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  It was at the bank that Diana met Gordon. He started as a commercial lender a few months after Diana and stayed for a little more than a year. He left when he got a better offer from the Canadian Bank of Commerce. He never had that much to do with Diana when they were working together: just the requisite good mornings and good nights and the occasional conversation in the lunchroom over morning coffee. Then at the office goodbye-cake event, he surprised her by asking her out.

  On their first date, he took her to a Japanese restaurant in the west end. They had to take their shoes off and sit in a little hut with a fake grass roof. Gordon made a joke about how he should have been more careful choosing his socks. The food came with chopsticks, which neither of them could manage. They had a good laugh watching each other raise morsels of food to their mouths only to fumble it at the crucial moment. In the end, they ate the big chunks with their fingers just to get something to eat.

  Diana was still living in Pointe Claire then, and on the way home, they stopped in Lachine to look at the water. Lake St. Louie was heavily polluted in those days, but it was still beautiful at night with the moonlight dancing on the water. They didn’t sleep together until their second date, and on that occasion, their lovemaking was awkward. Gordon was a big man, tall and somewhat overweight. They made love the first time at Diana’s apartment in Point Claire near the lakeshore. It started with kissing in the living room and gradually moved to the bedroom where they started to undress. It was a small room, and very close quarters with both of them in it. Gordon seemed to take up all the space by himself.

  While trying to pull her top over her head, he accidentally clipped her in the jaw with his elbow. The blow stunned her and sent her toppling backward onto the bed. Her lower lip felt like pins and needles and she tasted a little dribble of blood. Gordon apologized profusely. Diana realized it was accidental, but still, it put a chill on the moment. They completed the act, but by that time, it was really just to get it over with.

  Their lovemaking improved with familiarity, as did other aspects of their relationship, but it was never passionate with Gordon. It was more a matter of them becoming comfortable with each other in virtually every aspect of their lives. It was easy for them to share. They seemed to agree on everything: they both wanted children, a quiet life in suburbia, a nice house in Beaconsfield or Point Claire, maybe a membership at the country club and an extravagant vacation once in a while. They were great life partners, even if they were never great lovers.

  They dated for almost two years before they got married. It was a simple ceremony with their families and a few friends. They paid for most of the wedding themselves, and their parents kicked in for a short honeymoon in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Diana decided to keep her last name. Gordon’s last name was Doll, and she couldn’t bring herself to go by the name ‘Diana Doll.’ It sounded like a character from a kids’ cartoon show. Gordon protested, but he finally let it go when Diana promised their kids would have ‘Doll’ as their family name.

  They put a down payment on a small bungalow in St. Anne de Bellevue. After a couple of years, Gordon got a promotion and they traded up to a larger house in Pointe Claire with bedrooms and a big yard for the kids. Diana got busy painting and decorating, and she took up gardening. The kids never came, though. At first, they suspected Diana, but after they made the rounds of the doctors, it turned out to be Gordon. They were both devastated by the news, especially Gordon. Diana tried to persuade him to adopt, but he didn’t want to do that.

  One day, Diana came home with a golden retriever puppy. They called him ‘Rolly’ because of his habit of rolling onto his back for tummy rubs. The years drifted by. Diana kept her analyst job at the bank even though she didn’t really need to work. Gordon continued to do well at the bank and the promotions kept coming. He eventually rose to vice president Eastern Canada, one-step down from the senior executive rank. They celebrated with a champagne supper at the Chateau Laurier.

  There were lots of happy times, but it seemed like there was always something missing. They both felt it. Rolly lived for 16 years—almost double the life expectancy for a golden retriever. When he finally gave up the ghost, it was like Diana’s heart had been ripped out of her chest. She called in sick and spent two days on the couch weeping.

  Gordon was also heartbroken. He started spending more time at the golf club. He would often have dinner at the club instead of coming home. He said he was entertaining clients. Then, one night, he didn’t come home at all. He said he had stopped off at the home of one of his golfing buddies after their round. He’d had too much to drink he said, and he didn’t want to risk driving home. She asked him why he didn’t call. He just shrugged and said nothing.

  About a month later at one of Gordon’s company events, Diana picked up a vibe between Gordon and a woman on his staff. It was nothing really: just some eye contact, but Diana knew something was up. She kept an eye on the woman for the rest of the evening. She had long dark hair like Diana used to wear when she and Gordon first met, and she was at least 20 years younger.

  There was dancing after dinner, and towards the end of the evening, the girl came to their table and dragged Gordon onto the dance floor. It was a rock n’ roll number—not the kind of thing Gordon would normally get up for, but he certainly seemed to enjoy dancing to it with this girl. He looked happier than she had seen him in a long time. On the drive home, Diana asked about the girl. He murmured something about her job at the bank and didn’t mention any personal details. He seemed uncomfortable with the question.

  A few months later, Gordon came home from work and said he needed to talk to her about something. He poured a couple of glasses of wine and took them into the living room. They sat across from each other—Gordon on the easy chair and Diana on the couch. She already knew what he was going to say.

