‘If he’s so clever, why would he leave such an incriminating e-mail on his computer?’
‘We all make mistakes,’ said Sandy in frustration.
‘At least he’ll testify.’
‘If we can find him. He’ll be off to another sister in Australia by tomorrow.’
‘I think he’ll talk.’
Sandy stared out of the window. Calder realized that she was angry. Angry at him, but mostly angry at the man who she believed had killed her friend.
‘So what do we do now?’ she said. ‘I guess we can’t just find ourselves a Mountie and tell him to arrest Perumal. Not without that e-mail.’
‘I’m afraid not. Nor can we go to the Teton County Sheriff and get him to call out the posse.’
‘They’d probably lynch Perumal anyway,’ said Sandy. ‘They’ll be pretty upset when they find out he’s alive and they’ve spent days poking around in snowdrifts for nothing.’
. ‘Maybe I should speak to DC Neville again,’ said Calder. ‘That’s where the one murder is still outstanding. I could get Perumal to fly over to London and talk to her.’
‘He’ll be gone,’ said Sandy. ‘Besides, on Monday everything blows.’
‘That will be spectacular.’
‘You don’t think you should call someone at Bloomfield Weiss?’
‘And warn them?’
‘They could use it.’
Calder sighed. ‘I thought about it. But I’m not sure I owe them anything.’
‘It’s going to put a nice big hole in the financial system.’
‘Nothing the financial system doesn’t deserve. I’m doing this to find out who killed Jen and to make them pay for it. I’m not trying to save Bloomfield Weiss’s arse.’
Sandy raised her eyebrows. ‘OK.’
‘What?’ said Calder, irritated.
‘I said, OK,’ Sandy repeated in a studiedly neutral tone.
They got to the airport hotel and checked into separate rooms. Calder was surprised at how irritated he felt. Sandy had got under his skin. He had become used to her as helpful collaborator, and her criticism stung. He dialled her room.
‘Fancy a beer in the bar?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sandy. ‘I’m a bit tired. I think I’ll rest here.’
‘Oh, come on. What if I find one with a cute picture on it? A Mountie or something.’
There was a pause. ‘All right,’ said Sandy. ‘See you down there in ten minutes.’
The bar was empty. It was also poorly stocked with beer, but Calder did his best.
Sandy joined him. ‘What’s this?’ she said, picking up her bottle. ‘A maple leaf? The moose was cuter.’
‘Can’t get more Canadian than a maple leaf.’
‘Huh,’ said Sandy. But she drank anyway. It was still afternoon outside, although it was dark and timeless in the bowels of the hotel. She glanced at him. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s OK,’ said Calder.
‘But I don’t trust Perumal.’
‘I know.’
‘And I do think you should talk to Bloomfield Weiss.’
Calder shook his head.
‘They have the clout to make the authorities take notice,’ Sandy continued. ‘If Perumal’s right, it’s not just the Teton Fund that’s in trouble. It’s Bloomfield Weiss. And the Japanese stock market.’
‘Probably.’
‘There’s going to be one hell of a panic.’
‘Good,’ said Calder.
‘Come on, Alex. You don’t really mean that. Those kind of financial crises are bad for everyone. Companies, governments, workers, the developing world. Everybody suffers.’
‘So you think we can do anything about that?’
‘I think we should try.’
Calder glanced at Sandy sitting next to him. She was in earnest. And he knew how she was feeling. He had been a good Bloomfield Weiss employee for many years. He had sweated and struggled to make them money over the years, and more particularly, not to lose it. Shouldn’t he at least try to help them?
But look what they’d done to Jen. To him.
‘I tried talking to Bloomfield Weiss before. They don’t want to know. And the last thing I want to do is bail out Carr-Jones.’
‘Carr-Jones is history. He’ll never survive this. You could try again. Isn’t there anyone there you can trust?’
Calder thought about it. Bloomfield Weiss wasn’t all bad. There were still some good guys there. Guys he didn’t want to let down. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ He glanced at her and smiled. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’
It was quiet in the bar and there was no chance of being overheard, so he pulled out his phone and made the call.
‘Yes?’
‘Tarek? It’s Alex.’
