Authors: David Lender
Vaccine Nation (24 page)
Sasha ran for the hole in the perimeter wall. At ten meters away from it she heard the staccato bursts of Uzis from two of the death squad members stationed at either side of the hole. She saw two more men running in front of her and now they were in the ten-foot-deep crater where the wall had been. She could see one of the black BMWs on the other side. She heard bullets whiz past her head. The dust from the explosion that hung in the air tasted musty in the back of her throat. She felt the rubble of the wall beneath her feet and lost her balance, then dove into the crater. She landed on her stomach and wheezed for breath, but the air wouldn’t flow into her lungs.
Sasha could still hear the sharp retort of those Uzis and then even they went silent. Her eyes were wide open again and she couldn’t breathe, but her legs were starting to work and she tumbled down on top of somebody or something, she couldn’t tell which, and then two men were dragging her by either armpit up the other side of the crater and she could see the open door of
the BMW in front of her, hear the engine racing, and felt herself being thrown headfirst inside. She smashed her face on the floor and felt another body dive in on top of her and then the car was moving. Soon it was moving fast and she realized that not only was she alive but that she was going to make it out of there. And in that same instant a flash of anguish shot through her brain:
But where do I go from here?
The crack of automatic weapons awakened Prince Yassar. He reached for his telephone, but there was no one to call, so he placed the receiver back in its cradle. Over the next five minutes he alternately sat and waited for someone to come, then got up and took a few halting steps toward the door to his outer suite, uncharacteristically uncertain. Should he fling the door open into the corridor and investigate for himself? Then a stiffly formal sergeant knocked sharply and entered the room. Prince Yassar observed the sergeant’s stony face. He expected bad news and felt as if the weight of it were pulling his jowls toward the floor. He stroked his forehead.
Sweaty.
“Prince Yassar, sir,” the sergeant said expressionlessly, staring as he said the words, “Your son, Prince Ibrahim, has been murdered.”
Yassar felt the words burst in his chest like a hollow-point round. He closed his eyes, knowing already that it was true.
She tried to warn me.
His sigh emerged as a moan.
Yassar glanced from side to side as if to find a way to escape. He hung his head in resignation, then glared up at the sergeant.
Why are you telling me what I already know? What I already have imagined in my worst fears?
He felt that he wanted to strike the little man.
“There were no other civilian casualties,” the sergeant continued, still with no expression in his voice, on his face. Only that vacant stare. And the measured tones. “But five guards were killed in the corridor only meters from Prince Ibrahim’s chamber, and three of the provocateurs”—Yassar noted with rising anger the ridiculously mispronounced French word—”were killed in the corridor. That, and twenty-three other soldiers are dead in the courtyard, most from the explosion. Everyone else is accounted for and safe, except one of the prince’s concubines.”
Yassar opened his eyes. They felt like black pools of moist agony. And rage. He realized the strength had been sucked from his limbs and now tried to move his arms, wanting to strike at this pompous man. But all he did was motion for the soldier to continue. “It is Sasha. She is gone,” the sergeant said, “and we found a disabled microswitch on the window used to thwart the alarm, as well as an electromagnet and a grappling hook and rope. It would appear the death squad had help gaining access to the palace.”
Yassar tried to stand and still could not. His legs trembled and he placed his hands on his knees to steady them, leaned forward, then slumped backward onto the bed.
“We found a gun on the bed. We found footprints in blood leading into the bedroom and then out again,” the unbearable fool continued. “And we did not find Sasha.”
Yassar felt the words like the twist of a knife in an already mortal wound. He closed his eyes again.
Sasha? How could Sasha do such a thing?
He felt his face contort. He raised his head and looked at the man, this man who would say such things, feeling the conflict of his anger against what he knew in his heart to be true. Sasha, whom he had taken under his patronage, treated like a daughter, and who had honored him like a father. Sasha, who
had heeded his need for her to both minister to and keep his beloved, yet wayward, son in line.
This cannot be true.
But his shoulders curled over.
