Strait of Hormuz Read online

  He gripped her by the waist and hefted her just as the first bomb blew. The compressed air hammered them through the front door. Marc allowed the second blast to shove them across the street, weaving through traffic that might as well have been frozen in space and time.

  He then did the only thing that guaranteed Kitra’s safety.

  He dropped her into the lake.

  And then he turned to face the danger he was certain lurked out there.

  If only he had a gun.

  Chapter Two

  Rhana Mandana pulled up in front of her Lugano business and waited. The Bentley’s clock showed precisely a quarter to ten. The city’s central shopping street remained relatively quiet. The second hand clicked through twenty-nine seconds, then the night guard stepped out. Rhana rose from the car and said in Swiss German, “Good morning, Arnold.”

  “Madame Mandana.”

  “Everything satisfactory?”

  “Perfectly, ma’am.”

  “You may go.”

  “Thank you.” He waited as she passed through the bulletproof doors. Then the guard locked the gallery’s outer doors, slipped behind the Bentley’s wheel, and drove her car to the underground parking garage.

  Rhana let the gallery’s inner doors click shut and surveyed her domain. Her establishment was one of the finest art galleries in the entire world. The item on the front room’s central display stand was promised to the Getty Museum. Another had been reserved by husband-and-wife collectors who had a room named in their honor at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

  She was halfway across the room when the phone on the rosewood desk rang. Her assistant was not due in for another fifteen minutes. Rhana Mandana specifically ordered her staff not to arrive before ten. No doubt they were gathered in their customary café half a block up the Via Castiglione. She normally did not answer the phone. But she also knew one client who hated having the answering machine pick up. And this client never called once the shop had opened. She walked over and checked the readout. The caller ID had been blocked. Never a good sign.

  She lifted the receiver and said, “Mandana.”

  “My people are out back.”

  “You are not expected until next . . .” But the client had already hung up.

  Her shop was laid out like the formal rooms of a grand home. The front doors opened into a long gallery. The walls were pale teak, the floors granite and marble, the chandeliers Bohemian crystal. A room fashioned as a formal parlor opened to her left, and to her right was a mock study. Her assistant’s desk was positioned just inside the parlor door so she could survey the chamber, the hall, and the entryway. Her own desk was located at the back of the study. The position meant that her aide could lead a recalcitrant buyer along walls holding almost a hundred million dollars’ worth of art before finally arriving at Rhana’s throne.

  She coded in the security number that only she and her aide and the night guard knew, and entered the massive rear warehouse. The concrete and steel chamber covered almost a third of the shop’s total floor space. Few people were aware that over a quarter of her treasures never saw the light of day. One of the few who shared this secret waited for her now.

  Rhana waited for the gallery doors to click shut. She stood just to the left of the doors, the one spot in the entire shop that was not swept by any camera. She had specifically designed the cameras to miss this point. On the wall beside her head was a fake light switch. Rhana placed her thumb on the fingerprint reader hidden behind the switch plate. There was a soft click, and all the security cameras shifted to a computerized loop, showing an empty chamber.

  Rhana crossed the warehouse, punched in the security code, and the rear door drew up. Outside, a refrigerator truck rumbled softly. A swarthy man in blue coveralls jumped down from the truck’s passenger door. The truck began reversing as the worker signaled, maneuvering the truck around until it was inches from the door.

  Rhana complained, “I had nothing down for delivery today.”

  “We knew nothing until four hours ago.” He handed her a clipboard bearing the correct code. When Rhana motioned him to continue, he opened the truck and flipped back the first set of covers. It was always this way. Same truck, same two men. “Thirty-seven items.”

  Normally this particular client brought her one or two items, three at the most. She resisted the desire to ask what was going on. If this man knew, he would not say. “Put them in the cage.”

  Rhana walked to a security box beside a door painted the same color as the concrete walls. The door cranked back on a pneumatic lift. Only when it was open could one see that the door’s thickness was six inches of solid steel. She stood watching as the men carted one item after another into her treasure room.

  As always, the driver handed Rhana his cellphone. She turned from the two men and demanded softly, “Why a delivery today, and why so much?”

  “Emergency,” the man replied.

  “I dislike being involved in—”

  “I must receive one hundred million dollars.”

  She swallowed her protest. This client was not interested in histrionics. “Say again.”

  “One hundred million. Cash.”

  “When?”

  “I will let you know. Two days.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Necessary. Have the money ready when I call.”

  “Even if I could get my hands on that much, you know perfectly well that large a sum would alert Interpol.”

  “You are buying an item. You know the drill.”

  “But a hundred million. I will need to notify the authorities—”

  “That is out of the question. Do what is required. Be ready.”

  She expected him to hang up. He never spoke for very long. Rhana started to ask him what more he could require of her, what other impossible demands did he intend to foist upon her, when she saw the final item the workers carried inside. “I know that piece. Sylvan Gollet displayed it in his Geneva gallery.”

  “Officially, he still does. Parts of it, anyway.”

  “You are giving me a fake?”

  “No. This item is the original.”

