The Swiss Suitcase (LSD, #1)

4. Harlem Shuffle

Harlem Shuffle

It's nice to have a good time with a friend, drinking coffee, enjoying yourself, dressing up and telling stories, but we have to find a suitcase, worth 100 million, and the banker who paid for it.

While Rostov puts on his new shoes, I summarise what we know so far: "After everything you've told me, the situation looks quite simple: the number of people involved is limited. First, there is you and me. We don't count. The next one is Mister Nikolai. Then there are the four other guests at the dinner: the Englishman, the Frenchman, Mister Camponelli and Katja. We know that the KGB and the CIA are involved, and finally, there is the M.U.S.S., the Mysterious Unknown Secret Service that placed that other detection bug in the pocket of your shirt. Do I miss anyone? Did you tell anybody else about your trip to Switzerland?"

Rostov thinks for a few seconds and says: "All I did was book a flight to Geneva. I didn't even know that we were going to this hotel. When we left the airport, there was a chauffeur with a sign «Guests of Mr Camponelli» and he brought us here. As Mister Nikolai's secretary, I'm sure there weren't any emails or letters about this meeting. I can only imagine that Mister Nikolai and Mister Camponelli met in person or spoke on the phone to arrange all this."

"That shows the leak: the KGB tapped Mister Nikolai's phone, while the CIA and the MUSS tapped the phone of Mister Camponelli. The KGB knows who they're following. The other two don't. Their tracking devices will do the job. The first question is: why did they bug you?"

"That's easy: I made the reservations and I called the office of Mister Camponelli to inform them about the time of our arrival. I didn't mention any names, just referred to the date and time of the meeting, using the words «we» and «us». Mister Nikolai instructed me to do so."

"And you used your own mobile phone to make the calls, right?"

Rostov nods.

I explain: "If you tap somebody's phone, it's easy to see which numbers called him. With that information, you can track the location of the mobile phone, find out where the owner lives, break into his house and plant a bug which will avoid you losing your target when he separates from his phone or turns it off. The CIA probably has more than one agent in Moscow who can take care of a job like that. The MUSS, however, might not have those resources, so they waited for you at the airport or in the hotel's lobby to bump into you and slip a tracker into your pocket."

"I can't remember anyone bumping into me, but the rest of your theory sounds logical. You said that the bug in my shoe had been there quite some time. I arranged the meeting two weeks ago. Is that «quite some time ago»?"

"I didn't smell the glue they used to put the heel back in its place after placing the bug. Two weeks would probably be enough time for that. Perhaps one week; the Swiss cheese smell of your feet chases everything else away.

» But let's focus on our suspects. Finding Mister Nikolai is important, but we don't have any clue where to start and we've already put two KGB bloodhounds on his trail. For the moment, we don't concentrate on him. The first item on our priority list is to find the suitcase. All three of the involved secret services are interested in the suitcase because of the documents it contains. We know the KGB has neither the suitcase nor Mister Nikolai. If the CIA has both, they would be gone by now. That's something we can find out. The MUSS will be more difficult to find.

» The people who were present at the dinner are probably just interested in the value the suitcase represents. The Frenchman seems okay: you don't sell something to steal it back again. With 100 million in his pocket, he should be satisfied, but some people never have enough; it would be a nice trick to steal the suitcase back and sell it again to another buyer. We won't cross off his name, but he's not the highest priority on our list either.