The other members of the FOMC stared at Wendell Smith. They had trusted him. They had been burned.
“I saw it,” Smith said quietly. “I apologize to each of you. I have made a great mistake.”
“Apologies are cheap, Wendell. I want your resignation,” Butler hissed. Several of the other members began to nod. “And I want an investigation into your friendship with Wallace Boreman by a Senate committee. I think there’s more here than meets the eye.” More of the members nodded.
Smith glanced down. “I see. Well, that might be a little premature, Harold.”
“I don’t think so.” Butler’s voice reigned supreme.
Smith rose from his seat and walked slowly to the huge fireplace. He stood beneath the mammoth eagle and gazed out at the men and women seated around the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe you are aware that Warner James, chairman and CEO of J. P. Morgan & Company, is a close friend of mine. If you’ll recall, I was on the board of Morgan before I joined the Fed. I have been speaking to Warner off and on all day. In principle, he has agreed that Morgan will acquire NASO and that it will pay a very fair price for the shares, given NASO’s difficult situation. Investment bankers at Winthrop, Hawkins & Company will handle the transaction. Depositors will be made whole, and Morgan will honor all of NASO’s foreign exchange and derivatives contracts. Pending your approval tonight, an announcement will be made early tomorrow morning with respect to this development. The markets will respond very positively. I expect the Dow to regain most of the losses it has sustained in the past two days.” Smith smiled confidently at the rest of the FOMC. “Warner would like to know that I will remain in my position. He wants assurances. It is a huge transaction, even for Morgan. He is concerned that I will resign.” Smith raised an eyebrow at the other members as a warning. If they took any action against him at all, he would crater the Morgan deal.
The members of the FOMC stared at Wendell Smith as he stood beneath the great eagle, as calm as ever. Because of a high-level friendship, he would be able to calm markets around the globe. With one phone call he had saved the financial system, something Carter Filipelli would never have been able to do. Smith had erred by not being diligent enough with Wallace Boreman, but he had atoned for his mistake by calling in a favor from Warner James, chairman of the most powerful bank in the world. They understood his subtle warning and would not support Butler’s call for Smith’s resignation.
President Flynn spoke. “I think you should continue to proceed on this track.”
The others nodded.
Sheep, Smith thought. Nothing but sheep. He inhaled deeply. It had been as easy as Granville Winthrop had said it would be.
Harold Butler slouched down in his chair. Filipelli had been a fool to think that he and the President could do anything to fight the blue-blooded mafia. They were more powerful than any clan on earth. And they were profiting from all of this somehow. He was sure of that, though Butler didn’t know how and didn’t have the strength left to find out. He stared at the huge eagle above Wendell Smith’s head. It seemed to be mocking him.
31
Phoenix Grey stepped onto the second car of the New Jersey Transit train as it waited at the Jersey Avenue station, four stops south of Linden. He was disguised so that Falcon would not recognize him. He wore shoulder pads beneath the windbreaker to make his upper body appear more developed, and his hair was shoulder length beneath the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. A beard and mustache completed the transformation.
The car was crowded with a group of Trentonians trekking to New York City for the day. Most of the seats were occupied, and those that weren’t were filled with rain slickers and umbrellas. The forecast was for rain, but that didn’t dampen the mood of the group from Trenton. They were boisterous, ready for a day in the Big Apple.
Phoenix Grey selected one of the few unoccupied seats, a window seat near the middle doors of the car. As he squeezed past a fat woman on the aisle, he pulled the baseball cap down well over his eyes. He wanted no part of this celebration.
A bum sat in the last seat of the car and observed as the lone passenger boarded the train at Jersey Avenue and moved into the window seat next to the fat woman. The bum’s hair was longer than Phoenix Grey’s, and it was scraggly and stringy. The bum also wore a hat, but it was old and tattered, as was the tan raincoat. The bum’s face was so covered with dirt that the whites of his bloodshot eyes stood out strangely. And he smelled, terribly, of the street.
The train pulled away from the Jersey Avenue station, picked up speed briefly, and then slowed as it pulled into the New Brunswick station. The two stations were closer together than most on the Northeast Corridor line. As the train slowed to a stop, the bum picked up his bag of aluminum cans and moved slowly out the end door near where he had been sitting. He was the only passenger to detrain at New Brunswick. As he stood on the platform, he could still hear the revelers from Trenton inside the car.
The bum had not recognized the man initially—the disguise was very good, as he knew it would be. But he had recognized the walk, something the man could not hide. It was the stooped and furtive walk of a man who had lived his life in the shadows, a man who had lived his life trying not to be noticed.
Falcon watched the train pull away from the station, heading on toward Linden, where the woman was supposed to be waiting. She probably wasn’t there. She had probably passed the job off to the assassin. The urge to jog alongside the train and bang on the window next to where Phoenix Grey sat was almost overwhelming, but that, Falcon knew, would be stupid. Grey was a desperate and resourceful man. He might find a way to detrain even as it was picking up speed.
