move, before he was even fully awake, Mongoose grabbed him, cuffed his hands behind his back, and threw him down onto the floor. He drove his knees into Robledo’s spine, shoved one side of his face against the carpet, and put the knife to his neck.
“Don’t move,” said Mongoose.
“Please, don’t!”
“Quiet!” he said, making sure that Robledo felt the cold steel of the knife as he reached into his bag with his other hand and removed his tool of choice. Not the garrote. This time, it was the same class of tool that had been used on Gerry Collins.
“I can make you a rich man, I promise,” said Robledo, his voice shaking. “Just don’t do this, please!”
“Begging already, Manu?”
Robledo’s body stiffened, as if perhaps there were a spark of recognition. “Do I know you?”
Mongoose leaned closer and hissed into his ear. “Don’t you remember me, Manu? It’s your old friend, Niklas Konig.”
“No, no way! Konig is dead.”
It was the one thing the Central Intelligence Agency had done right after his shooting-the certificate of death issued for Niklas Konig.
His hands a blur, Mongoose dropped the knife and, with the speed of a trained assassin, wrapped the wire saw around Robledo’s neck. With enough back and forth, it was fully capable of beheading a man. Eventually.
“You wish,” said Mongoose as he jerked the wire saw.
“Please, stop!
Another jerk of the wire deepened the flesh wound, enough to reveal that Robledo was a screamer.
“Stop!”
His begging made it all the more satisfying for Mongoose, but clearly a gag was essential. He quickly taped Robledo’s mouth shut, but as he tucked the roll away in his bag, Robledo squirmed and managed to kick over the cocktail table. Mongoose brought him under control with a tug on the wire, taking care not to inflict fatal injury, the tape muting Robledo’s cries of pain.
The upended cocktail table lay a few feet away, the four legs pointing upward like a dead animal with rigor mortis. For demonstrative effect, Mongoose went to work on one of the table legs, the saw cutting through solid pine in seconds. It dropped to the floor just inches from Robledo’s eyes, which were wide with fright, as big as saucers. Mongoose leaned closer to his prey, adding a touch of poetry to his sense of justice: “NATO-approved commando wire saw, Manu. Purchased right here in Ciudad del Este. Just like the one you used on Gerry Collins.”
Robledo groaned, but, again, the duct tape did its work.
Mongoose checked the thickness of the carpeting. Things would surely get messy, and his mind flashed with thoughts of sleeping guests in the room below waking to the steady drip, drip of blood seeping through the ceiling.
With one hand Mongoose drew the wire tighter, and with the other, he grabbed Robledo’s shirt and dragged him across the floor to the bathroom.
“Be a good boy, Manu. Do exactly as I say, and I promise to make this quick.”
52
I was in the BOS Midtown office before nine A.M. I didn’t have to pretend to be busy. My team leader had reams of financials for me to review in preparation for Monday’s meeting with the private equity group in Chicago- the one I had promised to attend, no problem, “my plate is clear.” Not until after lunch did things settle down enough for me to make my move, which was okay. Joe Barber was out of the office most of the day and couldn’t see me until four forty-five. It was clear that his assistant had penciled me in only because she thought it was adorable that a junior FA thought he could ring the executive suite and schedule a meeting with the head of private wealth management. There was definite surprise in her voice when she called me back at four thirty.
“This is to confirm your four forty-five meeting with Mr. Barber,” she said.
“I know. I have an appointment.”
“I mean, he really is going to see you.”
I thanked her and rode the elevator upstairs. As the doors opened and I stepped out onto the polished marble floor, it occurred to me that I was probably setting a bank record for the number of times a junior FA had set foot in the executive suite in a single week.
Barber’s assistant offered me coffee or a soda, which I declined, and then she led me down the hall to Barber’s office. He was behind his desk, pacing as he spoke into his headset on a phone call, and he waved us in. His assistant directed me to the armchair, and then she tiptoed out of the office and closed the door.
“We need to hit the links again soon,” Barber said into his headset, about to wrap up his call.
My focus was on my plan-not just what I would tell him, but how I would deliver it. I’d been doing dry runs in my head since dawn, however, and I was starting to fear that it would come across as too rehearsed. I allowed my eyes to wander across the cherry-paneled walls, a quick survey of the trappings of Wall Street success. Some would have regarded the shrine that Barber had erected to himself as clutter, but there was indeed order to the plaques and mementos encased in glass and gold-leaf frames. His early days at Saxton Silvers. His service at Treasury. His elbow rubbing with the right politicians. I’d noticed much of it on my last visit, but this time I was struck by the contrast to what I’d seen in Evan’s apartment. If Evan’s walls told the story of Wall Street thievery, Barber’s walls told the story of… well, maybe it wasn’t such a contrast.
Barber ended his phone call and laid his headset atop his desk. It had been a pleasant call, judging from his expression, but all sign of pleasantries faded as he came around to the front of his desk, leaned against the edge, and faced me.
“I assume this is about Lilly Scanlon’s banking files,” he said.
Less than forty-eight hours had passed since his Wednesday-evening meeting with Lilly and me, when I had sat in this very armchair, when Lilly and I had received each other’s data with the challenge to find the missing $2 billion.
“That’s correct,” I said.
He folded his arms, a smug smile creasing his lips. “I feel it’s only fair to tell you that I’ve already received Lilly’s report on your data. Very interesting.”
It was a weak bluff. “I don’t believe you.”
“Of course you don’t. But that doesn’t surprise me.”
There was a light knock on the door, and Barber’s assistant poked her head into the office.
“I’m very sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Lloyd has a family emergency.”
Even Barber was taken aback, and it wasn’t his emergency. “What is it?” asked Barber.
“I have a doctor on the line from Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston.” Then she looked at me with sadness in her eyes and said, “It’s about your father.”
It was the kind of news no one wanted to receive, but I was checking Barber’s reaction. Under my witness protection profile-the life I had been living-Patrick Lloyd’s father was deceased. I wondered if Barber realized that we were talking about Peter Mandretti’s father. If he did, he did not let on.
