I sent Wil a couple of text messages while we ate, and he did a good job at following up on those hints also. When we finished our meal, a woman came to collect Miriam. I handed my new friend a burner phone I carried, and showed her how to punch the speed dial to reach me if she needed to.
With that chore taken care of, I turned to Wil and said, “Lead on, O Great Corporate Executive.”
He gave me a sour look, but didn’t protest my new title for him. We got on an elevator, and he hit the button for the twelfth floor.
“You didn’t tell me you rated a penthouse office,” I said. “You sure you don’t want to sign that prenup?”
He shot me a frosty look. I would have thought I’d get a little teasing back, but he obviously wasn’t in a joking mood.
We got off the elevator and walked to the end of the hall, through a reception area with a receptionist who said, “Good morning, Mr. Wilberforce,” and into a corner office with a fantastic view of Lake Michigan. Wilbur’s name and title were on the door.
A desk sat off to one side, and a long conference table sat where everyone could enjoy the view. Myron Chung stood from his seat at the table and greeted us. The secretary had followed us in and served coffee for everyone.
“We have a tail on Señorita Martinez,” Chung said after the secretary left. “We also have the Frenchmen under surveillance. They are still at their hotel. As soon as they move, we’ll be notified.”
“Does Margarita know them?” I asked.
“I don’t know about Carpentier, but I’m sure she and Maillard are at least somewhat acquainted. He’s rather well known in the art world.”
“Her bank statements show that she usually has a charge at a place called Gitan Bistro after the one with her hairdresser,” I said. “I can slip into a disguise and get a table before she arrives.”
Chung’s eyebrows rose a bit, and Wil glared at me.
I couldn’t figure out why they were staring at me. “What?”
“Bank accounts are private,” Wil said.
I shrugged. “If they want to keep people like me out, they need to do more than talk about security. I could fix it for them.”
“I think that your height would be an impediment to a disguise,” Chung said.
“Gitan is a little too fancy for Jasmine Keller,” Wil said.
I waved my hand in the air. “Let me worry about that. Do you have a car Mike and I can borrow?”
“I can drive you.”
“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not letting you learn all my secrets. Who knows when you’ll decide to arrest me on some trumped up charge? Just loan me a car so I don’t have to steal one.”
He gaped at me, then looked down and sorrowfully shook his head. “I give up.”
“Great! You’re going to sign the prenup?”
It sounded like he growled, which I took for a no.
“Okay. Your loss. I’ll settle for the car.”
Wil took us to the garage in the basement and showed us a beat-up older sedan. “We confiscated it from a drug runner,” he said as he handed me the keys.
“Does it come with a tow truck?” I asked, passing the keys to Mike.
“If it breaks down, call me.”
Mike chuckled as we drove away. “We won’t have to call him. You know he’s going to follow us.”
“Yeah, but you only have to lose him long enough to dump me off. Let him tail us until we get a couple of blocks from the bistro.”
Half an hour later, Mike said, “Get ready.”
At the next intersection, he ran the red light, turned the corner, and almost immediately turned into an alley. I jumped out before the car came to a stop, and he drove off. I moved close to the wall and blurred my form.
A couple of minutes later a dark car slowly drove by the alley, and I could see a face in the car window peering toward me. As soon as it passed, I morphed into a richly dressed, chubby, fiftyish woman, six inches shorter than I was, with elegantly coifed brown hair. Stepping out of the alley, I window-shopped my way toward the bistro.
The Chamber operatives who cruised by every few minutes didn’t give me a second glance. Neither did Margarita Martinez, who arrived at the bistro shortly after I did. I followed her inside and asked for the table next to hers, where I sat with my back to her.
I had barely opened my menu when two men came through the front door. They matched the pictures of Carpentier and Maillard that Chung had shown me. The host took them to the table next to Margarita’s. I was as close to the three of them as they were to each other.
Carpentier was about six feet tall and two hundred pounds. His nose had been broken more than once, and he had a rough air about him in spite of his expensive suit. Maillard was shorter, thinner, and somewhat effeminate, with a long nose and thinning hair.
Two minutes later, two men that I recognized as Chamber operatives came in and sat across the room from us. The entire circus had gathered in that room. The only things missing were the stolen art works and a dancing bear.
The two men spoke to each other in French, talking about the sights and sounding like tourists. Neither of them spoke to Margarita, though one made a flattering comment about her looks. If you took them seriously, it sounded as though they were excited to tour the AIC that afternoon.
Margarita finished her meal and began gathering her belongings. In fluent French, and without looking at the men, she said, “This is not a convenient time. If your patron is patient, the package will be delivered as promised.”
“Our patron is interested in additional packages,” one of the men said.
“That is not possible.”
“Make it possible,” the other man said, his voice deeper and rougher.
“I beg your pardon?” Margarita said, her voice full of both surprise and affront.
“Whatever your bid for the Monet,” the first man said, “we’ll give you twenty percent more.”
“And we don’t plan to leave Chicago empty handed,” the second man finished. “You have my number. Call me when we can collect our goods.”
