Gordon Stevens - Kennedy’s Ghost

Giuseppi Vitali had made the call to the Grosvenor House Hotel shortly after Benini and Cipriani had left. Ask for Benini and he’d never get through; ask for the bodyguard, however, and he’d know everything he needed to about the banker.

‘I’m sorry,’ he had been told, ‘Mr Cipriani checked out fifteen minutes ago.’

Benini running to schedule, probably on his way to BCI’s offices on Old Broad Street, then to Heathrow. And from there he would fly either to Milan or Zurich. Except that yesterday afternoon, after they’d dropped Benini and his bodyguard off, his driver and the two gorillas who constituted his back-up protection had left Italy for Switzerland. So after his meeting in London, Benini would fly to Zurich. And that evening Moretti would drive him to the hotel in the mountains which Benini used when his meetings required him to stay in Switzerland. Unless Benini was intending to drive back, which he had never done in the past.

Giuseppi Vitali knew everything about Paolo Benini. His family details, his education and banking career. His business and personal movements, the fact that at that moment in time he did not have a regular mistress. The houses he owned and the hotels and apartments in which he stayed.

The details of his personal protection. The various routes Moretti used to drive him to work and the patterns into which even Cipriani had allowed them to slip when he thought they were safe.

The fact that the bank for which Benini worked carried kidnap insurance.

Cipriani turned slightly and walked behind the Mercedes, eyes flicking between the man in front and the second in the Audi. So where was the back-up, where the hell were Gino and Enzio? The police driver stepped forward, the top of his body above the Merc but the lower half now hidden. Was beside Moretti’s window. The door of the police car opened and the second man got out.

Moretti’s going, Cipriani sensed; half a second more and Moretti’s going to smash his foot on the accelerator and pull Mr Benini out. His left hand moved inside his coat to the submachine gun hanging on the pull strap from his shoulder.

‘Which tyre?’ he asked again.

Clear the car then he would have to bend down and look at the tyre, would have to take his eyes off the driver. Then they would take him.

‘Left rear.’

He heard the slight rev of the engine. Moretti telling him he had everything under control, that if either of the supposed policemen moved out of turn Moretti would run them down.

The strap was still across the gun in the policeman’s holster but the police observer was further out of the door. Cipriani glanced at the tyre. Perhaps it was down slightly, perhaps it wasn’t.

‘Thanks. I’ll take care of it.’

Therefore no need for you to hang around. If you are who you say you are.

And your move if you’re not.

There was a burst on the radio of the police car. The observer confirmed their position then called to the driver. ‘Accident, let’s go.’

‘Thanks again,’ Cipriani said.

The driver ran to the car and the Audi pulled away.

There was a screech of brakes and the back-up pulled in behind them.

That evening Paolo Benini ate alone, Cipriani three tables away and also alone, and the others only entering the dining-room after Benini had left. Perhaps by instinct, but more probably by habit, Benini avoided giving the impression that he was surrounded by bodyguards. When he had finished Cipriani escorted him to the third-floor suite, then returned to the others. Benini poured himself a malt and settled to the paperwork he had brought with him from the Zurich office. Nothing confidential – he was always careful with material he took outside the bank.

Paolo Benini was forty-four years old, six feet tall, with dark, neatly cut hair, and the first signs of good living showing on what had once been an athletic frame. His wife Francesca was six years younger. The couple had two daughters, both in their early teens, a town apartment in Via Ventura, in one of Milan’s discreetly fashionable (as opposed to ostentatiously expensive) areas, and a villa in the family village in Emilia.

Paolo Benini also enjoyed a succession of mistresses, a fact which he considered the natural right of someone of his background and profession, but which he also considered he had successfully kept secret from his wife.

Secrets within secrets, he had once thought. It was a principle he also applied to his work, though he would have used a different word. Security. Not merely the separation of one project from another, even the separation of parts of the same project. The creation of a structure in which the beginning could not be traced to the middle, nor the middle to the end. A structure in which key people such as the London manager were all personal appointees, yet in which even those he trusted knew only what he allowed them to know, with no way two of them could fit even a part of the whole together.

Especially the special accounts: the funds originating in what he assumed were front companies in North America and Western Europe, then switched via a system of cut-outs to their target accounts. Not simply because the destinations were tax havens, but because in such places banking regulations were loose and rarely monitored. And because, in routing such transfers through a series of tax regimes, each with its own rules and regulations on secrecy, the job of tracing those funds was rendered virtually impossible.

Every bank had its special account customers, of course, but this normally meant only those clients requiring customized attention. So the handful of executives and board members in BCI who knew he was special accounts assumed his dealings were nothing out of the ordinary.

Black accounts in black boxes, he had once thought. Even he himself in one. Knowing the codes for the accounts and speaking occasionally to the account holders, but knowing nothing more and not wishing to.

The telephone rang shortly before eleven.

‘Mr Benini. Reception here. A fax has just come in for you and I thought you’d wish to know immediately.’

Because Mr Benini was a regular, and Mr Benini tipped well.

‘The morning will do. But thanks, for letting me know.’

He waited ten seconds, then lifted the telephone again and called reception.

Cipriani had drummed the routine into him. If he received a call from someone claiming to be hotel reception, porters’ desk, even room service or laundry, he should stall. Then he should phone back unexpectedly on the correct line. If reception or whatever confirmed the call, then everything was fine. If not, he should check the door was locked and hit the panic button.

‘This is Paolo Benini. The fax you just phoned about.’

‘Yes, Mr Benini.’

Confirmation that it had been reception who had called.

‘I just wondered where it was from.’

‘One moment while I check.’ There was a ten-second pause. ‘Milan, sir.’

Confirmation that there was a fax.

‘Perhaps you could send it up after all.’

He had barely settled again when he heard the knock on the outer door. He crossed the room and checked through the security hole. The porter was alone in the corridor, his uniform immaculate, his right hand at his side and the envelope containing the fax in his left.

He opened the door.

‘Mr Benini?’

‘Yes.’

‘Reception asked for this to be delivered, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

He took the envelope and felt in his pocket for a tip, sensed rather than saw the movement. The porter’s right hand coming up for the tip but not stopping, three fingers on one side of Benini’s windpipe and thumb the other, cutting off his air. Left hand locked on Benini’s right upper arm and steering him to his right.