by Jeff Buick
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice terse.
Darvin leaned against a tree and looked about. “This, Derek, this is what I want. The country club, the yachts, the million-dollar summerhouse—the lifestyle of the rich but not necessarily famous.”
“You’re well paid for what you do. Buy a membership.”
Darvin clucked and shook his head. “A half million a year doesn’t buy anything anymore. Prices are through the roof. And I have no benefits, no pension plan, no way to build for the future. No, I need something else. Something more profitable. And that’s where you come in.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Darvin’s tongue flicked out and licked his lips. “You’re got a lucrative deal on the table right now. I know what you’re doing with Coal-Balt—the conversion to an income trust. That’s why you had me kill Reginald Morgan. He was opposed to the conversion. And that would have cost you a lot of money.”
Swanson’s face surged with color. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You stay out of my life and away from me. What I do and why I do it are none of your business. Do you understand?”
“No, it’s your turn to understand something,” Darvin hissed. “I’m part of your life and I’m not going away. When you had me kill Reginald Morgan, you tied the knot. Now you get to live with the Pandora’s box you opened.”
Neither man spoke for the better part of a minute. Darvin finally continued. “And now I want in. I want a share in whatever you take out of the increase in the stock prices.”
Swanson was shaking with rage. He thought of grabbing the smaller man and choking him, killing him on the spot, but his mind cooled as the moments passed. He waited until his breathing returned to normal, until his brain was processing what was happening properly.
“The conversion isn’t going to happen,” he said.
“Sure it is,” Darvin said. “I have sources that say it’s a done deal.”
“You should get better sources. There’s a problem with new legislation that’s going to kill it.”
“What sort of legislation?”
“A senator out of Utah, Claire Buxton, is submitting a new bill that will require us to completely revamp both the mine and the power plant. The regulatory boards won’t approve the conversion with the new legislation in place.”
“But it’s not in place now. And you’ve already got regulatory approval.”
Swanson was impressed with the accuracy of the man’s research, but stayed the course. “Buxton’s bill will pass. I hired lobbyists to crater it but they were unsuccessful. The conversion is dead in the water. It’s over. Take your hundred thousand dollars and call it a day.”
Darvin was thoughtful. “We’ll see,” he said, then added, “You know what pisses me off, Derek?”
“What’s that?” Swanson sighed. He was tired of the conversation and could have cared less.
“That a woman wields such power. How the hell did that happen? There was a time not so long ago when men made the decisions in Washington. Now look at it. Hillary Clinton and her ragtag bag of political bitches. Giving women this kind of control is bad. Very bad.”
“We’re done here,” Swanson said curtly. “I’ve got other things to do with my day.”
Darvin’s face darkened again. “You should learn to be nicer, Derek,” he said icily. “I don’t like being treated like one of your casual employees.”
Swanson glared at the man. “That’s exactly what you are,” he said. “And now, as The Donald would say, you’re fired.”
Swanson walked back to his car, alternating between seething anger at the man’s audacity and being petrified with fear at the thought of being linked to Reginald Morgan’s murder. He had little doubt that Darvin could link him to the killing. The hundred thousand dollars was partially traceable to a withdrawal from one of his accounts. The remainder had come from his safe at his house. He hadn’t been careful enough. He had never foreseen this happening—that he would be essentially blackmailed by the killer. And of all the people to go up against, a hired hit man was probably the least desirable. Nonetheless, no piece of trash that crawled out from under a rock when summoned was going to dictate terms to him.
Things were moving ahead. Without Darvin. That was the way things were, plain and simple.
Swanson gunned the motor on his Porsche and squealed the tires on the hot asphalt. Asshole, he thought as he raced past the killer on his way to the main gate. But even accelerating out of the parking lot, he still got a quick glimpse of the man’s eyes. They were cold—cruel.
Darvin watched the rear end of the Carrera fishtail as it swung out onto the main road. What a fool. If Derek Swanson thought this was the last time they would meet, he was completely out of touch with reality. In fact, they would meet again soon, and often. Darvin knew this because he was already planning it.
He walked back to his car and thumbed the key fob. The lights blinked and he opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Senator Claire Buxton. The bitch. Tabling new legislation that could crater the deal and cost him millions of dollars. Millions of dollars that Derek Swanson would gladly pay to keep a secret if the conversion went through. Couldn’t let that happen. He turned over the ignition and followed the tire marks Swanson had left on the asphalt out to the main street. He needed to take care of this wrinkle. And quickly.
Time was of the essence.
22
Easy jazz piano played on the stereo and the gentle aroma of vanilla drifted through the town house. Light streamed in from the bay window fronting Caroline Street, and a handful of tropical plants swayed with the breeze from the air conditioner. The living room was an eclectic mix of steel-and-leather furniture and antiques. A couple of brightly colored abstract paintings hung on one wall, a plasma television on the other. Outside, the Saturday morning sun warmed the busy street scene.
