The Prince of Risk (19 page)

“J
an, it’s Alex.”

“You’ve been gone twelve hours. What is it?”

“The French ID’d him. His name is Luc Lambert. We were right about the tat. He served in the French Foreign Legion for nine years, then worked as a mercenary afterward.”

“Great news. Pass it on to Bill Barnes.”

“I already e-mailed him the particulars. But listen, Jan, there’s more.” Alex explained about Lambert’s participation in the failed Comoros coup and his ties to Executive Outcomes, the private military company that had acted as a recruiter for the effort. “The way I see it, the same group may know why Lambert was in the States.”

“Executive Outcomes…never heard of them.”

“I did some checking. They went out of business after the failed coup. The owner was a guy named James Salt, former SAS officer, decorated soldier, all that. Salt started another business soon afterward called GRAIL.”

“Slow down, Alex. I’m not getting all of this.”

“G–R–A–I–L. Global Response, Analysis, Intelligence, and Logistics. They don’t call themselves a ‘private military company’ anymore. These days they go by ‘security consultants,’ and they trawl for contracts providing protection and security services in Iraq and Afghanistan, that kind of thing. Their website lists their address in London. I want to fly over and meet with them.”

“When? In a few days?”

“Today. I’ll need a jet.” McVeigh said nothing. Silence was not the response Alex wanted. “It’s our chance to break this thing wide open,” she continued. “If GRAIL recruited him, we can find out on whose behalf.”

“Those are some big ifs. Client confidentiality is a cornerstone of that business. I doubt they’d say a word without a court order.”

“We can go in with our friends at Five,” said Alex, referring to MI5, the British domestic security service and sister agency of the FBI. “Have a heart-to-heart. I don’t think any firm would want to be identified as being a backer of a shoot and scoot on U.S. soil.”

“If that’s what we’re looking at.”

“Even if it’s not, the least we’re talking is international weapons smuggling and multiple homicide.”

“Have Bill call our legate at the embassy over there. He can pursue the matter.”

“I think I can make this happen more quickly.”

“It’s not your decision. I’m not laying on a jet for you to go on a wild-goose chase when we have a network in place that can get us the answers we need.”

Alex had rehearsed her arguments in advance. She had initiated the surveillance on Windermere Street. It was her legwork that had led to the discovery of Lambert. She had experience working with Scotland Yard and MI5. By the tone of McVeigh’s voice, she knew that none would work.

“I’ll convey our concerns that this needs to happen fast,” McVeigh went on. “But from here on out, talk to Bill. I know what you’re feeling. You think that what happened at Windermere is your fault and that it’s up to you to make things right. But I respect the chain of command more. This is Bill’s show. End of story. Are we clear?”

Alex didn’t answer. McVeigh repeated her question angrily.

“Yes,” said Alex. “We’re clear.”

“Goodbye.”

Alex hung up. She called Bill Barnes, and in the interests of honesty and future working relations relayed her conversation with McVeigh. Barnes said much too politely that he’d make the call to their man at the London embassy and promised to keep Alex in the loop. “The second anything happens, I’m on the horn to you. You have my word.”

Alex was underwhelmed by his sincerity. She entered the kitchen and made herself a pot of coffee. She knew in advance how Barnes’s request would play out. First the legate in London would call his opposite at MI5. A meeting would be scheduled later that afternoon at the earliest, but more probably for Wednesday. MI5 likely would have some connections at GRAIL. A call would be made. A luncheon would be arranged. All very formal. Very by the book. Very British. Thursday would roll around, and then…

Alex slammed her mug on the counter, spilling coffee everywhere.

Thursday was too late.

T
eam Two landed at Waterloo International Airport on the outskirts of the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo, 100 miles east of Toronto, at 8:05 a.m. local time. Kitchener-Waterloo, or KW, as it was more commonly called, was known as a beacon of the Canadian high-tech industry. The cities boasted two universities renowned for their electrical engineering and information technology programs and were home to several multinational corporations, including a world leader in the development and manufacture of smartphones and a smaller but highly respected developer of microchips.

The seven men and women who deplaned walked solemnly across the tarmac and into the customs and immigrations hall. No other planes were due in until noon, and a single officer of the Royal Canadian Immigration Services manned the arrivals booth. The officer smiled and welcomed the visiting Portuguese executives to his country. He assumed they had come to visit their Canadian colleagues at one software enterprise or another. None of the arrivals said anything more than “Good morning” or “Hello.” If they appeared too tan and too fit for men and women who made their living banging out software code for hours on end and subsisting on a diet of Red Bull and Skittles, the official did not mention a word. Nor did he remark upon the absence of baggage. It was hardly strange for professionals in the IT industry to make day trips to company headquarters. Besides, he was preoccupied with another matter: a glitch in the airport security surveillance systems.

