The Insider (35 page)

“Lucky guess,” Will said. Will gestured with his gun for Sam to keep talking. “And then you framed me for Ben's murder.”

“You have to admit the access card thing was a nice touch. It focused the suspicion squarely on you and away from me, but it wasn't enough to convict you with. That way, we could continue to use you.”

“Were you the one who put Ben's security key in my pocket?”

“Of course it was me. Yuri and Nikolai couldn't get access to the building that early in the morning without attracting attention.”

“So that means you were also the one who pushed Ben off the roof.”

Sam's face darkened. “I wasn't about to go to prison. Can you see me spending the rest of my life in a federal prison?”

“Actually, I can.”

“Well, I can't. It just came down to a choice between him or me, and I chose me.”

“So why did you pick me to replace Ben?”

“You were leading the negotiations, so you were the logical choice.”

“And when the SEC and DOJ began suspecting me, I acted convincingly guilty because I actually thought I was the source of the leak. . . .”

“Pretty clever, huh? I had to have a decoy when it came to insider trading. The SEC tracks that stuff too closely. And I sure didn't want anyone at Homeland Security to know my name.”

“So when Nikolai and Yuri cut me with the box cutter, they weren't really looking for information, they were—”

“Just two boys having fun.”

“I thought that Nikolai and Yuri were just petty criminals. Are you saying that they were really in with Boka the whole time?”

“No. That part was pretty much true. Nikolai was using me as his entrée into the
mafiya
. Yuri was just along for the ride. They were both trying to prove themselves to Boka and his organization.”

“Aren't you worried that they're going to blame you for the money they lost on Jupiter?”

“That's not a problem because they never actually invested very much money in Jupiter. We made up that story about losing a half mill just to turn up the pressure on you. We needed you to be highly motivated to get us what we really wanted—the encryption keys to the Clipper Chip.”

“If the Russians just wanted money, how did this turn into a terrorism scheme?”

“The
mafiya
could have used the encryption keys to commit identity theft or any number of crimes, but that would have drawn the attention of Homeland Security and the NSA. That was more heat than even they were willing to deal with. But they had no problem with selling the keys to a group of interested parties from the U.K.”

“You mean Aashif Agha.”

Sam looked surprised. “How do you know that name?”

“He was at Dacha one night when Nikolai and Yuri brought me there.” Will drew a breath. “All right, I'm going to ask you again. Why did you do this?”

“It's pretty obvious, isn't it, Will? It was the money. Boka pays me well for what he gets. And the encryption keys are going to go for a very big price. I'm going to retire early with what I make on this one. There were actually several terrorist organizations bidding. For them, the encryption keys were perfect. They offered the opportunity to do an enormous amount of damage to U.S. industries like financial services, health care, airlines, and defense. But not only that, it would be a huge embarrassment to the federal government because the keys weren't even supposed to exist. Who knows? A scandal like that might even be enough to bring down a president.”

“People are going to die. They're going to shut down the BART trains and release sarin nerve gas. But you knew that, didn't you?”

A look of surprise crossed Sam's face before he could disguise it. He clearly wanted to ask Will how he'd learned of the planned attack on the BART trains, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer.

“What have you given the Russians so far?” Will asked.

“Not that much, really. A tip on a real estate development deal. Some personal information on a few clients that they could use for extortion.”

“You're a partner. You make a good living. Why were you so desperate for money?”

“You really thought making partner was going to solve all your problems, didn't you?” Sam asked contemptuously. “After a while, ‘making a good living' is just not fucking good enough. You know how many deals I've worked on that ended up making other people rich? There's a big difference between having a nice car and a nice house and being
liquid
. I got preferred shares on some of the tech deals I worked on, and I thought that was going to put me over the hump, but that's all for shit now.”

Sam observed a brief moment of silence for his lost tech stock portfolio.

“Didn't you ever think about the consequences of what you were doing? The attack on the trains is just the part of the plan that I know about. What if a thousand people died? Or a hundred thousand?”

“We're living in an information age, Will,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “Information is just a commodity, like any other. I had some and I sold it. I can't be responsible for what the next guy does with it.”

Will checked his watch again: It was nine forty P.M.

“You have to be someplace?” Sam asked.

“Just start the car,” Will said. He had heard enough.

Driving back to the financial district, Sam seemed to grow more relaxed. “Will, buddy,” he said, “I knew you weren't going to shoot me.”

“Why's that?”

“Because everyone has a threshold they won't cross, a thing they won't do, even if it's necessary to their success. Successful people just have that threshold set a bit higher than everyone else. Take you, for example. You've been willing to do the things that are necessary to make it at a competitive place like Reynolds, but you've reached your limit. This is as far as you go.”

“What self-help book have you been reading?
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sociopaths
?”

Sam laughed with a snort. “That's funny. I'm going to use that.”

“Don't get too comfortable over there,” Will said, growing annoyed. “I'm still pointing a gun at you.”

“You may be holding a gun, but that doesn't mean you're in control of the situation.”

“Explain that one to me.”

“Nothing you can do changes the fact that I've got Boka behind me. If you do anything except sit still for your prison sentence, you're not going to live very long.”

“Now is not a good a time to be threatening me, Sam.”

“That's not a threat, it's just the reality of your situation.”

Will instructed Sam to drive north on the Embarcadero and stop in front of the Ferry Building. “Are we done here?” Sam asked, as the car came to a halt.

“Yeah. You can get out now.”

“One more thing,” Sam said, an assertive note in his voice. “I want you to give me the encryption keys.”

“I don't have them.”

