The Zurich Conspiracy (2 page)

Josefa sucks in her breath. “I have been told a small conference room was reserved,” she says in a firm voice.

The concierge nods an excuse. “All our conference rooms are taken, I’m afraid. But room 398 is a large suite with all necessary office infrastructure, rest assured.” He picks up a thick document and hits the stapler with a sweeping gesture.

There’s a bang in Josefa’s ears. She winces. And it’s then she realizes: It was a
gun
that rammed her temple! A revolver or a pistol. That must’ve been it. She goes weak in the knees. Is she still being followed?

“Would there be anything else?” the concierge asks.

“The elevator, please,” Josefa says.

“Over there and immediately on your left.”

Josefa waits impatiently for the elevator. A cluster of tourists is standing next to her, loaded down with bags of loot from the expensive designer shops between Paradeplatz and Storchenplatz.
Josefa, pull yourself together. Everything’s going to be OK.
How easily she’s frightened! She’s all nerves. Probably the fault of the poster advertising the military drill. That must’ve stimulated her imagination.
The world is still perfectly normal
, she tells herself, trying to calm down,
take this hotel, for example, or these tourists now floating up with me in the elevator
.

The fourth-floor corridor is deserted. An inviting, illuminated button at room 398 says, “PLEASE PRESS.” But Josefa knocks instead, several times, hard. She waits. Gleaming letters appear, “PLEASE ENTER.” She pushes down on the door handle.

The vestibule is dark, but there is light in the adjoining suite. Even standing some distance away, she can see that the curtains are drawn. Should something have tipped her off? Should she have been more cautious after the past few months? She’s shifting her briefcase from one hand to the other in indecision when a figure appears in the doorway.

Josefa freezes. “You?” she gasps. She has no desire to see the man who’s now raising his hand a little. Not now and not ever.

“I’ve been wanting us to have a little chat for a long time,” she hears him say in a slurred, hoarse voice. At that moment a noise makes her spin around. A man has pushed open the door to the room. He’s wearing a sheepskin coat over a black suit. And in his pocket is a sharp-edged metal object.

The party tent was perched like a sparkling spaceship on a black lake, not one filled with water, of course, but an outspread carpet. Francis Bourdin had the idea of covering the meadow with a platform of boards and laying down carpeting. And when Bourdin, the head of the Loyn Corporation, had an idea, it was Josefa Rehmer’s job to make it happen. She thought she’d pulled it off brilliantly once again.

The tent was huge. Josefa had dug up one that could accommodate two hundred people at small round tables. Almost all the guests were already seated under gilded crystal chandeliers. The white tables were set with black plates on top of gold ones, resplendent with vases of white tulips, and the chairs were also black and gold. The combination of black, white, and gold was another wish of Bourdin’s, another of his visions, and Josefa did everything possible to make his ideas a reality.

She was fired up. She wondered if anyone could tell just by looking at her how proud she was of her achievement. Loyn had invited its best customers and business contacts to a spectacular show featuring eighty of the most beautiful Arabian stallions in the world. It was one of the biggest events that Josefa had ever organized for her company. Bourdin had insisted that the party would be in St. Moritz at the end of June, in spite of Josefa’s fears that the weather might not cooperate. But now she was pleased to see that the warm, early summer air that had descended over the Engadine had soaked up the last drops of moisture from the meadow. The sun’s fiery trail was only just disappearing behind the defiant chain of the Alps.

This sponsored event had reached its climax an hour ago with the glamorous parade of horses, and now the VIPs were waiting in the tent for hors d’oeuvres, champagne and exclusive wines already flowing. The ladies were flashing quite a bit of bare skin, expensive jewelry, and perfect teeth. Josefa, in a lime-green outfit at the tent entrance, was inspecting the space inside. A name tag identified her as the “Manager Event Marketing.”

Suddenly she had the feeling she was being watched. She turned around as inconspicuously as possible. A thickset, broad-shouldered man was standing about fifty feet away, smoking a cigar. Their eyes met. Josefa did a quick mental rundown of the guest list. Of course: Thüring, Beat Thüring, the once much-celebrated CEO of Swixan, before the company went broke and Thüring had a great fall—a well-cushioned one, as Josefa clearly remembered. Thüring had siphoned off lots of money—many, many millions, in fact—beforehand. She’d read it in the papers. This made him persona non grata in the Zurich economic establishment, at least for a while. Why Thüring was back on Loyn’s VIP list puzzled Josefa. But that was none of her business; as the organizer, she had no choice but to be friendly, cigar smoke and all.

“You’ve already found your seat in the tent, am I right, Herr Thüring?” she asked helpfully.

Beat Thüring moved his cigar away from her. There was something Mediterranean about him; he looked more like a bon vivant than a financial shark. Josefa could easily imagine how his charm had seduced all those people he later victimized.

Thüring turned the corners of his mouth into an ironic smile.

“Today I can enjoy all these beautiful things at the same time—the Engadine Alps, a good cigar, and a wonderful hostess.”

“And a superb meal as well,” Josefa replied without batting an eyelash. “We want our guests to have fond memories of this day.”

