Ark Storm (28 page)

Inside her usual capacious bag was a present for Dr. Messenger, a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, and the usual assortment of female paraphernalia: a hair brush, a packet of tissues, a lipstick, a packet of Advil, a tube of Life Savers, a small bottle of scent, and a bottle of water. Nestling alongside this, concealed in a makeup bag bought specially for the purpose, was one GSM bug, one store-and-forward recorder, a pot of dental paste, a palette knife, a chopstick and a saucer, carefully wrapped in a hand towel, and three screwdrivers. Not easily explained away if Mandy, Mel, or Atalanta tried to raid her makeup bag, she thought wryly.

She drove down Seventeen Mile Drive, past the turnoff to Dan’s house, on to Messenger’s. She pulled up outside a monumental iron gate.

There was an intercom system and a CCTV camera angled down on her. She pushed a button, but before she could speak, a voice came back at her.

“Come on in, Gwen.”

Randy Sieber. On home security detail today. Did the guy not get a day off?

The gate swung open silently. Gwen arced the Mustang down a tree-lined drive, parking in a large turning circle.

She deemed it unnecessary to lock her car. She got out, eyed the house that stood before her.

Built of timber and glass, all hard planes and angles, it was a monument to minimalism. But not to brutalism. There was something beautiful in its angularity. It stood gazing out to sea, planted defiantly on the land, almost challenging the elements, it felt to Gwen. Would the steel repel the water that would come, slicing through the air if the ARk Storm did hit? Could the dark wood planks withstand it?

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” said a voice behind her.

Gwen turned. “Hi Randy. It’s a
mazing!
”

“Sixty million dollars gets and builds you a lot of amazing,” Sieber added, nodding as if at his wisdom.

Gwen blew out a low breath. “Messenger commissioned it?”

“Bought a knockdown four years ago. Built this baby.”

“The house that private equity built,” murmured Gwen.

“They’re all through in the garden, out front,” said Sieber. “C’mon, I’ll walk you. You were the last. Everyone’s here now.” Sieber checked his watch.

“Am I late or something?”

“Just in time. Dr. Messenger’s going to give a speech.”

*   *   *

There they all were, Falcon Capital’s disparate group of employees, gathering to hear the word of Mammon. But Luke and Narissa were absent, noted Gwen. Perhaps Dr. Messenger was not quite the egalitarian his party suggested.

Mandy and Mel were glammed up in fluttery summer dresses and heels. Gwen could see them mincing across the grass together, champagne flutes in hand, trying to keep their stilettos from bogging down. Peter Weiss wore his habitual uniform of black. He saw Gwen and gave her a hesitant wave. Kevin Barclay, Curt, and Jihoon wore dress-down uniforms of polo shirts and khakis. Atalanta wore a skimpy black sleeveless tee and a full-length green silk skirt that billowed beguilingly as she walked across the garden, effortless on flat sandals, chatting earnestly with Gabriel Messenger. She looked, as always, sensational. Kevin Barclay was watching Atalanta over the rim of his champagne glass, his measuring eyes and the forward thrust of his body unveiled and vulpine.

Gwen noticed two strangers, each quaffing champagne, looking around with undisguised curiosity. A man, about thirty, with sandy wavy hair and freckles, and a Latina woman about the same age, bursting out of a pink sheath dress.

“Who are they?” she asked Sieber, confident that he would know.

“Journalists!” he declared portentously.

Gwen couldn’t have been more surprised than if he’d said prostitutes or priests. She glanced across at Messenger in puzzlement.

“Why?” she asked. “I thought this was a private party.”

“They’re only here for the first hour. It’s good PR for Falcon,” explained Sieber.

As if conscious of Gwen’s scrutiny, Messenger glanced up, audibly said “Excuse me” to Atalanta, and strode over to them.

“Gwen, hi. Glad you could make it. Welcome to my home.”

Gwen smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Dr. Messenger.”

A uniformed waiter bearing a laden circular silver tray approached.

“Champagne?” he offered.

Gwen shook her head. “Something soft please.”

“Water, or sparkling elderflower if you want something a tad more interesting,” declared the waiter, almost disapprovingly.

Gwen took a sparkling elderflower, smiled her thanks.

“Not drinking?” asked Messenger.

“Detox,” improvised Gwen.

Messenger wrinkled his nose. “How boring!”

