Killer Focus (20 page)

She stopped for a set of lights. She could see Tate's rental two cars ahead.

“If I'd gotten to your work computer in time, you would never have been shot.”

The back of her neck tingled. Of all the angles she had considered, protection hadn't been one of them. “How do you know that?”

The accepted story was that Lopez had put out a contract on her. Fischer was implying that he knew she was in danger at her workplace. She had only worked that out after she'd found the fake surveillance reports. She braked for a red light. “You're working with Bayard to isolate the mole.”

“I'm sorry you got shot. I knew you weren't the mole, and I knew something was on. I should have realized the hit was in progress.”

“How did you know I wasn't the mole?”

“I read your profile. It didn't make sense.”

The light turned green. Frowning, Taylor accelerated, keeping the car ahead in sight. “You were searching for the mole, so you started surveiling me.”

A cell phone buzzed. He took a call, his answers curt. When he was finished, he put the phone back into his jeans pocket, folded his arms across his chest and settled back in the seat. “I was searching for the mole
and
surveiling you.”

The point was small, but it underlined the fact that he hadn't ever thought she was the mole. After everything that had happened it shouldn't matter that Fischer, at least, had believed in her. “Why did you sleep with me?”

Something flashed in his eyes and she had an answer she hadn't expected.

“If you don't want the answers, stop asking questions.”

Taylor stared directly ahead, glued to Tate's taillights. She had been comfortable when she had viewed Fischer as emotionally locked down and ruthless. He had been a known quantity. Now the fact that he had slept with her because he wanted her had thrown her into a quandary. She didn't know if she could cope with the fact that he had been honestly turned-on.

He signaled that she should pull over into a parking space. A softly glowing sign indicated that the building was a medical center.

Taylor parked directly behind Tate and Shaw. Seconds later Tate popped the trunk and extracted a shirt from an overnight bag.

Pushing the passenger-side door open, Fischer stepped out onto the street. Tate, who was now wearing a jacket in deference to the evening chill, tossed him the clean shirt. Fischer shrugged into the shirt, buttoned it and slipped the handgun into the waistband at the rear of his jeans.

According to the sign on the door, the center had closed at five, but the foyer was lit. When Fischer rapped on the glass a tall, lean Hispanic man appeared and let them in.

Within twenty minutes Schroeder's wound was cleaned and bandaged and Dr. Mateo, an exnaval doctor, had injected him with a painkiller and antibiotics. He handed Fischer packages from the dispensary: more antibiotics, painkillers and fresh dressings.

A cell phone rang as they were leaving the medical center.

Schroeder, a sheen of sweat covering his face, picked up the call. The conversation was brief. “That was le Clerc. He's agreed to a meeting tomorrow in D.C. Dupont Circle, Q Street and Nineteenth, twelve-thirty sharp. He'll find you.”

Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.

I
n the milling, eclectic crowd of tourists and office workers, all enjoying the sunny fall day, le Clerc shouldn't have been noticeable. He wasn't tall, just over medium height, lean and tanned with dark hair graying at the temples. But to Taylor the qualities that had made him a legend for more than two decades marked him.

Fischer's hand landed on the small of her back, urging her forward. The touch was light, but warm enough to burn through the light cotton of her dress. Le Clerc wasn't alone. Two young, muscular men, dressed in suits, flanked him.

When le Clerc's eyes met hers, Taylor also recognized another fact: le Clerc knew what
she
looked like.

Instead of the handshake he gave Fischer, le Clerc held her hand in a brief clasp and executed a small, formal bow. “Ms. Jones. I'm glad to see you're recovered.”

Le Clerc's voice was neutral, the accent generic European, which made sense. Since knocking over a Swiss bank in Bern back in the seventies, he had lived a wealthy but itinerant life. Rumor had it that he had resided in a number of locations, including a seagoing yacht, but his whereabouts had never been reliably confirmed.

“Please pass on my regards to Esther Morell's daughter.”

“I no longer have contact with Rina.”

