Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller

  “And what misfortune befell him that he required an autopsy?” Storm asked.

  Jones slid the remote control to Agent Rodriguez, who resumed the narrative: “Five days ago, Kornblum didn’t show up for work, didn’t answer his cell phone, didn’t answer his e-mail, nothing. This is a man who hadn’t missed a day of work in thirteen years and never went more than two waking hours without checking in with someone. He was Mr. Responsible, so his people were concerned right away. When it was discovered his kids didn’t show up at school and his wife had missed a hair appointment, the Nordrhein-Westfalen Landespolizei were dispatched to his home in Bad Godesberg. They found this.”

  Another projector emerged from the ceiling. Crime scene photographs started flashing up on a screen on the far wall. It was all Storm could do not to avert his eyes. The children, both in their early teens, had been killed in their beds, apparently in their sleep. Powder burns around their entry wounds suggested point-blank shots. Their pillows were blood-soaked.

  The wife’s body was found in the master bedroom. She had made it out of bed, but not very far, as if she had gotten up to investigate a noise and met her end quickly thereafter. Her body was faceup perhaps five feet away from the bed. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. There were two crisp bullet holes in her forehead. Whatever bloodstains she’d left behind were hidden by the dark carpet on which she had fallen.

  Kornblum was in a different room, one that appeared to be an office. He had been tied to a chair. His head was tilted back at an unnatural angle. Blood and brain matter were splattered on the wall behind him. There was no visible entry wound, but Storm figured it out: The killer had stuck the gun in the banker’s mouth.

  “Awful,” Storm said. “And I assume Kornblum was tortured?”

  “Correct,” Rodriguez said. “All the fingernails on Kornblum’s right hand were missing. So was the back of his skull, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “Do we know what he was being tortured for?”

  “Negative,” Rodriguez said. “There was no sign of any robbery. None of his papers or files were disturbed. The local authorities were quite baffled. A home invasion crew usually at least goes for jewelry, if nothing else. They assumed Kornblum had screwed someone over in a business deal and this was some kind of revenge hit.”

  “What do we know about the assailants?”

  “Crime scene techs found six distinct footprints in and around the house that they believe belonged to the intruders,” Rodriguez said as pictures of boot treads flashed up on the screen. “There were no fingerprints, naturally. No hairs. No fibers. At least not anything useful that’s come back so far. No surveillance cameras. No witnesses. The Kornblums lived in a large house that couldn’t be seen from the road and was separated by some distance from their neighbors.”

  “Didn’t they have any security system?” Storm asked. “Yeah, but Dieter didn’t put any money into it, so it was Romper Room stuff. The driveway was gated, but a two-year-old with tweezers could have hot-wired it. There were alarms on the doors and windows, but they were pretty easily defeated, too. The central monitoring was never tripped. It was a clean job.”

  “So nothing from the scene?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about at work?”

  “Kornblum’s bosses weren’t terribly forthcoming with the German authorities. Either that or German authorities weren’t terribly forthcoming with our agents. Our guys were able to sniff out that Dieter did a lot of work in securities of varying sorts, but he also worked in currency, bonds, a bit of everything. It sounded like he had a pretty big job. He was a jack of all trades, if you’ll excuse the pun. But as to something that could get him killed? We haven’t really come up with anything yet.”

  “Is that all we know about Dieter Kornblum?”

  “All that’s worth saying right now, yeah.”

  More like it was all that Jones was willing to say. There was always a hold-back with Jones. Storm had come to accept this as part of working with the man. It was like being the frog who ferried the scorpion across the river. No matter how many times the scorpion promised otherwise, the sting was always coming. It was in his nature. That Storm was still alive was simply because he had grown adept at anticipating when it was going to happen.

  Speaking of things he needed to anticipate…

  “Do you have Clara Strike working this already?” Storm asked.

  “No,” Jones said. “Your girlfriend is otherwise deployed.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Storm said, sounding a little too much like a petulant teenager.

