“You’re sure…reporters, messy business.”
“Nothing else to be done. And this time tell him to keep things manageable. None of this savage nonsense. Nice and neat.”
“Understood.”
“I know you’re worried, Hadrian. In a few days, this will be behind us. The world will have more important things to think about.”
“Cheers to that.”
Luca Borgia lowered his voice. “Did you put the shorts on?”
“A hundred mil in our joint account. Mostly index funds. Dow, DAX, Hang Seng, Nikkei. All the big ones. I’m guessing markets will tank five to seven percent Monday morning before bouncing back.”
“Is this considered insider trading? Wouldn’t want to do anything illegal.”
“Just admirable foresight. Something like it was bound to happen sometime.”
“Exactly my thoughts, Hadrian. Anyhow, I will see you and Bea soon enough. Give her a kiss from me. And remember, tell him it must appear to be an accident. Like our friend, Malloy. He’s a commando, for goodness’ sake. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I will and I will.”
“Prato—”
“Luca, stop. Remember, I’m just in it for the money.”
Lester hung up. Forcing a smile, he poked his head out of the office. “Darling, get me that journo on the line…London Li. I’m going to make her day.”
A minute later, Lester’s phone rang. He swooped in to answer. “Ms. Li, Hadrian Lester. What a pleasure. Tell you what. Why don’t we meet and have a chat? I understand you have some questions about a few of the sovereign wealth funds we’ve brought to market…No, not here. I can’t spend every hour of the day cooped up in this velvet birdcage. How about Tanjong market? My schedule opened up unexpectedly. We can talk as we stroll, maybe grab a bite.On me…or does that count as bribery? How does four o’clock sound? Perfect. Cheers.”
Lester dropped the phone in the cradle. When he turned, the smile was gone from his face. He strode across his palatial office and looked at the man seated by the window. “Well, well, Mr. Kruger,” he said. “Looks like you’re back in business. The boss is none too happy with how things went in Bangkok. Asked me to tell you not to muck it up this time. ‘None of this savage nonsense’ were his words. She’s the last of our problems. With her out of the way, it’s smooth sailing. Oh, and if you can find a way to gather up her papers, computer, that sort of thing, all the better. Tanjong market. Four p.m. Not far from here. Know it?”
The killer’s pale blue eyes met his. Damned unnerving, though he’d never admit it.
“Here’s an idea. Don’t you boys in South Africa have some type of dart gun you can use?” Lester mimicked putting a tube to his mouth and blowing. “Nice and neat. Curare, isn’t it? Oh well, you know better than me.”
Shaka smiled.Not a bad idea, but…“Actually,” he said, standing and approaching Lester, menace in his eyes. “We natives have something better than a blow dart. It’s called a panga. Like a machete, but longer and sharper. Very helpful in the bush where I come from.” He threw a hand up and took hold of Lester’s neck, measuring it, squeezing and squeezing harder. He could lift the man off his feet if he wanted to. “A tall runt like you, I could take your head off in two blows. Chop. Chop. Maybe not as neat as you’d like, but more fun.”
He released Lester and walked to the door. A look over his shoulder.One last thing:“Don’t ever tell me how to do my job.”
Chapter 39
Singapore
Simon stood on the sidewalk looking up at the apartment building. A tall metal gate guarded access to the driveway. An attached mesh door to admit pedestrians was locked. He walked a short way down the block, considering his options. It was past one in the afternoon. The sky was growing hazy, clouds moving in from the south, the salt tang from the Straits of Singapore sharp in his nostrils.
It had been a difficult night. On Major Rudi’s advice, he’d chartered a twin-engine turboprop to fly down the Malay Peninsula. An hour out of Pattaya, they hit rough weather. A cell of thunderstorms forced them to seek out the nearest airstrip. Winds buffeted the plane up, down, and sideways. The stall alarm sounded, as loud as a foghorn. With an unsteady grin, the pilot assured him this was only moderate turbulence. That was when the water bottles and the maps and everything that was not secured bounced off the ceiling. Simon thanked him and made use of his air-sickness bag. He decided that he and the pilot had different definitions of “moderate.” Twelve hours later, his forearms still ached from clutching his armrests. Until then, he’d thought himself a good flyer.
The pilot put down on a jungle airstrip, having to buzz the runway twice in order for his radio to remotely activate the landing lights. There was no tower. On the ground, they’d sought refuge inside a large palapa hut, no windows, the rain slashing horizontally through the place, drenching them. The pilot tasted the wind, let Simon know that they were not going anywhere soon, lay down beneath a wooden picnic-style table, and, after flicking away a centipede as long as a bobby’s nightstick, declared that there was room for Simon, too.
With nowhere else to escape the downpour, Simon lay down beside him, where he spent hours reading through Rafa’s stolen files. He flitted between emails, texts, memos, notifications from financial institutions, and much more. It didn’t take much time for him to gain a clearer picture of PetroSaud’s activities. The company had been created as a front to camouflage theft on a massive scale. It wasn’t entirely dishonest. It actually conducted a fair amount of reputable business. In other words, it really did sell leases to extant wells. But Rafa hadn’t died to protect the honest side of the business. He’d been killed to stop outside parties from learning about the other side.
Like any good piece of thievery, at its core it was simple. You want money, rob a bank. You need wheels, steal a car. In other words, go to the source. The plan had been hatched by an executive at HW named Hadrian Lester, who with the help of a friend in Switzerland, a Saudi national named Tarek Al-Obeidi, had set up PetroSaud with the express purpose of stealing money from sovereign wealth funds. What made it so ingenious was how few people were required to steal so large an amount of money. Three: Lester, Al-Obeidi, and the individual who ran the wealth fund. Each took their cut. Later more were brought in, namely Rafa’s colleagues, like Paul Malloy. Simon had worked in a bank. He knew that Lester had to have a few helpers at HW on his payroll as well. Lots of intelligent people would be reading the documentation. If no one else, the legal eagles at the investment bank would spot something amiss. But not right away.
One element, however, defied Simon’s every effort to understand it. Lester had insisted that fund managers transfer a significant portion of their ill-gotten gains to a numbered account at the Bank of Liechtenstein—flagged in the “special instructions” box of wire transfers as either “PB” or, on two occasions, “Prato Bornum.” Intrigued, he’d looked up the term but was no more satisfied than before. It was only when he remembered Shaka’s words at the riverbank that he began to have some understanding of what he might be looking at, however vague.
Finally, he’d fallen asleep.
At dawn, under clear skies, they took off for Johor Bahru, landing at an abandoned airstrip on the eastern edge of the Malay Peninsula two hours later. There was no customs control and Simon took a taxi to the ferry, then crossed the channel and touched foot on Singaporean soil. A tense moment as Simon’s passport was scanned by immigration control and the machine failed to read its biometric chip. Officials were summoned to diagnose the problem. At one point five men in the navy-blue uniform of Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority huddled around the errant machine. Standing there like a sheep led to slaughter, Simon remembered Major Rudi patiently unfolding the sheet with his likeness on it. Strangely, he felt only calm. It was too late. He couldn’t run. If Thailand had shared Simon’s likeness with its neighbors, he would be identified and arrested.