The sergeant continued his unemotional droning as if he were pushing through a checklist. “The perimeter of the palace is now secure and no intruders are believed left inside. Except for the three who were killed, the remainder of the assassination team appears to have escaped.”
How can this mechanic, this mere functionary, defile the memory of my son with his prattle?
Yassar felt his strength returning as his anger rose. He sighed, then lifted himself from the bed, seeming to bear the weight of his dead son as he did so. He wanted to crush the man’s head like a melon for having the audacity to bring such a message with such methodical reserve. The sergeant reached out and put a hand on Yassar’s shoulder. Anger boiled in Yassar at the touch. He whirled, all the strength that had been drained from him in the last quarter hour focused in a single fist that he lashed toward the sergeant’s face. A roar emerged from his breast, the single word, “No!” And then with the same ferocity of effort he stopped the blow just inches from the man’s face. He hung his head so the man could not see the tears he knew he could not stop. He reached forward blindly, unclenched his fist and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He squeezed it and pushed the sergeant toward the door. “Go. Please, go,” he whispered. He heard the sergeant back out and shut the door.
Yassar turned back into the room. Then a dark sensation rose in him, one he had never felt before in all his years of adherence to the faith in his pursuit of the path of Allah: newborn hatred.
I will avenge this act. I will find out who has done this and chase them down. And Sasha. I will find her and destroy her.
Excerpt from
The Gravy Train
GRAVY TRAIN
A WALL STREET NOVELLA BY
Copyright © 2011 by David T. Lender
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact
[email protected].
F
INN
K
EANE AND
K
ATHY
F
ARGO
sat next to each other in the back of Room 12 in the McColl Building at the University of North Carolina’s Keenan-Flagar Business School. Four rows separated them from the rest of the group in the Investment Banking Club meeting. At least 25 group members attended; this evening featured Jonathan Moore, the club’s president, crowing about his recruitment process and offer to become an Associate in Goldman Sachs’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
Finn leaned toward Kathy and said, “If I listen to any more of this crap I’m gonna puke. Come on, let’s go get a coffee or something.”
She smiled at him, nodded and they got up and left. A few heads turned as they clunked through the theater-style seats to the aisle, up the steps and out the door. Finn could feel eyes burning into his back. He was sure everybody in the club knew that Kathy and he were the only two who hadn’t received investment banking offers yet.
Finn held the front door to the McColl Building for Kathy as they went outside. She wasn’t a girl many guys held doors for, not much of a looker, so he knew Kathy liked it and always made sure to do it. When she’d told him she couldn’t afford to fly home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, he’d brought her home to Cedar Fork. Afterward Uncle Bob said, “Wow, she’s a big-boned one, huh?”
Even before he brought her home, he could tell Kathy wanted something more between them. And a couple of times out drinking with classmates she made it clear to Finn it was there for him if he wanted it. He was always glad when he woke up sober the next day that he didn’t do it; he’d always have felt like he was taking advantage of her. He could tell she’d now settled into the knowledge it wasn’t gonna happen.
Kathy smiled and mouthed, “Thank you,” as they went outside.
“Moore was a pain in the ass before he got the offer, but now he struts around like a goddamn rooster,” Finn said.
“Yeah, but you have to admit, he landed the big one.”
Finn just nodded.
Kathy said, “I assume no change at your end or you’d have told me something.”
“No.”
“We’re running out of time.”
“I know. I’m taking the TD Bank thing if nothing else comes through. At least that’ll get me to New York.”
Kathy didn’t reply. He knew what she was thinking. She’d said it before: she’d worked in New York for three years before business school and told him New York wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“How about you?” he said.
“I guess I’ll take that internet startup my friend offered me.”
Finn nodded. She’d told him about it, but he couldn’t remember the details. Only five or six employees, he thought.
“You did computer programming before B-school, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but they want me to be CFO. They’re all a bunch of undergrad computer science jocks. Don’t know anything about finance.”
“Sounds like it could be fun,” Finn said, knowing he didn’t sound convincing as the words came out. Nothing like that for him. If nothing in investment banking came through, he’d get to New York, then see if he could leverage the TD Bank commercial banking training program into a job on Wall Street, even if it took him a few years. That’s where he’d make it big. He looked at Kathy. “I forget. What’s the company’s name?”
