The Prince of Risk (28 page)

A
lex climbed out of the car, stumbling and unsteady. A few deep breaths restored her strength but did little to lessen the pounding in her skull. She had a concussion. Her cheek was tender to the touch, and she could feel her eye swelling. She needed distance, room to make sense of her predicament.

She took stock of her surroundings. Rain had given way to scattered clouds and sun. She counted three other cars in the lot. All were parked a ways away. For the time being, she saw no one nearby, but that would change soon. A truck rattled along the main road, and then she was alone, with only the whipping wind and her own labored breathing to keep her company.

Alex looked back at the car. Salt sat slumped at the wheel. He was very bloody, and she knew she must think fast in case a policeman drove past. There was no question of running. She’d killed a man. She was a law enforcement officer. On or off duty, she wouldn’t try to escape her actions.

Alex returned to the car.

There was no running, but there was still work to be done.

She slid into the passenger seat and searched Salt’s person. She found his wallet in his coat pocket. In three minutes she’d made a note of every credit card he possessed, as well as his driver’s license number and social insurance card. He carried £500 in cash. No pictures. Only a few old business cards listing him as founder/CEO of GRAIL.

Salt kept his phone in his trouser pocket. She scrolled through his recent calls, eager to learn who he’d contacted after receiving the tip-off from Chris Rees-Jones. Salt was nothing if not efficient. Each call was listed for her. The call from GRAIL was followed by a call to the U.S. embassy. The call lasted three minutes. Salt was canny. He was smart enough to use the main number and have the call forwarded to his contact. Still, it would be no problem to learn that person’s name.

Alex was more interested in finding out who Salt’s source at the embassy had phoned at the FBI at 5:15 a.m. New York time. She reasoned it had to be someone close to her, maybe even someone in CT.

The next call was to his solicitor. The third was to someone named Skinner. No last name attached. Duration, fourteen minutes. Some weighty matters to discuss, no doubt. It took her a moment to recognize the country code. South Africa.

And then a call to Jerry at Olympic Travel. Duration, three minutes. She could hear Salt’s gruff voice in her head: “Get me out of here, now.” It made sense that he had an exit strategy on the shelf. Alex guessed that Brazil, with its flimsy extradition regulations, would be Salt’s refuge of choice. Or was it South Africa? A visit to his friend Skinner?

She opened the e-mail application. One unread message from Olympic Travel. A first-class seat on a flight to Rio de Janeiro for nine that evening, booked under the name George Penrose. Alex was right about Brazil.

Several innocuous messages followed from friends, confirming a golf date, dinner at the club, and then a missive from a woman named Regina asking if he’d been “a naughty boy and required punishment from his mum.” To which Salt had replied, “Very naughty.”

Alex rolled her eyes. Englishmen.

And then an e-mail from “BeaufoySLT.” The message ran to one line. It was at once familiar and cryptic. “The Eagle Has Landed.
Gott mit uns.
”

The full address was [email protected]. “Sa” for South Africa. Message sent at 3:33 Greenwich Mean Time, 9:33 Eastern Standard Time.

Was BeaufoySLT from South Africa Salt’s friend Skinner?

Alex looked away, the hackles on her neck standing at attention. She needed no translation to know what the message meant.
The Eagle Has Landed. Gott mit uns
. The bad guys were in the States.

This was happening now.

The phone rang. The incoming call was from C. Rees-Jones. Alex knew better than to answer. It was imperative that the woman know nothing about Salt’s death. She let the call roll to voice mail. She waited until the message was complete, then listened.

“Jim. It’s me. You’ve really got us scared. We’ve decided to go to our solicitors this afternoon. We have to get in front of this. Whoever you’re working with, I am pleading with you to call it off. Do you hear? You’ve lost your mind. Call me. Now.”

Alex listened to the message again. Rees-Jones was right to be flipping out. Her business, not to mention her life as a free woman, was at stake. She was smart to be proactive. She wasn’t so smart to have worked with James Salt.

