Drummer In the Dark (7 page)

She felt drawn as much by his sorrow as his words. Nabil Saad kept his face turned toward the corner and the unseen grave. “Alas, my young friend was unable to attend her own funeral. And it was my fault. I used my position to insist that the Washington police not simply dismiss her death as suicide. She was murdered. I have no proof, but still I ordered them to treat it as such. The detectives in charge of the case were very angry. They took revenge in a very painful manner.”

Jackie guessed, “They refused to release the body.”

“I insisted that the young lady had been thrown from the roof for asking the wrong questions and hoping to make the impossible a reality. The detectives insisted the case would go nowhere, then punished me for this extra work. There were problems with the autopsy, questions of this and that . . .” He waved a dismissive hand, an utterly Arab gesture. “I was left to face her parents and confess that I was responsible for their grieving over an empty coffin.”

His gaze was so open and wounded, Jackie could let herself be swallowed and comforted both. “So I must thank you, Ms. Havilland, for granting me this moment in a place of hallowed death.”

She looked back down the curved pathway and faced a rising tide of memories. “You’ve heard the expression, a child too fine for this world? That was Preston. A little boy to the end. My finest memories are all about making Preston laugh. He was my very best friend.”

“Come.” He touched her with the invitation and a gentle hand upon her shoulder, guiding her back to the stone bench.

Jackie found herself willing to seat herself beside this stranger, though normally she could scarcely draw breath until she had passed the outer gates. “Preston had a brilliant mind. He was a mathematician. He grew up in mind and body, but his heart remained that of a child. Untouched by anything.” Jackie halted and focused on something beyond her aching empty universe. After a time, she went on, “Preston specialized in calculating statistical probability. I had no idea what the words meant until he told me. I’ll never forget that day. Preston was sixteen and as excited as a man falling in love. Which I suppose was what he had done. He showed me these pages in his book, lines of calculus and a few sentences of description. I remember I told him, there aren’t any numbers. I said it as much to make him laugh as because that was what I was thinking.”

“And then he went to work for Hayek,” Nabil Saad intoned. “And you went back to school.”

“Preston worked as a specialist on the currency markets, calculating risk and currency trajectories. I never felt comfortable with his work or his world. But I could not say why.”

“It was the natural response of one who loved him with a goodly heart. Love grants one the wisest of vision.”

“It was almost enough to study, to grow and search and do all the things I had dreamed of. Still I wanted to put a name to my fears, so I started researching his new realm. I found some very real dangers. But it was never enough to make Preston back away.” The remembrances tasted metallic. “Then the work and the life began to consume him. Preston took to drugs like candy. Crystal meth and cocaine, they fueled his fire. That and adrenaline. He just burned up. By the time he finally came back for me to nurse, there was nothing left. The doctors put all sorts of names to it, but I knew and so did he.”

“And you stayed with him to the end.”

She turned away from the memories and the comforting closeness. She had to, or lose it totally. “Why are we sitting like this?”

“Some of those opposed to involving an outsider asked me to spy on you. I decided there was enough spying already. So I came to introduce myself, and to give you this.” He slipped an envelope from his pocket. “Esther asks that you come visit her. Tomorrow.”

“In Washington?” She stared at the envelope, but did not take it. “Why doesn’t she come back here?”

“There are difficulties. Go and you will see.” He settled the envelope into her hand and rose. “I count it an honor to have made your acquaintance, Ms. Havilland. I would even call it a pleasure, were we not so surrounded by remorse.”

She stared up at him, amazed at his ability to smile with his eyes and weep with his voice. “Call me Jackie.”

He offered his hand. “I agree. Such secrets as ours should only be shared between people who can claim first names.”

“I have about a thousand questions.”

“If you force me, I will speak. But the secrets are not mine alone, and I would prefer that you first go to Washington.”

She thought a moment, then released his hand. He rewarded her with an enigmatic smile of approval. Then she recalled an inept boatman and yet another baffling message. “A guy I met a couple of days ago, scared out of his wits, talked about a website called Trastevere. Does that mean anything to you?”