Ten minutes before the plane landed, the airport’s entire video grid had gone dead. Sixteen cameras providing real-time views of every square foot of the 20-acre airport complex went black. Despite ongoing feverish efforts, the airport’s technicians could not find the cause. It was as if, one of them said, “someone had unplugged the entire system.” Nothing they tried made a whit of difference.

The team boarded a van parked at the curb. They drove twenty minutes through lush countryside, past cows grazing in the sun and farmers rolling hay. Inside the van, a stillness settled on the team. All present knew that the run in was as important as the operation itself. They were on foreign soil. At any moment something could go awry, and their every sense was attuned to the possibility. When the van slowed suddenly, all heads looked to the fore. But it was only an Amish man driving his horse and buggy down the center of the road.

They had numbered thirty when they had gathered in Namibia one month earlier. The continent of Africa was in as much a state of turmoil as ever in its tumultuous history. Machinations of every variety ran high from Morocco to Mozambique, from Togo to Tanzania, and everywhere in between. The source of tensions was not land but what lay under it. If the late eighteenth century had witnessed the last great land grab, the early twenty-first was seeing the great minerals derby. Countries around the globe were scrambling to lock up rights to oil fields, mineral deposits, and precious metals. First and foremost among them was China. Private contractors crowded flights to every major capital. Some were miners, others engineers, and others colonialism’s old favorite, mercenaries.

The training site was a 20,000-acre tract of land five hours north of Windhoek. Selection began upon arrival. All thirty men and women underwent an in-depth physical followed by a battery of psychological tests. The final stage was a grueling series of fitness tests culminating in a ten-hour overland march covering 40 miles while carrying an 80-pound pack.

Twenty-four people passed. All were assigned aliases and given accompanying documents. True identities were not to be revealed, on pain of dismissal. The rule went out the window after a week. The rigorous daily training quickly built camaraderie. As the course progressed from timed 10-mile runs, hour-long calisthenics routines, and evolutions on an obstacle course to more sophisticated team-building exercises, the recruits abandoned aliases for real names. There was a good possibility a few would die on the mission. Most preferred to hear their true Christian name before going to their Maker.

They were a diverse lot.

There was Sandy Beaufoy, the former South African commando nicknamed Skinner. There was Berndt from Stockholm, who’d done NATO duty in Afghanistan and had been asked to leave the service when he continued to request repeat tours. There was Peter from Kiev, who’d made a name for himself as a sniper in Grozny. His mates in the Red Army had christened him “the Widow-maker,” and at the shooting range he proved that his talents hadn’t diminished one iota. There was Rachel, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Force who had grown a bit too angry with the Palestinians. And Brigitta, a former Berlin policewoman who enjoyed knocking heads too much for her pacifistic superiors. There was Miguel from Colombia, and Jacques from France, and Billy, Bobby, and Ian from England. All were of a type. Aggressive, disciplined, organized, sociopathic, and to a large degree fearless. And all possessed a chip on their shoulder the size of Ayers Rock, which made it impossible for them to lead a quiet, ordered, rule-abiding life.

For the job, each would earn a fee of $1 million, $200,000 having been paid upon completion of the selection course and the remaining $800,000 due upon completion of the operation.

And, of course, surviving.

Their destination that morning in Kitchener-Waterloo was the headquarters of Silicon Solutions. Silicon Solutions was not as large a company as Intel or National Semi or Advanced Micro Devices. The company occupied a specialized niche in the telecommunications industry. It was its chip that was used in three-quarters of the world’s cellular phones.

The van drove to an enclosed hangar at the rear of the factory grounds. Here the members alighted and strolled up and down the poured concrete floor. Those who so chose smoked cigarettes. Several performed calisthenics to relieve tension and to burn off the excess energy that builds before a hazardous operation. Most, however, simply paced back and forth and made small talk.

After an hour the hangar doors opened and a truck entered. It was not an eighteen-wheeler but a simple delivery truck painted with Silicon Solutions’ bright, hopeful logo. The driver lifted the rear door. The cargo compartment was filled floor to ceiling with boxes of finished microchips. One row, however, was not filled, leaving a path for the men and women to enter. One by one, they climbed into the truck and filed to the front of the cargo area, where a bench had been installed for their comfort. Once inside, they rearranged the boxes so that the compartment appeared full and their presence was suitably camouflaged.

