The Sigma Protocol

  Anna and Bolgorio both rose from the low sofa. Without shaking their hands, she said in Spanish, “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  Bolgorio stepped forward. “I am Captain Luis Bolgorio of the policía,” he said with a bow of his head, “and this is Special Agent Anna Navarro of the American Department of Justice.”

  “Consuela Prosperi,” she said impatiently. “Please accept our deepest condolences on the passing of your husband,” he continued. “We simply wanted to ask you a few questions, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Is there some sort of problem? My husband was sick for a long time, you know. When he finally passed away it was surely a great relief for him.”

  Not to mention for you, too, Anna thought. “We have information,” she said, “indicating that your husband may have been killed.”

  Consuela Prosperi looked unimpressed. “Please sit down,” she said. They did, and she sat in a white chair facing them. Consuela Prosperi had the unnaturally tight skin of a woman who has had too many face-lifts. Her makeup was too orange, her lipstick glossy brown.

  “Marcel was ill for the last several years of his life. He was confined to bed. He was in extremely poor health.”

  “I understand,” Anna said. “Did your husband have enemies?”

  The widow turned to her with an imperious glance. “Why would he have enemies?”

  “Señora Prosperi, we know all about your husband’s past endeavors.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I am his third wife,” she said. “And we did not speak of his business affairs. My own interests lie elsewhere.”

  This woman could hardly be ignorant of her husband’s reputation, Anna knew. She also did not seem to be much in mourning.

  “Did Señor Prosperi have any regular visitors?” The widow hesitated but an instant. “Not while we were married.”

  “And no conflicts that you know about with his international ‘trading’ partners?”

  The widow’s thin lips compressed, revealing a row of vertical age lines.

  “Agent Navarro means no disrespect,” Bolgorio put in hastily. “What she means to say is—”

  “I’m quite aware of what she means to say,” Consuela Prosperi snapped.

  Anna shrugged. “There must have been many people over the years who wanted your husband apprehended, arrested, even killed. Rivals. Contenders for territory. Disgruntled business partners. You know that as well as I.”

  The widow offered no response. Anna noticed her thick orange pancake makeup cracking over her sun-lined face.

  “There are also people who sometimes provide early warnings,” Anna went on. “Intelligence. Security. Do you know if anyone ever contacted him to warn him of any possible threats?”

  “In the nineteen years we were married,” Consuela Prosperi said, turning away, “I never heard anything of this.”

  “Did he ever express to you the fear that people were after him?”

  “My husband was a private man. He was an absentee owner of his automobile dealerships. He never liked to go out. Whereas I enjoy going out quite a bit.”

  “Yes, but did he say he was afraid to go out?”

  “He didn’t enjoy going out,” she corrected. “He preferred to stay in and read his biographies and histories.”

  For some reason, Ramon’s muttered words ran through her head. El diablo sabe más por viejo que por diablo. The devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil.

  Anna tried a different tack. “You seem to have very good security here.”

  The widow smirked. “You do not know Asunción, do you?”

  “There is great poverty and crime here, Agent Navarro,” Captain Bolgorio said, turning to her with out-spread hands. “People of the Prosperis’ means must always take precautions.”

  “Did your husband have any visitors at all in the last few weeks of his life?” Anna went on, ignoring him.

  “No, my friends came over quite a bit, but none of them ever went upstairs to see him. He really had no friends in the last years. He saw only me and his nurses.”

  Anna looked up suddenly. “Who supplied his nurses?”

  “A nursing agency.” “Did they rotate—did the same ones come regularly?”

  “There was a day nurse and an evening nurse, and yes, always the same ones. They took very good care of him.”

  Anna chewed at the inside of her lower lip. “I’m going to have to examine certain of your household records.”

  The widow turned to Bolgorio with an expression of indignation. “I don’t have to put up with this, do I? This is a grotesque invasion of my privacy.”

