The Tangled Webb (6 page)

CHAPTER 15

S
enator Henry Ward stared out a window in his office as early glimmers of sunlight bathed the National Mall in a yellowish glow. He had come into the office early, and an hour would pass before his two assistants arrived, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Having scrapped his way up through the ranks, he was now a five-term U.S. Senator and his sixty-fifth birthday was not far off.

But he had a problem.

He was burned out.

Somewhere off in the distance, a phone was ringing, and the noise jolted him back into the present.

Let the service pick it up
.

Ward reminisced about seeing freshmen legislators coming into Congress, brimming with optimism and plans for change, only to see their aspirations dashed. Senator Ward had once been such a man.

He then decided to make a phone call, and as the phone rang at the other end of the line, he waited.

Three rings … four … five …

Finally, a female voice.

“Hi there. It’s a little early for business, isn’t it?”

“I need to see you.” His tone was urgent.

“When? I’m not even dressed.”

“Now!”

“Why the rush? Can’t it wait until …”

“No. It can’t,” he told her. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

He exhaled a sigh of relief.

The drive over to her place was a blur, and his car literally steered its way there. He found a parking spot near a condo building—a low-rise in downtown D.C. Entering the outer lobby, he stepped to a directory mounted on the wall. Scrolling down, he pushed the button opposite a name. The door buzzed, and he entered an elevator and rode to an upper floor. He stopped outside the door to an apartment, glancing quickly up and down the hallway before wrapping his knuckles on the door.

A moment passed.

Then the door swung open.

Standing before him, a striking brunette flashed a radiant smile displaying white, straight teeth as locks of dark brown curly hair fell lightly on her shoulders, framing the delicate features of her face. Her low-cut silk blouse revealed abundant cleavage, and a short skirt clung tightly to her firm backside and shapely legs.

“Hey, stranger!” she beamed.

Ward stepped quickly inside, pressing his mouth firmly against hers. His hands moved immediately below her waist. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He drew back to get a better look at her.

“You’re gorgeous,” he gushed.

Her voice was playful.

“Happy to see me?”

He grinned and moved past her to the sofa.

“How about a drink, Tiffany?”

“I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the fridge.” She went into the kitchen and opened it.

“Perfect, we’ll celebrate.”

“What’s the occasion?” she asked, curious.

“Something really big, huge. It’s going to change our lives.”

She sat next to him on the sofa, a glass of champagne in each hand.

“This is intriguing.”

He filled her in on the details of the covert operation involving the U.S. Senate. Unknown to either of them, their conversation was being videotaped by one of several cameras discreetly planted inside ventilation grills within the apartment. Six blocks away, in a hotel room, Boris monitored every movement, every word spoken.

Tiffany stroked Ward’s thigh with her fingers, her nubile body rubbing against him. Fantasies of stealing away to the tropics with his mistress raced through his mind. At this moment, he could think of nothing more appealing. He adored her.

She began life on the mean streets of inner-city Detroit. Drawn to the excitement and power of Washington, D.C., she applied—and was quickly accepted—as one of Ward’s interns. He taught her the ropes, placing her in touch with his considerable connections around town.

Tiffany eventually became a lobbyist with ten years of experience under her belt. The Senator felt a sense of pride: he had played a big part in her swift rise to the top. A natural, she played the game better than anyone, though her moral compass had been misplaced somewhere along the way. It had been gradual, but money and power soon changed her. Behind Tiffany’s beauty and sensuality lurked a different person.

Ruthless. Hard as nails. Just like the Senator.

Feeling the champagne, he began to paw at her blouse, groping her. With the bottle emptied, the unlikely pair scampered into the bedroom. In no time, their clothing was shed and scattered on the floor. Both of them on the bed, Tiffany reached down and scooped up his belt and necktie, then lashed his wrists to her bedposts. Slithering on top of him, she was like a wild cat.

He pleaded with her.

“Take it easy. You’ll give me a heart attack.”

“I can’t think of a better way to go, can you?”

He tasted her in every place, and she performed acts on his wish list.

“Your lips. The way you use them.” His voice was spasmodic. “You’re amazing.”

The fun and games continued into late morning, and Ward eventually exhausted himself. Completely naked, Tiffany bounced into the kitchen, searching for food.

Close by in the hotel, Boris stared at his computer screen. He leered at her body, lewd fantasies running through his mind.

Turning to his duties he prepared a detailed report for the Deacon. The task complete, he began imagining the things he would do to her.

When the time comes.

CHAPTER 16

J
ames entered the living room of the townhouse in Georgetown and found Kate asleep on the sofa, her face aglow in yellow rays of sunlight coming through a bay window. He leaned in and gently planted a kiss on her cheek. Her eyes opened and when she sat up he settled beside her, stretching his legs from an early-morning run.

