CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They walked through the deserted streets of Valence and entered the empty station hall. There was no train for Paris but there was one for Lyon leaving in a few minutes time.

Maria said, “We go to Lyon and then cross to Geneva. I know we’ve a problem with Di Maglio but we need him now. We need to know how he knew that Rastinov was alive.”

Charles’ instinct told him that she was right. In any case they had no time to discuss the matter. He walked to the ticket office and took tickets for the Lyon train. Minutes later they were on the platform and then in a half empty compartment speeding away from the town.

The French countryside at that time of the year is far from enchanting. The craggy scenery and the despondent, empty vines looked back morosely as they journeyed through them.

They didn’t discuss the day’s events. They sat there quietly and hardly exchanged a word. They were out of sight of the other passengers except when they walked down the central corridor. Their aim was to blend into the background. They needed to be forgotten. They could not afford being remembered.

Late that morning they pulled into Lyon station. They let the other passengers disembark and then followed the stragglers. As always, these pulled their over heavy cases and were too preoccupied by the thought of the long and painful walk ahead of them to notice others in the small crowd.

Opposite the station, they walked down a narrow street and found one of those gloomy hotels that are based in such locations throughout the world. They asked for a room and booked it.

“We’ll be back later with our luggage. We left our stuff in the station.”

With that, they walked out and through the streets until they found a telephone. They called London and Jacqui answered. Charles spoke quickly and cautiously for he was conscious of the risk of being bugged.

“I don’t want to be traced. It could be dangerous. Rastinov has been killed. We’re on the run. We were close by when it happened and could be suspected. Don’t tell your father what we’ve told you. He doesn’t need to know. But we may need to get in touch with him. We may need to sort some things out. He could be the only one who can help. Unfortunate as that is, we’ll have to work with him if necessary. We’ll call you tomorrow.”

With that, Charles put down the phone. Jacqui would understand. They couldn’t risk anyone tracing them and, these days, modern equipment could do so in minutes. If she’d had problems, she would have alerted him. She would double the guard for, if they were on the run, it spelled danger. She knew they would only call Di Maglio if things were really grim. She also knew that she had to cover for Charles on Monday. If he planned to call her then, he wouldn’t be in the office

They walked through the streets and found a luggage shop. They each bought a bag. They found a supermarket and bought toiletries. They then found a shop and stocked up on clothes.

They wanted to get out of their black outfits and into something less sombre. Charles found a blue sweatshirt and Maria got herself a similar one. They picked up some sneakers. Maria even managed to find some jeans but Charles had no such luck.

Sunday was not the best time to go shopping.

They grabbed a coffee and loaded their purchases into their bags before heading back to the hotel.

The room was as grim as the outside. The wallpaper was dark and dirty. The bed was high and covered by a dark coverlet. It seemed clean enough but one couldn’t be sure.

Charles walked into the bathroom. The bath was stained. The basin was chipped. The bidet was uninviting. The toilet was cracked. The white tiles were greyish and only vaguely reflected the dim light from the ceiling bulb. There was a rotten smell of dank carpet and decaying wood mingling with the acrid reminder of the half-washed bodies of past occupants.

Feeling sickened, he went to the window and looked at the wall of another unimpressive building. He winced. She laughed.

“At least we’re not overlooked,” said Maria. “We can leave the blinds open all night. Mind you, I can’t think of anything else going for this place other than the fact that we won’t be traced.”

Charles sat down on the bed. “Maria, this all doesn’t make sense. Di Maglio said that Rastinov was alive. He was. Di Maglio alleged that Rastinov was behind the attacks. Yet, we know that Di Maglio was the cause himself. The evidence is overwhelming, and in cases like the kidnapping, absolute. We thought we killed Rastinov. I saw him dead myself all those years ago. I knew him. I recognised him. Then we had all the indications that Rastinov was dead. Turpin took control of the Russians. Their behaviour changed. I find it confusing.”

Maria sat next to him. “Let’s be logical. You saw a dead man years ago. He was Rastinov or he looked very like him. He could have been a double in effect. We know the Russians changed their behaviour those years ago but they had little choice. Their only alternative was to continue a vendetta and be totally destroyed.