At eleven o’clock the truck pulled out of the hangar and left company grounds. It required two hours’ driving to reach the border crossing in Buffalo, where the truck was waved through after a cursory check of its manifest. The driver had been making the run for fifteen years and knew the inspector personally. They traded comments about last night’s baseball game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees. To the inspector’s chagrin, the Yankees had won on a ninth-inning home run blast by A-Rod. The inspector tore off his copy of the manifest without casting so much as a look and handed the remaining sheets back to the driver. The exchange was over, start to finish, in forty-five seconds.

Forty-five seconds after that, the Silicon Solutions truck crossed the border into the Empire State.

Team Two was on American soil.

T
he madness began minutes after Astor ended his call with Magnus Lee.

“Bobby, it’s Jay Cantrell.”

Jay Cantrell ran the prime direct division at another of Comstock’s lenders. He was Texas royalty, scion of an oil baron who owned half of Houston. Cantrell had lived in New York for thirty years, but his twang was still as strong as the day he arrived.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”

“Wish it was. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that if the rates hold, we’re looking at a margin call of one hundred fifty million this afternoon.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“I know you are,” said Cantrell. “And I know we don’t have to worry about Comstock one little bit.”

“You don’t, Jay. The dollar’s going to rally versus the yuan.”

Cantrell cleared his throat, and when he spoke his twang had lost some of that down-home sweetness. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, Jay.”

“And?”

“I’ll talk to you after the close.”

“Now hold on a sec there, Bobby,” said Cantrell, one good ole boy to another. “A buck fifty’s a nice pile of change. I’d like to be able to give my boys a heads-up that everything’s hunky-dory down your way.”

“Couldn’t be better, Jay. And I thank you for asking.”

“So I can tell ’em—”

“You can tell ’em that I’ll speak with you after the close.”

Astor hung up. His eyes had been glued to the monitor for the length of the conversation, checking the slightest fluctuations in the position. Every tick up or down of a hundredth of a cent translated into a gain or loss of millions of dollars. With every tick, he felt a vein in his temple throb.

A second later his phone rang again. “Sam Bloch on line one,” said his assistant.

Bloch was another lender, one of the two people at the clambake on Sunday night whom Astor had counted as a friend. Bloch was old-school. They had always kept one rule between them: no bullshit.

“Yeah, Sam.”

“You fucked up, Bobby.”

“Give me some time.”

“You’ve got six hours till the close. And twenty-four after that to make good.”

“What are we out to you?”

“Couple hundred. You got it?”

“Let me check my pockets.”

“No one’s in the mood to laugh today, buddy. This is real. No sign the rates are softening. I saw that press conference last night, too. You’re not the only one sweating this. What the hell were you thinking?”

Astor grimaced. Win big or lose big, it was the same question. Only the tone differed. Admiration or condemnation. Right now, he was damned if he had an answer. “I’ll talk to you after the close, Sam.”

“I can’t be your rabbi on this one. Rules are rules. Lots of people are watching. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is. And Sam…thanks.” Astor hung up.

The pain in his temple increased.

The phone rang again. “Who is it now?” he asked his assistant.

“Adam Weinstein from the
Times.
”

Weinstein wrote the “Deal of the Day” column for the paper. He was Wall Street’s Hedda Hopper, and just about as warm and fuzzy, with a reputation for breaking the big story. Astor couldn’t trust himself to dish out the requisite bullshit this morning. Telling a newspaper the truth was like handing the hangman a rope. Astor had no illusions. Weinstein was an executioner. Astor knew just the person to shut him down. “Give him to Marv.”

Another light was blinking. Astor ignored it. Instead, he called Sully and asked him to bring the car around to the front of the building. He placed one last call. “Get me Septimus Reventlow.”

“One second.”

The call went through a moment later. “Hello, Bobby. Why aren’t you calling on your private number?”

“Phone issues. Hello, Septimus. Have a minute?”

“I should ask you the same question after the reception I received yesterday. I don’t have to ask why you’re calling.”

“Markets move up and down.”

“Should I feel reassured, or should I be demanding to withdraw my family’s money from your fund?”

“Time will tell. We’re standing behind the position.”

“And the Chinese announcement?”

“Posturing ahead of the election this Friday.”