  Rhana raised a hand. The workers obligingly set down the sculpture. Rhana inspected it carefully. She had traveled to Geneva the day before Sylvan put it on display, to spend a few moments alone with this treasure. She knew it intimately. She did not have her loupe. She did not need it. She knew she was inspecting Rodin’s ballet dancer.

  Rhana waved the men on, turned her back to them, and hissed, “It has been rumored that Sylvan started dealing in counterfeit items that he produced.”

  “The rumors were correct. The matter has been resolved. Permanently.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Sylvan’s gallery was destroyed this morning.”

  The only sound she could manage was a gasp.

  The man went on, “His shop was demolished by a bomb.”

  Rhana understood then why the man had remained on the phone. His message was not how close she herself was to such destruction. She had known that since the first day the man had entered her world. No. The message for her was, the man took pleasure in such acts of annihilation. She forced herself to say, “I understand.”

  “I must have one hundred million in cash. You have forty-eight hours. Be ready for my call.”

  Chapter Three

  Geneva’s central police station stood near the industrial zone beyond the train station. The monolithic structure was functional, imposing, and stank of disinfectant. They escorted Marc through the central bullpen, down a narrow hallway, and locked him in an interview chamber. Kitra was nowhere to be seen.

  The interview room had bland walls and plastic chairs and a battered central table. A narrow slit was set at eye level into the door. A side wall held a larger window of one-way glass. Marc grew very tired of seeing his reflection. He repeatedly asked for someone to call Ambassador Walton. He had alternated between giving them Walton’s direct line and reading out
the central system that plugged straight into the White House operators.

  Two hours after his arrival, they brought him out into the bullpen proper and handcuffed him to a wooden bench. Marc assumed Walton had gotten hold of the embassy duty officer, strings had been pulled, and he was soon going to be released. But he sat there and watched the hands on the clock crawl. When Marc asked one passing officer what was happening, the woman offered to return Marc to the holding cell, otherwise he was to keep his mouth zipped shut. Her command of English surprised him.

  The police inspector in charge of the bombing case returned to the bullpen. He looked like a middle-aged, midlevel bureaucrat. A green police jacket hung on his narrow frame like a cheerless costume. He was accompanied by a man in his late forties or early fifties, wearing a charcoal jacket and gray gabardine slacks. This second man might have been dressed as a civilian, and he might have been as sleek as a silver fox. But Marc knew a professional when he saw one.

  The inspector looked immensely sour as he walked over. “You will please come with me now.”

  The entire bullpen watched as Marc’s cuffs were unlocked from the bench and the two men walked back toward the holding cells. But as they arrived at the rear hall, Kitra appeared, led by the female officer who had ordered Marc to zip it. Kitra wore a set of gray police sweats. The sweatshirt was one size too large, the sleeves falling over her hands. Her makeup was gone, and her feet slapped the floor in cloth sandals. Her dark hair was uncombed and stuck out in a soft fluff. Marc thought she had never been more beautiful.

  She was also very angry. “You ruined my suit!”

  The outburst caught everyone by surprise, especially Marc. “I wanted to protect you from the blast.”

  “Oh, and the blast wasn’t going to harm you? What are you, bulletproof?”

  “Kitra, I just saved your life.” Marc knew her anger was not over the suit. Or the lake. But she couldn’t yell at him in public over the real source of her fury. “The police are waiting—”

  “Let them wait. We’re not talking about what I want to talk about.”

  “You’re not talking, you’re yelling.” Mark knew she was really raging because he had refused to join her on the kibbutz and make a life together. The loss still hurt them both. Being right did not make it go away. It only made the pain easier to bear. For him. Kitra had no such consolation. And she did not beg. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re sorry. Oh, and that’s supposed to—”

  “Enough.” The inspector had a cop’s ability to command softly. “Take her to room two. Mr. Royce, in here.”

  “Kitra, tell them the truth.”

  She struggled futilely against the female officer’s grip on her arm. “I most certainly do not lie.”

  The police inspector tugged on his arm. “Now, Mr. Royce.”

  “Your passport states your full name as Kitra Korban.”

  “Yes.”

  The police inspector who had led Marc away was now seated across the interview table from her. The elegantly dressed gentleman was seated beside him. The policewoman who had remained her constant shadow stood in the corner, observing everything. The police inspector demanded, “How do you come to be in Geneva, Ms. Korban?”

  “I was asked to come.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  The two men who faced her across the interview table did not appear the least bit surprised by her answers. “And yet you came. Why is that?”

  “My father told me I should trust this man.”

  “Your father, his name is . . .”

  “Dr. Levi Korban.”

  “He is a medical doctor?”

  “Engineering. Electrical.”

  “Dr. Korban accompanied you on this visit?”

  “No. He is in France. Narbonne. With my mother.” Saying those words should not have caused her to leak tears. “They are on vacation. Their first in years. My mother is French.”

  “Do you have a phone number where they can be contacted?”

  “On my cellphone. Wait. It doesn’t work anymore. Call my brother. Serge Korban.” She gave the kibbutz’s central line. “He will know how to reach them.”

