It was not to be. After a few knocks, the reader came back to life. Simon’s passport sailed through with flying colors. Down came the stamp.
“Welcome to Singapore, Mr. Ledoux.”
Khop khun,Major Rudi.
Khop khun,D’Art, for sending the twenty thousand in U.S. “grease.”
A thirty-minute taxi ride took Simon across the island, north to south, to London Li’s apartment: “14 Fort Road, unit 6F, purchased by London Li 12 July 2019—for S$2,100,000,” stated the publicly listed property records.
Yesterday he’d sent an email to herFTaddress. It had read:
Rafael de Bourbon, Spanish national killed in the Bangkok embassy shooting, was the individual who supplied you with confidential information regarding crimes he discovered while an employee of PetroSaud in Geneva, Switzerland. His murder, that of Paul Malloy, another PetroSaud employee, in Switzerland several days earlier, and the other victims killed at the Spanish embassy yesterday were ordered to prevent knowledge of PetroSaud’s role in helping multiple sovereign wealth funds defraud investors of billions of dollars from becoming public. Others know of your involvement. Your life is in imminent danger. Seek protection.
Upon landing this morning in Malaysia, he’d phoned theFTat the first available moment and left a message on London Li’s voice mail.
He had not attached his name to either message. He had to assume her email had been compromised, as he’d assumed his own was. For now, Shaka and those he worked for thought Simon dead. He did not want to disabuse them of the notion.
As of yet, he’d had no response to either communication.
A gate squeaked and Simon turned to see a man passing through the side entrance. Simon moved quickly, catching the handle before the gate closed and entering the compound. The front door to the building stood open. He walked in uncontested and took a waiting elevator to the sixth floor.
He knocked, checking his phone, seeing that she had still not responded. “Ms. Li. Are you home?”
He waited an appropriate time, then tried the door. The handle turned easily. Unlocked. Simon opened the door warily, cocked his head to listen. The place was silent except for the thrum of the air conditioner. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
It was a small flat, modern, aggressively clean. He had a view across a sitting area—L-shaped sofa, stone coffee table, Kentia palms in the corners—and into her bedroom. An upright piano stood against the opposite wall. The sheet music was for a Chopin nocturne. It was also upside down.
He noted that the pillows on the sofa and chair were askew. A man’s touch, to be sure.
Someone had been here before him.
Adjacent to the sitting area was an open-style kitchen, as large as a sailing boat’s galley. He found a recently used Keurig in the trash and a fresh banana peel. London Li was in town. To be safe, he slid a carving knife from the block. He’d been premature to believe the apartment to be unoccupied.
He crept toward the bedroom. The queen-sized bed was neatly made. The night tables bare. Something tickled his nose. His eyes began to water. He buried his face in the lee of his arm and muffled the sneeze, and the one after it. On the terrace were two bowls, one with water, the other dry food. London Li was a cat lover. But where was the cat?
He continued down an abbreviated hallway. In an alcove, he found a home office. The desk was immaculate, not a single paper, pen, or rubber band in sight. Several drawers were not entirely closed. A cursory check showed them to be empty…and the file drawer cleaned out. Not her doing. Already he knew that.
Simon kneeled to look under the desk and noted a piece of paper that had fallen over the back. He stretched his arm and freed it. He switched on a reading lamp. The front page of a prospectus for a Malaysian investment fund called Future Malaysia being led by Harrington-Weiss. He was not surprised. A reporter of London Li’s reputation would jump to investigate fraud of this magnitude. Rafa had chosen well.
Then he saw it. On the desk’s matte-black surface was a hair. Blond, slightly kinked, short. He didn’t require confirmation, but there it was.
He sneezed again, blinking back tears.
A door at the end of the hall led to a bathroom. He turned on the lights. A look. A gasp. He shut the door. He had found London Li’s cat. It lay in the toilet dead, its head turned all the way round.
Chapter 40
Ingolstadt, Germany
Razor wire.
The first thing Mattias noticed was the tall, forbidding mesh fence surrounding the complex of stucco buildings and the dense coils of razor wire running from end to end atop it. It took him a moment to spy the second fence inside the first, this one not as tall, and with doors cut into it. Security guards stood nearby—no weapons but sturdy white batons hanging from their belts. He didn’t know how many people wandered the enclosure—hundreds, maybe a thousand. Some men had gotten up a game of soccer, playing on a patch of grass run to dirt. They were mostly black, though he saw a few white faces.
Omar, his midnight chauffeur, found the parking lot. A sign on the main building read,IMMIGRANT PROCESSING AND ANCHOR CENTER, INGOLSTADT.
Mattias walked into the building alone.
“We are full.” A young bearded man sat at a metal desk littered with notebooks and papers. “You must go to the police station and register. They will take you to another camp at the far side of town. Not as nice, I’m afraid. We do what we can.”
