The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) (29 page)

Chapter 93

  Michael glanced over at Tereza. Her dark eyes stared intently at the entrance to the hotel. The helicopter shuttle had gotten them to the heliport on East Thirty-Fourth Street in just under ten minutes. The taxi to Broad Street had taken twice as long. It was eight ten. They’d seen nothing of Rivello or István in the past hour. Tereza’s eyes turned to meet Michael’s.

  “
Keep watching, I’ll be back soon,” she said.

 
His eyes reverted to the hotel entrance as Tereza pushed open the door. “Where you going?” said Michael.

  “
Ladies room. Besides, we’ve been sitting in this cab for over two hours. If I don’t get out of here, I’ll go crazy.”

  “
Okay, but hurry, if he comes out I’ll have to follow.”

She was already out of the cab.

  “I’ll be quick,” as she closed the door.

  Michael had to admit
the thick partition, that ran from roof to floor between the driver and passenger in your average New York taxi, didn’t make for great legroom. He stretched his legs across to the footwell on Tereza’s side of the car, momentarily buoyed by the knotted tension draining from the muscles in his legs.
  “This gonna take much longer?”

 
The driver had changed the angle of the rearview mirror so that, as Michael briefly allowed his eyes to flicker to the front of the cab, he found himself looking into the man’s eyes. Not accusing, exasperated as far as Michael could tell. He shifted his gaze back to the hotel entrance.
  “Look, I have no idea. It could be another five minutes. It could be two hours. I really don’t know. I said I’ll pay you double what’s on your meter when we’re finished, but let me know if it’s not enough and we’ll square up now.”

  “
Hey, no problem, pal, end of my shift and I wanna get home. I can wait a while more.”

 
Michael left it at that, his concentration heavily fixed on trying to identify Rivello from the variety of guests entering and leaving the hotel.

 
Fifteen minutes passed before Tereza returned.
  “Sorry, I ended up having to buy a coffee in a place just so they’d let me use the bathroom.”

  “
It’s okay. Nothing to see. I’m beginning to think we might have missed him. He must have gone in before we arrived. It’s possible he’s already left.”

  “
No, he hasn’t,” Tereza said, her tone definite.
  “How can you be so sure?”

  “
Look.” Tereza didn’t move her hands, but nodded her head towards the junction on the opposite side of Broad Street from the hotel. Twenty meters from the cab they were sitting in.

  “
Bloody hell. He must have walked straight past us,” whispered Michael, as though Rivello might hear him if he spoke any louder.
  Rivello was dressed in a smart navy blue blazer and a neat pair of dark grey trousers. He looked alert and confident. As the green WALK lamp lit up, he looked to his left, then his right before crossing. Rivello stared straight at the cab. Michael froze, his breath held, until Rivello’s head swung back and he strode across to the other side of the street. He continued walking the one hundred or so meters to the hotel’s entrance and entered the revolving door. Michael half expected him to glance back to them at any moment. He didn’t.

Chapter 94

  The receptionist was young, blond, pretty. Her name, according to the embossed, silver tag, was Anna.

  “
Hello, Anna,” said Rivello, “my name’s Pieter Van Valkenburgh. I’m here with the party in the Habana Room. I’m due to meet Sir James Hardcastle in his suite at nine, but I’ve forgotten his room number.”
  “Sir, let me just call him on the house phone for you now and you can let him know you’re here.”

  “
That would be fine, Anna, but this guy’s my boss and he already tore a strip off me this evening.” Rivello crumpled his face and conveyed the air of someone who felt embarrassed and foolish.

  “
He’ll think I’m a complete idiot if I can’t remember a simple room number.”

 
The young woman hesitated. Then smiled.
  “Hold on a minute, I’ll check.” She hit a couple of keys on the keyboard and examined the screen. No doubt confirming the names of the guests booked in to use the hotel’s board room that evening.

  “
Okay, sir, that’s fine. Sir James is in suite 1238. Twelfth floor.”

  “
Could you give him a call and let him know I’m on the way up?”

