The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) Page 4

Chapter 12

  His eyes snapped shut. But not because he couldn’t bear the sight of the grubby cracks in the ceiling’s paintwork or the bare lightbulb poised a couple of meters above his head. He turned to the chair beside the bed and squinted at the clock. Two in the afternoon. His head ached, the damage from the previous night beginning to fully kick in.

  Without warning, his stomach heaved. Michael jumped from the bed to race for the washbasin in the corner. He cried out in pain as he trod heavily with the sole of his foot onto broken glass. Despite this, he managed to make it to the washbasin in time, as the contents of his stomach sprayed uncontrollably from his mouth.

  The booze had worked well. Too well. He removed splinters of glass from his foot, did his best to clean the gash and patch it up. He’d been under for more than eight hours. A well-worn sock doubled as a bandage. As he carried the broken pieces of glass to the dustbin in the corner, he caught sight of two empty bottles of wine and an equally empty half liter of vodka lying horizontally on the floor beside the bed. Alongside them, the three-day-old headline in the Times, crumpled, wine-soaked, but still legible. “INNOVEST FOUNDER LEAPS TO DEATH FROM LONDON BRIDGE.” He stumbled over them, lay down, body exhausted, mind going into overdrive.

  The cracked and grimy ceiling belonged to a cramped thirty pound a night room in a hostel close to Paddington Station. A month after his own very personal descent into hell, he had started to fall into the trap of seducing his mind into unconsciousness with alcohol.

  He gazed at the bulb burning brightly above him. It had worked too well. The booze. He had two choices. End up like his former friend and drink himself out into the street, most likely onto a coroner’s slab. Or find the man who had done this to him.

  ---

  It didn’t happen right away. It took more time. Eventually Michael’s desire for revenge overcame his desperation to drink, to forget, to sleep. He would find the man. Track him down. Make him pay. This thought, this thought alone, gave Michael the strength to pull himself from a very dark place.

  Chapter 13

  Konstantin Rykov took the steps two at a time as he ascended the stairs from the basement parking area to the ground floor of the building. His large, muscled frame and broad shoulders barely able to fit the stairway without him turning sideways. Striding across the high ceilinged baroque hallway, he opened the left hand of the two wooden double doors and entered what Rivello referred to as the day room.

  Jay Rivello sat at an expertly fashioned mahogany antique on the far side of the room. French windows framed the Lake. The Lake filled the horizon. Cold, deep, dark, and for the moment, still.

  He turned to face Rykov.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Rivello’s lips tightened in barely restrained irritation.

  “Dmitri needed help to understand. He tried to run. I stopped him.”

  “Oh fuck. You idiot. You killed him, didn’t you?” veins stood out on Rivello’s neck.

  “I cut him. He’ll do the girl.”

  “You cut what? How much?”

  “Ten thousand for the finger. Five thousand for the girl.”

  “When’s our friend’s next visit to fantasyland?” Rivello asked.

  “Two weeks. Eighteenth April. Alone.”

  “Good timing. Does Dmitri know what will happen if he screws up?”

  “He knows,” replied Rykov.

  “Good. Now leave. I have things to do.”

  Rivello swung round, lifted the phone and dialed.

  “Augustus Goodfriend,” the voice full of confidence and power.

  “So, will she be there?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” Goodfriend’s voice losing some of its natural bravado. “Yes, Jay, I received confirmation this morning. She’ll arrive the evening before the conference. I will greet her officially in my suite. Kennedy will make the keynote speech, attend for two days and depart on the evening of the second day.”

  “I don’t care about any of that, Augustus,” Rivello said. “I want to meet her, one to one. Straight after the conference. In Washington, but I need a private audience. I need your assurance that you can deliver.”

  “Yes, of course I can deliver. This is the last time, though. Tell me why meeting Elisabeth Kennedy is so important to you.”

  “Listen, my friend, you’re in no position to start dictating to me. If you don’t arrange the meeting, your career is dead. Shortly after that you will be too. Understand?”