‘Zero? What the hell are you doing ringing at this time? Where are you?’
‘I’m in Canada. And I’m sorry if I woke you.’ It was midnight in London.
‘No, that’s OK. What is it?’
‘Bloomfield Weiss is in big trouble.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tarek.
So Calder told him. Everything. And Tarek listened. As he told the story, Calder could hear how convincing he sounded, how it all hung together. Some parts were still uncertain, but the essential points were clear: Vikram and Martel had worked with Perumal in falsifying the revaluation of their security holdings, Jen had discovered this and had been murdered as a result, and now the Teton Fund was about to blow up, doing severe damage to Bloomfield Weiss and much of the financial system as it went.
When he had finished, Tarek muttered something in Arabic about Allah.
‘Do you believe me now?’ Calder asked.
‘Yes,’ said Tarek. ‘Yes, I do believe you. And actually Perumal is right about the Teton Fund. It’s up to its credit limits with us, and probably with everyone else on the street. If it goes, it will take a lot of people with it.’ There was silence down the phone line, but Calder sensed Tarek wanted to say more. ‘I’m sorry, Zero. Sorry I didn’t listen to you before. Thanks for coming to me with this. I’d have understood if you’d decided just to let us screw ourselves.’
‘It was tempting,’ said Calder. ‘But what do we do now? If you talk to Benton Davis or Carr-Jones, or even Simon Bibby, they’ll deny it. You don’t have much time.’
‘You’re right. There’s only one person who can sort this out.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Sidney Stahl. I’ll talk to him now.’
‘Will he listen to you?’
‘With what I’m going to tell him, he’ll listen. Believe me. Give me your number and I’ll call you back when I’ve spoken to him.’
Calder put the phone down and turned to Sandy.
‘I think you did the right thing,’ she said. ‘However badly Bloomfield Weiss treated you and Jen, a financial meltdown isn’t good for anyone.’
‘I suppose so. Tarek took me seriously enough to go straight to the chairman. We used to be good friends.’ Calder smiled. ‘Maybe we still are.’
‘The chairman? That’s Sidney Stahl, isn’t it? Do you think he’ll bury it?’
‘Not Sidney,’ said Calder. ‘At least you can rely on him to act. I just want to be sure that that action leads to Martel’s arrest and doesn’t just cover Bloomfield Weiss’s arse.’
‘What about Perumal?’
‘If he’s guilty, they’ll nail him. But I still don’t think he is.’
‘And those e-mails to Bodinchuk?’
‘Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps they were planted by somebody. Someone trying to distract our attention from Martel.’
‘Like who?’
Calder thought. ‘It must have been someone in London. Not Carr-Jones, because we know he got rid of the e-mail jammed in the printer. If he had wanted Nils to have the information he would have left it for him to find the next morning.’
‘Who, then?’
Calder shook his head. ‘Beats me.’
Sandy gave him a l
ook that said I told you so.
They waited in the bar for Tarek’s phone call. Half an hour later it came. ‘I spoke to Sidney,’ Tarek said. ‘He wants you to call him in New York at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’
35
It was six o’clock on a Sunday morning in Vancouver when Calder called Sidney Stahl in New York. Sandy had pulled on a T-shirt and jeans and joined him from her room just down the corridor. Her hair was still tousled from sleep and she looked delectable. She sat on the bed next to Calder, her head close to his as she tried to hear what was said on the receiver of the hotel-room phone. Calder forced himself to concentrate. Even though he didn’t work at Bloomfield Weiss any more, he was still nervous of speaking to its chairman. Sidney Stahl had a reputation for not suffering fools gladly; in fact, he massacred them.
Calder dialled the number Tarek had given him, and a moment later heard Stahl booming down a speaker phone. He was a small man with a big voice. ‘Zero! Great to hear from you. Tarek tells me we’ve got you to thank for pointing out what deep shit we’re in.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Calder. ‘Who’s there with you?’
‘I got Arnie Robach, our general counsel. Don Machin, head of Global Equities. And Simon Bibby. Remember him?’
‘Hello, Simon,’ said Calder.
