welfare of the child. So he had lied. He had promised that the stranger would get the thing he wanted so badly, when in reality he did not know if he would actually concede it once the child was found. After all, Simon had said it himself. He was not trying to help Jack, he was simply using him. He wanted the cult found and ‘closed down’ for his own reasons and Lara’s death had been nothing short of ‘useful’ to him in that respect. Expedient. Until Jack understood the significance of the book, he could not be sure that Simon deserved it, even if the man’s information did ultimately help him to find his grandson. For now he could only hope on that one.
Despite the almost sadistic pleasure that Simon seemed to glean from offering problems rather than solutions, he had actually managed to make Jack’s task a little easier by retaining the company registration numbers and the countries of registry on the sheets he had supplied, thereby avoiding any errors which might occur when two unrelated companies shared the same name. If, with the information at hand, Jack found no link between the companies, then he would get some help in the morning and make a start on the products. He had his suspicions about those already.
Some were undoubtedly chemical compounds. Christ, they sounded like entries in a high school chemistry book. If there was one thing Jack did recall from those long lost hours, it was that chemistry was far more concerned with the interaction of chemicals than with the chemicals themselves. If the chemicals on the lists interacted, then so would those who purchased them. And that, he figured, was going to be his hook. Now he must use the computer to lean over the counter, grab a little yellow ducky and win himself a fish.
All in all, this was still the kind of research job that he would previously have placed squarely on Dave Clearwater’s desk. In situations like these Dave had an instinct for knowing exactly where to look and who to ask. He would probably have had all the answers Jack needed within hours. Except that Dave was no longer here, was he? Jack was, but for how long? Longer if he pursued this, or longer if he didn’t? Then again, wasn’t that somehow making it sound as though he had something resembling a choice? Either way, without Dave’s involvement this simple task would probably take days, possibly even weeks. Time during which his grandson’s destiny was firmly ensconced in the hands of others.
Religious freaks. Terrorists. Murderers.
Within a few seconds, all fifteen companies came back from the search in one long alphabetical list. Adjacent to each were a series of ava
ilable options; Products and Services, Company History, Directors, Registered Addresses, Balance Sheets, Share Distribution, Share Performance, Subsidiaries, Legal Cases, Major Clients, Major Suppliers and a Graph function which showed the company’s profit, turnover and growth pitched side by side with their closest competitors over the preceding five years. Jack selected the first company; ‘AgriChem NSA’ and ‘Directors’. The screen flickered momentarily, returning with a list of eight names and addresses. Like AgriChem itself, all eight were resident in or around Houston, and all told him precisely nothing.
Yet what Jack now knew, from the subtlety of his uncovering Friedricks’ possible non-involvement, was that Simon was not likely to give him dead ends. All this information led somewhere. But where?
For the next three hours Jack selected each of the companies in turn and compared every detail he was offered by the system. Short of the computer having highlighted at the outset, by colour-coding, that each of the fifteen companies fell into one of three broad categories; ‘Agricultural & Environmental’, ‘Armaments & Military’ and ‘General Manufacturing’, there were no similarities.
But Simon would not deliberately offer him a series of dead ends. What purpose could that serve? Like Friedricks’ arrival time, the answers were hiding somewhere; they had to be. Jack just needed to open eyes he probably never knew he had and find them, that was all. He had fooled himself on the plane into thinking that it would be easy; that Simon’s abilities in offering challenges were still no match for his own ability to rise to them. But he was wrong.
What had Simon said? ‘Not what they manufacture, but what they buy.’ So perhaps Jack’s investigation should be focused in the direction of the suppliers as opposed to the purchasers.
Which he might well have done - had there been any suppliers listed.
The laptop phone started to ring, offering welcome relief. He removed the machine from its leather case, placed it at the side of his desktop computer and opened the screen. Turning it so that the miniature camera would be able to pick up his face, he hit ‘RECEIVE’, fully expecting to see MaryBeth’s face smiling back at him. He need not have bothered; because it was not a video call. The floating palette that appeared in the centre of the screen displayed only white noise.
“Jack Bernstein,” he said.
The voice was tinnier than he remembered, the result of the caller using a poor quality mobile phone. “Good evening, Mr. Bernstein, Special Agent Warner of the F.B.I. here. I’m sorry to telephone you so late but I wondered if we might get together at some point tomorrow?”
Jack made no attempt to hide his annoyance, mostly at the request but also at the hour. “Regarding?” he said curtly.
Warner’s voice was calm. “There’s just a few things I want to run through with you, that’s all.”
Just a few things. Fucking great.
“I’m afraid I’m at the Los Angeles site tomorrow,” Jack said, apologetically putting paid to any prospect of a meeting. Tomorrow at least. “I have some PR work to do and it will probably take all day.” Which was a lie.
“Well, that’s perfect,” Warner replied. “I’m based at Rodondo anyway, so I’ll come down to the site whilst you’re there. Be nice to see what all the damn fuss is about anyhow.”
Jack clenched his teeth, but he was too tired from sifting through the damn lists to formulate an adequate argument. “Feel free, Agent Warner,” he sighed, “but you might find that I’m a little hard to track down.”
He heard Warner’s gentle laugh. The laugh of a man offered an easy challenge. “I’m sure the press will find you,” he said. “And if they can find you, then I’m pretty sure that I can too.”