  The policewoman, who had checked on her all day and brought her a sandwich and coffee, shifted off her position by the door and handed Kitra a tissue. The inspector was seated directly in front of her. The other man was dressed in a charcoal-gray jacket and chalk-blue shirt and striped tie. His hair was perfectly cut. His gray eyes were intelligent and featureless.

  Kitra looked directly at him. “May I ask who you are?”

  “No, Ms. Korban, you may not. I am asking the questions here.” The policeman waited until she returned her gaze to him. “So a man who your father introduced, and whose name you do not recall, told you—”

  “That is not what I said. My father called and said I would receive a visitor. He told me to trust this man. And do whatever he asked.”

  “Is this normal? Does your father often make such requests?”

  “Never. This was the first time.”

  “Describe the man who asked you to come here.”

  “He was Israeli. Late sixties, perhaps older. But still very strong. He carried a cane. I think . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I think he was Mossad. But he didn’t say.” Perhaps it was her banked-up fatigue, and the stress, and the impact of the explosion she still felt, but suddenly she was back there in the desert. “He looked like a bull. Muscular with huge hands. His hair was thinning but still dark. I don’t think it was dyed, but I can’t be certain.”

  The elegantly dressed older man spoke for the first time. “You recall him quite clearly.”

  “I’ve been working to complete a new factory our kibbutz is building. We are months behind schedule. There are problems everywhere. I didn’t want to meet with him.”

  “You are saying that this gentleman impressed you.”

  “Very much. He was also a little frightening.”

  The elegant man sat in the plastic chair with the ease of someone who had spent years growing comfortable with himself and in whatever surroundings he found himself. “Please go on.”

  “He told me that Marc was coming to Geneva and was about to walk into a trap. They wanted me to go and warn him.”

  “You did not find this strange?”

  “Of course I did. I refused. I told them to contact Marc’s embassy. He replied that he couldn’t because there was a mole.”

  The elegant man leaned forward. “Did the man tell you where the mole was based?”

  “He didn’t say anything more. He stayed ten minutes. Less.”

  “Then why did you agree—?”

  “Because the last thing the man said was, then don’t go, and see what it feels like to live with the stain of a lost life on your soul. I . . .”

  “Yes, Ms. Korban, you were going to say what?”

  But there was no way she would tell them that she had already lost Marc once, and the pain was still almost unbearable. And, of course, there was the other secret, the one she did not even like to confess to herself. That despite every reason to the contrary, she had hungered for one more glimpse of him. Perhaps for the last time. Kitra dabbed her eyes with the tissue. “There’s nothing else to tell you.”

  “How did you and Ms. Korban meet?” The police inspector sat across from Marc while the man in civilian clothes observed from the corner.

  “We were in Africa,” Marc answered. “Kenya.”

  “Where precisely?”

  “A refugee camp west of the Rift Valley. Right after the volcano erupted. Maybe you heard about it.”

  The police inspector nodded, but whether because he had read about the eruption or because Marc confirmed what Kitra had already told them, Marc had no idea. Nor did he care. He had been left waiting in the holding cell for another hour. His left shoulder and ribs throbbed from the blast. “May I have something to eat?”

  “Perhaps late
r, Mr. Royce. I want to know—”

  “How about now. I have been here all day. No food, no water, no charges. Has my associate been treated in this manner? Is that standard Swiss protocol?”

  The elegant man rose, knocked on the door, and spoke to someone in the hallway. The police inspector watched him with a sour expression, but did not protest. The police inspector did not speak again until the other gentleman had resumed his seat. “Tell us how you met Ms. Korban.”

  “I was sent by U.S. intelligence to infiltrate a security firm suspected of illegal activities in Kenya.”

  “All agents of foreign intelligence services are required by Swiss law to announce themselves to local authorities.”

  Marc knew this to be the most ignored law on the books of every developed nation. “I was previously a member of State Department Intelligence. But not now.”

  “You left?”

  “I was fired.”

  “And yet they rehired you?”

  “I freelance. I met Kitra because her brother was suspected of being kidnapped by the group I was investigating. She had gone to Kenya to find him.”

  “How does that connect you two here in Geneva?”

  “I have no idea. I never expected to see her again.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever, Mr. Royce. I must assume you are lying. Your attempts to cover up—”

  “Two days ago my government asked me to come to Geneva. My objective was to copy files from the gallery’s computer. My cover was the acquisition of a painting. They had been exchanging emails with Mr. Gollet in my name.”

  “Breaking into a Swiss firm to steal data from a Swiss computer.” The policeman shook his head in practiced dismay. “Your crimes grow worse by the minute.”

  Marc took heart from how the gentleman to his left smiled at that. Marc pressed on. “They suspected Gollet of being a conduit for funds used to finance terrorism. They wanted to follow the trail of my cash and see where it led.” Marc described his arrival at the gallery, finding the rear door open, seeing the bloodstained body, and hearing Kitra call his name.

  “You did not expect her to come warn you, then.”