THREE WEEKS LATER,

Cote D'Azur, Southern France.

Chapter Thirty Five

The boat rocked gently in the late morning swell. A super-yacht by anyone's standards except the Arab and Russian oil-oligarchs. The sun pierced the clear waters around it. The blue light that lured painters to the region for generations struck Savage's skin as he pulled himself up the ladder at the stern of the boat. The one next to the jet-ski.

He pulled himself onto the deck, water cascaded from his skin. A young muscled man with long hair and a deep tan sat at the dining table. A lithe pale woman with a shock of short white hair and an electric-red bikini sat next to him nibbling on a croissant.

Savage padded over on bare feet, pulled the water-tight sack off his back, the goggles off his face.

Muscles opened his mouth, Savage put a finger to his own lips.

'Tell your boss John Savage is here.'

'My boss?' he said.

'Hey, don't take it personally. But she's not your lover. You are not her equal.'

'Who the fuck?' muscles stood up and came around the table.

'Ruben!' the woman in red said. 'Sit.'

Savage opened his palms wide in a 'watchagonnado?' gesture.

She got up. Looked Savage in the eyes. 'Ruben, if he moves, throw him overboard,' she turned and walked up the stairs that disappeared to the navigation and sun deck.

Savage and Ruben stared each other down. Savage gave up when Ruben began flexing his chest muscles. Trying not to laugh, Savage opened his sack, took out his phone, dialled a number.

'I'm on board,' he said.

'Hang up,' a familiar voice said above him.

'Well hi, Jo,' he looked up. Her legs seemed even longer than usual, tailing off into a white bikini perfectly pinched around her crotch. She started down the steps.

'Nice tan,' he said.

'Hang up, John.'

He put the phone on the table. He couldn't take his eyes off her smooth body. She pulled on a loose white shirt to hold off his stares and sat down between her two companions, then crossed her long legs and sat back.

'What do you want John?'

He looked pointedly at Ruben, then bikini girl. Finally back at her.

'I want in.'

'There's no room for you here,' Ruben started up from his chair.

'Ruben,' both women snapped.

'Down, Fido,' Savage said. He ignored the other two. 'Dark Market, Jo.' She kept her face unemotional. 'I want in.'

'Katrina,’ Jo said, 'Frisk him for wires and weapons.'

She plodded over to him, pulled a handgun out of the bag and launched it over the side. She turned the bag inside out and then gave the phone a once over.

'Stand up,' she said. 'Turn around.' She made a twirling motion. When he finished she gave him a glance, took a breath, then put one hand down the front of his trunks, the other down the back.

She had warm hands.

Savage looked over at the table. Nobody seemed fazed by this. Katrina removed her hands, shook her head.

Jo snapped her fingers, said, 'Allez!' to the other two, her finger pointed to the patio doors on the lower deck. The doors closed behind them.

'The sixth degree again? What makes you think I know anything about, what was it? Dark Market?'

'I followed Michael's accounts to the Cayman's, I checked his background, I found the money he was hiding within Maclays. Tens of millions every year that hardly ever got spent. But when it did, it only ever went into Dark Market. An assassination market.

'At first I thought Sutherland had set it up, but he's really just a smooth talker, knows virtually nothing about finance. Then I thought kinky old Natasja was behind it. She had a hand in, for sure. But she refuses to speak to anyone.'

The smallest of smiles touched the corners of Jo's mouth. Was it satisfaction he saw?

'Is that what they're holding Sutherland on?' she said.

'You know they are Jo.' She held his gaze.

'Go on,' she said. 'Amaze me.'

'The only thing I didn't look at in the old days was what happened to Michael's personal accounts after he died. I left too early. No one else looked that closely either. He was a suicide, for any suspicions of bad deeds the fingers already pointed at me, thanks to you. And I was long gone. Why would anyone look deeper?'

'Why indeed, John?'

'All his money went to you.'

'What money? I couldn't keep it without people thinking I'd been involved. I gave it away.'

'Yeah, so I hear. Save the Cats got rich in a hurry. A little twee, don't you think?'

'God love those little critters,' she said.

'So you probably don’t know that everyone is locked out of Dark Market now? The log-ins have all moved site, along with the main database. The authorities are having a hell of a time trying to find it.'

She smiled sweetly.

‘I really have no idea what you're talking about.'

He smiled back.

‘Whatever you say, Savage.’

‘Everyone is locked out except me Jo.'

She looked up, smile gone. He pushed a phone over the table toward her.

‘Just look.'

She saw the screen of red and green columns.

'How?'

‘A present from the late Konrad Kevorkian. What do you see?'

'A list of names with money attached.'

'Anyone, you know?’ Savage pointed. ‘Just there, in red.'

'Michael Fincher. So what?'

'So, three years ago, he put his name on there. Bet on his own death with Maclays’ missing money. All of it. Then he jumped.'

She sat and stared, her eyes languid and guarded.

'He left everything to you Jo. The entire company pot. The message with the money was opened, by you, but you never cashed it.'

'I didn't want his money Savage. I loved him. I was upset about what happened between you and me. It was never about money.'