‘How are you, Zero?’ Bibby replied, with transatlantic bonhomie. The very sound of his voice reminded Calder of the duplicity and political knife-wielding that he had fled from the year before.
‘I hope no one has spoken to Justin Carr-Jones about any of this?’ Calder said. ‘I don’t trust him. I made that very clear to Tarek yesterday.’
‘No one’s spoken to him,’ Stahl said. ‘Yet. But before we get into that, tell us what you know.’
Calder repeated to Stahl what he had told Tarek the night before.
‘We’ve done some checking this end,’ said Stahl. ‘Without talking to London. We got big exposure on the equity side to the Teton Fund. It’s all secured, but against Japanese stocks, so if the market craps out some more, we got a bigger problem. And for some reason, these JUSTICE notes don’t show up as credit exposure on our system.’
The accusation was left hanging. Bibby picked it up. ‘I received an e-mail from Justin Carr-Jones on Friday night. He says he’s worried about the way Risk Management are accounting for some of our risk exposure on the more complex derivatives. I think they have some important questions to answer.’
Calder closed his eyes. Bibby was already starting the finger-pointing exercise that followed any cock-up at Bloomfield Weiss. ‘If it’s any help, Perumal reckons the notes will show a loss of about six hundred million dollars tomorrow,’ he said. ‘When you ask the Teton Fund to cover that, they won’t be able to and the whole thing will unravel.’
‘We gotta get in there right now,’ said Stahl. ‘I’ve met this guy Martel. He’s got the biggest ego I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some big ones. He’s not about to give up without a fight.’
‘I’m sure if we talk to Justin he can straighten all this out,’ Bibby said. ‘We need these JUSTICE notes revalued. And I think it would be useful to hear his side of the story.’
‘No,’ said Calder.
‘I really think –’ Bibby began.
Stahl interrupted. Why no?’
‘Because, for the last year, whenever I’ve tried to get Bloomfield Weiss to do the right thing Carr-Jones has stopped me. He’ll do it again now.’
‘You’re taking this too personally,’ Bibby said.
‘You bet I’m taking it personally.’ Calder was doing his best to control his anger, but he wanted to reach out over the two thousand miles that separated them and strangle Bibby’s disembodied voice. ‘For me this is entirely personal. Jen Tan should not have been insulted the way she was. She should have been treated fairly. She should not have been murdered.’
‘But we’re talking about business here,’ Bibby protested. ‘How we’re going to get Bloomfield Weiss out of this mess.’
‘That’s personal too,’ Calder said. ‘Look, Sidney. I didn’t have to call Tarek. I didn’t have to warn you about what’s happening. I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do, and because, although I hate to admit it, I still feel some loyalty to Bloomfield Weiss. I can help you if you like. But you have to do it on my terms.’
‘Which are?’ Stahl’s voice was gruff.
‘I want Martel.’
‘You can have him when all this is over,’ said Stahl.
‘Oh, no,’ said Calder. ‘I’m not going to give him the chance to get away. I can get him arrested this afternoon. Then you really will have a mess on your hands tomorrow.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Zero. If this guy Martel is responsible for the murder of one of my people, he’ll pay. I’ll make damned sure of that.’
Unlike many of the people who worked for him, Stahl had a reputation for straight talking, for following through on what he said. Calder was inclined to believe him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve got a way we can nail Martel and get him to hand over the Teton Fund to Bloomfield Weiss control.’
‘How the hell do we do that?’ Stahl asked.
‘As you say, Martel doesn’t like to give up. He still thinks he’s in with a chance. He believes Freddie Langhauser has a client who is going to put up three hundred million. We say we have that client. We have a meeting. Then we tell him everything we know. We say there’s no new client, the Teton Fund is history. We show him Perumal. And then we get him to give you control and tell us how exactly Jen was murdered and on who’s say-so. We have a plane full of lawyers, accountants and traders waiting to move in on the Teton Fund and the cops ready to take Martel away. And we have people on hand in London to deal with Carr-Jones if necessary.’
There was a disconcerting silence at the other end of the phone.
It was broken by Bibby’s voice. ‘Sidney. I really don’t think there’s any need –’
‘We do it,’ Stahl interrupted. ‘Who goes to Jackson Hole?’
