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She had no proof. She didn’t need it. She had known her friends, known how much they loved their daughter, known what was important in their lives. This conclusion was an intuitive leap, but it felt right. Nothing else had.
This gave her a direction. Among the Nervi holdings were several labs, engaged in all sorts of medical, chemical, and biological research. Since Averill and Tina had evidently felt this was something that had to be taken care of immediately, whatever it was had been imminent. But even though they’d failed, nothing unusual that had happened since then came to mind; no catastrophes locally. She couldn’t think of anything other than the usual terrorist bombings, which seemed to need no reason.
But maybe they hadn’t failed. Maybe they had succeeded in their mission, but Salvatore had discovered who they were and had them killed, to teach others not to interfere with the Nervis.
The target might not have been one of the laboratories, though they seemed the most likely targets. Salvatore had many properties, scattered all over Europe. She needed to search the back issues of some newspapers, to see if any incidents involving a Nervi property had been reported during the week between when she’d last seen her friends alive and their deaths. Salvatore had been powerful enough to keep media attention to a minimum, even black it out completely if he saw the need, but there might still be a small mention of . . . something.
Her friends hadn’t taken any trips immediately prior to their deaths. She had talked to their neighbors; Averill and Tina had been at home, Zia had been in school. So whatever was involved was local, or at least close by.
She would go to an Internet café tomorrow and do a search. She could do it now, but common sense told her to rest after such a long day. She was relatively safe here, even from the Agency. No one knew about Claudia Weber, and she wasn’t doing anything to attract attention. She’d had the foresight to grab something to eat at the airport, knowing she was in for a long session with the hairdresser, and she’d also bought a few snacks for tonight, plus enough coffee for tomorrow. She was set for right now. Tomorrow she’d need to shop for food, something best done early in the morning before all the best choices were taken. After that, she’d hit an Internet café and get started.
The Internet was a wonderful thing, Rodrigo thought. If one knew the right people—and he did—almost nothing on it was safe from scrutiny.
First his people had created a list of the rogue chemists available for hire who had the skill to create such a lethal poison. That last requirement had shrunk the list from several hundred down to nine, which was a much more manageable number.
From there it had simply been a matter of investigating finances. Someone would have received a large amount of money recently. Perhaps the person in question would be intelligent enough to put the money in a numbered account, but perhaps not. Even so, there would be evidence of an influx of cash.
He found that evidence with Dr. Walter Speer, a German national who lived in Amsterdam. Dr. Speer had been fired from a reputable company in Berlin, then from another in Hamburg. He had then relocated to Amsterdam, where he had been getting by but not making a fortune. Dr. Speer, however, had recently purchased a silver Porsche, and paid for it in full. It was child’s play to discover where Dr. Speer banked, and not much more difficult than that for the experts on Rodrigo’s staff to get into the bank’s computer system. A little more than a month ago, Dr. Speer had deposited a million American dollars. The conversion rate had made him a very happy man.
American. Rodrigo was stunned. The Americans had paid to have his father killed? That didn’t make sense. Their agreement was too valuable to the Americans for them to interfere; Salvatore had seen to that. Rodrigo hadn’t necessarily agreed with his father on their dealings with the Americans, but it had worked for a number of years and nothing had happened to upset the status quo.
Denise—or whoever she was—had effectively disappeared today, but now he had another link to her, to finding out who she really was and whom she was working for.
Rodrigo wasn’t a man who wasted time; that very night he flew in his private jet to Amsterdam. Locating Dr. Speer’s apartment was child’s play, as was forcing the lock on the door. He was waiting in the dark when Dr. Walter Speer finally came home.
From the moment the door opened, Rodrigo smelled the strong odor of alcohol, and Dr. Speer stumbled a bit as he turned to switch on a lamp.
Rodrigo hit him from behind a split second later, slamming him into the wall to stun him, then throwing him to the floor and straddling him, his fists delivering powerful one-two punches to the doctor’s face. Explosive violence stuns the inexperienced, throws them into such a state of confusion and shock that they are helpless. Dr. Speer was not only inexperienced but inebriated. He couldn’t manage anything in the way of self-defense, not that it would have done any good. Rodrigo was bigger, younger, faster, and skilled at what he did.
Rodrigo hauled him to a sitting position and thrust him against the wall, making sure that his head once more banged hard. Then he gripped the doctor’s coat and pulled him closer for a good look. He liked what he saw.
Huge red lumps were already swelling on the doctor’s face, and blood trickled from both his nose and mouth. His glasses had been broken and hung askew from one ear. The expression in his eyes was one of total incomprehension.
Other than that, Dr. Speer looked to be in his early forties. He had a shock of thick brown hair and was stocky in build, making him slightly bearlike. Before Rodrigo’s art work on them, his features had probably been ordinary.
“Let me introduce myself,” Rodrigo said in accented German. He didn’t speak it well, but could make himself understood. “I am Rodrigo Nervi.” He wanted to let the doctor know exactly with whom he was dealing. He saw the doctor’s eyes widen in alarm; he wasn’t so drunk that he was beyond all good sense.
“A month ago, you received a payment of a million American dollars. Who paid you, and why?”
“I—I . . . What?” Dr. Speer stammered.
“The money. Who gave it to you?”
“A woman. I don’t know her name.”
Rodrigo shook him so hard his head wobbled on his neck, and his broken glasses went flying. “Are you certain of that?”
“She—she never told me,” Speer gasped.
“What did she look like?”
“Ah—” Speer blinked as he tried to focus his thoughts. “Brown hair. Brown eyes, I think. I did not care how she looked, you understand?”
“Old? Young?”
Again Speer blinked, several times. “Thirties?” he said, making it a question, as if he wasn’t certain of his memory.
So. It had definitely been Denise who had given him the million dollars. Speer didn’t know who had given her the money—that was another trail to follow—but this confirmed everything. Rodrigo had known instinctively
