The Successor (8 page)

“My brother.”

“Is that why you had the falling-out with your family? They chose him and not you?”

Allison shook her head. “No.” It was clear that Graham was expecting more of an explanation, but she wasn’t going to get it.

Graham watched one of the snakes wrap itself around a limb inside its cage. “How many employees are there at Everest now?”

Good. Graham was off the family topic. “Almost eighty.”

“How many partners? How many of you reporting directly to Christian?”

“Five.”

“Are you the only female partner?”

“Yes. We had another one, but she left last year to have a baby. Her husband’s an investment banker at Morgan Stanley so they didn’t need her income and she hasn’t come back. I doubt she will. Christian’s keeping a slot open for her, but I think she’s already pregnant again.”

“That’s our curse, isn’t it?” Graham asked rhetorically. “
We
have the babies. It’s very hard to do both. Work and be a mom, I mean. At least, effectively.” She tapped her desk, as if she’d spent a lot of time thinking about that conflict but hadn’t come up with any solutions. “How’s your relationship with Christian?”

Allison glanced up. She’d been thinking about having a baby. It was something she was thinking about more and more lately. “Fine. We’re good business partners.”

“Any spark between you two?”

There it was again. Graham’s habit of asking whatever was on her mind. Allison made a face, as if to say that there was no chance of that ever happening. “No way.”

“Why not? You’re both single, both good-looking, and you probably spend a lot of time together. That’s a damn good recipe for romance.” Graham laughed. “What’s the matter, isn’t Christian any fun? I’ve told him so many times he’s got to start letting go a little.”

Allison grinned. “He has his moments. Not many, but some.” In all fairness, Christian didn’t have much time for fun. People always needed him for something, and he was constantly having to make tough decisions. More and more she understood that because people were starting to pull her in so many different directions, too. “I just don’t think it would do our business relationship much good if we ever started the other thing. And what if it didn’t work? Then where would we be?”

Allison had tried to convince Christian several times that they could have romance without its getting in the way of what they needed to do every day at Everest—but she wanted to make certain Graham heard the party line. He’d come close to agreeing with her once, then backed off. She understood his point. It wouldn’t be a good idea for the investors to think the chairman and one of the senior partners were hot for each other. If anything ever did happen between them, it would have to stay quiet. And she’d never been able to answer those questions he always asked. What if they tried it and it didn’t take? What if the breakup wasn’t mutual? Would they still be able to work together?

“And,” Allison continued, “people would talk if we did start seeing each other outside Everest.”

“The hell with
people.
It’s not their lives.” Graham put her head back and laughed. “Of course, at fifty-seven it’s easier for me to say that than it is for you.”

“You’ve never been married, have you?” The words had tumbled out of Allison’s mouth abruptly, taking both of them by surprise. But she’d wanted to ask the older woman that question ever since reading this morning that Graham had never been married, never had children. Allison was starting to wonder if it was ever going to happen for her. The last ten years had blown by so fast. Pretty soon getting pregnant wouldn’t be an option, at least not without risks. “Why not?” She smiled to herself. Graham’s tendency to ask whatever question was on her mind was rubbing off.

“Never found the right man.” Graham shook her head quickly and held up her hand. “That’s not exactly true,” she admitted softly. “I just never found the time. Life goes by so fast when you’re in the trenches fighting it every day.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Of course, maybe I didn’t want to find the time. Maybe I was so busy battling men all day long I didn’t want to be around one at night. Maybe that’s why I have all these snakes in my office,” she said, making a sweeping gesture. “To remind me of all the snakes I’ve dealt with in my career so I won’t end up with one. At least not permanently.” Graham’s expression turned sad. “Anyway, I woke up one morning, I was fifty, and I was all alone.” She pointed at Allison after a poignant pause. “Don’t let that happen to you, dear. It’s like they say: In the end, it’s the wink of an eye.”

“You’re not near the end,” Allison said firmly.

“I’m not near the beginning either.” Graham clapped her hands to break the mood. “So, what’s your favorite movie, Allison?”

Allison glanced at the alligator and thought for a few seconds. “Well…I…I mean, there’s so many—”

The older woman banged a fist on her desk. “Don’t give me that,” she said loudly. “Just tell me what your favorite movie is, Allison. The one you’d pick if you were going to prison for the rest of your life and all you could take with you was a TV, a DVD player, and one DVD. Come on.”

