"Five hundred million dollars is a lot of money," said Bingham, the negotiator.
The tour boat to Alcatraz Island was rocking gently at the dock, Bingham noticed, very gently rocking, considering the roughness of the swells on this blustery afternoon in early September.
Bingham was the sort of man who saw the trees but not the forest. He had a thing for details. The smaller the minutiae the better he liked it, for in his view it was the smallest things that held the most significance.
And so he analyzed the height and speed of the waves, the intensity of the spray off the stones of the dock, the jerky wing-movements of the gulls trying to land on the island in the brunt of the wind, their eyes round and hard like corn kernels, their feet pedalling the air. He concluded, with confidence, that the tour boat had considerable ballast in order to remain so calm in the rough water.
Bingham's contact, Franks, who, like himself, wore a grey trenchcoat that was practically a uniform in San Francisco, was a man who looked at the big picture, seeing not the individual trees but the blended greens and browns of the whole. If there were some reds or yellows in the green forest he would invariably ignore them. They were anomalies and need not be considered significant.
The two men did not like each other.
The level area outside the prison walls, an institution that was now a monument to the perversity of man, gave Bingham and Franks a clear view of the city while blowing their speech away on the wind.
They were soon to reboard the boat, joining the tourists who were straggling out from the main gate, their phones and cameras in hand and their faces saying plainly how much a shame it was that prisoners had it so easy these days.
"Mr Knoughtly was kidnapped from his vacation house," said Bingham, in the manner of one who clinches an argument, "and given a third-degree interrogation using all the most advanced neurological analysis devices. I'm sure I don't know what they're called, but they've never been found wanting. Mr Knoughtly is truthful and there is no evidence that he is a CIA or FBI stooge hired to penetrate our...walls," he said and pondered the thick edifice that was Alcatraz, a structure that had been easy to get into, but almost impossible to get out of.
Franks nodded, but then he was always and everywhere nodding. One could not know what his position was until he spoke. "We are expected to believe that Mr Knoughtly, a billionaire real estate tycoon with degrees in engineering and physics, has discovered, through the ICS, the identity of the person who masterminded the 9-11 attacks. That much is believable," he said, nodding, "though in my opinion this 'International Counterintelligence Service' is too loosely run, mainly by people who don't know what the fuck they're doing, and those who do know what they're doing are riddled with corruption."
Bingham started to walk down the slope to the dock, then hunched his shoulders and turned to Franks with a sneer disguised as a smile. "You find it hard to believe that a man like Knoughtly would risk losing everything for the satisfaction of seeing the 9-11 mastermind get what the person deserves: death by the same means with which this clever maniac brought death to hundreds of innocent people, including, I remind you, Mr Knoughtly's wife."
"Agreed. I do find it hard to believe."
"You've never lost a wife."
"I understand that part of it, but for Christ's sake, Tim, the mastermind is currently the CEO of the largest munitions manufacturer in the world. If it were to get out that Mr Knoughtly had hired an assassin...well, I needn't finish my train of thought."
"But that's our selling point, Manny," said Timothy Bingham, "it's not going to get out. And even if it did, the associates of the mastermind would know, or quickly come to know, that Mr Knoughtly will be avenged, to the utmost, if anyone were to return the favor."
Manfred Franks rolled his eyes upward, which meant that his contributions on the subject were complete. It was his job to play the devil's advocate on large contracts, to recommend that such high-risk handshakes be rejected.
Five hundred million dollars was as large a contract as anyone in the business of killing people had dared to imagine. It would cover all the debts of everyone involved in the organization: the intel staff, the assignment coordinators, the security experts, the operatives (assassins and vigilantes), with their support personnel, and the Prime Director and his private staff. In all, over twelve hundred people, each getting his or her bonus in the form of insurance policy refunds or similar schemes.
The pay method was not unlike their wages and contingency fees, which were "payment for services rendered" from various fronts, such as art galleries and consulting firms that went in and out of business so ingeniously that the IRS was not the least suspicious of these enterprises, even at those rare times when they were aware of them.