“Di Maglio played clever and left them with a role. They could have taken that with Rastinov at their head. The man was no genius but he wasn’t a total moron either. So he could have been alive. There was always a possibility that Turpin was just a front. Then we see Rastinov today. And those thoughts don’t stack up. He’s ill and in some sort of cell in a sanatorium. He’s isolated. Why?”

Charles took up her theme, “Let’s assume that the dead man was a double. Let’s assume that the real Rastinov did acquiesce to Di Maglio’s offer. If he was dying why was the sanatorium in an outhouse and why was he in a cell? And would that have started the Russians making a play for Di Maglio’s Empire?”

“It could be that he was trying to attack Di Maglio and had faced opposition. He was a prisoner. That was certain. The fact he was ill could have been incidental. But why would Di Maglio then pretend to be under attack from him?” Maria agreed. It didn’t make sense. They needed to see Di Maglio to check it out.

“What about the plan to sell off Di Maglio‘s business to the Russians?” she asked.

“We can’t do that now. It would be no use tackling them until we know who’s in charge. If Turpin has been in charge as a front for Rastinov, then he may not be now. On the other hand, he could be. Perhaps he overthrew Rastinov when he saw he was dying. But why do that? He would have waited for the inevitable.” Then a thought struck him. “It could mean that Rastinov was the boss and there was a palace revolution by opponents once they realised he was dying. That would mean that Turpin doesn’t run things but some new man.”

“Why would they chase us if they were waiting for Rastinov to die? That hardly makes sense.”

“Perhaps there is a group opposing Rastinov and a pro Rastinov group. Perhaps they didn’t know who we were but assumed we were part of the pro Rastinov group. Then the antis would have attacked us. They could have thought we were trying to free him. They came after us immediately. They may not have known he was dead.”

But they couldn’t be sure. Charles and Maria knew they were going round in circles. They failed to come up with a solution. There was definitely turmoil in the Russian camp. They needed Di Maglio to help sort it out. After all, he had business links with them despite the battles they were fighting. They had enough information he wouldn’t have to allow them to discover the truth.

“We’ll have to wait till tomorrow,” concluded Maria. “Should we hire a car and move out of here?”

“Better wait till tomorrow. But we should hire a car tonight and head out early. That way we can get to Geneva early and see Di Maglio in the morning. I have to get back to London by Tuesday. I need to concentrate on business there.”

Maria looked at her watch. She went over to the TV and switched it on. They got a French television station and waited for the news. Perhaps it would cover the events at the Pont du Gard. Perhaps it would help clarify things.

The bulletin started with the ominous words, “Four policemen were killed and three seriously wounded in a gun battle at the Pont du Gard in the early hours of the morning.”

Maria and Charles looked at each other in horror. The attackers had been police. Yet they had never identified themselves. They both went pale. The cameras went over to the hotel. The presenter gave the story.

“It appears that a couple who booked in yesterday were suspected by police to be part of a terrorist gang. The two, believed to be Iranian or Libyan, left the hotel in the early hours. The police trailed them but lost them. Then several hours later, they were seen returning to the hotel. They were armed and in combat gear. Police stormed their hotel room.

It was here that the first policeman was killed as an attempt to force the door was met with a hail of bullets from a sub machine gun. The couple escaped from the hotel as the police attempted to regroup, mainly by diverting attention through an explosion that totally destroyed their room.

There was a further gun battle, during which another policeman was seriously injured. After this, the terrorists fled in a stolen car. The car evaded a roadblock and later the terrorists, joined, it is believed, by accomplices, ambushed a pursuing car, killing all three occupants.

The car has not been found and the terrorists have disappeared. Police suspect they may have headed towards Marseilles and road blocks have been erected on all major roads around the area.”

There was then a sketch of them. Maria looked quite Arabic. They had her height wrong as well. Charles looked quite thuggish, with black hair rather than light brown, and again his height was wrong. He was described as heavy build. Unless the pictures were intentionally misleading, the images did not look at all like them.

“That explains the pursuit. It still doesn’t explain why Rastinov was being locked up,” said Maria.