“Call it penance,” said Gwen. “This is for you,” she added, reaching into her bag, careful not to dislodge the devices. She handed over the bottle of Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, wondering suddenly if it were a major solecism. It really wasn’t a bring-a-bottle type party.

Messenger took the bottle with a delighted smile.

“Very kind of you Gwen. Very thoughtful. 1997! Great vintage.”

Gwen felt a guilty pang, summoned the youthful pictures of the murdered Al Freidland, burned off the guilt.

“I’ll go and put this somewhere safe,” said Messenger. He turned and marched away with the bottle.

Kevin Barclay sauntered up, eyed Gwen speculatively.

“My God. Gwen Boudain in a dress.”

“It’s been known.”

“Who are you hoping to impress?”

She thought of Dan and his question:
will you come to me later?
She smiled.

“Me, of course,” cut in Peter Weiss, who’d just joined them. “Gwen knows I dig black.”

Gwen smiled. “Got it in one, Peter. How are you?”

“I’m good. I—”

“Good afternoon,” declared Gabriel Messenger in a projectile voice, silencing Weiss.

He was standing on the steps that led down from the terrace that flanked the house to the garden below.

“Welcome to Falcon Capital’s Fifth Annual Party! Our first at my new home.”

Fulsome applause broke out. Messenger raised his hands, graciously acknowledging then quelling it.

The journalists had pens and notepads poised.

“It’s been an interesting journey here, in all senses. I’d like to thank you all for coming and I’d like to say a few words too about why I and why you are here.” He paused, looked around, taking in his guests, his garden, the sea. Then his eyes seemed to go beyond all that was visible. They took on the look of the visionary that Gwen had first seen in him.

“Capitalists, such as I, such as you, have taken a bit of a knocking recently. I’d like to set the record straight. Some people say Greed is Good; I say the urge to accumulate is good. That urge is hard-wired into our brains. It is part of the promptings of the old brain, the brain that guided us when we were lumbering around accumulating firewood, berries, roots, fruits, vegetables, sharp stones, prey … whatever we could to ensure we did not starve or freeze.” Messenger gestured to his garden as he spoke, linking in the gesture Neanderthal Man with all those who stood now on his lush grass.

“Now the survival of economies depends on the human desire to accumulate, to buy goods and to buy services. And where do those goods and services come from?” Messenger took one step down, closer to the gathered listeners. “They come from the men and the women with ideas. They come from the men and the women with money to finance those ideas and the guts to turn them into reality. In short, they come from venture capital.” This was met with whoops and claps from Kevin Barclay and Mandy.

“If we choose right, we make money. If we choose wrong, we lose it.
That
is the morality imposed by market forces.” Messenger turned to the journalists now.

“And I make no apologies for that. Over the past five years, Falcon Capital has paid over one hundred and seventy million dollars in tax to the federal and local governments. If we make money, we can contribute. If we fail, we contribute nothing.”

A roar of approval met this.

“But here at Falcon, we are succeeding! I have made millionaires of every one of my staff.”

Gwen glanced around at this, saw Mandy reach for another glass of champagne, muttering something inaudible, while Curt, Atalanta, and Jihoon looked on hopefully.

“So, I repeat,” continued Messenger, “I make no apologies for capitalism. We take risks. And for our vision and our ability to stomach those risks we are rewarded. Without rewards, the incentives to take risks would evaporate. They are two sides of the same coin. Those who try to tax our rewards to hell might do well to remember this.”

This was met with loud hand clapping by Falcon employees and with frantic scribbling by the journalists.

“I shall leave you with a great quote from George Bernard Shaw.
“You see things that are and ask, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”

Messenger bowed. “Welcome to Falcon Capital!”

A round of tumultuous applause broke out.

Was he dreaming of ARk Storm, wondered Gwen.

71

Gwen mingled, eyeing the house, eyeing Messenger, wondering when to make her move. Every time she wanted to peel off, someone collared her. Mel, Barclay again, Randy Sieber, Peter Weiss. An hour passed.

A shrill whistle made everyone freeze. Mandy stood on the steps, swaying slightly.

“Listen up! Listen up!” she trilled.

“Uh oh. Lookee here,” murmured Weiss. “The poster girl for moderation.”

“Does she make a habit of this?” asked Gwen.

“Every year,” replied Weiss. “That’s why Dr. M. supplies the limos. She tried to drive home last year. He had to haul her out of her VW.”

“Bet that dented her metrics.”

