Disappearance (38 page)

Sarah took one last sip from her tea, put her cup down, and leaned closer to him. 

"This is mighty admirable Eitan, but just for your information, I think you've done plenty.  We all have our ups and downs you know, and we each deal with them a little differently.  I'd try and patch it up with Naomi but I wouldn't use this affair as a case study to judge my character."

Eitan fell silent and the steady hum of the engines became perceptible.  Sarah put her hand against the window and felt the chill at thirty-seven thousand feet.  She cuddled up under her blanket, bringing her knees as close to her body as possible, securing them with her arms.  Eitan was still rigid in his seat.  A thought occurred to her that he had probably shared more with her this one time than he had ever shared with another human being.  The thought stirred something in her – she felt a touch closer to the abrasive character sitting by her side – flagging a positive sign for their impending collaboration.

Her thoughts drifted to the task ahead.  Mikki had kept her fairly well apprised in their weekly phone communications and she had detected a glimpse of renewed vigor in his voice the last time they spoke but he would not give her an explanation why he wanted them both there. He gave her their travel details and nothing else. She kept envisaging different scenarios but could not come up with the one that made most sense.

As if reading her mind, Eitan suddenly asked:  "Care to guess what Mikki has planned for us over there?"

"I've been trying to figure this out ever since I last spoke to him but I can't come up with anything.  I faxed him the information about Hasson just last week.  The next thing I know he's rushing us over there all secret and
hush."

"It sounds pretty major," Eitan stated, sounding somewhat excited.  "I mean, Mikki, he's a…responsible guy. Isn't he? He wouldn't spend her money unless it was absolutely necessary, would he?"

"No, not Mikki.  They must have stumbled upon something really important to go through all this trouble."

They smiled at each other then each retreated to the solace of his cramped seat.

It was still dark when they landed at JFK.  By the time they had cleared immigration, reclaimed their luggage, and passed through customs, a gray dawn had appeared, finding them pushing their carts in freezing weather toward the TWA terminal where a brown manila envelope waited for them at the domestic check-in counter with airline tickets, hotel reservations, a car rental voucher, cash, and a sealed envelope which held two folded pages of instructions written in Hebrew.

-------

Chester Caldwell had made a habit of taking a small camera along whenever he followed his boss around.   He was instructed to do so by the man who was now paying him triple what he had paid him to stalk Lisa and was financing a rental car and weekly parking in the office garage.

But it soon became apparent that Eckert rarely diverted from his
daily routines, spending long hours, like a million other Long Islanders, stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway on his way from Great Neck to Manhattan and back.

At first he had been totally baffled how to go about keeping tabs on his boss.  He could not eavesdrop on his phone conversations or go snooping around his office like he did Lisa's without Suzy Chambers noticing and he could not think of a way to bypass her.

The idea came to him by accident when he came into the office early one morning and had noticed the cleaning lady vacuuming the carpets in Eckert's office. It was six thirty and there wasn't a soul around.  He had startled the cleaning lady a bit when he walked in behind her but quickly made her feel at ease, showing her his company ID. They had gotten to talking and he learned that she performed the task twice a week at that early hour and had complete access to the entire floor. As he casually leaned on the edge of Suzy Chambers' desk, he noticed the appointment book lying wide open on the neatly-arranged mahogany surface.  He kept up the small talk while making his way around the desk to get a better look.  It had all of Eckert's appointments for the week which Chester casually photocopied on Suzy's copy machine in the presence of the cleaning lady who never realized he was overstepping his authority.  After that, he made a habit of coming in early to entertain the cleaning lady and copy Eckert's appointment book.  He would keep watch for deviations from the weekly plan and would follow him if ever there were any.

To date, roughly three weeks after he had gotten his new assignment, he could count Eckert's deviations from the plan on the fingers of one hand.  One of those was a meeting with Lisa Glass, the night before she returned to the office. Chester had been totally dumbstruck watching him embrace her in the science fiction aisle of the Strand Book Store in the Village.

