The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) (25 page)

Chapter 78

  Rivello sat at his desk. Tereza had behaved in exactly the way that he’d expected. She was more like Rivello than she would ever allow herself to admit. Hot tempered, stubborn, vengeful. His father had taken it badly. István had foolishly hoped that the woman would forgive and forget.

  Rivello
keyed the password into his computer. As the screen lit up, he called out. Rykov appeared.

  “
Where’s István?” said Rivello.

  “The city
, back in three hours,” Rykov replied.

His father was too soft
-hearted. As usual he would have to do what was necessary, István not being able to come to terms with the inevitability of the task.

  “
Take my sister. I don’t want to see her again.” He thought that he might feel a twinge of emotion as he said the words. Nothing stirred. He had a similar lack of feeling towards his father. However, István had saved him, given him a second shot at life at some sacrifice to himself. Rivello therefore felt loyalty to the old man at some level, although he knew if it became necessary he would kill him also.

  Rivello
observed Rykov as he made his way back across the room, a mammoth, but with the stealth of a panther.

 
Rivello glanced down at the screen. The front page of the
Wall Street Journal
glowed back up at him.

FED CHAIRMAN’S
SON KIDNAPPED!

The story occupied half the front page.

  “Rykov,” he called out as the door swung shut. A moment later its trajectory was halted and Rykov reappeared.

  “
Ralph Kennedy just became redundant. Take him along for the ride.”

  Rivello
clicked onto his Bloomberg trading service and smiled as he noted that his basket of banking stocks had lost thirty percent of their value the previous day. In eight hours time, he expected them to lose the same again, not long after the New York market opened. Rivello felt a shiver run through him.

 
The thrill of the kill was the only thing that warmed his blood. His initial one billion euros had been leveraged up to ten billion. In the last twenty-four hours, the ten billion had tripled in value. He was now worth thirty billion euros, less the nine billion of leverage he would need to repay. He had just made a profit of approximately nineteen billion euros. In one day. He shivered with exhilaration and allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation.

 
The moment dissipated as soon as his thoughts turned to Ralph Kennedy. Why had the stupid woman leaked the story? He had been clear on the implications for her son. The US Government would have no choice but to oust her from the job. They would flood the banks with cash and at some point in the next few weeks the markets would begin to level out. If he was lucky, the banks he had shorted would lose another thirty to forty percent of their value before this happened. He would have to be careful, pull out at the right time. He may not make it to a hundred billion. If he was lucky and the panic continued, he’d be close. Rivello looked at his watch. Ten thirty. He needed to leave now if he was to arrive on time. He would also have to face his father.

Chapter 79

  The man stumbling along the path ahead of her was sick. Badly sick. He had looked back at her once, over his shoulder. She noted the milky, dazed eyes and the dank, white pallor of his face. Although tall, his steps were uneven, his hunched posture giving him the appearance of an old man. He caught her eye. She thought him about to speak, before he was jabbed roughly on the shoulder by the man alongside him.

  “
Move, or die,” the Russian spoke gruffly. The sick man struggled on.
  Tereza assumed that he was the son of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank that her brother had spoken of. He must be in his late thirties, early forties, she thought. At this particular moment he looked twenty years older.

 
They’d been trudging along the path for five minutes. The chill in the air was giving her goose bumps.
The cold air might be the least of my problems
. At first she thought they were being moved to another location, perhaps by car. She realized that in the direction that they were walking, along a gravel path, bordered on each side by scrub and the occasional pine, there was only the water ahead of them. The sea. Possibly a lake. She didn’t know.

 
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what was coming next. There was little she could do. The men escorting them were armed. She had no weapon and her fellow prisoner would be no help. Running was a waste of time. She’d been a fool. She should have played along with Pisti’s request and at least pretended to acquiesce. Pretended to forgive or at least be bought. Tereza could have evened the score eventually, somehow. Now she would end up on the wrong end of a bullet, her flesh rotting at the bottom of the sea. Death held no fear for Tereza. Dying before she could avenge her father’s murder was what dismayed her.

 
As they emerged from the undergrowth, she noticed a wooden building by the water that had been obscured by the trees. A boathouse. Whitewashed wooden walls, a sloping grey slate roof. Elegant. Distracted by the building in front of her, she didn’t see the man stumble, only heard his cry. He lay on the ground, exhausted. Tereza ran over to him, put her hand on his arm and looked down. She smelt something foul and only then noticed the discolored wound where his middle finger should have been. It was gangrenous, the bandage barely hanging from the purple tinged stump. His face was upturned towards hers.