  “Yes, Jay. I. I understand.” Rivello could hear what little backbone that Augustus had snap in the echo of his voice.

  Rivello reached for the humidor and pulled a Robusto from the cedar box. He stretched back as he lit the cigar, crossed his feet on top of the desk. He would soon pull off the largest fraud in history. And no one would know that it had ever happened.

  Chapter 14

  Michael strolled across the cobbled street running through Saint Stefan Platz. He hesitated outside the seventeenth century archway leading to the offices of Banc Philippe, Arnoux, and Ramoche CIE. A one hundred seventy year old, low profile and unfailingly discreet private bank with only one office based close to the center of Zurich.

  Michael took a deep breath, lifted his shoulders and stepped into and through the revolving door. He walked towards the narrow lift on the far side of the vestibule, stepped inside and pressed the button adjacent to the name plate. There were no others. The bank occupied the whole building.

  Stepping onto a luxuriously deep, straw-colored pile carpet, he took four steps to reach the reception area.

  “Good afternoon, Michael Berg to see Jean Marie Leclerc.”

  “Of course, Mr. Berg, one moment. In the meantime please take a seat,” the receptionist gestured with a slim, manicured hand towards a suite of chairs against the far wall.

  He seated himself beneath a stained glass window depicting Lake Zurich, bordered by the city’s skyline. Jean Marie appeared, crossed the vestibule and greeted Michael with a handshake.

  “Monsieur Berg, it is a great pleasure to see you. Please follow me and we can discuss your current requirements.”

  They travelled in the miniaturized elevator to what he assumed was the second or third floor where the meeting rooms were situated.

  “I need to withdraw fifty thousand euros in denominations of fifty, one hundred and five hundred euro notes.”

  “Of course, monsieur, but please first I would require your identification, account number and password.”

  Michael gave Jean Marie his passport. He had memorized the account number, “340785642912. The password is NITSUANHOJ.”

  It was a password that Michael was unlikely to forget. John Austin had written the most tedious book he had come across during his legal studies at Cambridge, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined.

  “Thank you, Monsieur Berg. I will return momentarily.”

  Five minutes later Jean Marie returned with several large envelopes, each one filled with a single denomination. He put each bundle through the De La Rue counting machine, displayed the total and left the room.

  “Monsieur, I will be outside whenever you are ready,” Jean Marie said.

  Michael opened the backpack he had brought with him and placed the envelopes inside it. Normally he would have taken the time to count the money himself, but he needed to keep moving. He would leave the other fifty where it was.

  Jean Marie escorted him down to the vestibule in the elevator. They shook hands and Michael turned to exit the revolving door when he heard a voice behind him.

  “Monsieur Berg,” it was Jean Marie’s voice. “I wish you very good luck.”

  “Thank you, Jean Marie, thank you. Au revoir.” Michael stepped out, onto the square.

  As he traversed the pavement, he glanced to his left and, as surreptitiously as he could, looked towards the Café d’Église. Still there. The man. Ambling along the pavement on the opposite side of the road. Tall, well built, Slavic looking with high cheekbones and an impassive gaze.

 
Probably nothing. Michael paid for the newspaper and strolled on. Paranoia was something that he’d learned to live with in the past six weeks.

  Chapter 15

  Svetlana Sidorov took one last draw of the full-strength Marlboro. She caught it below the toe of her shoe as it hit the pavement. She snorted to herself in amused derision at the Englishman’s furtive and clumsy attempts to identify his stalker.

  Still, he was a looker. Unfortunately for him, tall, well built, blond, handsome men tended to stand out from the crowd. Following the same logic, this was why she was tailing him and not the two-meter giant, at the moment relaxing in the Café d’Église. Svetlana was conspicuous only in her ordinariness. Five-six, mousy shoulder-length hair, plain face, minimal makeup, casual clothing. Absolutely unremarkable. Her innate ability to blend into the background made her the ideal tail.

