Dollar Down (7 page)

I left it alone. "Which way?"

"Have you had dinner?"

"No."

We went down another broad street. Garish
signboards advertised discount clothing shops and cheap Asian
restaurants. I didn't take a nose count, but pedestrians
appeared to be seventy percent African, both Arabs and blacks.
We turned down an alley, to be greeted by two rows of Indian
hawkers outside restaurants. The first guy in line was
obviously the top dog. He gave a hard spiel and looked
offended when we passed him by. Pascal headed straight for a
place farther down. I couldn't figure why he'd chosen one over
another. Their menus were posted outside. They all looked the
same.

Maybe he liked the ceramic figure of an elephant head
on a man's body or the table that needed napkins under one leg
to keep it from wobbling or the scenic route through a waiters'
station and another dining area to get to the restroom,
constructed of powder-blue plaster unobstructed by
doors.

Maybe it had the freshest cumin. I didn't ask.

After we ordered, I put two photos on the table.
"Joaquin Ruiz and Enrique Hidalgo, I need to know where they
go, who they meet. These came from an associate in Venezuela.
They recently traveled with a so-called enforcer for Maduro,
but they're based here. They're staying in serviced apartments.
I have the address, but I don't know their schedules."

"Two targets and one Pascal. You respect me, Irish. Too
much, huh?"

"They work for Petroleos Venezuela. They probably
spend most of their time together."

"If they don't?"

"Then pick one and tail him. I trust your
instincts."

Pascal shook his head. "Why don't I find someone to
help me? I know a woman. She moves like a ghost."

"Give it a day. If you think you need someone else, I'll
talk to my client."

"Who is it?"

"Can't say, Pascal. Does it make a difference?"

"Do I get paid?"

"Of course."

"Then no, it doesn't."

I gave him the address and room numbers for Ruiz and
Hidalgo. I couldn't give him Bizet's name, but I could give him
his warning. "I don't know exactly where this one's heading,
Pascal. We had all better move like ghosts."

He shrugged and stuck out his lower lip. Then he
smiled and ripped off a bite of tandoori drumstick. "Call me
Casper."

When I got back to Sabine's flat, there was a phone
message from Alexandra. She'd found a consultant for Winchell
& Associates named Richard Atkins who knew Jim
Burroughs and who had contacted him on my behalf. He was
expecting my call. Burroughs lived in Colorado. It was early
afternoon there, but when he answered, he sounded like a bear
I'd spooked out of hibernation.

"This is Mick Sanchez. Richard Atkins..."

"Yeah."

"Said you would be expecting ..."

"Yeah."

I figured it was time to get to the point. He didn't
interrupt while I told him about Trevor Jones and the chart.
"Mr. Atkins suggested you could help."

"I can't see how I'd be any more help than Atkins
himself. Why doesn't he look at it?"

Right. "Actually, someone has already seen it. He said it
predicts the dollar will fall thirteen percent in two weeks."

"It can predict whatever it wants, but a thirteen
percent fall over a year would be notable, two weeks isn't
feasible."

"Two days."

"What?"

"The fall would occur over a two-day period two weeks
from now. The person who saw the chart believes it might be
accurate. He said only a deeply disturbing event could cause it.
He also made us promise not to identify him."

"Yeah, well you already have."

I responded with silence.

"You're in France. There's a Winchell connection. It's
someone who knows me and can understand the data you
described. How many people do you think fit that description?
Don't worry Bizet's identity is safer with me that it was with
you."

"Will you look at the chart?"

"I'm curious enough to fly over there to steal it. Send it
to me. I'll see what I can do."

"The person who gave us your name said you had a
computer system that could verify his reading of the data and
maybe work out scenarios."

"Just built. The PetaGrid ought to be able to model
anything in finance."

"The PetaGrid?"

"Yeah, it's a network of supercomputers that function
as a single machine. Theoretically it's capable of more than a
hundred peta flops."

"Can you say that in layman's language?"

