Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

Bertone punched out and waited. While he waited, he watched while a former Ukrainian army sniper and his spotter, a Latino gangster named Gabriel, were stuffed into separate squad cars. Bertone wasn’t worried about what they would tell the Chandler Police Department. Both men had already proved their ability to shut up many times.

And if they did talk, there were always men in prison who were eager to kill. The Ukrainian knew it. Gabriel knew it.

But the person Bertone really wanted to kill was walking away, laughing with a teenage boy. Bertone didn’t recognize the boy, but he recognized Faroe as a man rumored to be a St. Kilda operative.

St. Kilda Consulting, which had been hired several months ago by John Neto to get revenge on Andre Bertone.

It could be simple coincidence.

Bertone wasn’t going to bet his life on it.

He was still thinking about the unhappy implications of Faroe’s appearance when Steve Foley knocked on the passenger-side window. Bertone hit the unlock button.

Foley took one look at Bertone’s face and really wished he could be somewhere else. But he couldn’t, so he slid in.

“I didn’t hear any shots,” Foley said.

“Be grateful. If you had, you’d be dead.”

“Listen, I haven’t done anything but follow your-”

“Shut it.”

Foley swallowed hard. On the way from the restaurant to the car, he’d thought about his own situation. He wanted out.

Alive.

He was just a banker, no more or less honest than his corporate bosses and his wealthy clients required him to be. The money-laundering laws were flexible. They seemed designed more to shield clever bankers than to prevent illegal or immoral financial transactions. But at the same time, the laws provided steep penalties for bankers and banks that got caught sneaking around them.

Kayla had been his cover. As long as she was alive and talking, he was on short time as a free man.

“Did you correct the problem?” Bertone asked coldly.

Foley reached underneath his shirt and ripped out the wire, transmitter, and tiny microphone. “You know I didn’t.”

“You told me I would have ready access to that account at any moment. Then you told me weekends weren’t included. Then you tell me that the account has a password, and you don’t know that password. Now tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“I was wrong about the capability of the remote access system,” Foley said quickly. “But I’ll take care of it as soon as I get the password from Kayla. The CHIPS transfers to Romania and the Czech Republic will clear immediately. The Russian transfer will take longer. That’s just the nature of using SWIFT wires-”

“Your banker’s codes and acronyms don’t impress me,” Bertone cut in. “Do you believe what Kayla told you?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. She’s not all that smart. You heard her try to put the arm on me for more money. She believes she’s getting what she wants, so why should she lie to me?”

“Her new boyfriend. Did he have words with a tall man who was with a teenage boy?”

Foley blinked. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“The man is Joe Faroe, probably an agent for St. Kilda Consulting.”

“Never heard of them.”

“You’ve never heard of a lot of things that can kill you.”

Foley shifted uncomfortably. “So where does Gabriel come into this? I thought he was supposed to take care of Kayla when she left the restaurant.”

“The police arrested Gabriel and the Ukrainian before they could get Kayla.”

“What?” Foley leaned against the dashboard with one hand like he was dizzy. “How?”

“How doesn’t matter. In the end, the police and St. Kilda did you a favor.”

Foley looked blank.

“If she had died without giving up the password, I would have taken great pleasure in killing you myself,” Bertone said matter-of-factly.

“You’ve lost me, Andre. You’re leaping all over the place.”

“A retarded child could lose you. Obviously St. Kilda has a wire into the bank. Is it you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Bertone said something in Russian, then switched back to English. “You’re too shallow, so I must assume it is Kayla who talks to St. Kilda.”

Shaking his head again, Foley rubbed his hands against the black jeans. He wasn’t liking anything he was hearing. None of it made sense.

“Look, I don’t know about this St. Kilda, so how did Kayla?” he asked. “I mean, I suppose she could be some kind of undercover, but it doesn’t make sense. Hell, nothing does. This isn’t my world anymore.”

“It is now.”

Foley frowned and rubbed his palms rhythmically across his jeans. “You sure the tall guy wasn’t a fed? That’d make sense.”

“If federal agents have anything going, I will know it as soon as they do,” Bertone said. He lit a cigar. “St. Kilda Consulting is private.”

“Private? Like private eyes? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Unfortunately, I am not.” He drew hard and exhaled the same way, filling the car with rich smoke.

Foley hit the window button. Nothing happened. He looked at the key, but didn’t have enough nerve to reach into Bertone’s space to turn on the windows.

“St. Kilda Consulting is very sophisticated and well financed.” Bertone blew more smoke and watched Foley squirm. “They have been retained by an African government that is close to being replaced by a rebel insurgency based in a neighboring country.”

“Who cares?” Foley muttered. “It’s Africa, for chrissake.”

“Precisely. Such things happen all the time in that part of the world. Unhappily, this potential target for regime change retained a private military and security company to press its interests on the worldwide stage.”

“Expensive.”

“A lot cheaper than war, actually. Pity, that. In any case, St. Kilda’s efforts have been quite successful. They are the principal reason I felt compelled to enlist you and your bank in my operation.”

“Christ,” Foley said, putting his face in his hands. “What have you dragged me into-some kind of international spook party? I want out. I want out now!”

