Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller Read online

  As they spoke, their legs kept brushing. She touched his arm and laughed when he told jokes. Through it all, there was a small part of Storm’s brain that remained wary. He knew he was not being as faithful to his cover story as he needed to be. Yes, he kept inserting details about soybean cultivation that he had gleaned from his crash course during the plane ride across the Atlantic. But she was getting too much Derrick Storm, not enough Cleveland Detroit.

  He even told her the cupcake story. It was his sixth birthday, toward the end of the school year. He was just finishing up an otherwise wonderful time in full-day kindergarten. Except he had this lingering sense of dread. His teacher, Mrs. Taylor, kept a poster with everyone’s birthday on it. All school year long, he had watched as class mothers showed up after lunch on their child’s birthday with gorgeous platters of fresh-baked cupcakes. But he didn’t have a mom anymore. He had a dad who didn’t even know how to turn on an oven. He was sure his birthday was going to pass with no cupcakes. There was a hope, but… Mostly, he already could just taste the shame of being the only kid who didn’t have cupcakes on his birthday.

  The big day came. Lunch came. Lunch went. Sure enough, no cupcakes. He was crushed. Then, just before recess, there was a knock on Mrs. Taylor’s door. And there was his old man, with a lopsided grin and the ugliest, sloppiest, most wonderful pile of cupcakes anyone had ever seen. He had not only overfilled the cups, he had put on twice as much frosting as the recipe called for. It made for a delicious mess. Everyone in Mrs. Taylor’s kindergarten agreed they were the best cupcakes of the year.

  “I can tell you love your father very much,” Xi Bang said, patting his hand.

  “In his own way, he was the best dad a kid could have,” Storm confirmed.

  Storm was saved from further sentimentality when a wandering street musician with a violin set up shop nearby. His first song was “The Vienna Waltz,” one of Storm’s favorites. He couldn’t help himself. He swept Xi Bang up in his arms and satisfied his previous suspicion that they were more than suitable as dance partners—to say nothing of their potential ability to partner in other, more aerobic activities.

  “This song,” he said as he twirled her across the sidewalk. “We’ll dance to it at our wedding.”

  “Will we now?” she said. “Who says I don’t get to pick the song?”

  “Because this one doesn’t need a full symphony. It sounds beautiful when played by a small string quartet. That way, we can keep the ceremony small and intimate. Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, burying her face in his chest. “Intimate is good.”

  They danced some more, drank some more. When the check came, he told himself it was time to recover his wits. The walk home, he knew, would be the dangerous part. If she had sniffed out his lies the way he had hers, it would be easy to lead him into a trap. If Storm wasn’t careful, Chinese agents could easily kill him, dump his body, and turn Cleveland Detroit into a conundrum for French authorities.

  And, sure enough, as they staggered drunkenly home, leaning on each other the whole way, he felt his internal alarm bells ringing as she dragged him into an alley. His body tensed. His eyes cast furiously about. He readied himself to fight. Or flee. Whichever seemed most appropriate.

  Then she planted her lips on his and pressed her body tight against him, fairly slamming him into the wall of a brick building. It was around that time that Storm realized that the only people in the alley were two lovers, one American, one Chinese, bathed in Parisian moonlight.

  “I’ve got a suite at the hotel all to myself,” she said when they surfaced for air. “Come back with me.”

  He answered with another long kiss. And so it was that a suite at the Hotel de la Dame became witness to the collision of two great cultures.

  The next thing Storm knew, his phone was ringing. It was morning. The other side of the bed was empty. It took him a moment to remember where he was and, more importantly, who he was.

  Then it finally clicked in. He answered the phone with: “Cleveland Detroit.”

  “Storm, it’s me,” said the rough-hewn voice of Jedediah Jones.

  “Go ahead,” Storm said. Wherever Xi Bang was—the bathroom, perhaps?—she was likely out of earshot. But caution was still called for.

  “We’ve got another dead banker missing a whole lot of fingernails,” Jones said. “Volkov has struck again.”

