Moore.
“Vaara,” I answer.
“Hello, lad. I’ve called to give you a heads-up. Is your phone secure?”
“The securest.”
“My situation went slightly awry. I decided to decline your generous offer to let me and my family live unless I committed double murder. I intended to take my family and leave the country instead, and so I resigned my position, effective immediately. Saukko took exception to my resignation, never mind that I’ve worked for him for five years and said nothing against him, just said I’d like a change and to move on. He said, ‘Congratulations, you just made my Shit List,’ and had me escorted off the property without even letting me get my kit. I took great umbrage at such treatment.”
“And you’d like me to help you how?”
“It’s me trying to help you, despite the fact that I may kill you one day. I wanted my things and had no intention of being on a death sentence list, neither yours nor his, so I went back and cut the throats of those two Corsican bastards—they were sleeping like babes—took their passports, and appropriated the keys to the safe-deposit box, both Saukko’s and theirs. I did a little passport doctoring and replaced the elder Corsican assassin’s photo with my own, went to the bank, emptied the safe-deposit box and took my retirement fund.”
“A mocked-up passport altered by hand in a hurry got you into that box?”
“It’s July, I took a gamble that the regular admin was on vacation, and it was more than sufficient to get by the zit-faced zombie summer intern from the university.”
“You’ve been a busy man,” I say. “Why are you calling me?”
“To let you know the Corsicans are dead and end our relationship. For now. You know, I never truly feared you. Your torture-session stage props were a bit over-the-top, like a movie cliché, and it wasn’t sodium pentothal and LSD in those syringes, was it?”
“No, it was vodka.”
“The poor man’s truth serum. Injected alcohol works to a certain extent. Good thinking. The reason I’m calling is that I’m no longer in the country, and both keys to the box are at the bottom of the Baltic. Saukko has to find himself more killers, and there aren’t so many proficient ones around. Then he has to have the box drilled, which he will find empty. So he has to fill it back up. Even billionaires don’t generally have a million in cash just lying around the house. It will take him at least a couple weeks to sort it all out, which gives you a window of opportunity.”
“To do what?”
He laughs. “Anything you like, lad. Anything you like.”
“A couple questions,” I say, “just so I can believe you.”
“Fire away.”
“In your iPad calendar, you list ‘driving’ almost daily. What does it mean?”
“Working on his golf drive. He has some buoys out in the sea at different distances. He aims at them and drives a bucket or two of balls. He has his own green and sand trap as well, to practice putting and chipping.”
“What about the dead Corsicans and body disposal?”
“Saukko has had too many bodies about. Daughter. Son. Now this. A background check on the dead men would turn up suspicious things. Too much trouble, too much publicity. They’ll also be at the bottom of the Baltic by now. Maybe they’ll find their key down there.”
“How did you defeat security and get in the house?”
“I designed that system, left myself default security codes. And the easiest way in is by sea. It was a fine night for a swim.”
“Thank you, Moore,” I say. “Just one last thing. You said Saukko has a morbid fear of death. I put a sword to his heart and pushed it hard enough against his chest to draw blood. He never flinched.”
“A sword?”
“Long story.”
“Saukko is a master of façade. He has terrible psychological problems but is very good at masking them.”
“Enjoy retirement,” I say.
“I promise you I will. Take my advice, lad. Help yourself while you can. There are other men with the same set of skills as myself, and when Saukko gets himself a roguish one, it’ll be time to say good-bye to your family.”
I start to say that the last time a man with his skill sets tangled with us, he was so careless that my wife killed him, but too late. He rang off.
“What did Moore want?” Milo asks.
I consider the subtext of his call. He didn’t call me for his stated reasons. He called to get a job done. “Because