Opening her purse, Alex snatched the mesh bag holding her electronic toys and plucked out the small rectangular unit she called the vacuum. She freed the SIM card from Salt’s phone and inserted it into the vacuum’s slot. Thirty seconds later the vacuum had copied the SIM card’s data to its own internal memory. Alex returned the SIM card to Salt’s phone, then slipped the phone back into Salt’s pocket. She wouldn’t want anyone accusing her of tampering with the evidence.

Alex popped the trunk. Inside was a beautiful set of golf clubs and, tucked to one side, an even more beautiful calfskin briefcase. The case was locked, so she borrowed Salt’s thrusting knife and broke it open. So much for tampering with evidence. Inside it were files and more files. A vial of cocaine. Condoms. A container of barbiturates. Salt wasn’t lying. He really had been a naughty boy.

And there beneath a legal pad, one crisp white envelope addressed to Mr. George Penrose from the Bank of Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Against every rule, she removed the letter with her bare hands. It was a computer-generated confirmation of deposit into his account in the amount of one million British pounds paid by Excelsior Holdings of Curaçao N.V.

The smoking gun.

And the map leading to Salt’s “old friend.”

Alex closed the trunk, then placed the briefcase on the passenger seat. She checked her watch. It was one-thirty. Seven-thirty at home. She grabbed her cell phone, mustering her courage. Where was her picture of J. Edgar Hoover when she needed it? She counted to three, then placed the call.

“You’re up early,” said Janet McVeigh.

“Actually, I’ve been up quite a while,” said Alex.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not exactly. I’m in London.”

A period of silence followed. For once Alex appreciated McVeigh’s ability to hold her temper. “Go ahead,” she said finally.

“I know I broke the rules. You can fire me later. Right now there’s a lot you need to know. I was right about Lambert’s ties to GRAIL. The company was involved in hiring him and twenty-nine others. Not directly, but it provided introductions to Major James Salt, the officer who ran Executive Outcomes alongside Trevor Manning. Salt also played a large part in the Comoros raid. I’m e-mailing you a recording between Salt and Chris Rees-Jones, GRAIL’s director. This conversation took place ten minutes after I met with Rees-Jones and asked her about Lambert. I bugged her office during our meeting, so there’s only one side to the conversation, but it’s enough.”

McVeigh’s diplomacy deserted her. “How did you—”

“Let me finish. As I said, Salt hired thirty men and women and sent them to a training compound in Namibia. Six of the recruits washed out. Lambert’s dead. That leaves twenty-three. It’s my guess they were the ones who came through Mexico City two nights ago.”

“So you spoke with Salt, too?” McVeigh’s anger was laced with a grudging admiration.

“I tracked him down to his club in London and interrogated him in his vehicle.”

“Voluntary or coerced?”

“Somewhere in between. I asked him a few questions. He tried to kill me. I shot him. He’s dead.”

Alex looked at her reflection in the window. Her hair was disheveled. She was bleeding from the nose, and her eye was starting to look like an eggplant. “Jan? You there?”

“You killed Salt?”

“Yes.”

“Let me get this clear—and I’m talking to you as your supervisor and as AD of the New York office, not as a fellow investigator. You disobeyed my express orders not to return to work. Also against my express orders, you traveled to London. I imagine I should be thankful that you didn’t hijack one of the Bureau’s jets. You conducted an illegal surveillance operation in a foreign country, then you killed a person of interest during the course of a hostile interrogation.”

“He pulled a gun and discharged his weapon twice in an effort to kill me. When I disarmed him, he attempted to stab me instead.”

“Are you all right?”

“Except for a black eye, yes. Thank you for asking.”

“You’re in trouble, Alex. You know that?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. We’ll deal with that side of things when you get back. Did you get any useful information out of this escapade at all?”

“A confirmation of deposit from Salt’s account at the Bank of Vaduz, Liechtenstein, in the amount of one million pounds from an Excelsior Holdings of Curaçao. My guess is that that’s who is bankrolling this whole thing. Find out who’s behind Excelsior and we find out who’s pulling all the strings.”

“Good luck with that. Between Liechtenstein and Curaçao, we’ll be lucky to have a call returned three months from now.”

