The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) (27 page)

Chapter 85

 
The body lay, unmoving, slumped in a rattan chair which itself sat in a trellis-covered alcove upon faded terracotta tiles. The water in the pool, only a few meters away, glowed a deep turquoise in the early morning sun. The man’s barrel of a chest rose and fell slowly, the brightening sky not yet having roused him. A dark, well-cut jacket lay badly folded on the tiles beside the chair. Alongside the jacket lay an empty bottle of champagne. Another bottle, empty, had precariously nestled itself between the man’s ribs and the chair’s arm. He stirred, his subconscious mind attempting to shield his face from the brightening light of the day. The bottle teetered on the edge of the seat before tumbling to the ground.

 
His eyes opened, before he fully realized that he was awake, then snapped shut as the sun’s rays blinded him. Rick Delaney peered through slits as he began the recollection process.

 
Something had woken him. He had no idea what. He groggily scanned the immediate vicinity until he noticed the pieces of broken glass on the ground, at his feet.

 
Delaney and his wife had bought the summerhouse in Martha’s Vineyard five years before. The house stood on ten acres of its own land and pointed out over Nantucket Sound, one of the most incredible views to be had on the Eastern seaboard. Delaney seldom had time to make the trip, but when he did it more than made up for the twelve-million-dollar price tag. His wife hadn’t made it down.

 
Theirs had been a marriage of convenience for years. She turned up to the gala balls, the benefits, corporate shin digs and client dinners and in return spent whatever she wanted on what she wanted within unreasonable limits. The couple were childless, neither keen on having children.

 
She’d told him she was leaving the morning after Beirsdorf Klein was declared insolvent. It was nothing personal, she explained, but if they were to stay married she’d go down with him. No point in them both losing everything. By suing him for divorce, she would at least have some rights over his creditors, particularly regarding the houses.

 
His wife had kissed him on the cheek and walked out through the front door, bags waiting for her in the trunk of a limo outside. Apparently, if he needed to get in touch with her, he could do so through her lawyer. He found out which law firm she had engaged when the divorce papers arrived the following morning.

 
Later that same day, he had received a call from a fellow board member to confirm the inevitable. He had been stripped of his role as CEO and chairman of the bank and an official administrator put in his place. In response, Delaney had packed a case of champagne into the back of his Mercedes and headed out of the city to the house on Nantucket Sound.

 
The previous evening, while he’d worked his way through the first bottle in the house while he ate, only one thing had been on his mind. Elisabeth Kennedy had cost him his bank, his wife, his houses and probably at some future date, once the DA’s office got started on him, his freedom. The one thought burning over and over again in his mind, the thought that continued to keep him awake until he passed out in the chair at four o’clock in the morning, was how he was going to kill her.

Chapter 86

  Whoever she’d seen at the window had gone. Michael walked round the building twice, gun in hand, safety off. Tereza contacted the US consulate in St. Petersburg. Ralph was deteriorating rapidly. The receptionist wouldn’t take the details of Ralph Kennedy’s situation directly and instead insisted on putting Tereza through to the American Citizen Services Unit. The lady she’d spoken to, eventually, had assured Tereza that they’d get an ambulance and a consular representative out to Ralph soon as possible. She begged them to hurry.

 
It was difficult to leave, but Tereza knew if they didn’t that she’d be unlikely to see Rivello again. Before she and Michael left, Ralph asked for a pen and something to write on.

 
Tereza found one in the desk drawer. Ralph gritted his teeth while he scratched out a number. It took half a minute of verbal crosschecking to make sure the number was correct.

  “
My mother, her name’s Elisabeth. Please call her. Tell her where I am. Tell her I’m okay.”

  “
Sure, I’ll call her as soon as I get to the airport. Take these.”

 
Tereza gave Frank three painkillers that she’d found on a shelf in the kitchen. She held a glass of water to his mouth and put another three on the arm of the couch beside him.
  “The ambulance will be here long before you need these. Keep them anyway.”

  “
Thanks. Please call her.”

  “
Tereza, hurry, we’ll miss the flight. We need to leave. Now,” Michael said, exasperated.

  “
Okay, a moment. Ralph, you’ll be fine. I promise I’ll call her. Good-bye.”

 
It was this last conversation with Ralph that Tereza recalled as she dialed the number etched into the slip of paper two hours later from a telephone kiosk at Pulkovo Terminal Two. The automated voice message announced that the number was not in use. She tried again, this time substituting a four for a nine. Ralph’s hand had been shaking and although she had checked the number verbally with him, she wasn’t sure how lucid he had been at the time.

Chapter 87

  Elisabeth was scared. It was not a feeling she was used to. As a highly logical person, not usually emotionally inclined, she had been trying to work out the exact cause of her fear.

  Her conclusion was that t
he framework that she not only lived within, but had also helped to create, or at least, at a senior level administrate, had just disintegrated before her eyes. Not only had the security, safety and predictability of the structured, stable world that she lived in just collapsed, but it had turned on its head and now seemed intent on her destruction.

 
To her surprise, as she sat on the edge of the rickety double-bed in the down-at-heel motel room, she didn’t feel any better. Her experience to date was that once a problem had been identified, rationalized and put into perspective, the problem became significantly smaller. Not this time. She was still afraid. In fact, her level of discomfort had perceptibly risen. Elisabeth was powerless. It was checkmate. She could wait for them to track her down and kill her. Or she could go out fighting.