Le Clerc lifted a brow as if he didn't quite believe her. The exchange was subtle and unexpected. Le Clerc was letting her know how informed he was, not only about her but about Rina, and suddenly Taylor knew that everything that had been surmised about le Clerc's relationship with Esther Morell was correct.

Back in 1972, directly before he had committed the series of crimes that had sent shock waves through the international banking community, he had been dating Esther. Given le Clerc's legendary talent for carrying out faultless operations, romancing the woman who had been auditing his affairs on the eve of the theft had been one of the riskier things he had done. Twelve years later, helping Esther steal billions of dollars from one of Lopez's offshore accounts had come a close second. The reason he had risked himself both times was simple: Xavier le Clerc had been in love with Esther.

Le Clerc shifted his attention to Schroeder, who was seated in the shade of an adjacent café, his arm in a sling. Tate sat a few tables away. Le Clerc's expression cooled perceptibly as his focus swung back to Fischer. Civility aside, he hadn't liked that his man had been hurt. “You have the book.”

Fischer's expression behind dark glasses was remote as he scanned the lunchtime crowd. “We have Dennison and the book. Tell your man he can take Schroeder.”

Le Clerc nodded his head at a muscular young man, dressed in a loose tank and baggy chinos, who hadn't made it past Shaw. As he walked slowly toward Schroeder, the tension escalated. Taylor had known that le Clerc would have more men stationed in the area. The question was, how many?

During the chartered flight out of El Paso last night she had learned enough about le Clerc to view him with more than a little respect. According to Fischer, he headed a tight, sophisticated network with established connections to MI6, the French Secret Service and Mossad. That was one of the key reasons he had survived. He acted outside of the law, but he got the job done without any of the international agencies having to get their hands dirty. Schroeder was an example of the quality and skill base of le Clerc's network. He was Swiss born, with a degree in political science from the Sorbonne. He was fluent in a number of languages, including Russian.

Le Clerc watched as Schroeder was helped into a nearby vehicle. “The book went on the market this morning. The bidding started at ten million.” He smiled faintly. “U.S. dollars only. Europe hasn't yet woken up.”

Fischer looked briefly at Tate. “We gave Dennison some rope, enough to get the bidding started and draw Lopez and the cabal in. So far we haven't had a hit.”

Taylor watched as Tate drifted out onto the sidewalk. Dennison was holed up in a seedy motel in the Mexican town of Lucero, just south of El Paso. Since he'd checked in, according to Wells, he hadn't done anything except order in food, lay low and make phone calls. Lopez hadn't entered into the equation, closing out the slim possibility that Dennison had been running an errand.

Le Clerc's expression didn't alter. He produced a newspaper he had been carrying under his arm, unfolded it and handed it to Fischer. “Dennison may have the book, but the value is…compromised.”

The front-page story was a speculative piece about two prominent but reclusive businessmen who had died within days of each other, one of a suspected poisoning, the second a straight-out shooting. It had been discovered that both homicide victims had had numbers tattooed on their backs, and the numbers ran
consecutively.
Even more bizarrely, the men looked alike, so much so that doctors speculated they could be twins, even though they came from two entirely different families. An investigation was in progress. DNA samples had been sent away for testing.

Taylor noted the date on the paper. It was this morning's edition, which meant le Clerc had probably bought it on his way to the meeting. At this point the dead men couldn't positively be identified as cabal members, but the chance that they weren't was ludicrously small.

Fischer handed the paper back to le Clerc. “There's a copy of the ledger.”

Le Clerc folded the paper and slipped it neatly back under his arm. “And our friend has been putting it to good use.”

It made sense. Lopez had taken the book to El Paso to put together a deal after the cabal had issued an execution order on him, but he hadn't wanted to risk losing his only chip in the big game. He had made a copy before he had left Bogotá, which meant Dennison's auction was a blind alley.

