Читать книгу Double Vision - Фиона Бранд - Страница 12

Five

The tape in her purse, sealed in an envelope, ready to be dropped off at an address Xavier had given her, Esther slid behind the wheel of Jorge’s aging Chevy and nosed down the drive. Maybe she was paranoid, but her own silver-gray Saab was distinctive, and it had passed through her mind that Lopez could be having her watched or even followed.

Cesar was out all day, supposedly at a meeting at the construction site of the development that had fallen through. Before she had left the house, Esther had checked with his secretary and found out that he hadn’t showed. In fact he hadn’t made an appearance at the office at all. If she had needed any further confirmation that she was out of options, that had been it. Cesar didn’t normally let any detail of a business deal slip by unchecked, let alone miss appointments.

After dropping off the package in the lobby of an anonymous block of apartments, Esther drove around the steep, picturesque suburbs of Russian Hill until it was time to pick Rina up from school. The slow circling of blocks, aside from filling time, had also given her the opportunity to check if she was being followed. So far, she hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. Minutes later, with Rina strapped into the front passenger seat, Esther took a left onto Leavenworth instead of turning onto California Street, heading for the expressway and home. According to Cesar’s file on Lopez, he lived barely five minutes from Rina’s school.

Checking out Lopez’s address was a risk, but it was one that needed to be taken. Just because Lopez claimed he lived at an address didn’t mean he actually did. She needed to find out for certain where he lived so she could give the details to the police. Once Xavier transferred the funds out of Lopez’s account, the window for physically apprehending Lopez would be small. If the police didn’t move quickly and raid the right address straight off, Lopez would slip the net.

There was no guarantee that doing a drive-by of his house would enable her to verify anything but she had to try. At this time of day, with the streets crammed with cars ferrying children home from school and driving Jorge’s Chevy, she would be close to invisible.

Esther took a turn onto Hyde and slowed as she counted numbers. She wanted to get a good look at the property as she drove past, and she could only risk doing it once.

Slowing even further as the number loomed, Esther craned, looking over Rina’s head in an effort to see a vehicle or anything else that might indicate that Lopez actually lived there.

An ornate set of wrought-iron gates guarded the entrance, but otherwise, the property wasn’t what she had expected. There was no fortress-style house, no high walls and no sign indicating there were roving guard dogs. It looked like any one of a hundred expensive addresses, with nicely landscaped grounds and tantalizing glimpses of a pool area. While the house was large and sprawling, it wasn’t in the extreme-wealth bracket; it could have belonged to any number of prosperous families.

She took in the proportions of the house again. Oh, he was clever. He wasn’t making a splash; he was blending.

The garage was closed, but she glimpsed the rear of a black truck parked at the side of the garage, almost obscured by a shade tree. It was the unexpected second vehicle she had seen the night Lopez had come to dinner.

Rina craned around, her expression openly curious. “Who lives there?”

Distracted, Esther took her gaze off the house and concentrated on the road. She should have done the drive-by before she picked Rina up, but she hadn’t been able to risk it until she had been certain she wasn’t followed. “Alex Lopez.”

There was no point in not telling Rina that, and in a way it made sense. A little foreknowledge would prepare her for what was going to happen.

Rina settled back into her seat and dragged her Walkman out of her schoolbag, which was propped on the floor by her feet. “So that’s why we’re undercover.”

“We are not undercover. My car’s being serviced, so I borrowed Jorge’s.”

Rina flipped the Walkman open and examined the tape. “I would have taken Dad’s ’Vette.”

“Maybe the ’Vette was out.”

“The ’Vette’s in the garage.”

“How did you know that?”

“Dad got picked up this morning. I saw him leave from my bedroom window.”

Esther frowned. Cesar did use a driver occasionally, usually if he had a lot of stops to make in places where it was difficult to get parking, but according to his secretary he had had just the one meeting today, which he had missed. “How come you know so much about the ’Vette, anyway?”

Rina’s expression was smug. “Dad’s already let me drive it.”

“What?”