The shutters came down over those dark eyes. She actually saw it happen. “Piazza Trastevere is in Rome,” he said, and took another step back. “It is the site of a movement called Sant’Egidio.” The words became his only farewell, as he then turned and walked away. Not really fleeing, but moving swiftly enough to show he hoped she would not speak again.

Jackie found herself willing to let him go. To her quiet amazement, the day now held a strange sense of comfort, and the cloying heat was not altogether bad.

9

Thursday

L
ET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT.” Eric, a junior trader and Colin’s closest friend on the floor, was a tousle-headed young man on the downside of thirty with eyes of his grandfather’s generation. He bent over to observe Colin Ready sprawled on the floor by his feet. “You’re telling me that my computer doesn’t like having coffee poured down its plug holes?”

“I’ve read the care and feeding manuals cover to cover.” Colin continued removing a goop stubborn as old glue. Down here on the floor, among the cables and scraps of abandoned paper, the air smelled pretty foul—old socks, meal scraps, sweat, dead coffee. A human zoo. The underside of the money treadmill. “I’ve never come across any suggestion that you should kick-start your machine with caffeine.”

Eric was like most on the middle rung, inching his way up with strings of good days, only to plummet back to the precipice’s edge with a near-fatal trading error. He was also constantly in debt, raising his head above the waters only around annual bonus time. This was a common trait among the junior traders. They pulled in anywhere from sixty to two hundred thou, but their tastes and ambitions were molded by those on the top rung. Senior traders pulled two to three mil, doubling that in bonuses. It was hard to live on peanuts when the senior traders chowed down on filet mignon.

It was a slow morning, a few desultory traders trying to talk up the market, the rest waiting for the world to take its first hit of adrenaline and find a reason to scream. Those nearby watched the screens and smirked among themselves as Eric played with the mutant techie. “Any word on what’s happening upstairs?”

Colin did not need to look up to understand the question. The trading room’s ceiling was forty feet up. The left and front walls were overshadowed by glass-enclosed balconies, each about eighty feet deep and a hundred and forty long. One held the special issues department, traders designing and selling their own derivatives. The other had formerly been the domain of middle managers and had been known as the Snake House. But three weeks earlier, the managers had been moved upstairs, one floor below Hayek himself. Now a team of outsiders was working like army ants, installing new equipment. Nobody knew why, or whom it was for.

“I have no idea,” Colin replied truthfully. “They haven’t let me up on the parapet.”

“Oh, Mr. Ready, there you are.” The thin-faced guardian of Hayek’s inner chamber hurried down the aisle. The traders parted swiftly. She paid them no mind. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Mr. Hayek’s screens have started flickering again.”

“Right.” Colin slid out. “I’m all done here.”

Eric muttered, “What do you and the King talk about? It can’t be football.”

Colin dusted off his pants, decided not to risk further delay by going back for his jacket. He followed the severe woman through the front security doors and out into the reception area. A pair of gray-jacketed men scowled their way but said nothing. One sat by the front entrance, another stood by the stairway leading to the glassed-in balconies. Colin did his best to follow the secretary’s example and pretend they did not exist.

Hayek’s secretary did not speak again until the elevator doors had closed around them. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know what to say. There isn’t anything the matter with his computers that I’m aware of. But when I couldn’t locate you, Mr. Hayek grew most irate. He also said to bring you quietly.”

Colin started to ask who the muscles in gray were but decided she would not tell if she knew. “It’s fine.”

The doors opened. “You’ll need to wait just a moment please, Mr. Ready. I’ll tell Mr. Hayek you’re here.”

Upon entering the antechamber, Colin found Jim Burke standing outside Hayek’s office doors. The Unabomber looked as seriously weird as ever. Today it was a white polyester shirt, patterned black-on-black tie, black pants, railroad shoes. Newly polished crew cut. Prison-type black-rimmed spectacles. This on a man earning serious seven figures, maybe eight. “Morning, Mr. Ready.” Jim Burke nodded toward the empty corner chair. “Why don’t you have a seat. Mr. Hayek has somebody with him just now.”