Alex had other ideas, but kept them to herself. “There was also an e-mail on his phone sent last night at nine your time from someone named Beaufoy. South African e-mail address. It read, ‘The Eagle Has Landed.
Gott mitt uns.
’”

“And that means?”

“You know what it means.”

“No, I don’t. And neither do you.”

“Bullshit. You’ll know when you hear the tape. I’m going to contact a friend of mine at Five and tell him what happened. I don’t want to end up in jail for the next week. You might want to brief the director. I imagine the shit’s going to hit the fan pretty good.”

“Alex—”

“Listen to the tape.” Alex hung up before McVeigh could scream at her. She felt faint and paced back and forth until the blood returned to her head. The concussion was worse than she thought. She crossed her fingers that McVeigh would see things her way and vote with her badge instead of her rulebook.

Alex called her colleague at MI-5 and explained about her visit to GRAIL and the interrogation of James Salt. He told her to drive Salt’s car to an address in Kensington not far from Five’s headquarters on the River Thames.

“What about Scotland Yard?” she asked.

“
Who?
Now move it.”

Alex checked the surroundings. She noted a couple walking beneath some trees fifty yards away. She turned full-circle. No one else was nearby.

Corpses were heavy and ungainly. It required all of her strength to shift Salt to the passenger seat. When she slid behind the wheel, she noted that her clothing was matted with Salt’s blood. She buttoned her blazer and raised the collar to camouflage as much of it as possible.

Alex fired the engine, then spun the car in a one-eighty and left the park.

McVeigh called back five minutes later. “You haven’t contacted GRAIL again, have you?”

The anger was gone from her voice. It was operational McVeigh speaking. Alex had her reprieve. “Chris Rees-Jones called Salt a few minutes ago, but I didn’t answer. I listened to the message. Apparently she’s considering going to the company’s solicitors to admit her part in this thing before it blows up even further.”

“Good. I’ve spoken to Five. They’ve agreed to take your evidence to a magistrate straightaway. Between what’s happened on our turf and what happened over there, he should be able to obtain a warrant to storm GRAIL’s offices and Salt’s home.”

“Nice,” said Alex. The British didn’t mess around when it came to thwarting terrorist attacks. If a corner needed to be cut, so be it. They’d glue it back in place afterward.

“We’re pulling the director out of a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill to deal with this,” continued McVeigh. “It’s clear he’ll have to go to the British PM. That means the president will have to be read in. You’re really putting the special relationship to the test.”

“Jan, I need a favor. About that South African e-mail address. Salt called someone named Skinner with a South African phone number immediately after talking to GRAIL.” Alex read off the number. “Give that to the boys in Tech. See if they can ping it, find out where Mr. Skinner is. If my hunch is correct, we’re not going to like the answer.”

“We’ll need a warrant for that.”

“The tape should do the trick.”

“You’re pushing things, kid.”

“Salt has a contact in the embassy here. He knew I wasn’t in England on official assignment.” Alex read off Salt’s number and gave the exact time of the call. “Trace it and let’s find out who he has on the payroll at the embassy and who his contact called in the Bureau.”

“Any ideas?”

“Someone in our office. Guarantee it.”

T
he house in McLean, Virginia, was a large two-story redbrick with black shutters and a lawn jockey out front to greet the guests. Astor held the knocker in his hand and waited until precisely 7:30 to rap three times. A man in the throes of dressing for work answered almost immediately. “Yes?”

“Mr. Nossey. I’m Bobby Astor. Sorry to disturb you so early, but I believe my father came by to see you on Sunday. May I come in?”

Nossey was slim and olive-skinned, with hair cut to the scalp and deep-set brown eyes. He wore khaki pants and a company polo shirt with
Britium
sewn above the left breast. Astor was in the right place.

“I’ve been expecting somebody,” said Nossey. “But I thought it would be the FBI or the police.”

“No law enforcement agents have been by?”

“Just you. I take it you’re not an agent or anything.”

“I’m a hedge fund manager. I live in New York.”

A light went on behind Nossey’s eyes. “Comstock?”

“That’s me.”

Nossey sipped from a coffee mug with the words
U.S.S. DALLAS
on its side. “Come in. I’m just about to shove off for work.”

