She turned, frowning. “What d’you mean?”
“What if it was being used to pay for something else?”
“The money’s proved to be counterfeit,” Hendricks said dismissively.
“What?” Peter’s head turned. “Really?”
Hendricks nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. The guy who almost killed me—” “Tulio Vistoso,” Hendricks said. “Aka the Aztec. A top-line Mexican drug lord.”
“I don’t understand,” Soraya said.
“We think it was a feint,” the Secretary said. “Classic misdirection on Maceo Encarnación’s part. When he’s in Mexico City, the two are practically joined at the hip.”
Peter shook his head. “I’m not so sure. The Aztec went to extreme lengths to protect that money.”
Another short silence ensued.
“Is it possible,” Soraya mused, “that Vistoso didn’t know the money was counterfeit?”
Peter was intrigued. “That would mean he’d been scammed.”
“That doesn’t track,” Hendricks said. “Vistoso was one of the Mexican Big Three. Who would dare to scam him?”
“Someone with more juice.” Peter looked from one to the other. “Someone like Maceo Encarnación.”
Soraya turned to Hendricks. “Have you been tracking him?”
“Encarnación was in Washington several days ago, giving an interview for Politics As Usual.”
“I’m still back on the counterfeit thirty mil,” Peter said. “Something about it is totally off.” He snapped his fingers. “There must be an expert we can get hold of who might be able tell us who the counterfeiter is.”
“It’s already being worked on,” Hendricks said. “But why should we be interested?”
“Thirty million is an enormous amount,” Peter mused. “It had to be very, very good work. A master forger was involved. Maybe we can use him to implicate Maceo Encarnación.”
Soraya crossed her arms over her swollen breasts, noticing how tender they had become. “Speaking of Maceo Encarnación, do we know where he went after his interview?”
“He flew back to his headquarters in Mexico City,” Hendricks said.
“Is he there now?” Peter said.
Hendricks was already on his mobile, barking orders. He waited, staring at Peter. A moment later, he got his reply. “He’s in Paris now, but has yet to disembark, which is odd because his plane has been on the ground for a good six hours.”
“So okay,” Peter said, “because Vistoso was Maceo Encarnación’s prime lieutenant and because thirty million, even in counterfeit money, is a helluva sum, we’ve speculated that Encarnación must be involved.”
“I’m thinking of Brick wanting the Treadstone system down,” Soraya said. “Could there be a connection between him and Maceo Encarnación?”
“That system,” Peter said, “is our best listening post in the Middle East.”
“And Paris,” Soraya said, “is a helluva lot closer to the Middle East than Mexico City.”
Hendricks gave a quick nod. “Maceo Encarnación’s pilot will have to file a flight plan out of Paris.”
“We get that,” Peter nodded, “we know precisely where he’s going. If it’s to the Middle East we have our proof of Encarnación’s involvement.”
Hendricks, the mobile to his ear, started giving them orders.
“Hold on,” Soraya said. “You forget we don’t work for you anymore.”
“Who the fuck said that?” Hendricks gave them a hint of a smile just before he stepped through the door.
25
THINK OF IT AS a troika,” Bourne said as he scanned the information on Martha Christiana’s micro-SD chip. “Maceo Encarnación, Tom Brick, the Chinese.”
Don Fernando shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why Martha had this material in the first place.”
“It was her fuck-you stash,” Bourne said. “She amassed this information to use as leverage.”
Don Fernando was silent for some time. He stared at the screen of his laptop with a melancholy sorrow. At last he heaved a great sigh. “But, in the end, she didn’t use it.” He turned to look at Bourne. “Why?”
“This was a way out, but only one of several. It would still leave her a life of constantly looking over her shoulder.”
“She wouldn’t have wanted that,” Don Fernando said.
“From what you’ve told me about her, no. But, on the other hand, I doubt that she wanted out at all. That was her essential dilemma. She could no longer go forward, and, for her, there was no way back. There was no other way, no other life that she could conceive of.”
“I told her about it,” Don Fernando lamented. “I laid it all out for her.”
“She couldn’t hear it, or she couldn’t believe it.”
Don Fernando sighed and nodded with a kind of finality. “You’re a good friend, Jason. There aren’t many like you.”
Traffic rolled endlessly by outside. The amplified voice of the guide aboard a passing Bateau Mouche rolled up the stone walls to them, then drifted away as if on a watery tide. The bare trees whipped in the wind off the Seine. Downstairs, on the Quai de Bourbon, there were still gawkers, murmuring among themselves about last night’s suicide. The circus hadn’t died down.
Bourne pointed to the screen. “According to Martha’s information, the Chinese have been laundering money through Maceo Encarnación.”
“They’re going to use the thirty million to buy something from an unknown entity in the Middle East—something very important,” Don Fernando said. “But Martha didn’t know what it was or from whom it was to be bought.”
Bourne did know, however, because Rebeka had whispered the name to him just before she bled out in the backseat of the taxi in Mexico City.
Don Fernando sat back. “What I don’t understand is what Maceo Encarnación gets out of this deal. A ten percent laundering fee? That’s hardly worth the risk he’s taking.”
Bourne scrolled through Martha’s information again. Something he had seen before had stuck in his mind. Then his forefinger stabbed out as he pointed. “There! Tom Brick’s involvement.” He turned to Don Fernando. “What does Core Energy stand to gain in a deal with Maceo Encarnación and the Chinese?”
Don Fernando thought a moment. “That depends on what the Chinese are buying.”
“It’s energy-related,” Bourne said. “Don’t you see? Energy is the element that ties all these people together.”
“Yes. With their huge upsurge in economic expansion, production, infrastructure, and population, the Chinese are always after alternative forms of energy. I can see how Brick and Core Energy would want a piece of whatever technology the Chinese are after.” He shook his head. “But Maceo Encarnación?”
“The troika only makes sense if Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy are somehow allied.”
“What? But Christien and I would know about that, surely?”
“Would you?”
“We’ve had our eye on both Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy, Jason. We could find no money trail between the two.”
“If Brick and Maceo Encarnación went about the alliance in the right way, there wouldn’t be one. A money trail would be the first thing they’d conceal. From what I’ve read, Core Energy has more than enough subsidiaries worldwide to conceal a money trail.”
“Not from us,” Don Fernando insisted. “Christien has developed a proprietary software program that drills down through any mare’s nest of shell corporations and holding companies. I’m telling you there’s no money trail.”
Bourne laughed. “Of course! That’s where Maceo Encarnación’s drug lords come in. They’re the ones who reverse-launder the money flowing between Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy.”
“Reverse-launder?”
Bourne nodded. “Instead of funneling dirty money through legitimate sources, Brick and Maceo Encarnación have done the reverse. They’ve taken the legitimate money that flows between their two companies and funneled it through the drug lords, making it dirty, and therefore, untraceable. It’s all cash, back and forth. No matter how clever and sophisticated Christien’s software program is, it isn’t going to pick up those kinds of transactions. No one else is, either.”