She came in to work the following morning all perky and smug, treating him with her usual diffidence as if she had never left.  He had tried to catch her attention but she deliberately avoided him the entire day and the day after that.  When he was finally able to pin her down in her cubicle she had been blunt about not wanting to discuss what she had been up to. Quiet speculation was circulating the office, but none of it held any merit as far as Chester was concerned.  He was convinced Eckert's little meeting with Lisa was partly the reason why he was currently shadowing his boss.  He had reported the information to his contact hoping to be reassigned to Lisa, but the man seemed unmoved by the news.   Chester had been both disappointed and slightly concerned with his answer.

"Stay on Eckert," the man had said, "we'll handle the girl." There was a hint of doom in the remark which prompted Chester to wonder whether Lisa could be in danger.  It seemed to him the people he was dealing with were certainly capable of inflicting bodily harm even to such womanly splendor.  And so he concentrated on Eckert's appointment book deviations which had finally evolved.

Standing outside Ruby's, a familiar, down-town, country-style hangout for Wall Street executives, he was waiting for Eckert to finish his lunch.  Half an hour earlier, Eckert had stormed out of the office disregarding a planned staff meeting and Chester, who was just collecting his notes for the meeting, had to grab the small camera and shoot out the office, just managing to witness his boss enter the restaurant with a stranger.

They emerged an hour later and stood a few minutes trying to flag a cab.  Chester, who stood partially hidden at an entrance to a building right across the street, was able to get a close up of the man as he stepped out to meet his cab.  Eckert walked back to the office by himself.

The following night Chester delivered the photo to his contact.

CHAPTER 37

Ed Langone sat fuming, staring at the two photos lying on the desk in front of him.  Elbows leaning on his desk, he closed his eyes for a brief moment and massaged his forehead just above the eyebrows.  He was prone to headaches and it felt as if a major one was brewing.  Then he rolled his chair back and in an angry gesture turned and stared out the large office window.

Kumar was sitting on a white leather couch facing Langone. The office was quite large and luxuriously arranged but its ambience was too white and too damn sterile to his liking. It was wall-to-wall carpeted in white.  Its white walls were decorated with precise replicas of some notable, and quite ambiguous, modern artworks illuminated by an array of soft spotlights aimed from the ceiling.

The entire facade behind Langone was a glass window which gave an impressive panorama of the city below and of Brooklyn across the East River, but the view was partially obscured by large white curtains drawn in from the two adjacent walls.  Besides the three white leather couches facing Langone's desk, there was an elliptical conference table encircled by eight white veneer chairs.  Eight small lamps were positioned at the outer perimeter of the glass table precisely opposite each chair, and a white, cone shaped chandelier hung precisely above the middle of the table.  On the wall facing the conference table hung a briefing board, the kind that could reproduce itself, with an overhead projector screen rolled up over it.   The overhead projector itself stood among an array of electronic equipment that included a TV and a VCR, all neatly arranged on a portable carriage which stood at the opposite end of the office.

Langone's desk was also too neat and vacant in Kumar's opinion.  It exhibited no files, no reports, no faxes, no memos and no loose scraps of paper of any kind.  Both his 'in box' and 'out box' were empty, and his only means of writing was a gold pen sticking out of a matching holder which had the company's name etched on it in black.  The only other items on his desk were a telephone and the
two photos Kumar had brought along.

Langone himself was too neat and precise, Kumar was thinking, as the hawk with the white mane spoke without turning.

"I never thought I'd run into him again," he said pitifully.

"Oh, he's out there, just waiting for you to stumble," Kumar said sounding a dab to cheerful.

Langone could not ignore the remark.  Carl G. Johnson had been a nuisance tucked away in the periphery of his consciousness.  Langone knew he held a grudge but was never quite certain how big of a grudge.   He had stumbled into him on a few occasions since their fallout but never sensed the need for caution.  Kumar had cautioned him that Johnson was potential trouble but Langone passed it off as excess paranoia.