  “
Tell me your name?” she whispered.
  A moment’s silence. He was near delirious, his shivering uncontrollable.

 
Then, “Ralph, I’m Ralph,” his voice barely audible.

“Let’s try and get out of this together, Ralph," she said, more to comfort herself that she was at least trying to do something. The look in his eyes said that for Ralph, death might be welcome.

 
There was a sharp pain across the back of her scalp. Someone had her by the hair. Tereza let out a scream as she was dragged upwards and propelled across the ground, before being thrown onto her knees. She looked up to see Ralph lying prone, face upturned, a gun centered on his forehead, his escort hunched over him, ready to pull the trigger.
  The cry from the giant behind her was sharp, brutal, used to giving orders. She had no idea what the words meant, but the man with the gun froze. Seconds seemed like minutes as the man holding the pistol to Ralph’s head made his decision. He stood, the gun loosely pointed in Ralph’s direction, and landed a kick to his ribs. Not hard, but enough to get Ralph to roll onto his stomach, pull himself onto his knees. With effort, he managed to stand upright.

 
They were hustled through the doorway of the white timber boathouse. The entrance was to the left side of the building. As they entered, she noticed a glossily varnished wooden boat, long, sleek, white upholstery, a picture of elegance; a lightweight, four-pronged anchor sitting on its bow, nestled within a coil of white rope. The boat gently rolled between the legs of the U-shaped, wooden pontoon. For a moment her spirits were lifted by the thought that it would be illogical to kill them both and dispose of them out on the water. The blood would destroy the boat’s upholstery. Her optimism crumbled when the man escorting Ralph bent down and grabbed hold of an oilskin tarpaulin that had been rolled up and stacked against the wall. She had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time the boathouse had been used to end a life.

 
Tereza looked on as the man with the gun unrolled the tarpaulin. Ralph, barely aware of what was going on, slumped against the wall. The tarpaulin snagged on something. The man unrolling it was trying to jerk it free with one hand, the other hand holding the gun to his side. He placed the gun on the pontoon. Tereza seized the moment. She could feel the giant’s presence behind her, impatient. The gun was a few feet away. She would grab the gun, crouch, fire as many shots as she could at the giant before he realized what was happening and then she would dive into and under the water.

 
Tereza readied herself, rose on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce. She was about to spring for the gun when a huge hand wrapped itself round her upper arm with such strength that she took a sharp intake of breath. The giant, of course, had seen it too. He roughly maneuvered her over and onto the tarpaulin, then forced Tereza onto her knees. Ralph too was pushed down. As the other man stood back, she could feel the giant’s foreboding presence behind her. He was to be the executioner. She heard a rustle of clothing and then a gentle click. The release of the gun’s safety mechanism. There was a gentle ruffling of the hair on the back of her head, a caress as the gun’s barrel was drawn down to the nape of her neck.
  “Say what you have to.”

 
She was taken aback, her reply came easily.

  “
I hope you rot in hell for all eternity.” At least her death would be quick.

 
The shot rang out and she heard a cry beside her. At first she thought the giant had shot Ralph, who had collapsed on the tarpaulin. But the cry had come from Ralph’s earlier would-be assassin, now dropping to the floor. The man’s free hand was clasped round his throat, failing to stem the deep red blood spurting from between his fingers. 

 
Two further shots were fired, from the direction of the water. She felt the gun barrel lift from the nape of her neck and heard a low grunt from behind. She turned her head to see the giant fallen, felt the vibrations in the wooden floor as his knees thumped down onto the wooden pontoon. His eyes were empty, devoid of fear or pity, even for himself. He tried to raise his gun. An ice-like shiver ran through her. But then he faltered and as he tumbled backwards into the water he smiled, the sides of his mouth curling sharply upwards, the rest of his face, including his soulless eyes, remained unchanged. The death mask of a psychopath. The giant splashed head first into the cold, dark water.

 
As the relief of surviving what she’d accepted as certain death overwhelmed her, Tereza sprawled onto her front and swiveled her head to face the direction that the shots had come from. There was nothing. Then she heard movement in the water and one, then two arms appeared from nowhere in a splash of water and following them a head of long blond slicked back hair. The woman used her hands and powerful arms to lever her body out of the water. Not a mean feat given the water sodden clothes she was wearing. She stood upright, water pooling around her boots and looked down at the guard, lifeless before her on the floor. She spat on him and mouthed something at him in Russian before giving the body a kick that seemed more symbolic than anything else.
  “Tatianna Sergeyevich Barshai,” the woman said, pointing to herself, then the dead Russian. “Kill sister. Natasha.”