  He said he’d met someone and that he was in love with her. He had decided to move out. He was leaving that night—that moment in fact—and he’d be back in the morning to collect his things. He tried to give her a hug when he was leaving, but she wouldn’t let him.

  The following week, Diana got a call from Gordon’s lawyer about a separation agreement. The settlement was fair. She got the house free and clear, and enough money to live on comfortably. She expected divorce proceedings to follow soon after, but she never heard anything from Gordon or his lawyer about a divorce. A year went by and she heard from a mutual friend that things had not worked out for Gordon and the girl from the office. He had left her, and he had also changed jobs. It sounded like the new job was not quite as good as the old one. It was at the VP level, but with a small credit union—not a major bank.

  Then one day, out of the blue, Gordon called her. It had been almost 10 years to the day since they had parted. He made some small talk, asked her how she’d been, and then he told her he wanted a divorce. He said he’d met someone new, and they wanted to marry. Even though she had long expected the call, it still came as a surprise. She told him to go ahead and start the proceeding, and she wished him well. She struggled to keep her voice even when she said goodbye for what she assumed would be the last time. It wasn’t losing Gordon that bothered her. It was the feeling that she had wasted so much of her life on him.

  In all those years after high school, Diana never once thought about Danny Alexander—not until the day his letter arrived from Paris, France.

  Chapter 2: A good Friday?

  —Good Friday—

  Friday, April 14th, 2017

  Bistro on Rue Lagrange, Paris, France.

  —1—

  Danny Alexander was sitting at a table by the front window of a bistro on Rue Lagrange, not too far from Notre Dame Cathedral. The day was unseasonably warm for a Good Friday in Paris. It was more like one of those hot, humid days in mid-summer when the prickly Paris heat makes the clothes stick to your skin. In fact, Danny couldn’t remember another trip he’d taken to Paris at Easter when it had not been raining or threatening to. The bistro was packed with people t
aking a break from work or shopping to get some coffee or a little lunch, and the steady hum of conversation and the clatter of glasses and plates combined to create a kind of background music for the room. The cheerfulness of it seemed entirely inappropriate to Danny considering the very real possibility that he might not live to see the end of the day.

  From where he sat, Danny could clearly see the Café Panis on the other side of the street. That was where he had told Jimmy, a 24-year old drug dealer originally from California, to meet him. He’d called Jimmy fifteen minutes ago and told him to come to the Café Panis at noon, its busiest time of the day. It was 11:55 a.m. now—only five minutes before Jimmy was due to arrive. Looking north from the bistro window, Danny could also see the south tower of Notre Dame Cathedral and Pont au Double, one of the many bridges that crossed the Seine, connecting the left and right banks. If Jimmy walked to the café from his apartment on the right bank, as Danny expected he would, he would see him come over Pont au Double and walk along Rue Lagrange toward the Café Panis. If Jimmy drove his car or took a taxi, Danny would still see him get out of the car and go into the café. Either way, Danny would see him coming.

  Danny was not alone in the bistro as he waited for Jimmy to arrive. He was much too cautious for that. With him was Gustavo, a male prostitute that Danny had picked up that morning in Pigalle. He was sitting on a stool at the end of the bar about 10 paces away from Danny’s table. Gustavo had told him he was Swiss, but from his accent, Danny suspected he was actually of Eastern European origin. Danny looked at him now and gave him a wink. As instructed, Gustavo responded with a lecherous grin and thrust his hand inside his jacket. Danny nodded his approval and turned back to the window to scan the street.

  Had he not taken precautions, like enlisting the aid of his amorous friend at the bar, Danny would have put his chances of surviving his lunch date with Jimmy at about fifty-fifty. Those odds were much too high for Danny’s liking, so he planned the meeting with some unexpected twists to turn the advantage in his favor. Of course, it wasn’t Jimmy that Danny was afraid of. It was Jimmy’s boss, Tommy Hill, and his nasty friends from south London that worried Danny. He knew Tommy would blame him for the money that had been lost while in his care. What he didn’t know was what Tommy intended to do about it. Would he be willing to give Danny some time to get the money back, or would he just kill him outright to save face and set an example? Danny’s elaborate plan for his meeting with Jimmy was all designed to give him the answer to that question.

  —2—

  As Danny sat waiting for Jimmy to show, his mind drifted back through the years and circumstances that had conspired to bring him to this place and this moment. For the last decade, Danny had been running a lucrative business catering to a small, but extremely wealthy clientele. His customers were members of organized crime syndicates based mostly in the U.K and Western Europe. They were involved in illegal activities that generated huge profits, most of it in cash. The service Danny provided was to convert the mountains of cash generated from illegal activities into funds that appeared to have come from legitimate sources. It was not something Danny had set out to do; it was something he had just kind of drifted into accidently.

  Towards the end of his last year of high school, there had been some family trouble involving Danny’s mother, and his relationship with his stepfather had become severely strained. He left home at the end of that summer and went to Boston College on a football scholarship. He made the team as a second-string running back in his freshman year, but a knee injury during his third game ended his season. The following winter, he went through re-hab, but he was never able to get back to his previous form. He lost the athletic scholarship, but he managed to stay in school with a small academic bursary and by working part-time jobs. He earned a business degree with a major in finance and a minor in computer systems.