In his mind, Johnson was never major league.  He was an average minor leaguer at best, who thought he could play with the big boys.  He was a bright fellow and certainly one that could help a team but he was by no means someone who could carry one.  Langone had offered him an opportunity which he had turned down and when he attempted to compete at his level he eventually crashed.  That was no fault of Langone.  Everything about Wall Street was trend and speculation and when an upward trend drastically changed direction, investors became weary.  Johnson, who knew the stakes, completely missed the signs on a certain risky venture; he gambled and lost.  After Johnso
n’
s demise, Langone had compensated the injured parties, keeping their business through other independent brokers, but he reserved no such compassion for Johnson who had insulted him in front of his clients.

Yet there he was, talking to Eckert, no doubt the subject matter.  Sly old George Eckert had somehow fished him out and was undoubtedly milking him for damage.

"Any suggestions?" he asked, turning to face Kumar.

Kumar did not respond right away.  He had marked Johnson as potential trouble ever since it became his business to know such things.  It was his business to know everything there was to know about anyone or anything who had dealings with his employer.  Langone, a product of the mean streets of Brooklyn, was a self-made man who fought long and dirty to become what he was and his past had been thoroughly investigated for any potential trouble spots.  Johnson's name had come up on more than one occasion but Langone pretentiously dismissed the threat.

The decisiveness of Langone's dismissal of a possible Johnson problem, coupled with the distance factor and him being out of touch with the industry for so long, attenuated any immediate concern and he was eventually forgotten.

Since getting hold of the photos, Kumar had feverishly begun to investigate what Eckert was after and what Johnson had to offer.

Langone's complacency could cost them dearly and it was clear to both they needed to eliminate the problem before it ever evolved since they would be the ones held accountable if ever the project was impaired, and both feared the wrath of Stana whose meticulous approach left no room for error.

"Can you think of anything he may
possess, information or otherwise, that could hurt us?" Kumar asked cautiously.

"Christ Kumar!" Langone exploded, "I haven't as much as seen the man in five years.  How could you expect me to figure out what he may or may not know?"

Kumar's face remained impassive.  He was no stranger to Langone's outbursts.   He thought the man to be extremely weak under pressure and knew the outbursts to be a method of covering his shameful insecurity.  Nevertheless, he had to at least pretend he had respect, so he remained quiet until the man regained his composure and began to talk sense.

"Where can he hurt us the most?"  Langone finally asked in a subdued tone.

"I wouldn't want to get to where he can hurt us," Kumar insisted, "but we do
n’
t know what he has. So if we were to focus on something that's out of your mutual past, something we can be reasonably certain he may use, then maybe, just maybe, we can eliminate the danger without the need for excessive measures."

"Define excessive measures!" Langone commanded.

"Kill the poor bastard," Kumar replied.

"You truly believe you can avoid it?" Langone asked, flashing a knowing grin.

"We need to try," Kumar said.

Langone, his face still locked in the crooked half smile, got up, pushed his white leather chair under the desk and started pacing the floor behind it.  After a minute he abruptly changed direction, paced to the front of his desk and leaned his large frame on its edge towering over Kumar.

"Enough with the games, Kumar," he began in a firm tone. "You know damn well what needs to be done.  We are not in a position to take chances, so quit playing games.  If you're looking to pin this on me, go ahead, just as long as you eliminate the problem for good."

Kumar suppressed a smile.  He had underestimated the old ma
n’
s resolve.  It was exactly what he had intended to do. Shultz and his team were already on their way. He had absolutely no intention of leaving the matter unresolved but he wanted Langone to give the order.

He got up to leave.  Langone remained sitting on the edge of the desk.   "Your Gestapo friends know about this?" he asked with notable contempt.

"No need to alarm their delicate souls," Kumar said with a grin as he reached the door.

"I'll drink to that," the seasoned financier said, mainly to himself, as his guest had already quietly slipped out.

-------

Carl G. Johnson was feeling quite accomplished for the first time in years.   One reason was a sense of completeness he always felt whenever he was in New York, the only place he ever referred to as home.  A second reason was that he was finally able to sleep a full night through, without his wife, now eight months along, requesting something or other.   A third reason was he slight tug he felt pulling at his left breast pocket where an envelope full of cash was stashed, the second one he had received in as many days.  But the primary reason for feeling so satisfied was the sweet smell of revenge.

