Page 22 of At Midnight

Working Days

Raphael Mirabaud

A Vice-President

and a prisoner.

For a few days, Raphael left with his father in the morning, striding with him through the ten-car garage to the chauffeured town car that drove them into Geneva.

The car carried them through the Mirabaud estate to the highwayQuai de Cologny. Large lawns edged with flowerbeds and manicured hedges sprawledto the shore of Lake Geneva.

Once they left the property, the ride to the bank in downtown Geneva took seven minutes.

Seven long minutes, where Raphael sat in the passenger seat and conversed in pleasantries with the driver, who had no idea that the two men in the car were related unless she had noticed the striking similarities in their appearance, though his father was around four decadesolder, of course.

Valerian sat in the back, reviewing documents. He and Raphael didn’t speak.

When they arrived in Geneva, several of the guards met Raphael and Valerian at the door and escorted them to Valerian’s office, where the two men met with some of Geneva Trust’s non-criminal clients and went over the financial underpinnings of the bank.

These clients didn’t really matter. They wereno one important. No one would listen to them, if they even thought to say anything to anyone.

Raphael watched for his Uncle Bastien or his sisters.

At the bank, he saw no one from his family, save his father.

He spoke to no one who would be a problem.

No one knew Raphael existed.

If he fought back, it would be easier to dispose of his body if no one in the family or bank knew he had returned.

A sinking feeling filled him that Bastien wouldn’t utter a word if Raphael disappeared.

He sat in the meetings quietly, waiting for them to relax their guard.

Raphael caught on to Geneva Trust’s financial structure quickly. He had received an MBA from the London Business School, one of the best B-schools in the world, but he didn’t mention his degree to his father.

He didn’t mention severalother subjects to his father, either: his military career, his degrees, or Rogue Security. His whole life as Operator Dieter Schwarz dissolved and blew away in a puff of white smoke.

He was and had always been Raphael Mirabaud with only a brief sojourn as a bodyguard, a hulking brute with no banking connections. Raphael had not quite finished high school when he disappeared.

After a few daysof this routine, at the end of business on a Wednesday, Valerian looked up at Raphael, pleased. “You have an innate talent for finance, I think.”

Raphael said, “It must be genetic.”

Valerian said, “Tomorrow, you’ll begin work in your own office, meeting with clients. I expect total loyalty.”

“Of course,” Raphael said. “I understand the ramifications.”

Valerian eased back in his large chair.“I should hope so, but I hope that you also understand that the expectation is that you will become involved in the bank, become a part of our operation, and then we’ll have no need of any assurances such as Flicka and Alina now provide.”

“I’m sure we’ll grow to trust each other.” A half-truth.

“I have missed you, Raphael. I’m not young, and I expect you to take my place someday.”

Raphael smoothedhis gray, silk tie on his crisp, white shirt. “I’m counting on it.”

He was planning it much sooner than Valerian had meant.