Unacceptable Risk (40 page)
"We all have to trust the escrow holder."
"Come, come. The Swiss are impeccable. Everything closes at once—you, Bowden, Raval, the French government. Everyone is paid directly out of escrow pursuant to identical countersigned instructions."
He watched her for maybe two minutes, saying nothing. She did not like her dress open where he had cut the buttons, but she knew better than to pull it closed until he was through with his ritual.
"Everything is too smooth."
"I have thought about it for months. That is why. I have waited to work with you. I have plotted and schemed."
"There is no one so blind as a man who wants to believe a woman, unless it is a woman who wants to believe a man. But you never had that problem because you never had a weakness for any man. Not like I have a weakness for you. You're lucky I don't pull your entrails out on the floor and watch you die. I hate that you weaken me!"
Benoit didn't move a millimeter. She knew that it would take almost nothing to drive the man to murder. He stepped close and touched the tip of his knife just beneath her sternum. She knew it was the place that he made the incision when he wanted to unravel the intestines.
"Tell me everything you and this Baptiste get out of this."
"I get to be with you. I get a pardon from the French government. And if Cordyceps goes off as planned, I get to be rich. I still have funds from Grace that are hidden and I will invest heavily on the short side just before Cordyceps. Baptiste and the admiral will get five million each in exchange for my pardon, Baptiste splits with others. The admiral says he won't take the five million for a long time, if ever. Maybe, he says, he will turn it over to the French government. You and I know that if he would consider it, he will take it."
"Admiral Larive will be involved with this?"
"He will not say that he will do it, of course. I told him the money would go into a Swiss bank in the name of a Swiss trust. We would invest. He never has to claim the money. He said nothing at all. A man like that cannot agree—it just has to be done."
"So he agrees by his silence. You amuse me."
"That is how it has to be. When he gets up in the morning, he tells himself he will not take the money, that it is blood money. It is how he respects himself even a little bit. And who knows, maybe he will never take any."
"Bullshit. He will take it. Maybe when he is old. How does the French government explain this to the Americans?"
"They notify the Americans on the day of Cordyceps, but, of course, they will say that they thought it wasn't to happen for weeks."
"It could affect our execution of Cordyceps if the Americans have advance warning."
"They won't." She gave the knife a deliberate glance. "I am betting my life on it."
"They cannot tell the Americans more than a few hours in advance."
"I understand. But we will have to know the date for a few days in advance in order to make our investments."
Gaudet stopped talking. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"Come here," Gaudet said, stepping to the bed. He touched the tip of the knife to each of his fingers as if he were counting them. His pallor was white and he seemed to have no life in his face. The lips were tight.
Fear swept through her; she consciously tried not to shake.
He cut the bra down the middle between her breasts so that she wore only her panties, shoes, her garter belt, and thigh-high stockings under the dress. He ripped it open.
"Turn around and bend over. I don't believe the diseased guard story.... I want it like it used to be," but he was not acting like before. She knew their reunion was not going like his dream. It frightened her.
What fellowship has the darkness with the light?
Sam did not understand. She turned and leaned forward, caressing his thigh, but she envisioned the Loire Valley, and the hope in her mother's eyes when she talked of better days to come. And she remembered Spring's insistence. She bit her lip to make herself think. What was worth dying for? After a moment she took her hand from his thigh. Slowly she straightened herself, forcing slow, deep breaths. She felt Gaudet's hand on her shoulder and the point of his knife at her spine, knowing at any moment he could paralyze her forever. Kill her.
"You deny me?" His breath was in her ear.
"I only advise you. When we have finished our business and after I have tested clean, I will give more than you have ever dreamed."
Her mother's eyes. The valley.
"But it must come from my heart and not the point of your knife."
His breathing was heavy and she knew he wanted her not just for the sex, but for the power. The knife bit a little deeper. She turned her head slightly and leaned back, putting her cheek next to his. "If you wait, my body will reward you. I'll give you every assurance you need."
