The Blood Lance (11 page)

A shout went up from a group of young salesman-types. 'Jack! Jack! Jack!' Old ladies were smiling.

Chernoff, the report continued, was wanted for questioning in at least. . .' Malloy missed the number, drowned out by the fraternity of good will for the Runaway Billionaire. He heard '. . .Russian and East European businessmen with ties to
organised crime.' They said nothing about activities in the West.

He turned away from the screen and took a moment to reflect on Jack Farrell's exalted status. Jane was right. With Chernoff coming into it, the story was getting legs. It wasn't going to fade away after the arrest. The media was going to keep looking for something new, something controversial. A CIA conspiracy to entrap an American icon? That would do the trick.

And when
that
broke, Jane was done - along with everyone riding her coat-tails.

On the flight to Hamburg, via London as it happened, Malloy went through the FBI summaries Gil had sent him.

Farrell had been missing from his Manhattan townhouse thirty-six hours before NYPD contacted the FBI. There was no sign of trouble, just an unmade bed and clothing left lying on the floor. He looked at digital photos of the apartment. Jack Farrell had lived the good life. Malloy skimmed down the material until he came across Irina Turner, the assistant who shared the first few days of Farrell's run. He found her image and bio. She had worked just over a couple of months as Farrell's administrative assistant. Turner was a pretty blonde, age thirty-two, education. . . no information available. A Lithuanian national with American citizenship since 2000. The citizenship came after her marriage to Harry Turner, an American businessman who travelled frequently to the Baltic countries. Divorced four years later. Nothing else on Harry Turner. . .

He went back to the narrative of Farrell's movements. Nothing from his cell phone since the run, though it was missing. No credit card use. Twelve hours into the Missing Person search an FBI support team discovered Farrell had looted the cash reserves of three insurance companies he owned. Curiously, that had occurred six weeks prior to his run. Malloy considered the matter. Seven weeks ago, the SEC was
gearing up for interviews and requesting that Farrell provide them with certain of his financial records. Farrell had been starting to feel the pressure, but he should not have panicked. The amount looted was sixty million, serious money, but as it turned out just the beginning.

Less than a week after he tapped the insurance reserves, one of Farrell's trading companies in Europe purchased a little over fifty million dollars of platinum and immediately sold it to a German automaker. This was a routine transaction, but the money received was wired to a newly created cash pool. From there the money bounced into various accounts, then became untraceable. There were more moves like this in the same company over the next two weeks. The same thing happened in some of the commodity companies in which Farrell had controlling interest. Ten here, thirty there. No one was getting overly excited. It was just business as usual and a few million falling through the cracks. It was the kind of theft anyone in business could execute, the downside being it was going to catch up with the perpetrator quickly, unless of course one arranged to disappear.

Malloy had not realised Farrell had been preparing for his vanishing act for weeks. He should have. You don't put half-a-billion dollars in your suitcase or melt down ten tons of gold and carry it off in the boot of your car. And you don't make it all go away with the press of a button. You work at it. You plan out the financial moves. You keep the red flags to a minimum for as long as you can. You take out a loan you don't intend to repay, you miss a payroll, you lose the paperwork on a wire transfer. You send people looking in the wrong places. You create problems with a shipment and withhold payment until the problem is settled and then wire the funds to a holding account. From there on to the Caymans or Panama City or Nicosia or Beirut or Liechtenstein or any other country where banking officials are permitted or encouraged to refuse access to Western law enforcement agencies. Some here. Some there. And all the while the clock is ticking. Farrell's whole
world had been ready to come crashing down on him the moment people in his various enterprises began talking to each other about the problems they were suddenly having.

In Montreal Farrell had got new identities for himself and Irina Turner. He then flew a private jet to Barcelona, though the flight was originally scheduled to Ireland. Less than a week after Farrell's disappearance, Irina Turner surfaced and was arrested by the Spanish
Federates
on false document charges. The FBI was invited to Spain to conduct interviews. Malloy didn't have the actual transcripts but he read the summaries. Turner was cooperative and gave enough detail that the FBI could trace Farrell's movement from New York to Barcelona. So they knew where he had been but not where he had got his false documents or, more importantly, where he was going.

Soon after Irina Turner surfaced, the Hamburg Police received an anonymous call from a public telephone telling them Jack Farrell was at the Royal Meridien. The Royal Meridien was a five star hotel in the heart of Hamburg. The police staged a midnight incursion into Farrell's suite minutes after the call. They found steam on the mirrors, moist towels, rumpled and apparently well-stained sheets, a man's wallet on the bureau, passports and credit cards - everything but Jack Farrell. Within hours police had identified Farrell's new girlfriend - Helena Chernoff.

FBI Special Agents Josh Sutter and Jim Randal caught the first flight out of Barcelona and were in Hamburg by noon.

Malloy shut his computer down and tried to get some sleep. It didn't happen. There was too much he didn't like about Jack Farrell's run. By rights he should not even have known about a sealed indictment and the pending arrest, and yet he had run within hours of the indictment. Worse still was the decision to start moving money out of legitimate enterprises and into secret accounts just as the SEC started sniffing around his company's procedures. If CEOs ran every time that happened, they'd all be fugitives!

It made no sense. Besides, if Jack Farrell had truly feared what the SEC was going to find and knew they were looking at him, he ought to have moved someplace where he would be safe from extradition. He had access to at least forty or fifty million in legitimate and relatively liquid funds. With the language and business skills to earn more once he had resettled that should have been sufficient. It happened all the time. There were countries that didn't care about 'minor' infractions and welcomed billionaires and their fortunes, but once stolen money was involved, these same countries were no longer willing to protect individuals from extradition.

