Steven Savile - Silver

“I can’t promise anything,” Orla confessed. “There’s a second set of papers in the case. Do you trust me to take them out?”

Sokol nodded again. Orla fished a second manila envelope out of the case and took a thin sheaf of papers out of it. She handed the first two to Sokol. “In July of 2004 two substantial payouts were made to Lieutenant General Akim Caspi, one by The Silverthorn Trust and the other by something called Humanity Capital.”

“Payouts to Caspi’s widow, no doubt.”

“It’s feasible. Humanity Capital are global underwriters. They specialize in insuring troops in war-torn areas, including Iraq and Afghanistan among others, and have close ties to the UN. That’s what they mean by human capital. But Silverthorn? As of this morning our man hasn’t been able to find anything on this so-called trust-and believe me, what Lethe can’t find isn’t there to be found in the first place. So, Silverthorn deposited something in excess of seventeen million dollars into a numbered account in Hottinger amp; Cie, one of Zurich's oldest private banks. The holder of that account, opened, coincidently, three days after his death, was one Akim Caspi.” She handed Sokol another print out.

“How did you get this stuff?”

“As I said, anything Lethe can’t get isn’t there to be found. He has a knack for finding out other people’s secrets.”

“So I see,” Uzzi Sokol said. “I would imagine someone like this Lethe of yours could be dangerous if he put his mind to it.” He chuckled at that. Orla didn’t contradict him. She knew enough about how numbered accounts worked to know that with some of the older Zurich banks the number was all you needed to make a withdrawal. It was all part of the arcane secrecy of the Old World banking system. Some were password protected, but she was in no doubt Jude Lethe could find that just as easily if he set his mind to it. What he did was rather frightening when she considered it. It went beyond invasive and into Orwellian Big Brother. These numbered accounts were meant to be among the most closely guarded secrets of a secret-obsessed nation, and Lethe had followed the money all the way back to the vaults of the Bahnhofstrasse in less than an hour. There were millions of reasons why anyone in their right mind might be tempted to try their luck.

“As you will see, withdrawals have been made as recently as three months ago. Deposits appeared to have ceased six months prior. That nine months of inactivity ended six days ago when a substantial deposit was made.” By substantial she meant another eight-figure sum.

Sokol flipped over the page and scanned the rows of numbers. She could guess what he was thinking as the balance turned into a numerical string longer than the account number that protected it. “None of this looks like a widow’s pension,” he admitted. “At least not an Israeli widow. I don’t mind telling you if my wife was in line for this kind of payout, I’d be looking over my shoulder while we spooned.”

Orla knew exactly what he meant. There was enough money in Akim Caspi’s account to finance a small war. That was what frightened her. These last few days didn’t feel like random acts of violence anymore; they felt like the opening salvos in a war. And given that, it made even less sense that Sir Charles had chosen to make it their war.

Someone had access to the account and was using it regularly, and if the real Akim Caspi was as dead as the headstone made him look, it was a safe bet this other Akim Caspi from Fisher’s photograph was the man spending all of that money.

A hooded crow settled on the stone cross beside Caspi’s grave. Orla chose not to take it as a sign.

“Can I ask you something, Uzzi?”

“You can ask.”

“Do you really expect me to believe the IDF would send out an Intelligence officer on a grunt mission like this if it didn’t already have an inkling as to what was going on with the dead general’s money?”

“Lieutenant general,” Sokol corrected, instinctively.

“That doesn’t change the question.”

“Contrary to what the song says, it isn’t all about the money,” Sokol said.

“That sounds like an answer I’d love to have explained. You know who this man is, don’t you?”

Instead of answering her, Uzzi Sokol said, “I know a lot of things. First, tell me, have you heard of the Shrieks?” He watched her intently, looking for any sign of recognition.

"3" face="Helvetica" color="black"›Orla shook her head. “No.”

“Then you need to know about the Shrieks.” Sokol scratched at the back of his neck as though he’d just been bitten. It seemed to derail his train of thought.

She looked at him, expecting him to go on, but Sokol was clearly no longer in a confessional mood.

“Then tell me about the Shrieks,” Orla said, steering him toward the tidbit he’d dangled so tantalizingly. He looked at her.

Above them the sky filled with a flock of migratory birds on their way from swathes of European fields for the warmth of a North African winter.

“Not here,” he looked over his shoulder as though he expected the dead to be eavesdropping on them. Orla followed the direction of his gaze. An old Jewish mother was laying flowers on her soldier son’s grave. “And take the gun out of your briefcase. It is no good to anyone in there.”

He watched the woman drink.

Botticelli would no doubt have considered her exquisite. As she bent over, raven black hair cascaded down around her face. Her breasts spilled white over the red-laced top of her bra. He enjoyed looking. He had always had a thing for fuller-figured women. It was something about the extra flesh that promised excess, like there was so much body for him to lose himself in. The woman wore a thin cotton blouse made translucent by the sweat that clung to the curves of her body. He delighted in the flesh. Unfortunately for her there were fewer and fewer men like him in the world; the ideals of beauty had moved on. Beauty was leaner, a work of art now, anorexic over ample. It was all about carving away the curves, turning beauty asexual, boyish. What was beautiful to the old Italian masters was nothing short of obese in this new world. He despaired at the kind of world that couldn’t enjoy the sensation of sinking into that warm softness only a big body could offer.

Rome loved its water, even more so than Venice. There were the fountains, the horses of Trevi, Bernini’s Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, the tridents of Neptune in Piazza del Popolo, the Fountain of Books, the Fountain of the Porter in Piazza Venezia, Triton, and then there were the springs and drinking fountains. Every street tapped into the water, every tap filled tourists’ water bottles and slaked thirsts as the sun burned hotter. Spring in Rome was given over to the sound of water pouring from the fountains, people laughing as they turned their backs on the Trevi and tossed coins over their shoulders, hoping for the new romance promised Maggie McNamara in Three Coins in a Fountain. He wondered how many of those wishers knew the actress wound up dead after a deliberate overdose. It rather took the Tinseltown shine off the story.

He watched the woman walk away from the drinking fountain. She brushed her hair back out of her face, and seeing him looking at her, smiled. Her cheeks were flushed slightly red from the spring sun. Rome was like that now. A few years ago there had been four defined seasons; now there were two. And a few weeks either side that fluctuated between freezing and sweltering. She had a wonderful smile. The kind of smile that stirred his mind as well as his body. He inclined his head slightly, his own smile knowing.

It was a pity she was already dead, though actually there was no pity in it. He thought about going over there andseducing her. He knew he could. He could be with her when she died, then. He could watch that last beautiful sigh as the life left her glorious body. He could share that most intimate of moments, that final breath. He could see the fear in her eyes as she looked up at him, see the horror and the inevitability as she surrendered. He could smile down at her, touch her cheek perhaps. Kiss away the tears of fear, knowing he had given her both la petite mort and la grande mort in one sweet day. He was good with words and knew what most women wanted to hear, how to gently brush his fingers against places most men were too lazy to touch and how to use that gentle pressure to turn a woman’s lips toward him. He knew how to seduce, how to play to both vanities and insecurities, and more importantly, he looked the part. Like her, he had been blessed with classical features, but for men the ideal of beauty had remained unchanged for centuries so he was every bit as beautiful today as he would have been in the Renaissance. That was just another small cruelty of this male-driven world.