  “Where?”

  “London.”

  “And?”

  “You’re my nearest boots on the ground. Get over there. Check out the scene. Learn what you can learn about the victim. I’m arranging an escort for you to London.”

  “E-mail details,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

  “Just make sure you’re free of tails when you leave the city.”

  “Got it,” he said, then turned off the phone.

  Storm began collecting his clothes, which were strewn in various rooms of the suite. He already had a lie prepared for Xi Bang: He was being called to London for breaking soy-related news and would have to rejoin the Finance Ministry at some later time to finish his story.

  He kept expecting he would find Xi Bang somewhere, perhaps reading the paper or sipping coffee. Perhaps there would even be time for a brief but rewarding reconnoitering of any territories that had been left unexplored the previous evening.

  But she wasn’t in the sitting room. She wasn’t on the balcony. She wasn’t in the bathroom, either.

  As Storm found the last of his clothing, he acknowledged what he should have known the moment he saw the empty bed:

  Ling Xi Bang was gone.

  CHAPTER 10

  NEW YORK, New York

  From its burnished walnut lockers to the portraits of its past presidents that hung on the walls, the Trinity Health & Racquet Club smelled like old money.

  With good reason. Everyone there had it. Lots of it. On the rare times when the club actually accepted a new member, he—and all but two members were male—had to put up a nonreturnable fifty-thousand-dollar bond in order to gain access to its indoor and outdoor tennis courts, its racquetball courts, its squash courts, its fitness center, and its dining and locker room facilities, which included the best sauna in lower Manhattan. The fifty grand requirement was not because the club particularly needed the cash. Its endowment was now somewhere over thirty million dollars, enough to run the club for nearly three years without collecting a single dollar in dues. It was just to keep out the riffraff.

  G. Whitely Cracker V was a legacy here—the third generation of Crackers to belong. His grandfather, Graham W. Cracker III, had been one of the founding members. His portrait hung on the wall just outside the dining room. Whitely’s father, G. W. Cracker IV, had served three terms as president. His portrait was near the bar.

  It was widely anticipated, even expected, that someday Whitely would take his turn at the helm; and that when his term was over (or his two or three were over), he would also be immortalized in oil-based paint.

  In the meantime, Whitely came here for his biweekly tennis match, an event he treated with only slightly less reverance than a priest treated high mass. He always played singles—against a rotating cast of opponents—and one of his secretary’s jobs was to make sure at least one of his usual adversaries was available. If the opponent dared be a no-show, Whitely was too nice to say anything to the man’s face. But the offender might suddenly find that his locker had been moved—strictly because of some remodeling, of course—so that it was next to a pillar or wedged in a corner.

  The match simply was not negotiable for Cracker. Whatever was happening in the markets didn’t matter. Whatever was happening in his personal life didn’t matter. There were two times each week when Whitely Cracker was simply unavailable to the outside world, and it was the hour and a half—or two hours, if the match went long, into a third set—that he dedicated to this game.

  Which is not to say he took the sport itself that seriously. In truth, it was more about having an excuse to get out and r
un around, to keep himself in fighting shape. Whitely was only a modestly good tennis player. His fitness and court coverage were his best assets. His serve was not particularly imposing. His fore-hand, while steady, scared no one. His backhand was famously erratic. His net game was such a disaster he only wandered up there when forced by circumstance.

  But, ah, he played with passion. He prided himself on being able to routinely beat better players on grit alone. And his secretary understood that she should attempt to schedule him a better player before she turned to the lesser ones. Losing did not bother Whitely Cracker. He would rather lose to a good player than beat a mediocre one.

  On this day, Cracker was losing. He was playing Arnold Richardson—of the New Jersey Richardsons—who had played number six singles when he was at Dartmouth. Richardson’s strokes were far superior to Whitely’s. And even if Whitely could occasionally outlast him during a rally, it wasn’t enough for him to mount a serious threat.