Rina grinned. “Uh-huh. I’m on the road.”

“Not with me you’re not. And I’ll be having a word to your father about that.” The words were automatic, but with a pang she realized she wouldn’t be having a word with Cesar about Rina, or anything else, in the conceivable future. For the next twenty-four hours, she would be staying quiet and keeping her mouth shut. Every ounce of energy she had would be directed into helping Xavier pull off the funds transfer and making arrangements for both Rina and herself to disappear.

Grief she hadn’t had time to feel hit her like a fist in the chest. She had been so busy trying to find out what had gone wrong and figure a way through the mess, she hadn’t had time to count the personal cost, and it was huge. She and Cesar had had twelve good years together. The pull of those years, of living and working side by side tugged at her, sharp enough to cause actual pain. At times they had fought—each as stubborn as the other—but the relationship had been exhilarating and Esther had been satisfied. Rina had completed them, filling the gaps that occasionally loomed, bringing softness and the sense of family she craved.

She turned a corner and accelerated away from the barbed territory of Lopez’s house, shoving the misery down somewhere deep and dark until she had the time and the privacy to deal with it.

“Lopez is a problem, isn’t he?”

Esther’s gaze was sharp. “What do you mean?”

“I heard him and Dad talking.” Rina made a face. “Don’t look so surprised. Just because it looks like I’m not listening, it doesn’t mean I’m not. Anyway, they thought I was listening to my Walkman, but I wasn’t. Lopez was talking about the mall project that Dad’s been worried about, the one that’s threatening to go down the tubes. He owns the company that wants to pull out. Dad didn’t look happy.” She glanced at Esther, her gaze sharply adult. “I wasn’t, either.” She settled back in her seat. “He’s got no color—he looks dark and flat—and his eyes aren’t right.”

And Rina would know, she’d stared at Alex Lopez for long enough. He had eyes like a shark, dead and cold. The skin at the back of her neck tightened, a sense of premonition that added to the urgency to simply cut and run.

“Do you want to hear?”

Esther braked for an intersection. “Hear what?”

Rina rummaged in her bag again. “The tape. I told you I wasn’t listening to music, I was taping.”

A horn sounded behind her. Jerkily, Esther accelerated through the intersection and pulled over. “You were what?”

“Taping.” Rina pressed the rewind button on the Walkman then pressed Play.

Lopez’s dark cold voice filled the car. Esther’s skin crawled as she listened to evidence that Lopez was blackmailing Cesar, using the threat of bankrupting a company he had recently procured in order to collapse the Pembroke development, a run-of-the-mill project that had been solid.

The conversation must have happened while she was away from the table. Lopez had obviously thought he was safe in delivering the threat because he thought Rina was deafened by music. He had probably also made the mistake, like a lot of people, of assuming that because Rina looked disconnected she had no interest in what was going on.

Not for the first time Esther was reminded that beneath the disconnected façade, Rina had always worked to her own agenda. The only time she was really dreamy was when she was painting. The rest of the time she used the faintly “out to lunch” expression to buy herself leeway to do exactly what she wanted, and the tactic worked. She had Cesar wrapped around her little finger and she had outmaneuvered Lopez. Like Cesar and herself, Rina was a player, but on a whole other level entirely. If she ever got into business they would all be in for a wild ride.

Abruptly the voice was replaced with blaring pop music. Wincing at the assault on her ears, Esther stared at the Walkman. She’d been so busy listening to the content of the recording she hadn’t registered its full value. The tape was manna from heaven on three counts. It was vital evidence—she would retain a copy of the tape to hand to the police—but it was also exactly what Xavier needed to help his actor replicate Lopez’s voice. On top of that she was almost certain Lopez’s unwitting testimony would buy Cesar some leeway in court when the feds closed in. “I need that tape.”

Rina’s gaze was wary. “I know I’m not supposed to tape conversations.”

“No punishment, I promise.” Relief at the discovery of the tape and the doors it opened made her feel light-headed. Cancel business; the kid could go into politics.