  After escaping Grant Douglas, E
lisabeth had dumped the Buick in the underground parking lot of the mall at One Liberty Place in the center of the city. It had been a long time since she’d had occasion to visit Philadelphia, however, she was able to recall the location of the main railway station. It had taken her roughly twenty minutes to walk the ten or so blocks down Market Street, over the bridge on to Thirtieth Street and into the main terminal building. She paid for a seat on the Acela Express which had been just about to leave and pulled into Penn Station eighty minutes later. She took the Suburban Overground out to Jackson Heights, near Queens, one of the most populous suburbs of the most heavily populated city in the United States. It hadn’t taken her long to find suitably unremarkable accommodation.

 
She’d spent more than twelve hours locked in the motel room. It was six a.m. She’d barely slept. Her cell phone had been turned off ever since Grant had chastised her in the car the previous afternoon. She knew the risk she was taking by turning it on now, but she needed to build a trail of evidence. She also needed help. She pulled the New York Phone Book from the small table beside the bed and shortly afterwards turned on her cell. She’d been about to dial the number for the
New York Times
when her phone rang. She was going to let the phone ring out when she noticed that the call was international. Zero, zero, seven was the country code for Russia. She hit answer.
  “Yes,” she said, warily.

  “
Mrs. Kennedy?”

 
A woman’s voice. Good English, with a barely discernible accent.

  “
Mrs. Kennedy, Ralph is safe. He’s in the hands of the US consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. He’s badly sick, but alive.”

 
Elisabeth felt a surge of relief flow through her body. Tears filled her eyes. She sat down on the bed while regaining her composure.
  “Who are you? How do you know he’s alive?”

  “
I can’t go into detail now. I was with him. They had me too,” said Tereza.

  “
How can I get in touch with you?” said Elisabeth.

  “You can’t. B
ut I’ll call you when I get to my destination. Good-bye.”

  Elisabeth dialed
the state department, and requested the number for the US consulate in St Petersburg. As soon as she mentioned her name, she was put straight through to the deputy head of Mission.

 
Ralph was in a stable condition. He’d been admitted to a private hospital frequented by diplomats, expatriates and wealthy Russians. When she got through to his private room, she didn’t recognize the voice that answered the phone.
  “Could I speak to Ralph Kennedy, please?”

  “
Mom … it’s me … Ralph.” His voice barely audible. He had to take a breath before pronouncing each word. She couldn’t believe that the owner of this voice and her ebullient, talkative, outgoing son were the same person.

  “
Ralph, listen to me, don’t try to talk. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear your voice. I was having nightmares imagining what those people must have been putting you through. The embassy people are telling me they’re going to have you shipped out to Walter Reed tomorrow. I’ll be waiting for you.” She told him to rest, that she loved him, when he spoke up.
  “You … news,” was all she could make out.

  “
Ralph, don’t talk, rest. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you in Washington.”

 
She had no choice now. Ralph was alive. He was free. She needed to be there when he arrived back in Washington. At least her actions now would no longer put him in danger.

 
She dialed the number. After several rings, the call was answered.

  “
New York Times
, good morning.”

 
Surprised, Elisabeth said. “It’s early, I was expecting an answering machine.”

  “
Well, you know, New York is the city that never sleeps. We’re the newspaper that never sleeps. How can I help?”

  “
I’d like to speak to David Roth,” said Elisabeth. Roth was the business editor on the paper. He had interviewed her on a number of occasions in the past. They had a mutual respect for each other, which was just as well as neither gave any quarter, in meeting room or television studio.

  “
He won’t be here for at least an hour. You want to leave a message?”

  “
Please give me his mobile number. I’ll call him myself.”

  “
I’m afraid I can’t do that. We have a policy. If you tell me who you are I’ll pass on a message to him as soon as he arrives or calls in.”

 
Elisabeth didn’t want to disclose her identity to the receptionist, but didn’t see that she had any choice.

  “
My name is Elisabeth Kennedy. I’m the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. I appreciate that you have a policy, but you should also understand that I need to speak to David extremely urgently. I think he would appreciate it very much if you called him right away, gave him my number and asked him to call me back immediately.”

  “
Okay, I’ll do what I can. Give me your number.” The receptionist didn’t sound too impressed. Elisabeth assumed that receptionists of well-known newspapers were well acquainted with crackpots calling up claiming to be everyone from Elvis Presley to the president.

 
Elisabeth waited five minutes. She was about to call again when her phone rang.

  “
Yes.”

  “
Elisabeth, is that you?”

  “
David, thank you for calling back so quickly. I was beginning to think your receptionist had written me off as a crackpot.”

 
David laughed. “Well, in normal circumstances we don’t get too many calls from the chairman of the Fed. I’m afraid that until late last night, you weren’t high on the average crank callers list of celebrities, past or present.”

 
Elisabeth’s stomach churned. “David, what do you mean until last night?”

 
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line.

  “
Elisabeth, where are you?”

  “
I can’t disclose that now. Please tell me what you meant, before.”

  “
Are you near a television?” he said. “Wherever it is that you are, you haven’t been watching the news.”

 
Elisabeth looked across at the set perched on top of a half dresser sitting against the opposite wall.
  “Yes, why?”

  “
Turn it on and go to one of the news channels. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

 
Elisabeth put the phone down on the yellow bedspread that now lay at the foot of the bed. She stood up and walked over to the set and switched it on manually. The remote control was nowhere to be seen.

 
NY1 was playing a story about a housing scandal that seemed to involve half the appointed representatives in one of the city’s districts.

 
When she tuned into CBS, it was not the news anchor’s face that filled the screen, but her own.