“That your ship?” asked Astor, pointing to the mug.

“Sub, actually. I put in ten years aboard a nuke. In this house, a door’s a hatch, the floor’s the deck, and the bathroom is the head. Wife hates it. Kids think it’s fun as all get-out.” Nossey looked over Astor’s shoulder at the Sprinter parked at the curb. “Yours?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s bigger than some of the boats I served on. There a driver somewhere in there?”

“There is.”

“Why don’t you drive with me to the office? We can talk on the way. I have a call at nine I can’t miss. The new owners.” Nossey rolled his eyes.

“Sure thing.”

It took Nossey another ten minutes to finish his coffee, kiss his three children goodbye, and pat his golden retriever. Astor stood at the kitchen door, witnessing the daily ritual. He thought of his own daughter, Katie, currently vacationing in New Hampshire. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in the morning before he went to work, or for that matter when he came home. The office was his wife, mistress, and child, rolled into one. He wouldn’t apologize for it, but he could at least give her a call to say hi and tell her that he loved her.

After this meeting, he told himself.

Promise.

Astor and Nossey sat in the front of a Ford Explorer cruising at 70 miles per hour along the George Washington Parkway. The Potomac flowed to their right, green and lazy. The Sprinter followed behind, more of a bodyguard than Sullivan would ever be.

“You look like him.”

“I’m taller,” said Astor.

“I’m sorry about what happened. Any news?”

“Not that I’ve heard. I’m trying to look into what happened myself. I found your address in my father’s home. He had several articles about Britium, too. You’re not planning on listing on the New York Stock Exchange anytime soon?”

“We just got bought up by Watersmark. You must know that.”

Astor nodded. “So my dad was here on other business.”

Nossey took his cue. “He surprised me, too. I mean, he didn’t call or anything. He just showed up Sunday morning on my doorstep.”

“We have our reasons for showing up unannounced.”

Nossey waited, but Astor didn’t elaborate. “Anyway,” Nossey continued, “he was eager to learn about the company. He said he wanted to hear everything about us, A to Z. I tried to put him off. It was Sunday and the kids had a baseball game. He didn’t care. I figured if he’d come all the way down here, it must be important. I sent the kids off with my wife. He came inside and I told him.”

Astor listened intently as Nossey gave his CEO’s speech. Britium had started out ten years earlier writing application control software, code that automated infrastructure technology, translating varying computer protocols into a common, easily understood language.

“In English, please,” said Astor.

“Sorry. You Wall Street guys are pretty wonky. You usually get off on the lingo.”

“Layman’s terms will be fine.”

“In a nutshell, we write software that allows a person or a business to control and operate any kind of electronic device, anywhere in the world, via the Internet.”

“Exactly what kind of electronic device?”

“Anything. We can help a power grid monitor the temperature of all its turbines and control their speed. Or allow a supervisor to check out a security system from a remote location, to adjust lighting in a building, to control air-conditioning, check out a company’s phone system. You name it.”

“Can it control an elevator?”

“An elevator? Sure. It can control anything. And the beauty of it is that it can be done from an easy-to-use interface, kind of like a universal remote control. Take, for example, a hospital. You have all kinds of independent systems running in there. One computer system controls the security system—alarms, cameras, all that. Another runs the employee timekeeping and access system. Still another governs the heating and plumbing. And so on. The problem is that each runs on its own protocol, or language. It’s important for one person to be able to control all of those separate and independent systems from a single location. Our software translates the differing protocols into a common language. Think of it as controlling your TV, Blu-ray, and DVR via a single device from your armchair.”

“And this is popular?”

“God, yeah. We call our software the Empire Platform. Right now, Empire controls eleven million devices in fifty-two countries.”

“Like who?”

“Hospitals, power plants, airports, jails, government offices. Even the FBI and the CIA use our stuff.”

“The FBI? What for?”

“Same as any other large organization that needs to keep track of its employees and manage its infrastructure.”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t use it?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Impressive.”

“Watersmark thought so.”

Nossey left the highway and negotiated the busy streets of Reston, Virginia. He pulled into a lot fronting a five-story glass office tower and parked, then he took Astor to his office on the top floor. “Take a seat.”