“I guess we’re wealthy,” she joked, referring to the diamonds they had liberated from Alec Specter.

“Very funny.”

“I’ve decided to go with you,” she said, her tone serious.

“To Europe?”

“No. The North Pole. Where do you think?”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel comfortable being here alone. If I am going to be hunted, I’d rather have you at my side. Besides, I was thinking of going to Belgium by way of Paris.”

“That’s sweet. Alright with me.”

Kate went into the kitchen and began preparing breakfast while James made a call to an old friend. Having known each other for several years, James and Thomas Lynch had met at a time when James was becoming involved in Special Operations. These sometimes required advisory roles played by influential people.

In his late-thirties, Lynch had been a regular fixture of the Washington scene for a long time. An only child, he was born into a position of wealth and privilege, and when his parents passed away in recent years, the bright young man was left with a considerable fortune.

Since then, Lynch Industries had grown rapidly. He had leveraged a handful of companies built by his father, both in government contracting and the oil industry.

Thomas Lynch was a very wealthy man.

Charming and handsome, he and James had been drinking buddies prior to James’ marriage to Kate. Meanwhile Lynch had remained single.

And while Thomas Lynch enjoyed the life of a jet-setting playboy, he was an active philanthropist, making sizable donations to a variety of prominent charitable organizations around the nation’s capital, and in the process gaining a position in Washington society. Having been appointed by the President as the United States Ambassador to France, he enjoyed certain privileges applying only to persons of his position. Specifically, relaxed Customs procedures for American diplomats at private jet terminals—exactly what Kate and James needed.

“How are you, James?” Thomas began, pleased to be getting a call from his close friend.

“Good thanks.”

James tried to keep the conversation casual.

“How’s Kate?”

“Fine, never better.”

They talked for a few minutes, covering a variety of topics. When James mentioned his plans for traveling to Europe, Thomas generously offered the use of a plane owned by Lynch Industries, a Challenger 605. It’s range was more than four-thousand miles, allowing for trips across the Atlantic.

“Take the Challenger,” Thomas insisted, not interested in asking a lot of questions. By now, he had grown accustomed to his friend’s unconventional lifestyle.

When James told Kate about the kind gesture, she asked whether Lynch would be joining them on the crossing.

Somewhat puzzled by the question, he turned and looked at her. “No. It’ll just be the two of us, and the crew, of course.”

Before they packed the luggage, James inserted the diamonds—two hundred gems in all—inside a pair of half-inch diameter round tubes. Both were painted black to match one of the suitcases. Placing caps over the ends of the tubes, he situated the thin cylinders in the suitcase so that, to a casual observer, they appeared to be a part of the bag’s metal frame.

“What about the FBI,” Kate said. “They might knock on the door of the townhouse and find we’ve gone.”

“It’s only for a day or so. We’ll just have to chance it.”

At Dulles International Airport, a taxi delivered the couple to a tarmac where the Challenger was parked beside a private jet terminal. It was an impressive sight; the aircraft had been polished to a bright luster, the mid-morning sun glistening off its sleek exterior. Two customs agents drove up in a van, checking passports and conducting a brief cursory inspection of the plane’s interior. James presented falsified documents for Kate and himself. After an agent looked them over, they scurried up the stairs and entered the plane.

Ten minutes later the jet barreled down the runway, its nose climbing into the air. Once the aircraft leveled off, the crew served food and beverages. The couple then settled into a pull-out sofa for the seven-hour trip. Kate began reading a mystery novel and James slept through most of the flight, exhausted and wanting to escape their troubles.

Just after one o’clock in the morning the Challenger touched down at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, fifteen minutes outside Paris, France. Having made the hotel reservation, Kate checked in when they arrived at the front desk of the Hotel du Quai Voltaire, a quaint establishment in the heart of historic Paris along the river Seine, across from the Louvre.

Now inside a suite on the hotel’s second level, they were struck by the beautiful setting; oversized windows framing a picturesque view of the river.

They woke early, had breakfast at a cozy café nearby, then James prepared disguises as Kate stuffed falsified passports into her shoulder bag. James didn’t want to leave a trail for Interpol to pick up when they traveled between France and Belgium. At the train station, they went through security and, since the tubes were made of lead, the x-ray machine was unable to detect the diamonds. All clear, they boarded the Eurostar, a high-speed train running between Paris and London.

Speeding along at 180 M.P.H., they reached Brussels in less than an hour. Outside the station they hailed a taxi and rode twenty minutes north to Antwerp, Belgium. Arriving in the Renaissance town, Kate started out for the churches and museums. James agreed to meet her later in the day, then he headed for the Diamond Quarter, an area within the city where thousands of gem cutters and polishers ply their trade. With more than three thousand brokers and merchants, the district sees more than $16 billion in polished diamonds pass through its exchanges each year.

