Read Online The Geneva Deception by James Twining - Free Book Online Page A

olive skin was pockmarked by acne scars, his black hair shaved almost to his skull. Rather than blink, he seemed to grimace every few seconds, his face scrunching into a pained squint as if he had something in his eye.
    ‘Tom, this is Special Agent Carlos Ortiz.’ They shook hands as she introduced them. ‘I’ve borrowed him from my other case for a few days to help out.’
    ‘Welcome.’
    Ortiz’s expression was impenetrable, although Tom thought he glimpsed a tattoo just under his collar - the number fourteen in Roman numerals. Tom recognised it as a reference to the letter ‘N’, the fourteenth letter of the alphabet, and by repute to the Norteños , a coalition of Latino gangs from Northern California. Ortiz had clearly taken a difficult and rarely trodden path from the violent street corners of his youth to the FBI’s stiff-collared embrace.
    ‘I hope you’re half as good as she says you are,’ Ortiz sniffed. Tom glanced questioningly at Jennifer, who gave him an awkward shrug. ‘Did you get the envelope from the State Department?’
    ‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Let’s talk about that later. How long have we got?’
    ‘It’s set for midnight so…just under an hour,’he replied, checking his watch - a fake Rolex Oyster, Tom noted, its second hand advancing with a tell-tale staccato twitch rather than sweeping smoothly around the dial as a real one would.
    ‘Everyone’s already in place,’ Stokes added. ‘I got six agents on the floor at the tables and playing the slots, and another four on the front and rear doors. Metro and SWAT are holding back two blocks south.’
    ‘What about the money?’ Tom asked.
    ‘In the vault in two suitcases,’ Stokes reassured him. ‘Unmarked, non-sequential notes, just like they asked. They’ll bring it out when we’re ready.’
    ‘Let’s get you mike’d up.’
    Ortiz led Tom over to the car, which Tom suddenly realised had been turned into a desk, the seats ripped out and the roof and one side cut away and replaced with a black marble slab.
    ‘I guess rich people are always looking for new ways to spend their money, right?’ Ortiz winked.
    ‘Some just have more imagination than others,’ Tom agreed.
    Ortiz removed a small transmitter unit from the briefcase and, as Jennifer turned away with a smile, helped Tom fix it to his inner thigh, hiding the microphone under his shirt.
    ‘If anyone finds that, they’re looking for a date not a wire,’ Ortiz joked once he was happy that it was secure and working. He checked his watchagain. ‘Let’s go. Kezman asked to see you downstairs before we hit the floor.’
    ‘Any reason we didn’t just meet down there in the first place?’ Jennifer asked with a frown.
    ‘He thought you might like the view.’
    They stepped back inside the elevator and again it headed down automatically, stopping at the mezzanine level, close to the entrance to the Amalfi’s private art gallery.
    ‘He suggested we wait for him inside,’ Ortiz said, nodding at the two security guards posted either side of the entrance as he walked past.
    The gallery consisted of a series of interlinked rooms containing maybe twenty or so paintings, as well as a number of small abstract sculptures on glass plinths. It was an impressive and expensively assembled collection, bringing to mind the recent newspaper headlines when Kezman had broken his own auction record for the highest amount ever paid for a painting. Tom’s eyes sought out the Picasso he’d bought on that occasion in amongst the works by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Manet and Matisse.
    ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Jennifer said in a low voice, echoing his own thoughts. ‘Although, I don’t know, it feels a bit…’
    ‘Soulless?’ Tom suggested.
    ‘Yes.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Soulless. Perhaps that’s it.’
    Tom’s sense was that Kezman had been lessconcerned with the paintings themselves than by who had painted them. To him these were trophies, specimens of famous names that