Eric van Lustbader - Nicholas Linnear 05, page 50
The second clue was provided back in Washington.
“What was this three-hundred-thousand-dollar expenditure for?” Vesper asked the Pentagon investigator who was part of the team taking apart Dedalus’s books for Looking-Glass.
“It seems Dedalus hired an outside firm to do the vetting of his staff for about eighteen months.”
“Isn’t that odd?”
“Not really. Budget shortfalls mean periodic layoffs of nonessential personnel. During this period Dedalus let his vetting staff go along with some bean counters and secretaries.”
“What was the name of the firm Dedalus hired?”
“Let’s see.” The investigator began leafing through pages of files. “Here it is. A company called National Security Services.”
Vesper went to her computer, pulled up NSS from the data banks. Nothing seemed out of place until she noticed that NSS was a wholly owned subsidiary of some entity called VEU. She switched screens, did a global search for VEU.
When she found it, her heart skipped a beat. She sat staring at the screen for some tune allowing the message to sink in. VEU stood for Volto Enterprises Unlimited. Volto. Larva. The ghost in white… or black.
Tumblers began clicking into place in her mind, but the implications were so terrifying that for a moment she sat, paralyzed, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. All she could think of was the immortal Hydra with its hundred heads. Lop off one or two and another would take its place. Could it be that they had all been wrong about Dedalus, that he wasn’t the ultimate head of the Godaishu in America but was taking orders from someone else?
She found VEU’s corporate address, which was in West Palm Beach, Florida, but she could not bring up the names of any of its officers. Her mind alight with fear, she switched screens again. Her fingers were like ice as they pressed keys faster and faster until… there it was, her worst fear confirmed, the address of the corporate headquarters of VEU was the same as that of an enormous white stucco mansion overlooking the ocean owned by a shell corporation. This corporation, based in the Bahamas, had no tangible business nor, at the end of each fiscal year, any profits to declare. And yet the FBI believed that millions of dollars flowed through its offshore bank accounts.
The man who used that mansion in winter months, who it was believed controlled the shell corporation, was Caesare Leonforte.
Vesper sat back, breathless. If she was right, Bad Clams’s company had vetted Leon Waxman. No wonder they hadn’t discovered that he was Bad Clams’s father, Johnny. No wonder Johnny Leonforte had been welcomed as the new head of Looking-Glass. His son had masterminded it. And that meant Bad Clams had controlled Dedalus; he owned Morgana, Malory Enterprises, and Avalon Ltd. He was Larva, the ghost, the black volto hiding his identity. All along they had been fighting the Hydra.
So it’s not over, Vesper thought. It’s just beginning.
Floating City, Eric van Lustbader - Nicholas Linnear 05
