The Gilded Seal

‘You’re kidding, right? The bodies are still warm and already you’re trying to crowd us out?’

‘I had an appointment with Mr Hammon.’ She nodded at the large nameplate on the wall behind the reception desk. ‘I only just found out about the shooting.’

‘Hey, Sutton,’ the man called out without looking round. ‘You got anything in the book today with a Julia Browne?’

The body bag was lifted on to a stretcher and wheeled into the open lift behind her.

‘Jennifer,’ she corrected him sharply.

‘Whatever.’ He shrugged.

A woman standing on the other side of the desk leaned over the terminal, her finger leaving a greasy mark as she slid it across the surface of the on-screen diary.

‘Sure,’ she called out. ‘Three thirty. Special Agent Jennifer Browne.’ She looked up and gave Jennifer a fleeting nod that she took as sisterly encouragement not to let herself be pushed around. There was no danger of that.

Grudgingly, the man reached out to shake her hand.

‘Jim Mitchell, Homicide. I’m afraid Hammon’s going to miss your three thirty.’

‘No kidding?’

‘You a client?’

‘I was hoping to talk to him about a case I’m investigating.’

‘Yeah, well, talking’s the one thing he won’t be doing again,’ Mitchell said with a smirk.

‘What do you mean?’

‘See for yourself.’

He threw open the large mahogany double doors behind him and waved her through. Hammon’s office was located in the corner of the building, its two glass walls framing the graceful sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge as it unfurled against the East River. At that moment a chopper took off from the nearby heliport, its red-tipped rotors carving a steep circle in the thin air.

Beyond the view and the extravagance of a large fish tank set into the facing wall, however, the room was a triumph of minimalist design. The only furniture consisted of two Barcelona chairs neatly arranged around a square glass table and a massive cherrywood desk that was empty apart from a folded copy of the Wall Street Journal and an open laptop. A fax machine and a printer sat on a low table that hugged the desk’s right leg.

‘We’ve got three fatalities. Hammon, the receptionist and a security guard in the lobby.’

‘When?’

‘An hour ago, maybe two. Eyewitnesses put two men at the scene, with two more waiting in a car outside. Initial reports suggest they were Oriental – Japanese or Korean, maybe. You know…’ he shrugged helplessly and for a moment Jennifer thought he was actually going to tell her that they all looked the same to him. This guy was a real sweetheart.

‘Were all the victims shot?’

‘Point-blank range. Probably a .45. Only Hammon didn’t get off quite so easy as the other two.’ Mitchell nodded grimly towards the desk and the large black chair with its back turned towards them.

Jennifer stepped around the edge of the desk and realised, as she caught sight of a wrist secured to the chair’s metal arm with a plastic tag, that Hammon was still there.

‘He’s next, as soon as they’ve loaded the other two up,’ Mitchell explained as she shot him a questioning glance.

Moving closer, she could see that the lawyer’s balding head was slumped forward and to one side; his chin and monogrammed shirt were soaked in blood. One of his expensive leather shoes seemed to have half come off as he had struggled, although the black handle of the Tanto knife that was protruding from his chest, his Ferragamo tie draped around it like a scarf, suggested it had been a short and uneven contest.

Most shocking though were his eyes, or rather the gaping, livid sockets where his eyes had been until someone had prised them out, leaving red tears frozen on to his face like wax.

‘There’s no sign of them here,’ Mitchell volunteered. ‘We figure they took them with them.’

Jennifer looked up, her face impassive. The longer she did this job, the less instances of random sadism such as this seemed to shock her.

‘Some sort of trophy?’

‘Maybe.’

She leaned forward with a frown, having caught sight of something soft and pink that seemed to have been skewered on to the tip of the knife before it was plunged into Hammon’s chest.

‘What’s that?’

‘His tongue,’ said Mitchell, watching her closely.

‘His tongue…’ It was more of a statement than a question and Mitchell seemed disappointed by her muted reaction. ‘So it’s got to be some sort of a revenge killing, right? A punishment for something he’d said or seen. Or both.’

‘You tell me.’ Mitchell shrugged. ‘I’m normally pulling hookers out of dumpsters and junkies out of the East River. What was your angle?’

‘Hammon got into a fight with someone who’s involved in my case. I wanted to find out why.’

‘The guy’s an attorney. What more of a reason do you need?’ Mitchell laughed.

Jennifer smiled as she moved round to the other side of the desk, slowly warming to Mitchell’s black humour.

‘You got any paper?’ she asked suddenly.

‘What?’ Mitchell frowned.

‘Paper?’

Mitchell continued to stare at her blankly.

‘For the fax,’ she explained, pointing at the light blinking on the fax machine. ‘Looks like something’s caught in the memory.’

With a nod of understanding, Mitchell opened the printer tray, removed a few sheets of paper, and placed them into the fax. Moments later, the machine began to whir and hum, sucking a fresh sheet inside and then spitting it out on to the floor.

Mitchell picked the sheet up, studied it for a few seconds, then handed it to Jennifer. ‘Go figure.’

Three items were listed on the page: First an alphanumeric code – VIS1095. Then a sum of money – $100,000,000. And beneath them, a letter in a circle.

The letter M.

SIXTEEN (#ulink_5afab899-1153-588b-a1e4-23c435c84334)

Las Candelarias, Seville