Leona sipped her tea and stared at the stack of paper on her coffee table. The reports on Coal-Balt, the evidence supporting her initial intuition that the company was not soluble as an income trust. She buried her hands in her thick ringlets and closed her eyes, letting the soothing piano notes sink into her soul. What to do? The bank had a vested interest in Coal-Balt’s financial health, and a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Their two-hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar debt was secured and was probably safe. The reasons, from the bank’s perspective, to give the conversion a thumbs-down, were nominal at best. Over the short term, switching to an income trust was probably a good thing, as the share values would definitely rise. It was the long term she was worried about. And the shareholders. Which was absolutely crazy. There was no upside to her worrying about what happened to some schmuck ma and pa in Iowa, who invested part of their retirement portfolio in Coal-Balt. And she certainly had no allegiance to the giant investment firms that bought up huge chunks of stock. So why the trepidation? Why not just okay it?
She had come so far, from the fat kid in the school cafeteria who ate lunch alone, to the successful woman who fit a size eight. The teacher’s pet, with great marks and few friends, none of them the cool kids, and none of them boys, was gone. It hadn’t been easy. Nothing in her life had been easy. Watching her parents divorce after forty-one years had torn her apart emotionally. Always feeling that no man would want her. Fighting off what she knew in her heart to be untruths.
Leona opened her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She had finally made it, had reached a point in her life that, to her, represented success. And now she was poised to throw it all away. Anthony Halladay had made it quite clear that he expected the bank to back Coal-Balt’s new business plan. Maybe Halladay’s allegiances to the energy company had waned a bit with Reginald Morgan’s death. Maybe, but there was no guarantee of that. Going against the CEO’s wishes was going to ruffle some feathers. Big feathers. But if she gave the conversion a thumbs-up, all that vanished.
It was almost ten and she got up from the couch and switched off the music. Tyler would be waiting, read
y to go over the new menu at the restaurant. They met every Saturday morning when she was in Washington. It was a meeting she looked forward to—Tyler’s exuberance about the food he served was refreshing. She rinsed the cold tea from her cup, locked up the town house and backed her Saab 9-3 out of the garage. The restaurant was less than ten minutes in the light traffic and parking was easy. It was five minutes after the hour when she sat down with her chef at one of the tables close to the front window.
“What’s wrong?” Tyler leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand.
Leona didn’t answer for a second, then said, “That obvious?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“Bit of a problem at the office.”
“Want to talk about it? It helps sometimes. Gives perspective to things.”
“It’s privileged information. I can’t discuss it.”
Tyler propelled himself forward, his elbows resting on the table. “Give me a hypothetical. Nothing with any substance. No names, no details.”
She eyed him for a minute, then said, “Okay, tell me what you would do.” She gave him the situation, the premise, then sat back, sipped her diet Coke and waited while he mulled it over. Her chef was an intellectual without a degree. He had a sharp mind that could have breezed through college-or university-level courses if he’d taken that route. He had simply chosen a different path in life. One that he loved—his passion.
“Give it the thumbs-up,” Tyler said after a couple of minutes. “But on a condition. The company has to place x amount of dollars from the share price increase in a separate fund to allow for updating the equipment and rebuilding the plant. If the new legislation comes into effect, they go ahead with the work, if not, they continue on like nothing happened. That way the shareholders don’t take the full hit. And you get to continue on as Leona Hewitt, vice president.”
Leona raised an eyebrow. “Very well done,” she said. “Probably not all that easy to implement, but an excellent line of thinking.”
“That’s because I have no idea what I’m doing,” he said. “Outside the forest, so to speak.”
“Well, who knows where it’s going to go. There’s a bit of a wrinkle.”
Tyler leaned forward. “A wrinkle. I like wrinkles. What sort?”
She grinned. His enthusiasm was contagious. “Someone died.”
He leaned back and ran his hands through his short hair. “Now it would be really interesting if it was that guy who disappeared off the cruise ship. You know, the one that’s all over the newspapers these days. Was it murder? An accident? Someone removing the old guy so they can manipulate the company he owned? Coal-burning plant, from what the newspapers reported. Nasty shit, burning coal to produce electricity.”
“What made you think that?” The color drained from her face.
“I don’t know. It was in the newspapers.” Tyler stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “Holy shit. It was him, wasn’t it? That was the guy. And the plant you were talking about is the one in the papers.”
Slowly, she nodded. “It goes no further than this table.”
“Jesus Christ, no. Never.” His body twitched about, like a surge of electricity had shot through it. “Damn, this is exciting.”
She couldn’t help but grin at his excitement. “The police think Reginald Morgan fell overboard. He was elderly and could have misjudged his balance. It would be easy enough to do.”
Tyler leaned back and his eyes narrowed. “You really think that?”
She finished her soda. “No.”
She glanced at her watch and said, “Let’s get the menu sorted out.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
An hour later, Leona closed the door of her restaurant behind her and stood facing the street. A wide selection of cars drove past—sedans, sports cars, SUVs. It struck her that each one was a capsule, insulated from the world outside its windows. Unique little environments. She watched an older women driving slowly, enjoying a piece of classical music. Behind her was a group of teenagers, the sound system turned up and the bass thumping. Young families drifted past with small children strapped in car seats, staring out the window at the strange and new sights. Each car its own little world. The people inside with their lives, their loves, their fears. None of them the same.
