Richard Castle - Storm Front

“A husband or brother is going to rappel from the roof to kill the guy?” Storm asked.

“Our thought exactly. But apparently no one at Nippon Financial was pushing real hard for an investigation. The higher-ups at the bank were deeply embarrassed by Motoshige’s lifestyle, and they didn’t want to risk bringing any attention to this. They’ve managed to keep it hushed up in the media so far. Japanese culture is all about saving face and not acting in a way that disgraces your company. High level bank executives just aren’t supposed to behave like Motoshige did. His bosses only tolerated him because he was brilliant at what he did. Like Kornblum, he had his fingers in a lot of pies. Anything that involved foreign transactions at Nippon was in Motoshige’s domain. The guy spoke five languages.”

“Ah, a real polyglot,” Storm said.

“Since when do you know a word like ‘polyglot’?” Jones teased.

“You’ve had me learn eight languages and you ask me how it is I know the word ‘polyglot’?”

“Point taken.”

“Anything else on Motoshige?”

“Nothing that struck us as relevant,” Jones interjected. And again, Storm thought about Jones’s wandering definition of what relevant actually was.

“Okay, so when do we get to the Swiss guy?” Storm asked.

“Right now,” Jones said, taking ownership of the remote control. He clicked, and a picture of a fat, jowly man with a hooked nose appeared in a 3-D hologram.

“Yikes,” Storm said. “Did someone make him take an ugly pill?”

“Wilhelm Sorenson,” Jones said, ignoring the commentary. “Chief currency trader for Nationale Banc Suisse, the third-largest bank in the world, asset-wise. Sixty-eight. Married. Two kids, both grown. Most of his assets were, naturally, in Swiss banks, and as you know they aren’t very good about sharing information. But we do know he was a multi-multi-millionaire, and we also know he also had a weakness for women. Young women. The other victim at the scene was a seventeen-year-old runaway with a fake I.D. that said she was nineteen. She was wearing a bitty little piece of lingerie that left scant doubt as to the nature of the relationship.”

Jones catalogued the details of the scene, ending with the missing fingernails.

“The Interpol computers didn’t pick up the similarity of the crimes until the third iteration, but Sorenson’s killing finally tripped their alarm bells,” Jones said.

“The local authorities botched the scene a little. Believe me, they were asking some hard questions of the wife, who was, quote-unquote ‘out of town’ on some kind of girls’ weekend in France. But thankfully Interpol called our people, and they were able to move in. Sorenson had a fairly extensive external security system. So we were able to get these.”

Several high-definition still photos of a six-man crew popped up on the screen. Five of them were men Storm had never seen before. One was a man he could never forget.

“Volkov,” Storm said. “What happened to his face?”

“We assumed that was the remnants of your handiwork in Mogadishu,” Jones said.

“There’s no way he survived that explosion.”

“There are three dead bankers who would beg to differ if they could still talk.”

Storm shook his head slowly. It had been five years since he last tangled with Volkov. Not long enough. Five lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough.

“Get him off that screen. I’ve seen enough of that face,” Storm said. Jones complied as Storm went on: “So we have three dead bankers from three large banks in three different countries. At least two of them seem to have problems keeping their flies zipped. Are we sure the third wasn’t also into the hanky panky?”

“We looked into that, but Kornblum was a total Boy Scout,” Jones said.

“There’s not a single skeleton in his closet. And, believe me, we looked. He ought to run for the chancellorship with a record this clean. Not that he’d like the pay cut.”

“Okay, what about links between the three men? Some kind of deal Kornblum, Motoshige, and Sorenson were involved in together? A trade they did?”

“Nothing we’ve been able to find so far,” Jones said. “Kornblum had traded with Sorenson. And Motoshige had once offered a trade to Kornblum that didn’t go through. But those deals were five and three years ago, respectively. It strains credulity to call that any more than a coincidence. These guys were all big players in what is a relatively small world of ultra-high finance. It stands to reason they might have had some incidental contact at some point. But that’s all.”

“What about a common associate between them?” Storm asked.

“Unfortunately, there are dozens,” Bryan answered. “Like Jones said, these bankers are pretty clubby. They go to the same conferences, pal around with the same groups. If you start playing degrees of separation, you can link anyone in this world with anyone else in two steps or less. They all worked with a guy who worked with one of these guys, or who went to school with one of these guys.”

“What about phone calls to the same numbers? E-mails to the same accounts?”

“We’re working on that as we speak,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll let you know if anything pops.”

Storm drummed his fingers on the polished tabletop. The three agents let him have a moment. Storm wondered how much of the full picture he was actually getting. What wasn’t Jones parceling out? Who was he protecting? What other angle was he working?

“Of course, there’s one connection we know they have for sure: Volkov,” Storm said. “Volkov is smart, but he isn’t sophisticated enough to be killing bankers on his own. He’s acting as muscle for someone. We can always try to work backward from there. Do we have any idea who might have hired him?”

Rodriguez glanced at Bryan and said, “Told you our boy hadn’t lost a step during his time on the shelf. Twenty bucks.”

Bryan shook his head as he reached for his wallet.

“You really bet against me, Kev?” Storm said, crossing his arms and faking an indignant stare.

“I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never doubt you again and… Oh, man, I’m out of cash. Javi, is it okay if…”

“No, no,” Storm said. “My old man always taught me a debt must be paid promptly. I’ll cover you, despite your lack of faith in me. Just remember you owe me. You owe me for this and Bahrain.”

“Really? You’re going to talk about Bahrain as if it’s even in the same league as twenty bucks?” Bryan said.

Storm handed Rodriguez a twenty-dollar bill. “Just adding it to your tab.”

Jones stared at them. “You ladies done?” he asked.

“Sorry. Continue.”

“Good. To answer your question: Yes, we have a theory on who hired Volkov,” Jones said. “We think it might be the Chinese.”

“Why the Chinese?”

“We’re still trying to piece that together,” Jones said. “But one theory is pretty straightforward. China has the world’s second largest economy, and they’re pretty open about their goal of being number one. It’s possible they’re trying to create some kind of disruption in the financial markets aimed at undermining our economic stability.”

“By killing foreign bankers? Why wouldn’t they just kill American bankers?”

“That’s the nature of global trade these days,” Jones said. “Everything has become so interconnected, the most vulnerable parts of our financial system are actually located overseas. Plus…”

“What?”

“It’s very possible Volkov isn’t done yet,” Jones said. “This might just be the beginning of something that’s going to get bigger.”

Storm nodded. He didn’t need to be convinced of the depth of Volkov’s evil. Even the man’s name spoke to his nature: Volkov is derived from volk , the Russian word for wolf.