Astor slid into a chair, pausing to look at a set of architectural plans on the table. Nossey stood beside him. “It’s going to be the tallest building in the world. Empire will control all the building’s critical functions.” The Britium CEO smiled. “Including the elevators.”

A secretary entered, and Nossey told him to bring coffee and doughnuts. He checked his watch for as long as it took to be rude, then returned his attention to Astor. “Five minutes,” he said, pointing to a clock on the wall.

“What was my father interested in?”

“He already knew pretty much everything we did, but he wanted to know if we worked with firms on Wall Street. I said, ‘Of course.’ Every major bank uses Empire technology.”

“Does the Stock Exchange use the Empire Platform?”

“Your father asked me the same question. I had to check, but yes, it does.”

“For what?”

“Security. Access control. HVAC. Elevators. Telecom.”

“Why telecom? Shouldn’t that be the phone companies’ job?”

“Once a call leaves the building, sure. But before it leaves the building we have to make sure all the computers are properly hooked up to the Net. Orders are placed on the floor but are executed off-site. The information has to go out and come back without any interference.”

“How did he feel about the fact that the NYSE uses your platform?”

“Tell you the truth, he didn’t seem too happy about any of it, but he was specifically interested in knowing whether Empire was in place before July 2011.”

July 2011. Astor had no problem recollecting the date. It was around that time that the Flash Crash had occurred, the mysterious breakdown in trading that resulted in the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting a thousand points in minutes, only to regain two-thirds of the amount within an hour and the rest a day later. Its cause still offered fertile ground for debate. Hence the articles in his father’s office at Cherry Hill.

Astor remembered the annual reports he’d found at Penelope Evans’s house. One by one he named the companies, and one by one Nossey confirmed that all used the Empire Platform. Astor began to see Britium and the Empire Platform in a different light. “I hope this isn’t rude,” he said, “but how secure is Empire? It seems that a lot of critical industries use it to control their operations in one way or another. Have there ever been any instances of hacking or cyberattacks against Empire?”

“Not a single one. The Empire Platform is equipped with its own firewall to stop unwanted incursions dead.”

“So no one has ever hacked one of your clients and messed with their controls? Not once?”

The question made Nossey nervous. “I’m not at liberty to discuss security issues. I can direct you to Mr. Hong. He handles queries dealing with product integrity and litigation.”

Astor raised his hands and smiled. “No need to use the
L
word. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can about your company.”

“You can’t be too careful.”

“I do have one question. Can the Empire Platform be used to control an automobile?”

Nossey laughed, before realizing the intent of the question. “No, it can’t. Only a driver can control a car.” He rose suddenly. “I’m sorry to kick you out, but my master awaits.”

Astor stood. “You mentioned that my father was interested in your new owner.”

“Watersmark? Yes, he was curious about management practices. He wanted to know just how involved they were in our day-to-day operations.”

“And?”

“Of course they spent lots of time with us during the due diligence process and for the first six months after completing the acquisition. They studied all our internal systems—accounting, payroll, reporting, things like that. After that, they let us run things our way.”

“So you’d say things are pretty much the same as before?”

“Sure, Mr. Hong doesn’t bother us at all.”

That was the second time Nossey had mentioned the name. “Who is Mr. Hong?”

“Watersmark put him in and pays his salary. He gathers all the data they want. Looks after the bigger issues. Smart guy. MIT. Stanford. And he’s an engineer. He totally gets what we do.”

The secretary announced the conference call over the loudspeaker.

“It’s been fun,” said Nossey. “Hope I helped.”

“Tremendously,” said Astor, though he wasn’t entirely sure. “I appreciate your time.”

Nossey walked him to the door. “Mr. Astor,” he said, his face a mask of concern, “you don’t really think Britium had anything to do with your father’s death?”

“You mean my question about the car? I was just curious after you talked about Empire being like a universal remote control.”

“Empire can’t control a car. You’d have to hack the GPS, and of course you would have had to install a remote steering system.” Nossey’s demeanor brightened. The nuclear engineer turned software entrepreneur had scented a challenge. “Just maybe…”