The Last Trade (31 page)

6

Johannesburg–Hong Kong, 9:29 EST

“M
ichaud.”

“My name is Sawa Luhabe. I am calling from Johannesburg, South Africa. Does this mean anything to you?”

Michaud sits up. He's in front of a bank of monitors, each displaying a different aspect of agent Cara Sobieski's story. He's smoking a cigarette, nursing a Chinese beer, and listening to Tony Bennett's “The Best Is Yet to Come.” He lowers the music as his eyes track to the Jo'burg screen. “Ms. Luhabe. It is a pleasure to hear your voice. I've got people scouring the continent looking for you.”

“I am presently in front of a TSI satellite office, prepared to surrender myself in exchange for your protection.”

“You have my word. I'm sending a note to my colleague there as we speak and someone will come out to get you. I promise you'll be safe.”

“Thank you.”

“While you're waiting,” he says. “By any chance have you recently spoken to our friend Sobieski?”

“Just via e-mail. While she was in flight, en route to New York.”

7

New York City, 9:31
A.M.

T
he U.S. markets open, but under a yellow flag.

Within five minutes the Dow falls off a five-hundred-point cliff. Stocks are down across the board. The seven securities of the seven trades fall the farthest, but programmed trading takes hundreds of others down with them. There are three thresholds, each of which represents a different level of decline in terms of points in the Dow Jones industrial average. Since it is before 2
P.M.,
the first halt will shut down the market for an hour. If threshold number two is breached before 1
P.M.
, the market will close for two hours.

They're in a cab, heading toward midtown, when Sobieski's phone rings. Michaud. “I just heard from your friend in Jo'burg. Tell me everything you know about Trans—”

“—mediant! We're heading there now.”

“You think they're gonna hit the event?”

“Everything we've found points that way. Any way you can—”

“I'm already putting out word to clear it, but they won't unless I have something hard.”

“How does that feel?” She looks out the window. Traffic on Sixth slows near the Garden. Havens rocks back and forth, glaring out the other window. Then, poking at her handheld, she says, “I'll forward what I have. . . . For starters, Transmediant!'s building is an NYCRE holding. CGI insures the building. CEOs for the other five stocks that were attached to the bloody short trades are going to be in the building today to hear Rick Salvado of The Rising give the keynote—”

“I just saw him on TV. Ringing the bell on crash day, telling everyone it's gonna be all right.”

“Michaud, this is bad.”

“You've got to wait for backup. I've already contacted Homeland, Treas—”

Sobieski interrupts: “We gotta go. . . .”

Michaud pauses. “Wait, Sobes. We've got to get the building shut down. Just wait, Cara. Wait until I get you backup.”

Cara
, she thinks. “You know I can't do that, Michaud. If it was just money, maybe.”

“Jesus.”

“Listen, Boss. I e-mailed you every passage we've found from
The Odyssey
. Someone somewhere is using them as a way to activate the trades and murders. Is there a way to run them all to see if they've shown up recently on a platform somewhere? A newspaper or blog or series of social media entries?”

“Sure. Already starting to look.”

The cab turns left off the avenue.

“Here's something,” Michaud says.

“Shoot.”

“Crimson Classics: A Harvard Dude's Take on Greek Lit.”

“Do you have an addy?”

“We're trying.”

They see the logo on the side of the building up ahead. She clicks off.

Havens turns to her. “They found a blog?”

“Yup.”

“Do you have a gun?”

She shakes her head, pounds her fist on her thigh. As soon as the traffic slows, she opens the door to the still moving cab.

“Do they have the blog guy?”

“They're tracking.”

“What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Clear the building . . . take Salvado down,” she answers, already three steps in front of him.

As they near the building, he asks one more question, “The blog—what was it called?”

8

New York City, 9:45
A.M.

I
n the limo uptown, Benjamin Krupp begins to cry.

Pathetic son of a bitch, thinks Salvado. A hundred million in the bank. Twenty-five-million-dollar bonus this year, with another twenty due in December, if he lives that long, and he's still crying. “Buck up, pal,” he tells the Transmediant! CEO. “You've got about five minutes to get your shit together and give the most important speech of your life.”