Margarita didn’t answer them and continued on toward the door. Since I had asked for my check when she did, I followed her. She walked toward her car, but a man intercepted her. The reaction he received was quite different from her reserved manner with the men inside.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed. “Have you lost your mind? Get away from me.”
“You’re stalling,” the man said. “You may be able to sit on that stuff forever, but we need to get paid.” He appeared to be around forty, average height and build, with receding brown hair and brown eyes. A completely nondescript, average man that you’d never notice. The perfect look for a thief.
I came within about twenty feet of them before she glanced in my direction. I just kept walking past them toward a fancy car parked beyond hers. Before I passed out of earshot, I heard her say, “Dammit, Jeff. You’ll get your money. Things are just a bit complicated right now.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, “that Zhukoff broad got killed. Let’s see if we can tie this thing up before any more women die.”
I turned and took three fast pictures of Margarita and Jeff. He walked away, and she watched him go. Then she got in her car and drove away.
Chapter 20
I slipped into the alley behind the bistro and morphed into my Jasmine Keller persona. Exiting the other end of the alley, I hugged a fence and blurred my form, then followed the man Margarita called Jeff.
He walked three blocks to reach a car parked a block away from the bistro, and used a number of other very sneaky techniques to ensure he wasn’t being followed. He was very good, but I’m a girl, and I don’t play fair.
When he started his car, I unblurred my image, and Mike pulled up beside me as Jeff pulled out of his parking space.
“He’s paranoid,” I told Mike. “He did everything he could to make sure he wasn’t being followed.”
Mike nodded. I figured if he w
as trained by my father, and worked twenty years for him, he knew how to tail someone.
“So, who are we following?” he asked. “That’s not one of the Frenchmen, is it?”
“I think he might be the thief,” I answered. “He ambushed Margarita demanding money. He also warned her that if he didn’t get paid, Deborah Zhukoff might not be the only woman to die.”
He gave me a raised eyebrow, and I said, “I don’t know. It would be easy to interpret what he said to mean that he killed Deborah, or hired the killer, on Martinez’s orders.”
Mike looked skeptical.
“You don’t think so.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. That was personal. I would believe that Martinez did it herself before I’d look for a professional hitman.”
“Unless I wanted to make it look like an amateur murder,” I said.
“You’re overthinking it.” He slowed down and let Jeff squeeze through the light turning red ahead of him. Mike smirked. “He’ll get caught by the next light, and he’ll be less wary. So, what did you find out inside the restaurant?”
“When Chung first told me about the men from Hollande’s organization, he speculated that Hollande might be interested in the entire inventory. From what the Frenchmen told Martinez, that was a pretty good guess. They want the paintings, and they said they would stick around town until they had them. The Chamber men in the bistro will follow them, so I figured we’d follow the mystery man.”
Jeff drove out to the far western edge of the city and eventually parked in the driveway of a house in a middle-class neighborhood. He got out of the car, unlocked the front door of the house, and went inside.
“Now what?” Mike asked.
“Back to Doreen’s so I can get online and try to figure out who Jeff is.”
Jeffrey Sanderson, forty-two-years-old, born in Chicago, and the registered owner of the car he drove and the house we saw him enter, had no known source of income, according to the databases I searched. I sent the information I found to Wil and Chung.
The Chamber had not returned Miriam to the brothel, so I called her. She told me the Chamber offered her a house and was picking up all her expenses. I called Wil as soon as I finished speaking with her.
“What’s the deal with Miriam?” I asked. “Are you arresting her?”
“You wanted us to treat her as a witness, so we are.”
“And?”
“She has significant information we can use. But none of it’s any good if Alscher gets his hands on her, so we’re putting her up in a safe house.”
“And you’re paying her twenty-four hours a day. Right?”
I heard him sigh. “Of course we are, Libby. I wouldn’t dream of shorting her.”
“What can I say? I grew up steeped in corporate capitalist ideals. Wil, what’s going on with Alscher?”
Another deep sigh. “He’s a wanted terrorist, and we’ve been after him for the past twenty years. Have dinner with me and I’ll tell you more.”
“Only if the place is certified bomb proof.”
He chuckled. “I promise.”
Wil took me to the restaurant of a country club. High walls, lots of guards, and metal detectors that went crazy when he and I walked in.
“You depend on a piece-of-junk machine for security?” I asked the guard who collected most of my knives, throwing stars, grenades, and gas canisters. He wanted my bra, but the head of security stepped in. “I don’t think that will be necessary for Deputy Director Wilberforce and his guest.”
Turning to me, “The metal detectors are only one of our security precautions,” the security director said, pompously drawing himself up to his full height in an attempt to look down at me. That failed since he was three or four inches shorter than I was, plus I was wearing heels.
I glanced at Wil, then pulled my pistol out of my purse and set it in front of the metal detector. Then I handed him my card. “I didn’t mean all machines are stupid, only that one, which is hopelessly out of date. I would be happy to provide you with a quote for a full assessment of your security measures. I’m sure your clientele would rather be safe than dead.”