  She and a team of three equally innocuous, but highly trained operatives, had been trailing Michael Berg since he had returned from Poland to the UK. There were always two of them in Berg’s proximity at any one time. One directly in contact with Berg, the other taking over should Berg become suspicious. A tracking device had been stitched into his holdall. Svetlana had placed a transmitter in his Surrey home, although to date the latter had been pointless.

  Until today, Berg had shown no awareness of their presence. It did not appear that he had considered it likely that anyone would care about his movements. This is where he had been very wrong. Whoever had hired her team had made it very clear that they wanted him watched night and day for eight weeks following Berg’s return from Poland. Should his movements remain predictable and the team witness no unusual behavior, they were to break off contact with only occasional follow up.

  Svetlana had assumed that the assignment would run its course until two days previously when, without any warning, Berg had left the hotel in Paddington, jumped on the Jubilee and Victoria underground lines to Waterloo Station and caught the first available Eurostar to Paris. This had all happened so quickly that despite their preparations, they had almost lost him. From Paris he had caught the two twenty-four TGV to Zurich and arrived a little over four hours later. Stuart had joined her on the train, her two other colleagues joining them in the late evening, having flown in from Heathrow.

  She stubbed out her cigarette and casually strolled across the square, keeping Berg in her sights. She hit fast dial number three on her mobile. When it answered, all she said was, “Take over.” Receiving a text two minutes later reading “done,” Svetlana knew that Stuart had made direct visual contact with the subject. She could now hold back and make an immediate verbal report on Berg’s unusual activity as she had been requested to do.

  Chapter 16

  He was impatient to meet the woman. Two days of wasting time, sitting on cramped trains had seen to that.

  According to Michael’s lawyer, the police had already interviewed the manager of Polonia Real Estate. Nothing concrete. The film company who had rented the building had paid in cash. Fifty thousand euros cash. The description of the man who had given her the money was vague. Well dressed, Caucasian, fair hair, large build, spoke Polish with an accent, maybe Russian. There was little else to go on.

  The company’s office was situated in one of the smart new office buildings on Ulica Jana Pawa II. On reaching the twenty-fifth floor, he walked across the large, open reception area and pressed the buzzer.

  “Dzien dobry, Polonia Real Estate,” a woman’s voice announced.

  “Yes, hello, John Brightman to meet Anna Kazinsky.”

  “Wpisac,” which Michael took to mean enter. The buzzer sounded and he pushed open the door.

  As he entered the door, a smartly dressed middle-aged woman rose from behind a stained wooden reception desk and, smiling, beckoned him to walk with her along a corridor to his left. They walked past a row of offices, mostly with doors closed until the lady stopped beside one, turned towards him, pushed the door open and nodded her head.

  “Kawa, herbata?”

  “Kawa,” Michael responded decisively, hoping he had just ordered himself a cup of coffee.

  He took a seat on one side of the four-person table in what was presumably a meeting room. He recognized the picture on the wall. The Palac na Wodziehe, Chopin’s statue floating before it. The oversized lily pad. The same view that he’d gazed down upon from his suite in the Hotel Bristol on his first morning in Warsaw. His teeth clenched in anger, thoughts turning to subsequent events.

  A tall, blond woman, early to mid-thirties, entered the room. She was smartly dressed in a navy blazer and calf length grey skirt. She offered her hand.

  “John Brightman, Euroinsure, a pleasure to meet you,” he announced as he stood and took her hand.

  “Anna Kazinsky. It’s my pleasure.”

  “Thanks for your time, Anna. I’d like to get some more background on the BOS case. I’ve seen the police report, but have additional questions to ask, if that is not a problem.”

  “Yes, yes, I do understand. What is it that you want?” she said with a perfunctory air.

  Michael could not tell if she was being defensive or professionally distant.

  “The individual who leased the offices paid in cash. Is this normal business practice? Fifty thousand euros is a lot of money to be carrying around in your pocket.”