The research James had done gave him a guide to the most aggressive buyers of loose diamonds. The type of stones they had demanded from Alec Specter would be easily saleable because of their size, cut and shape. The task was to unload all two hundred of the gems. He planned to sell them among a total of ten merchants. He would have to settle for steep discounts because of the substantial spread between the wholesale and retail price of diamonds. Not being a dealer himself, Specter had paid near retail when he acquired the gems.

It would prove to be a long day.

James entered the shop of the first proprietor and approached the merchant; an elderly man, graying hair, a long beard and quick, sharp eyes. His voice barely above a whisper, the old man invited James to join him at a table in the rear. As they sat down, James opened the draw string of a small velvet pouch, emptying the stones on a cloth spread across the table. The morning sunlight streaked through the windows, set the gems aglow.

The merchant’s eyes grew wide.

The gems sparkled as though alive with a magical energy. Having been cut brilliantly to perfection, each of the stones was absolutely flawless. James waited patiently as the merchant carefully scrutinized the merchandize.

Raising the final stone to a small magnification device near his eye, the merchant nodded his approval.

“A thing of beauty,” he commented.

Since there were no internal defects to distinguish the stones, he knew they were completely untraceable. James estimated the diamonds on the table had been purchased by Specter for about $2 million. He understood the calculus: the sum the merchant would pay would be a wholesale price, allowing for mark-up and profit. Technically, it was the merchant’s responsibility to determine the origin of the diamonds he was buying. However, given the tremendous volume of diamonds flowing through the district, merchants seldom paid attention to such details. Especially when confronted with the opportunity, and the temptation, to buy diamonds at a price assuring a hefty profit.

The merchant showed no emotion.

“Did you have a figure in mind?”

“One point four,” James said flatly.

“Oh my,” the merchant said, holding his hands in the air. “I couldn’t possibly go above six hundred.”

“One point two.” James was genuinely amused by this back and forth ritual.

The merchant’s mind raced: He knew he could quickly resell the precious gems for a nice profit. But the wily veteran stiffened his posture, hoped to keep the price low.

“Eight,” he countered, his face like a sphinx.

“One million. Take it or leave it.”

The merchant exhaled, rolling a stone between his index finger and thumb. He locked eyes with James.

“I take it.”

James handed a slip of paper across the table which had wire instructions for transferring the sale proceeds to an account in Switzerland. An hour later, the transaction was completed and he moved on to the next merchant on the list.

And so it went.

Having conducted his business in the district, James was exhausted and hungry. He met up with Kate and they enjoyed a nice dinner at the Dome restaurant in Antwerp. The architecture of the Art Nouveau building presented a splendid atmosphere, complimented by delicious cuisine. After dessert, Kate went to the ladies room, and James leafed through confirmations of wire transfers received by the bank in Switzerland. He had opened the account several years ago using a falsified Swiss passport.

Returning to Paris, they strolled lazily along the wide avenues where Kate shopped and James wandered nearby, pretending to be interested. When they got back to the hotel, Kate showered first, and ten minutes later James emerged from the bathroom. He saw Kate lying on the bed, looking sexy in a white silk negligee she had purchased on the sly earlier in the day.

The atmosphere was more romantic than any he could imagine: a light breeze gently rustled through the trees along the river Seine, a golden twilight suffusing the room. Through open windows, the scent of jasmine hung in the air, and the rhythm of historic Paris beat along ancient cobblestones.

Kate beckoned with her eyes.

What can I say? I’m hooked.

________________

They flew into Dulles International the following morning, and though the brief respite in Paris had taken the edge off, both of them knew it would not last.

Kate chewed on a fingernail.

James took Kate by the arm as they got out of a taxi in Georgetown and walked a few blocks to Ms. Van der Meer’s before slipping inside Bell’s passage. A few Minutes later they came up the basement stairs of the townhouse, deciding to settle in a couple of chairs on the front porch.

“My head is still in the clouds,” she began.

James slipped his hand in hers.

“Thanks for doing this. You’re the best.”

“How did we make out?”

He was still thinking about her passion and the hotel bedroom in Paris.

“Huh?”

His expression gave him away.

“The diamonds, silly.”

“Oh that, cleared just under nine million.”

“Wow. That should help.”

“I hope so.”

He paused.

“Alec Specter is the key to this, Kate. We need to know what he knows.”

She shifted in her chair.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just sit here and relax, like we used to do?”

“I feel the same way. By the way, how’s Daniel?”

“I’ve been checking in on a regular basis. No change so far.”

Both of them were thinking about the money in the Swiss bank account.

We’re going to need it.