At four o’clock the next morning, I woke up to Van Pelt on SportsCenter going through the top ten plays of the day. I had fallen asleep on the couch. Stryker was stretched out on the floor beneath me. I had been dreaming about London, maybe because in an earlier playing of the top ten, Van Pelt had mentioned a corner-kick goal by the Chelsea Football Club. This gave me an idea. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, then pulled Bianca’s note out of my back pocket.
It was ten o’clock in the morning in London. I dialed the US Embassy. A different woman answered this time. She sounded like an American.
“Can I speak to Apollo?” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to speak to Apollo,” I said.
“Is this a first or last name?”
I took a guess. “First,” I said.
“Hold for a moment,” she said.
It took her quite a while, which made me think she had located the person. However, when she got back on the line, she said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone who works here with the first or last name of Apollo.”
“Would there be anything related to the embassy that would be connected to Apollo?”
“Such as?”
“The name of an office or meeting room? Anything like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of, sir, but if I could get your name and number, I could have someone look into it and get back to you.”
I gave her my name and cell phone number and thanked her. I walked over to my computer and woke it up. I took Bianca’s note and did a Google search for acronyms, typing in the series of letters that she had written. In just a matter of seconds, I got a hit. The letters weren’t an acronym. They were the SWIFT code for the Cayman National Bank. SWIFT stood for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and its purpose was to identify banks and financial institutions globally. I went on to read that these codes were used when transferring money between banks, in particular when it came to international wire transfers. Banks would also use these codes when they wanted to exchange messages between each other. If anyone would know more about this, it would be Balzac, my whiz-kid financial adviser. But it was only five o’clock in the morning. I’d have to wait a couple of hours before calling him. I put on my running gear and headed outside for a slow trip along the lake.
By the time I had finished my run, showered, and walked Stryker, it was a little past seven o’clock. I dialed Balzac.
“Early bird catches the criminal,” he said upon answering.
“With your help, that might be the case,” I said.
“Seriously? You’re calling me to help with a case?”
“What do you know about Cayman National Bank?”
“Not much, other than a lot of Americans like to park their money over there when they don’t want to pay taxes. When I worked at JPMorgan, several clients had accounts down there.”
“I have what I think is an account number, but I’m not sure.”
“You want me to check and see if it’s legit?”
“That would be a big help.”
“Text me the number. Give me an hour. I’ll make a few calls.”
“What happened last quarter?” I said. “The returns on my portfolio were the best I ever had, but some of my friends got crushed.”
“That’s because I’m not managing their money,” Balzac said. “You collect the bad guys, I collect the dividends. Both of us at the top of our game.”
I went back to my computer and looked at the website for the US Embassy in London. Maybe I could find Apollo mentioned somewhere. I searched through several links, checked out the leadership that was listed, but didn’t see any mention of Apollo. Then I found myself on a page describing the embassy building and its historic move from Mayfair, where it had been for most of the twentieth century and into the early 2000s before it relocated to a revitalized industrial area near the center of London in 2017.
The post talked about the timeless design of the building, created by a Philadelphia architectural firm. It was described as a translucent crystalline cube giving form to the core democratic values of transparency, openness, and equality. Intrigued by the description, I clicked a link to the image. When the building popped up on my screen, I knew right away that I had seen it before, and I knew where I saw it. I looked up at Bianca’s photo posted on the board. There she stood smiling in front of the embassy.
My phone rang. It was Balzac.
“I have your answer,” he said. “The numbers you gave me definitely belong to an account at Cayman National.”
“How can I find out who owns the account?”
“That’s gonna be tough. One of the big reasons why clients open these overseas accounts is the privacy they offer.”
“What if I have an idea of who the account belongs to?” I said. “If I have the name and the account number, could I get that confirmed?”
“Is the person dead or alive?”
“Dead.”
“How recent?”
“Within the last few weeks.”
“I’ll call you right back,” he said.
I went back to looking at the embassy website. I clicked the link to the ambassador. A photo and bio of Ambassador Raymond Sanferd popped up on the screen. I had the feeling I had seen this name before, but I just couldn’t remember where. He was a middle-aged man with close-cut dark hair, a receding hairline, and large ears that made me wonder if he had been teased as a kid. He looked confident and diplomatic. I had never met an ambassador before, but this was what I always imagined one looked like.
Sanferd’s bio read like a winding road map through the upper echelons of academia and the State Department. He sat on numerous philanthropic and academic boards and was a member of the Visiting Committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Over the last twenty years, he had held various positions in the State Department, where he last served as the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs for the under secretary of state for political affairs. He had been named the UK ambassador two years ago.
I had an idea. I called Alicia Gentry, a friend of mine who was an FBI agent in the Chicago Field Office. I asked her to run a check on all employees working for the US Embassy in London and cross-reference their names with the word Apollo. She said she should have something back within the next twenty-four hours.
Balzac called back.
“That was fast,” I said.
“Helps to have friends in low places,” he said.
I really loved this kid.
“I have confirmed that the account number belongs to a Bianca Wembley,” he said. “She opened it March sixth, 2015. The account is still open. That’s all I was able to get.”
“You think there’s any way to see the transactions in her account?”
“My friends aren’t in places that low,” he said. “In order to get that, you’d need either a really corrupt bank officer, proof of ownership transfer as a result of death, or a court order.”
“Which route would be the fastest?” I said.
“A corrupt banker doesn’t require paperwork,” Balzac said.
“My next question is theoretical.”
“I already know what it is,” he said. “I can call and find out, but my guess is it will have at least three zeroes at the end of the number, and maybe even four. How soon do you need it?”