“It hasn’t been made yet. And I doubt I’ll have to go to prison tomorrow for the rest of my life.”

Graham started to say something, then broke into a wide smile. “No one’s ever given me that answer before.
A
for originality, but I still want to know what—”

“Caddyshack.”

Graham’s eyes ballooned. “Oh, no, you can’t—”

“Just kidding.” Allison laughed. She was suddenly feeling very comfortable with Victoria Graham. “I have to say
Out of Africa.
With Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.”

“I love that movie, too.”

“Streep’s so wonderful in any role, and she plays a very strong woman in that movie. And, well…Redford’s very sexy. Even though he’s older in it.” Allison cringed, thinking of how that might sound to Graham. “Not that being old is bad.”

“Please, Allison. I’m very aware of my age and I don’t have any problem with it. In fact, I’m probably happier now than I’ve ever been. Well, maybe more at peace with myself is a better way to put it.” Graham waved. “Enough of that. It’s a wonderful question, isn’t it? The movie thing, I mean. The answer says so much about you. And what’s really interesting is that more often than not it’s
men
who won’t give you an answer at all. They get so defensive about it, too. Like the answer might be held against them in court or something so they aren’t willing to open up.”

“It is a good question.” Allison was going to ask Christian the next time she saw him. The answer would be damn interesting now that she’d known him so long. “What does my answer tell you about me?”

“We’ll talk about that next time. But right now let’s get to the real reason I asked you to come see me today.”

“Okay.” Graham had called a week ago out of the blue—they’d never even spoken before. Allison had gone right to Christian to tell him about the call. He’d seemed a little surprised, but agreed that if Graham wanted to see her, she had to go. “What did you want to talk about?”

Graham gazed across the desk. “You.”

“What about me?”

“I told Christian before I agreed to sign off on MuPenn’s investment into Everest’s new fund that he had to come up with a succession plan.”

“Why?” Allison asked. “He’s only forty-three. He’s got a lot of years left.”

“I’ve known Christian for a while now, and I’m worried that he might be burning out on Everest, on the financial thing in general. It’s like he needs a new challenge.”

Allison wondered if Graham somehow knew how close Christian had come to being Jesse Wood’s vice president. Figured he’d been so interested in doing that because he was getting tired of all the headaches involved with running Everest. That he wanted a new set of headaches because at least they would be
different
headaches. After all, he’d done just about all there was to do in the financial world. People like Christian were constantly looking for new challenges, she knew. New worlds to conquer. She’d probably be in the same boat soon.

“Even if he isn’t burning out,” Graham continued, “at a firm as big and important as Everest Capital, you need to have a succession plan in place in case something happens.”

“You mean…”

“Right. If Christian gets hit by a bus on Park Avenue.”

Allison smiled. “He’s a pretty careful guy. And besides, she laughed, they don’t run buses on Park Avenue.”

Graham’s expression turned grave. “When you’re as important and rich as Christian Gillette, sometimes that bus will find you wherever you are. Doesn’t hit you by accident.”

Allison tried to seem shocked, but she knew Graham was right. Being wealthy and powerful automatically painted a bull’s-eye on your back—for a lot of reasons. That had been drilled into her head at a young age.

Graham leaned forward and put her elbows on the desk. “When I told Christian he needed a succession plan, I told him I thought it should focus on you. I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you came to Everest. You’ve done a great job. You’ve done more deals than anyone other than Christian, and, thanks to your family, you’ve got all the right connections. I told Christian that he should name you vice chairman.”

A thrill burst through Allison’s body. Christian had actually mentioned that possibility a couple of years ago, when it seemed that Jesse Wood was going to name him vice president. When Wood had backed off on that, Christian had refocused on Everest, concentrating on raising the latest fund. Apparently less concerned about succession at the firm since he wasn’t going into politics after all.

“Is that something you’d want?” Graham asked.

“Absolutely,” Allison answered quickly and firmly. “I’d love to run Everest at some point. There are some things I’d change, too. Not that Christian’s doing anything wrong,” she added quickly.

“I’d like to see more women get shots at running these big leveraged-buyout firms,” Graham continued. “It’s still such a good old boy fraternity in your world right now. The great thing is, Christian’s a lot more open-minded than most of the execs at the other big firms.” Her eyes glistened. “I think he’ll do it. I think he’ll name you vice chairman.”