Dennison sat in his office, studying Collins’s surveillance notes.

Esther Morell had had a busy day, but that was nothing unusual. For the past month Collins’s daily report had contained a long list of appointments, lunch dates and trips to and from the fancy school the kid attended. However, the fact that Esther had left the house that morning, driving a battered Chevy instead of the Saab, had rung alarm bells. Collins had followed her, but he had lost her in a traffic snarl-up in town. He had picked her up just as she’d left the school, in time to catch her detouring from her usual route.

He slipped the security video for Lopez’s house into the VCR, then rewound it and began skipping through until just before the time recorded in Collins’s notes. Over a five-minute period, a number of vehicles had driven past the house, which was normal. At that time of day, with school just out, there was always plenty of traffic.

Dennison frowned. The quality of the security tape was abysmal. To avoid being spotted or stolen, the camera had been set back too far from the road, and the angle wasn’t helpful. Consequently the film was grainy and it was difficult to read license plates or get any kind of accurate description of the occupants of cars. A brown Chevy appeared. Dennison could make out two people, but no more detail than that. Seconds later, Collins’s charcoal-gray car appeared on the tape, confirming that the driver of the brown Chevy had been Esther.

Dennison picked up the phone and dialed through to Lopez’s office, which was located on the first story of the house, then rewound the tape and played it through again. He didn’t like the fact that Esther had driven by the house. Maybe there was a good reason why she hadn’t used her own car today, but he didn’t think so. More and more, he was beginning to believe that they had underestimated her.

Lopez arrived halfway through the segment of tape and took a seat. Dennison passed him Collins’s surveillance report, rewound the tape and ran it through again.

When the relevant portion of the tape had played, he hit the stop button and ejected the videotape from the VCR.

Lopez got to his feet, his expression cold. What he wanted was old news: Esther watched more closely and researched more fully. He didn’t trust her. Hell, neither did Dennison. Any woman that gorgeous…there had to be a catch.

He picked up the phone and put a call through to Collins. They were going to need a second man on the job, and a wire on the phone.

Lately he had been working 24/7 on Esther Morell, but obtaining concrete information about her was difficult. When it came to business, Cesar was the head of the Morell Group, and every company report and legal document was signed by him. The only place Esther showed up on paper was in the private legal agreements that existed between her and Cesar, but those agreements in themselves were a piece of work. In terms of financial security, anything with Esther’s name on it was ironclad. She didn’t feature in the business—unless Cesar died, in which case she inherited everything—but legally she owned a sizable chunk of the Morell Group, and in the marriage, she definitely wore the pants.

If Esther and Cesar ever divorced, he got the Corvette and a whole lot of cold air. Mrs. Midas took all the real estate, including the apartments in Monte Carlo and London and the holiday home in the Bahamas. She also qualified for a solid cash payout, the Saab and the kid, and she retained her twenty-five-percent share of the Morell Group.

Morell was a clever man, unafraid of taking risks and with a knack for making huge sums of money, but he lacked the tough savvy and edge Dennison had been sure he would have. Dennison was now certain that “edge” was his wife. When he received the telephone call from Bern he was waiting on, he would have his confirmation.

The following day, Xavier le Clerc picked up the phone in his suite at the San Francisco Royal Pacific Hotel, placed a call and waited while the receptionist put him through to Vincent, the telecommunications expert selected for this particular job.

At ten past one that afternoon, as arranged, Vincent walked into a small café a block south from his place of work. Xavier rose to his feet and waved him into the booth he’d chosen, one well away from the door. He had already ordered coffee for them both, which tasted terrible. As soon as Vincent was seated, Xavier got down to business.

He needed to “borrow” Alex Lopez’s phone number for the few minutes it would take for the bank to ring and satisfy Lopez’s security requirements for the transaction. He wrote the number of the new phone line he’d set up on a sheet of notepaper, along with the exact time he needed the swap to take place, and slipped it across the table. “I need twenty minutes exactly, no more.” Any longer and it was possible Lopez would understand that his telephone line had been hijacked.