  Richardson won the first set 6–2 and was up 3–1 in the second when there was a parting of the two sides of the heavy plastic curtain behind the court. From the opening emerged Lee Fulcher, a developer who fancied himself a Trump-in-waiting but was really just a mid-sized player in the outsized game that was Manhattan real estate.

  Fulcher always looked like a heart attack waiting to happen, with shirt collars that were just a little too tight—owing to his refusal to admit he was gaining weight—and a face that flushed easily. This occasion was no exception. Even his scalp, exposed by his receding hairline, appeared to be scarlet. He was quite a sight, charging across the court, still fully dressed, from his tasseled loafers right on up to his double Windsor–knotted tie.

  “Jesus, Lee,” Richardson said, pointing with his racket.

  “Your shoes. Todd just had these courts resurfaced. You’re going to get them all marked up.”

  Fulcher ignored him as he steamed across the court toward Whitely.

  “Seriously, man,” Richardson said. “I think there’s something in the bylaws about appropriate footwear. If there are scuff marks, you’re paying for it.”

  The words didn’t even appear to be hitting Fulcher’s ears. He started fuming shortly after he crossed the net.

  “Your goddamn secretary wouldn’t tell me where you were,” Fulcher shouted at Whitely.

  Note to self, Whitely thought, give secretary a raise.

  “But I called the tennis manager and he told me you were down on Court Three,” Fulcher said.

  Note to self, Whitely thought, have tennis manager fired.

  “Okay, you found me,” Whiteley said, keeping his tone amiable. “What can I do for you, Lee?”

  When he reached the service line, Fulcher stopped and declared: “I’ve got a goddamn margin call on the Mulberry Street project.”

  Whitely absorbed this news without visible reaction. He brought his wristband to his forehead and blotted perspiration.

  Fulcher was still raging: “Can you believe those pricks at First National? It’s like we’ve never even worked together, like they don’t even know me. They’re treating me like I’m some goddamn first-time home owner who missed his first three months. I’m not some fly-by-night. Goddamnit, I’m Lee Fulcher! Don’t they remember 442 Broadway? Or… or… the West Side condos? They made a killing on that. I mean, goddamnit.”

  “Relax, Lee. Margin calls happen,” Whitely said philosophically. “Can you cover it?”

  “Yeah, but I need everything,” Fulcher said.

  Whitley looked down at the strings on his racket, straightening one row that had gone just slightly askew. Lee Fulcher was by no means Prime Resource Investment Group’s largest investor. But he wasn’t the smallest, either. Whitely would have to look it up to be sure, but off the top of his head, he knew Fulcher’s account was in the forty-million-dollar range.

  “Is that going to be a problem?” Fulcher prompted.

  “No. No, of course not,” Whitely said. “When do you need it?”

  “Tomorrow. They just sprung this thing on me. I tried to negotiate, but they said they were pulling the plug unless I could cover it. Can you effing believe that?”

  Whitely mopped his forehead again. Teddy Sniff was going to have a conniption. This was going to be a scramble. Whitely wasn’t sure what kind of cash they had on hand, but he was certain they didn’t have forty million bucks just lying around. He’d have to sell a bunch of positions he had really needed to hang on to. Especially now. He’d be taking a hell of a bath. Another one.

  “You’ll have it, right?” Fulcher asked.

  “Yeah, Lee, of course,” Whiteley assured him. “Absolutely. No worries.”

  Fulcher stared at him for a hard second, like he wasn’t sure he could trust what he was hearing.

  “Okay,” Fulcher said. “Let’s say three o’clock. You can wire it to my main account. Your guy has the number.”

  “Deal,” Whitely said.

  Fulcher finally began retreating from the court.

  “Hey, Fulcher, you might want to check the couches for loose change on your way out,” Richardson said, taunting him as he passed by. “Maybe see if someone left a quarter in one of the vending machines.”

  “Screw you, Arnie.”