His breathing stopped and she could feel the tension in him. She summoned all her
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and tried to find her peace. She left the tension of his indecision behind.
He exhaled long and slow and dropped the knife hand to his side, but he did not put it away. "Waiting is hard."
She smiled and kissed him. "And I'm the one you said is in a hurry. Tsk. Tsk." She reached for the outfit that he had brought for her as part of his disguise and turned away while she removed the ruined dress and put on the new. His eyes followed her, but he made no move to stop her.
"Tell me about Raval. I never met him in Malaysia."
"He is a bit obsequious for a tall man. His mind never leaves the science. He knows nothing of the world. He is very naive. There is not much to tell."
"You sound like you don't think much of him, Benoit, and yet you are getting him two million."
"Even weak men can find strong friends. And he is very valuable as a scientist, if not so impressive as a man."
"You're trying too hard."
"What do you mean?"
"To make him sound like an insect. But just know that if you ever touch him, I will turn him into a eunuch—should I happen to let him live."
"I must go now and speak with him to be sure he's ready for the exchange."
"No."
She looked at him, at the phone he held in his hand. "You are not leaving. Use this and stay with me. That is the end of the discussion." Gaudet had spoken.
Calamities come like the blizzards, never the same, and never a man's choosing.
—Tilok proverb
When Sam heard Raval's voice on the phone, he knew that something had gone terribly wrong.
"She says she's not coming back right now. She says I have to get ready to give her the materials."
"What else did she say?"
"We spent almost no time on the terms of my contract with the French government. But then she had told me before she left that I would not be working for the French government. And she winked. I don't know how she winks about such grave matters. I hope she is not making promises she cannot keep. I am supposed to print out and sign documents at seven tonight. We are faxing signatures. I will e-mail the documents into escrow. I am to provide the official Grace documents via FedEx to escrow. You must know from Benoit that they are phony records because Chellis was so paranoid. He made sure the official records were false and the real papers privately held. Now I have them all."
"We should talk," Sam said.
He met Georges at the Plaza Hotel in the same conference room where he had met Benoit, only this time they were alone. Georges always wore a blue blazer and tonight was no exception. Although he appeared worried, he also appeared collected. He was a strong man. It was 5:00 p.m., two days after the meeting in the park.
"I will send the Grace documents and the contract from the attorneys, like she asked," Georges began.
"She knows what she is doing, we have a plan."
"You know the real Chaperone document is in the safe-deposit box."
"Yes. I know. Benoit knows it as well. She knows what we're doing, Georges."
"I don't want to endanger her in any way."
"We passed that point when she went to Gaudet. We have to stick with the plan."
"What in the hell is the plan? I thought she was coming back."
"Georges, we were going to keep it between ourselves— Benoit and me—but things are changing. So, I'm briefly going to give the broad outlines of what is happening. She's going along with Gaudet because we're trying to stop a terrorist attack on the United States. This attack is for money, not for revenge or ideology."
"What kind of attack?"
"Using the raging soldier vector on millions in the streets of major U.S. cities. Gaudet calls this plan Cordyceps."
"Oh, my God, that will be a disaster."
"We know. Georges, to get the information about Cordyceps, we need to go along with a sale of technology to the French government. But as you've figured out, it's a fraud. We intend to stop the sale before it closes. Rogue French agents are involved. We are risking France's two hundred million, but as I said, we'll stop the sale before money changes hands, if we can. We will halt the escrow immediately after we get all the information on Cordyceps. But if Benoit can't get away from Gaudet, or if we don't get the info on Cordyceps, then the deal will close and France may release their money without getting all they've bargained for."
"So then I will be involved in a swindle."
"Not exactly. You will have no legal problem, but we will explain that later. You just need to know that Benoit is going to try to leave Gaudet, and if Gaudet holds her, we are going to try and get her out."
"What if you can't?"