 
The woman spoke only a little English, but Tereza understood.  

  Tereza
jumped up, despite feeling physically devastated, and stumbled to Tatianna who stood two paces from her. The adrenalin and cortisol that had been flooding Tereza’s body for the past few hours, since meeting her brother, ebbed out of her system. The mental as well as physical release of pressure on her body and nervous system was simultaneously exhilarating and deflating. She fell against the big blond Russian, at least half a head taller than she was, and sobbed with relief.

  “
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you have no idea what I’m saying. I was dead. I don’t know why I’m alive. You must be an angel.”

 
Tatianna wrapped her arms around Tereza. Tereza didn’t move, the younger woman steady and firm as a rock. Tereza was safe.
  The scream pierced every nerve in Tereza’s body. Her eardrum erupted in pain, as if needles had been driven through it. The tall blond pitched backwards, gun dropping from her hand as she reached down and clutched at her leg. Tereza’s eyes fell to the site of her savior’s pain. The anchor from the boat. Two of the four claws were embedded in Tatianna’s calf. Tereza followed the tense white rope to a pair of huge fists gathered round the other end. The giant was still alive, had clambered onto the boat and was heaving on the rope. Tatianna’s head smacked the ground with a horrendous crack. Despite this and the blood that she’d lost, Tatianna’s hand flailed for the gun. She caught it, but as the handle brushed the tip of her fingers, she lost her tug of war with the giant. With an agonized scream, she was dragged into the water. The gun went with her, tumbling over the edge. The giant tethered the rope onto a cleat, leaving Tatianna dangling head first into the water. The first time she came up for air was her last. The giant delivered a kick to Tatianna’s head that would have knocked her out cold even if it hadn’t snapped her neck.

 
Tereza ran. Ralph was going nowhere. The gangrene and the events of the last hour having rendered him near comatose. She was five steps from the door when she heard the giant hit the wooden floor. Without him breaking step, she could hear him pounding across the floor after her. She sprang for the door hoping that it hadn’t been locked when they’d entered. Her only hope was to get outside and make it to the thick undergrowth between the house and the lake.

 
One moment she was sprinting through the doorway, the next she was being propelled through the air, legs locked in the thick muscular arms of her pursuer. The force with which she hit the ground knocked the air from her lungs. A moment later and she felt herself being twisted onto her back, a tremendous weight crushing her abdomen. Through the black and white chequered haze of semi-consciousness, she looked up into his brutal moon face as he placed his spade-like hands around her neck and drove his thumbs into her windpipe, features unruffled, eyes unmoved.

 
A fighter to the last, she lashed out with her fists, a lamb struggling in the jaws of a wolf. Her arms moved in slow motion, as if through treacle, the crushing pain in her throat subsided, the chequered haze replaced with a dark void. She sensed that this was her time. She did something she’d never done before. She gave up the fight.

Chapter 80

  Rivello picked up his cell phone and dialed. One of the benefits of owning your own jet was that the normal rules did not apply.

  “
Pieter? I’m on my way. Has anything changed?”

  “
The arrangements are the same,” Pieter Van Valkenburgh said.
  “How do I gain access?” he could sense hesitancy in Van Valkenburgh’s voice.

  “
Well?”

  “
Ask for the Habana Room. Use my name. Hardcastle thinks I’ll be attending. This is the last time, Jay. I want all contact to cease. The last time.”

  “
Good, Pieter, very good. Oh, and Pieter?”

  “
Yes?”

  “
I’ll tell you when the last time will be. Until then you do what I say or six hundred years of your family’s heritage get flushed. You got that?”

  Augustus, extremely
useful until his untimely death, had introduced Rivello to Van Valkenburgh. The man had been in need of some help. During his years at the helm of the EU particularly, Van Valkenburgh had become too familiar with the trappings of power and all the little luxuries that came with it. Six hundred years of noble Dutch lineage, however, hadn’t gifted him with a good head for business. Over the years, with help from a stable of mistresses and a miserable record at the blackjack table, Van Valkenburgh had become deeply in hock to three banks. Each bank, trusting his impeccable family credentials, had failed to run even the most cursory credit checks. Each held exactly the same collateral as the other two, namely everything his acquisitive family had managed to ruthlessly acquire over the centuries. Rivello had paid off the bankers. By way of lien, he held markers on all the Van Valkenburgh family properties.