The bag of aluminum cans fell open as Falcon threw it against a trash receptacle on the platform. He looked up and gazed at the train as it disappeared into the distance. So it was her. The whole thing had been an act. He should have known.
* * *
—
Jenny walked slowly across the mall’s huge parking lot, loaded down with packages. She counted rows of cars as she walked and finally located her aging Toyota Camry. She placed the packages on the car’s hood, then removed the keys from her pocketbook and slid the proper one into the lock. As she was about to turn the lock, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the indigent standing on the other side of the Camry, staring at her.
“Oh, my God!” She brought her hands to her face and moved back quickly against the door of the car next to hers. She stared back at the man for several seconds, transfixed by the eyes, which seemed somehow familiar. They bored into her. Her heart raced but she could not move. Finally, she grabbed the keys from the lock and, without bothering to scoop up her packages, turned and ran for the mall.
Falcon walked calmly to the rental car parked just a few feet away. The engine idled as he climbed behind the wheel. He had seen in her eyes what he needed to see.
* * *
—
The view of lower Manhattan was beautiful from the Promenade, despite the ugly weather. But Falcon did not care about views now. He pulled Cassandra Stone’s home telephone number from his pants pocket, picked up the pay phone, and dialed.
“Hello.”
“Cassandra?”
“Andrew?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get the information from Martinez?” she asked.
“Everything. It’s all here. He did a good job. I know he thinks he’s involved with something terrible.”
“He is.”
“Well, he’s out of it now. I paid him twenty-five hundred dollars.” Falcon glanced around. There was still that matter of the dead guard back in Ohio. He had visions of the authorities coming for him at any time—of them throwing him against the wall, shackling him with handcuffs and leg irons, and reading him his rights before ducking him into an unmarked police car. But he saw no one suspicious on the Promenade. “What were you able to find, Cass
andra?”
“Pretty much everything. I don’t have any favors left from anybody, so I guess I won’t be writing too many legislative stories anytime soon. But what the heck.”
“Talk to me. Tell me what you got.”
“First of all, William Rutherford is former CIA. He lives in Boston. For the last few years he hasn’t done anything real. He has a defense-consulting business, which might explain why he flies all over the place. He spent over thirty thousand dollars on airline flights last year alone, according to his credit card. But the business hasn’t generated any revenue, according to his tax returns of the last three years. He receives his CIA pension, but it sure as hell isn’t enough to support his lifestyle. I’m checking to see if he could have inherited anything big.”
“That’s great. It makes sense too. The other guys are businesspeople. They wouldn’t have the stomach for the dirty work this thing required. And they wouldn’t have the time either. Except Chambers. But he wouldn’t have the strength.”
“I have most of the phone bills too. Not surprisingly, they call each other a lot. They weren’t as careful about whatever this thing is as they should have been.”
“You are too much, Cassandra. Those phone bills will go a long way to proving conspiracy. It will link them together.”
“I also spoke to Jeremy Case’s widow,” Cassandra continued.
“And…”
“And, she didn’t want to say a whole lot, at first.”
“Understandably.”
“Yes. And I didn’t really know what to ask her, so I just sort of talked to her for a while. She seemed to like that. It was sad. I felt sorry for her. Finally, I asked her if there was anything odd about her husband’s death. Anything that didn’t make sense, not that any of it probably made sense to her at the time. Or now for that matter.” Cassandra paused. “Anyway, she said the one thing that stuck out in her mind was that her husband had apparently taken out a big life insurance policy just before his death. They never discussed it, even though she was very involved in their finances. She said it was strange for him to take out a policy without telling her. She is convinced that he was murdered, and that what happened wasn’t some argument over a woman.”
“Of course. Check out the—”
“The insurance policy. I am.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Peter Lane, the name you asked me about.”
“Yes?”
“He works for Lodestar Investment Management in Washington, D.C. That firm was—”
“I know. It was raided by the SEC, the DOJ, and the FBI on Thursday. I read it in the Financial Chronicle. Look, I think I know what this whole thing is about now. I think I know what the Sevens are trying to do.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” Falcon took a deep breath and glanced around the Promenade again. “I think they are trying to take down the President. I think this is an elaborate plot to destroy the administration, an administration that is very unfriendly to the Sevens’ way of life.”
Cassandra was quiet.
Falcon continued. He sensed the disbelief in her silence. “Did you read about the President being linked to some memo at Lodestar? A memo that outlined how the President had directed Lodestar to invest in Penn-Mar for him because he knew it was going to be taken over.”
“Yes.” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“A guy from the Financial Chronicle broke the story yesterday.”
“I know,” she said. “He works downstairs.”
“Do you think it was coincidental that someone from the Chronicle broke the story, Cassandra?”
She said nothing.
“Jesus. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“No. You think the Chronicle was able to break the story about the memo because the Sevens somehow knew about it beforehand, and Henderson leaked that information to the guy downstairs.”
“Exactly. Except that the Sevens didn’t just know about the memo. They planted it. They have framed the President with it.”