She walked to her car and slipped behind the wheel. This was her world. The one where the young woman could never do enough to earn her father’s approval. The college student who drank red wine because women were expected to drink white. The woman in her early twenties who bungee-jumped off a bridge in New Zealand to prove she wasn’t scared of heights. The vice president of a bank who knew only unfulfilled dreams and desires. She felt the leather on the steering wheel, warm and smooth to the touch. Her life was one of great privilege; she knew that. She could easily have been born a black child in one of the small Kenyan villages her foundation was pumping money into. Scraping for the necessities of life. But her course in life had been easier.
So why did she still feel so unaccomplished?
Leona gave her head a shake and turned the key in the ignition. The motor came to life and she shifted into first gear and pulled out into the traffic. Some things in her life were uncertain, but one thing was rock solid. And that was her decision on the Coal-Balt income trust conversion. She’d made up her mind and there was no moving her.
Time would tell whether she’d made the right decision.
23
For over a week they told him nothing, gave him no reason for throwing him in a squalid jail cell and locking the door.
Meals were sporadic, and when they did arrive they were almost inedible. And Mike Anderson prided himself that he could eat almost anything, including a few of the larger bugs that wandered in under the door. At least when he ate them he knew what he was getting. There were no windows in the tiny cell, and he had lost track of time. It could have just as easily been noon as midnight when the door finally opened and a solitary man, dressed in paramilitary clothes, entered. He stared at Anderson for a full minute, his jet-black skin blending into the darkness, the whites of his eyes floating in the dim light. The man motioned for Anderson to get up and follow him.
There were four other men in the hallway leading from the cell, all armed with automatic weapons. Anderson shuffled behind the first man, his bare feet sloshing in the cold puddles of water on the uneven stone floor. They had taken his shoes and socks before shutting him away from the outside world. The cell was cold and damp and Anderson could feel the first stages of hypothermia setting in. They reached a narrow staircase, well illuminated from above. As they climbed the wooden risers, the sun came into view through a barred window. The warmth felt good and he squinted against the first light over twenty-five watts in a few days.
“Sit there.” The man in the uniform pointed to a wooden chair on one side of a table.
A second chair sat on the other side, and both were identical. Anderson was tempted to sit on the other side of the table just to see the response, but didn’t. He had no idea what level of trouble he was in and aggravating the police was never a good idea, let alone in Nairobi. He sat and waited. The man who had led him to the room picked up a file from a cabinet on the far side of the room, then sat in the other chair so they were facing each other. The other four armed men filtered to the edges of the room and leaned against walls. A solitary fan moved the stale air about a bit, but did little to cut through the humidity or the heat. Anderson didn’t mind the warmth; it felt good.
The guard perused the file for a minute, his eyes narrowing at times, his brow furrowing as he read the contents. “What are you doing in Kenya, Mr. Anderson?” he asked. His voice was soft, but conveyed authority.
“I work for a nonprofit organization.” Mike resisted the temptation to tell the man he was an idiot if he didn’t know that already. “We raise money in the United States and use it to protect the elephants from poachers in a region near Samburu. The government has approved our work.”
&nb
sp; “Ah, yes. I see this now. You are doing good work in our country.” There was a touch of English accent to the voice.
“We’re trying to help.”
“Help comes in many forms, Mr. Anderson. When it comes in the form of money, that is good.” He paused, but when Anderson didn’t respond, he continued. “It’s the amount of money, and to whom it’s being given, that we have a problem with.”
Anderson wondered who the we was. From where he was sitting, it could be a handful of thugs who were using their positions inside the police force to extract bribe money, or it could legitimately be the government. He had no definitive proof, but he strongly suspected option A over B.
“The money is spent very carefully,” Mike said. “It has to be. We’re accountable to our donors in the US.”
“I see.” The man referred to a different written page inside the file.
“May I ask a question?” Mike asked.
The man’s eyes looked up from the page without any other part of him moving. “That depends on the question, Mr. Anderson.”
“Why am I in jail? Am I under arrest?”
The officer leaned back in the chair and thoughtfully scratched the day-old growth on his chin. “That’s two questions. Which one would you like an answer to?”
“Why am I in jail?”
“You brought a large sum of money into the country a few days ago. And when you left the bank, you took a considerable sum in cash.”
They had someone inside the bank. An informant. There was no other way they could know. “Yes. I took two hundred and sixty thousand American dollars with me.” There was no sense in lying; the police would know the amounts.
“In Kenya, that is a small fortune.” The man cocked his head slightly and smiled. His teeth were shocking white against his black skin. “You’re lucky to be alive, Mr. Anderson. Most people with that much money in their pockets wouldn’t last long on the streets.”
“I have friends in Kenya, sir,” Mike said. “Friends who protect me from thieves and murderers.”