  “Fine. Have it your way,” Jones said.

  “Whatever,” Storm spat. “Next.”

  Agent Rodriguez ceremoniously handed the remote control to Agent Bryan, who brought a new image up on the hologram. This one was an Asian man with rounded cheeks and a smooth, boyish face.

  “Joji Motoshige,” Bryan said. “President of global trade at Nippon Financial, one of the Big Four of Japanese banking. Thirty-seven. Unmarried. No kids. Notorious playboy. Pretty much every high-end strip club in Tokyo knew Mr. Motoshige. He’d show up with one girl on his arm and leave with two more. He didn’t seem to bother with Japanese women, but he liked pretty much every other flavor. Argentinian. Ukrainian. Ethiopian. His girlfriends looked like a Benetton ad, but he never kept the same one for more than a few weeks.”

  “Commitment issues,” Storm said, knowingly.

  “Something like that,” Bryan said. “He certainly had the money to afford the best. He had recently cashed in a stock option that netted him a hundred and six million. That was on top of the millions he had already made in salary and bonuses. But it still wasn’t enough for him. His unofficial motto was ‘Work hard, play hard.’ He was legendary for being able to work a sixteen-hour day then hit the town until the early morning, sleep for maybe an hour or two, then go right back to his desk.”

  “I assume he did drugs to keep him going?”

  “Not that anyone is aware of. Unless you count pussy as a drug. Women were his only vice and he chased them relentlessly. All he ever seemed to do was get laid and make money. Colleagues described him as indefatigable in both pursuits.”

  “I note you’re using the past tense,” Storm said.

  “That’s right. He lived in the pent house of a sixty-story luxury condo, a real high-end place. Three days ago his house keeper entered his place to do her usual cleaning. She came three times a week, and she was used to finding some pretty weird stuff—naked girls passed out on the couch, French maid costumes tossed about, erotic asphyxiation rigs, you name it. Instead, she found this.”

  An image of Motoshige’s lifeless body appeared on the screen. His throat had been slashed in a neat line. The blood had poured down from the line like a scarlet bib.

  “No gunshot wound?” Storm asked.

  “It can be hard to find firearms in Tokyo, even if you’re a criminal,” Bryan said. “The Japanese just don’t do guns like we do here in the Wild West. Plus, this was a high-density living situation. Someone might have heard a gunshot, even if it had a silencer.”

  “Right. High-density living situation. A luxury condo with, presumably, at least one doorman. So how did the perps get in?”

  “From above. They rappelled down from the roof and cut a circular hole in his living room window. That was pretty much the only trace they left behind—well, other than Motoshige’s body.”

  “How did they get up on the roof?”

  “The Tokyo police are still trying to figure that out. There’s a tower being constructed next door. It’s possible they could have attached a zip line from one building to the other.”

  “Either that or we’re looking for a crew that includes Spider-Man,” Storm said. “I assume Mr. Motoshige was tortured as well?”

  “Yep. He held out a little longer than Kornblum did. In addition to the fingernails on his right hand, he was also missing the fingernails on his left. There was also a slash mark on his face. Tha
t must have been what caused him to acquiesce to their demands: He didn’t want his pretty face to be ruined.”

  “But I assume we have no clue as to what those demands may have been?”

  “Nothing yet. We still don’t know whether it was information or something tangible, like a document or a safe deposit box key or what,” Bryan confirmed. “The Japanese authorities pretty much wrote off the whole thing as being an outcropping of Motoshige’s overactive penis. They assumed Motoshige pissed off some girl’s boyfriend or husband or brother and that he finally got what was coming to him. There were too many suspects to even begin to narrow it down.”

  “A husband or brother is going to rappel from the roof to kill the guy?” Storm asked.

