Buried Secrets (39 page)

She was wearing a headband, her hair tied back. Her arms were tan and muscular, her legs long and lean.

Her blue mouth guard gave her a fierce appearance, but she looked healthy and happy.

The coach blew her whistle and shouted, “Let’s get some water,” and the girls all popped out their mouth guards: a precise, automatic gesture. Some tucked the mouthpieces under the tops of their sports bras; some slipped them into their shin guards. They shouted and talked loudly and squealed as they straggled toward the drinking fountain. A couple of them hugged Alexa—I’d forgotten how much more affectionate girls are than guys at that age—and laughed about something.

Then she turned, as if she’d sensed my presence, and caught my eye. She spoke quickly to one of her teammates and approached reluctantly.

“Hey, Nick.”

“You’re really good, you know that?”

“I’m okay. I like it. That’s the main thing.”

“You play hard. You’re tough. Fearless, even.”

She gave a quick, nervous laugh. “Gift of fear, right?”

“Right. So I just wanted to say hi and make sure everything’s okay.”

“Oh, um, okay, thanks. Yeah, everything’s cool. It’s good. I’m…” She looked longingly over at her teammates. “It’s kinda not the best time, is that … that okay?”

“No problem.”

“I mean, like, you didn’t drive all the way up here just to see me or anything, right? Like, I hope not.”

“Not at all. I was in the area.”

“Business or something?”

“Yeah.”

“So, yeah. Um…” She gave me a little wave. “I gotta go. Thanks for coming by. Nice to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You too.”

I understood: Just seeing me brought on all kinds of dark and troubling emotions. I’d forever be associated with a nightmare. I made her uncomfortable. There were things in the subbasement of her mind she couldn’t yet deal with. Her way of recovering was to try to forget.

We all have our ways of coping.

As she returned to the field, her stride got looser. I could see the tension leave her body.

One of her friends made a crack, and she gave a quick grin, and the coach blew her whistle again.

I stood there watching for a few minutes longer. She played with a fluid grace, almost balletic. Once I began to understand how the game worked, it was sort of exciting. She charged down the field, dished it off to another player in a give-and-go, and kept on going. Suddenly everything was happening too fast to follow. Just as she entered the striking circle she somehow got the ball back, and then I could see what all of her teammates saw: that the goalkeeper had been fooled and Alexa had a clear shot, and she smiled as she flicked the ball up in the air and it soared toward the goal.

She’d take it from here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish I could quote the late Spike Milligan: “I am not going to thank anybody—because I did it all myself.” Unfortunately, in my case, this is not accurate.

I just did the hard part.

But I did turn repeatedly to a small group of victims—er, technical advisers. My varsity squad of sources: Jeff Fischbach, amazing forensic technologist and real-life character out of
The
Matrix
who knows a scary amount about electronic evidence and cell-phone tracking; Stuart Allen, preeminent forensic audio expert who shares my taste in good wine and bad jokes; and, again, Dick Rogers, founder of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Squad and fount of wisdom about kidnapping and rescue strategy, field ops, and weaponry.

A lot of people in the FBI’s Boston Field Office helped me get the details right, particularly Supervisory Special Agent Randy Jarvis, a real-life action hero who runs the violent crimes task force; Kevin Swindon in digital forensics; Ed Kappler in firearms; Steve Vienneau in crimes against children; and S.A. Tamara Harty of the CARD team in Providence. Thanks especially to Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz, for introductions and guidance.

A few hedge-fund titans generously took time with me to explain the intricacies of their business—time they could have spent trading and making millions. Yes, I feel guilty about that.

But also grateful, to Jon Jacobson of Highfields Capital Management, Richard Leibovitch of Gottex Funds (whose son, Jeremy, demonstrated Call of Duty), Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, and Seth Klarman of the Baupost Group. Kristin Marcus at Highfields explained how funds are structured, as did Steve Alperin of the Harvard Management Company.

Once again, Nick Heller was backstopped by a team of “private spies”: Skip Brandon and Gene Smith of Smith Brandon International, Terry Lenzner of the Investigative Group International, and Jack Devine of the Arkin Group.