The only realistic solution they could find was the one they had put forward before. There must have been a palace revolution in the Russian camp. Rastinov had been ill and he was sidelined. But they still needed Di Maglio, for they had to find out exactly what was happening.

“Let’s change plans,” Charles said. “Hiring a car is too dangerous, even if we used false papers in Nimes on the way down. We should take a train to Geneva. That will allow us to remain anonymous for a bit longer. We may get searched. I’m glad we left the guns in the car at Valence. At least they can’t be traced.”

The guns had been delivered to a locker at the airport and they had collected them there. Charles was allowed to carry one with him on planes as he had a special permit, but they had taken the precaution of using a false name on the way out. Mr and Mrs Green would hardly be associated with them. They had, as part of their preparations, destroyed those papers long ago.

“What do we do now?” said Maria

“Let’s find out about trains and then act like tourists. This fleapit is a tourist hotel. So we’d better see the sights and get some food. We have to act the part.”

So Maria and Charles wandered around Lyon. They checked out the early train to Geneva. They ate in a café in the centre and then took in a film. Tourists don’t go to bed too early, but they thought that they should wait around till around ten. At that time hotels are casual. In any case, they had paid the hotel in advance and in cash. So they didn’t have to check out formally. They would just expect them out by the morning. There couldn’t be extras, as the phone had not been switched through. They didn’t do that for cash accounts. And there was nothing else on sale in the room.

So they watched a film, but only half-heartedly. Charles had his arm around the back of Maria’s seat and she rested her head on his shoulder. Both of them were quite shaken at the thought that they had inadvertently killed four policemen. That had been so unexpected. And it was highly dangerous. But, as they allowed the film to drift on in front of them, they took comfort from each other’s presence. They calmed down in the strange silence of the cinema.

The movie ended and they returned to the hotel. At night it looked even gloomier than before. A sad faced man barely greeted them as he handed over their key. The message he conveyed was one of total indifference to them and to the world around.

Upstairs, Charles turned on the TV again and caught the start of the news. Television and radio had been a good means of tracking reactions to some of their more public escapades in the past. Sometimes they were big news, like now. At other times their news suppression machine triumphed and they failed to make the smallest of headlines. The newscasters focused again on terrorist activities. There was no mention of the Russian Mafia. There was no mention of Rastinov’s assassination.

The story line was about the Middle East. They had to question the reason for this. Was it true? Or was it a useful scapegoat for the government? Would it allow them to make some moves against a domestic problem with the support of the population? Did they really believe the story? Charles found it hard to imagine people seeing Maria and him as Arabs. They just didn’t look the part. But the South of France has its fair share of myopic bigots, willing to deceive themselves into believing anything that supports their prejudices.

Maria commented that the story served their purpose. If the police had been on their trail, the story would be different. There would be no point in putting out such misleading information in that case.

They discussed how they would approach Di Maglio. He must not know about their escapade with the police for that would give him leverage over them and make him more dangerous. He definitely had a file on them already that could put them away for years. They had one on him as well, and on many of his people, that would do the same.

Charles disliked this episode, as it was too valuable potential ammunition for Di Maglio. It weakened them, he still needed to destroy Di Maglio. And he would have preferred to deal with the Russians for that. He needed to know who was in charge. Was it the brutes, who had supported Rastinov and would stick to crime alone? Or was it the diplomats like Turpin, who would seek to diversify into legitimate businesses as well as operating their own version of the evil Empire?

They would have to wait. There was no purpose in planning further. They needed more pieces to the jigsaw. He stripped off. Maria looked up and moved over to him. She put her arms on his shoulders and lay her dark hair against his chest. She was fully dressed. For the first time since he had known Maria, she sought him out not for sexual excitement but for comfort.

He held her to him, gently. He felt her relax. His hands moved up and down her back and the tension left her. Her clothes slipped off without protest. They moved towards the bed and threw off the blankets and covers. They made love, slowly and peacefully, on that high bed with a pale, watery moon sending the odd oblique ray through the open shutters.

Then they fell asleep. They felt a peace descend. The horror was outside. The threats were far off.

