Steve Berry - The Paris Vendetta

“You think that’s Foddrell?” Sam asked, pointing.

“Who else could it be?”

ELIZA CAME ALERT. NOT ONLY DID HENRIK THORVALDSEN KNOW her business, he apparently knew something she didn’t. “A security leak?”

“One of the individuals, part of your Paris Club, is not what he appears to be.”

“I haven’t said that any club exists.”

“Then you and I have nothing more to talk about.”

Thorvaldsen rose.

“I’ve enjoyed my visit to your estate. If you ever come to Denmark, I would be pleased to host you at my home, Christiangade. I’ll leave you now so you may rest from your trip.”

She gave a cautious laugh. “Are you always so grandiose?”

He shrugged. “Today, two days before Christmas, I took the time to travel here and speak with you. If you insist that there is nothing for us to discuss, then I shall leave. The presence of your security problem will eventually become obvious. Hopefully, the damage will be minimal.”

She’d acted so carefully, choosing her members with deliberate care, limiting the total to seven, herself included. Each recruit had signaled acceptance by anteing a twenty-million-euro initiation. Each had also taken an oath of secrecy. Early efforts in South America and Africa had generated unprecedented profits, and secured everyone’s continued allegiance, since nothing fortified a conspiracy better than success. Yet this Dane of immense wealth and influence, an outsider, seemed to know everything.

“Tell me, Herre Thorvaldsen, are you seriously interested in joining?”

His eyes twinkled for a moment. She’d struck a chord.

He was a squat man, made even shorter by a crooked spine and bent knees. He wore a baggy sweater, oversized corduroy trousers, and dark sneakers, perhaps as a way to mask the deformity. His thick silver hair hung long, unkempt. His tufted eyebrows flared bushy, like wire brushes. Wrinkles in his face had evolved into deep clefts. He could have easily been mistaken for a homeless person, but maybe that was the whole idea.

“Can we stop the pretense?” he asked. “I came for a specific reason. One, I hoped, was to our mutual benefit.”

“Then, by all means, let us talk.”

His impatience seemed to recede as he sensed her concession.

He sat. “I learned of your Paris Club through careful investigation.”

“And what piqued your interest?”

“I became aware of some skillful manipulation occurring in certain foreign currency exchanges. Clearly, not natural occurrences. Of course, there are sites on the Internet that profess to know a lot more about you, and your activities, than I do.”

“I’ve read some of those. You surely know that such postings are nonsense.”

“I would agree.” He paused. “But one in particular caught my eye. I believe it’s called GreedWatch. That site has surely been striking a bit too close to home. I like the quotation at the top of its home page, from Sherlock Holmes. There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

She knew the site and its webmaster, and Thorvaldsen was correct. It had struck close. Which was why, three weeks ago, she’d ordered remedial measures. She wondered, did this man know about those, too? Why else mention that specific website?

Thorvaldsen reached into his trouser pocket, withdrew a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to her. “I printed that off GreedWatch yesterday.”

She unfolded and read.

Has an Antichrist Come?

If you analyze the current systematic conquering of the independent countries of the world you can easily find that, behind all of these aggressions, a pattern of unique power emerges that includes economy, military, media, and politicians. I will try to present that this power belongs to the world’s financiers. I think an Antichrist is at the head of these tyrants. Her name is Eliza Larocque. She wants to rule the world, totally invisibly, by the secretly possessed economic power her family has built through centuries.

There is no safer and more profitable business than lending money to countries. Like financiers joining together, refusing to compete with one another, and manipulating markets and currency to their collective advantage pose a grave threat. Larocque and her associates possess a hierarchically organized structure that buys or acquires shares in everything valuable in the global market. They may, for instance, possess Coca-Cola and PepsiCo and, from the top of their Olympus, watch these companies fight each other on the market. But thanks to the capitalist system and its secret business regulation policy, nobody except them is able to know. By controlling the governments in the Western countries, they control the whole Western world. If you follow global political policy you can easily see that democratically elected leaders of countries change, but policy follows the interests of the rich and therefore stays more or less the same. Numerous elements point out the fact that there is an invisible organization that rules the world. The facts I have collected about Eliza Larocque tells me that she leads that organization. I am talking here about a conspiracy that captures almost the whole world.

She smiled. “Antichrist?”

“Granted, the wording is unorthodox, the conclusions bold, but it is on the right track.”

“I assure you, Herre Thorvaldsen, the last thing I want is to rule the world. Far too much trouble.”

“I agree. You simply want to manipulate it to the mutual advantage of you and your colleagues. If that manipulation has some… political fallout… so what? It’s profit that matters.” Thorvaldsen paused. “That’s why I’m here. I’d like to share in those profits.”

“You couldn’t possibly need money.”

“Nor could you. But that’s not the point, is it?”

She asked, “And what would you have to offer, in return for that sharing?”

“One of your members is in financial trouble. His portfolio has been stretched to the breaking point. He’s heavily in debt. His lifestyle demands massive amounts of capital, money he simply does not have. A series of bad investments, overextensions, and carelessness have brought him to the verge of collapse.”

“Why does this man interest you?”

“He doesn’t. But in order to command your attention, I knew that I would have to provide something that you don’t already know. This seemed ideal for that purpose.”

“And why should I care about this man’s troubles?”

“Because he’s your security leak.”

Her spine shivered. Everything she’d envisioned could be in jeopardy if one of the chosen had sold out the others.

She needed to know, “Who is this man?”

“Lord Graham Ashby.”

ENGLAND

A LATE LUNCH WAS WAITING FOR ASHBY WHEN HE RETURNED to Salen Hall. His paternal family’s ancestral seat was a classical battlemented manor, perched amid twenty-four forested hectares to which Ashbys had held the title since 1660.

He entered the main dining room and took his customary seat at the north end of the table where a portrait of his great-grandfather, the sixth duke of Ashby, a close confidant of Queen Victoria I, watched his back. Outside, frigid December air swirled with white flakes-a prelude, he believed, to a coming snow and Christmas, just two days away.

“I heard you’d returned,” a female voice said.

He glanced up from the table at Caroline. She was wearing a full-length silk charmeuse gown, bare legs slipping in and out of a high-cut slit. A kimono-style robe covered her thin shoulders, open in front, the gown’s golden coloring matching her long, curly hair.