And Franks, yes, he would get a bonus too. Likely 0.0015%, which, he calculated, would come to 75,000 dollars. But the amount was too large to parcel out all at once. The 500 million was to be funneled through a half-dozen foundations and sponged into Latin American banks, where a 15% quarterly fee was paid, and where it was understood, of course, that one did not cheat the organization that was whispered to be called "Red Rum."
The courier had a key to the private cottage behind the Wyoming ranch house where the Prime Director, Hermann 'Bear' Claus, spent parts of the different hunting seasons.
The courier was at that age, around 35, when idealism fades into a blissful fatalism. But he was not so old that changes in social mores, which was a common subject in the training halls, were not welcome.
He believed in the basic tenet of the organization that even the prettiest rose bushes ("etiam rosa pulcherrima frutices") need pruning ("opus ligones"). The Latin phrase was often the first coherent thought in his head when he woke in the morning.
Lance Welles, the courier, parked his scooter in the gravel drive and unlocked the door to the two-bedroom cottage.
For the tiniest fraction of a second he realized that he, or perhaps the Director, had made a terrible mistake. But even as this embryonic thought fired its first neuron, he was torn in two by the force of the blast that came from the entryway just beyond the door.
An hour later a stout man with a grey crewcut and a toothbrush mustache of a rusty brown, dressed in a checkered flannel shirt and khaki pants, sat at his desk in the ranch house talking on a landline phone that he himself had set up between his property and that of an associate in Laramie, 21 miles to the southeast.
"I want undocumented Mexicans who can't speak or read a word of English," he was saying, "and who are scared shitless of deportation. I want a dozen of them here ASAP. It's a clean-up job. They'll each be paid one hundred dollars cash, for two hours work."
Bear Claus listened to the man on the other end of the line for a few minutes, during which time he lit a cigar and poured a cup of French roast coffee.
"It was just bad luck for the courier," Claus said. "I'll explain when we meet tomorrow. Yes, I'm signing off on the Knoughtly contract. I want Sanguineus for the job. Authorize anyone he chooses for his support team."
A middle-aged Asian woman came up behind him and began massaging his shoulders. "A lot of tension there," she whispered in his ear, kneading the left shoulder muscle with her thumb.
Claus was listening, but not to the masseuse. "Orel Knoughtly will be there for lunch," he said in answer to a question. He hung up the receiver.
"THAT," said the woman, "is a major mess outside on the cottage porch."
"You should not look under tarps," said Claus, gripping the chair's armrests in preparation for standing. "Especially when it should be you who is under it."
The masseuse stepped quickly back as the stout man stood and turned to face her. She forced herself not to look at the snub-nosed revolver in his hand.
She was considering which of two stories she should tell him, feverishly weighing one against the other, as to which sounded the most plausible in this particular circumstance.
She need not have bothered. He had the look of a man who has made up his mind to the satisfaction of his conscience; one that requires no proof of moral legitimacy, but of the most practical action.
"I'll need a couple more Mexicans," he said, and pulled the trigger.
Five thousand miles away, in central Europe, a young and very attractive brunette disembarked from a private jet in Wien-Flaughafen, Austria, and entered the arrival lounge carrying a small handbag.
An elderly man leaning on a rolled umbrella waved to her. Seeing him, she smiled but did not go up to him.
He admired her sleek black pageboy hairstyle and the fashionably modest businesswoman's suit of beige with a black felt collar and cuffs. She was tall and svelte. He watched her cross the corridor to a gift shop. Then he looked at his watch, sighed, and put a cell phone to his ear.
"Miss Paladin has arrived," he said.
A pause. He grimaced.
"No, no, I received a bill of good health from my physician," he said testily. "I know what Miss Paladin likes, and I intend to deliver. I shall see you in the morning, Dimitri. But not too early."
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