The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) (23 page)

  Tereza didn’t acknowledge a word. She was done with these people. It was either her or them. Unfortunately, at the moment it looked most likely to be them.

Chapter 73

Monday, 15th September, 2008

  The calf hide had that luxurious, deep, soft smell that it manages to retain for about six months after it’s been treated, softened, dried and stretched across a molded steel and plastic frame.

 
Sabah Hanoush had turned forty, two weeks previously. The car had been his fortieth birthday present to himself. For Sabah, the Maserati Gran Tourismo had marked his success in the world more than anything else. Even the extortionate, three–bedroom home in Greenwich, Connecticut, suburban location of choice for Manhattan’s moneyed classes, did not give him the same full blooded, exhilarated, sheer sense of fucking achievement and success that this machine did. Particularly when he slammed his foot to the floor, the engine roaring in his ears and the car vaulting forward like a rocket ship.

 
It was nine thirty a.m. and Sabah would normally have been behind his desk on Beirsdorf Klein’s trading floor. He’d joined the bank eighteen years before, straight from college and had swiftly dedicated himself to his career, his job, the bank. While his contemporaries gallivanted around Manhattan frittering away their money, time and livers on having a good time, Sabah had remained focused, dedicated and aloof.

 
The few girls he had known in these intervening years had been keen to settle down with an upward thrusting young investment banker with the world at his feet, yet Sabah had managed to stay the course and remained focused on his long-term goals of making money and being singularly successful. In that order.

 
In the past six months, though, he’d given in to his mother’s constant badgering for him to settle down and produce a grandchild. A down-to-earth New York immigrant from Beirut, she was determined that her only son live by his duty to the family, “
no matter how many nice cars and houses you own
.”

 
Sabah had left the house as usual that morning at seven, but instead of heading to Mamaroneck, before parking the car and jumping on the MNR to Grand Central, he had taken the northbound entrance onto Ninety-Five. Now, getting on for nine thirty, he was closing in on Warwick, a commuter belt suburb of Providence, Rhode Island. He was keeping close to the sixty mile an hour limit, not wanting the cops to pull him over before he could reach his destination. Before Warwick, he took the Newport turn-off, the air gently pummeling his face.

 
He knew the area well. On a couple of occasions he’d brought girls to the island, down to Misquamicut Beach. There were miles of open, white sand on which to take long walks, there were good hotels and up-market, but casual, restaurants. And a carousel. Girls loved carousels. It gave them a chance to get close, without being too direct. Today Sabah wasn’t heading for the beach.

 
In common with many of the lifers at Beirsdorf’s, a philosophy espoused by Rick Delaney, the vast majority of Sabah’s wealth was in Beirsdorf stock. It was a badge of honor to have everything wrapped up in the firm. A show of confidence in the bank and just as importantly, loyalty. Over eighteen years, particularly the last five, as Sabah had broken through the layers of middle management to land a much envied executive role, he had accumulated stock worth millions of dollars. With many others, Sabah had used his stock as collateral to acquire other assets.

 
Many of Beirsdorf’s executive team had made investments in other institutions, property, cars, you name it, all borrowed against Beirsdorf’s AAA rated shares. The vast salaries that they earned went on living expenses. A wife, two kids, the best schools, a big apartment in the right area, a summer rental in the Hamptons could easily eat through a million a year or more.

 
Sabah briefly joined Route One, heading south, before turning left onto Route One Three Eight which would take him out over the water to Jamestown and then onto the bigger of the two bridges to Newport. He began to pick up some speed, letting the speedometer tip over onto one ten, one twenty. The throaty screams of the engine revving through the gears sent shivers through him as the car bucked at each gear change, pushing him back into the seat as he soared up over the Atlantic Ocean.

 
As he descended the ramp, he slowed to ninety and only noticed the blue flashing light, now three hundred yards or so behind him, after he’d flown past the squad car. Sabah took the rearview mirror and twisted it upwards, its view now fully constituting the Maserati’s roof lining. He put his foot down, taking the car up to one hundred thirty miles an hour. He was close.