  “Our thought exactly. But apparently no one at Nippon Financial was pushing real hard for an investigation. The higher-ups at the bank were deeply embarrassed by Motoshige’s lifestyle, and they didn’t want to risk bringing any attention to this. They’ve managed to keep it hushed up in the media so far. Japanese culture is all about saving face and not acting in a way that disgraces your company. High level bank executives just aren’t supposed to behave like Motoshige did. His bosses only tolerated him because he was brilliant at what he did. Like Kornblum, he had his fingers in a lot of pies. Anything that involved foreign transactions at Nippon was in Motoshige’s domain. The guy spoke five languages.”

  “Ah, a real polyglot,” Storm said.

  “Since when do you know a word like ‘polyglot’?” Jones teased.

  “You’ve had me learn eight languages and you ask me how it is I know the word ‘polyglot’?”

  “Point taken.”

  “Anything else on Motoshige?”

  “Nothing that struck us as relevant,” Jones interjected. And again, Storm thought about Jones’s wandering definition of what relevant actually was.

  “Okay, so when do we get to the Swiss guy?” Storm asked.

  “Right now,” Jones said, taking ownership of the remote control. He clicked, and a picture of a fat, jowly man with a hooked nose appeared in a 3-D hologram.

  “Yikes,” Storm said. “Did someone make him take an ugly pill?”

  “Wilhelm Sorenson,” Jones said, ignoring the commentary. “Chief currency trader for Nationale Banc Suisse, the third-largest bank in the world, asset-wise. Sixty-eight. Married. Two kids, both grown. Most of his assets were, naturally, in Swiss banks, and as you know they aren’t very good about sharing information. But we do know he was a multi-multi-millionaire, and we also know he also had a weakness for women. Young women. The other victim at the scene was a seventeen-year-old runaway with a fake I.D. that said she was nineteen. She was wearing a bitty little piece of lingerie that left scant doubt as to the nature of the relationship.”

  Jones catalogued the details of the scene, ending with the missing fingernails.

  “The Interpol computers didn’t pick up the similarity of the crimes until the third iteration, but Sorenson’s killing finally tripped their alarm bells,” Jones said.

  “The local authorities botched the scene a little. Believe me, they were asking some hard questions of the wife, who was, quote-unquote ‘out of town’ on some kind of girls’ weekend in France. But thankfully Interpol called our people, and they were able to move in. Sorenson had a fairly extensive external security system. So we were able to get these.”

  Several high-definition still photos of a six-man crew popped up on the screen. Five of them were men Storm had never seen before. One was a man he could never forget.

  “Volkov,” Storm said. “What happened to his face?”

  “We assumed that was the remnants of your handiwork in Mogadishu,” Jones said.

  “There’s no way he survived that explosion.”

  “There are three dead bankers who would beg to differ if they could still talk.”

  Storm shook his head slowly. It had been five years since he last tangled with Volkov. Not long enough. Five lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough.

  “Get him off that screen. I’ve seen enough of that face,” Storm said. Jones complied as Storm went on: “So we have three dead bankers from three large banks in three different countries. At least two of them seem to have problems keeping their flies zipped. Are we sure the third wasn’t also into the hanky panky?”

  “We looked into that, but Kornblum was a total Boy Scout,” Jones said.

  “There’s not a single skeleton in his closet. And, believe me, we looked. He ought to run for the chancellorship with a record this clean. Not that he’d like the pay cut.”

  “Okay, what about links between the three men? Some kind of deal Kornblum, Motoshige, and Sorenson were involved in together? A trade they did?”

  “Nothing we’ve been able to find so far,” Jones said. “Kornblum had traded with Sorenson. And Motoshige had once offered a trade to Kornblum that didn’t go through. But those deals were five and three years ago, respectively. It strains credulity to call that any more than a coincidence. These guys were all big players in what is a relatively small world of ultra-high finance. It stands to reason they might have had some incidental contact at some point. But that’s all.”

  “What about a common associate between them?” Storm asked.