Three other men sat hunched around the coffee table. One was Dale Crawford, chief of Hayek’s security detail, a leather-skinned former policeman from somewhere strange and hostile—Oklahoma perhaps, or the Dakotas. Because of their matching navy blazers, earpieces, and grim secret-service expressions, Dale Crawford’s bunch was known throughout Hayek-land as the KGB. The other two men wore the same gray blazers and dark slacks as the strangers downstairs. Only the anger burned more fiercely with this pair. They trained their ire first on the security man, then on Burke, then Colin. Black volcanic gazes taking careful aim.

Burke walked over and settled a hand on Colin’s shoulder. He spoke to the gray goons with a raspy slowness the traders loved to mock. “This is one of the good guys. Nod if you understand me. That’s fine. Colin Ready is his name. Can you say that? Never mind.”

The head of security smirked at Colin’s discomfort beneath Burke’s hand. Burke went on, “See, we had this problem. Money kept disappearing and we couldn’t figure out how. All we knew was, at the end of the month our books weren’t balancing.” The hand squeezed. Perhaps the man intended it to be reassuring, but Colin could feel his bones grinding together. “Then we had this idea, bring in a man from outside, have him look through all the electronic pathways. Mr. Ready identified the problem, and fast. We’re talking days, after we’ve been at it for three months. More. What did you call it, Mr. Ready?”

“Fractional interest siphoning.” Squirming to let Burke know the hand was not welcome.

But the man was not getting the message. Or chose to ignore it. “Mr. Ready designed us a hunter-seeker program. I’ll never forget that name. Loved it. And it worked. We found two backroom nerds dipping into the accounts payable, taking a couple of bucks here, a couple there. Did us for six hundred thou. The trouble was, they vanished just before we came for them.” A significant pause, waiting for Colin to confess he’d had a hand in warning the pair. The hand squeezing painfully.

“Mr. Ready?” The secretary had never sounded more welcoming. “Mr. Hayek will see you now.”

One of the swarthy men tried to rise with him. “Plant yourself back down,” Burke ordered, then released his grip and moved a step aside. “See you around, Mr. Ready.”

As Colin slipped past the secretary and entered the chairman’s office, Hayek pointed him to the chairs arranged by the back wall. “Be with you in just a moment, Ready.”

Colin took his seat, not bothering to mask his sudden interest in the woman seated before Hayek. He had seen her before, flashing in and out of private conferences with the King. Someone this stunning attracted notice. Colin had done some checking, discreetly of course. She was a big voice up in Washington, a player in the power game. Valerie Lawry was a lobbyist with one of the K Street firms. She ignored Colin entirely, remaining intently focused upon the man behind the desk. The antique table was big enough to rival oceangoing vessels, easily capable of sleeping six. It suited the chairman perfectly. The woman was saying, “I fail to see the merit behind your actions.”

“That is my concern,” Hayek replied. “I am simply telling you what needs doing.”

Colin stared at his nemesis-boss, and thought of a great cat resting easy, or a god from some mystical age when giants ruled the earth. Hayek’s authority was that strong. Colin had spent quite a bit of time around the man, more than anyone else from the back room. He had seen how certain women went for Hayek, and not the ones he might have expected. Powerful women, intelligent and aggressive. Young, old, beautiful and not so; their responses to Hayek seemed spontaneous, visceral. Either they loathed him, wanted to spit toxins and erase him from the earth, or they were attracted so strongly they could hate him and still want him. Hayek seemed to find both responses amusing, and used either to his advantage. Like now, bringing in his tame hacker while he met with the sharp-edged beauty. Playing the hacker and the woman both like pawns.