 
The bridge’s two towers, reaching one hundred twenty meters into the sky, were visible ahead of him. A few moments later he was gunning the car up over the water onto the bridge. Travelling at one hundred forty miles an hour, close to the center of the three kilometer long bridge, Sabah swung the wheel hard to the right. As the car’s rear end spun, the roar that came from his throat, loud and menacing was not in fear, but a last challenge to a world that had defeated him.

 
The Maserati’s front end caught the railing, flimsy for such a magnificent bridge. The rear of the car flipped up, its weight causing the rest of the vehicle to summersault over the edge and fall sixty inelegant meters before hitting the water. Sabah died quickly, his neck broken long before the car hit the deep black waters of Greenwich Bay.

  When all the facts came to light, Detective Carlson, the cop responsible for investigating Sabah’s suspected suicide, concluded that his death was connected to the headline in that morning’s
New York Times Online
. The image was still displayed on the high-end television in the kitchen, opposite the breakfast bar on which a half-eaten bowl of cereal remained uneaten. Sabah had been reading the headlining story a few minutes before leaving his Greenwich home that morning, dressed in a fine looking pair of silk pajamas.
 

BEIRSDORF’
S BUST, WALL STREET ON LIFE SUPPORT

Chapter 74

  Elisabeth had arrived at the later than usual time of nine fifteen that morning. Surprised faces turned towards her as she made her way through the lobby to the elevator. The previous evening’s news bulletins detailing her dice with death had made her serious injury or demise seem inevitable. The taxi in which she had been riding, roof crushed beyond recognition, bullet holes ominously circled in red by the networks’ airbrush artists, looked as though it had been trampled by a herd of elephants. She couldn’t blame people for thinking that what they were seeing was some kind of apparition.

 
The phone on her desk rang. Elisabeth jumped, her left hand knocking over her coffee cup, liquid gushing over the leather bound desk top and streaming onto the floor.

  “
Damn.” She reached for the phone with her left hand, the sling covering the other arm preventing her from using her right. Despite the fact that the car had rolled twice and she had been left hanging, close to unconscious for at least ten minutes until the paramedics had arrived, Elisabeth had only a few minor bruises and had damaged one of two tendons in her shoulder. Fortunately the tendon had not been severed.

 
To say that she had been very fortunate would have been an exercise in understatement. The driver, on the other hand, had died instantly, the bullet, one of six fired in total, having entered his skull, drilling into the parietal lobe to the left of the right ear and exiting the frontal lobe above the left eye.

 
Despite her injuries and a mild concussion, Elisabeth had taken a call at eleven the previous evening from Edgar Lindstrom. Lindstrom had met with Rick Delaney and the CEOs of the three largest US commercial banks. Negotiations had started at two o’clock on Monday and finished by ten p.m. that evening. Delaney had apparently put on a good show, but the other CEOs knew he was backed into a corner with nowhere to go. The other banks would not touch Beirsdorf’s, only pledging to take over assets that had definite value. Delaney had stormed out of the meeting at ten, knowing the game was up.

 
She was expecting the call.

“Mrs. Kennedy, Judge Alejandro Herrera. New York Bankruptcy Court, Manhattan Division. Beirsdorf Klein’s legal counsel filed for Chapter 11 at nine thirty this morning. Given the nature of the bank’s financial position and the reluctance of any other institution to guarantee its sixty-five billion dollars in outstanding liabilities, the Court has decided to waive the bank’s right to file. Beirsdorf Klein will be liquidated and an administrator appointed with immediate effect.”

 
Rumors of the bank’s imminent demise had been circulating from late the previous evening. The
New York Times
had even run the headline “Beirsdorf’s Bust, Wall Street on Life Support,” as its headline that morning.

  “
Judge Herrera, I appreciate the call. I assume the treasury secretary has already been informed.”

  “
Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, I just came off the call.”

  “
Thank you for the information, Judge. You have a tough day ahead of you. I don’t want to hold you up.” Elisabeth said good-bye and replaced the handset. She was in no mood for small talk.