“I’d love it.” Allison spotted a picture on a credenza to the right of Graham’s desk. A small three-by-five photograph of Graham sitting at a table with a man wearing a tux, both of them leaning toward each other so their cheeks were almost touching. It was the only picture of Graham Allison had seen in the entire office. And it was half-hidden behind a small plant. “I really would,” she said, rising from her chair.

“Let me ask you a question.” Graham watched Allison walk to the credenza and pick up the frame. “This falling-out with your family. Does that mean you’re out of the will?”

Allison didn’t know which answer Graham wanted, but there was no reason to try to hide anything. Graham would be able to check out her story. People like Victoria Graham had connections everywhere. “I’m out of the estate, have been for two years,” Allison said wryly as she looked at the man in the picture. He seemed familiar but she couldn’t place him. “I need this job.”

Graham clapped loudly. “Good.” Her expression turned serious, the same way it had when they’d started talking about why Everest needed a succession plan. “Now we can get down to why I
really
called you over here today.”

“Who is this?” Allison asked, pointing at the picture.

Graham gave her a forced smile. “A friend.”

There was more to it than that, much more. Allison had known Victoria Graham for only a little while now, but she could already tell that there was probably an entire novel behind that forced smile. “I recognize him,” she said loudly. “That’s Lloyd Dorsey. The senator from Texas.”

Graham nodded slowly. “Yes, it is.”

Allison hesitated, wondering if she should be so forward as to ask. It would be a risk, but sometimes you built bridges much faster by taking risks. And Victoria Graham certainly seemed like the type of woman who respected directness. “Is Senator Dorsey the real reason you never got married?”

7

THEY CALLED THEMSELVES
Los Secretos Seis. The Secret Six.

If anyone inside the Party loyal to the regime ever found out about them and their objectives, they’d be executed. Tortured first, so the authorities could learn as much as possible about what they were trying to do and whom they were trying to do it with, then murdered. Probably hung in a filthy, remote cell at one of the worst prisons—after being slowly castrated with a dull penknife—then buried in some mass, unmarked grave deep in the rain forest up in the mountains on the eastern end of the island. Where their remains would be found thousands of years from now by archaeologists of some future civilization who could offer only scant conjecture as to what might have happened to them.

The worst part was that their families would be kidnapped and tortured, too. The six men understood the risks going in. If they were caught and executed, so be it. A horrible outcome—however, that was the risk they ran. But their wives and children had no idea what was going on. No secret information about the inner workings or connections of the Six—no idea that the group even existed. However, the authorities wouldn’t look at it that way. They’d assume the families knew something—that at least the wives did. So, of course, they’d torture the children in front of the mothers for maximum effect, to withdraw every shred of information possible—whatever the women made up as they begged for mercy and the lives of their offspring.

Still, the men were committed to their objective—freedom for Cuba and its people. Cuba had been operating in the dark ages of oppression for too long. It was time for it to come into the light. If sacrifices had to be made, so be it. If it got really dicey, they’d do their best to get their families out. They had assurances from their benefactors in the United States that their escapes could quickly be arranged. That choppers could get to pre-agreed remote locations on the island an hour after the coded SOS had been received. That there were ships out in the Gulf to support the rescues.

Which didn’t mean they weren’t scared to death and didn’t take every precaution they could think of to keep their actions veiled. Going so far as to arrange meetings by means of placing used paper napkins in different sections of one of Havana’s parks. The napkins were made to look like nothing but blown trash, but they were hung on specific branches of specific shrubs as code for dates and places of meetings. The men never got together in public, either, unless it involved a social function they would typically attend. A function authorities might consider it unusual if the men
didn’t
attend. They also made certain their wives and children didn’t become friends or acquaintances with the other wives and children. Made sure they never communicated unless it was a passing conversation at one of the functions.

Now the six men sat around a crude wooden table in the dingy basement of a cramped two-bedroom home in a lower-middle-class section of the city, conducting business by candlelight. The home had no running water and no electricity, but it was still coveted like another child by the family who lived here. One of the men in the group, a highly respected attorney at the Ministry of Justice who had midlevel connections within the government’s housing department, had arranged for the destitute family who had been living on the street to move into it a year ago. After making
absolutely
certain that his connection at the housing department had no ties whatsoever to the regime’s counterintelligence groups—the General Directorate for State Security or the D-VI inside the FAR. The connection at the housing department had enabled the family to skip over many others in the queue in return for just $5 U.S.—which he thought was an incredibly generous gesture by the attorney. Thankfully, the connection never dug for the hidden agenda behind the generosity.