  Bolgorio tented his hands as if in supplication. “Please, Señora Prosperi, her only interest is to determine whether there was any possibility of homicide.”

  “Homicide? My husband’s heart finally gave out.”

  “If we must, we can obtain them at the bank,” Anna said. “But it would be so much simpler if—”

  Consuela Prosperi got up and suddenly stared at Anna, nostrils flared, as if the American were a rodent that had made its way into her house. Bolgorio spoke in a low voice. “People like her, they do not tolerate invasions of their privacy.”

  “Señora Prosperi, you say there were two nurses,” Anna said, soldiering on. “Were they very reliable?”

  “Very.”

  “But were they never sick or absent?”

  “Oh, from time to time, of course. Or they would ask for a night off when there was a holiday. Año Nuevo, Día de los Trabajadores, Carnaval, that sort of thing. But they were very responsible, and the agency was good about bringing in replacements without my ever having to worry. And the replacements were every bit as well trained as the regular nurses. Even on Marcel’s last night, the substitute nurse did everything she could to try to save him—”

  Substitute nurse. She sat upright, suddenly alert. “There was a substitute nurse on the night he died?”

  “Yes, but as I said, she was as well trained—”

  “Had you ever seen her before?”

  “No…”

  “Can you give me the name and phone number of the nursing agency?”

  “Of course, but if you’re implying that this nurse killed Marcel, you’re being foolish. He was ill.”

  Anna’s pulse quickened. “Can you call this agency?” she asked Bolgorio. “And I’d like to go to the morgue right now—could you please call ahead and arrange to have the body prepared for us?”

  “The body?” Consuela Prosperi said, alarmed, rising to her feet.

  “My deepest apologies if we must delay the funeral,” Anna said. “We’d like your permission to do an autopsy. We can always get a court order, but it would be simpler and faster if you’d give us permission. I can guarantee you, if you’re having an open-casket service, no one will ever be able to tell—”

  “What are you talking about?” the widow said, genuinely puzzled. She walked to the immense fireplace and lifted an ornate silver urn from the mantel. “I just received my husband’s ashes a few hours ago.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Washington, D.C.

  Justice Miriam Bateman of the United States Supreme Court got up with great effort from her massive mahogany partners’ desk to greet her visitor. Leaning on her gold-handled cane, she made her way around the desk and, smiling warmly despite the great pain from her rheumatoid arthritis, took her visitor’s hand.

  “How nice to see you, Ron,” she said.

  Her visitor, a tall black man in his late fifties, leaned over to give the diminutive Justice a peck on the cheek. “You look wonderful as always,” he said in his deep, clear baritone, his enunciation precise.

  “Oh, rubbish.” Justice Bateman hobbled over to a high-backed wing chair by the fireplace, and he took the matching one next to her.

  Her visitor was one of Washington’s most influential private citizens, a widely respected, extraordinarily well-connected attorney in private practice who had never held a government
job, yet had been a confidant of every President, Democrat and Republican, since Lyndon Johnson. Ronald Evers, famous, too, for his splendid wardrobe, was wearing a beautiful charcoal pin-striped suit and a subdued maroon tie.

  “Madame Justice, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “For God’s sake, Ron, it’s Miriam. How long have we known each other?”

  He smiled. “I believe it’s thirty-five years…Miriam, give or take a decade. But I still keep wanting to call you Professor Bateman.”

  Evers had been one of Miriam Bateman’s star students at Yale Law School, and he had been instrumental behind the scenes in getting Justice Bateman nominated to the High Court some fifteen years earlier. He hunched forward in his chair. “You’re a busy lady, and the Court’s in session, so let me get right to the point. The President has asked me to sound you out on something that must not leave this room, something he’s been giving a lot of thought to. Please understand, this is highly preliminary.”

  Justice Bateman’s piercing blue eyes radiated keen intelligence behind the thick lenses of her eyeglasses. “He wants me to step down,” she said somberly.

