10

Berlin

Once, while discussing Sobieski’s relationship with her father, a shrink in Prague told her, “Gambling, promiscuity, living your life as an act of revenge, or to avenge the way someone else lived his life, is not healthy.”

“Tell me about it,” she replied.

In between sleep and dream, she wonders, If that hadn’t happened, what would you have done? If he hadn’t been evil, what would you have become? Her father’s disappearance after the scandal, she reasons, left her with two choices: become a better thief than him, or the person who punishes people like him for their actions.

It doesn’t take a shrink to recognize where the gambling issues originated.

She rolls over and sees the inbox on her laptop screen blinking. The message came while she was sleeping. Sleeping because she gambled, because she was too twisted to have a normal relationship with a man.

 

Dear Agent Sobieski,

 

I am the person whom you urged to contact you.

 

I am alive (obviously), for now. I have left my family in a safe place while I attempt to reconcile my role in this situation. I would very much like to communicate in real time, but for now, because as you say, lives are at stake, I will tell you what I know (and soon, what I hope to discover): Yesterday morning I received a call from a foreign client. A person with whom I had never done business. Male. Seemingly American. Claimed his name was Homer. He wanted to execute a series of short positions on a number of American new media securities (a list of which I can provide you as soon as I am able to safely access them). Almost a billion $US total, spread out over the course of the day.

Several hours later an attempt was made on my life in the Alexandra section of Jo’burg. Some sort of machine gun. In the afternoon, after NEVER receiving an oversees call at work, my Assistant said I had received many. From Berlin, Hong Kong. And a man in New York. Although I was asked not to contact anyone or do any research about the client or the transaction, I did (and I believe they found out and this is why they tried to kill me). Also, the man who made the initial call, who had a specific set of orders regarding the execution of his requests, was working through a trading account in the United States. Philadelfia. The first name of the person whose name was attached to the account was Rondell. Presently, I cannot think of his surname.

Cara Sobieski stares at her laptop screen. She types an immediate reply.

 

Can you talk NOW?

Then another.

 

I apologize. I stepped away but I am here for you now.

Shit! She kicks the leg of the couch and smacks her hands together. Then, quickly, she forwards Sawa Luhabe’s note to Michaud in Hong Kong. If Michaud can get in touch with someone working TFI or Treasury in Johannesburg, or at INTERPOL, then maybe someone can get in touch with Luhabe and she will have a chance.

This wouldn’t have happened if I had done my job, she thinks. If I hadn’t gone to the casino and had stayed in my damned room and been here for her, as I told her I would, she might already be in safe hands, and not on the run and fearing or her life.

But now . . .

She kicks at her mattress. She knows that it’s ludicrous to think that she should have been on call between five-fifteen and nine in the morning. But the fact that this happened at all twists her conscience nonetheless.

She can’t resist writing one more note to Luhabe.

 

I can get you into contact with people who will protect you. wherever you are. Or you can go to them when you are ready. Be safe. Again, I am so sorry for missing your message.

For the next ten minutes she stares at her inbox, trying to will a reply from Luhabe, but nothing appears.

After rereading Luhabe’s note she does a search of Philadelphia-based brokerage accounts owned by people with the first or last name of Rondell. There are seventy-nine different Rondells with open brokerage accounts in Philly. Who knew? However, this number is reduced by seventy-eight after she refines her search with the criteria that the person has to have executed recent trades overseas, specifically in Hong Kong, Dubai, or Johannesburg, with possible connections to a firm in Berlin.

The lone result:

 

Rondell Jameson, 1456 Pennypack Street NE, Lindenfield Projects, Philadelphia, PA.

Her next search takes her to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. She pick up her phone and calls Michaud.

“Frauline Sobieski, how goes it in the fader land?”

“I got an e-mail from Luhabe. She’s alive and on the run. I’m waiting to hear from her.”

Michaud grunts. “She dropped her mother and kids with relatives in Swaziland and is heading back toward Jo’burg. We’re trying to intercept.”

“She mentioned a brokerage account in Philadelphia behind the trades. Belonged to a guy named Rondell . . .”

Michaud finishes. “Jameson. Crackhead. His brother sold his identity to a bald dude from New York with a Russian accent, and now someone has whacked the crackhead, so to speak.”

Sobieski blinks. “Next time I’d appreciate a call before I spend half the night repeating your work.”

“You’d have only spent it in the arms of another, and that would break my heart, Sobes.”

“Anything else, because I’ve got—”

“Yeah, Hong Kong, Dubai, Philly—what they all have in common is your boy at Siren.”