The woman continued to ignore Colin and told Hayek in her overbearing English accent, “I’m paid to advise you. And my advice is, you’re overreacting. I fail to see why anything Esther Hutchings does at this point is of any importance to you. What are we referring to here, a soon-to-be widow hiring a backroom flunkey? From what I’ve read, Jackie Havilland’s experience is limited to a few college classes which ceased over a year ago. She is out of date and utterly unconnected to the issues at hand.”

The name pushed Colin up straighter in his seat. Hayek’s intense gray gaze shifted over, pinning him down. Thankfully his attention swiftly returned to his other visitor, who continued to scoff, “Not to mention a congressman so green he’s never even heard of K Street. This is definitely not worth your time.”

The power in the room seemed compressed, or perhaps it was just the hacker’s fear at work. Adding electricity to dry powder, waiting for the explosion. But Hayek remained utterly unfazed, saying merely, “I’ll be the judge of that. You’ve got your orders. Start marching to my music.”

The woman bit down hard on her response, picked up her purse and briefcase, and left the room without a word or backward glance.

A man who loathed unnecessary words, Hayek merely demanded of Colin, “Any update on Havilland?”

“Nothing of any importance.” Colin held to as calm a tone as possible, this close to the flame.

“Explain how you were alerted.”

“My bogus source, the place a hunter would be bound to check, automatically inserted a virus into the searcher’s computer when she logged on.” Sometimes after Colin returned from one of these sessions, his mind would go into random-sort mode, sifting through a myriad of impressions he had not even been aware of at the moment. The way sunlight glinted off the Rodin sculpture, or the glass case of T’ang artifacts, or the painting that watched him, the nymph caught in midflight. All he was aware of at the moment was Hayek’s piercing gaze. “The virus included a command to download all file directories every time the searcher logs on. I can then institute a file transfer, which the searcher sees as simply the internet service provider upgrading her software before shutting down.”

The chairman reached forward, hefted a silver dagger with a carved crystal handle. “I need a better understanding of this woman. Describe what you know.”

This was another strange thing about Hayek, how he would sometimes feed voraciously on the smallest particles of information, and other times sweep away all comments and analyses and data, crashing down with a judgment out of the blue. His staffers called such moments Blitzkriegs, and dreaded the havoc they wrought. What amazed them all, and added to Hayek’s mystique, was how incredibly often the man was proven right.

“Jackie Havilland is Orlando-based. A grunt worker in a large private investigations firm. Failed graduate student at the local university. Her brother worked for you.”

“I vaguely recall a Havilland. What was his first name?”

“Preston. Resigned for health reasons.”

“Of course. A currency analyst, am I correct?”

“Yes.” Colin swallowed, then ventured an aside. “Frankly, I’d have to agree with your last visitor. This woman doesn’t seem very important.”

Hayek lifted his head, getting a fix on him. “Motive.”

“She does her banking on-line,” Colin stammered. “She’s apparently being paid what for her must be a ton of money.”

Hayek gave his head a fractional shake, still dissatisfied. Still hunting. “Anything else?”

Colin grabbed at the single shred that came to mind. “She’s a windsurfer. A wave jumper. Her computer is filled with images, many of them photographs of herself.”

“Former computer,” Hayek corrected, his face darkening.

“Sir?”

“Those men outside committed a serious breach of my orders. I requested a search, they turned it into a frenzied attack.” Hayek used the crystal dagger to point back to the matter at hand. “This windsurfing. What does it mean?”

“Probably nothing.” When this did not satisfy, Colin continued, “I have a buddy who does it. The good ones are fanatics, hands like planks, no fear. They live for days with winds that otherwise shut the seas down. They use their boards like wings.”

Hayek mused softly, “Fanatic.”

The programmer took the ensuing silence as his signal to leave. But Hayek drew him back around with, “A great deal is riding upon your being right about this nonthreat.”

Colin wished only to be away. “Nothing can be getting by me, unless she’s writing things longhand.”

“Why did the Hutchings woman choose her? Find the motive.” The dagger aimed toward the door. “And do so fast.”