Chameleon. Mark Burnell
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man with the disk. ‘Any news on Marshall’s killer? Or Koba?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What’s the story with Salibi?’
‘The disk is – or will be – in a safe in his penthouse in New York. This is the background material we’ll need.’
They opened the parcel and spread its contents across the table. George Salibi, Lebanese billionaire banker, founder of First Intercontinental, aged sixty-four. A man with a penthouse on Central Park West, a house in London on Wilton Crescent, an enormous residence overlooking the sea at Villefranche-sur-Mer, a one-hundred-metre boat moored at the International Yacht Club at Antibes – named Zara, after his daughter – and a Gulfstream V to ferry him from one property to the next.
Salibi’s wife was an Argentine called Sylvia, daughter of an army general who’d fled to Switzerland in 1975 with twenty million embezzled dollars. Ten years younger than Salibi, Sylvia remained a stunning woman: high cheekbones, large emerald eyes, Sophia Loren’s mouth. She’d been twenty-seven when she married Salibi and it was not hard to see what the stout banker had fallen for. Her beauty was reflected in their children, Felix and Zara. Stephanie returned to a photograph of Sylvia at the time of her engagement. She’d been the same age as Stephanie was now. She’d had poise, sophistication, elegance. She looked entirely at ease with the glittering diamond choker that circled her slender throat. No rough edges, she looked everything that Stephanie wasn’t.
‘Salibi’s a renowned paranoid,’ Boyd said. ‘He has security at all his properties whether he’s there or not. Most of them are ex-Israeli Army, including his personal bodyguard, who’s by his side twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.’
‘No holidays?’
‘Not for more than three years.’
Boyd handed Stephanie a head-and-shoulders photograph: a stern expression, olive skin and chocolate eyes, black hair cut to stubble, powerful shoulder muscles.
‘A woman?’
Boyd nodded. ‘Ruth Steifel. Ex-Army, then ex-Mossad. Magenta House believe she may also have been seconded to Shabek on at least one occasion. Since she’s worked for Salibi, she hasn’t had a day off.’
‘I wonder what Sylvia says about that.’
After lunch, they examined the architect’s plans for the Central Park West penthouse. In a folder, there were photographs of the building from close and afar. There were three lists of observations and twelve pages of technical notes. It took Boyd and Stephanie an hour to go through the material for the first time.
‘Initial thoughts?’
Stephanie was studying the vertical plans. ‘Initial thoughts … if the disk is up for sale, perhaps it would be easier if Magenta House bought it.’
‘I think it’s going to be out of Alexander’s price range. People like you are very expensive to run.’
‘I had no idea I was such a luxury.’
‘You’re not. You’re an unfortunate necessity.’
Stephanie returned her attention to the plans. ‘I don’t think I can get into the place from below so it’s going to have to be from above.’
‘I agree. But how?’
‘Well, I can’t go up the outside. I’d be seen.’
‘And you can’t go up the inside because it’s secure.’
‘And I can’t drop onto the roof. Not realistically.’ Stephanie looked at the plans again. ‘The lifts …’
‘No. The main lift and the service lift both stop automatically on the floor beneath the penthouse. Every time the doors open, they’re checked by the guards. You wouldn’t even get to the right floor.’
‘Not the actual lifts. The lift-shafts.’
It takes forty-five minutes to reach it. A large ledge of soaking black granite, sodden grass beneath it, grassy tufts and dead trees above it, and above them, a one-hundred-foot granite wall.
I look at Boyd. He grins mischievously. ‘Not that. The ledge.’
Icy water falls from the ledge, a veil made of dozens of streams, some as heavy as a running tap, others needle-thin. The sound of the trickle, gurgle and rush is all we can hear.
‘Look at it. Doesn’t it remind you of something?’
I shrug. ‘Not immediately.’
‘Central Park West. The cornice around the top of the building.’
In my mind, I see the photographs again. Gothic, heavy, monstrous.
‘The cornice above the penthouse is about the same size and angle as this piece of rock. You’re going to have to come down over it.’
‘I’ll be suspended, though …’
‘Yes. But you need to climb down over it, not drop.’
‘Okay.’
‘But before you make a descent here, I want you to try to climb up it.’
I look at the reverse angle. I’ve tackled far worse and Boyd knows it. My mother, who was Swiss, was a climber of some fame when she was young. She made it to the top of Everest at the second attempt and conquered most of Europe’s greatest peaks, with the notable exception of the Eiger, which denied her twice. I’ve inherited her love of climbing and her lack of fear on rock.
I walk up to the face and place my palms against it. Hard, wet and freezing cold. Before I start, I make a map in my head of the route I’ll take. Crevices for toes, slender finger-holds, chunks small enough to grab but large enough to take the whole weight of my body. It’s join-the-dots. When I’ve seen exactly how I’ll make it to the lip of the ledge, I start.
I’m ten feet off the ground when I fall. I’m reaching to my right, spread-eagled across the rock, leaning back at an angle of almost forty-five degrees. I grab a sharp but thick ledge and I’m beginning to transfer my weight when, without warning, the rock shears, coming away in my hand. There’s no time to react. I’m already falling. I land on thick grass with a squelch.
As I struggle for breath, Boyd says, ‘You okay?’
I try to say something but can’t form a word. He leaves me to recover for a moment.
‘I thought that might happen.’
To prove the point, he steps through the gossamer waterfall, grabs a secure-looking wedge of rock and yanks it. It snaps free of the face, leaving a light scar beneath.
‘Bastard,’ I gasp.
‘It could happen again.’
I sit up. I’m soaked to the skin. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The plasterwork on the cornice. It’s old and rotten. It’s liable to come away in your hand.’
‘You must be pretty pleased with yourself.’
‘Very. Now let’s try it from the top.’
Stephanie pulled the curtains. It was a breezy morning, the wind sending washboard ripples across the loch. There was frost on the grass. She dressed quickly. The T-shirt she’d left to dry overnight was stiff and smelt of peat. She pulled a sweatshirt over the top. She collected her boots from the small drying room by the back door. They were warm.
Boyd