Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

with the money, but he didn't lose them, and they weren't stolen from him. He gave them away, and the person he gave them to was Bo Wahlstrom.'

'Yes!' Veil exclaimed, sitting up straight in his chair. He glanced at me sharply, and his blue eyes glinted with excitement. 'Oh, yes! That's it!'

Garth, obviously puzzled, glanced back and forth between Veil and me. 'Bo Wahlstrom is the Interpol inspector Sinclair murdered right after he ripped off Cornucopia. He burned his eyes out. What are you two talking about?'

'No,' Veil said.

'No what?'

'Sinclair didn't kill Wahlstrom.'

'Explain.'

I said, 'The connection between Bo Wahlstrom and Chant Sinclair goes back a long time. It was Wahlstrom who arrested Sinclair and, presumably, turned him over to the CIA. But remember that was exactly the scenario Sinclair wanted. We already know of one highly respected official who worked with Sinclair, and that's Gerard Patreaux. Bo Wahlstrom may have been another friend and ally. If it's true, then other pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together.'

Garth glanced at Harper, then looked back at me. 'Sorry, Mongo. I'm still not tracking.'

'Be patient. Here's another point to consider: The Interpol inspector who originally briefed me never mentioned Torture Island, but I was told that Bo Wahlstrom's full-time assignment was tracking John Sinclair. I'll bet he got that assignment soon after Sinclair's capture and subsequent escape from Torture Island, because it was Wahlstrom who had been given credit for nabbing him in the first place. Well, he never quite managed to catch up with him again, did he?'

'I thought the accepted wisdom was that he had finally caught up with him, and Sinclair killed him for his efforts.'

'The accepted wisdom is wrong. Wahlstrom never caught up with Sinclair again, because he didn't want to catch up with Sinclair again. But he caught a hell of a lot of other bad guys along the way. That's another thing I learned from my Interpol briefing. While Wahlstrom was supposedly devoting all his efforts to catching Sinclair, all sorts of information suddenly seemed to start coming his way. Sinclair may have continued to elude him, but in the meantime he managed to shut down a lot of other criminal operations. You think that's a coincidence?'

Harper reached across the table and squeezed my wrist. 'You think that John Sinclair has been feeding information to Interpol for all these years?'

'Not to Interpol-to Bo Wahlstrom, because Wahlstrom was another friend and ally. Just like Harry Gray and Gerard Patreaux, to whom Sinclair fed information and documents on human rights violations.'

'You're beginning to sound like Veil,' Garth said in a neutral tone.

I shrugged. 'What can I say? It's just a guess.'

'I believe it's a good one,' Veil said. 'But I see a problem with where this is all leading us. Bo Wahlstrom was, from all accounts and in Mongo's scenario, a good man who would have used the documents to shut down Cornucopia and nail Neuberger, not blackmail him.'

'It could have been the partner, Nicholas Furie; I was told Furie had only recently been assigned to assist Wahlstrom. Furie may have been corrupt. He would have been in a position to steal the documents from Wahlstrom, and, with partners fronting for him, try to blackmail Neuberger.'

Harper frowned. 'But it wasn't Nicholas Furie who killed Bo Wahlstrom. Wahlstrom was killed in the same manner as the servants in New York, and then Furie himself died the same way.'

'Indeed.'

'Then who's doing all the killing?'

Yet again there was a period of silence as each of us sat with our own thoughts, sorting through the information we had, attempting to separate fact from speculation, examining different scenarios, trying to see a pattern. And then what I was certain was at least a leading candidate for the answer to Harper's question slowly rose to the surface of my consciousness. 'It could be the biggest and meanest baddies of all,' I said quietly. 'The people Cornucopia was set up to service in the first place, the grandfather's backers.'

Harper nervously ran a hand back through her long, brown, gray-streaked hair. 'If that is the case, then why would they kidnap Neuberger and butcher all his servants?'

I thought I had a pretty good idea why, but so did Veil, and it was Veil who answered. 'They killed the servants for no other reason than that they were there, and they kidnapped Neuberger because they may have prepared some kind of special punishment for him. They probably hold him responsible for the fact that Sinclair stole ten million dollars from them. Or Neuberger himself may have been in on-or thought he was in on-Sinclair's scam.'

'All right,' I said, 'let's take it from the top and see how it sounds so far. At some point in time during the course of his own mundane, workaday criminal activities, John Sinclair learns that a certain famous philanthropic foundation is in reality nothing more than a huge money-laundering operation for some big-time criminal organization. He also learns how the money is siphoned off, and he sets up his own scam posing as a Montreal entrepreneur.'

Garth, obviously getting into the spirit of things, cleared his throat, his way of asking for the floor. 'As Veil suggests,' he said, 'maybe Neuberger thought he was in on the whole thing. Sinclair could have used incriminating information he'd already uncovered to blackmail Neuberger into giving him the technical information he needed to bypass the security codes, and then offered Neuberger a deal to keep him quiet and in place. Sinclair, posing as French-Canadian, could have made Neuberger believe he was going to be a partner in a foolproof embezzlement scheme.'

'Whatever,' I said, tapping the table. 'Sinclair may or may not have implicated Neuberger in the scam, but it plays either way, because Neuberger is in deep shit either way. He'll be held responsible. Sinclair pulls off the scam, and, assuming Neuberger is a part of it, double-crosses his would-be partner in crime. After taking his ten million, Sinclair forwards any information and documents he may have to his friend, Inspector Bo Wahlstrom of Interpol, for appropriate action by the legal authorities.

'But Wahlstrom's new partner gets a look at the stuff before Wahlstrom can get the ball rolling. Maybe Nicholas Furie can't believe Sinclair only took ten million dollars. He knows there's a whole hell of a lot more than that to be had from Cornucopia, and he doesn't see any reason why a hardworking civil servant like himself shouldn't also get a piece of the pie before the bakery is shut down. He takes on a partner or two to front for him. They contact Neuberger and make their pitch: all incriminating documents will be stolen from Wahlstrom and returned to Neuberger, in exchange for a very hefty fee.'

'My turn, Mongo,' Garth said.

'It's my scenario, so I should get to tell it. But I may let you speak if you raise your hand.'

Harper was not amused. 'There's one thing wrong with your scenario, Robby,' she said softly, horror in her voice and maroon, gold-flecked eyes. 'I don't see how you can assume Neuberger might have originally agreed to cooperate in the scheme. If you were this man, would you consider for even one second crossing an organization that exacts revenge by torturing people to death, burning out eyes and brains?'

'Neuberger-this Neuberger-may not have known who he was dealing with, Harper,' Veil said gently. 'Cornucopia was founded by the grandfather decades ago and subsequently run by the father for years before control passed to Emmet P. Things probably ran very smoothly for all those years, so no nasty business ever occurred. Now, we have no way of knowing what instructions Emmet P. got from his father. He was certainly told what to do, given instructions as to how to do it, and probably given a stern warning to keep conducting business as usual, or suffer the consequences. But we don't know if Emmet P. had a full appreciation of just what those consequences might be. He may never have had any direct contact with anyone from the organization he was laundering money for. Mongo's scenario doesn't require that Neuberger be in on the deal, but if he was, it was because he'd become complacent. By the time he came to realize the severity of just what could happen to him, it was too late. Sinclair had already double-crossed him, and news of the theft had been made public.'

Harper thought about it, shuddered as she nodded her head. 'Okay. I guess it could have been that way. You're probably right when you say he would have been held responsible in any case.'

'Right,' I said. 'Now, Neuberger had already been ripped off once, and he wasn't going to let it happen again, especially by a crew he probably sensed were amateurs. So he set up a double cross of his own, using me as a