endless, sir. Pelerin has effective assets of more than a trillion dollars in virtually every country in the world, including China.”
“All controlled by some lawyer in west bum-bugger France? It makes no sense.”
“No, sir, it does not.”
“There is an explanation?”
“There are rumors, sir.”
“What rumors?”
“Rumors of an organization for which Ducos is as much a front as Pelerin and Cie.”
“The Rosicrucians, the Masons, Opus Dei, the Illuminati, the Dan Brown Fan Club, the goddamn Shriners?”
“No, sir.”
“The Bilderberg Group, the New World Order, the Republican National Committee? Spit it out, man; I don’t have all goddamned day.”
“Yes, sir. I am aware of that, sir. The problem is, General, for a secret society to be secret, nobody outside the society can know about it.”
“You said there were rumors. What rumors?”
“There seems to be a connection with the Cambridge Five-Philby, Blunt, Burgess, Maclean, Cairncross and Leo Long.”
“That’s six,” said Temple.
“Yes, sir, there’re some who say there were even more. At any rate, they were in a club called the Apostles, and in the end, of course, they were all working for the KGB. It’s also interesting to note that Colonel John Holliday’s uncle, Mr. Henry Granger, knew Philby, Blunt and Burgess through his dealings with MI6 during the Second World War.”
“I’m starting to get a bit of a brain freeze, lad. Remind me again who this Colonel Holliday is and his connection to Ducos.”
Whit sighed. He’d written a dozen position papers and briefs about this for Kokum, but it seemed that the general hadn’t read any of them. “On some level Ducos is no more than a trustee for Pelerin and Cie. Holliday is the one who has all the accounts, codes, passwords and what have you to actually access the funds involved.”
“And how did this colonel come by all these codes and passwords?”
“He was given a notebook with all the information in it.”
“Who gave it to him?”
“A monk in the Azores named Helder Rodrigues.”
“Why?”
“We have no real idea, and Rodrigues is dead. Murdered by a German white supremacist named Kellerman whose father was a Nazi.”
“A secret society so secret no one knows about it, a monk in the Azores with a trillion-dollar notebook, Nazis and a Frenchman. Pull the other one, boy.”
Whit bristled slightly at the use of the term “boy,” but he let it pass. Temple was old-school, and he was also his boss’s boss. “There is documentation for all of it, sir. I can bring it to you if you’d like.”
“Jesus, no,” said the general. It was Temple’s turn to sigh. “Look-Mr. Kokum tells me that all our best intelligence says Putin and some of his pals are in a snit. We want to know why. No fifty-page essays, just put it in a nutshell and toss it down the table if you would. Pretend it’s a rebuttal at the Debate Society finals, Harvard Lion Kings against Tufts Half Vote. You’ve got thirty seconds. Go.”
Whit was stunned. The rebuttal at the Lion Kings-Half Vote debate had been his moment of absolute triumph. How did Temple know about that? There was more to the general than met the eye. Which was why he was the national security adviser, of course.
“Ten seconds gone, Mr. Havers.”
Whit closed his eyes. He could do this. “Somehow Ranger Lieutenant Colonel John Holliday, formerly of the West Point Military Academy, has stumbled onto a secret the Russians have kept quiet since before the Russian Revolution. Putin is about to make a move to consolidate his power and turn Russia into a superpower again. Holliday could ruin everything for him.”
Temple turned to Kokum. “Do we want that?”
“Definitely not, General. In five years or less Russia will be the largest source of foreign oil available to us. The Middle East and North Africa have gone to hell ever since people started getting smart and realized their leaders had rocks in their heads. We need Putin. We need to keep him happy.”
“Do we have anyone in the area?” Temple asked blandly. He rolled his cigar around in the ashtray in front of him.
“Do we?” Kokum asked, turning to Whit.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“A man named John Bone.”
“Any connection to us?”
“No, sir, he’s a freelancer.”
“American?”
“Irish by birth. He lives in London. Right now he’s in Amsterdam on another assignment for us. That new WikiLeaks thing you wanted handled.”
“A bit of preventive medicine, as I recall,” Kokum said.
“Yes, sir.” Whit nodded.
“What’s his record?” Temple asked.
“Thirty-two professional fights, thirty-one wins, all KOs, one draw.”
“What was the draw all about?”
“The subject was hit by a car an hour and a half before the fight.”
“All right,” said the general, sticking the cigar back into the corner of his mouth. “Blue message to this fellow.” He nodded down the table toward Whit. “Your man here pulls the strings. Let’s see if he’s as good as he thinks he is.”
Kokum smiled thinly. “I don’t think Mr. Havers has the sort of experience required for this kind-”
“He’s the case officer, Kokum. Over and out.”
20
The public’s ideal of a professional assassin runs to one part Sean Connery in a toupee, two parts Daniel Craig and perhaps a dash of Matt Damon-handsome, muscular, unemotional, a magnet for women and a lover of all the finer things in life. Most important, one way or another, no matter which side he is on, the professional assassin is a patriot.
John Bone was none of these things. He was fifty-six years old, tended to a middle-aged man’s potbelly, had thinning carroty hair, wore spectacles and liked nothing better than a nice cup of tea and a plate of eggs, chips and beans for brekkie. He loved cats, cried over certain rock-and-roll songs from the sixties, and ran a small, marginally profitable business designing and printing menus for restaurants, which he ran out of a tiny office above a sex shop on Dean Street in London’s Soho district. Academically, he had excelled only in languages, for which he had a great facility, and now spoke six quite fluently.
He had been married for seventeen years to a simple, pleasant woman named Alice, had twin teenage girls, Hailey and Hannah, 3.2 million euros in a bank of the island of Guernsey and another 5.8 million euros in a bank in
