Page 89 of At Midnight

Calling Magnus

Raphael Mirabaud

The worst news.

Valerian still didn’t trust him.

Of course, he didn’t. He would be a fool to trust Raphael. Raphael had tried to take over the bank with a vote of no confidence from the governing board, foiled only at the last moment by Valerian bringing in additional old-school votes.

At the very least, Raphael was a competitorfor the position of the Geneva Trust silverback gorilla.

At the most, he was a traitor who would get a lot of people killed.

Now, Raphael held a phone to his ear, readying himself to make a phone call to Magnus Jenson. Valerian and another man were listening in on separate phones.

The three of them were sitting in Valerian’s office, high above the muttering, pattering crowd weaving betweeneach other and the streetcars below on theRue de la Croix-d’Or. The window was cracked open. A wintry breeze blew through the gap, needling Raphael through his suit jacket and shirt.

The new guy had shown up that afternoon, the day after the late-night meeting with Piotr Ilyin, introducing himself as Nazariy Sokolovsky in Russian-accented German. His pale blue eyes were almost as colorless ashis white scalp, fuzzed with ivory near his ears. He was a strong, bulky man, though, and he’d arrived with two silent bodyguards.

They were using landline phones, which should tip Magnus off that something was wrong even if Raphael hadn’t sent that surreptitious text a few hours prior.

Raphael dialed the long number Flicka had recited to him several times the night before, making sure he’dmemorized it. It was a different number than the secure line to Magnus that Raphael knew, a special number, and a call on that number should also alert Magnus that something was wrong.

The line clicked in his ear, opening.“Ja?”

Trust Magnus to go straight for German with no other words.

Raphael said, “We have an operation to mount in two days. A container ship will arrive at the Port of Rotterdam.We’ll take control of a shipment there.”

“Take control,” Magnus said, his voice low and expressionless.

“Yes. We will take control of it.”

Raphael could almost see Magnus roll his eyes as the pause in the phone line lengthened. He finally said, “Details.”

“I’ll provide them over the usual route.”

“Done.” Magnus hung up.

Sokolovsky nodded and hung up the phone. “And the usual route is?”

“Dark web.”

“Of course, and you will get the contact links where?”

“Rogue Security has a tame hacker,” Raphael told him. “He’ll send files for the Tor browser, VPN, and contact links.”

“Fine. We will place tracking and keylogging software on your computer.”

Because of course, they would. “I expected nothing less.”

Raphael also expected that Blaise Lyon had all kinds of apps, even ones thatcould foil a keystroke logger or other spyware. It would probably send back gibberish or a pre-programmed fake message.

Hope filled Raphael, but he kept his head down and his mouth pressed into a grim line.