The Case Officer (30 page)

“One moment please, Mr. Martin.”
The receptionist buzzed his office and spoke briefly into the intercom: “A Mr.
Martin is here to see you sir.” Then she looked up at Mac and said, “You may go
right in. Second door on the right.”

Herr Merkel was a spidery little
man with a long hawk nose and dark hair parted low on one side and slicked over
the top in an effort to cover his baldness. He wore a heavy, charcoal,
double-breasted suit with wide lapels.

Merkel offered a bony hand to
Mac. “Good day, Mr. Martin. I have been expecting you.”

“Good afternoon, Herr Merkel. I
hope my associates arrived safely with their deposits.”

“Yes, yes, the second one left
just a short while ago.” MacMurphy felt some of the tension leave his body on
hearing that reassuring news. “This is all very strange, I must say…”

“If you are uncomfortable, I’ll
deposit the money elsewhere…”

“No, no! No, no! It’s perfectly
fine. Perfectly fine. I will have it counted immediately.” Merkel buzzed the
intercom. “Please come in here for a moment, and bring the counting machine
with you, please.”

Merkel introduced his young
assistant to Mac and asked him to count the contents of the suitcase. He
plugged the automatic money counter into an outlet near a small desk in the
corner of Merkel’s office and began breaking open bundles of 500 Euro notes and
feeding them into it. The machine whirred through the stacks of notes like a
magician thumbing a deck of cards.

The task took almost twenty
minutes. When the clerk was through, he tore the addition slip from the machine
and handed it to Merkel. Herr Merkel took two identical slips of paper from his
desk drawer and added the three on his calculator. “Exactly fifty million
Euros,” he said. “Is that correct, Mr. Martin?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then if you would please sign
here, here, and here,” indicating places on an account form, “we will be
through.”

Mac signed and, with a feeling of
great relief, he stood up to leave.

“Oh, there is one more thing,”
said Merkel, wringing his hands nervously.

Mac paused, froze. “What’s that?”

“Identification. I must copy some
sort of identification for your account file. You cannot make withdrawals
without proper identification, you know.”

“Sorry, I almost forgot.” He
pulled a blue U.S. tourist passport from his breast pocket and handed it to
Merkel. Merkel handed it to the clerk and asked him to copy it immediately.

“It has been a pleasure doing
business with you, Mr. Martin. And you can be assured of our discretion. Your
identity is perfectly safe in the Swiss banking system.”

“I certainly hope so…”

The clerk returned Mac’s
passport, and Mac departed the bank, giving the receptionist a wink on his way
out the door. He felt relieved of a great burden.

Chapter Seventy-Seven

L
ater that evening, Lim sat on the
floor of the dimly lit hallway in front of Wei-wei Ryan’s apartment door, arms
clasped around his knees.

He was patiently waiting for Ryan
to return home after work. Glancing at his watch, he noticed it was almost
seven o’clock; he had been there for nearly an hour.
Where is she? Did she
go out for the evening? Was she spending the night somewhere else…perhaps with
MacMurphy? Did she somehow get home before he got there—perhaps left work
early?—maybe she was inside the apartment, locked in for the night?

He heard the sound of the
downstairs door opening and the clump-clump of high-heeled shoes climbing the
stairs. He stood when it was clear the woman was coming all the way up to the
fourth floor.

He watched her turn the bend in
the staircase and start up the final flight of stairs to her apartment. She was
carrying a small bag of groceries and a large shoulder purse and did not look
up until she reached the top step.

He startled her, and she almost
dropped her groceries. “May I help you?” she asked, trying to remain calm. As
she paused at the top, she should have been catching her breath from the climb
but instead found herself breathing faster, while her heart pounded.

He was very polite, trying to
calm her and appear as non-threatening as possible. “Please, Miss Ryan, do not
be frightened.”

“How do you know my name? Who are
you? How did you get in the building?”  She was working hard at keeping her
voice calm, trying not to let her fear show, trying to gain the initiative.

