“Hello, Delphine. Do you know who this is?”
“Yes.”
And she knew well enough not to say his name…just in case. As for Simon, he knew well enough to call on the Oriental hotel’s landline. Who used that anymore? Certainly not friends. He had no doubt that her cellphone was compromised in one way or another.
“Go to the lobby,” he said. “Walk out the main entrance. To your right at the far side of the drive, you’ll see a set of stairs leading to the river. It’s a nice night for a stroll. Five minutes.”
He’d met her on a frigid December day in London eleven years earlier.
He saw her in his mind, walking toward him through the high-ceilinged foyer of Chatham House. She was tall and blond and angular with skeptical blue eyes and a puckish grin. Her entire manner screamed that she was smarter, cleverer, and a damned sight better looking than the rest. If she’d been a man, Simon would have wanted to punch her in the nose. As it was, he wanted to do quite the other thing. What was he to do but say hello?
“You’re not with the bank.”
“God no,” she said with an air of real offense. “I should hope not.”
“Are we that bad?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You were at the lecture. Forgive me. I’m hopeless.”
Anything but,thought Simon.
For the past three hours he and the two dozen other members of his intake class at the bank had sat together in an auditorium at Chatham House, 10 St. James Square, and listened to a series of speakers lecture them on ethics and global responsibility.
“A dash of idealism before being sent out into the real world,” he said. “I just finished my first year. They move us through the different departments, give us a taste of all the bank’s activities.”
“Oh, I know. It’s an annual affair. Bank sends a new batch every December. I wrote it, by the way. The lecture, I mean.”
“You work here…at Chatham House?”
“No one actually works in the building except for admin and staff. But, yes, I do work for Chatham House. Fellows do their research elsewhere and come to share it with other members, or, in this case, the lambs being led to slaughter.”
Chatham House, officially known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, took its offices in a bland, four-story brick building, hardly differing from those on either side, that had been home to three prime ministers: William Pitt the Elder, Edward Stanley, and William Gladstone. Its charter gave its aims as the advancement of international politics, the investigation of international questions by means of lectures and discussion, and the exchange of information, knowledge, and thought on international affairs. It was widely regarded as the finest think tank in the world.
“If you wrote it, why didn’t you deliver the lecture?”
A raised brow. A look that said,Seriously? You don’t think I’d fall for that.“You were supposed to have been impressed by the former chancellor of the exchequer and the head of the World Bank. Paragons of your world. I don’t think a twenty-four-year-old doctoral candidate can compete.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Simon. “I’d listen to you.”
“I’d make certain you did.”
“I liked the talk. I did, really.”
“I believed you the first time. Not sure about the second.” The smile faded, her gaze much too frank. “But will you take it to heart? Me, I live in an ivory tower. You, you’re out there in the real world. Where are you being posted, anyway?”
“Private banking.”
“The front lines. Face-to-face with the enemy.”
“The enemy?”
“The wealthiest of the wealthy. What’s the minimum deposit these days? Fifty million? A hundred? To get that kind of money, you have to have set aside your morals long ago.”
“That’s a cynical way of looking at the world.”
“Machiavellian is more like it, though I’d prefer plain realistic. You look like you understand what that means. Not one of those pink-cheeked cherubs from Eton or Winchester, are you?”
“No.”