Next day’s morning light was faint and forbidding. Through the angle of the window, they could see the clouds. There was no blue sky. Charles glanced at Maria lying next to him. She had half curled up in a foetal position. She lay there, trusting and calm. She, who had been a protector for so long, now had one herself. For the first time, a killing had shocked her. Charles knew it meant that she was coming to the end of the road in her job. Once one developed a conscience, it was impossible to continue.

Maria would leave when the scam was complete. Meanwhile, she would be supportive, but not totally dependable. The future was going to depend on him much more than the past had. Jacqui was pregnant. Claire was dead. Maria was exhausted. His female entourage was slowly becoming dependent on him.

The need to finish this next stage of their road to fortune was becoming more urgent. The first stages had made them billionaires. This would make them powerful beyond their dreams. An island or a mountainside, the retreat Jacqui and he had discussed for many years now, was fast beckoning. Or it would never happen.

With that in mind, he woke up Maria. She came once more into his arms. Once again she sought comfort. Then she shook herself, or shivered, he couldn’t be sure. Then, she got up and went into the bathroom, he heard the shower gurgling before she returned to dress. He followed suit and soon they were both ready to leave in the anonymity of the early morning. They dropped their keys off to the same sullen man who had been there the night before, then headed for the train to Geneva and Di Maglio.

The border was as casually supervised, as usual. Nobody even checked their passport. Soon they were in Geneva. There they took a taxi to the Di Maglio compound. They walked up the steps, clad in jeans and sweatshirts, and were ushered into an office. Di Maglio and Giovanni were there. Di Maglio greeted them curtly, “What’s the matter?”

“You tell me,” Charles snapped back. “Is Rastinov dead or alive?”

“He’s dead. He was killed two days ago. Two Arabs are said to have killed him. I thought it was you and Maria, but I have the internal police report and it’s clear it was Arabs. We don’t know why. We’ve been contacted by the Russians. They want an assurance it wasn’t us. We’ve given it to them. And it’s true.”

“Why would the Arabs kill him?”

“They supply drugs. Perhaps the Russians tricked them. I can’t say I am sorry. Although I have to admit that I have no love for Burganov.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s been the leader of the Mafia in all but name for the last two years. He overthrew Rastinov in reality, but found it useful to keep him prisoner. At first it allowed him to use him as a hostage to avoid internal strife. Then he killed off most of his opponents at a gang meeting. That was about a year ago. At that time they diagnosed Rastinov with kidney problems. As they were incurable, they just carried on holding him. He was going to die soon. The killers were fools.”

“Why did you tell us that Rastinov was after us?”

“You didn’t know Burganov although he’s as bad. I needed to shake you up. I know you say you won’t do it at the moment. But you’ll take on the business in time. It will be your next game after the bank scam is over. You need the excitement, the challenges and the ability to make money. You won’t be able to resist.”

“You’re kidding yourself, old man.”

“Who are you calling an old man? OK, OK. I know. But don’t. I don’t mind you hating me. But respect me. I’m Jacqui’s father.” He sneered, “At least in name.” He turned to Maria, “What was the problem. Why do you need me?”

“We thought Rastinov was alive. We went to kill him. But when we got to their place, there was chaos. We were worried we might have been spotted. From what you say that’s no problem.”

“Why do you think you may have been seen?”

“We saw a man and woman run from the Russians’ place. There was more shooting and we took cover. When they left, we decided we’d better lie low until we found out what happened. Then while we were driving back, we came across a car. It had been shot up. Later we found it was the police. That shook us.”

“Well,” interrupted Di Maglio with a look of contempt, “You weren’t seen. So you’re OK. You’ve gone soft, Maria. You used to be better. Don’t come back for a job with me. You’re unemployable in any decent set up.”

He turned on his heel and left them. Giovanni was alone. He took Charles by the arm and led him outside. They went for a walk in the garden. He still held on to his arm.

“Are you all right? Was Maria telling the truth?”

Charles was not ready to trust Giovanni. He was too close to Di Maglio. He could even be wired.