 
She was shaken from the events of the previous day. Even the two seasoned FBI agents currently standing guard outside her office hadn’t stopped her from knocking her coffee over when the call came through. She opened a drawer, took a handful of tissues from the box and mopped the spill from her desk.

 
Although she knew that the supposed power wielded by the Bilderberg Group was the stuff of conspiracy theorists, Elisabeth’s mind began to go into overdrive. When she took the call on the step outside her home, Ralph’s captor had said that the Bilderberg Group were going to try and stop her, to frame her for insider dealing. Have her suspended. Elisabeth knew it was impossible to do in so short a time. Maybe they’d figured that out too. Could yesterday’s attack have been aimed at her? Yet it was difficult to believe that some of the world’s most influential people would put out a contract on the chairman of the Fed.

 
What about Ralph? The bloodletting, lost jobs, ruined lives and political turmoil that she knew would ensue from this morning’s bankruptcy hearing were nothing compared to what would be unleashed on the world as bank after bank failed. Like a line of dominoes pitching forward into a state of collapse. It was impossible to know where it would end. Elisabeth couldn’t bring it on herself to be responsible for pushing the world into an unending tunnel of darkness, despair and depression. Not even for her son.

 
Her phone rang again. Her assistant announced her old friend.

  “
Grant, how are you?”

  “
I think that question would be more appropriate from me to you, would it not? How are you, Elisabeth? I tried your cell to no avail and I’m more than shocked to find you behind your desk. What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  “
Beirsdorf Klein filed this morning, Grant. I need to be here.”

  “
I’m glad you are, although I don’t approve. We should talk.”

  “
Go ahead.”

  “
Face to face. Together.”

  “
I can be with you in twenty minutes.”

  “
No, not here,” she picked up on the caution in his voice, or was it fear? “Two years ago we met for lunch, a small restaurant by a lake. We walked afterwards. You told me it was one of your favorite places.”

 
Elisabeth knew it well. ”Yes of course, DeC …”

“Don’t mention the name.” Grant was uncharacteristically curt. “Be outside the restaurant in thirty minutes. Agents Curtis and Bevan will escort you. Don’t tell anyone we’re meeting.”

  “
Whatever you say, Grant. I don’t understand all the cloak and dagger stuff, but I’ll be there.”

 
He’d already hung up.

                             ---

  They waited on Beach Drive by DeCourcey’s in the navy blue Lacrosse for no more than five minutes before Agent Curtis, who was sitting to her right, lifted his cell phone to his ear, answered in the affirmative and turned to her.  

  “
Okay, Mrs. Kennedy, you need to cross the street, then walk down to the river trail. Mr. Douglas is waiting for you.”

  “And you
?”

  “
We’ve orders to drop you here and return to base, ma’am. Mr. Douglas will take care of things from here,” agent Curtis responded.
  Elisabeth walked the trail that ran along the creek. Five minutes later she found Grant sitting on a bench looking out across the tumbling water. Thoughtful as always, she noticed that beside him, on the bench, was sitting a familiar brown paper bag. She sat herself down beside Grant, but didn’t turn to face him, gazing instead in the direction of an ancient tree, some of whose branches swept down into and out of the water, like the giant arms of a candelabrum.

  “
Coffee?” he turned towards her.
  “Thank you, Grant,” she did likewise and smiled. It had never occurred to her that there would ever be anything between them. He was an outstanding individual professionally and had always struck her as kind, intelligent and considerate. The spark just wasn’t there. Physically he was nondescript, medium height, bland features. He was shy and sometimes introspective. Elisabeth, for good or for bad, liked outward going, confident, forceful men with a degree of presence. Now and again she thought that she picked up signals from Grant. That saying, he was so shy when it came to anything outside bureau business, that it was difficult to tell.

 
He handed her a coffee.