"That's a problem. I won't lie to you."
"This is not comforting."
Sam put his hand on the scientist's shoulder. "We are going to do everything humanly possible to get her back."
Sam left a stunned Georges and stepped into the hall, where he found a pay phone to call Jill. He wasn't completely certain the cell would be free of tapping.
"What do you think?" Jill said.
"It wasn't supposed to go this fast. She was supposed to come out. I'm guessing Gaudet doesn't trust her. Either that or I misfigured her, and if that's the situation, I don't know where this thing is going."
"We don't dare tell the Feds to warn the French and stop the deal."
"No way. It will totally compromise Benoit and it will ruin our chances to get information through her."
"Yeah. It is hard for dead people to talk," Jill pronounced.
Benoit and Gaudet were in the St. Regis Hotel, near Central Park. They had been there two days with adjoining rooms, and Benoit's outer door came complete with a couple of guards. Her room was equipped with a high-speed Internet connection and an Inspiron 8500 laptop provided by Gaudet and an "assistant," by the name of Big Mohammed, who watched every move she made. Gaudet was in an easy chair in the next room and didn't come into Benoit's room unless Big Mohammed was absent. Often Trotsky was present; that plus Spring's magic had kept Gaudet at bay. She wondered how long it would last.
Unfortunately, the laptop computer left whenever Big Mohammed left. Benoit had opened the double escrow with Credit Suisse. Pursuant to contracts between Gaudet's company in Quatram and the French government, Gaudet acknowledged in the documents that his company had no claim to the ownership of the Chaperone technology. Raval attested that he was the primary inventor of the technology and that the official Grace Technologies record of Chaperone would be deposited into escrow. For political and legal reasons Raval's attestation was critical because France's claim to the invention came through the bankruptcy of Grace Technologies, which owed massive sums in back taxes. Grace's ownership in turn came through Raval's employment by Grace, since for patent purposes he was the inventor. The entire transaction would be handled over the Internet, except for the physical signing of escrow instructions. In Gaudet's case it was agreed that an electronic signature would be acceptable. Benoit, on behalf of Gaudet, deposited electronically into escrow all of the manuals and information that he had obtained from the original laboratories in Malaysia, and even more critical, the Grace document provided by Raval, explaining Chaperone. Much of this material was new to the French laboratory, which had received only information from Grace labs in France.
France deposited the $200,000,000. The moment it was in the account, Benoit advised Gaudet. Returning to her room, she discovered the following message from Baptiste.
You need to return to France immediately. We need to work on your pardon. And we need a week for our scientists to verify the technology. Seven days from today should suffice. We will then need seven additional days in order to close.
Benoit printed the message and took it to Gaudet.
"This was not part of the deal. They are reneging. You know that the Chaperone document is correct.... Hell... you have staked your chance for a pardon on it. That has to be good enough for them. Write that. Tell them no way. It must close now."
"It is like the government. They are used to making demands," Benoit said. She went back in her room and composed a message consistent with Gaudet's directive.
Big Mohammed was asleep with his chin cupped in his hand. Working fast she put the message into an e-mail by making it an attachment and sent it off to Baptiste. Next she went to the sent items, then re-sent the message to Sam's e-mail address. Then she double-deleted the forward to Sam.
"The government will not close without a chance to verify," came the almost instant response from Baptiste.
At that moment Gaudet stuck his head in the room and saw Big Mohammed asleep. "Wake him up and tell him to get out. Leave the computer." Gaudet stepped out of the room. She woke Big Mohammed and explained that he had been sleeping in front of the boss. The man sprang instantly awake and tried to explain.
"Forget it. He'll cool off, but just leave for now. We'll call you." She was hoping for a break like this.
"You should see this," Benoit said when Gaudet returned.
Gaudet came and read over her shoulder.
"Bastards. They never said anything about this. Tell the bank the deal is off and they are to permanently delete all documents immediately. I can live without the two hundred million."
