not with sympathy but alarm. Can’t have the vice chairman wandering in here looking like this. It doesn’t do. What would they think in Edinburgh…or Glasgow…or wherever the fuck Sir Ian was from?
Hadrian kept walking, the sky a shade of indigo, clouds lounging beneath the stars. On the equator, darkness came in a hurry. By now, his presence had been noted and commented upon, word spreading through the crowd like wildfire. Heads turned. Conversations stopped dead.
“Hadrian, what is it? What has happened?” Beatrice hugged his side, trying to lead him away. He rebuffed her.
“Not now, darling. Just one thing I have to do.” He smiled.
“But…your face. Who hit you? Hadrian! Please. Talk to me. Darling.”
“Please.” Italians. So emotional. Actually, it was one of the things he loved most about her.
He pressed on, steadying himself against the bar, aware of all eyes on him. Drawing a breath, he continued past the seating area. If he looked carefully, far out on the horizon, past where the planes were taking off and landing, he could see Changi.
He squinted and it came into view. All of it. The prison walls. The barbed wire. The rats with their long, sharp teeth.
Never.
With a nimbleness he didn’t know he possessed, he placed one hand on the rail, a foot on the bench next to it, and vaulted over the wall seventy stories and nine hundred feet above the earth.
Never.
Chapter 52
Singapore
Borgia,” said Simon. “Luca Borgia. That’s who we’re after.”
“I can tell you all about Borgia. I interviewed him five years ago.”
“Wait, you know him?”
“As well as I know any of my subjects. He’s one of Italy’s wealthiest men. The Borgia family has holdings in industrial concerns all over the country—the world, really. They’re worth billions.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“They’re quiet, Simon. The epitome of old money. They like to control things from the shadows. He’s the principal landowner in the region of Umbria. We’re talking tens of thousands of acres. He lives in a castle there. It’s called the Castello dell’Aquila.”
“Did you say ‘aquila’? As in ‘eagle’?”
London nodded.
“‘Luca the Eagle.’ I saw that handle on a few emails.”
Waiting for the elevator, Simon handed her Hadrian Lester’s phone. “Look what I found.”
“You took his phone?” said London. “That’s theft.”
“He left it on the table.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I may have lifted it.”
“You do that? You pickpocket people?”
“Handy skill, if you want to know. I’m going to give it back to him the next time we see each other. It’s what friends do.”
“Do friends give friends their passcode?”
“One-one-one-one.”
“It isn’t!” She punched in the code, then looked at him, wide-eyed. “How?”
“Parlor trick,” said Simon. “Actually, I caught him checking his phone when we were upstairs. Guys like him, who have to check it a thousand times a day, tend to keep it simple.”
She ran through the apps. “It’s a gold mine.”
“Admissible?”
“For this, you need a warrant.”
“I won’t tell the police if you won’t.”
The elevator arrived. They entered and Simon punched the button for the ground floor. “Did you hear him? Something bad’s going down.”
“What do you think? Another 9/11?”
“With all the money that’s being shifted between accounts, I wouldn’t doubt it. And soon, this weekend.”
They looked at each other, not sure how to handle the responsibility with which they’d been burdened.
“Do you think Lester called the police?”
The elevator slowed. The doors opened. “I don’t want to wait around to find out. Let’s move.”
Simon scanned the open floor as they moved across the lobby. There was no sign of anything amiss, just the lazy ebb and flow of guests and business people and staff. They walked outside. A line of taxis was drawn up to their left.
“And now?” asked London.
“You write your story. Put those guys behind bars. The quicker the better.”
“What about you? What next?”
Simon took back Lester’s phone, bringing up the executive’s daily agenda. “Lester and his wife are booked on the Singapore Airlines 23:55 flight to Switzerland,” he said, showing London the screen. “Connecting flight to Nice. Room at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Nothing but the best.”
“Think he’s going to meet Borgia?”
“That’s what I aim to find out.”
“You’re going, too?”
“Maybe I’ll get a seat next to Lester. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other better. You know how it is when you’re flying. People say almost anything to another passenger.”
“Don’t you think Lester is going to tell Borgia what happened?”
“You mean about me breaking his fingers? I hope so. It might stop Borgia from doing whatever it is he has planned.”