  “Of course, s
ir.”

  “Thanks,”
said Rivello. “You may have just saved my job.” He thought it ironic that what she’d just done would most likely cost the girl her own.

 
Rivello waited until he was able to enter an elevator alone. When he exited on the twelfth floor, he turned to the right and made his way along the patterned red carpeting until he reached a double wooden door standing, grandly, at the end of the corridor. He pressed a switch, which he assumed was the buzzer, and stood back about half a meter. When the right hand door swung open, he readied himself.

 
He’d correctly assumed that Sir James would use the safety chain. Rivello slammed his right heel into the door. He heard Sir James cry out as the door swung open. Rivello instantaneously leapt into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. The old man, lying prostrate on the floor, looked a poor imitation of the arrogant, blustering bully Rivello had known close to twenty years before.

 
Rivello turned the security lock on the door. The man before him was moaning softly and appeared to be only semi-conscious. Rivello crossed the living room of the suite and checked to ensure that no one was in the bedroom or either of the bathrooms. Both sets of curtains were closed. He moved back to Sir James, bent forward and grasped both of the man’s hands, skin paper soft and wrinkled to the touch. He pulled him by his arms across the floor and, without difficulty, lifted him into a high-backed wooden chair that sat facing into the room. He took a roll of duct tape from the inside pocket of his jacket, wrapped it around the old man’s chest and the back of the chair. He then taped both wrists to the chair’s arms.

 
Rivello went into the bathroom, adjoining the living room, and ran a bath. Above the noise of the gushing water he heard a muted buzzing noise. There was somebody at the door.

Chapter 95

  He observed his son talking to the blond receptionist. István stood his ground on the other side of the lobby window. Jay left the reception desk and walked towards the elevator bank. He watched as Jay stood back, allowing a group of four to take the first elevator to arrive. His son took the next elevator. István followed. He stood in front of the elevator doors taking note of the floor numbers, simultaneously pressing the call button.

 
Jay’s elevator car stopped on the twelfth floor. A few seconds later, István was on his way up. As he rode upwards, he felt light-headed. He was nervous and hadn’t thought this through. All he knew was he wanted this to end now. He would confront his son and beg him to stop. To leave the old man alone, to go home.

The sound made by the doors opening was drowned out by a crashing noise down the hallway to the right. As István stepped out of the elevator, he looked to his right to see a door slamming shut at the end of the corridor. He would have to move fast.

Chapter 96

  At first she had refused to talk. Anyone could have been on the other side of the partly mirrored wall, observing her through the one-way glass. Listening to every word she said. She liked David Roth, but found herself unable to trust him fully. He sat opposite her now. Young, well, at least by her standards, about thirty-five years old and bookish in appearance. Small round glasses adorned sharp features and ears that noticeably stuck out more than they should have. He was tall, skinny, preppily dressed.

 
This was where first appearances were deceptive. Roth, from past experience, was not only an extremely gifted writer, but also a ferocious debater. His appearance belied a forceful, resonant voice that took his opponents by surprise. He gave no quarter to his foe and verbally destroyed anyone unlucky enough to cross his path who was not his equal.

 
To Elisabeth, however, Roth’s most important and redeeming quality was his absolute and irrevocable pursuit of the truth. He had a journalist’s nose for what was fiction and, compared to some in his profession, he was prepared to let the former stand in the way of a good story. That is why, from the dozen or so journalists that she knew, Elisabeth had called David Roth.

  “
Elisabeth, I need to record this interview. If you won’t allow me, I’ll have no proof that this conversation ever took place.” He leant towards her. The windowless room added to her feeling of discomfort. That was probably the point.

She glanced again towards the mirror.

  “Elisabeth,” repeating her name again, a tool of the trade, “McLusky said there would be no one else present, in here or on the other side of that glass. He hasn’t broken his word to me in the ten years that I’ve known him. The precinct is at bursting point, there’s nowhere else to go. Unless you want to move into one of the cells.” He smiled.