“I know,” Krupp whimpers. “I know. But it's just that no one seems to have a goddamn clue.”

“You do your part, Kruppy, and I promise, when I go on at ten, I will rock the place.”

The limo slows as it turns off the avenue and heads toward the freight entrance. Salvado's BlackBerry vibrates. He holds it up with the screen facing away from Krupp.

At 9:39, despite Salvado's bold public proclamation at the Exchange, the first threshold of a crash was breached and a trading halt has automatically been triggered. You're powerful, Salvado thinks. But no one is powerful enough to override the automatic halts. In a few hours they'll give it another shot and try until the third threshold is breached, closing the market for the day. However, Salvado doesn't dwell on this. No way it's gonna get that far.

At 9:48 Krupp wipes his eyes, takes a stuttering breath, and opens his door. Media vans with satellites on their roofs line the street. Mic-toting correspondents scan the sidewalks for a notable willing to talk about the collapse. Two security guards step forward to greet Krupp at the loading dock on the side of the Transmediant! mail room. He looks back into the limo.

“Coming, Rick?”

“You and David go on in without me,” Salvado says, gesturing to his bald, backpack-toting assistant. “I'll finish this message up and join you in a sec. And Ben . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Strong like a rock.”

While he watches Krupp enter the building, Salvado checks the markets, shakes his head at the catastrophe in the making, and wonders how much of it is his fault, his doing.

The driver adjusts the mirror. “Sir?”

“Right. I'm going.” He opens the door, then leans back inside. “You'll wait right here, front end pointing out, ready to roll?”

“Yes, sir.” After Salvado closes the door, the driver pulls out his device and types,

 

The Lord of the Western Approaches, Approaches.

Which translates, in no less than four languages, for people in no less than seven countries, to
It's go time
.

9

New York City, 9:50
A.M.

T
hey burst into the lobby, and Sobieski hustles across the marble floor, beneath the million-dollar murals and through the clustered billionaire conference-goers, toward the security desk. Two men are on top of her before she reaches the desk. “I'm a federal agent,” she tells them as they close ranks upon her. “You've got to clear the building.”

They grab her by the elbows and begin to steer her away from the others. “I'm agent Cara Sobieski of TSI, and you have got to believe me, there's a bomb in this building.”

“Right,” says one of the guards, pushing a button under his desk, motioning with a hand to another guard, “but you're gonna have to show us some kind of ID. . . .”

Seeing that time is wasting, Havens looks around the lobby, walks to a far wall near the banks of elevators, and pulls a fire alarm. As the alarm pierces the air, two businessmen who saw him yank the switch ask what's going on and he tells them, “There's a bomb in the building.”

One of the men steps back and yells over his shoulder, just as Havens had hoped, “Says there's a bomb in the building.”

Havens takes two steps back and watches. People heading inside turn around and head back out. Another alarm, set to a different pitch and rhythm, begins to sound. The two guards with Sobieski briefly let go of her arms and turn to look down the desk for information from their boss. At that instant, Sobieski slips away and runs toward the security turnstiles. Through the sea of conference-goers who have turned to leave she swims in, toward the theater.

Steps behind her once again, Havens follows.

10

New York City, 9:48
A.M.

“W
e're getting out of here,” Deborah Salvado whispers to her.

“You said . . .”

“It's only a matter of minutes before he kills us anyway, so I'm going to do something.”

Miranda looks at her. She agrees.

“I'm going to try to get out first.”

“He's in between us and the door. There's no—”

“The other way,” Deborah whispers. “At the other end of the room, I'm not sure if there's a door, but next time he gets up, I'm going to try. When he follows . . . I want you to run out the other door through the hall as fast as you can.”

“But . . .”

Deborah Salvado shakes her head. “This is the way it's supposed to happen. You didn't deserve this. And this . . . this is what I get. Plus, I feel lucky.”

A few minutes later the bearded man's phone rings again.

11

New York City, 9:50
A.M.

T
he theater is filled with agitated rich people, the old and new financial and corporate elite and their broad-shouldered security guards. The blare of the alarms exponentially compounds their market-related anxiety.