Lawyers, guns, and money: deepest thanks to Jay Shapiro for legal advice; Dr. Ed Nawotka, Jr., on guns and ammo; Jack Blum, expert in offshore banking, shell companies, and money laundering, for help figuring out the big swindle; and to my old friend and unindicted co-conspirator, Giles McNamee, owner of Nick’s Land Rover Defender 110, Coniston green.

For background on computer forensics, thanks to Anish Dhanda and Rich Person of DNS

Enterprise, Inc., Simson Garfinkel, Mark Spencer of Arsenal Consulting, and Larry Daniel of Guardian Digital Forensics. For eavesdropping detection, Kevin D. Murray of Murray Associates; for satellite communications, Wolf Vogel; and for covert entry and security, Marc W. Tobias, Michael Huebler, and Jeffrey Dingle of Lockmasters Security Institute. Thanks as well to Randy Milch, general counsel at Verizon; Michael Sielicki, chief of police, Rindge, New Hampshire; Maj. Greg Heilshorn of the New Hampshire Air National Guard; Kevin O’Brien; Justin Sullivan of RegentJet; Mercy Carbonell of Phillips Exeter Academy; and Kevin Roche of the U.S. Marshals Service. Raja Ramani of Pennsylvania State University, Brian Prosser of Mine Ventilation Services, and Kray Luxbacher of Virginia Tech all provided important logistical details about Alexa Marcus’s underground ordeal. And Dennis Sweeney of Dennis Sweeney Funeral Home in Quincy, Massachusetts, kindly gave me a taste of what Alexa Marcus went through. I really hope never to do it again as long as I’m alive.

Domo arigato
to Nick Heller’s personal trainer, Jack Hoban, ethical warrior and musician. Christopher Rogers of Grubb & Ellis found me Nick Heller’s “steampunk” office in downtown Boston, and Diane Kaneb graciously let me move Marshall and Belinda Marcus into her family’s graceful waterfront house in Manchester. Hilary Gabrieli and Beth Ketterson told me a bit about Louisburg Square. Lucy Baldwin was Alexa Marcus’s fashion consultant. Vivian Wyler and Anna Buarque of my Brazilian publisher, Rocco, helped with the Portuguese. Liz Berry gave me some wonderful tips on how to tell a real Georgia native. Thanks to Sean Reardon of the Liberty Hotel, Ali Khalid of the Four Seasons Hotel, and Mike Arnett of the Mandarin Oriental, for hotel security details; and to my brother, Dr. Jonathan Finder, and Dr. Tom Workman, for medical information.

The perfume that Nick gives Diana, Nombre Noir, is real (though discontinued and almost impossible to find). It was suggested to me by two remarkable perfume experts, the biophysicist (and “emperor of scent”) Luca Turin, and his wife, the writer Tania Sanchez.

With all these experts in my corner, if I’ve made any mistakes, obviously one of them must have left something out.

There’s no better literary agent than Molly Friedrich. At the Friedrich Agency, thanks as well to Paul Cirone, and—for some extremely astute editorial insight—Lucy Carson. I’ve got a terrific web manager, Karen Louie-Joyce, and a top-notch editor and researcher in Clair Lamb.

Without Claire Baldwin, my assistant, I wouldn’t get a damned thing done. You’re the best.

To my brilliant editor, Keith Kahla: I know I drove you crazy writing this book … but you got me back good.

Henry Finder, editorial director of
The New Yorker
, was an invaluable contributor at every stage, and yes, he’s my
younger
brother.

Since the age of two, when she poured a sippy cup of water over the keyboard of my laptop, my daughter, Emma, has been an astute critic of my work. With
Buried Secrets
she turned her acute editorial eye to some crucial scenes and saved me from some embarrassing gaffes. I’d say you rock, Em, but then you’d say I’m just some pathetic old guy trying to sound cool.

My wife, Michele Souda, had the hardest job of all: being married to a writer. Thanks for standing by me all this time. I know it ain’t easy to keep dancing.

—Joseph Finder

Boston, Massachusetts

By Joseph Finder

FICTION

The Moscow Club

Extraordinary Powers

The Zero Hour

High Crimes

Paranoia

Company Man

Killer Instinct

Power Play

THE NICK HELLER SERIES

Vanished

Buried Secrets

NONFICTION

Red Carpet: The Connection Between the Kremlin and America’s Most Powerful
Businessmen