Weiss snorted.

Mandy glowered at him, wobbled back on her heels, then began to declaim.

“Well, speaking as one of the Falcon millionaires, though God himself only knows where all that dough has gone, probably on my ass and on my back,” she giggled. “Ah well, anyways … what I got up here to say was this … I’d just like to ask every a one of you good people to put your hands together and say a heruuuge thank you to Dr. Gabriel Messenger for this here party, for Falcon and all of that good stuff.”

Everyone clapped, thanked Dr. Messenger, but Mandy hadn’t finished.

“And when’s the guided tour I wanna know?” she yelled.

Messenger materialized by Mandy’s side. He took her arm gently.

“How about now? What say you we stick to the garden though?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Mandy. “Garden’s good.”

Damn! Thought Gwen. A guided tour of the house was what she needed.

Messenger said a determined good-bye to the journalists, then he began to lead a chain of Falcon staff through the five-acre garden. Mandy, clearly a gardening buff, fell behind. Gwen noticed her snipping off branches of shrubs with her fingers. She turned, saw Gwen.

“Cuttings, for my own little patch of green.”

“Plenty to go round,” said Gwen. She stayed behind Mandy, worried that the other woman would fall over. Mandy’s place beside Messenger had been taken, adroitly, by Atalanta.

It was when Messenger led them off the edge of the grass onto a stairway carved into the cliff that Gwen really started to worry.

They snaked back and forth. Toting her heavy shoulder bag, Gwen followed one step behind Mandy. A rope handrail separated them from the rocks fifty feet below. Gwen could see a wooden raft, moored a hundred meters out. Did Messenger swim to it, she wondered? He must do. It was opposite his property.

Around it, the Restless Sea lived up to its name. It bubbled and boiled and heaved. The swell was big today. Gwen could feel the mist off it bathing her face as she followed the path down. She could taste the salt.

They got to the bottom, Mandy and Gwen left behind by the others who were striding along a natural rock platform that jutted out into the sea.

Messenger was already leading his followers on up another cliff-carved path to what looked like a small viewing platform that abutted from the cliff. Like the Pied Piper, thought Gwen.

She saw Mandy try to speed up. The woman was teetering close to the edge.

“Hey, Mandy,” Gwen began to say, broke off as she saw the other woman’s heel snap, saw her beginning to fall. Gwen lunged toward her but she was too far away. Mandy toppled into the sea.

A wave picked her up, sucked her back and in seconds she was twenty feet offshore. She screamed, swallowed water.

Shit! Gwen kicked off her shoes, dumped her bag, eyed the waves, didn’t have time to pick a pattern.

Aware of shouts and screams behind her, Gwen stood at the edge, arrowed her body, and dived.

She felt the sea grab her, kicked, came up twelve feet from the jagged cliff. The current and the breaking waves pushed her back toward the cliff. She kicked out, swam as hard as she could to where she had seen Mandy. There was no sign of her now. She sucked in a breath, dived down. Underwater, she opened her eyes, saw a flailing limb below her. She dived deeper, grabbed it, kicked hard, hauled Mandy upward. Mandy was heavy, not just dead weight but one hundred and thirty pounds of panicking weight, flailing against her. Gwen got her to the surface, sucked in a breath, saw with horror how close they were to the cliffs. One slam from the waves and they’d both be unconscious, or dead.

Gwen kicked back, away from the impact zone, dragging Mandy with her. She wanted to time her approach, ride a wave in if she could, hauling Mandy with her, but Mandy wasn’t cooperating. She was climbing on Gwen, pushing her down so that she could stay higher.

“Cut fighting,” shouted Gwen. “Go limp!” she screamed, but Mandy was driven by terror. She flailed, pushed down on Gwen.

“You’re gonna kill us both, you stupid bitch!” shouted Gwen. “Go limp!”

They washed closer to the cliff. Gwen tried to kick out, to get distance, but dragging Mandy and fighting her to stay afloat, she made no progress. There was nothing for it. She pulled back her fist, punched Mandy in the head. The other woman went limp.

Gwen kicked, dragged her back, but it was too late. A huge wave was roaring up. All Gwen could do was try to cushion Mandy. She stuck her arm between the woman and the rapidly approaching cliff. At least it would raise them up, she calculated. Messenger seemed to be thinking the same, for he threw himself to the ground and stretched out an arm, reaching down. Randy Sieber grabbed his feet and held on.