Jack closed the connection without saying goodbye, dragged his face through his hands, then leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
Fucking Warner; he thought. That was all he needed. Bloody fucking bastarding Warner. The insidious, shuffling little man was getting increasingly suspicious at the worst possible time, just when he was starting to work things out for himself. Just when he was starting to make sense of the things that seemed to have been stumbling blocks for Simon.
He had a cult, he had the things that Frederico had told him about their possible beliefs and now he even had a town on a map; ‘Ephesus’. He was so damned close. Just not close enough. He could certainly do without Warner getting in his face as he tried to make what he hoped would be the final links in the chain.
He rubbed his eyes for a second time and took a deep breath, just as the phone started to ring again. Convinced that it was Warner, ready to offer him a Columbo-style ‘oh, just one more thing...?’, he slammed the ‘RECEIVE’ button as hard as he could.
“YES???”
“Hiya, it’s me.” MaryBeth’s face appeared in the floating palette. She was in her kitchen, smiling. Then her face changed to something a little more akin to concern. “Jesus, you don’t sound a happy bunny,” she added, her image moving erratically as the computer reproduced it at the standard eight frames per second.
Jack sighed, deliberately avoiding the comment. “It’s way past your bedtime, you know?”
“And yours,” she said, stifling a yawn. “So how did it go with creepy London guy? Or is that why you sound so thoroughly pissed off?” She turned away from the camera slightly to pour boiling water into a waiting cup.
“I didn’t go so good,” Jack said, and she could tell that he meant it. His expression was uncharacteristically vacant. “I think I’ll have to wait and see what Andy throws up because this guy’s still giving me nothing.”
She turned back to the camera, stirring coffee. “Actually nothing, or almost nothing?”
Jack held the papers up to the camera. “A list of fifteen companies, all so far unrelated and all detailed as buying large quantities of certain products that mean Jack Shit to me. There are no details on the cult Lara got involved with, no details on her child and no details on where the bloody hell I’m supposed to start looking. I just hope Andy gets something from Turkey because at the minute that’s the only chance I’ve got of breaking through this shit.”
“I presume you’ve looked in the ‘Directors’ file for a match?” MaryBeth asked calmly. She knew that Jack would be using Global TeleSoft’s Company Profile software and was similarly aware of the various options it would now be throwing his way.
“First place I looked - nothing.” He looked both desperate, and desperately pissed off.
MaryBeth looked pensive. “Well, it’s not that difficult to make directors of a company look genuine when in reality all they are is nothing more than appointees. What about the Share Distribution?”
Jack looked puzzled. “No, why?”
MaryBeth laughed into her coffee. “To see who really owns the companies, dumb-ass. Just because you’re the principal director of IntelliSoft and you own all the shares doesn’t mean that directors of other companies do.” She knew that Jack was no businessman; more of a chess player and a good-looking face really. The people he employed to look after his interests were the businessmen. He had the vision and they picked up a broom and did the necessary sweeping up; before or after. “It’s possible that the people listed as directors could just be working on behalf of a group of investors or a larger company.”
“You mean all the firms on the list could be owned by the same holding company?” Jack said, ve-ry slow-ly. His eyes were widening at about the same speed that the penny had started to fall.
“It’s possible,” MaryBeth replied. “Any products the holding company might need, if that’s what they are, could be bought innocuously by the relevant smaller company. Then all they would need to do is transfer them within the group under a ‘miscellaneous sales’ heading. Let’s face it, if you’re going to hide something, it’s a damn sight easier to do it within your own paper stream, isn’t it? Eventually all the ingredients can end up in one place and you can start cooking without too many questions being asked. The way to find out if that’s the case is to see w
ho really owns the controlling shares of the smaller companies. All share ownerships will have to be declared in the country of origin. Do you want me to come over and take a look for you?”
Jack thought for a minute, stroking his beard pensively as he looked to the other screen. “No thanks,.” He would try running through the fifteen sets of share distributions himself and then call it a day. He was getting more tired by the minute, but he could afford to spare a few more. Thanks to MaryBeth, as ever, he might actually be getting somewhere now.
“Give me an hour,” he said, “I’ll call you back.”
* * * * *
In actual fact, it took less than twenty minutes. He scrolled MaryBeth’s number into view on the laptop and pressed ‘DIAL’. It answered on the second ring, the white noise being replaced once again by MaryBeth’s expectant face.
“You’re a star.”
“So you found a link?”
“You could say that. Seems that each of the companies has sixty-four percent ownership allocated to one of three larger companies; either Mørkhest, Pegasus Holdings or Red Knight Industries. The remainder is split between the same four investment brokers worldwide; namely Fenshu, Okanama, Eternité and Future Holdings. It doesn’t matter which company you choose or what country they’re based in, the pattern of ownership is pretty much the same.”
“None of those names ring a bell,” MaryBeth offered. “Any public allocations?”
“None whatsoever,” Jack said. “None have ever been floated.”
“Strange.”
“Very, but what’s even stranger still is the fact that I can’t find any of the three larger companies on the Profile database. I’m loathed to say it, but it’s almost as though they don’t exist. I’ve run through a few options but I can’t get any information on them at all.”
MaryBeth looked beyond the camera and thought for a moment, then flicked her head back to the screen. “So, what about the investment companies?”
“They’re on the database alright, but when I ran them through they came back with equally weird figures. They’re all in private ownership,” he continued, “and yet all three have the same directors; six in total. Four of them own six-point-two percent, one owns twenty-four-point-two percent and one owns the controlling share of fifty-one percent.”
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