The reason behind Lopez's inactivity since El Paso was now also plain. He had been busy tracking down the members of the cabal. Now he had declared open season and was picking them off one by one, and with each death he was closing down avenues and destroying leads. The cabal were scrambling to protect the members that were left. In the space of a few days Lopez was invalidating years of surveillance and undercover work.

Fischer took his phone out of his pocket and made a call.

Le Clerc's gaze was sharp. “Keep your men in place. Lopez is taking out some key players, but he won't succeed in wiping out the entire cabal because of one simple fact. Reichmann and his daughter were never included in the book.”

Fischer slipped his phone in his pocket. “She controls the accounts. That's how she's managed to retain her power.”

“That's correct. In reality, Helene Reichmann
is
the cabal.”

Taylor shook her head, trying to come to grips with the politics of a woman who sounded more monster than human. “What accounts?” To transcend the threat of the book, the money had to be huge, and the possible origins of that kind of wealth made her feel queasy.

Le Clerc looked faintly surprised. “The accounts into which Reichmann transferred the money he stole from the Jews. Estimates at the end of the war varied from one point five to three billion pounds sterling.”

Taylor blinked. Pounds sterling was the English definition of a billion, which was another three zeroes on from the American. When le Clerc said a billion, he wasn't talking a thousand million, he was talking a
million
million. And those estimates were arrived at over sixty years ago, back in the nineteen forties. By now, even with minimal interest, the figure would be astronomical.

Suddenly the intense drive behind le Clerc's crusade came into sharp focus. He wasn't only hunting his father's killers. He was intent on achieving justice on a much wider scale by restoring the stolen wealth to the remnants of the families Reichmann had condemned to the death camps.

Le Clerc reached into his suit jacket and extracted a card. “You have Dennison. I want the book.” He handed Fischer the card, which was blank except for a handwritten cell phone number.

With a brief inclination of his head, he turned on his heel and, flanked by his men, melted into the crowd.

Fischer nodded at two men sitting at a nearby table. Within seconds they'd merged into the lunchtime crowd, following le Clerc.

Fischer slipped the card into his shirt pocket. “It'll be interesting to see how long Sheldon and Cole last. Le Clerc's security spotted them while we were talking.”

Fischer's hand settled on the small of her back and they were moving again, this time in the direction of the car. The unsettling intimacy of the light touch started a tension of a different kind. In deference to the crisp, sunny day and the location, they were dressed as tourists, Fischer in a light shirt and pants, Taylor wearing a dress and low heels, but the charade that they were a couple was no longer required. Adjusting the strap of her bag from one shoulder to the other, she stepped slightly to one side, dislodging his hand. “I've just got one question. Why didn't either Chavez or Lopez use the book until now?”

“Marco didn't want a war, he preferred an insurance policy. Lopez didn't know about the book until Marco's accountant died and it surfaced in Bogotá.”

Shaw, who had gone to get the car, pulled up at the curb. Fischer opened the rear passenger-side door. Taylor slid into the seat, then had to move over when Fischer moved in beside her, his thigh brushing hers.

When Fischer's gaze connected with hers, she was certain the contact had been deliberate. “We're picking up Tate.”

Which meant Tate would take the front passenger seat. But that still didn't explain why Fischer had chosen to sit beside her.

Unless he had wanted to.

She stared at a passing cab as Shaw pulled smoothly into traffic. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions, but she couldn't deny certain facts. Fischer was in a position of command, running a team of seasoned professionals. He'd had no need to get personally close to her. Or sleep with her.

In sleeping with her he hadn't gained anything for his investigation. All he had done was complicate it. Added to that, having sex with a surveillance subject was not a career-enhancing move.

Her reasoning could be wrong. Fischer had fooled her in Cold Peak. Where he was concerned, none of her usual instincts functioned.

A small, rhythmic vibration registered above the noise of the vehicle.

Fischer picked up the call. “Damn. Tate's on Seventeenth and Corcoran. We've lost le Clerc.”

“But not for long.”

His gaze was remote. “That's right. We have the book.”

Leverage.

In Fischer's world, she had to wonder if that was the only thing that counted.