3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

“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 greed and poverty and plundering. And this TV bullshit.”

CNN was on, the international business briefs, which seemed appropriate. Gerd’s eyes bulged as he watched the intruder kneel down next to him, at the same time hearing the TV voice announce how the Brazilian real was under pressure again.

“What are you doing?” Gerd gasped. His eyes bugged out.

“I’m going to do what a thousand pregnant mothers with AIDS would like to do to you, Herr Doctor.”

“Please,” Gerd begged. “Please… you are making some kind of serious mistake.”

The intruder smiled. He took a look at the supplies on the bed. “Ah, I see you like fishing. I can work with that.”

Chapter 45

I GOT IN TO THE OFFICE at seven-thirty the following morning and was surprised to find Deputy Director Molinari on the phone behind my desk. Something had happened.

He signaled for me to close the door. From what I could make out, he was talking with his office back East, getting briefed on a case. He had a stack of folders in his lap and he jotted down the occasional note. I could make out a couple: 9mm and Itinerary.

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked when he hung up.

He motioned for me to sit down. “There’s been a killing in Portland. A Swiss national was shot in his hotel room. An economist. He was preparing to leave for Vancouver this morning on a fishing excursion.”

Not to sound blasé, but we already had two national-security murder cases and the leaders of the Free World were eyeballing our every move. “I’m sorry,” I said, “this relates to us, how?”

Molinari flipped open one of the folders he was holding, which turned out to be a set of crime photos he’d already had faxed from the scene. They showed a corpse in what looked to be a fishing vest with two bullet holes. His shirt was ripped open and his bare chest seemed to have had some letters scratched on it, MAI.

“The victim was an economist, Lieutenant,” Molinari said, “for the OECD.” He looked at me and smiled tightly. “That makes it clear.”

As I sat down, my stomach sank. Immediately clear. Murder number three. I studied the crime shots more closely. Shots to the chest and a coup de grâce to the forehead. A large fisherman’s hook in an evidence bag. The letters scratched into the victim’s chest. MAI. “These letters mean anything to you?”

“Yeah,” Molinari said, nodding. He got up. “I’ll tell you about it on the plane.”

Chapter 46

THE “PLANE” Molinari had arranged for us was a Gulfstream G-3 with a red, white, and blue crest on the fuselage and the words GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. The deputy director was definitely up there on the food chain.

It was my first time climbing aboard a private jet in the private section of SFI. As the doors closed behind us and the engines started up as soon as we hit our seats, I couldn’t deny a thrill shooting through me. “This is definitely the way to travel,” I said to Molinari. He didn’t disagree with me.

The flight up to Portland was a little over an hour. Molinari was on the phone for the first few minutes. When he got off, I wanted to talk.

I laid out the crime photos. “You were going to tell me what this meant. MAI?”

“The MAI was a secret trade agreement,” he explained, “negotiated a few years back by the wealthy countries of the WTO. It extended to large corporations rights that sometimes superseded those of governments. Some people think it created an open hunting season on smaller economies. It was defeated in 1998 by a worldwide grass-roots campaign, but I’m told the OECD, which Propp worked for, was redrafting it and testing the waters again. Any ideas where?”

“The G-8 meeting next week?”

“Yeah… By the way”—he opened his briefcase—“I think you might get some use out of these.” He handed me folders that turned out to be the intel jackets from Seattle I had requested. Each was stamped CONFIDENTIAL, PROPERTY OF THE FBI.