The Secret Six needed places to meet and this house served as one of them. That was the attorney’s real agenda, the real reason for getting the family in. He was glad to do a good deed, but the group had to have safe houses in which to conduct business. The state would never think of looking for treasonous activities of the upper-middle class here. Even if they did, the mother was so indebted to them they knew she would never give them away.

“What’s the update, señor?” the attorney who had arranged for the house asked. They never addressed each other as anything but
señor
in these meetings. Just in case someone was listening. “What is our contact saying?”

Nelson Padilla took a long puff off his cigar, tapped the ash onto the basement’s dirt floor, and leaned away from the table, clasping his hands at the back of his head as he blew a huge cloud of sweet-smelling smoke into the air above him. He was thinking about that night three months ago when his Chrysler had slammed into Gustavo Cruz’s cow. How he had learned so much that night and how far the Secret Six had come since then.

Padilla had waited an hour in the main house of the ranch Cruz ran for General Delgado to return. Sat in the living room on an old couch opposite Cruz, who was sitting in a wooden chair, handcuffed and watched carefully by the three FAR officers—one with his pistol drawn. Padilla remembered the way Cruz had been slumped over, despondent, almost at the point of tears, as if waiting for his execution. And the way Cruz’s expression had turned to absolute terror when Delgado had returned and ordered the officers and Padilla out of the room. Ordered the officers to drag Padilla’s car out of the ditch and get him on his way, then to wait for him down on the road.

Twenty minutes later Padilla was driving home—after wiping the cow’s blood from the windshield with a towel. Driving slowly because the transmission wouldn’t go into any gear above first. It had taken him two hours to get home, but he’d never been happier to see his wife. They’d made love until three in the morning even though he had to perform that tonsillectomy a few hours later. Made love with mad passion, like teenagers. Like they hadn’t done in years.

Remarkably, an army sergeant driving a tow truck had shown up at his door at 5 a.m. and taken the Chrysler away to be repaired, leaving the doctor a Ford station wagon to use in the meantime. He’d gotten to the hospital on time for the tonsillectomy, which had gone off without a hitch—despite just two hours of sleep. Magically, the sergeant had returned three days later with the Chrysler—in even better shape than before he’d hit the cow.

A week after the Chrysler had been returned, Delgado made contact about another rendezvous. Two days later they met in the darkness of a remote beach east of Havana. It was then that Padilla found out the fate of Cruz and Rodriguez. Cruz was now running both ranches, and Rodriguez—the little snitch wearing the oversize cowboy hat—was dead. Shot in the back of the head, his body lying at the bottom of a ravine a few miles from the Cruz ranch.

Delgado had explained all of that as if he were taking roll call—with no emotion whatsoever. Apparently not the least bit worried that Padilla would take the information to someone inside the Party and try to use it. Information that a high-ranking general was committing treason would have been prized by the state, and he would have been rewarded handsomely—if he could prove it was accurate. So Padilla very much appreciated the trust Delgado showed in sharing it. They were forming an alliance for the greater good of Cuba, and they needed to depend on each other at a high, high level if that was ever going to happen.

But Padilla also understood the reality of Delgado’s willingness to give him the explanation. Ultimately, Padilla might risk as much by passing on the information as Delgado had giving it to him. Delgado might be able to turn the tables on Padilla—accuse Padilla right back of murdering the rancher—if Padilla tried to go to someone with the information. And Delgado probably had a good chance of making his accusation stick. Delgado commanded forty thousand troops and was a trusted member of the Party. Padilla, on the other hand, was just a doctor. One who nine months ago had come under intense scrutiny from the state for turning down a coveted position in one of the medical brigades—groups of physicians the Party sent to other Central and South American countries as emissaries to spread the word about the righteousness of Cuba’s way of life. Padilla had begged off by citing the sickliness of his youngest child—which was documented—and the fact that he was doing so much other traveling for the state. His rejection had been accepted, but he knew he’d raised eyebrows downtown. Which was not a good thing. But if he’d been away on one of the medical brigade missions for several months, it would have seriously slowed the progress of the Secret Six because he was the lone contact between the Six and Delgado—as well as between the Six and the United States.

