The Solomon Curse

Grimes complied and minutes later he was being guided to a waiting police van by his humorless escorts. His mind was working furiously to calculate damage control. They couldn’t have anything. None of his involvement was documented. He’d kept everything verbal, and the shell corporations had been created in a smorgasbord of jurisdictions that would take years for any law enforcement agency to untangle. This was probably mostly bluff by the ACC—the rough Australian equivalent of the Americans’ Homeland Security—but he couldn’t underestimate them.

He was processed at police headquarters and placed in a holding cell. Nobody spoke to him other than to assure him that his attorney had been contacted. Four hours later, the cell door opened and a harried Simon Whistock, Esquire, entered, briefcase in hand. Grimes started to rise from the steel chair he was sitting on, but his attorney shook his head and took the only other seat, setting his briefcase beside him on the floor.

“Simon. What the hell is going on?” Grimes demanded.

Simon adjusted his round steel-rimmed spectacles and sat forward. “I just spent two hours with the team that will be prosecuting you. Two of them are fairly close friends, so I was able to get a glance at what they have.” Simon hesitated. “Jeffrey? It’s as bad as anything I’ve seen.”

Grimes swallowed hard. “That’s impossible.”

“We’ll forego my observation that you aren’t denying anything and skip to the evidence. They have all the financial records of some six corporations domiciled in the Solomon Islands, including bank transfers from companies controlled by you.”

Grimes began to protest, but Simon held up a hand to quiet him. “That they’re controlled by you will be problematic to establish but not impossible, based on the testimony of your partner in the Solomons—one Dr. Vanya. Does the name ring a bell?”

Grimes shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“Her,” Simon corrected. “No matter. They have telephone records from a burner cell phone of hers making multiple calls to a cell that was seized in your office.”

“What! You have to get that tossed. There has to be a way.”

“I’ll do my best, but it looks airtight, at first glance. Jeffrey, this woman murdered dozens of children. She organized a rebel group that killed Australian citizens. She was trying to overthrow the government so your companies could profit.” Simon exhaled. “How on earth did you get involved in this?”

“Simon, I had no idea . . .”

Simon removed his glasses and smoothed his hair. “They’re talking extradition.”

“You need to stop this dead, Simon. Whatever the cost.”

Simon nodded and sighed. “Which brings me to the next bit of housekeeping. This will be enormously expensive to defend. We’re talking millions. Many millions. I’ll need a substantial retainer to proceed. Say . . . two million Australian, within twenty-four hours?”

Grimes snorted. “That’s highway robbery!”

“How much is your life worth, Jeffrey? They want you as badly. And if they extradite . . .” He didn’t have to finish. “I’ll be battling this for years.”

“Fine.” Jeffrey gave him the combination of his safe. “There’s a little over three million in maple leafs and one-kilo bars in the safe. I should think that will suffice. How soon until you can get me bail?”

Simon stared at Grimes like he was mad. “You don’t understand, do you? There will be no bail. You’re to be transferred to solitary confinement and put on suicide watch. You’re considered to be not only a flight risk but also guilty of crimes against humanity, in addition to all the other charges.”

The air suddenly felt overheated and heavy. Grimes struggled to breathe as perspiration beaded his forehead. Simon didn’t seem to notice as he rattled off a few immediate requirements he’d need to address with Grimes’s board of directors. When Simon finished and stood, he seemed anxious to be rid of his client.

Grimes rose and shook hands with his attorney, his palm sweaty. “Simon. You have to get me out of this. Whatever it takes. I . . . I can’t spend my life in prison.”

Simon averted his gaze and nodded. “I’ll do my best, but you’ve really gone and done it this time, Jeffrey.”

The sound of the steel door closing behind the attorney echoed like the detonation of a bomb as Grimes glared at the walls. The entire episode had been surreal. A pulsing throb in his jaw radiated down his left arm as his sweating increased and he was trying to call out for help when his chest seemed to explode and he slipped out of the chair, gasping as his heart faltered, a chunk of plaque the size of a pencil eraser clogging one of the arteries.

By the time the medics arrived, Grimes’s body was already cooling, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling in puzzled amazement and his handsome face frozen in an expression that could only be described as fear.

CHAPTER 53

Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

Remi eyed the impenetrable rushing of the waterfall and turned to Lazlo, who was standing between Sam and Leonid.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“Never more so.”

“But Nauru never said anything about going through a waterfall,” Sam said.

“Be that as it may, I’d bet money there’s a cave behind that water.”

Sam glanced at the puffs of clouds drifting across the sky, glowing white in the noon sun. “The Japanese may well have moved the crates, once they were in a nearby cave. Or the old man might have just been forgetful. We tend to remember the dramatic moments and forget the rest—and having your entire village slaughtered in front of you is certainly dramatic enough.”

“So how do we get around the water?” Remi asked.

Leonid pointed at the falls. “It looks like there are a few feet of rock that we can traverse over on the right side.”

“No time like the present,” Sam said, and led them toward the edge of the small pond the waterfall fed.

“Wouldn’t this be exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find crocodiles?” Lazlo asked as they moved along the spongy ground.

“Oh, I’d think they’d find only you,” Remi said.

“They’re saltwater, aren’t they?” Leonid asked.

“Technically, but they do seem to like coastal rivers and lakes, too.”

“That’s reassuring,” Lazlo muttered.

Sam gri

“The problem is, rather more that you only die once, unless you’re a cat. Or a Fargo, apparently.”

They skirted the water and approached the waterfall, the roar increasing until it was practically deafening. Sam peered along the side of the solid white stream of water and nodded. “There could be something back there. Lazlo, care to do the honors?”

“I’d hoped you would, being a seasoned adventurer and all.”

“This is how you gain all that valuable experience, my friend.”

“Like pneumonia. Or hypothermia,” Remi added helpfully.

“Come on, Lazlo. Fame and fortune await,” Sam coaxed.

“Sometimes called crocodiles and snakes by the locals,” Leonid quipped.

Lazlo gave him a dark look and nodded. “Very well. Here goes nothing.”

He edged past Sam along the narrow strip of rock that framed the waterfall and moved toward the rushing white foam, the spray soaking him as he pressed himself flat against the rock face of the cliff and inched sideways until he was out of sight.

Remi checked her watch. “If he isn’t back in two days, we go in after him.”

“Unless something else comes up,” Sam agreed.