  “No, it’s not normal, but the gentleman explained that they wanted the premises immediately as the owner of their other location had pulled out. He said every day wasted was costing them twenty thousand dollars. Money did not seem to be a problem.”

  “What about guarantees? Did your client not want some sort of security over the rental? There’s no paperwork?”

  “Mr. Brightman, there’s a great deal of property available on the market. Our client has three empty buildings. Fifty thousand euros is a lot of money.”

  “So there’s no link whatsoever with the man who rented the building other than the fact that you met him.”

  “None at all. I’ve already given a detailed description of him to the police. Also to the artist.”

  “The artist?”

  “Sorry,” she said, “the police artist. My only concern now is to find a full-time tenant for the building. Only then will our client pay to have the furniture removed. At our expense, of course. He blames us for the bad publicity this has caused which he believes has been reflected onto his office development. He …”

  “Wait. The furniture’s still in the building? I thought the whole place had been cleaned out.”

  “You didn’t pay attention to the police report. The furniture on the ground and tenth floors was removed. The police assumed that whoever was responsible for the … zadlo, how do you say? Sting, yes, sting. Whoever was responsible for the sting didn’t have enough time to clear all ten floors.”

  “Thank you, Anna, you’ve been very helpful. If I can think of anything else I’ll give you a call.” He was already standing. Without wasting time, he shook her hand and headed for the elevator.

  He had no idea if his hunch was correct, but there was only one way to find out. He had to get to Katowice. He needed to get into the office that Sharp had used.

  ---

  As soon as he’d closed the door of room four sixty–six, he undressed, removed the hair dye, backpack and clothes from the holdall and stripped. He moved to the bathroom and examined the sachet lying in his hands. He looked at the instructions for use in dismay. Polish. It was at moments like this when he regretted not having a sister.

  Two bags, one brown, which he assumed was the dye, one clear. He had no idea what the second was for. He wet his hair under the shower, squeezed the dye on, rubbed it in and waited.

  Chapter 17

  Svetlana sat at a table in the rear left-hand corner of the café, facing the door. One of her associates had watched Berg enter the building and was now sitting in the hotel bistro with a good view of the lobby entrance, reading a newspaper. The other, she could see, was seated in a plain saloon car with a goo
d view of both exits. Svetlana had agreed to meet the Russian to brief him on Michael’s movements that morning. While waiting for him, she kept a casual eye on the GPS display of her tracking device receiver. Berg had settled nicely into his room. Tailing this guy is a real pleasure.

  Svetlana felt the man’s presence before he entered the doorway. She looked up from the display and knew that it was him, although they had never met. He clearly knew who she was, heading straight for her, not taking his eyes off hers. The first thing that struck her wasn’t his height, he must have been at least one hundred ninety-five centimeters, nor the power that his physique and agile movement conveyed.

  What unnerved Svetlana was the cold, ruthless determination in his eyes. His massive features set in a scowl that made her feel like an insignificant rodent trapped in a corner by a demonic cat. She wished that she’d taken a window seat. He pulled back the chair opposite.

  “So where is he?”

  “The hotel across the street. The Westland. Room four sixty–six,” she replied calmly, refusing to let him intimidate her.

  “He arrived early this morning on the night train from Frankfurt, briefly had breakfast at a café by the station and then proceeded to the twenty-fifth floor of the office building at Jana Pawa twenty-six. The offices are occupied by Polonia Real Estate. Thirty minutes later, at approximately nine forty-five, he arrived at the hotel. Checked in twenty minutes ago.”

  “How did he get from the station to the office building?”

  “On foot, the walk is only one kilometer.”

  “Who did he meet?”

  “We don’t know. He was there for half an hour,” said Svetlana, a defensive note in her voice for the first time.

  “You already said that,” a warning in his voice.

  “He crossed the street to a mall. Went into a clothes shop. Oh, and a pharmacy.”

  “And?”