Savage's smile nearly took his head off.

‘Wow, I could almost believe you. I even thought the same for a while. Poor Jo. But no. You forget I know you. Mother Theresa you’re not. There was sixty three million pounds in that account when he died. Even with your kind of love it didn't add up.'

She pulled a packet of cigarettes toward her. Gitanes, a French brand.

‘And another seventy two million’s gone through since his death,’ Savage said. ‘But you never needed to cash it did you?’

She fired up a cigarette, took a long drag and blew it back in his face.

‘I guess I must have a soft spot for you after all,' he said. 'Because what was obvious, when you think about it, was that you already had control of it. It’s the only option that made any sense.

‘Michael never needed to jump and leave you everything. He was the one who was really in love. With you. Only he didn’t realise quite how much you controlled him. Even Natasja, his PA, was really yours wasn’t she?’

She blew smoke rings and let her lips curl around the O.

‘You even let me believe she had something on you, when in fact, it was the other way around. You had something on her. On Sutherland. On Michael too. That paternal arse rape you staged for me was small change compared to what happens in that dungeon of yours.'

‘Seriously? This is just your tired little investigator fantasy John. I'm not tied to that money in any way. If I am show me how.'

Savage sat back, stretched his own legs out.

'Yeah, funny. I found the videos from the Kitty Kat dungeon. The police don't have them, yet. Murder. Rape. Paedophilia. Bestiality. You name it, you filmed it. You even starred in one or two. A real auteur.'

'How did you—'

Savage sucked in a breath, 'How did I find them? Easy. The same trail that led to the log-in on Maclays site led to the videos you used for blackmail and extortion on the Kitty Kat website. And then, if the powerful didn't do what you wanted, to their assassination and their replacement with people who would. People who'd also visited your dungeon.'

‘Sounds like the Freemasons with blackmail.’

She sat there for a few moments, looking at Savage, not unkindly, then at the surroundings, took in the sea birds, the breeze through her hair, the clunk-clink of boats rocking in the swell.

'It's beautiful here,' he said.

'What do you want John? You going to arrest me or what?'

He shook his head. 'That’s not my style, you know it. And I heard you've been grooming me for this.'

'Have I really?'

'Yeah. So either I'm in, or we're both out.'

She held his gaze for a few moments more, then looked away. She almost blushed. Almost.

'Okay,' she said. 'Let's trade.'

'Dark Market. It's a closed system. It's very clever. But you've also been very sloppy. I want to cover up the cracks, make the evidence disappear, take my cut. Fifty-fifty on whatever you're currently making.'

'I don't make anything from it John.'

'Bullshit. I just haven't figured out how yet.'

'If you haven't now, you never will.'

'Then ‘fess up, or everything I know goes to the police.'

She stubbed out her cigarette, bought a couple of moments, then lit another.

'I'll need guarantees.'

'Whatever you need.'

'Or you'll never leave this boat alive.'

He nodded his head once. 'Understood,' he said. 'Tell me everything.'

'It's not about money John.' He stayed silent. She blew a ball of smoke out. 'It's all about power. Do you think those clever financiers with their six figure salaries actually know what they’re doing?'

He shrugged, 'Most people think they do.'

'Yeah, right, like they got there on their merits. Don't be so naïve.’

She leaned toward him.

‘If we're going to work together John you need to understand this. What you think you know, when the papers tell you something about those nasty bankers, like how a chief finance officer got a fine for wrecking a bank, which in turn started the landslide that wrecked an economy, it's just wrong. It's fiction.

‘I mean big boo hoo for the economy. It's all make believe anyway.

‘How so?’

‘The powerful do what they want to John. Period.

‘They've being doing it so long nobody even sees it any more. But because the stupids believe fat men on six figures a year know what they're doing. They go along with it. Good god, they even aspire to it.

‘But hey when they've chased their trinkets, conquered the trophy wife, swung their dicks so hard they’ve reached the top, what they find—‘

She flicked the ash off the cigarette she wasn’t smoking any more.

‘What they find is me John. Waiting with their figures in my hands, their depravities in my video vault and a kill switch guarantee. I've got everyone by the balls. And I have the power.

‘I control more companies and more economies than any Roman emperor. Money is meaningless John, control is everything. Even the currencies are a big joke. I mean have you looked at what a Sterling note says?’

‘You mean pay the bearer five pounds?’

‘Yeah but five pounds of what? Think if you took it to the Bank of England they’d do anything but laugh. Money is backed by the stupids' belief in it. That’s all. Think the Bilderbergers use money as anything but a tool? The Chinese?'

'So that's what the clubs are for? Power.'

'Clubs?' she said, and batted her eyes.

'I found more than one Jo.'

Her eyes narrowed, 'How many?'

'Now, now. That would be telling.'

'So tell, if we're partners now?’

‘You finish, please.’

‘The people that come through my club, the people that cross my path, the accounts that I hold for various corporations, gangsters, governments – all just gangs by the way – I make it my goal to control them and manipulate them and outmanoeuvre them at every turn. I want their money, their belief system, to run through my bank, and it is my bank, the board is just for show. '

‘So where’s the pay-off?'