“It was a mix up. We nearly walked into a problem. It shook us. Maria has been in an office for too long. It was stupid to take her along. Di Maglio’s a bastard but he saw it. I didn’t. It worries me. Claire’s dead. Maria’s gone soft. I distrust Di Maglio. Giovanni, we live too dangerous a life to be away from protection. It worries me.”

“Then make up with Di Maglio.”

“I don’t think we can. We can’t run his Empire; definitely not with him around. Jacqui couldn’t. I wouldn’t. If we ever did take it over, it would have to be on our terms and with our own people in charge. And even then, I doubt we would want it. It’s not our scene.”

“Think about it. You could change your mind.” Giovanni could hardly suppress his smile. Charles continued to pretend to look worried. He had given the right message. This would throw them. They would think he was moving to them. They would think he was coming round.

Perhaps they thought he needed the safety of Mafia protection. They would not know that he had his own family protection. They didn’t realise that Maria was still good. Less good than in the past, but she could still beat the best of them.

But he wanted to communicate insecurity. It reinforced their view that they had messed up in France. And it would dispel any suspicion that they may have as to their future plans for the Empire if they were to take it on. It laid the seed also for Di Maglio to move out and anoint Charles and Jacqui as his chosen successors.

Charles knew, even if he couldn’t deal with the Russians, it was important that he brought Di Maglio down. And the mention of the Arabs had given him an idea. Years ago, Jacqui and he had dealt with a man called Ali. He lived near Monte Carlo. He was a middleman. And there were many reasons why they trusted each other. He would help. Perhaps the Arabs would be perfect buyers of the Di Maglio franchise?

They headed back to the house and were joined by Maria. “We’re on a flight in three hours. When do you want to leave?”

They didn’t have to wait. Giovanni said they could have his driver. The car appeared and they headed off within an hour of arriving. The car dropped them at the airport. They had a two-hour wait. They checked out for bugs. Charles then recounted to Maria his conversation with Giovanni.

“You know, Di Maglio was right. I’m past my peak. I knew that. I’m still good, but retirement beckons. As long as this all succeeds, it’s time for dreams. Even if it doesn’t work out as planned, there‘ll be enough for some of them.”

Charles agreed. “It’s the same for Jacqui, Juliet and me too. And then there’s the new baby. We’ll win this round. But then we need a break. At least we need one for a few years. My father will carry on with the investment side. But we need to recharge for a year or so at least. We need to get away from it all. Perhaps this is the last big play.”

He smiled wryly. “Or perhaps it’s not. Much depends.” He half knew what it depended on. It depended on Jacqui, on Di Maglio’s reaction and on a lot of other factors. One thing was certain, after a scam of this proportion, they would have to lay low for some time as far as the world of finance was concerned. But, if one’s a few billion richer, one can tolerate that.

The plane landed in London and they hurried through customs and passport control. Douglas was waiting and they climbed thankfully into the back of the car. As it sped them to London, Charles started to dial.

His first call was to Jacqui, “I’m back. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Are you coming to the office, or shall I meet you at home?”

“Meet me at home. I have some calls.”

He rang his father in France. Everything was going ahead perfectly in the opaque world of international banking. Things had taken off faster than they had expected. He was already starting to offload some of the investments he had fabricated and some he had ramped.

The figures were impressive. He now had holdings worth four and a half billion but they had cost him just over a billion. Some of the investments were totally fraudulent. They looked genuine but they were empty shells with no substance. Others were real but he had ramped up their prices by cornering the market in them. He had run them up by selling and buying them between his different funds and then making sure the market saw all the activity.

With carefully placed rumours, by using indiscreet brokers and by talking to bankers keen for a quick buck on their own account, he had ensured a lively interest in his chosen shares. Having them mentioned in the press as tips of the day and on the top performers list gave them credibility without substance and made for eager buyers among the ill-informed. And was there anyone more ill-informed than the incompetents they had put in charge of the PAF funds? He had already offloaded two and a half billion. And he was sure that he would soon be able to dump the rest. In the end, he would realise around three and a half billion profit from the funds.

“Even after we’ve sold, Charles, I’ll carry on manipulating the prices so that the funds look as if they are doing well. At least until we pull the rug. We’ll make money on that as well but not that much by comparison.”

