Crown's Vengeance, The (22 page)

As they raced away from their would-be assassin, Parker and Erika blended in with all the other frantic pedestrians hurrying from gunfire. Police vehicles flew past, lights flashing. Parker also found his overnight bag on the street where it had fallen, an unexpected surprise. Two blocks later he spotted a taxi and they climbed in.

Erika’s voice quivered. “Where can we go?”

Her apartment was out of the question. This guy might have backup, and they would know where she lived. They needed a place to lie low, somewhere off the radar.

The gun was jammed into Parker’s coat pocket, half-visible, metal rattling against his keys.

He pulled out the small set and found his answer.

“Take us to Rittenhouse Square.” The taxi driver nodded, tires squealing around a turn.

“We can go to Joe’s old place,” he said to Erika, his voice low. “I still have the key.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Do you think it’s safe?”

“Right now, we don’t have much choice. We won’t stay for long.”

Ducked low in the backseat, Parker assessed their situation. Somehow they both still had their bags. They had Erika’s gun, along with some spare ammo, and they were alive. All in all, not so bad.

The taxi dropped them off in front of his uncle’s old apartment building. On the second floor, Joe’s windows were covered, the blinds drawn the way Parker had left them several months ago. His only uncle had been a bachelor, and with both his parents dead, the downtown single-story apartment in one of Philadelphia’s most desirable neighborhoods now belonged to Parker.

Which would have been nice if he didn’t live in Pittsburgh, three hundred miles away.

Inside he found everything as he’d left it, along with the scent of wood polish, courtesy of the cleaning company Parker had brought in to clear up Joe’s study.

Inside Joe’s old enclave, Parker studied the refurbished room.

Patched bullet holes lined the mahogany walls. Parker had thrown out the leather couch, which had been oozing stuffing from its desecrated hide, but kept the beautiful desk that dominated the room. Constructed of lumber salvaged from the bottom of Boston harbor, the desk had been one of Joe’s prized possessions, a monstrous ode to his passion for all things historical.

Parker may have been hurtling down memory lane, but Erika didn’t have time for such nonsense. She went straight to the chair behind Joe’s old desk and sat down, her laptop blinking to life.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Aldrich Securities and their connections with the British ambassadors. You’d think that someone would have realized by now that they’re basically supported by a foreign government, the next stop on a pre-planned journey that begins at Eton.”

She was all business again.

“Do you think anyone would have the resources to identify a trend like that?” Parker asked. “And are we sure it’s a trend, or did it just happen to be that a few of the retired ambassadors were chummy with Aldrich’s board? That kind of stuff happens all the time, people getting hired somewhere that they’re buddies with the bigwigs.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Now that no one’s shooting at us, I can check the rest of Aldrich’s records. If they’re trying to hide anything, they’re doing a terrible job. Everything we’ve found so far has been on their website where the whole world can see it.”

For several minutes he stared absently at the floor, his mind racing with unanswered questions. Who had that guy been? How had he found them? And most importantly, why did he want to kill them?

Parker scratched his thigh and heard the rustle of paper in his pocket. “Wait a second. I forgot about this.” The slip of paper he’d taken from the dead assassin’s pocket was in his hand.

“What?” Erika’s face darkened. “What is that?”

“It was in that guy’s pocket. I grabbed it before we left.”

She scrutinized the small sheet. Two strings of numbers, each around fifteen digits long, were written in concise script.

“Do you think it’s a code?”

A nagging thought that had been buzzing in the back of his mind finally clicked.

“It’s an account number.”

“A what?”

“A bank account number.” He was positive now. “And that’s the password.”

Her incredulous look spoke volumes. “How in the world do you know that?”

“Several of my clients have offshore accounts. Remember what we talked about, the offshore company Ben was running? Well, you can also have offshore bank accounts. Say you have a whole bunch of money, and for whatever reason, you don’t want the US government to know about it. If you’re paid off the books or from an account that’s already out of the country, you can wire money to your non-American bank account and keep the IRS from ever knowing about the cash.”