His voice was low, soothing,
non-threatening. “I just want to talk to you a moment. It’s about Mr. Mac. We
are friends, and...”

“Oh, you must be....” She bit off
the words. She thought he must be the Chinese waiter, SKITTISH, but did not
want to reveal the fact that she knew anything about him. “You are a friend of
Mac’s?”

“Yes. May I speak with you for
one moment?” Lim smiled his most disarming smile, and he deliberately did not
advance toward her or the apartment door.

Taken in by his deception and
disarmed by his manner, Wei-wei no longer felt threatened. “Yes, come on in. We
can’t talk in the hall.”

She dug into her deep purse for
her keys and led him into the apartment. She kicked the door shut behind her
and invited him to sit while she set the groceries down in the kitchen.

He was still standing when she
returned. “I am Lim Ze-shan from Chinese People’s Embassy,” he announced.
“Please, I will only take moment of your time.”

Wei-wei gasped and immediately
was gripped with fear. Not only was this
not
SKITTISH, it was that
warped and dangerous man. Despite Lim’s outward polite demeanor, she knew from
Mac that Lim was prone to violence. Outwardly she projected calm, however. “How
can I help you, Mr. Lim?”

He answered in halting English:
“I...I have problem. Maybe you help me, please. I must find Mr. MacMurphy.
Please tell me where is Mr. MacMurphy?” His tone was still polite, but
demanding. “Mr. MacMurphy has taken something that belongs to The People’s
Republic of China and I must have it back…immediately…”

“I don’t know what you are
talking about and I don’t know where Mr. MacMurphy is, and I wouldn’t tell you
if I did know. I am a U.S. Embassy staff employee, and you are trespassing on
embassy-protected property, Mr. Lim. I’m sure you understand diplomatic
protocol. Now please leave.” Her voice was firm and just as demanding as his
was, and she managed to keep out of it the quaver she felt deep inside. She
shuddered at the thought of having an unpredictable and volatile man alone in
the apartment with her.

She started for the door just as
Lim swung an arching slap that caught her full on the side of the head and face
and slammed her up against the wall. She barely retained her balance, reeling
at the force, and her ear rang from the blow.

“Where is MacMurphy, bitch? Tell
me or I kill you, you fucking stink bitch. Is he with other two stink bags?”

Wei-wei was hardly surprised at
this revelation of his true nature, but she was definitely afraid. He moved
toward her, his squat frame poised to strike and his eyes focused and hard and
his mouth in a tight grin. He slapped her again on the other ear and sent her
flying back across the room in the other direction. Again she staggered to keep
her balance. And he was enjoying the pain he was inflicting upon her.

Both ears were ringing, and she
was terrified. She felt her eardrums had burst. She tried to scream, but no
sound came out of her mouth.
He’s going to kill me
.

She couldn’t move and stood
frozen to the spot, hands covering her ears and stinging face, tears streaming
down her cheeks.

He slapped at the hands covering
her face, first one side and then the other, not hard enough to knock her down,
but snapping her head back and forth. Now she screamed, and he increased the
velocity of his blows, hitting her faster now like a punching bag, enjoying the
power, reveling in the pain and fear he was inflicting.

Finding MacMurphy was secondary
now as he warmed to the task of hurting this woman—MacMurphy’s woman.

He hated MacMurphy. He hated what
MacMurphy had done, engineering the theft of the Euros. He hated that MacMurphy
had gotten away with it, had put one over on them, himself and Huang. He hated
anything and anyone to do with MacMurphy.

Yes, it felt good to lash out at
this woman, this woman he saw as a half-Chinese mongrel, daughter of a woman
for whom a Chinese husband wasn’t good enough. Yes, it was good to hurt her,
hurt her hard, make her pay for MacMurphy’s deeds. Oh, she had it coming. He
would make her pay. And when he was finished with her, Mac would understand who
held the upper hand.