  “And while you’re at it, buy some freakin’ tennis shoes for next time you come on the court, huh?”

  “Hey, Arnie, be nice,” Whitely said. “But Lee?”

  “Yeah?” the man said, pausing just as he was about to disappear behind the partition.

  “Arnie is right about one thing,” he said. “Please don’t wear those shoes out here again.”

  The SUV was parked halfway down Fulton Street, a block from the club. It had windows tinted so dark they were, technically, illegal. The people inside the vehicle were not concerned about the penny-ante fines that might result from such an infraction. Their greater worry was having someone realize that inside that boxy black truck was a trove of surveillance equipment.

  “Did you get all that?” the man working the monitoring equipment asked the driver.

  “Yeah,” the driver said.

  Bugging the racket club had been a real pain. The place had twenty-four-hour security and had been able to afford the best. But they knew Cracker went there at least twice a week for roughly two hours a shot. Their stalking of Whitely Cracker was a round-the-clock venture. And that clock couldn’t have a four-hour hole in it each week.

  The man thrust his shoulders in between the driver and the front passenger seat, so his head was even with the driver’s.

  “Should we move in? We could take him right now. End this thing,” the man said.

  “Where? When he comes out of the club? Right there on the curb?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

  “No. Not yet,” the driver replied. “We’ve been patient for a reason. We’ve got to do this right.”

  “But you heard that. Fulcher just demanded his money. All his money. Do you know how much that is?”

  “No. But I’m sure it’s not nothing.”

  “What’s going to happen when he realizes Cracker doesn’t have it?”

  “Who knows?” the driver said. “Maybe our boy is going to be able to come up with it. He’s resourceful.”

  The man retreated to the back of the truck. All the coffee he had been drinking to stay awake was pressing at his bladder. He needed to pee. He shook his head and grabbed the Gatorade bottle he had been using for that purpose.

  “It feels like we’re just delaying the inevitable,” he called as the urine hit the bottle.

  “I know,” the driver said. “Just be patient. It won’t be much longer.”

  CHAPTER 11

  BLOIS, France

  Cleveland Detroit had performed the necessary measures to ensure his departure from Paris was unaccompanied by any prying parties. Once he cleared city limits, Derrick Storm pointed himself toward the designated rendezvous point, a manor house that was only seven hundred years old and therefore not considered very int
eresting by the French.

  The house was on the outskirts of Blois (pronounced “blah”), southwest of Paris. Storm was expecting to be met by an escort from French authorities, as Jedediah Jones had promised—some kind of lights-flashing ride through the Channel Tunnel, at which point he’d be turned over to the British, who would speed him on to London in similar fashion. Storm never knew how Jones arranged such things three thousand miles from home, in foreign jurisdictions. But Jones had never let him down.

  Until this time. Storm arrived at the manor grounds, passed through the outer walls, and knocked on the front door of the main house. It was answered by a weathered old caretaker. Storm was quite the sure the man was an operative… for the French resistance during World War II. But, following orders, he said in French: “Jones sent me.”

  Usually these three words were enough to make things happen. Instead, the caretaker welcomed him with all the warmth French hospitality is famous for, which is to say he looked at Storm like he was wearing a shirt made of donkey dung.

  “Qu’avez-vous dit?” he asked. Approximate translation: “Say what, homey?”

  Storm had switched to French and started to explain himself when he heard the distant sound of helicopter rotors chopping the air. If Storm knew Jones, that meant his ride had arrived.

  “Never mind,” Storm said, changing back to English. “Wrong house. My sense of direction must be a little… Blois.”

  Storm chortled at his own joke as he turned to go.

  “Oh, you must be the American,” the caretaker said in English, grabbing Storm’s arm with surprising strength. “Stay right here. I have a few things for you.”

  Storm stood at the door of the manor house until the man returned with a change of clothes and a rectangular-shaped package, approximately a foot in length and perhaps half that in width. It was wrapped in plain, brown paper.

  “Here,” he said. “He said you might like this.”