“Come on, Andrew! That’s too much.”
“Why is that so far-fetched?”
“The story in the Times this morning says that the authorities actually recovered a copy of the memo from Peter Lane’s desk. The article goes on to say that the memo was covered with Lane’s fingerprints. The prints on the memo matched exactly the prints he had to give to register for his Series Seven exam—the exam people are required to take before they can sell public securities.”
“So…”
“So, how could the Sevens have arranged that? How could they have gotten Lane to leave a memo lying around with his fingerprints all over it, basically indicting himself and the President? Lane wouldn’t have been that stupid. No one would be that stupid. He’s convicted himself.”
“Have they found Peter Lane yet? I mean, the authorities must be looking for him.”
“They are, and, no, they haven’t found him yet. At least according to the papers.”
“And I bet they won’t find him. At least not alive. The records indicate that Lodestar invested twenty thousand dollars into Penn-Mar on behalf of the President just days before the takeover was announced. Lodestar also bought a large call-option position for him at the same time. They probably got Lane to execute the trades by paying him. But I bet Lane didn’t write the memo.”
“Then how did his fingerprints get on the memo?”
“I don’t know.” Falcon couldn’t explain that. That was the hole in his theory.
Cassandra sighed. “So you’re saying the President is being set up.”
“Yes. I know you don’t believe me, but answer this. Why would he risk his entire political career, his entire life, just to make a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a stock and option position? It makes no sense. He’ll make that amount for a couple of speaking engagements after he’s finished at the White House.”
“Well, if he’s being framed, then he will be able to prove that he’s being framed and the Sevens’ plan will fall apart.”
“An insider-trading charge isn’t that easy to shake. Believe me, I know. The public records indicate that Lodestar bought the shares and the options for the President just days before the takeover was announced by Veens, and now the authorities have the Lane memo, but there’s no Peter Lane to refute it. How’s the President going to prove he’s innocent if he can’t get hold of Peter Lane? Even if he can get to Lane, it might not matter. In the best of all worlds, it would take at least six months to clear himself. More likely a year, given the evidence. Insider-trading cases drag on forever. He won’t be able to shake this thing by the election. The damage is done, Cassandra. The people will convict him on what they read in the Chronicle, controlled by the Sevens. And you know the American people will think he’s as guilty as sin. He’s a politician, for Christ’s sake. And at the same time the insider-trading fiasco is going on, the financial markets are tanking. By tomorrow the Republicans will be on him like a pack of lions. His approval rating is going to take a nosedive. He’ll lose the election by a landslide. It’s all too neat, Cassandra. In fact, it’s incredible. They’re going to accomplish with this conspiracy what no assassination plot could have ever done.”
Cassandra went silent. She did not argue. The vision of lions tearing prey apart was vivid in her mind. What Falcon was saying made too much sense.
* * *
—
Barksdale sat on the balcony of his Park Avenue apartment, sixty-two stories above street level, staring through the misty darkness at the lights of the city. It was a beautiful city at night, particularly from this lofty vantage point. He took several more gulps of the highball, then put the glass down on a small wooden table in front of his chair. It was his fourth glass of whiskey in the last two hours.
So tomorrow would be his last day of freedom. His lawyers h
ad been unable to negotiate anything with the government. He wouldn’t be booked or charged yet, but it would be the beginning of the end. Tomorrow they would start the investigation. Tomorrow they would begin asking the questions. And they would find the truth. They would find him guilty of something. They almost had to. He would spend time in a penitentiary. The attorneys had assured him of that. It was just a question of how much time. Tomorrow his good name would be splattered all over the New York Times for all of his friends to see, his reputation sullied forever.
Barksdale glanced through the glass doors. Vivian, his wife, was babbling on the telephone. That was about all she did anymore. He hated her. He had for years. Didn’t all husbands hate their wives? And vice versa. Wasn’t that what marriage was all about?
The ice cubes pressed against his upper lip as he emptied the glass of whiskey. He set it down carefully on the table, stood, climbed onto the brick restraining wall of the balcony, and jumped.
32
“What the hell is going on?” the President screamed. He stared blankly down at the quiet streets of Richmond, Virginia, from his suite atop the Omni Hotel. “In fifteen minutes I’ve got to deliver a speech to the blue bloods at St. James Episcopal Church. This is suicide for me. They hate the tax bills I’ve passed in the last four years, and they abhor the social programs I’ve instituted with what they consider ‘their’ money. Up until this point, there wasn’t much the blue bloods could do about it. They had to make the best of it. But now look!” Buford Warren pointed at the new campaign figures, then turned and hurled the newspapers at Dick Walsh, his chief of staff, who sat in a large easy chair of the suite’s living room. “They are going to tear me apart out there. We might as well cancel the appearance. We might as well cancel the entire campaign at this point.”
Walsh took a deep breath and glanced at the front page headlines of the Sunday New York Times and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, both spread out over the floor at his feet.
The Takeover Page 34