  “
Elisabeth, I don’t need to tell you that you’re in a very dangerous predicament. I fear that your suspicions regarding Bilderberg are correct. We believe there are some in the organization who have decided that the only way to ensure the safety of the financial system is to have you removed from the picture. The worse thing is, even I don’t know who to trust.”

  “
Grant, my mind’s made up. I’m going to resign. Despite the situation that Ralph is in, I can’t be responsible for what will happen next. The market’s reaction to Beirsdorf’s bankruptcy petition this morning was ferocious.”

  “
Elisabeth, I admire your intent. It’s the right thing to do, but not now. You know too much about Bilderberg. A simple resignation won’t be enough to stop them.”

 
Elisabeth recalled Rick Delaney’s parting words to her following their meeting in Edgar Lindstrom’s office.
  “Let’s say you’re right. What can I do? I’ve nowhere to go.”

  “
Don’t resign. Not yet. I’ll get you to a safe house where you’ll be completely invisible to the outside world. We’ll work out what to do then.”

  “
Don’t you think that this is all taking things a bit too far?”

  “
We’ve known each other for thirty years. You know me. I’m cautious. I need to be in my profession. But I’m not needlessly cautious. Curtis and Bevan are two of my finest field agents, yet I wouldn’t let them escort you to meet me here. As you can now probably appreciate, the Bilderberg Group has power that most people would find difficult to imagine. That power is like a cancer. Over the years it’s spread its tendrils deep into the fabric of our institutions. Like I said, I don’t know who to trust. Let’s move now. There’s no time to lose. My car’s parked five minutes from here. I’ll drive you myself. Then you can draft the letter and we can put an end to all of this.”

 
He offered her the crook of his arm. Elisabeth took it and they set off towards his car.

Chapter 75

  They had been driving for close to three hours, out along Interstate Seventy, past Gaithersburg, then Frederick. Encapsulated in the comfortable, sturdy Buick, with her old friend, Elisabeth felt secure and relaxed. Soon after Fredrick, they’d turned onto Route Thirty and into the splendor of the Appalachians.

 
Conversation had been easy. They’d had quite a bit of catching up to do. It gave Elisabeth something else to think about other than her son, the bank and the financial disaster that was no doubt unraveling at that very moment. She forced herself to turn the conversation back to the mess that she had left behind.

  “
Grant, I need to know. In my position, would you have done the same thing?”

  “
What do you mean?”

  “
I shouldn’t have let Beirsdorf’s fail. I told the president that I would stand behind the banks, that I believed to let even one of them fail would have disastrous consequences. I went back on my word, to save Ralph. Would you have done the same thing?”

They passed through a hamlet, no more than a handful of houses and a couple of farms.
  “Elisabeth, I don’t know what to tell you. You know I’ve got no kids. I’ve no idea what it must be like to have a child kidnapped. Never mind being forced to listen to him or her being tortured. I’m sure I’d move heaven and earth to get them back. Whoever did it, I’d want to see them dead.”

 
Grant turned off the main highway and onto a trail leading into the forest and up into the foothills. The late afternoon sun highlighted the mosaic of color that glowed in front of her. A tunnel of golden, yellow, orange, red and pale green leaves framed the twisting road ahead of them, a kaleidoscope of color that flooded her senses.

 
She turned to Grant. “Thank you for saying that, Grant. Are all FBI safe houses in such beautiful locations?”

 
Grant smiled. “Well, that depends on who we’re safe housing.” He let the remark hang in the air.

 
There was silence between them for some time. Elisabeth took in the beauty around her. It had been a long time since she had last driven up this way. She had forgotten how beautiful the countryside could be. Her focus on career meant that she often found herself replacing her office on Constitution Avenue with her office in Glover Park at weekends. She seldom ventured out past the Beltway, other than to reach Dulles.

 
Elisabeth dipped into her handbag, pulled out her cell phone and started dialing.
  “Jesus, Elisabeth, what the hell are you doing?” shouted Grant. “Turn it off. Now.”

 
Alarmed at the panic in his voice, she immediately hit disconnect. He turned towards her, brow furrowed, lips taught.