The Last Trade (33 page)

18

New York City, 10:49
A.M.

M
iranda leads Havens and two NYPD officers back down the stairwell to the room in which she and Deborah Salvado had been held captive. The blood trail starts on the stairs past the far door. Deb was right, Miranda thinks, there was another way out. But was she fast enough?

“Deb!” No answer. But halfway up the steps they can hear labored breathing, a low, weak groaning. Lying on her back, bleeding profusely from a spot between her right chest and shoulder, is Deborah Salvado.

“Oh, shit, Deb,” Havens says.

She looks up at them and manages a smile.

Havens yells back toward the cops for help. “She's alive!”

Deborah opens her mouth, mumbles, “Did he do it?”

Havens shakes his head. Miranda kneels down alongside her and takes her hand. “No, no, Deb. He didn't. I don't think he ever knew what they had planned.”

Deborah Salvado looks at them both and smiles.

 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28

 

 

 

New York

N
o one will ever piece it all together. At least not publicly.

The trades. The killings. The bombs. The Russian connection. The Flash Crash of October 21, 2011. And the fall of America's favorite hedge guy, Rick Salvado. No one will mention the fact that Exeter – and Harvard-educated Tommy Rourke was also a Chechnyan émigré who became radicalized against the West after being orphaned, a victim of Russian atrocities in 1994. His far-reaching terrorist plot that began in 1994, but took hold more than ten years ago, when he and his childhood friend and fellow terrorist Laslow first identified and approached the shamed and insolvent hedge guy Rick Salvado with an offer he couldn't refuse and would not fully understand until it was too late.

A decision was made at the executive level to keep it silo-ed, and silent. The economy couldn't sustain another crash. Another dip. The market systems couldn't be exposed to look so vulnerable. A landmark building in the center of Manhattan could never come that close to falling, let alone a building filled with the financial world's most powerful figures. Although the world has grown used to financial instability, bombs in a building filled with billionaires is a whole other story.

The crash was chalked up to market anomalies. Everything from computerized trading to double – and triple-dip fears to foreign debt concerns to a series of unexpectedly low quarterly reports in the tech sector.

A thorough study was promised and commissioned. Two studies, actually. Any significant short trade by which someone profited during the Flash Crash was labeled suspicious and would also be investigated. All this, of course, would take many months to conduct, by which time the public, consumed by new fears, would forget why or how any of it happened in the first place.

The incident at the Transmediant! Tower was deemed a false alarm. The explosives, which were quickly and subtly taken out of the building by NSA, TSI, and FBI operatives, were called harmless. Not really explosives after all, the story went. The bald man with the backpack acted alone. He was a disgruntled immigrant with a history of violence and mental illness. Rourke's death was collateral damage. Drew Havens's name was never associated with the fatal shooting of the would-be placebo bomber. In fact, no surveillance footage of the incident ever became available. It seems that the security cameras at the world's most sophisticated media and entertainment company were, apparently, on the fritz that morning.

The fall of Rick Salvado was just another in a long line of high-profile outrages in the financial industry. The Madoff du jour. Nothing surprised the public by the autumn of 2011 when it came to financial scandals. The story that was served up to the public was that Salvado was a fraud and a man who would do almost anything in the name of profit. What was truly scandalous was how many people believed him. His behavior on the subway platform late in the morning of October 21 was said to be the result of a market crash–driven psychotic episode. The acts of a man who had suddenly lost everything. The collapse of his fund was swift but not exactly shocking. Stars rise and burn out, and the collateral debris crushes millions every day on Wall Street.

In the end, Havens was convinced that Salvado was not a terrorist. Just a weak man who had made a pact at his most desperate and vulnerable moment and was willing to look the other way from everything for years. Even, eventually, terrorism, if it meant holding on to his money.

No one came forward to defend him at his trial. Not even his wife.

The markets survived. They quickly gained back some of the losses, but far from all. Because while the media and the authorities told one story, the markets themselves knew better. Deep down in the recesses of the patterns, in the calculations of the quants, the markets could discern and unearth the truth, and it was not at all pretty.

 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8

1

Brooklyn, New York

I
n Boerum Hill she finds a sparring partner whom she cannot hit but who frequently hits her, with ease. And this makes her happy. It's the only way to improve.

She asked Michaud for a week. He declined, but she took it anyway. And why stop at a week? She is trying to think long-term. Why not Brooklyn? Why not something different, away from money and terror and her past?

Her opponent snaps one, two, three straight left jabs at her, and she only manages to catch the third. She considers this progress. The only way to learn is from someone better than you. The only way to move on is to move on.

The second time Michaud called her, she did not pick up. The third time she threw away the phone.

Late one morning last week she spoke to Drew Havens. He was thrilled to hear from her. They discussed that day and clarified some of the events that had led up to it. At one point he asked her if she was all right. From their talks that night in Manhattan he remembered her issues with her father and Marco Nello, and her gambling.

“Is there anything I can do?” Havens asked, remembering their conversation on that night on the streets of Manhattan. “Because it would be my pleasure to—”

She cut him off. “No, everything's been resolved,” she lied. “But thanks.” She could not abide taking his money.