“Yesterday.”
That night, I decided to get a quick workout at Hammer’s before turning in. It had been a productive day, and a good sweat would be the perfect beginning to my unwind. All the parking spaces along Madison were taken, so I turned into the back alley to take Hammer’s spot, since he was never there past seven. I grabbed my gym bag and stepped out of the car. I turned to close the door when suddenly I felt like my head had just collided with a brick wall. I fell forward against the car. I took another shot behind my right ear. That really hurt. I turned just in time to duck under a swing that would’ve put me on the ground, had it connected.
I stepped away from the car to give myself some distance between the car and my attacker. He wasn’t a big guy, but he was wide and determined. He stepped in to take another swing, but I caught him first on the side of his rib cage. It felt like I had hit a steel plate. I was lucky if I hadn’t fractured my wrist. The punch was enough to slow but not stop him. He kept coming and threw a punch that caught me on the left side of my chest. The force of the blow sent me stumbling backward. He then launched his full body at me, which was his first mistake. I took half a step to my left, lifted my right leg, pivoted on my left leg, and snapped my foot against his charging head with a roundhouse kick. I could hear his nose splinter. A stream of blood and saliva squirted all over my car. He bent down to rest his face in his hands, and I swept his legs to put him on the ground. Just as I was about to jump on him, another guy appeared from the shadows. He was a foot taller and several inches wider. He stepped forward with his arms by his sides, which is what most big guys mistakenly do. Because they have such a height advantage, they don’t feel the need to be overly prepared. I moved in a semicircle away from the guy on the ground and negotiated my spacing with the behemoth standing in front of me.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “There’s only two of you.”
“Mr. Badass,” the big one said, smiling a mouth full of crooked and rotten teeth.
He kept walking toward me slowly. I kept circling. I knew I had to strike first, but the question was where he would be most vulnerable. Anything I landed between his waist and neck wouldn’t do anything to him. I needed to get to his head or his groin. I decided I had a better chance of landing a kick to his groin than reaching his head, but he moved just before I launched it, and I connected with his enormous right thigh, which had about as much impact as a rabbit jumping on the leg of an elephant. He laughed, took a wild swing, which was slow and predictable, and I ducked under it and quickly delivered the hardest punch I could to the side of his face. He turned, grabbed me in a bear hug, and lifted me off the ground as I tried wrapping both of my hands around his massive neck. My chest was collapsing and my energy dissipating underneath his pressure, so I summoned what strength I had left and headbutted him as hard as I could against his nose. He let me go and backed up a couple of steps to tend to his splintered nose. Just as I was about to move on him, I felt my feet being tugged away, and I looked down at the other guy grabbing at my ankles. The big guy took advantage of my distraction and delivered a blow to my chest that felt like I had gotten hit by a wrecking ball. I was dazed, hurt, and in trouble.
“Not so tough now,” the big guy said.
Just as I was bracing for him to hit me again, I heard, “There’s a party back here and no one invited me to it?”
We all turned toward the voice. Mechanic stood hidden in the darkness. I could only make out the vague outline of his body. Next, a thunderous gunshot exploded, and the muzzle flash lit up Mechanic’s stoic face for a split second. The big guy let out a scream as he collapsed to the ground and wrapped his right knee with his hands.
“The next shot will make you infertile,” Mechanic said, walking over and pointing the gun at the guy’s groin. “Now I’m gonna ask you this question once and once only: Who sent you?”
The two guys looked at each other as they considered their options. Mechanic’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The smaller guy said, “We don’t have a name.”
“It was Connelly,” I said. “Monroe Connelly sent you.”
“We don’t take names,” the big guy said, grimacing. “Jesusfuckinchrist, man, you blew my knee off.”
“It doesn’t work the way you think it does,” the smaller guy said.
“How does it work?” I said.
The smaller guy took over as the big guy groaned in pain. “We get a text from a number. We call the number. We get told the name of the target and the action they want. We give a price. We don’t negotiate. If they accept our price, we take the job.”
“And what was the job?” I said.
“Rough you up a little. Scare you.”
“I’m petrified,” I said. “When do you get paid?”
“After the job is done.”
“In what form?”
“Cash. All small bills. Twenties and tens.”
“Where?”
“We have a pickup spot.”
“Always the same?”
“Never. That would be stupid.”
“It was stupid to take a job to come after me,” I said. “Now your partner won’t be walking for three months, and you won’t be blowing your nose for two weeks. So where’s the pickup location?”
The smaller guy looked at the big guy, who nodded his head. “Garbage can on North Clinton, outside the French Market,” the smaller guy said.
“If you don’t know who’s behind the job, how do you know you’re not being set up?”
“Set up how?” the smaller guy said.
“Undercover operation by CPD, FBI, whoever.”
“We have a code name that changes for each job. Only three of us know what that name is. Before you get the code, we have you checked out to make sure it’s legit. When we talk to a customer, if they don’t use the code name right away, then we know something’s not right. We hang up.”
“Il ne faut rien laisser au hasard,” I said.
The two guys looked at each other. The big guy was able to squeeze out between groans, “What the hell?”
“In French it means ‘Nothing should be left to chance.’ And since you’re not gonna make it to the French Market to collect that payment, I figured I’d bring some French to you. What time is the pickup?”
“Night after tomorrow. Seven o’clock.”
“How will they drop it?”
“Pink plastic bag.”
I dialed Burke to have his team come and collect the garbage. Once they had been carted off in an ambulance, I cleaned the blood off my car, then went into Hammer’s and had the best damn workout I’d had in months.