"Let's give them one more chance."
"How?"
"I propose the following response."
We'll send the following message immediately to Credit Suisse if you do not retract: To Credit Suisse escrow holder
—
Permanently delete all documents as per escrow agreement clause 17.
They waited. Benoit could imagine Baptiste on the phone with the admiral. Baptiste would be taut as a bow string, his retirement on the line; Admiral Larive would be cursing, imagining his career, his honor, sliding into a garbage pit.
"I will kill that bastard if he backs out on me. I have done harder things than kill an admiral," Gaudet said.
"He is not just an admiral, he is the head of an intelligence agency. Don't worry. They will not back out. They want this too badly."
"Even so, they won't get their five before Cordyceps. I'll give them three days maximum."
"Wait. You can't do that. Baptiste must believe I am playing ball with him and that he will be rich and we will be lovers. The admiral must believe the same. I need my pardon. I can't change the play."
"Damn the pardon. You will be with me."
"Of course I will be with you, but I will not forsake the pardon. That was our agreement."
"You'll stay with me. I will protect you."
By force of will she did not argue with him. In fact, with the power resting in his hands, it was the perfect moment to ask: "How will you bring down the United States?"
Gaudet's eyes were shining. Her heart beat in her ears as she stood on the threshold. She was looking at a man energized by intrigue, a man who got high on risk.
"Cordyceps is a perfect analogy. We will first eat away at their innards and then take the brain."
"The U.S. is such a large place, though...."
"I have men already in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Washington. They have enough of the vector to transform a million people in each city. Imagine a total of maybe four million people, all driven to kill, all for no reason. At the same time, imagine fifty million computers dying during the crisis. Police, fire, transportation, FBI, CIA—all crippled, sodomized with a baseball bat."
"But how will so few men spread the vector?"
"Helicopters that have been made to look like police helicopters." Then Gaudet's eyes seemed to regain their focus. "Now you'll have to sleep handcuffed to my wrist."
She studied Gaudet. Even through his disguise she could see the energy in his body.
With no preliminaries he stepped back behind her chair and lifted her hips so that she was bent over the computer. He put his hand under her dress. She put her mind in the faraway place of her meditation and then straightened herself up. Deliberately she turned in his hands until she faced him and looked in his eyes.
"You have changed," he said. "Not nearly as much fun as you used to be."
"Maybe I've changed my ideas about fun."
"I haven't changed mine."
He ran his hands up under her shirt. When she grabbed them, anger flashed in his eyes and she struggled to put her mind at rest and to draw strength from her
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Any moment he would pull out his knife and that would be the end of resistance. For a second he looked like he might really hurt her. Gradually she loosened her grip on his hands so that he was free to continue while she held his gaze. He said nothing while he pondered what must have seemed like a new Benoit Moreau.
The computer made an audible tone and broke the tension. She turned away from his hands, sitting back down to the computer.
"Baptiste is responding," she said.
We will do the deal with only a 24-hour review window, but only if you first send us Benoit so that we can receive appropriate reassurances.
It was an unexpected shock.
"I've got to think." Gaudet stepped away and paced across the room. "I wonder what I can offer them?"
"I have to go back," she said.
"Now that you know about Cordyceps? Out of the question. So now what?"
Benoit wrote a message.
You may have 24 hours for your review of the vector and Chaperone documents, but you must view them in escrow. No documents may be removed from the offices of the escrow holder until closing, no copies made while you are determining their authenticity. I cannot come immediately. Gaudet wants the same assurance that France wants. For him, proof of straight dealing means holding his knife to my throat. Close the deal and release the funds in 24 hours. Or I cannot consummate a transaction at this end.
Gaudet read it.
'Tell them five days until Cordyceps. Tell them four P.M. EST, on the fifth day." She wrote it.
"They will never give me a pardon." "You idiot. They won't give you a pardon anyway." They waited for Baptiste's reply.
* * *