  “Unfortunately, there are dozens,” Bryan answered. “Like Jones said, these bankers are pretty clubby. They go to the same conferences, pal around with the same groups. If you start playing degrees of separation, you can link anyone in this world with anyone else in two steps or less. They all worked with a guy who worked with one of these guys, or who went to school with one of these guys.”

  “What about phone calls to the same numbers? E-mails to the same accounts?”

  “We’re working on that as we speak,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll let you know if anything pops.”

  Storm drummed his fingers on the polished tabletop. The three agents let him have a moment. Storm wondered how much of the full picture he was actually getting. What wasn’t Jones parceling out? Who was he protecting? What other angle was he working?

  “Of course, there’s one connection we know they have for sure: Volkov,” Storm said. “Volkov is smart, but he isn’t sophisticated enough to be killing bankers on his own. He’s acting as muscle for someone. We can always try to work backward from there. Do we have any idea who might have hired him?”

  Rodriguez glanced at Bryan and said, “Told you our boy hadn’t lost a step during his time on the shelf. Twenty bucks.”

  Bryan shook his head as he reached for his wallet.

  “You really bet against me, Kev?” Storm said, crossing his arms and faking an indignant stare.

  “I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never doubt you again and… Oh, man, I’m out of cash. Javi, is it okay if…”

  “No, no,” Storm said. “My old man always taught me a debt must be paid promptly. I’ll cover you, despite your lack of faith in me. Just remember you owe me. You owe me for this and Bahrain.”

  “Really? You’re going to talk about Bahrain as if it’s even in the same league as twenty bucks?” Bryan said.

  Storm handed Rodriguez a twenty-dollar bill. “Just adding it to your tab.”

  Jones stared at them. “You ladies done?” he asked.

  “Sorry. Continue.”

  “Good. To answer your question: Yes, we have a theory on who hired Volkov,” Jones said. “We think it might be the Chinese.”

  “Why the Chinese?”

  “We’re still trying to piece that together,” Jones said. “But one theory is pretty straightforward. China has the world’s second largest economy, and they’re pretty open about their goal of being number one. It’s possible they’re trying to create some kind of disruption in the financial markets aimed at undermining our economic stability.”

  “By killing foreign bankers? Why wouldn’t they just kill American bankers?”

  “That’s the nature of global trade these days,” Jones said. “Everything has become so interconnected, the most vulne
rable parts of our financial system are actually located overseas. Plus…”

  “What?”

  “It’s very possible Volkov isn’t done yet,” Jones said. “This might just be the beginning of something that’s going to get bigger.”

  Storm nodded. He didn’t need to be convinced of the depth of Volkov’s evil. Even the man’s name spoke to his nature: Volkov is derived from volk, the Russian word for wolf.

  “Now, bear in mind, this is a delicate thing with the Chinese,” Jones continued. “We’re not just talking about some backward banana republic that’s going to change dictators in three weeks anyway. We’re talking about our most important, most sensitive foreign relationship, with a country that happens to be the most populous on Earth. And, oh by the way, they also have the largest army. We need more information on what the Chinese are up to, but we absolutely can’t be caught snooping around. We need some… deniability.”

  “In other words,” Storm said, “if I get caught, you’ll deny you ever knew me and I’ll spend the rest of my life in a prison shackled next to a bunch of Tibetan dissidents.”

  “Affirmative.” Jones smiled.

  “Charming,” Storm said. “So what’s my next move?”

  “The Chinese finance minister is set to give an important speech to the European Union in Paris,” Jones said.

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So one of our people tells us that the Chinese Ministry of State Security”—the Chinese equivalent of the CIA and the FBI, rolled into one—“has a joint covert operation of some kind going on with the Chinese Finance Ministry. A Ministry of State Security agent is now traveling undercover with the Finance Ministry. It makes sense that if this plot involving bankers has the kind of complexity we think it does, it would need to have Finance Ministry expertise—and State Security Ministry cunning. Our working theory—and, again, it’s just a theory at this point—is that this State Security Ministry agent is the one who hired Volkov.”