'I don't need to own my own tropical island John, neither will you. I have one that I can use tomorrow and the CEO who owns it will spec it to my liking, same goes for super-yachts and private jets.

‘Yes, I am a banker,’ she finally took a drag on her cigarette. ‘I'm not supposed to take gifts, there are clashes of interest, but if you know what you are doing, and I do, there are always ways around this. Do you know how many meetings you can have aboard a private jet? Or super-yacht? I mean that's just the mundane stuff. Say I want to see the Amazon but I hate roughing it. Can someone build me a highway? Oh, thank you minister, your credit terms have just been renegotiated.'

'That's smart. Jesus. That’s really smart. I see how it works. How this could work, you, and me, together.'

His eyes followed the supple lines of her body.

'It's not about sex John.'

'Damn right it's not.' They stared each other down, heat building like the old days, both knowing the lie. 'So how big is this?'

'About a hundred Fortune 500 companies and about a third of the FTSE are on my books.'

'Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw.'

'It's only going to get bigger too. Do you know how many boards share members? I want all of them going through my books, my clubs, my assassination markets. I'm patient. I don't need quarterly returns and I sure as hell don't live for bonuses. Are you ready for this John? Think you can step up to my league?'

'I'm ready,' he said.

She stared at him long and hard.

'Jones?' Savage said.

'Yes, John,' his voice came from the phone. 'We've got everything we need.'

Jo snarled with rage, then leapt at him across the table. Her hands found his wind pipe and squeezed hard. He fell back off his chair and she came with him, screaming with fury.

'I'll fucking kill you.'

He grabbed the back of her head and threw her against the table. She thudded into the edge and fell to the floor, he leapt on her and grabbed the phone from the table.

In the distance he could hear the sound of the police interceptor boats approaching.

'Why?' she wrestled to get away from him. 'You've ruined everything.'

'Listen you psycho bitch, it's over.'

'It'll be over when you’re dead.'

He disconnected the covert phone call that had been on through their entire conversation.

'Out there,' he said, 'are Police, Interpol, you name it.'

He pointed at the phone. 'In there, you're now locked out of your own markets, and look,' she wrestled beneath him as he scrolled down the list of future hits. 'Your name in green. And you can't take it off the market when you’re in jail now, can you? The price on your head is ten million dollars. Think anyone will take the bet?'

'You're a dead man Savage,' she laughed, 'Ruben, Katrina! Get out here now?'

Savage reached for his sack, realised he didn’t have a gun any more. The patio doors slid open. He heard the click of automatic weapons being made ready.

No time. He turned and dived over the side. He hit the water, bullets flying overhead, and swam down as far as his lungs would take him.

When he surfaced, a fire-fight was going on between the French police, Interpol and the bodyguards. He began the long swim across the harbour to The Brick, the conference centre that played home to the movie festival.

A few minutes later he pulled himself up the quayside ladder between the expensive yachts and the faces of gawping movie execs watching the action movie in their own back yard.

Echo leaned against the convertible Porsche Spyder on the quayside, looking gorgeous as ever. She threw him a towel

'Meeting went well, I hear.'

He cocked a smile at her, 'Better than I could have hoped. Nice wheels.'

'It's all the rental company had left.'

'Yeah, right.'

Savage watched Echo as he dried himself off. She wouldn't catch his eye. Shooting Kevorkian had hurt her. This woman who had accidentally come into his world. She'd only been at Maclays to investigate the people White had been involved with. An investigation into human traffickers had led to brothels, strip clubs, and White's ready cash.

He knew it would take her time to heal. If he helped maybe she'd bounce back stronger.

She moved over to the driver's seat when he shoved in beside her.

'Reservations?' he said.

'La Colombe D'or, mid-day.'

He kissed her full on the lips. 'It's about time we got this holiday started.'

She hit the accelerator and cruised past the movie makers to the beach road and the Cannes traffic. 'You got a message,' she said and threw his phone at him. 'And put some trousers on before we eat, alright?'

He nodded. Checked the message.

Sender: Andre

The girl you shot - her family now have the money you sent.

A dowry good enough for any local princess.

That’s as good as it gets buddy.

You ready to come back to work?

'Not yet,' he said out loud. Echo throttled the car and they cruised along the Cannes sea front towards San Tropez. They passed a waiting gendarme’s patrol car.

‘You remember our journey into St Paul’s?’ she said.

‘Sure.’

'Revenge time,' she said, and floored the accelerator.

When Savage saw flashing lights in the rear view mirror he grabbed hold of a handle and couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

*

At the same time, somewhere in the Middle East, a man fired up a computer and navigated to a hidden page on the site of a bank called Ocura International. He logged in. Columns of reds and greens appeared on screen.

The market was busier than it had ever been. An announcement at the top of the board, told him hackers had now taken it over.

Dark Market would remain live but in the public domain.

That meant anyone could place a bet, anyone could make it happen, anyone could be a target.

So be it, he thought, competition is healthy.

He clicked 'new'.

The market asked for a name and then a price.