“So why would a guy who was trying to kill us have a bank account number and password in his pocket?”

“I have an idea. Let me use that computer.”

“No way. I’m actually doing research that might save our lives. Use this for your wild goose chase.” From inside of her bag Erika withdrew an iPad, handing the slender device to him.

Parker tapped the touchscreen and brought up his work e-mail account. “Here, look at this.” He pointed to a string of numbers of the same length. “This account belongs to one of my clients. I send his profits here every month.”

“Does that even help us?”

“It tells me that this account is from a Swiss bank, and there are only a few institutions that a hit man would trust with his money. A bank would have to be very discreet for a killer to trust them.”

A quick search presented Parker with a list of the five largest banks in Zurich.

“Now what?” Erika asked. “If these banks are so secretive, no one will tell you if this guy had an account or not.”

“Oh, I think I can convince them to share.”

Parker dialed an international number for the first bank on his list. Once the signal traveled halfway around the world, a demure female voice answered.

“Guten Tag.” Parker didn’t speak German, so he got right to the point and rattled off the first string of numbers.

“Zugangscode?” He had no idea what that meant, so he read the second string of digits. A keyboard could be heard tapping. Several interminable seconds later, the woman spoke.

“Was kann ich fur Sie tun?”

He should really learn another language. “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak German.”

The response was instant. “I apologize, sir. How may I help you?” Gone was the harsh German accent, replaced by flawless English.

“I’d like to check the balance of my account.” Erika’s jaw had dropped wide open as he spoke, one hand on her chest.

More keyboard clicks. Parker put the phone on speaker.

“As of today, it is forty-nine million seven hundred eighty-six thousand dollars, sir.”

The number literally took his breath away.

After several seconds, the woman asked, “Sir, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here.” He scrambled to think while Erika sat immobile, her eyes unblinking.

“Thank you for your help. That’s all I require.”

“Have a wonderful day, sir.”

The connection severed, he nearly fell onto the desk.

Erika exploded. “Parker, did you hear her? This guy had fifty million dollars.” Her hands flew about, slicing through the air as she spoke.

To Parker, the next step was obvious. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“What are you talking about? Parker, no.” As he considered the situation, she already knew where he was going. “You can’t. You don’t know where that money came from.”

“And to be honest, I don’t care. He was a murderer, Erika, and apparently a prolific one. It’s not going to do him any good now.”

“You want to steal it.” Erika shook her head, which now rested in both hands. “What if they find out you’re not the account holder? You could go to jail.”

“That’s the beauty of Swiss banking,” Parker responded. “Half the time they never even see the person who opens an account. It’s all done electronically or through personal representatives. Having a whole bunch of money can make people act in strange ways.”

“But still, you don’t know where the money came from. Doesn’t that bother you?”

He thought about it for a moment. It didn’t bother him one bit.

“Not at all. That guy might have killed people for a living. I shot him, so I can take his money. Aside from that”-and here he grabbed her hand-“I’m sick of people trying to kill us. With that kind of money, we can hold our own. Think about it. Now we won’t have to rely on Nick to save us when things get tough. I’ll hire an army of security to protect you, to figure out who’s after us and how we can stop them.”

“I don’t know; it just doesn’t seem right.”

His resolve was steel. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn. It’s there, and we have access to it if we need it. That’s good enough for now. Once we know it’s safe, we can take a trip to Zurich and I’ll make sure no one can ever trace it.”

Obviously uncomfortable with the whole idea, she chose to avoid it. “Fine. We’ll deal with it later.”

Her hands turned to the keyboard and began banging out instructions. While she worked, Parker pulled up CNN, searching for any report of their recent shootout. Nothing was on the national news yet, as every outlet was busy trumpeting word of the impending oil crisis. Despite the fact he now found himself fifty million dollars richer, this oil business had grabbed his attention and wouldn’t let go. Parker couldn’t put his finger on it, but as he devoured article after article, the feeling that something about the whole business just didn’t add up grew stronger by the minute.