 
It was the smile that did it. The disarming nature of his gesture touched her and, rightly or wrongly, she felt compelled to tell him everything. What other choice did she have?
  Elisabeth spent the next six hours with Roth. She told him her story. Then, at his prompting, she told it three more times. He then pushed her through the story backwards until she felt more like a suspect than a victim. She was perspiring under the fluorescent lights, the air-conditioning ineffective. She could feel what little makeup that she had applied to her eyes running down her cheeks. She needed to breathe.

  “
Okay, Elisabeth, let’s go over your meeting in the restaurant one more time, with the man who kidnapped Ralph.”

 
She snapped. “What right do you think you have putting me through this? I’ve told you everything I know, Godammit. I called you, remember, and I’m giving you the best story of your damned career. Enough. I want to get out of here.”

 
As she finished the last sentence, her voiced trailed into nothing. Where would she go? She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t go anywhere. There was nowhere to go. If she set a foot outside the precinct building, there was a pretty good chance she would never be seen again. Elbow propped against the table, Elisabeth pressed her forehead into the cup of her upturned hand. She closed and rubbed her tired eyes.

  “
I’m sorry, Elisabeth. I can’t imagine how you feel right now, but remember, I’m now in this as much as you are. I know everything about Bilderberg that you know. Given that I’m a journalist, working for one of the most widely read newspapers in the country, I will probably have an even bigger target on my back than you do.”

 
Her face remained covered by her hand, but she was listening.

  “
We both know who you’re up against. You think this is tough. You think all I need to do is file a story tonight and when it hits the streets tomorrow they’ll lock the bad men up and throw away the key. The people who are going to be sitting in front of you tomorrow are going to make me look like a high school cub reporter. Me, I need to make sure that everything I write when I get home tonight is exactly as you say it is. If you’re not being honest with me, best case my career’s in the toilet, worst, I’m dead. I don’t see many other alternatives.”

 
Elisabeth lifted her head from her hand and sat upright, took a deep breath and told him for the fifth time about the afternoon she met the tall, well-dressed man with the ice cold eyes and the soulless smile.

Chapter 97

  Whoever it was kept their finger on the buzzer. Not room service. Rivello turned off the tap. He took a knife from his trouser pocket, opened the blade and ensured that it had locked in place. The switchblade was light and easy to conceal, sharp and agile.

 
As he left the bathroom, he noted Sir James’s still unconscious state, chest gently rising and falling, otherwise motionless.

  “
Who’s there?”

  “
It’s me, Jay. Open the door.”

 
Rivello had no choice. His father wasn’t going anywhere. To leave him standing in the corridor, demanding entrance, could only have unfortunate consequences.

 
He opened the door. His father’s portly physique greeting him, face flushed, anxiety ridden, sweating.

  “
Get in,” Rivello hissed, his own angular face taught and filled with anger.

 
Rivello pushed the door shut. The two men were only a couple of feet apart. István scanned the room. He tried to push past Rivello, further into the room.

  “
Is he dead?”

 
As István said those words, a low moaning noise penetrated the closed bathroom door. His father moved forward purposefully, toward the sound. Jay stood his ground easily against the older man and gently pushed him backwards against the door.

  “
Jay, don’t. This has to stop. You’ll take yourself down and everything else with you. He’s too powerful. By killing him, you’ll unleash forces on us that we can’t escape. They won’t want us spilling our guts in some jail somewhere. We’ll vanish.”

  István
tried to push past him again. Rivello held his father against the door by the throat. The old fool was going to ruin everything.

 
Rivello erupted. “Get out. Get out now. Go to the apartment. I’ll be there, later.”

  “
Jay, if I leave now there’s only one place I’m going and that’s downstairs to call the police.” István turned and reached for the door handle.

 
Rivello had no choice. Before István had time to pull the door open, Rivello cupped his left hand over his father’s mouth, lifted the knife, until now concealed by his right hand, and forcefully dragged the blade across his father’s throat. István struggled for a brief moment as he realized what was happening to him, but as the blood pumped from the wound and his heart began to fail, István dropped.