He was on the path to avenging his Wall Street fall from grace. He was walking Lexington Avenue toward his hotel after his second and final meeting with George Eckert who had flown him to New York, taken care of all his expenses and paid him handsomely for his information.   Johnson, for his part, was able to come through with the necessary information on extremely short notice.   He did not complain since he had been living for such an opportunity for the last five years.

Now he was going to celebrate.  Feeling quite certain Edgar Langone was on an unavoidable path toward destruction, he, Carl G. Johnson, was going to 'live-it-up' an extra day in New York.   He had it all planned in his head and with the extra cash he wouldn't even feel guilty.  He would have his favorite breakfast at his old stamping grounds by the New York Stock Exchange then he would take a stroll down memory lane to Pier 17 where he and his former associates would often escape for a drink after a rough day on the floor. He may do some souvenir shopping for the wife and boys, have a cold one in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, then take a taxi to SoHo or the Village for lunch with a former school buddy and continue on to Central Park or catch a museum before matching up with several more buddies for a night on the town.

It was past midnight when he reached the hotel feeling quite awake thanks to the three hour time difference with the West Coast. He called home, spoke to his wife and the boys, stripped to his briefs, crawled under the covers and switched on the TV.

He woke up with a start.  The room was
pitch dark except for an unidentified source of light which was irritably blinding him.  He tried swiping at it but could not move his hands; the infuriating light maintained focus right between his eyes.  He recalled brushing his teeth and turning off the TV just before turning in, and could not discern where the light was coming from.  He tried to sit up hoping to escape the blinding light but realized both his hands and feet were spread across the bed tied by a rope which tightened around his ankles and wrists as he pulled at it.

Then he felt a gloved hand around his neck pinning him to the bed.   He began to notice movement in the room and felt a surge of panic begin to choke his throat as a husky voice with a foreign accent spoke from behind the light.

“Stay calm, and you will not be hurt."

Johnson was spread-eagled on the bed, unable to move.  The bed cover was removed and he felt a knife cut through his briefs.  Soon he lay naked with the blinding light still in his face.

The panic rose in his throat and he could hear his own heart thumping.

"Tell us about your meeting with Eckert," the faceless husky voice commanded.

Johnson gulped hard; his mouth suddenly dry with fear. There was no sense trying to scream for help.  He was trapped.  As far as he could tell there were at least three people in the room.  The one with the husky voice, along with the one who had been pinning him to the bed and at least one other who had the knife.  His mind was racing.  Fear was threatening to paralyze all rational thought when a sudden surge of anger rose in him.

"Who wants to know?" he asked in a semi-whisper feeling his throat scorched.

"Edgar Langone," the voice said as if expecting the question.

"You his bullies?"
Johnson half asked, half stated.

"You may use that term," the voice said perfectly calm. "You may use any term as long as you cooperate."

The calm manner in which the voice spoke chilled Johnson to the bone.   He had never been in such situation but intuitively he would have preferred fury to this suppressed control.

"It was a business meeting," he said referring to the opening question.

"Did it have anything to do with Langone?" the voice asked. Johnson was trying to avoid the flashlight and make out the figures in the room but the beam of light easily tracked the movement of his pupils.

"Could you kill the damn light," he spat, his anger rescinding his fear.

"If I like what I hear," the voice said, still calm.

Johnson felt a faint movement on the far side of his bed and he could sense additional muffled movements on opposite sides of the room.    Someone coughed and then he heard whispering.  He had little time to make up his mind and try and come up with a story which may or may not satisfy his capturers.  He had no idea how much they knew but his intuition told him they meant business and that he was not going to get away with deceit, if he was going to get away with anything at all.

But his anger at Langone and everything he stood for would not let him concede easily. He had conceded to this man once and regretted every minute of it.  He was not going down without a fight.

"It had nothing to do with Langone," he said bravely.  "The man offered me a job."

An almost unbearable pain shot up from his groin area as someone clenched his privates.  The uncontrolled scream that rose from his throat was muffled by the large gloved hand.

He felt his privates being pulled and squeezed again as more pain enveloped his body.  His howls of pain were muffled and he felt he was losing his conscience.

"We'll cut it off the next time you lie," the voice said.