3rd Degree - James Patterson [33]
“Deputy director.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Oh… the man’s done well.” Jill nodded approvingly. “I did say he was handsome, didn’t I?” She grinned again. We both laughed.
After a while, I took Jill’s hand. “I’m sorry I did what I did, Jill. It would kill me if I added to what you’re going through. I can’t promise to stay out, at least not completely. You’re our friend, Jill, and we’re worried sick for you. But I’ll give you my word… I won’t put a hit out on him. Not without running it by you first.”
“Deal.” Jill nodded. She squeezed my hand. “I know you’re worried for me, Lindsay. And, really, I love you for it. Just let me see it through my way. And leave the cuffs at home next time.”
“Deal.” I smiled.
Chapter 44
FOR A SWISS, Gerd Propp had acquired a lot of American tastes and habits. One of them was going after salmon. In his room at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Gerd excitedly laid out on the double bed the new Ex Officio fishing vest he had just acquired, along with some hi-tech lures and a gaff hook.
His job, as an economist with the OECD out of Geneva, might be thought by some as stiff and tedious work, but it did bring him to the States several times a year and had introduced him to men who shared the same passion for coho and chinook.
And that was where Gerd was headed tomorrow, under the guise of finalizing his speech before the G-8 gathering in San Francisco next week.
He put his arms through the brand-new fishing vest and regarded himself in the mirror. I actually look like a professional! As he adjusted his hat and puffed out his chest in his fancy vest, Gerd felt as energized and manly as a leading man in a Hollywood film.
There was a knock on the door. The valet, he assumed, since he had left word at the front desk to bring up a press for his suit.
When he opened the door, he was surprised to see a young man not in a hotel uniform at all but in a black fleece jacket and a cap hiding part of his face.
“Herr Propp?” the young man asked.
“Yes?” Gerd pushed his glasses up on his nose. “What is it?”
Before he could utter another word, Gerd saw an arm shoot toward him. It caught him in the throat, knocking the air out of him. Then he was shoved back onto the floor, landing hard.
Gerd tried to shake his head clear. His glasses were no longer on his face. He felt the ooze of blood running from his nose. “My God, what is going on?”
The young man stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. All of a sudden there was a dark metallic object in his hand. Gerd froze. His eyes were not too good, but there was no mistake. The intruder was holding a gun.
“You’re Gerhard Propp?” the young man asked. “Chief economist of the OECD in Geneva? Don’t try to deny it.”
“Yes,” Gerd muttered. “By what right do you barge in here and—”
“By the right of a hundred thousand children who die annually in Ethiopia,” the man interrupted, “from diseases that could easily be prevented, if their debt repayments weren’t six times their national health care coverage.”
“Wh-what?” Gerd stammered.
“By the right of AIDS patients in Tanzania,” the man went on, “who the government lets rot because they’re too busy repaying the debt you and your well-heeled bastards have swamped them with.”
“I’m just an economist,” Gerd said. What did this man think he did?
“You are Gerhard Propp. Chief economist of the OECD, whose mission is to advance the rate by which the economically advantaged nations of the world expropriate the resources of the economically weak in order to convert them into the garbage of the rich.” He took a pillow off the bed. “You are the architect of the MAI.”
“You’ve got it completely wrong,” Gerd said, panicked. “The agreements have brought these backward countries into the modern world. They have created jobs and an export market for nations that could have never hoped to compete.”
“No, you are wrong!” the young man shouted at the top of his voice. He walked over and switched on the TV. “All it has brought is