Storm Front

“Really, Jones?” Storm said, raising an eyebrow. “The Clapper?” Jones offered no reply. “The most futuristic technology the world has never seen, spy satellites that alert you when a world leader farts, databases that could produce Genghis Khan’s first grade report card… And you turn the lights on with the Clapper?”

“The damn automatic sensor kept failing, and there’s only one electrician in the whole CIA with a high enough security clearance to come here and fix it,” Jones explained. “Plus, we like the kitsch value. Sit down.”

Storm took a spot midway down the length of a cherry-top table with enough shine to be used as a shaving mirror. A motor whirred, and a small projector emerged from the middle of the table. Jones waited until the motor ceased, then clicked a button on a remote control, and a 3-D holographic image of an unremarkable middle-aged white man appeared, almost as if floating on the table. Without preamble, Storm’s briefing had begun.

“Dieter Kornblum,” Jones said. “Senior executive vice president for BonnBank, the largest bank in Germany. Forty-six. Married. Two kids. Net worth approximately eighty million, but he doesn’t flaunt it. His investment portfolio is about as daring as a wardrobe full of turtlenecks. Autopsy noted among other things that he double-knotted his shoes.”

“And what misfortune befell him that he required an autopsy?” Storm asked.

Jones slid the remote control to Agent Rodriguez, who resumed the narrative: “Five days ago, Kornblum didn’t show up for work, didn’t answer his cell phone, didn’t answer his e-mail, nothing. This is a man who hadn’t missed a day of work in thirteen years and never went more than two waking hours without checking in with someone. He was Mr. Responsible, so his people were concerned right away. When it was discovered his kids didn’t show up at school and his wife had missed a hair appointment, the Nordrhein-Westfalen Landespolizei were dispatched to his home in Bad Godesberg. They found this.”

Another projector emerged from the ceiling. Crime scene photographs started flashing up on a screen on the far wall. It was all Storm could do not to avert his eyes. The children, both in their early teens, had been killed in their beds, apparently in their sleep. Powder burns around their entry wounds suggested point-blank shots. Their pillows were blood-soaked.

The wife’s body was found in the master bedroom. She had made it out of bed, but not very far, as if she had gotten up to investigate a noise and met her end quickly thereafter. Her body was faceup perhaps five feet away from the bed. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. There were two crisp bullet holes in her forehead. Whatever bloodstains she’d left behind were hidden by the dark carpet on which she had fallen.

Kornblum was in a different room, one that appeared to be an office. He had been tied to a chair. His head was tilted back at an unnatural angle. Blood and brain matter were splattered on the wall behind him. There was no visible entry wound, but Storm figured it out: The killer had stuck the gun in the banker’s mouth.

“Awful,” Storm said. “And I assume Kornblum was tortured?”

“Correct,” Rodriguez said. “All the fingernails on Kornblum’s right hand were missing. So was the back of his skull, for whatever that’s worth.”

“Do we know what he was being tortured for?”

“Negative,” Rodriguez said. “There was no sign of any robbery. None of his papers or files were disturbed. The local authorities were quite baffled. A home invasion crew usually at least goes for jewelry, if nothing else. They assumed Kornblum had screwed someone over in a business deal and this was some kind of revenge hit.”

“What do we know about the assailants?”

“Crime scene techs found six distinct footprints in and around the house that they believe belonged to the intruders,” Rodriguez said as pictures of boot treads flashed up on the screen. “There were no fingerprints, naturally. No hairs. No fibers. At least not anything useful that’s come back so far. No surveillance cameras. No witnesses. The Kornblums lived in a large house that couldn’t be seen from the road and was separated by some distance from their neighbors.”

“Didn’t they have any security system?” Storm asked. “Yeah, but Dieter didn’t put any money into it, so it was Romper Room stuff. The driveway was gated, but a two-year-old with tweezers could have hot-wired it. There were alarms on the doors and windows, but they were pretty easily defeated, too. The central monitoring was never tripped. It was a clean job.”

“So nothing from the scene?”

“Nope.”

“What about at work?”