 
Jay let him, his father’s heavy body hitting the light beige carpet on his back with a heavy thump, eyes wide in disbelief and shock, blood pumping furiously from the scarlet gash across his thick neck. His father’s mouth opened and shut rapidly, like the pulsing gasp of a fish removed from water. Rivello couldn’t tell if István was trying to say something to him or if he was observing the spasms that sudden death brings. In any case, the movement ceased a few seconds later, his father’s mouth and eyes blank and unmoving.

 
Rivello waited until the blood ceased to flow and then squatted down beside him, careful to avoid the blood pooling on the carpet. The knife switched hands. Rivello put his right hand onto István’s face, fingers spread across the forehead, palm over the nose and mouth. He closed his own eyes. Whatever it was that made human beings care for each other he did not know it. Could not feel it. No connection, no sadness, no sense of loss or sorrow. His father had endangered everything he’d worked towards for over twenty years. Killing him had been logical. He made his way to the bathroom, stooped, turned the water back on.

  Rivello dried off the edge of the bath and sat down. This was the moment he had savored time and time again. Sometimes even in his dreams this scenario had flickered through his mind, only with a significantly younger cast. He observed the old man, slumped, head down, prevented from tumbling forward by the duct tape running across his chest.

 
Hardcastle, almost eighty years old, looked frail and vulnerable as he slept. Rivello knew that the old man’s demeanor was misleading, that he was as aggressive, domineering and manipulative as ever. He scooped some cold bath water up into both of his hands and flung it into Sir James Hardcastle’s face. It took three attempts to rouse him. The man spluttered to his senses, opened his eyes and at first couldn’t work out why he was unable to move. He noted the bindings across his forearms and glanced upwards.
  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “
You know who I am,” Rivello gave his manufactured grin, “but don’t take too much time working it out. You don’t have a great deal of that left.”

 
Sir James paused until a spark of recognition flitted across his eyes.

  “Y
ou pathetic fool. Let me go this instant. You really want to spend the rest of your life in jail for something that happened twenty years ago?”

 
The old man was still smart, thought Rivello. He knows exactly why he’s here.

  “
You destroyed my career, you old bastard. You made sure that no bank worthy of the name would give me a job. You tried to ruin my life. Now I’m ending yours.”

  “Y
ou weren’t a blameless victim. You raped an intern at knifepoint. You told her that if she went to the police that you’d slice her into pieces. You thought we were going to keep you around after that? The police weren’t able to press charges, but we weren’t going to hang around and wait for a psychopath like you to do it again.”

  “
Youthful high spirits, Hardcastle. You’ll soon wish that you’d been a bit more open-minded. Before all that, you need to know something.”

 
Rivello leant over to bring his face within only a few centimeters of Hardcastle’s. He did not observe fear on the old man’s face, more likely contempt.

  “
I broke your bank. Bankrupted it. Your obese nephew leant me a hand. Until he opted out, of course. I took Kennedy’s son. I’m the reason your little club is about to be exposed for what it is.”

 
Hardcastle’s face was crimson. He kicked out. Rivello expected this and moved himself quickly out of range, but not before Hardcastle spat into his face.

  “
That’s the last thing you’ll ever do.”

 
Rivello drew his arm back and slapped the old man hard across the right side of his face. He crossed to the back of the chair and lifted it, carried it to the edge of the bath, now full with water. “Quid pro quo, you old bastard,” Rivello said.
  To his credit, the old man didn’t plead for his life. “I hope you rot in hell, you piece of filth,” were Sir James Hardcastle’s last words as he dropped face first into a half meter of cold water.

 
Rivello held the chair in place, the rear legs sticking out of the water at a slight angle. The abrupt silence adding the required solemnity to the moment. Hardcastle put on a good show. It was at least a minute before his head stopped bouncing around, the bubbles becoming infrequent and then ceasing completely. He hadn’t expected the old man to beg for his life, but was disappointed nonetheless.