  After graduation, Danny bounced around for a while before landing in the banking industry as an analyst specializing in international finance. He quickly learned the ins and outs of moving large sums of money between financial institutions and across international boundaries. He also learned how to leverage his formidable computer skills to transfer money, snoop for useful information and cover his tracks when necessary. It all came easily to Danny, and he quickly grew bored with it. Moving up the corporate ladder was difficult without the right contacts. He was good at his job, but that didn’t seem to count for much in the world of corporate banking. After a decade with no significant promotions, Danny was ripe for something new and different in his life.

  That’s when Peter showed up, and Danny had his first brush with organized crime. It started out innocently enough: Danny met Peter at a party thrown by a friend. Danny was sitting on the couch in the living room when Peter, who had been drinking steadily for hours, lurched into the room and installed his tall, lanky frame in an adjacent chair. Peter was a little sensitive about his last name, and he made a joke about it during the introductions.

  “The name’s Peter…,” he said. “Peter Roach. You’ve probably heard about my chain of economy hotels… the Roach Hotels?”

  Peter was about the same age as Danny and moved in the same circles. He began bumping into him now and then at parties and bars around Boston. Peter appeared to be a young business professional like himself, except that he had a lot more money than Danny did. He wore expensive clothes, drove a vintage Mercedes Roadster and threw money around like it was water.

  The first deal Danny did for Peter seemed more like a favour between friends than a felony offence. Peter called him at work one day and said he was in the neighborhood. He asked Danny if he wanted to stop by a local bar on the way home, and Danny took him up on the offer. They talked sports, women, the usual, and then about 40 minutes into the conversation, Peter started telling him about a client of his who was having problems transferring some money states side from an Eastern Bloc country. There would be a commission in it for Danny if he could help. The problem didn’t sound all that difficult, and it wasn’t. Danny was able to move the money discreetly, and he earned a tidy profit for a few hours work. Other deals followed. Peter contacted him once every month or so to do a discreet transfer, usually from an off-shore account.

  They always met at the same bar, the Eire Pub on Adams Street, and the meetings always went the same way. Peter would arrive about 15 minutes late, and when he finally showed up, he’d order a drink from the bar on his way to Danny’s table. He’d sit kitty-corner to Danny and start talking about something inconsequential, like a trip he’d just taken or some girl he’d shagged. While he talked, he scanned the room looking for anything out of the ordinary; he barely made eye contact during the first part of the meeting. Then, when he felt comfortable, he’d suddenly fix Danny with a stare and in a lowered voice, he’d give Danny the details about what he wanted done. Danny had to memorize the information. Nothing was ever written down. Then, Peter would leave abruptly, usually without finishing his drink.

  About a year after his arrangement with Peter began, he and Danny had quite a different meeting. When Danny arrived at the bar, Peter was already there, and he wasn’t alone. There was another man with him. He was slender with thinning hair and an expensive suit. He spoke with an English accent, although he didn’t talk much during that first meeting. After the introductions, Peter did most of the talking. The other man, George Abramson, just sat there sipping his drink and watching Danny. When Peter finally finished explaining the deal, George suddenly spoke up.

  “...Oh, and there’ll be something extra for this one mate: A job, working for me at Bartletts Bank in London. All expenses paid.”

  Within a month Danny had made the move to London, and was working in a well-paid job, strategically placed in International Finance. Of course, it was understood that doing financial chores for George’s mob contacts was part of the job. George would drop by his office or call him to go for coffee when something came up. As with Peter, everything was done by word of mouth—nothing was e
ver written down.

  The arrangement with George at Bartletts continued more or less without change for five years. But as Danny got to know some of George’s contacts better, they began coming to him directly. As time went on, Danny began to see a future where he could quit Bartletts and live a comfortable life with very little work as an independent financial consultant for the mob. It was not the career he had envisioned for himself when he started out, but once he started down that path, it was hard to turn back. No one ever spelled it out for him, but Danny knew he couldn’t just walk away. Criminal organizations did not take kindly to quitters, especially ones who knew their business.

  Even so, he had begun planning an exit strategy almost from the day he had quit Bartletts and gone out on his own. He had bank accounts in different names all over the world. Sometimes, he used them to move money for the mob, but he also maintained balances in some of them, so he could access cash abroad in case he needed to leave the country on short notice. He also kept two packed suitcases in his flat at all times. One contained clothes and other necessities for a two-week trip and an unloaded gun stored in a special, hard-sided container. The storage container for the gun had been custom-made for him. It satisfied all the requirements for transporting firearms in checked luggage on commercial airliners, and it was designed to look like a jewelry case to avoid attracting unwanted attention from border guards or anyone else who might be curious. The other suitcase contained cash in several different currencies, pre-paid credit cards, gift cards and sets of identification documents like passports and driver’s licenses under different names. It also contained an eight-Gig memory stick that Danny updated regularly containing the details of transactions Danny had conducted for the mob going back more than a decade.