‘We need a trader in charge,’ said Calder. ‘Tarek?’
‘Yeah, Tarek. And me. I’ll go.’
Calder smiled. ‘Good.’
‘I’ll make the call. We’ll talk again later on today.’
Calder heard Bibby’s voice raised in protest, and then the click as Stahl hung up.
Calder glanced at Sandy. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘I heard it all. Let’s just hope it works.’
Three hours later Uncle Yuri’s scheduled flight from Salt Lake City landed in Jackson Hole. He was met like an old friend by a man he didn’t know, who took him out to a parking lot. He led him to an old pick-up truck with Wyoming plates, a gun rack carrying a powerful hunting rifle and a handgun, and in the back various other pieces of equipment that Uncle Yuri might need. There was also a folder containing information he might find useful, and a brief message from Mykhailo Bodinchuk himself.
Two targets.
That wouldn’t be a problem. But first Uncle Yuri would need to find a quiet spot somewhere to zero in the sights on the .270 Winchester. He looked at the hundreds of square miles of wilderness all around him. That wouldn’t be a problem either.
He also wanted to stop off at one of those enormous American DIY stores and buy some balsa wood and a knife.
*
Calder and Sandy flew back to Jackson Hole later on that day. Calder called Tarek, who had himself just arrived in New York. Everything was in hand. Stahl had called Martel and fixed up a meeting with him for the following afternoon at two o’clock, ostensibly to thrash out the final points before the Artsdalen Foundation would sign the investment agreement and transfer three hundred million dollars to the Teton Fund. Stahl had made no mention of credit problems or revaluation losses. Apparently Martel had tried to hide the relief in his voice but failed.
Don Machin had arranged for some of his best equity traders to fly from Tokyo to Jackson Hole. Although he traded bonds
, not equities, Tarek would be the man on the spot responsible for overseeing the Teton Fund’s position once Bloomfield Weiss took over. Under muted protest, Simon Bibby was flying to London that evening with a group of internal auditors and a couple of derivatives traders from the New York office. They would ensure a proper valuation of the JUSTICE notes the following day. Stahl had called Freddie Langhauser and told him under no circumstances to let the Artsdalen Foundation make a real investment in the Teton Fund.
Bloomfield Weiss’s general counsel, Arnie Robach, had been in touch with a whole array of lawyers and agencies, including the SEC, the New York District Attorney’s office, the FBI, Scotland Yard, and the Teton County Sheriff. There were all kinds of problems with jurisdictions and evidence, but the preferred strategy was to question Martel about securities fraud and then take it from there.
Stahl planned to call the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Although he had no jurisdiction over the Teton Fund, he did have responsibility for the Wall Street brokers who had dealt with it, and for the liquidity of the financial system. Also, Bloomfield Weiss would need political help in dealing with the Japanese, whose stock market and brokers were about to be severely damaged by the maverick hedge fund. But Stahl wanted to delay that call until the next morning, when he was installed in Wyoming. If the Teton Fund’s troubles were to be sorted out without disrupting the market, it would need coordination from all the brokers the fund had done business with. Stahl wanted to make sure that Bloomfield Weiss and not one of his competitors were in prime position to act as the coordinator.
Calder tried to get hold of Nils to ask him more about Perumal’s e-mails. But Nils was out. Perhaps he had taken Calder’s advice and gone on holiday or a business trip to keep himself out of trouble.
At about five o’clock, Sandy knocked on the door of his hotel room. ‘Come on,’ she said.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Outside. There’s nothing more you can do now.’
‘What if Stahl wants to get hold of me?’ Calder said.
‘OK, take your mobile. But let’s go.’
Sandy was right. It was a relief to get outside and to feel the fresh air. It was still light, although Jackson was draped in grey. The hills and mountains surrounding the town were out of sight, and the streets and rows of houses merged into the nothingness. Sure enough, they had only walked a few yards when it began to snow. Large soft flakes drifting slowly to the ground. Soon it was impossible to see more than twenty yards around them. They walked on regardless, following a random route through the little grid of streets that was Jackson.
On the Edge Page 34