He slid an envelope across the table. It contained a substantial amount of cash. Half now, half when the job was done.

Xavier unlocked the door of an empty apartment with a pleasant but distant view of San Francisco Bay. The young actor he’d hired to impersonate Lopez followed him into the cramped sitting room and leaned against the wall while Xavier picked up the receiver of the cheap phone he’d previously had installed and dialed Vincent’s extension. After a short conversation, he set the phone down.

Minutes later, Vincent rang back. The switch had been made. Lopez’s phone was still active, but he would be operating on a different number for twenty minutes. Lopez would be able to call out, but all of his incoming calls would be directed to Xavier’s phone. Xavier had twenty minutes, and counting.

Xavier set the receiver down, then picked it up again and dialed. He checked his watch as he waited for the first person to pick up: two-fifteen. The next few minutes would be an interesting and intricate dance. Success depended on the precise timing and the greed of the people he had paid.

Dennison paced the floor of Lopez’s study, avoiding his cold stare and Vitali’s raw impatience. He checked his watch—two twenty-five—and resisted the urge to jerk at the collar of his shirt. The temperature was in the nineties, but that wasn’t the only reason he was sweating. They were waiting for a call from a source in the FBI, and confirmation about a two-year period Esther Morell had spent overseas.

Frowning, he tried his contact’s number again and received the same reply. Johnson was away from his desk, which he already knew, since he hadn’t been able to reach him for the past half hour. Johnson had driven to a pay phone to make the call, and if Dennison were in his shoes, he would do the same. There was no way he would use his office or his home phone to pass on information that could be incriminating, but that kind of logic didn’t help Dennison where Lopez was concerned.

He set the phone down. Almost immediately it rang.

He snatched up the receiver and hit the speakerphone function. “What took you so long?”

Johnson’s voice filled the office. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes. Your line’s been engaged.”

Dennison frowned. It was possible Johnson had tried to call at the same time he had been calling him, but that only amounted to a couple of minutes over the past half hour. They hadn’t had any other incoming calls. He should have gotten through.

Lopez spoke. “What have you found out?”

Johnson hesitated, no doubt put off his stride by the different voice. “Uh…all the records I have show what we already knew, that she worked as a banking executive mostly around the L.A. and San Francisco areas, but for two years while she was overseas she worked for a big international banking conglomerate. The reason we had trouble getting a job description was that she was never on their payroll. She set up her own consultancy company and billed the bank. The money was paid to a numbered account in Switzerland. No income was ever registered under her name or reached U.S. shores.”

Johnson’s voice flattened out as he repeated the information he had received from his source in Bern. Like he’d said, Esther Morell hadn’t been involved in day-to-day banking, she had been contracted by Bessel Holt to investigate their client base. Apparently, she had a photographic memory and a knack for research, with particular regard to South America. He could also confirm that Esther had been instrumental in blocking a number of offshore transactions out of South America, including a substantial movement of funds by the Chavez cartel. “And get this. She used to date le Clerc. As in Xavier le Clerc.”

Dennison’s stomach did an odd little flip-flop. Some agents talked endlessly about their “gut.” They would have a hunch about this, an instinct about that. As far as Dennison was concerned, human desires and sheer greed, along with good information, were a much more reliable map to follow than some airy-fairy premonition, but suddenly the weird feeling he’d had all day that something was wrong made sense.

Le Clerc’s name wasn’t big here, but it was legendary in Europe. He was a coldly efficient thief who had done the unthinkable: collapsed a Swiss bank that had refused to disclose or release funds allegedly belonging to Jewish families that had survived the Holocaust. Simultaneously, he had engineered a bank heist that had removed certain items from the vault and safe-deposit boxes, all of which were said to have belonged to Nazi political leaders and war criminals.

Lopez terminated the call, cutting Johnson off in midsentence. He handed the receiver to Vitali. “Check the account.”

The whiplash command jerked Vitali out of his seat. “There’s no way we’ll get access to her Swiss—”

“Not her account. Mine.”