Felderberg frowned. “Except that would not explain the covert nature of their activities, nor the need for such haste. Growing crops in the abundance required for export take months, even years of effort and hard work. The motives of my client remain bathed in shadows. What are they after? What is worth the investment of literally billions of dollars?”
Neither man had an answer. Tension passed across the table between them.
“It might help if I knew who this client was,” Locke ventured tentatively.
Felderberg chuckled, but there was no trace of amusement in the sound. “You think in a situation such as this they would reveal their true identity? No. Everything has been concluded through middlemen, mostly lawyers, and mailings. The arrangements have never failed to be in order and because my commission is always paid promptly, the need has not arisen for questions.”
“But you must still pose them, Mr. Felderberg. You went through great pains this afternoon to have me checked out. I have to believe that is the rule for how you operate regularly.”
“Within certain limits. The force behind the South American land deals and the massacre at San Sebastian has gone through great pains to keep its identity secret.” He paused. “But there are clues, hints. They add up to little but still …”
“I’m listening.”
“All my commissions were paid out through the Bank of Vienna.”
“Interesting.”
“But not terribly conclusive. The Bank of Vienna is known for its willingness and ability to handle exceptionally large financial arrangements.”
“Going through Swiss institutions is more the norm, isn’t it?”
“Not so much anymore. Political pressure from abroad has forced the famed Swiss banks to become less accessible and secretive. Accordingly, persons seeking large transactions have had to look elsewhere.” Felderberg cleared his throat, fingered the stem of his wineglass. “The problem then became determining how long my client’s account had been active at the Bank of Vienna. I had the account number and knew there had to be a means to gain the information I sought.”
“But most banks take steps to make that impossible.”
“To a point, yet they must at some stage bow to procedures made necessary by the computer. There had to be a code in the account number, something in sequence the computer could use as a key. It took much time and money, but careful analysis of this account number and comparison with others whose origin I knew led to the discovery that the account in question had been active for some seventeen years.”
“Any chance of the account number leading back to its bearers?”
“Not through any means I’m aware of.”
“So all we’re left with is the probability that your client is based in Vienna, at least Austria, and has been for some time.”
“And something else. One memorandum I was issued held the traces of a stamp on its bottom. Only the top half and quite light, as if someone had stamped another page with the memorandum protruding from beneath it. I had the stamp blown up and hired detectives in Zurich to trace it down. Their report led back to my own doorstep: the Sanii Corporation in Schaan, not more than eleven miles from where we sit now.”
“What is Sanii?”
“High-tech experiments and development.”
“Weapons?”
“I suppose.”
“Then we’re back to San Sebastian again, what the people saw down there before they were killed.”
“That had nothing to do with a weapon, Mr. Locke. The key remains food. Sanii is part of an American conglomerate, but ownerships can be shielded just as funds can be.”
“Then whoever’s behind the corporation is behind the land deals, San Sebastian, everything. That’s an awful lot of power.”
“Indeed,” Felderberg agreed. “And at first I thought it was being wielded by an emerging nation with a plot somehow related to food. But everything was done too covertly. Organization and single-mindedness of the extent no country could possess. And then there was the account in the Bank of Vienna to consider. No, my client is someone from the private sector.”
“But the plot still exists.”
“And the best means for determining precisely what that plot is would be to uncover who’s behind it.” Felderberg hesitated. “I sent your friend Lubeck to the Dwarf.”
“Who?”
“I broker large financial transactions, Mr. Locke. The Dwarf brokers large transactions of information. He maintains a chain of spies and informants across the world any intelligence service would be jealous of. His fees are often even higher than mine. Nothing of the magnitude we are discussing could escape his attention.”
“You could have contacted him already yourself.”
Felderberg smiled. “Such things aren’t done. Our interests often conflict. We maintain respect for each other but we are hardly allies. No, it is you who must seek him out, just as Lubeck did. He resides in Florence. You can find him by—”
Felderberg was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in.”
The waiter entered holding a bottle of wine. Peale followed him in and watched with arms crossed as the waiter rested the bottle on the table and pulled the cork out, handing it to Felderberg for approval.
“Excellent,” said the financier after sniffing it.
He poured a small amount into a glass and Peale stepped over, taking the glass from his employer. He held the contents in his mouth for a few seconds, then swallowed, nodding deliberately after a brief pause.
Peale and the waiter took their leave.
Felderberg poured out two glasses of rich red wine.
“So Peale also serves as a wine taster,” Locke quipped.
The humor was lost on the man across from him. “He was checking for poison.”
“My God!”
“I demand loyalty from my men, Mr. Locke. There are risks involved but they are paid exceptionally well for taking them.”
Felderberg sipped his wine. “Now, as I was saying about the Dwarf, you can reach him by—”
Felderberg’s face puckered. His mouth dropped and he gasped for air like a man choking on a piece of food. Locke was already out of his chair moving toward the financier when a violent convulsion shook the fat man backward, then forward to the table. His wine spilled across the tablecloth. The cork went flying.
The cork! Locke realized. There had to be some sort of poison he had inhaled from the cork!
Locke lifted Felderberg’s head up. His flesh was purple. His eyes bulged, veins and arteries rippling across his forehead. His whole body shook, spasmed, stilled. His breathing stopped. His eyes froze open.
Locke shook the financier in disbelief and was about to start administering CPR when one last spasm shook through the man’s legs, activating the emergency button beneath his right foot. Chris was tilting Felderberg’s head back for mouth to mouth when the door burst open and Peale rushed in with the other bodyguards behind him.
Chris hadn’t even had time to start an explanation when the blond man grabbed him with the strongest hands Locke had ever felt and flung him against the wall. His head hit first. The light in the room flickered, faded. Seconds passed, how many Chris didn’t know. Men were standing over him.
“He’s dead,” a voice said near Felderberg.
“Shit,” Peale muttered, drawing closer to Locke.
Then Chris felt himself being hoisted to his feet. The room was still spinning.
“Who sent you?” Peale demanded. “Who hired you?”
Locke opened his mouth but no words emerged. Peale hit him hard in the stomach and pain exploded everywhere. His wind was gone and he felt bile struggling to rise. He wanted to vomit, and had started to double over when Peale lifted his head up and smashed him in the gut again.