The news about Rodriguez’s murder had shaken Padilla to his core because it made him understand the coldness of the man he was dealing with. But after he’d thought about it long and hard, he realized that Delgado had to be like that. It was the only way a man in charge of the western and central armies could act—and survive. He couldn’t switch his coldness off and on; it had to be perpetually on. It was difficult for a doctor—a man dedicated to preserving life—to deal with Delgado, to try to make sense of the general’s indifference to taking life—but there was no way the Secret Six could be successful without the military and, therefore, him. That was an undeniable truth that everyone inside the group agreed upon—as did their benefactors in the United States. Without that military connection, there would be no independence.

Padilla closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, not ready to answer the attorney’s question yet despite the impatience he sensed building around the table. He wanted a few more puffs first. He’d never smoked cigars before the night he’d hit Gustavo Cruz’s cow—now he did several times a week. The same brand Delgado smoked—a Dominican, because no one with any love of the old days—before Castro—would smoke a Cuban cigar, Delgado had explained. As a doctor Padilla knew better than most how bad cigars were for the lungs; he’d seen the damage they caused on so many X-rays. But there was something about the general that made Padilla want to emulate him in every way. Something about the way the general carried himself, how he was like ice when it came to tough decisions, how he was so effortlessly in charge of situations, how he had no compassion whatsoever for Rodriguez. Delgado’s lack of emotion flew in the face of everything Padilla had ever believed in, was diametrically opposed to the way he’d lived his entire life. But it dawned on Padilla that caring and gentleness didn’t have much chance of emancipating a nation. It had also dawned on him that he might be at the very core of a movement that could in the end bring a new, much better way of life to millions of people who’d never known it. But that the means to achieving those lofty goals might well involve a terrible level of brutality in the interim.

Over the last three months Padilla had accepted that awful reality and that he might even be a conduit to it in the short term. He’d taken a number of psychology courses at medical school in Toronto, and he was aware that his temporary change of attitude was manifesting itself in his daily routine in an increasing number of ways. Smoking cigars; eating foods that tasted good as opposed to being healthy for him; being shorter and stricter with nurses at the hospital and his children at home; asking Delgado to get him a gun at their last clandestine meeting; frequently demanding sex from his wife—once a few weeks ago even forcing her to have it with him when she’d said no at first.

Padilla’s eyes narrowed, thinking about the intensity of that encounter. How his wife had actually fought him for a few moments as he’d held her down and pulled her clothes off—the first time that had ever happened in their seventeen-year marriage. How she’d admitted to him afterward as they lay wrapped in each other’s arms that she hadn’t been so aroused in years.

“Señor, will you please—”

“I’m sorry for taking so long, gentlemen,” Padilla interrupted the attorney, pulling the cigar from his mouth. “I’ve been collecting my thoughts.” He leaned forward, put his arms on the scarred table, and looked each of them squarely in the eye in turn: the deputy minister of foreign investment and economic development just to his left; the number four man at the Ministry of Science and Technology next to him; the attorney at the other end of the table who had been at the Ministry of Justice for twenty years; the deputy minister of agriculture to the attorney’s left; and, directly to Padilla’s right, the number three executive at the Central Bank of Cuba, who was also a former executive of the country’s cartography company—a company owned and run by the army so that no military installations on the island ever made it onto a map of Cuba. “Forgive me, I have much to tell you about my recent trip.”

The other men around the table nodded to each other expectantly.

Padilla had just returned yesterday from a weeklong trip to the United States, where he’d been a guest observer at eleven operations performed at Lenox Hill hospital in Manhattan. The operations had ranged from a triple-bypass procedure to brain surgery. It had been an intense schedule, but he’d still managed to slip away to meet his contacts twice. The primary reason he was a member of the Secret Six was because he was a doctor—he couldn’t add much to what they were going to do after the Incursion, as they were calling it, but being a doctor allowed him to travel to and from the United States frequently. Which was invaluable to the group at this stage because it enabled them to keep in frequent touch with their U.S. intelligence contacts without having to use phones or e-mail, which could easily have been traced.

Despite the official embargo on products and services between the two countries, the United States wanted to be able to demonstrate to the rest of the world that it wasn’t shirking its responsibility, as a superpower, to keep underprivileged nations up to speed on the latest medical procedures and technologies. So they allowed Padilla—and other Cuban physicians—to travel to the United States often. And Cuba had a history of being one of the most advanced Central and South American nations when it came to medicine—despite the country’s other terrible problems—so Castro had been lenient in terms of allowing his doctors to travel to the United States.