A few days after throwing out her phone, she got a call on her new one. From Cheung. He wanted to know how she was enjoying Brooklyn.

She doesn't have a big problem with the way the government handled things. She understands there are some things too dangerous for public consumption. She understands that at that level there are secrets on top of secrets, and she assumes that she only knows half of the facts and even less of the truth.

The same way with her family.

The same way in which those who think they know her only know half of the facts and even less of the truth.

Then today, just before she left for the gym, Michaud called on her new phone.

“How did you get this?”

“I think you'd be disappointed if I didn't.”

“You gave my number to Cheung, didn't you?”

“A relationship with Cheung can have its privileges.”

“I don't want to do this anymore, Michaud.”

“Who cares about what we
want
to do? Want never enters the equation with this job, Sobes. We do it because we have to. And right now, you have to pay back some favors and get your ass back to work.”

“Are you drinking?”

“Actually, yeah. But I'm karaoke-free for eight days. Taking it one song at a time. What about you? Staying away from the tables?”

She's so fixated on blocking the woman's lightning-fast punches that she doesn't see the leg sweep. She falls down face-first, barely catching herself with her gloved hands. The stale sweat smell of the canvas, the threat of defeat, feels good. It pushes her to her feet, more determined than ever to be ready for what's next.

She's spent quite a bit of time online these past few weeks. Looking into the case, but mostly looking into Rick Salvado. When discussing his fall, the media frequently wondered how one of the world's richest men could fall so hard, so fast. Because she knows more, she took it farther: She wondered how he ever became so complicit in destroying the system that made him. When she discovered his father's story, she understood. When she read more closely about the demise of Salvado's father, she realized they weren't so different after all.

He was the son of a hero.

She was the daughter of a criminal.

Each lived life as a response to the life of a father. The death of that father. They simply chose different paths.

Often, just before a punch is thrown, she thinks of that moment on the subway platform and how easy it would have been to let him fall. She's decided that her reaction did not come from her brain, but another part of her. She's happy that she reached out her hand toward Rick Salvado. Killers deserve death; thieves slightly less.

She shuffles her feet, adjusts her headgear, and readies herself for her opponent's next move. This time she sees it coming before it even happens, and she has a response that surprises even her.

2

Katonah, New York

F
or the sixteenth consecutive day Drew Havens lives in a world without numbers.

When he wakes up, he doesn't bother to check the markets or his portfolio or even the scores on the sports pages.

In some regards he's doing this as an experiment, a deliberate act of will, but in others he's doing it out of necessity, to show Miranda that he's capable of change. That he will do whatever it takes to keep them together and in love.

Once the government debriefs ended and they told him how it was going to go down, what the agreed upon narrative would be for the press and the trials to come, he disappeared, taking a self-imposed sabbatical, refusing to talk to the press or anyone who had anything to do with his old life. Just Miranda.

She suggested they take a trip. St. Bart's or Fiji or Kauai. Some place far, to get away. But he didn't want to do anything lavish or remotely excessive. He wanted to stay in one place only: her rented apartment in Katonah.

In the mornings they walk around the corner for coffee at NoKa Joe's. Some days they set out for a hike through the trails at the Pound Ridge Reservation or points farther north. Some days she runs errands and he hangs around the house. Once, while Miranda was out, he inquired about the house they almost bought when Erin was alive, and the Realtor told him she'd look into it.

They talk a lot, more than ever. But they don't talk about Erin, the past, or the future. They just do what feels right, moment by moment, and hope it lasts.

They're stretched out on the couch, watching a movie about a man whose job is to predict the future, when the phone rings. Miranda rises to answer it. Havens eavesdrops for a second, then loses interest and goes back to watching the movie.

After she hangs up, Miranda sits back down and takes his head in her lap. She strokes his hair several times and then says, “Don't you want to know what that was about?”

He thinks about it. “Not really.”

“Even if it's from Johannesburg?”

He opens his eyes. “Sawa Luhabe?”

“Uh-huh. Sobieski gave her the number, though I imagine she could have found it on her own.”

“What'd she say?”

“Well, we have a place to stay if we ever find ourselves in Johannesburg.”

“Sweet.”

After a moment, Miranda continues. “She also said to thank you. That you are a brave and decent man. And if not for you, she, and probably her daughter, wouldn't be alive.”

Havens looks away from the TV and out the window and lets the words register. He wants to look up at Miranda but doesn't. To do so would make too much of the obvious, and still that might never be enough. Finally, he simply says it again:

“Sweet.”

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to my agent and friend, David Gernert. Thanks to everyone at the Gernert Company, including Erika Storella, Will Roberts, Anna Worrall, Seth Fishman, and Chris Parris-Lamb. Thanks to Ben Sevier and everyone at Dutton. Thanks also to the numerous hardworking and good-hearted people in law enforcement, counter-terrorism, and the financial services industry who took the time to share their own stories and stories about others not quite as hardworking and kind-hearted. Finally, thanks and love to Judy, Isabel, and Jamie.

About the Author

James Conway is the pseudonym for a hedge fund insider and a global strategy director at a major advertising firm.
The Last Trade
is Conway's first thriller.