Ten years and a month since 9/11, and the fear rises back in an instant.

Benjamin Krupp stands in the center of the stage, holding a PowerPoint clicker he'll never click, wondering how the day can possibly get any worse. Over the PA system they are already playing the opening bars to Rick Salvado's song, “The Rising,” of course, by Bruce Springsteen. Or, the “other Boss,” as Salvado likes to call him.

Sobieski crashes through the swinging doors at the rear of the theater.

Havens is close behind. “Everyone out!” she screams. “There is a bomb threat in this room.” New York City PD foot patrol are first on the scene, running onto both ends of the stage and directing the crowd toward the exits. FDNY first responders, in full bunko gear, begin entering from the rear. Sobieski continues to shout, “Everyone out!” but she's not sure what to do next. She's scanning the crowd for Salvado, whom she's never seen in person, and for anything that looks like it might be a bomb, but what does that look like, exactly? Right now, everything looks like a bomb.

Havens jumps onto a table in the back of the room, in part to get away from the stampede and in part to get a better view of the theater. He sees Laslow before Laslow sees him. The bald man is cursing at an uncooperative cell phone in his right hand and wearing a backpack. He looks even bulkier than usual and he's heading directly toward Havens.

Havens looks down at the tabletop and notices that it is covered with closed cardboard boxes stamped
SALVADO MEMOIR
. If anyone would know the status of Salvado's memoir, it's Havens. The guy never stopped talking about it, and its June publication date. He also knows that he's far from finished writing it. Terrorist or not, the egotistical son of a bitch couldn't keep his mouth shut over something like that. You're standing, Havens tells himself, on the fucking bomb. And Laslow, whose faulty phone was probably detonator number one, is detonator number two.

He leaps off the table and stumbles momentarily. When he looks back up, he can no longer see Laslow.

As he bounds through the side door near the stage, Salvado sees that he won't be delivering a keynote this morning. He sees the pile of books in the back of the room and hears people shouting “bomb” as they rush past, toward the exit. Only now does he realize the full extent of the pact he made in 2002. “What have I done?” he asks himself as he continues toward the stack of boxes. After three steps he sees the bald man and calls his name. “Laslow!”

Laslow turns and frowns. “What?”

“No one said anything about a bomb.”

Laslow shrugs, quickly turns, then hustles away toward the boxes.

Havens is looking to his left as Laslow comes up on him from the right. Havens turns and reaches for Laslow, but the larger man recognizes him and punches him, glancing off his jaw, driving him back against the boxes. Havens straightens and surges forward, but Laslow steps back, pulls out a pistol, and points it at Havens. Havens stares at the gun, then directly at Laslow. “You don't know when to quit, do you, you fucking egghead?” Havens looks over Laslow's shoulder, where Salvado stands, panting and wild-eyed. Laslow glances back at Salvado, who nods, Do it. As Laslow turns, Havens braces himself for the shot, the close-range bullet to the head.

But as Laslow fires, Salvado's right fist slams down on his gun hand, knocking the pistol to the floor. Laslow turns and drives his left fist into Salvado's nose and a right uppercut that drops him to his knees. He steps away from Salvado, eyes scanning the floor for the pistol. When he doesn't see it, he removes his phone from his pocket and begins to rapidly redial the detonation code.

Three numbers in, the bald man looks up and sees his gun in Havens's hands, trained on his face. Havens squeezes the trigger and blood jets out the back of Laslow's head and splashes on the stack of boxes. Before Laslow pitches face forward onto the theater floor, Havens grabs him and begins prying his dying hands away from anything that can set off the bomb that will take down the room, the building, and the economy.

When he looks up, he sees the man who made him rich and changed his life several times over, bleeding from the nose, on his knees staring at him with a look of terror in his eyes. Havens raises the gun but knows he won't fire it. He knows now that Salvado is an evil piece of trash, a criminal and a sociopath, but not a terrorist. Salvado takes a step back and slowly shakes his head while looking into Havens's eyes. The billionaire raises his arms in half apology, half surrender. “This was never part of the plan,” he explains. Then, before Havens changes his mind, he turns and disappears into the crowd.