Once in Abuja, the Rover went straight to the aeroport.  Lucky instructed the guards to find something Binky could wear.  Her first thought was to bring a tailor but she thought better of it.  Observing how battered he was and remembering how battered he was, Lucky told them to find a kaftan to cover him.  She then verified that Binky had the brains to have a passport on him, ideally one showing German citizenship.  Voila, Binky did have one.  Instead of Dalrymple, his German name was Vogel.  

Lucky felt somewhat better when her guys returned with a kaftan that fit Binky.   They had shown initiative.  The garment was cut and then hemmed to accommodate Binky’s diminutive stature. 

As it happened, Lucky, Binky, and I had to take a first-class Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt.  The ticket called for us to continue to Zurich, but Lucky opted to deplane at Frankfurt.  

Somehow a Chinese driver arrived and he drove us straight to Stuttgart.  The driver took us to the Zauberlehrling.  She told her driver to take Binky to a safe house, and then return with him tomorrow morning at 10.  As soon as we settled into our room, Lucky bathed.  She emerged in her birthday suit, but soon put on her comfortable casual clothing.  She limited her arms to a Spyderco knife and a Walther PPQ M2 that the driver gave her.  She shoved another Walther into a pillowcase on the bottom side of the pillow and restored it to the well-made bed.  Off we went.

A taxi took us to Hupperts restaurant.  Ordering in impeccable German, I soon had a portion of fresh halibut placed in a bowl at the right of her foot.  They had poured cream into a separate bowl for me to drink and the halibut had a marvellous butter sauce on it.  Meanwhile, Lucky had begun to tuck into her food.  A beautiful selection of bread arrived.  She had a creme of celery soup, and a succulent duck with a portion of spaetzle.  For dessert, she had what appeared to be a Buche de Noel, but didn’t offer me any.

Perhaps halfway through our meal, a guy approached the table.  In Mandarin, which is never easy for me to follow, he told Lucky that her “friend from England” would meet us at a bank in Zurich.  They planned to meet at Pictet & Cie’s Zurich office.

After dinner, we returned to our room at the Zauberlehrling. Lucy got the PPQ from under her pillow and put it on the nightstand next to her.  She put the other PPQ on the nightstand on the other side of the bed.  For reasons I don’t know, she left the Spyderco in a sheath attached to her right calf.  Her work makes her cautious.  We went to sleep. 

When we woke, Lucky made a call.  Within an hour, a driver arrived with Binky in tow.  Binky was now wearing a blue triple-piece blue suit.  It didn’t fit well, but it looked less ridiculous than the kaftan.  Binky still had a bruised, swollen face.  He wasn’t too agile either.  Lucky had ordered us a room-service breakfast. She got a soft-boiled egg with toast.  I had an order of ham that Lucky carved into bite-sized pieces with her Spyderco.  When she finished her cutting, she walked over to Binky and proceeded to wipe the grease from the knife with Binky’s hair.  

Binky asked, “What am I getting to eat?”

Lucky scrunched her face up. “You?  You’re fat enough without breakfast.”

The driver carried Lucky’s possession to the car.  Binky was in her grasp.  I was allowed to walk along with them. The car was a stretched Audi.  I noticed it had diplomatic plates.  Before we got in, Lucky told Binky it would be a 3-hour drive from Stuttgart to Zurich.  Then she asked, “Can you hold it, or must I ask the driver to diaper you? If you pee in my car, I’ll promise to cut your wee-wee off.”  Binky assured her he had excellent bladder control.  

The car was soon heading south towards Zurich.  

Pictet and Cie is an ancient family of thieves that thrived in Zurich.  My guess is that they have always had the morals of hyenas, but their offices are handsome to behold. You can feel the luxury.  Everything about the Pictet’s digs screamed wealth and we weren’t even in its HQ in Geneva.  The office had tasteful rooms with decent art, lots of pricey wood, and modern, but not too modern, furniture. 

Lucky, Binky, and I walked into a room with a Pictet flunky.  In the room sat Lord Caligula in immaculate dress.  His suit was black silk with a red kerchief and a gold silk tie.  He had a Roger Smith watch on his wrist.  With him sat Jerome Quisling. Quisling was a legend as the greatest cryptologist and an applied mathematician.  He had done his bachelor in mathematics at Cambridge. He took a Ph.D. in maths from Stanford, but also took courses in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.  Over the years of his meteoric rise, he had built an impressive portfolio of clients whose specialties were mega crimes.  Mr Quisling also added rogue regimes.

  During an interview with Bloomberg TV, a reporter had the cheek to ask Quisling why so many of his clients were criminals and corrupt dictators. Grinning, he volunteered, “They all pay rather better than American presidents or EU ministers.  Besides, Putin has a sly sense of humour, as does Emperor Xi.  But you’re old enough to be past age to prefer moralising to money.  Why not ask me questions that are worthy of my intelligence, and even yours?”   

