The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [88]
Eddie looked round - and to his surprise saw Ankit Jindal striding towards him, a senior uniformed officer right behind. The cops froze, unsure what to do - and Singh immediately took off at a run, barging through the exit.
‘These twats were about to hand me over for some private questioning,’ Eddie growled.
Kit reached him and looked down the corridor, but Singh was gone. ‘Who was that?’
‘One of Khoil’s lot.’
The senior officer glowered at his subordinates, giving them a tongue-lashing in Hindi before holding out his hand to the leader. Reluctantly, the man gave him the banknotes. The officer made a disgusted sound as the three cops filed away. ‘I will deal with them,’ he told Kit. ‘What about this man?’
‘He’s an Interpol matter,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll handle him. Do you have a room available?’
The officer indicated a nearby door, then followed the shamed men down the corridor. Eddie watched them go. ‘What’ll happen to them?’
Kit sighed. ‘A slap on the wrist, probably. Bribery is very common in India - everyone from clerks to politicians has their hand out. We’re starting to make progress, but when you have a billion people who have lived with that system all their lives, it takes time for things to change.’ He opened the door and ushered Eddie into an interview room.
‘So what’re you doing here?’ Eddie asked. He sat, Kit facing him across a small table.
‘Interpol put a red notice - an arrest order - on you. It was too late to stop you flying from New York, so I decided to meet you when you arrived. And it seems I was just in time. What on earth is going on, Eddie?’
Eddie recounted what had happened since he left the Interpol officer in France. ‘So I’m bloody glad you turned up when you did,’ he concluded. ‘Khoil - or his wife, just as likely - probably thought they could torture the Codex’s location out of me. I’d have made it really fucking hard for them, but I’m still happy I didn’t need to.’
Kit leaned back thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been looking into the Khoils. Some very interesting things have turned up.’
‘What kinds of things?’
‘A lot of financial activity. They’ve been buying up land and properties in odd locations and putting enormous amounts of money into the aid organisation they run. It’s all legal, but there seems to be an organised plan behind it all. What that plan is, though, I don’t know.’
‘But it’s made you suspicious.’
Kit smiled slightly. ‘My radar is beeping. There’s nothing connecting the Khoils directly to the thefts carried out by Fernandez’s gang, but we obtained Fernandez’s bank records, and over the past several months various sums of money went in soon after equally large sums went out of the Khoils’ businesses. Minus the percentage you would expect a money launderer to take, of course.’
‘Isn’t that enough to act on?’
‘No, it’s only circumstantial. There’s no paper trail. But I think you were right about their involvement. The difficulty will be proving it. We still haven’t got anything useful from the dead woman in Lyon, only your word that she was working for the Khoils.’
‘Have you questioned them yet?’
‘I didn’t want to tip my hand. Eddie, you have to understand that the Khoils are extremely powerful. I may be a member of Interpol, but we work in conjunction with local law enforcement. No Indian cop would be willing to risk his career by taking action against them unless he’s absolutely certain of his case - and even then, it wouldn’t take much to buy him off, as you just saw.’
‘So,’ said Eddie, ‘where does that leave us? You going to have me shipped back to New York?’
‘Perhaps.’ Kit regarded him silently for a moment . . . then produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs. ‘But not just yet. I really do think that there’s a case against the Khoils - and that if I help you, we’ll not only be able to rescue Nina, but catch them in the act. Kidnapping across international borders is Interpol’s responsibility, and since Nina was taken from the United States the trial would take place there. Pramesh and Vanita would find it a lot harder to buy their way out of trouble in New York.’
Eddie