"That's one hundred quadrillion floating point
operations per second."

"More layman."

"Real damn fast. Don't tell anyone, though. It's top
secret."

"I won't. Who would I... I mean why would I—"

"Nah, we've been marketing this sucker for six months,
and we're not even finished testing." Burroughs laughed.

I didn't.

"Joke, Sanchez. What do you do for humor?"

Good question. While I was trying to work that out, it
occurred to me that I should be asking Burroughs for another
favor. "There is something else that might be related. Do you
think your system could break an encryption?"

There was a long silence, before he answered. "What
language is the data in?"

"I assume English."

"Go ahead and send it, but let me think about it some
more. It might be an interesting test, maybe even good for
marketing. You do have a right to the data?"

"It was on the computer of a Winchell partner. He's
missing, and it might help us find out what happened. A
director in the firm authorized me to have it." While the
statement was literally true, the implication that a director had
given me data from Trevor Jones's office computer was at best
misleading. I felt a twinge of guilt in using Sabine's persona,
even though I expect she would approve. It was also
effective.

"All right then," said Burroughs. "As soon as I get your
stuff, I'll see what PetaGrid can do."

There was an uncharacteristic tremble in Alexandra's
voice. I couldn't tell if she had been crying. It sounded like she
had. She wouldn't say what was troubling her over the phone,
but she asked me to meet her right away.

It must be important, but so were the flash drive with
the encrypted files and the paper with notations on foreign
exchange derivatives. For reasons best explained by paranoia, I
didn't trust Sabine's computer security enough to send the
data electronically. I can't speak French, so I stopped at a hotel
on my way to the Metro and tipped the concierge to call a
parcel delivery service. The man who showed up to take the
package for Burroughs said it would be in his hands in two
days.

I was able to meet Alexandra an hour after she'd
called.

She was waiting at an upscale café in the Opera
district. Lots of trees, elegant ambience. Perhaps most
important, it was far from Winchell's office. Her expression
was tense. She glanced at me and looked away as I said good
morning and ordered espresso. When she did respond, it was
only one word spoken in a strained voice.

"Trevor."

Bad news.

"There was a call this morning. He..." She pulled at her
scarf and looked me in the face. Not a glance this time, she held
my gaze. "His body I mean...was found."

I'd sensed that was coming, but it didn't soften the
shock at hearing the words.

"In England, well outside London, in a thicket." She
gave a dry cough that almost sounded like an embarrassed
laugh. "His body had been disturbed by animals. That's what
they said. 'Disturbed'." She coughed again.

Translation, he'd been partially eaten, maybe foxes,
maybe crows. That could complicate an investigation. "Do they
know how?"

She shook her head. "It's all I heard."

"How long since his death?"

"A day they said, day and a half, no more than
that."

The news landed like a ramrod to my gut. He'd been
alive when Sabine had told me she believed he was well but
scared. She had trusted I would figure it all out and bring him
home. Not only had I failed. I worried that somehow I might
have been responsible for Sabine's death. This time I was the
one to look away, out the window into a world where mothers
pushed prams and couples held hands. A world where
rationality was at best a veneer concealing chaos.

I wanted to warn Alexandra to be careful, but that
would have sounded obvious at best, inane at worst, so I just
said good-bye. I would be in touch when I found out more
about Trevor's death. Then I went back to Sabine's flat and
called McNulty, the Scottish investigator.

He answered on the first ring. He said he'd been trying
to contact me. The coroner's report was in on Trevor. The
animals that had "disturbed" his body had been identified as
dogs by their bites, probably about the size of shepherds.

McNulty's voice was flat. "Variances in teeth marks
indicated five individual hounds. I don't know how they got the
pictures, but one of the tabloids ran photos of the scene right
after his body was taken out. They haven't picked it up in the
story yet, but there was a spray of blood to the left side of the
body."

"A spray?"