At this point Farrell's options were limited and uniformly unappealing. He could engage the services of a rogue nation and take his chances with a lawless dictator, or he could change his identity and settle down in obscurity somewhere in a second or third world country. Why, Malloy wondered, would an intelligent man put himself in such an unenviable position?

The Languedoc

Summer, 1931.

Dieter Bachman found Rahn at his pension quite early on the morning after their dinner together. Bachman seemed like a man about to make an unsavoury offer, but in fact simply enquired of Rahn if he would be willing to act as a guide for a few days. Rahn, not sure he understood what was expected of him, hesitated.

'There is such a lot to see,' Bachman added with an awkward smile, 'and to be blunt about it we really had not planned to tour the region, but you have ignited our interest - in the Cathars, I mean!' He added that he would pick up all of Rahn's expenses, and naturally pay Herr Rahn for his trouble. The amount he offered was well above the rates the locals charged, and Rahn took a moment before responding. One did not want to appear too eager, after all.

'There are plenty of guides about,' Rahn answered. 'Have you enquired as to their rates?'

'If one is pleased with superficial accounts, one can get a discount, I am sure. I understand that, Herr Rahn. We are not interested in that sort of thing, however. I am thinking a week or two, as your schedule allows. Some of the castles and a few of the grander caves, a bit of the history along the way, and over dinner something with an academic flavour to it so we might take something away from the experience.'

'I suppose I could do that. Certainly. It sounds like it might be a great deal of fun, actually.' And with that they shook hands.

Alone, Rahn considered the exchange. Herr Bachman's words had suggested nothing untoward, but his manner had seemed awkward, as if he were proposing a bit more than a tour through the Pyrenees. Despite his instincts toward caution, however, Rahn dismissed his concerns. Bachman was clearly not the sort who might enjoy his wife's infidelity. He was very careful of her, actually. Maybe he just wanted to become acquainted with the sensation. Flirting with disaster, so to speak. Not that a flirtation with Frau Bachman would be hard work. Not at all. Frau Bachman - Elise - was extraordinary. A dark beauty, taller than average, with a lean, athletic build, and the saucy smile of a woman who is still alive to the pleasures of the world. Not hard work, by any means! Plus she had seemed interested in everything he had said - no pretty face and empty head, that one. She was probably his age, he decided. Born in this century, at least, with the Great War being only a childhood memory. Years, maybe even a couple of decades younger than her husband, who wasn't really a bad sort, only a bit pretentious.

He had gathered from certain remarks that they had been married a few years. They were not newly-weds. More likely, they were looking for the spark that could bring back the honeymoon. As he thought about it, Rahn found himself wondering if she had married for love, security, or comfort. He
knew it had not been for the sake of their passion. Dieter Bachman came from old money from what he had indicated. That was something the rich always seemed to get across as quickly as possible. Had she been a poor girl who caught his eye? Or had she come from the kind of people who had money and wanted a better family name?

Rahn had worked hard for his summer in the French Pyrenees. He lived on a tight budget, hoping to stretch a few weeks into a month or two. Magre had tossed him a morsel with the Bachmans. After a pleasant evening of talk Rahn had managed to turn it into something of a banquet. With the money Herr Bachman had offered him, a week of work would buy him another month of study, not to mention a free ride to every ruin and medieval fortress in the region.

Along the way if a bit of flirtation with Frau Bachman developed, what was the harm? As long as no one got too serious everyone could have some fun!

'We can all fit, I hope.'

Dieter Bachman pointed toward a 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK. The vehicle was a long sleek convertible set low to the ground. Its curving front fenders looked like giant sleds to either side of an engine that ran two thirds the length of the automobile. The tiny boot could hardly provide enough space for their combined luggage, but Rahn managed to tie his own luggage across the rear bumper, and then found himself sharing a seat with the delicate Frau Bachman nearly on his lap. Herr Bachman made a joke about trusting Herr Rahn to be a true Cathar and all three of them laughed with the giddiness of adolescents starting off on a road trip.

Bachman liked to drive fast, so they tore through the countryside with Elise, Frau Bachman, jostling against Rahn until he could think of nothing but her, the fine scent of her lustrous black hair, the sweet dusky skin so close to his lips, the delicate neck, the dark, enticing eyes. She asked him once, without the slightest insinuation that she was aware of her
effect on him, if she was making a nuisance of herself. He answered bravely. Not at all!

They stopped to stretch once along the way, and before they got back in Bachman asked him purposefully, 'My wife isn't making it too hot for you, is she?' He seemed to be enjoying himself.

Rahn had directed them to the village of Ussat-les-Bains, where he had decided to show them one of the great caves of Europe. He suggested they have lunch at the
Des Marronniers
before their descent, and they sat outside in the shade of a grove of chestnut trees - after which the hotel had been named. They enjoyed roast duck and a bottle of Languedoc Merlot. As they dined Rahn described certain of the key families of the region in the years leading up to the Vatican's crusade into the territory. As in much of Europe at that time, the marriages crossed borders, even languages and culture. To speak of the Cathars as a people was rather a misnomer. They were more precisely a culture. Rather than being a rural, mostly impoverished mountain region as the area was today, he told them, the south of France had actually been far in advance of most of the rest of Europe: politically stable, economically prosperous and in general at peace with its neighbours. That, he assured them, had been a rarity in feudal Europe.

'Given the advanced state of political and economic conditions,' he said, 'it was natural that they turned its attention to those things we associate with civilisation: music, poetry, the arts, and good manners. And what started here, especially the notion of romantic love, began to sweep through the courts of Europe - along with the legends of the Grail.'

Over coffee Elise asked him how he had first got interested in the study of the Cathars.

'For me,' Rahn told her, 'everything goes back to Wolfram Eschenbach's story of Percival.'