Quisling’s presence meant Lord Caligula and Lucky needed somebody at ease with code and numbers to deal with Binky’s books. It also meant they had stopped trusting Binky.

Lucky sat down opposite Lord Caligula.  “You’re looking fit Cliggy.  Being away from Constance suits you.”  

“Constance is near.  I’m rather surprised you two didn’t meet in Nigeria.  It was almost as if you avoided her.  But I know how scary she is to some.”

“Oh, I thought we missed each other because she was getting slow as the years roll by.  I even worried she might be convalescing from all her recent doings.”

“Not at all.  I left her in Geneva to swim.”

During this period, Binky had provided requested information to a Pictet stooge.  He returned with a folder that he handed to Binky,  A young woman brought Binky a cucumber sandwich and tea.  She asked if anybody else wanted anything.  Lucky accepted an offer of tea. She had some smoked salmon brought to me and asked that it have a side of fondue to accompany it.  When she returned, I was shocked when Binky shamelessly attempted to help himself to some of my fondue.  As he reached in, he earned a sharp, loud slap from Lucky.  “It’s for Crockett, pig. Leave it be.”  

“Are you hungry, Mr Dalrymple?” asked Lord Caligula.

Lucky stared at Lord Caligula.  “Look at Mr Vogel.  He’s obviously not hungry.  Perhaps you’re confusing him with Mr Dalrymple.  He too has an unregulated appetite.”

“Indeed he did.  Irascible Lawless complained about it to me after a mutual visit. Still, Mr Vogel looks almost as hungry as Mr D sometimes does.  But one must not overeat.  The cucumber sandwich is plenty.”

Meanwhile, Constance was enjoying a swim in the well-regulated waters of Lake Geneva.  She had removed her skimpy garments at the water’s edge and slid into the lake’s chilly waters.  She later told Lord Caligula, who later still told me, that swimming is risky for her.  It excited her appetite. She considered eating one of her junior fellow bathers, but she remembered what sticklers the Swiss were for law and order.  Unlike the Somalians, if you ate so much as one luscious teen girl, you’d have untold numbers of Swiss cops trying to catch you. The same if you ate a boy.  The Somalians tended to be too busy killing one another to let a single devoured teen get in the way of killing one another in numbers.  So, she regained the shore hungry, let the sun dry her, and then put her skimpy clothing back on her sleek bod.

None of this interfered with Mr Quisling’s work in Zurich.  His fingers sailed over his laptop making calculations and notes.  From time to time, he scribbled notes with his Japanese maki-e fountain pen.  I liked looking at the cranes on it.  Sets of equations would appear  as Quisling’s maki-e flowed across sheaves of quality paper.  At key moments, his brow would furrow.  He would then use a pencil to create and write undiscovered math truths when he was using yellow legal pads. On and on he churned.  I got to eat and sleep as he worked.

I was awakened when Wolverine and Peregrine entered the room.  As soon as Peregrine sat down, he prodded me with his boot’s tip.   Wolverine laughed.  He said something to Quisling.  Quisling handed Wolverine a number of his sheafs.  Wolverine passed these to Peregrine. “I’m a classicist,” he said.

Whatever his moral failings, Peregrine was numerate.  After an hour, he set down the sheaves and asked Mr Quisling a series of questions that I didn’t understand.  Peregrine asked a direct question.

“So, we are able to identify the buyers of Ice-10 and Mr Cleans with certainty.  Nevertheless, am I correct that the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, Pakistan, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Lithuania, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and an uncertain number of buyers that are nations or private parties have spent in excess of a trillion dollars on Ice-10 and killer bots?”  

Quisling nodded.  After he cleared his throat, he added, “Mr Vogel or Dalrymple or what his name is today has created a lattice of companies for collecting and laundering funds.   Munitions Galore is the chief beneficiary, along with. you, Lord Caligula, and Wolverine.  I won’t be able to know more about the identities until we collect more account information at Julius Baer Group where Mr Vogel has yet another safe deposit box.  Also, as you all suspected, Binky has been rather generous with his cuts .” I noticed Binky squirm at this revelation. Lucky put on finger at the perpendicular on her lips. With her other hand, she drew a finger across her throat. Binky shut up.

Quisling continued, “I will meet you at BCEE bank in Luxembourg. I’ll be at Le royal.”

We were leaving when I saw Lucky place her hand on Binky’s shoulder.  As we left the room, two Chinese gentlemen approached, both of them powerfully built.  Lucky handed over Binky, saying “Be sure to bring him to me with a car tomorrow.  We’ll be going west in the morning.”