“Facebook.”
“I
WANT BODIES
,” S
IMON
B
UCHANNAN
said. “Give me at least thirty. Maybe forty.” He stood up and looked at his four department heads across his desk, then strode out from behind it with long Senior Managing Director strides of his six-foot-six-inch frame. Buchannan took his time crossing the oversized office, wanting to seem he was looming out at his subordinates from between the skyscrapers up Park Avenue, like some avenging angel. He sat down in the semicircle where his department heads reclined in soft chairs and a sofa around Buchannan’s coffee table.
“We’ve already hired two hundred Associates for this year’s incoming class,” the head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Group said.
“Then hire 230 or 240,” Buchannan shot back. Buchannan’s eyes accused him of incompetence.
“It’s April, Simon,” the Head of Corporate Finance said.
“Fellas, what is this?” Buchannan said and stood up. He summoned his best impatient sigh. “The markets are booming. IPOs. Converts. High yield. Rates are low. The economy’s chugging along and corporate earnings are still going up, up, up. The entire Street’s firing on all cylinders. We need to bang this cycle until it drops.” He started pacing. “Bang it. Bang it hard. And BofA Merrill Lynch is still number one. You saw the first quarter
underwriting statistics. I wanna beat these guys in equity offerings this year, give us a couple more years to catch them in debt underwritings, and in another year or two we’ll take on Goldman Sachs for number one in the M&A rankings.” He stopped and looked at his department heads, disappointed they didn’t seem to be summoning some urge to go out and win one for the Gipper. Maybe they were all immune to him by now because he intentionally acted so crazy and made himself so scary looking half the time. But Buchannan meant it. He wanted to win.
“Simon, it’s April,” his head of Corporate Finance, John “Stinky” Bates, reminded him again.
“So it’s fucking April.”
“Yes, it’s fucking April and all the top kids from all the top business schools are gone. We’ve milked Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton, Chicago, all of them dry.”
“So get me lateral hires from other firms. Dip down to the second tier business schools, hell, go to the third tier if you have to, just get me the bodies. Or it’s my ass.” Buchannan thought of the new house his wife had been harping about, prayed to the unknown for a $15 million bonus again, then thought of what his mistress wanted and looked back at his department heads in renewed earnest. “I didn’t get to be head of Investment Banking by screwing up, and if I start firing blanks, I’m gonna be out on my ear.” Buchannan gave Bates a look that told Bates he was lazy, stupid and paunchy. “Got that, Stinky?”
Bates nodded that he did. Probably even the look. The four department heads got up to leave after Buchannan signaled the meeting was over by striding back behind his desk and punching the phone keys, holding the receiver to his ear.
He saw Bates hovering in the doorway as the other three department heads left.
Rolling their eyes.
Yeah, they were tired of
Buchannan’s antics. Hell, they were just tired. Business was so good they were run ragged. They knew better than anyone they needed the help. Buchannan was preaching to the converted. Buchannan saw Bates turn back to face him.
Buchannan finished his call and hung up. “Something I can do for you?” Buchannan said. He hoped Bates heard the word “Stinky” in his tone even though he didn’t use it again.
“I need a minute.”
“You seem to be taking it. What can I do for you?”
“It’s about Shane.” Bates shifted his weight onto his other foot. His big gut sloshed to the side. Buchannan looked at it with disdain. “All of the department heads are cooperating—M&A, High Yield, Corporate Finance—”
“I know what our departments are, John.”
“Yeah,” Bates said, shifting his weight back to his other foot. “Well, everybody’s working together just fine, even across the sector specialties,” he paused. “Everybody except Shane. He’s still a lone wolf just like he’s always been since he joined us.”