Chapter 36

The soft glow of the computer screen lit her resolute features, but Erika’s mind caromed around like a rollercoaster as she sat behind Joe’s old desk. Try as she might, she couldn’t focus on the laptop in front of her.

It was the first time she’d been in her mentor’s office since his death. Parker had visited several times since then, one of which ended in a shootout between law enforcement and two hit men sent to murder Parker. A Philadelphia homicide detective had been killed, and Nick Dean, the CIA agent who ultimately helped them survive the ordeal, had saved Parker’s life.

Other than the formerly bullet-ridden walls and furniture, the place was fairly clean. If it hadn’t been for the fifty-million-dollar discovery a few minutes ago, she would be getting some work done right now.

Instead, she struggled to accept that the man she loved was going to steal an ill-gotten fortune. It wasn’t that she disagreed with taking the dead man’s money. He had tried to kill them, after all. It was that the money was as dirty as it came, likely accumulated through years of calculated killing. The idea that his newfound riches were obtained on the backs of innocent victims made Erika shudder.

How did this ever happen to her? Six months ago she’d been an ambitious assistant professor at Penn studying under Joseph Chase, one of the most respected men in the field. The fact that he was also Parker’s uncle had been interesting, but things had worked out. Now she was once again running for her life with Parker, albeit a much wealthier Parker than before.

She needed to focus.

“Screw this.” Erika shoved the whole mess from her mind and focused on Aldrich Securities’ home page. Their self-important lineage had so far proven to be a lucrative source of information.

The list of former directors stretched for miles, going all the way back to the early 1800s. The most recent hit she’d had, Richard Lyons, had served in the 1870s. Starting with the board members that came after Lyons, she punched their names into her university archives.

Thirty minutes later, she hit pay dirt.

“Parker, look at this.”

He’d been glued to her iPad for the past half hour, completely ignoring her. “What’s up?”

What had grabbed his eye? “Tell me what has your attention. You haven’t moved since that phone call.”

“I’m not sure. Seriously, I don’t know. Give me some time and I’ll have a better answer.”

“Fine. One of us has to do some work. Check this out.”

Parker leaned over her shoulder and studied a grainy, black-and-white photo. A half dozen white men, all clad in turn of the century fashion, stared back. “Who are these guys?”

“You don’t recognize any of them? That guy, the one with the beard, is J.P. Morgan.”

“They all have beards, and that has to be the grainiest photo I’ve ever seen.” He had a point.

“This is a who’s who of bankers and industrialists a hundred years ago” Erika explained. “The heads of Morgan Bank, Chase National and National City Bank of New York are there, as well as the head of Aldrich Bank, which is what Aldrich Securities was known as back then. His name”-and here she indicated one of the bearded participants-“was Quentin Waldegrave.”

“What’s so special about this?”

“This photo was taken in October 1929, the same month the stock market crashed and America fell into the Great Depression.”

“I assume all these bigwigs were trying to prevent the crash?”

She opened a second window, this one displaying several news articles retrieved from Penn’s archives. ”You’d be correct. Do you know anything about Black Thursday?”

“Just that it’s when the stock market crashed.”

“Yes, but listen to this. Some of the more astute financial leaders of that era had read the tea leaves in the preceding week and knew the market was in trouble. This photo with all the big shots was taken a few days before Black Thursday, at a meeting of the minds in New York, the purpose of which was to figure out how to stop a cataclysmic collapse of the market. Quentin Waldegrave was invited to the gathering.”

“Their meeting didn’t go so well.”

“Well done, Sherlock. It failed, and failed miserably. Once the tumble began, with heavy trading on Thursday that led to even heavier losses, the game was over. However, the group had been trying to avert such losses for over a week, ever since they arrived New York the prior weekend.”

“How do you know they were in the city that early?”

“Because some of them were giving interviews to the news outlets, telling everyone that things would be all right, to hold the course.”