  Her directness caught her visitor unprepared. “He has enormous respect for your judgment and instincts, and he’d like you to recommend your successor. The President hasn’t much more than a year left in office, and wants to make sure the next Supreme Court vacancy isn’t filled by the other party, which looks awfully likely at this point.”

  Justice Bateman replied quietly, “And what makes the President think my seat’s going to be vacant any time soon?”

  Ronald Evers bowed his head, his eyes closed as if in prayer or deep contemplation. “This is a delicate matter,” he said gently, like a priest in a confessional, “but we’ve always spoken openly with one another. You’re one of the finest Supreme Court Justices this nation has ever seen, and I have no doubt you’ll be mentioned in the same breath as Brandeis or Frankfurter. But I know you’ll want to preserve your legacy, and so you have to ask yourself a very hard question: how many more years do you have left?” He lifted his head, and looked directly into her eyes. “Remember, Brandeis and Cardozo and Holmes all outstayed their welcome. They lingered at the Court well past the time when they could do their best work.”

  Justice Bateman’s gaze was unyielding. “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked unexpectedly. Then, lowering her voice conspiratorially, she said, “I’ve got a Sachertorte I’ve just brought back from Demel’s in Vienna, and the doctors tell me I really shouldn’t have any.”

  Evers patted his flat midriff. “I’m trying to be good. But thank you.”

  “Then let me return bluntness with bluntness. I’m familiar with the reputation of just about every judge with any stature in every circuit in the country. And I have no doubt the President will find someone highly qualified, extremely bright, a legal scholar of range and breadth. But I want to let you in on something. The Supreme Court’s a place that takes years to learn. One can’t simply show up and expect to exert any influence. There’s simply no substitute for seniority, for length of service. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned here, it’s the power of experience. That’s where real wisdom comes from.”

  Her guest was prepared for this argument. “And there’s no one on the Court as wise as you are. But your health is failing. You’re not getting any younger.” He smiled sadly. “None of us is. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know, but there’s just no way around it.”

  “Oh, I don’t plan to keel over any time soon,” she said, a glint in her eye. The telephone beside her chair suddenly rang, startling both of them. She picked it up. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” came the voice of her longtime secretary, Pamela, “but it’s a Mr. Holland. You asked me to put him right through whenever he calls.”

  “I’ll take it in my hideaway office.” She put down the phone and stood with difficulty. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Ron?”

  “I can wait outside,” Evers said, getting to his feet and helping her up.

  “Don’t be silly. Stay right here. And if you change your mind about that Sachertorte, Pamela’s right outside.”

  Justice Bateman closed the door to the study and laboriously made her way to her favorite chair. “Mr. Holland.”

  “Madame Justice, forgive this intrusion,” said the voice on the phone, “but a difficulty has arisen that I thought you might be able to help us with.”

  She listened for a few moments and then said, “I can make a call.”

  “Only if it’s not too great an inconvenience,” said the man. “I would certainly never disturb you if it weren’t extremely important.”

  “Not at all. None of us wants this. Certainly not at this time.”

  She listened as he spoke some more, then said, “Well, we all trust you to do the right thing.”

  Another pause, and she added, “I’ll see you very soon,” and then hung up.

  Zurich

  An icy wind blew down the Limmatquai, the quay on the banks of the Limmat River. The Limmat cuts through the heart of Zurich before it flows into the Zurichsee, splitting the city into two distinct halves, one the Zurich of high finance and high-priced shopping, the other the Altstadt, the quaint medieval Old Town. The river twinkled in the soft early-morning sunlight. It wasn’t even six in the morning, but already people were striding to work, armed with briefcases and umbrellas. The sky was cloudy and overcast, though rain didn’t appear imminent. But the Zurichers knew better.

  Ben advanced tensely along the promenade, past the thirteenth-century Zunfthausen, the old guildhalls, with their leaded-glass windows, that now housed elegant restaurants. At Marktgasse he turned left, heading into the warren of narrow cobbled streets that was the Old Town. After a few minutes he found Trittligasse, a street lined with medieval stone buildings, some of which had been converted into dwellings.