“How are we on Stephens’ positions? Are you getting your report?”

“Yes Jacqui’s passing me the data and I’m reworking it using the right prices. All in all, the books say that we’re three fifty million to the good in the bank. In reality, there are about two billion of losses. We’re about one point five up as a result on our own account. And we have more to go there yet.”

“Excellent. I checked out the loan book. We’re still pushing out money like there’s no tomorrow. It looks as if we’re three and a half billion in the clear. They all seem great loans and the chumps in the States think they are geniuses. But all the loans are fraudulent; all are fictitious.”

“That’s a bit over plan even, isn’t it? You must still have loans to roll out. You’re not being too greedy, Charles, are you?”

“No problem; we have some of the world’s dumbest bankers on our books in the States. We’ll get the figures up. We’ll lend some more. “My overall estimate is that we’ll clear close on fifteen billion of profit for us after we sell the stake in the bank. The trading side is running close to plan but everything else is way ahead of the targets we set. But we were being conservative then, anyway. So we may make fifteen after all.”

“But, Charles, then your mother and I need to get out. You can just pay us a pension and use me as an adviser. This is pretty nerve wracking and exhausting. We’ll find a quiet spot for a couple of years.”

“We might join you. We can run our money from anywhere. All we need is telecommunications and a standard hands off legal system.”

“There are plenty of those and some in really good locations!” he laughed. “See you soon.”

Charles turned to Maria, “The finances are better than I ever expected. The scam is on the road and moving ahead with a momentum of its own. On the basis of those figures, we’ll easily sell to the public on the back of a billion two or a billion three dollar of profits. With such a growth rate we could value the company at twelve billion. We’d clear at least six on the flotation. But we’ve got a few months to go yet. We need to be vigilant. We also need to sort out Di Maglio. I want to get Jacqui’s thoughts on the Arab connection.”

By the time they’d got home, he‘d made several other calls. Douglas dropped him off. He noticed the security around the house. Nobody asked him anything. They knew who he was. Douglas drove on with Maria in the back. She would stay at her flat. There was no need for her to stand guard on them. At the house Charles continued making phone calls.

In America all was progressing well. The banks were further boosting their loans. They confirmed the investment products were going well. Their operations appeared to be running at record profits. The gossip around the banks was that the UK take-over had brought them luck. The greedy executives were looking forward to their unearned bonuses. The staff expected their pay rise. Nobody realised their companies had only a few more months to go. But how could they? They were just pawns in the game.

Jacqui returned early. She whispered to him to tell her all that had happened. He recounted the episode in France and she shivered. “I saw it all on the television. How did they confuse you and Maria with a load of Arab terrorists? It’s so improbable.”

“No idea. But they did. And that’s a relief. Anyway, we holed up in Lyon and then got to Geneva. Your father didn’t exactly welcome us. And Giovanni was pretty unhelpful. But we bluffed it. The annoying thing is that I doubt we can deal with the Russians. They talked of an Arab group. Could you do a deal with Ali?”

“No,” said Jacqui. “Ali’s all right when it comes to petty crime and money laundering. But I wouldn’t trust him with several billion dollars. The evil Empire must be worth that much. We have to find another solution. My father won’t let us go until he sorts that out. He wants you to run it. He called me at the bank this morning. He repeated what he said before. He wants us to take the show over for him. But how?”

“I don’t really know. We have two options. We destroy it from outside or from within. If we destroy it from outside, that can only mean through your father’s enemies or through the police.”

She shook her head, “The police are no good. They’re too corrupt. They wouldn’t do it. Gang warfare is not the answer, it will just mean lots of casualties. The Empire will live on.”

“That means we can only scupper it from inside.”

“But how would you do that?”

“What if we ran it into the ground?”

“You mean we take it on and then destroy it through incompetence?” she queried.

“Isn’t that a possibility? Once we have control, we could leak information and start being raided by other gangs. The police could get more tip-offs and pick up some real shipments. Then the people in the gang would lose confidence. We could arrange a few ambushes, a few key killings. I could accuse some of the bosses of incompetence and worse. That would destroy morale. I could pretend I thought they’re ripping me off. Then we can watch them all destroy themselves.”

