Another man, the third guy who’d disappeared, stood over him, his sound-suppressed weapon aimed at Gruber.
“Please to drop the weapon,” the man said.
Gruber loosened his grip and the weapon clattered to the ground.
The guy grinned.
“You can’t stop this,” he said. “It’s gone too far.”
The gun whispered once. A bullet slammed into Gruber’s forehead and thrust him into blackness.
* * *
THE ALARM ON Reinhard Vogelsgang’s wristwatch beeped three times, interrupting his train of thought as he pored over the most recent profit-and-loss statements.
Clicking off the alarm, he removed his wire-framed reading glasses, set them on his desk blotter and rose from his chair.
Crossing the office, he moved to a rectangular panel built into the wall and surrounded on all four sides by wood molding. He pressed a small stud and the panel slid away, only the slight hum of a motor audible from behind the wall. Behind the panel was a recessed area that contained a large video monitor. He snagged a remote from inside the compartment, switched on the monitor and thumbed the button that turned on the screen.
The phone call had come twelve hours ago. The news he received had left a knot in his stomach and had forced him to make a decision. Considering the stakes, it’d been an easy one. Even so, the ramifications could bring all sorts of hell crashing down on his head if he didn’t handle it correctly.
The screen was separated into four boxes. In the far right corner sat an elderly man in a dark blue suit. In a box beneath him, the image of a woman was visible. The meeting’s third participant was late, as usual, joining the call two minutes after the start time.
“I guess we can begin now,” Vogelsgang said as the latest participant, Werner Nacht, a construction-industry magnate, seated himself.
“So sorry,” Nacht said.
“It’s nothing,” Vogelsgang replied.
“I was caught in a meeting.”
“Of course. No doubt it was more important.”
Nacht laced his fingers and leaned toward the camera.
“Tremendously important,” he said. “Shall I share?”
Vogelsgang shook his head.
“I think we’ve lost enough time,” he said.
“No, really. This has more than a little relationship to our work here.”
“Oh?”
“It’s about Monaco. I think everyone wants to know about that. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Vogelsgang forced a smile. “Of course. Please update everyone.”
“A private detective was killed tonight, shot down in the streets by a couple of thugs. They accosted him in his hotel and chased him into the street. Awful business.”
“Awful,” Vogelsgang agreed.
“Would you like to tell the rest of the story, or shall I?”
Vogelsgang swallowed hard. His forced smile fading, he shrugged and leaned into the camera. “We had a problem,” he said. “Someone sent a private detective after me. The man was better than we anticipated. He figured a few things out. I had him eliminated.”
The woman leaned forward.
“You what?” she asked. “You had him killed? Without discussing it with us?”
The executive’s smile faded. “Let me assure you, it needed to be taken care of. I had no time to consult you. Frankly, I saw no reason. The decision was painfully obvious.”
Anger flashed in the woman’s eyes, but she stayed silent.
“What did he know?” asked the elderly man, a media mogul who owned two newspapers, three television stations and a book publishing operation.
Shrugging, Vogelsgang backed away from the large monitor and lowered himself into a leather chair. He knew what was coming and he wanted the best view possible. He responded to the old man’s question with silence.
After several seconds the old man’s face reddened. “Damn it,” he said, his voice growing louder, “what did he know? Did he know everything?”
Another shrug from Vogelsgang, who busied himself staring at his drink.
“He knew a few things,” Vogelsgang said finally. “He knew a surprising number of things for someone who’d come out of nowhere, a foreigner, in fact. He had credentials and experience, of course, but could barely speak the language.”
Vogelsgang turned his eyes up from his drink.
“He could barely speak German or French. Yet he pieced together so much information. He even started to tie me to the United Front. It was amazing, as though someone was feeding him information.” He paused and let his words sink in. “An insider, I mean.”
The woman, Katharina Rothschild, leaned away from the camera and licked her lips. “Do you know who hired him?” she asked, her voice husky.
“I have some ideas,” Vogelsgang said. “A hypothesis, really. Nothing more.”
He dipped an index finger into his drink and stirred it.
“It’s a bit early for a drink, I suppose. Still, I’m feeling good, feeling as though things are moving forward. A drink seems in order. I digress, though, Katharina. You’d asked me a question and I owe you an answer. No, I don’t know who hired our dead friend. My thought— My theory, if you will, is someone close to me hired him. Maybe someone who’s getting cold feet, someone who’s lost her sense of vision.”
He saw fear flicker in Rothschild’s eyes. “‘Her’?” she asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Her. You said ‘her.’ Surely you don’t think I hired the man, do you?”
He made a dismissive gesture.
“Just a theory,” he said. “Okay, a little more than a theory, actually. We grabbed his cell phone and his laptop and scoured the hell out of those things. So it’s a theory based on evidence.”
The old man leaned toward his camera. “Katharina? Katharina, did you do as he says? Why would you do this?”
“I did no such thing!”
“Please, everyone, please calm down,” Vogelsgang said. “Let’s pull it together. Katharina, I admit it was a bit of a shock at first. However, now I want to thank you.”
Nacht, the construction executive, laughed derisively.
“Thank her?” he asked. “For betraying us? Have you lost your mind?”
Vogelsgang shook his head slowly. “Lost my mind? Quite the contrary. I feel as though I’ve gained it. For the first time in years, since I first began all the hard work on this, I’m really seeing how this works. See, I don’t... No, I can’t trust you people. I’ve suspected that for some time. And now you’ve proved me right. This thing I want to accomplish, this thing Europe and the world needs so badly, I must accomplish it by myself.”
“You’re throwing us out?” It was Nacht again. “Damn you, I’ve sunk millions into this! You can’t just toss us aside like this.”
“I appreciate your passion, Werner. It’s a business decision. Surely you of all people can appreciate that. Rest assured I’m not going to toss you aside or dissolve the partnership.”
“Well, what the devil are you talking about then?”
“It’s