“Can one election change so much?”

“Absolutely. The new members elected to the Standing Committee will signal which direction the country is heading in.”

“And you think they will backtrack on their promises to your government?”

“They don’t have a choice. It’s hard enough to govern a country of a billion and a half people when the economy is booming. Right now the economy’s in the tank. The Chinese prize stability above all else. You do the math.”

“Tell me, Bobby, are they still building too many motorcycles?”

Astor chuckled. During their first meeting, three months earlier, he’d told Reventlow a story that illustrated the economic quandary the Chinese found themselves in. There was a government-owned motorcycle factory in Dalian that turned out two hundred beautiful bikes a day. The motorcycles were picture-perfect knockoffs of Harley-Davidsons but at half the price, and for years they’d sold like hotcakes to countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, and Brazil. But as the yuan grew stronger and the wages of the skilled Chinese workers who assembled them also increased, the motorcycles grew more and more expensive. Clients in expanding nations were price-sensitive. Sales faltered. Soon the factory was turning out two hundred bikes a day but selling only one hundred fifty. The unsold bikes quickly piled up in the freight yard. The government was faced with a dilemma. It could either cut production and fire 30 percent of the workers or continue manufacturing motorcycles that no one wanted to buy. The first alternative would result in the layoff of a thousand workers, a steep decline in the local economy, and certain unrest. The second alternative would result in contented employees, growing losses for the company, and eventual bankruptcy. The Chinese, being ever nimble and ever frightened at calling a spade a spade, chose a third course. It continued making the motorcycles, then created a new company to purchase the motorcycles, take them apart, and sell the metal as scrap. Problem solved. Or at least put off to another day.

To Astor’s mind, that day was today.

“Yes, Septimus,” he replied. “I believe they are.”

“Then there is hope,” said Septimus Reventlow. “What can I do for you?”

“Show your faith.”

“Let’s see how the market closes. I need to talk to my family members before I make a decision. Shall we continue this discussion tomorrow?”

Astor knew better than to push. A commitment from Reventlow to invest the $300 million he’d promised would go a long way toward meeting a margin call and restoring the marketplace’s faith in the firm. “That will be fine.”

Astor hung up and started toward the door, only to walk into Marv Shank.

“You’re not leaving, Bobby. Not today.”

“Marv, please.”

“I know that your dad is important to you, but Comstock is more important.”

“There’s nothing I can do to fix the position,” said Astor. “Unless you want me to start liquidating the fund right now.”

“Our guys need to know you’re here. A captain doesn’t abandon a sinking ship.”

“This isn’t the
Titanic.
”

“Right now it feels like it.” Shank shut the door. “Here’s how it is, Bobby. I’m forty-one. Everything I’ve earned is in that fund. I don’t have a cattle ranch in Wyoming or an apartment building in Chelsea or a freakin’ French masterpiece, and if I did I wouldn’t cart the thing around Manhattan as if I were carrying a six-pack of Bud Light. I’ve got fifteen years of blood, sweat, and tears with you. Fifteen years working seven to seven inside this glass tower. I know it’s my fault that I forgot to grab a wife on the way up. It’s always just been about work for me. You’re my friend, Bobby. Pretty much my only one. I’m asking you. Stay.”

Astor put his hands on Shank’s shoulders. “Here’s how it is, Marv. You’re my friend, too. But you’re not my father. And about all the other stuff—the ranch, the apartment—pretty much everything I have is pledged to the firm. We go under, I go under. You can write your ticket at any other firm on the street. Me, I’m fish food.”

Shank didn’t budge. “That isn’t good enough. There are people you can call. Chips you can cash in.”

“I’ll see what I can do if and when the time comes. Now come on, out of the way.”

Still Shank didn’t move. “What about your father’s estate?”

The pounding in Astor’s head intensified. “Excuse me?”

“Your old man was loaded. He sold his company for a billion ten years back, and that’s not counting how much he earned before. You’re his only heir, right? I mean, your mom’s dead. You don’t have any brothers or sisters. Who else was he going to leave it to? Call his attorneys. Ask them to read the will immediately. They can pledge something. I know a banker who’ll front you the dough.”

Calm down,
Astor told himself.
He’s just scared. He has no idea what he’s saying.
“You do?”

“Yeah.”

Astor looked away, hoping his anger would recede. When he spoke, it was in a whisper. “Don’t ever tell me what I can or can’t do. I’m leaving now. And Marv…don’t ever bring up my father again.”