“How will we persuade my father that we changed our minds and get him to sell to us? You can’t do anything till we‘ve finished with the scam. And he isn’t going to trust us if we have just ripped him off with the hidden page in the bank agreement.”

“No we just tell him we did that to ensure we came out clean. I wanted to be able to go back into the world of finance. He has enough wealth through the Empire. I’ll say it was him or us. He will be furious that he lost. He’ll still try to get his revenge. But he’ll understand. It’s the sort of thing he’d like to have done. He’ll know he can’t trust us. And I’ll actually pay him a couple of billion and offer an annual share of profits for the future. He’ll need that.”

“And the couple of billion will be discovered?”

“You bet. He’ll think it’s safe, but that won’t be the case. Just as everything goes down the pan, his chances of a pension go with it. The Empire will be destroyed. His future payback will be eliminated. And the authorities will be on his back; we’ll give them enough information to allow them to bring racketeering and other charges, and leave enough trails around that even the FBI will be able to find all his cash.

Jacqui still looked worried, “I think you underestimate his reaction. I’m not sure you’d get him to agree anything with you. I would think he’d want to kill you rather than deal with you. You may have to kill him.”

Charles was surprised how much she hated all that her father stood for. But that was a fact. Her father had now destroyed all feelings she had for him. He had attacked her. He had attacked her family. He had threatened her child. He wanted to corrupt them even more. That had been too much already. And then he had revealed that he was probably not her father after all. That had been the final betrayal. Jacqui was even more certain than Charles. She wanted revenge. She wanted Di Maglio destroyed even more than he did.

Jacqui thought for a moment and then shook her head, “That’s one hell of a risk strategy, you have proposed. I want to think about it a bit more. But we’d have to kill him if it went wrong. Or he’d kill us.”

“Hey. You’re talking about patricide.”

“He’s not my father. Or he claims he’s not. He’s lost all hope of any reconciliation. He tried to screw up my life by getting me to marry one of his thugs. He tried to destroy you. He tried to destroy our relationship. He kidnapped Juliet. He threatens us without hesitating. We’ll use him. But we’ll never trust him. And if the choice is him or us, he’ll take the fall. He’d do the same. Don’t kid yourself.”

“There’s one reason why he may not see we’re heading to destroy him.”

“What’s that?”

“He thinks I’m a financial terrorist. He doesn’t see us as competent in his world. That’s why he was so willing to accept the story that Maria and I were stupid and almost stumbled on the shoot-out with the police. It was a crazy explanation. Yet he jumped at it. It re-enforced his views about me. It also confirmed his expectation that Maria was going fast downhill.”

“We still need to be careful. Giovanni is clever. He sees through things like that.”

“I considered that too. Giovanni wants to retire though. He’s older than your father. He’s older than your Uncle Aldo who’s pretty well fully retired in Florida, although your father says he’s still part of the inner circle. No, he’ll tell him facts but he’ll keep quiet on suspicions.

He needs our cash and I could stop him getting that. If we clear five to ten billion on the shared pot and he gets his two and a half percent, then that makes him one fifty to two fifty million. That’s amazing money for him. Your father pays well but he’s only a multi-millionaire.”

“So you reckon we have everything tied up?”

“It’s as tied up as I can make it. The only big loose link is the Empire. I can only think to run it into the ground. But we can’t do that till next year. It has to be after we’ve completed the take-over. We’re well down the road in the scam. We sell the bank to the public in April or May. Then we allow the shit to hit the fan in August at the latest. And, hopefully, we’ll be taken out in September. Then I work on the Empire and try to destroy it in three months. That should be feasible but it’s tight.”

“And don’t forget the baby is due?”

“I wouldn’t. Nor will I forget you and Juliet in between times. It’s going to be tough but we’ll get there. And we need that island retreat so that we can spend the whole of the next year together.”

She poured him another glass of champagne, “I’ll drink to that.”

And one thing led to another. What idiot said that pregnant women weren’t inviting and exciting?