“There is nothing I would like better than to remove my money from your bank at the speed of light,” Bertone said.

Foley looked relieved.

Bertone kept talking. “Then I would be free to kill you.”

Pallor swept over the banker’s skin.

“Ah,” Bertone said. “I see I have your full attention. Finally. I have more than a hundred million of my own dollars invested in a game whose stakes you cannot imagine. I have enlisted the assistance of government officials in several countries, including your own. I am in quiet contact with international corporations of a size to make your bank’s entire worth look meager. No doubt people will die before this business is concluded. I assume you would like to avoid being one of the bodies. Correct?”

Sweat showed on Foley’s forehead. “Shit, yes. I’m in over my head, but I’ve got to keep swimming.”

“Good, you are beginning to think like a man,” Bertone said.

“As soon as the mainframe comes online at the bank Monday, I’ll make sure the money gets transferred. Just tell me where to send it.”

Bertone thought for a long moment, smoking, thinking.

“Assumptions,” he said quietly. “Assumptions. They are the source of most serious mistakes in life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Foley asked.

“You have assumed Kayla Shaw told you the truth. We have recently seen that she is not to be trusted. Why should we do so now?”

There was a long silence.

“I take that as agreement,” Bertone said.

Foley was glad Bertone’s attention had switched to Kayla. “Thinking about it now, she might have been lying,” Foley said.

“About what?”

Foley hesitated, thinking fast. “About the reason I couldn’t get access. She said it was because correspondent accounts aren’t configured for remote access transactions. But how does she know that? She isn’t even authorized for remote access.”

“You think she was trying to mislead you?”

“Yeah. It’s possible.”

“To what end?”

“How the hell would I know? Isn’t that the whole point of lying-to mislead?”

“Then guess,” Bertone said.

“Maybe she was trying to buy time.”

“To what purpose?”

“If she’s involved with the international PI outfit, or whatever it is, maybe they’re planning something down the line.”

“Such as?” Bertone questioned, watching the other man closely.

“Uh…” Foley rubbed his sweaty palms over his jeans. “The feds often try to freeze accounts when they suspect money laundering. Maybe that’s it.”

Bertone was motionless but for a long exhalation of smoke. “Interesting. Tell me more.”

“It happened one time, about a year ago. DEA and the IRS traced a Mexican drug lord’s money to an account in our private bank. The first thing I knew of it was when an IRS enforcement agent walked into my office with an order from a federal judge in Tucson, freezing the account.”

“Go on.”

“I called the bank’s corporate counsel, and he told me I had no choice but to shut down all access to the account. We ended up sitting on about two million bucks for almost three months while the client’s attorney fought the order in federal court.”

“Did the client win?”

“No, but it turned out pretty well for the bank. We had use of the money and never did have to pay the client interest. In the end, the feds took the money and we got a little smack on the wrist for being sloppy.”

“I find my sympathies are with the client. Were it to happen to me, the banker would suffer a great deal more than a smack on the wrist.” Bertone’s back teeth chewed the end of the cigar.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Foley said hurriedly. “But that case taught me to be careful about whose name is on account documents as the banker. I gave your accounts to Kayla because I didn’t want another laundering case tracked back to me.”

“So you knew about this possibility, and you didn’t mention it to me,” Bertone said around the mangled end of the cigar. “You should have told me before I entered into this arrangement with you. I had no idea American Southwest was so careless with the client’s money.”

“Give me a break,” Foley said. “You’re a big boy. You ought to know how the business works.”

“I conduct ‘business’ all over the world. My bankers always find a way to protect my interests as well as their own. That protection is the job of the banker, first and foremost. I do not hire bankers to be puppets of the local or federal police.”

“We protect our clients until we’re served with a federal restraining order. Then”-Foley shrugged-“we follow the letter of the law.”

Bertone smoked in silence. He had investigated America’s money-laundering laws just enough to know how to get around them. The nuances of the laws hadn’t mattered then.

They mattered now.

“Are restraining orders like moving money?” Bertone asked. “Can it only occur during normal business hours?”

Foley nodded. “They sure can’t just be shoved under the front door of the nearest local branch bank. There are proprieties to be observed, or our lawyers will feed the feds their restraining order and make them eat it.”

Bertone stubbed out his cigar. “Then we must be certain the account has been emptied before the FBI and the IRS can act.”

“I can’t do anything before Monday morning.”

“So says Kayla Shaw. You will test her words.”

“Look,” Foley said wearily. “I’ve already tried everything I can think of on the remote-access portal.”

“Then go to the bank. Try it there.”

“But-”

“Call me as soon as you arrive.”

All Foley really heard was the chance to escape. He reached for the door handle. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Just before the door closed, Bertone said clearly, “Do not make the mistake of thinking that Gabriel is the only killer I control.”

Foley shut the door and forced himself to walk, not run, away.

Chandler Mall

Sunday

11:55 A.M. MST

Rand hung up his cell phone and crowded Kayla into a little alcove behind a towering potted plant.

“Grace can’t believe that you just realized you have Bertone by the short and curlies,” he said against her ear. “I’m having a tough time myself.”

“That’s because you’re not an honest banker.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” He oofed softly when her elbow met his belly.