The Zero Hour by Joseph Finder Read Free Book Online Page A

kilometers outside of Geneva, Switzerland, at a few minutes before noon, a late-model, cobalt-blue Rolls-Royce limousine pulled off a small, tree-shaded road not far from Lac Léman and came to a halt at a high wrought-iron gate. Embedded in a stone pillar before the gate was a keypad and speaker. The driver punched in several numbers, and when a voice came over the intercom he identified himself. The iron gate swung slowly inward, and the limousine maneuvered along a macadam-paved access road, through a narrow allée of apple trees that went on as far as the eye could see. At once, the magnificent grounds of an enormous, secluded estate came into view.
    The vehicle’s sole passenger was Baumann, dressed impeccably, yet casually, in a tweedy sport coat of black-and-white Prince of Wales plaid over a navy-blue crewneck sweater and white shirt. He had shaved off his beard, and his dark wavy hair was combed straight back, which gave him the appearance of a prosperous young Genevois banker on holiday. He seemed quite relaxed.
    Late the previous evening he had been flown into a small, unmarked airstrip outside Geneva. He had journeyed from Cape Town without having legally crossed a single national border—and, therefore, without a trace in any computer records anywhere.
    In Geneva he stayed at the Ambassador Hotel, on the Quai des Bergues on the Rive Droite, overlooking the crystal-clear waters of the Rhône and the Pont de la Machine. A suite had already been reserved for him, in the name of a British merchant banker, whose passport he was also given. As soon as he had entered the room, he had jerry-rigged the door to ensure that no one could enter uninvited without enormous commotion. Then he took a long hot shower, and passed out. Late in the morning he was awakened by a call from the concierge, who told him his car was waiting.
    Now, languidly staring out the window of the Rolls, he took in the manicured grounds. Hundreds of perfectly trimmed golden yew hedges stretched before him. The grounds, which seemed to go on forever, occupied some fifty acres of prime Lac Léman real estate.
    From this distance, he could just make out the thirteenth-century castle that belonged to his host. The castle (restored and renovated most recently in the late 1980s) was said to have once been the home of Napoleon III.
    The present owner and occupant of this enormous estate, another sort of Napoleon entirely, was a man named Malcolm Dyson, an American expatriate financier, a billionaire, about whom the world knew very little.
    In the last few months, however, Baumann had steadily put together a sketchy portrait of the legendary, reclusive Malcolm Dyson. The confines of Pollsmoor Prison had given him unlimited time for his research, and the prison library had yielded a small amount of public-record information. But the best network of resources by far had been the prison’s inmates, the petty crooks, the smugglers, the shady dealers.
    The American newspapers had christened Malcolm Dyson the “fugitive financier,” a phrase now fastened to his name like a Homeric epithet. He had made a fortune on Wall Street, in bonds and commodities and by playing the stock market brilliantly. In the mid-1980s, Malcolm Dyson was one of Wall Street’s most glittering tycoons.
    Then, in 1987, he had been arrested for insider trading, and his vast corporate empire had come tumbling down. All of his U.S. assets had been confiscated.
    After his trial, and before he was slated to be sent off to prison, he fled to Switzerland, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. He and his late wife had lived in Switzerland ever since, rebuilding his empire from the ground up. Now, at seventy-two, Dyson was one of the richest men in the world, controlling assets estimated at several hundred billion dollars. Yet he could never return to the United States, nor travel to any country from which he might be extradited, or he would promptly be thrown in prison for the