“I know you better than they do. You're a capable guy, and Claire's very sharp. I figure you two probably had enough connections over at Jupiter to find a way, particularly since you're desperate.” Sam stared at Will for a long moment. “Whether you have them or not, I'm going to tell Boka that I think you do. So if you have them, you might as well hand them over. Boka is a very persuasive guy when he wants to be.”

After a long pause, Will reached in his pocket and removed the memory stick, which was in a plastic baggie.

Sam grinned. “God, I love being right.”

Sam climbed out of the car and came around to the open passenger's-side window to face Will. “You take care of yourself, buddy.” Sam squinted meaningfully at Will, the same look that Bill Clinton used to signify deep empathy. For Will, it was the ultimate expression of Sam's arrogance. After everything that he had done, from murdering Ben to setting Will up to face a prison sentence, Sam still thought that he held some sway over him. Like a parent who always sees their child as a needy six-year-old, Sam would always see Will as the first-year associate who had once been so anxious to impress him.

“Good-bye, Sam,” Will said.

Sam turned and strode across the Embarcadero toward Justin Herman Plaza, crossing the broad median lined with palm trees. Will watched as Sam walked away. Will had no doubt that Sam planned to contact Boka to have him killed as soon as he was out of his sight. Sam had clearly been alarmed by the degree of knowledge that Will had displayed about Ben Fisher, Aashif Agha, and the planned attack on public transit.

There was a chill in the air, and the fog hadn't rolled in yet. He had a clear view of the empty expanse of the plaza, which was lit by a nearly full moon. This was the place where not so long ago he had met Katya after his first encounter with Yuri and Nikolai. On the right was Vaillancourt Fountain, the enormous sculpture that resembled corroded ventilation ducts. On the left were the concrete ramps scarred by skateboard wheels.

Looming over the far end of the plaza was the white tower of Embarcadero Four. Underneath the tower was the garage where Sam's car was parked. When Will dropped Sam off, he knew that he would walk in that direction to retrieve his car.

When Sam reached the center of the plaza, two figures wearing Puma tracksuits, one chocolate brown and one moss green, emerged to meet him. Will checked the time by the Ferry Building clock tower. Everyone was right on time for the ten P.M. meeting that Will had arranged.

When he saw the two Russians, Sam stopped and looked back in Will's direction. Even at that distance, Will thought he could feel Sam's eyes lock on him. Or maybe he was just searching for an escape route.

Sam must have known that if he tried to run, he would never make it, so he continued walking toward the Russians, more slowly now.

Sam and the
sportsmeny
stood talking for a minute or so. Sam's hands stabbed in the air. It was his last negotiation, and one in which he had no leverage.

One of the men in tracksuits produced a laptop from a shoulder bag. He placed the laptop on the ground and, crouching on one knee, plugged in the memory stick to examine its contents.

When the tracksuit completed his review, he began shouting at Sam. Moments later, Sam was on the ground. They must have used a silencer because Will did not hear a shot. At first, he thought that Sam might have been shoved or tripped, but he didn't rise and he didn't move.

After that, things happened quickly. The federal agents that Will had invited to meet Sam at the escalators of Embarcadero Center must have been watching the exchange from the concourse of the office building.

Shouts carried faintly across the plaza. In response, the Russians turned to face the building, raising their guns. Before they could aim, there was the sound of at least fifteen shots, crowding on one another like the explosions at the finale of a fireworks display. When the shots stopped echoing across the square and in Will's head, he saw that the two Russians were slumped on the concrete of the plaza next to Sam. One of the Russians tried to sit up, the palms of his hands pressed against the concrete, as if it required all of his strength to oppose gravity.

When the federal agents examined the memory stick, they would see that it was blank. If they checked for fingerprints on the memory stick, they would only find those of Sam and the Russians. Will had been careful.

As four agents emerged from the office building and approached the bodies, Will reached for his keys to start the car. But before he could turn the key in the ignition, the passenger side door of the car opened and Aashif Agha climbed inside, pointing a pistol at Will's chest.

“Where is your gun?” Aashif asked.

“I don't have one.”

“Where is your gun? I saw you pointing it at Sam.” Aashif was dressed nondescriptly in a gray North Face fleece jacket, khakis, and a white button-down shirt.

Will pointed to the glove compartment. After Sam had walked away, he had placed the gun there, so there was no way he could reach it with Aashif sitting in the passenger seat.

Aashif removed the gun and ejected the clip. He tossed the bullets out the window and then replaced the gun in the glove compartment.

“What do you want from me?” Will asked.

“You know what I want,” Aashif responded. “Drive away slowly.”

He started the car and drove down the Embarcadero, unnoticed by the federal agents who were still gathered around the bodies of Sam and the Russians a few hundred yards away in Justin Herman Plaza.

After driving for only a few blocks, Aashif said, “Pull over. Here.”

Will parked beside Pier 15, a hangarlike concrete building that bore the sign DELTA BAY TUGS. The corrugated iron door to the building was raised halfway.

“Get out,” Aashif said. “We're going in there.”

As they approached the doorway, the Port of San Francisco flag atop the roof snapped in the cold wind. Aashif peered inside, confirming that the place was empty. The cavernous, warehouselike space had a series of small windows near the roof that let in dim shafts of light from the streetlights that lined the waterfront. To the right were the closed offices of the tugboat line. Past the office was another open, corrugated iron door that led to a walkway along the water where several tugs were docked. It was quiet enough that they could hear the boats bumping against the pylons and the slap of the waves.

“I've been watching you,” Aashif said, holding the gun at his side. “Obviously, you didn't give the encryption keys to Sam, so you must still have them with you, or you can tell me where you've hidden them. If you give them to me now, I can still let you walk away.”