“I thought I’d stretch my legs a bit until the guests of honor get here.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink.

Josefa never stopped smiling. She knew what she owed her company.

“For me
you
are one of the guests of honor, Herr Thüring,” she replied, before making her escape from the smoky cigar.

Thüring had found a sore spot.

The table for the honored guests in the middle of the tent was not yet filled.

Josefa scanned the room and spotted Claire Fendi, her assistant, giving final instructions to the restaurant manager. Josefa hurried over.

“Where’s Joan Caroll? Where’s Bourdin and the rest of them?”

Claire looked surprised.

“Aren’t they here yet? They were just leaving the hotel twenty minutes ago. They should be here by now.”

Bourdin was habitually late. Though he was the head of Loyn, he acted like an eccentric artist, a bohemian in the world of economics—an image he cultivated most effectively for the media. Other people were supposed to worry about the orderly course of events. Especially Josefa.

What made her more nervous was the fact that Joan Caroll had not shown up yet, the star of Loyn’s VIP gala event. All the guests were dying to meet the woman who’d won the US Chess Championship as a sixteen-year-old girl wonder, who was a sensation as an international model, and who’d become a film actress (Josefa didn’t find her films particularly convincing, but she kept that to herself). Loyn had bought Joan Caroll for image purposes. She made a lot of money being photographed with Loyn’s luxury handbags and suitcases, and she took part in Loyn’s promotional events. Josefa thought it was a real coup for the eighty-five-year-old Swiss family business. And it was her job to get Joan Caroll from point A to point B on time. She got out her cell phone. Bourdin didn’t answer. She feared the worst.

“Take over here,” she said to Claire. “I’m going to the hotel. Bourdin’s behaving like an idiot again.”

Claire rolled her eyes. She knew what was up. The two women were so much in sync that words were often superfluous.

“When should we start?” Claire asked.

“In fifteen minutes. I should be back by then. If not, just start serving the dinner. Let the team know.”

Josefa ran across the black carpet to the waiting company car. It took only about seven minutes to reach the hotel, where she came across Bourdin in the lobby with the PR woman for the horse show and the mayor of St. Moritz, also a woman. Josefa also spotted a few reporters in the lobby. Bourdin always played the slightly bored loner for the media (complete with far-off gaze and long, black hair, which Josefa guessed was dyed, tied in a Mozart braid). He almost always appeared in the garb of a Pakistani aristocrat, dressed in the finest Italian silk.

Bourdin turned around angrily.

“What are you doing here?” he shouted. “You ought to be at the tent.”

“I’m here because everybody in the tent is waiting for the guests of honor,” Josefa said as calmly as possible. She was annoyed at herself. Why did she feel the need to justify something that was plain as day? But Josefa had long stopped expecting rational behavior from Bourdin.

All of a sudden his voice was filled with understanding—that’s how he always delivered his biggest affronts.

“Then you’ll just have to make their wait as enjoyable as possible. We’ve had a change of plans. Alphonse Yvon has invited us to his chalet. For beef fondue.”

Alphonse Yvon—the oil magnate and owner of the exclusive Prima Donna shops. “You understand that Joan has to be there. This will bring in a fabulous amount of business,” Bourdin said, his voice sounding lost in fog.

Josefa stared at him for few seconds, speechless. But then she couldn’t hold back.

“Two hundred guests are waiting for you, and especially for Joan. It was featured on the invitation. And you simply want to leave the guests high and dry? Ignore them? It was
our
invitation and these are
our
guests. You can’t do this. It’s an absolute insult!”

Bourdin was already turning away.

“Tell them whatever you want. Say that Joan has a cold or something. I can’t change it. Yvon is more important after all.” And with that he turned his back on her.

Josefa knew that any further arguing was pointless. She took the elevator to the hotel’s top floor. Gorgeous bouquets adorned the presidential suite. Joan Caroll was sitting at the dressing table in heated curlers, her hair stylist fiddling with them.

“Chousefeen!” Joan exclaimed, giving her a hearty welcome. The two women had become friendly during the three years they’d been working together—as friendly as anybody could ever get with Joan Caroll.

Joan looked dazzling, as always. She was wearing a black blazer with a deep décolletage and tight-fitting pants of sparkling silver.

“You’re worried about the fondue, aren’t you?” she asked graciously.

“Do you really want to go, or is it what Bourdin wants?” Josefa replied.

“His wish is my command,” Joan said with a friendly smile. “He is the company, and the company decides.”

Josefa knew Joan would never get involved in internal squabbles.

“If you want to go, then it’s OK by me,” Josefa said.

“Wonderful.” Joan stuck a white, glittery jewel in her ear that looked like a large diamond.

“I’ll be taking you to the airport tomorrow,” Josefa said, and she left.

She took the company car back to the party tent, and as she climbed out, she noticed Beat Thüring still standing outside. This time he was with two men; they turned their backs on Josefa.
Why weren’t they at their table?
she wondered in some alarm. The gala dinner must have begun long ago! As she approached, the three hurried into the tent.