"Yeah. Couple of feet, I'd say. Pretty thick with it. I'll
send you a copy of the photo. Have a look. Tell me what you
think."

I already knew what I thought. The next thing McNulty
said confirmed it.

"His left forearm was chewed up a good bit more than
his right. That was the work of two different hounds."

The spray would have come from a severed artery that
still pulsed with blood. The left arm would have been used in a
defensive move. That meant Trevor had been alive at the time
of the attack. I stayed silent, absorbing that information while
McNulty read my thoughts.

"The tabloids will have some fun with dogs as murder
weapon." He grunted a dry laugh. "Won't they now?"

I nodded to the phone.

"I checked out your finance guy, Mumby. He had
worked at LIFFE until about a month ago, when he left for an
investment bank. That was before Trevor transferred
twenty-five thousand euros to the same bank. "

I decided I might need an interview with Mumby
whether he agreed to one or not, but that could wait. I called
Pascal, my Paris investigator, and asked him to meet me and to
engage the lady he called a ghost.

This time, the venue was close to my neighborhood.
We met at the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre. I stood at
the edge of the bluff overlooking the city. The winter sky was
mostly clear, but still a haze lay above the cityscape stretched
out for miles below. Among the chattering of small bands of
tourists, I heard a familiar voice.

"We should have met indoors, Irish. Cold out." Pascal
stepped next to me. "This is Marie, the phantom."

She was an elfin young woman, with a delicate face and
deep-brown eyes that seemed as big as a deer's. She stuck out
her hand and squeezed hard when I took it. She was stronger
than she looked.

"How long have you been doing this kind of work?" I
asked her.

"Counting today?"

"Yes."

"Including the time it took to get here, about forty-five
minutes."

I scowled at Pascal. "I thought you'd worked with
her."

"I've been training her."

"But she's never worked. This is a bad case, Pascal.
There's been another... I don't know what we have, but Trevor
Jones' body was found outside London."

Pascal shrugged and raised his eyebrows. "No problem,
she's good."

"No problem," Marie hooked her thumbs into her belt
and stuck out her chin. "I move like—"

"A ghost. I already know." It turned out she really did.
We tripled-teamed the PDVSA duo when they left their office
that evening. They split up. Pascal stayed with one. Marie and I
trailed the other. Our guy took evasive actions, stopped to
check reflections in windows, doubled back along his path,
walked into the front entrance of a building checked the area
for faces then took a side exit. He turned down an alley. I gave
him time to get ahead and almost followed, but Marie signaled
for me to stop. A few minutes later, he walked back out. She'd
known it was a dead-end.

He finally went into a dingy couscous restaurant on a
narrow side street off Rue Lafayette. Marie took an oversized
tam out of her purse, stuffed her hair underneath it and pulled
the band down to her eyes. Then she went into the restaurant. I
waited inside the entry of an apartment building across the
street and listened to my stomach rumble while I watched the
restaurant's door. The most curious thing about this episode
was why our man had taken evasive action. Maybe he was
meeting a girlfriend or a boyfriend he didn't want his colleague
to know about.

Maybe a private business deal.

The light in front of the restaurant was not good, but it
was enough to see that one of the two men who got out of a
taxi shortly thereafter bore a strong resemblance to photos of
Cervantes. The other man appeared to be Middle Eastern.
Could he be the Saudi Gavizon had told me about?

I was in for a long wait. When I wasn't fielding stares
from suspicious residents entering or leaving the apartment, I
played mental games that mostly involved trying to convince
my feet that they weren't tired and cold. They weren't that
dumb. Their protest had grown about as loud as I could
tolerate by the time a taxi stopped in front of the café an
hour and seventeen minutes after Marie had followed Ruiz
inside.

All three of our targets got in the cab and left. A little
later Marie came out. I walked toward her.

"I guess you ate."

She shook her head. "Only a little, I wanted to be ready
to move. Are you hungry?"

"I could eat anything I don't have to chase down and
catch."

"Do you like crepes? I know an excellent place."