Her hands and arms were still up,
protecting her face and head, so he jabbed her in the solar plexus to lower her
guard. The sharp blow drove the wind from her lungs, and her arms came down. He
grabbed the collar of her silk blouse with both hands and jerked downward,
popping buttons and ripping the flimsy garment down to her waist.

The adrenaline shot through her
veins, and she fought back now, kicking and swinging and punching and screaming
frantically. But nobody responded to her screams. Nobody came running to help
her. And Lim was pummeling her, battering her, and enjoying himself immensely.

He laughed at her efforts to
defend herself and easily fended off her wild kicks and blows. The sight of her
swinging at him with her blouse hanging loosely at her waist and full breasts
spilling over the transparent beige bra excited him. He felt a familiar
stirring in his testicles, and he wanted more of her…

He ripped the bra from her, and
her breasts sprang free, full and firm, exciting him further. He paused in his
attack for a moment to gaze at her drunkenly and fondle her breasts. She
continued to scream and cry for help. He pinched a nipple cruelly, and stroked
the yielding breast and felt his organ rise to full erection.

She stopped trying to hit him and
tried to keep him from touching her, covering her nakedness with her arms while
backing away from him. This enraged him further, and he lifted her rigid body
off the ground and flung her onto the couch. She cowered against the back of it
as he lunged toward her.

He ripped at her skirt, tearing
it from her body and pulling her down to the floor. He hesitated and gazed
longingly at the beautiful defenseless creature clad only in filmy bikini
panties. He focused on the small dark patch of pubic hair under the thin material,
and his erection strained and pressed against his confining trousers.

The excitement was intense, and a
sense of urgency spread from his groin throughout his body. She was struggling
again, so he punched her hard in the face to subdue her, and blood spurted from
her nose and spattered her naked breasts and stomach. The sight of her, wounded
and defenseless, bleeding and exposed, only inflamed his groin further.

Now he knew he had to have her,
needed to be inside her for release. The need was too intense to ignore.

He dropped down on his knees,
straddling her on the couch, and hit her again, and she stopped struggling and
made her body rigid as a mummy, arms crossed in front of her chest and legs
straight out and crossed at the ankles, and she continued to scream for help
frantically.

“Can’t anyone hear me, please
help me!!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, but the only sounds she heard
were Lim’s hoarse breaths and an occasional feral growl that issued from his
mouth. No one was coming to help her…

He yanked his trousers open, and
his erection leapt out at her. She screamed louder, and he jerked her panties
down and tried to jam his rod between her legs, but she held her muscular
thighs tight together. He hit her again on the face, first slapping, then
punching, furious in his frustration. Unable to enter her, he pumped his
bursting erection against her furry pubic bone, pushing harder until he felt
himself coming and couldn’t hold back.

He spewed hot ejaculate on her
rigid thighs and into her pubic hair and over her stomach. And even while he
inwardly cursed that he had missed out on his chance to fuck her, he delighted
in seeing his sperm defile her holier-than-thou body. He pictured her telling
Mac all about it, Mac squirming in discomfort, getting angry…that is, if Lim
let her live to tell the tale. Did she deserve to live? After all, she had
barred him from her treasure trove…the bitch!

He let out a loud wail and
pounded at her haunches and thighs, calling her a dirty slut bitch cunt. She screamed
again with all of her strength and he grabbed her throat to silence her, first
with one hand and then with both and he squeezed and squeezed and pressed his
thumbs into her larynx until he felt it pop and she stopped screaming and her
eyes widened in fear and she gasped and her body convulsed and then she went limp,
and was still, eyes open and staring at nothing.

He stood up and backed away from
her, zipping up his trousers. He looked down into her wide, dead, terrified
eyes one final time. He turned and pulled open the door and ran down the
stairs, cursing. He had failed again. He still didn’t know where MacMurphy was,
she was no help at all, and the bitch had prevented him from fucking her,
causing him to spill his seed outside her. She got what she deserved…