Buchannan stared at Bates, impatient. “You think I give a shit? Shane is Shane. He’s the only other Senior Managing Director around here but me for a reason. Because he’s a moneymaker. He’s got big clients, he’s the best new business guy I’ve ever seen and he’s one of the crispest execution guys we’ve got. My attitude with Shane is to stay out of his way and let him do what he does best. Just keep feeding him bodies to help him process his deals, give him his slice of the fees and then count the money.”
“But it’s not setting a good example, it’s not good for the rest of the teams to see they can still elbow each other out of the way.”
“Let me ask you something, John. How long you been head of Corporate Finance?”
“About four years.”
“Well, it seems to me you should be more worried about how much longer you can stay that way than worrying about Shane. Because four years is an eternity by Wall Street standards,” and in the same instant Buchannan thought of his own six-year tenure as head of Investment Banking, “so if I were you I’d spend more time worrying about your own ass than Shane’s.” Buchannan punctuated the sentence with a glare that sent Bates out the door.
Jack Shane descended in the elevator to the 45
th
floor of 280 Park Avenue. Since he’d boarded the elevator on the Penthouse, 46
th
floor, his eyes had been tracking his path, assuming the role of his client’s first impression. His office was up there with the other senior luminaries—Simon Buchannan, the two Vice Chairmen and the CEO of Abercrombie, Wirth & Co., or “ABC” as the investment banking firm was known on Wall Street. He took in the polished mahogany and brass of the elevator doors—one of four elevators that were dedicated to the firm’s seven top floors of the building—then watched them slide open into the 45
th
-floor lobby. The lobby was a faux-finish limestone block, a knockoff of the real limestone in the firm’s former downtown offices. The detailed observer could tell it wasn’t real, but the ambiance was unmistakable. Particularly when you turned to walk into the spacious reception area. Period furniture, a mixture of tasteful reproductions and genuine antiques. Persian rugs and a drop-dead gorgeous receptionist. Today she was Little Miss Something-Or-Other, a 25-year-old voluptuous brunette with a pouting mouth and soulful eyes, sitting behind a tiger maple veneer Beidermeier four-legged desk, open at the bottom to show off her legs.
Shane nodded, not so much to acknowledge her but in deference to her beauty, and Miss Something-Or-Other responded with a brilliant smile. Shane took a left down the corridor toward the conference rooms, his feet hushed on the Persian runner that ran the entire length of the building toward Park Avenue. He continued to absorb it all through the eyes of Stanley Waldwrick, the CEO of Kristos & Company. Stanley was a small-minded Boston WASP and the son-in-law of the founder of the company. After six months of Shane’s nursing, cajoling and ministering to Stanley’s ego, Shane had figured out what Stanley really wanted to do was show his father-in-law he could catapult the northeastern regional department store chain into a nationwide business with a major acquisition. This would be Stanley’s first visit to ABC’s offices in New York and Shane wanted it to go just right. He wanted the right amount of mood, panache and bareknuckles Wall Street pressure.
This’ll do,
Shane thought. The marble floor of the lobby, Miss So-And-So behind the desk, the swish of feet on the plush carpets, the elements had been perfectly designed to impress with an Old World elegance. In his four years at ABC, Shane had always believed it was a good platform for him, the seventh firm he had been with in 24 years on the Street.
I just might stay,
he had once remarked to himself.
Shane picked up the pace. He wanted to get to the conference room early. In time to have a minute with Stinky Bates, the head of Corporate Finance, and Charles Fitzgibbons, the head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Group. At 50 years old, Shane was still slim and athletic, and wore his clothes with the air of a man who had them custom made for him, because he did. He was tall, 6’4”, and loved the look of himself reflected in the glass of the
conference rooms. Gucci loafers. Sharp creases, and although you couldn’t see them beneath his midnight-blue suit jacket, suspenders that matched his tie. All carried off with a practiced, devil-may-care attitude. His dark-brown hair was slicked back. His eyes were bloodshot, as they always were, like he’d stayed up too late the night before or had done too much cocaine. He smelled faintly of soap. No cologne.
