Fast Track. Fern Michaels
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streaked forward to meet Charles head-on, while Grady barreled in from the side as Yoko, the rain beating down on her, kicked Charles from behind with one tiny foot and brought him to his knees. Alexis and Isabelle snapped on a set of flexi-cuffs, then yanked their host to his feet and dragged him to the bushes just as the cable car came to a stop. Nikki had pulled off one of her socks and stuffed it in Charles’s mouth.
The wind from the rotors of the Bell JetRanger was so strong it almost knocked over Myra and Annie, who were fiercely holding on to each other. The rain slapping at them from the force of the winds felt like a tidal wave.
Two men and a woman stepped out from the helicopter. The woman foolishly tried to open an umbrella. It blew away in the wind. Kathryn yanked a small penlight out of her pocket and flashed it twice. There was no point in trying to speak or shout. The pinpoint of light moved off just as Nikki led two fine-looking gentlemen, dressed in Savile Row suits, out of the cable car and into the pouring rain.
Mercifully, the helicopter was shut down and put to bed. The high-pitched whine was silent. A bolt of thunder roared overhead as a vicious streak of lightning danced across the sky, lighting the mountaintop from one end to the other.
Their thumbs up in the air in a sign of victory, Yoko and Alexis led Charles toward the newly arrived guests.
As a group, they ran toward the main building, Charles and Myra’s lair. The others called it the Big House. Inside the brightly lit kitchen, the women stared down at the delectable spread of food and drink laid out on the counters and on the table.
“Well done, girls,” Charles beamed when the sock was taken out of his mouth and the flexi-cuffs removed. “Don’t for one minute think you ‘captured’ me. I knew what you were going to do before you made the decision to take me on. In other words, I allowed it. I wanted your new employers to see you in action. Ladies, meet your new employers. Names at this juncture are not important. I don’t expect they will be important later on, either. I’ll show each of our guests to a room where they can change into dry clothes. I suggest you all do the same. Twenty minutes, ladies, not one minute longer. Are we clear on this?”
“Crystal,” Kathryn said with a bite to her tone. “My ass, you allowed us to take you. You didn’t know what hit you. I’m not going anywhere until you admit it, Sir Charles,” she hissed.
Charles turned slightly so that he was in profile to his guests. He winked at Kathryn.
Nikki nudged Kathryn and whispered, “We’ll make an issue of it later. We need to get changed. You know how pissy he gets when we’re late.”
“Ask me if I care,” Kathryn said as she trailed behind the others, Murphy at her side.
Inside their own quarters, as they grappled with whatever they could find in the way of clean or dry clothes, the women kept up a running commentary concerning Charles and what had happened. In the end, a show of hands agreed that they had indeed caught Sir Charles flat-footed. And that he was trying to save face with his guests by his roguish wink. But they also agreed they could be wrong.
“A crapshoot,” Annie said.
Adorned in yellow slickers with matching Wellington boots, the little group made it back to the Big House in the allotted time. They peeled off their rain gear before they trooped out to the kitchen where Charles was handing out drinks.
Charles’s guests waited until the women were seated before they took their own seats for what their host referred to as a midnight feast: Lobster and shrimp and a foot-long cracked-pepper tenderloin. Emerald green peas from the garden behind the main house that were sugar balls of sweetness. Mountain tomatoes, lush and pulpy in the crisp garden salad. And finishing off the meal, tiny potatoes no bigger than a nickel drizzled with butter and fresh herbs. Everyone ate heartily including Charles.
The table conversation dealt with the different species of pine trees on the mountain, the virtually impossible access, satellite television, and the new iPhone, which was just hitting the market.
No one seemed to mind when Charles said he hadn’t had time to prepare a dessert, and coffee and brandy would be served in the conference room down the hall.
Five minutes later, the members of the Sisterhood, in their casual clothes and slicked-back wet hair, sat down at the long pine table and looked at the five strangers sitting across from them.
Charles stood up and immediately got to the point. “Our guests this evening have come a very long way to talk with us, and this meeting must be kept absolutely secret. Our guests are a special task force appointed by the World Bank. Three of our guests are also board members. They want to hire you to help them out before a current situation gets out of hand and has worldwide repercussions. They came with a check in hand that bears only a signature. What that means is you can name your own price and fill in the blanks. This piece of paper is a mere token. If you accept this mission, the money will be wired into a special offshore account expeditiously. These monies will not come out of the World Bank funds. Concerned wealthy individuals have donated funds for this mission, people who care about fighting global poverty. People who wish to remain anonymous.”
“What is it you want us to do?” Myra asked a gray-haired man sitting directly across from her. “Is it a single person or a group of people who pose a problem for you?”
The woman sitting next to him spoke in a soft, cultured accent. She looked around at her colleagues, who simply gave curt nods to indicate she should speak. “The current president of the World Bank appears to have his own agenda where funds are concerned. We’ve done a discreet audit, and a rather large sum of money appears to be missing. The funds in question, which were to go to several poor countries, were suspended, then a small amount was supposedly used to set up ragtag offices in other war-torn countries, without concern for security in those countries. That amount was a mere drop in the bucket, so to speak. We can’t seem to find the balance of the money.”
“How much money are you talking about?” Annie asked as she leaned closer to the table, her eyes locked with those of the woman who was speaking.
“Close to two billion dollars.”
“Billion with a b?” Kathryn asked.
“I believe billion is spelled with a b. Yes,” the woman said curtly.
“And you can’t find two billion dollars?” Nikki asked, disbelief ringing in her voice. “Do you mind if I ask who minds the store?”
“Oh, we could find it if we want a world crisis on our hands. We prefer to let sleeping dogs lie and to exercise other…options. I believe that’s an expression Americans use to mean leave things as they are, is this not so?”
“If you’re concerned about keeping this under wraps, aren’t you concerned that the poor countries for whom those funds are earmarked might go public?” Alexis asked.
“Of course we’re concerned. That’s why we’re here. The situation is contained for the moment. Time, however, is of the essence.”
“How much time?” Nikki asked bluntly.
A stoop-shouldered man with a gray beard raised his head and spoke quietly. “No more than two weeks, and that’s extending the time beyond what we’re really comfortable with.”
“Where does the current president reside?” Yoko asked.
“He owns an apartment in the Watergate. A very lavish apartment, I might add,” a rotund little man with jet-black hair said. He had a heavy beard and glassy dark eyes. “He also has several mistresses. He’s a divorced man whose ex-wife hates him. He has two children. They aren’t particularly fond of him, either. He leads a very expensive life.”
The woman spoke again with apparent distaste. “Maxwell Zenowicz held a very high post in your current government’s administration prior to taking on the job of president at the World Bank, but he was not qualified for the job. He is an appointee. I believe it was a political favor that secured the job for him. He has surrounded himself with people with the same moral compass he has.”