  Number 73 was an ancient stone townhouse that was now an apartment building. A small brass frame mounted beside the front door held only six names, white letters embossed in black plastic rectangles.

  One of them was M. DESCHNER.

  He kept walking without slowing down, careful to evince no particular interest. Perhaps it was baseless paranoia, but if there was any chance that spotters for the Corporation were keeping a lookout for him, he did not want to jeopardize Liesl’s cousin by simply arriving at the door. The appearance of a strange visitor by itself might arouse curiosity. However remote the possibility that watchers were in place, rudimentary precautions would have to be taken.

  An hour later, a deliveryman in the distinctive orange and black uniform of Blümchengallerie rang the bell of Number 73 Trittligasse. The Blümchengallerie was Zurich’s most upscale florist chain, and its colorfully clad deliverymen were not an uncommon sight in the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods. The man held a sizable bouquet of white roses. The roses did, in fact, come from the Blümchengallerie; the uniform from the charity bazaar of a Catholic parish across town.

  After a few minutes, the man rang again. This time a voice crackled out of the speaker: “Yes?”

  “It’s Peter Hartman.”

  A long pause. “Again, please?” “Peter Hartman.”

  An even longer silence. “Come to the third floor, Peter.”

  With a buzz, the front door lock released, and he found himself in a dark foyer. Depositing the flowers on a marble side table, he climbed the worn stone stairs, which rose steeply through the gloom.

  Liesl had given him Matthias Deschner’s home and office addresses and phone numbers. Instead of calling the lawyer at his place of work, however, Ben had decided instead to appear unannounced at his home, early enough so that the attorney presumably wouldn’t have left for the office. The Swiss, he knew, are supremely regular in their business hours, which usually begin between nine and ten. Deschner would surely be no different.

  Liesl had said she trusted him—“totally,” she said—but he could not assume anything anymore.
Therefore he had insisted that Liesl not call ahead to introduce him. Ben preferred to surprise the attorney, catch him off guard, observe his genuine, unrehearsed first reaction to meeting a man he believed to be Peter Hartman—or would Deschner already know of Peter’s murder?

  The door opened. Matthias Deschner stood before him in a green plaid bathrobe. He was small, with a pale craggy face, thick wire-rimmed glasses, reddish hair that frizzed out at the temples. Age fifty, Ben supposed.

  His eyes were wide with surprise. “Good God,” he exclaimed. “Why are you dressed this way? But don’t stand there—come in, come in.” He closed the door behind Ben and said, “May I offer you coffee?”

  “Thank you.”

  “What are you doing here?” Deschner whispered. “Is Liesl—?”

  “I’m not Peter. I’m his brother, Ben.”

  “You—what? His brother? Oh, my God!” he gasped. Deschner pivoted around and stared at Ben with sudden dread. “They found him, didn’t they?”

  “Peter was killed a few days ago.”

  “Oh, Lord,” he breathed. “Oh, Lord. They found him! He was always so afraid it would happen someday.” Deschner stopped suddenly, a look of terror striking his face. “Liesl—”

  “Liesl’s unharmed.”

  “Thank God.” He turned to Ben. “I mean, what am I saying—”

  “That’s all right. I understand. She’s your blood relative.”

  Deschner stood before a small breakfast table and poured Ben a china cup of coffee. “How did this happen?” he asked gravely. “Tell me, for God’s sake!”

  “Surely the bank where you had a meeting the morning of the Bahnhofstrasse incident was the tripwire,” Deschner said. The two of them faced each other intently across the table. Ben had peeled off the baggy orange and black uniform to reveal his ordinary street clothes. “The Union Bank of Switzerland is a merger of several older banks. Maybe there was an old, sensitive account that was flagged, being watched. Perhaps by one of the parties you met with. An assistant, a clerk. An informer who’d been given a watch list.”