They all stared at the pistol.
“It’s amazing what they can do with some of the modern polymers,” I said, picking up the gun and putting it back in my purse. Collecting my other weapons, I put them away as well.
“I didn’t realize that was a Marten Stealth,” Wil said as we sat down. “I’ve fired one, but they’re very expensive.”
“Takes a bit of getting used to because it’s so light,” I said. I reached down into my boot and showed him the pistol I kept there. “The Mini Stealth is even worse. It weighs practically nothing. But the guns aren’t the only things they missed.” I showed him a ceramic knife, then put it back in my purse. “Everyone wants to go cheap with security, then they whine when they get burned. If you don’t want to pay to protect it, then it probably isn’t worth owning.” I gestured to the elegant surroundings. “It’s not as though they’re hurting for cash.”
The food was spectacular, almost up to the quality of my mom’s chef at her brothel. I mentioned that to Wil, and he laughed.
“I can just see the chef’s face when you compliment him on almost being good enough to cook in a whorehouse.”
I’m not sure what my face looked like, but Wil sobered immediately. “I’m sorry. I said something wrong, didn’t I?”
“I don’t like that word. It’s degrading.” It always pissed me off that all the words used to describe prostitution denigrated women. Women didn’t invent it.
“I apologize.”
Nodding, I said, “You wouldn’t know. Tell me about Gustav Alscher.”
Wil refilled our wine glasses and leaned back in his chair. “Alscher is one of the most wanted men in the world. He’s from an upper middle class family in Munich, Germany. He became radicalized during his university years and rose to the top of an organization called P2P, or Power to the People.”
“A lot of kids go wild at university. Most of them settle down,” I said.
“And some don’t. Alscher was a doctoral candidate when a new voice appeared in P2P, a woman named Olga Schubert. When I say voice, I mean that literally. She was trained as an opera singer, but she also had an incredible speaking voice, and it’s suspected she was a strong empathic projector.”
“I suspect Alscher is, also,” I said.
He gave me a long, thoughtful look as he took a sip of his wine. “And what kind of talent allows you to see that in a person?”
I grinned. “The talent of observation. That, and the feeling he’s trying to manipulate me.”
Wil laughed.
“No, really. A physical feeling. I mean, he sits and stares at me, and I feel like invisible spiders are trying to crawl under my skin. If that’s some kind of talent, then it’s one I never knew about. The guy is beyond creepy.”
“But you never felt compelled to help him?”
“No, I just want to clock him in the face. But when I watched him around his people in that abandoned mall, he was playing them like a choir. And he’s got Carly wrapped around his finger. He has her convinced she’s a prophet. He uses psychogenic mushrooms to lower people’s inhibitions and resistance.”
“Mushrooms?”
“I was told he grows them.”
Wil sat back and thought about that for a while, then he said, “Well, back in Germany, he had Olga Schubert. Their organization grew. She spoke at huge rallies, and they began to accumulate some political following. Mutants, anti-corps, even some of the middle class. Then the terror attacks started. Bombings, mostly, but also assassinations.”
“Like here.”
“Yeah, like here. The German corporations came down on P2P with a sledge hammer. Schubert was killed in a raid on P2P headquarters along with almost two hundred other members. The SWAT teams didn’t screw around. They napalmed the building. Over two thousand members were rounded up and either executed or sent to labor camps.
Alscher escaped. No one knew where he was until he surfaced here.”
“And now he has a new girl to be the face of his movement.”
“So it seems.”
“What kind of information are you getting from Miriam?”
“My people spent the morning trying to find out if he’s planning any more bombings or other operations. They don’t think she’s holding back information, but she doesn’t seem to know very much about their operations. When they ask her about Alscher’s movements and contacts over the past seventeen years, she’s a font of knowledge. We’re waiting for a Russian translator to free up some of her time. Miriam knows several languages, but her Russian is far stronger than her English.”
English was the de facto international language of business, but it still ranked behind Chinese and Spanish in the number of native speakers. For all of the international standards established over the past three hundred years, native languages still hung on almost everywhere.
“Is she going to be okay, Wil? You’ll take care of her and make sure she lands in a good place?”
He cocked his head and seemed to study my face. “Yeah, I’ll make sure of it.”
“Thank you.”
Jess called the following morning and said she’d received the routers I’d been waiting on. She also mentioned that Chung wanted to see me. She sounded terrible on the phone, and looked worse when I saw her in person. Her skin was blotchy and her eyes were red from crying. I’d always figured she and Deborah had a thing going, and that Jess took it far more seriously than Deborah did.
Chung wasn’t in when I arrived, so I configured and installed the routers, then installed the intrusion trap software I had written. Any hacker coming into the AIC network through either router would find their path blocked by the other router and unable to retreat. The only way out of the trap was to reveal actual location information on the hacker, which set up their eventual neutralization and capture.
Chameleon Uncovered Page 16