He reached the door of the conference room, at the northwest corner of the building facing north on Park Avenue. Bates and Fitzgibbons were already there. He’d made sure that Buchannan made sure that they would be. “Morning,” he said without emotion. Fitzgibbons, the head of M&A, was on the phone and didn’t look up. Bates turned and nodded to Shane. Shane closed the door behind him and stood in the doorway, again seeing the room through his client’s eyes. The bright light of the day and the grandeur of Park Avenue skyscrapers gleamed in through the windows. The room was a continuation of the seductive opulence of the rest of the place. The polished antique conference table and Chippendale chairs reeked of money. Old World, New World, definitely not nouveau riche money. But better-than-you, some-son-in-law-from-Boston, money.
Shane strode across the room and stood in front of Fitzgibbons. He waved at him until Fitzgibbons put his hand over the receiver.
“Yeah?”
“I’d like a minute with the two of you before Stanley gets here.” Fitzgibbons nodded and then turned his back to Shane to finish his conversation. Shane crossed the room again to the console that was bedecked with danish, bagels and fruits, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“How’s it going, Stinky?” Shane said with his back to Bates. Shane chuckled under his breath, guessing how Bates was reacting to the hated nickname. Fitzgibbons hung up the phone.
“Morning, Jack,” Fitzgibbons said. He leaned on one leg, pulling his jacket open with one hand and thrusting it into his pocket, posing like a window display in Paul Stuart. “I’m all yours,” he said. “How long you figure this will take?” He looked at his watch, then up at Shane again.
“Half hour for you guys, then I’ll stay with him from there.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Thanks for coming,” he added, half under his breath as if it hurt him to say it. “I’ll make this brief.” Shane sat down at the far end of the table. Fitzgibbons took a seat at the exact opposite end when he saw Shane do so.
“Stanley is the CEO of Kristos & Company, a chain of 160 regional stores in the northeast. Middle-end department stores, started in the 1950s by his father-in-law, Nikolas Christanapoulas. The old man built it up to its present size, then passed the reins about a year ago to the son-in-law, because he had turned seventy, wanted to retire and didn’t have any male heirs.” He looked at Bates, who still stood awkwardly leaning on one leg, and then at Fitzgibbons. He saw they understood. He took a long sip of his black coffee. “So Stanley decides he wants to make a big splash, and as you know, Charles, we’ve got him teed up to buy Milstein Brothers Stores, the fifty-store nationwide high-end department store chain. It’s about a $3 billion deal, worth roughly three times as much as Kristos & Company is worth.”
About $15 million in fees for that piece,
Shane thought, not permitting himself to do the exact calculation in deference to his superstition. “We do a $550 million IPO for Kristos & Company, which I presume you know all about, John,” he said toward Bates rather than to him, refusing to meet eyes with him, “and then a $1.5 billion high
yield deal. The use of proceeds for the financings is to acquire Milstein Brothers, except for $50 million father-in-law’s taking off the table by selling some of his shares in the IPO.”
Shane looked at the other two, who nodded that they understood.
“You being taken care of with staffing on the M&A side?” Fitzgibbons said.
“I could use another pair of hands, you know that.”
“We’re a little tight right now, like we’ve been telling you. But we’re going to get a pack of new Associates in here pretty soon. Hang in there for a while, we’ll get you covered in a month or so,” Fitzgibbons said. Bates shifted his weight again.
“Okay, so that’s the story, which I presume both of you guys have read in the briefing books,” Shane said. He resisted the urge to scowl. He knew damn well these guys hadn’t read any of the materials he’d had prepared for either the M&A deal or the IPO. They probably skimmed a one- or two-page note prepared by some poor slob Associate or Vice President on their staffs. But that was it today in investment banking. Senior guys didn’t really know what was going on. They just popped into meetings to wave the flag to impress clients that the head of this or that gave a damn about their deal. Guys like Shane were a dying breed, bankers who did soup-to-nuts for their clients: conceived the deals, actually gave advice on strategy, and did the execution themselves. None of this specialist bullshit where a guy stepped in and did his two little pieces and then left. Well, they’d get him through this phase, because Stanley really wanted to see the head of M&A and the head of Corporate Finance to know the “experts” were paying attention to his deals.
