Crash

by David Hagberg

  Cassy turned around and sat up as the door opened and the man who had searched her walked in. He did not look happy, and she was terrified that the rapes were going to begin now. She didn’t know how she would be able to take it.

  “This is not going to happen, you son of a bitch,” she shouted. “If you want to fuck me you’ll have to kill me first and get your jollies off with a dead body.”

  “If need be, then that’s the way it’ll happen,” Anosov said. “But that’s not why I’m here. The people at your bank want the flash drive you stole.”

  “You know I don’t have it!”

  “Yes, but I think you gave it to the man who was with you. The one who got run over by the truck.”

  Cassy fought back the urge to burst out in tears. Donni had been so outrageously young and sweet, and his death was her fault.

  “I only made the one copy, which I turned over to my boss.”

  “Ms. O’Connell, yes, I know. But I am told that one of your coworkers said you made two copies. So where is the second one?”

  “There isn’t a second one.”

  “Causing you pain would make no more difference to me than stepping on an ant. It’s up to you, but in the end you will tell me what I want to know. Why not save us both the trouble?”

  Cassy held her silence, but she felt as if she was going to throw up.

  “All I want is the name of the man who was killed on Broadway.”

  Still Cassy remained silent.

  Anosov took a bottle of water out of his jacket pocket. “I think you must be thirsty,” he said.

  Cassy looked at him.

  He opened the bottle and began to pour the water on the floor.

  “Donni,” Cassy said, hating herself. But he was dead, so it didn’t matter. “Donni Imani.”

  66

  Ben had gone about as far as he could go without something from Chip, who had been busy at his laptop from the moment the copilot had given them the go-ahead. Ben had replayed Cassy‘s phone call again, focusing on Butch Hardy’s name. Cassy had called him a fucking idiot. But his was the only name at BP she’d mentioned.

  He got on his phone and brought up a directory for the bank. Working down from Reid Treadwell, the CEO, he found Butch Hardy under the title chief of security. He speed-dialed the number.

  A man with a gruff voice and a New York accent answered on the first ring: “Hardy.”

  “Mr. Hardy, my name is Ben Whalen. I’m a friend of Cassy Levin’s. She’s been a little under the weather for the past couple of days, and when I tried to reach her number at the bank there was no answer.”

  “I’m chief of security, not a babysitter.”

  “I understand. But I was calling you just to confirm that nothing might have happened to her.”

  “Look, pal, I’m chief of security. Now, if there’s nothing else I can do for you, I suggest you postpone your love life until after business hours.”

  “Before you hang up, may I be straight with you?” Ben asked.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’m a former Navy SEAL.”

  “So?”

  “And the one thing you never want to do, Mr. Hardy, is piss off a SEAL. Do I make myself clear?”

  Hardy laughed.

  “I have a very good reason to believe that she’s been kidnapped by two Russians who were driving a Cadillac.”

  “Kidnapped?” Hardy shouted. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’ll be landing at LaGuardia, and the first person I’m going to talk to is you.”

  “Good luck, because I’m going to be out of the city through tomorrow afternoon. Now, get the fuck out of my hair, because the one thing you never want to do, SEAL, is piss off an ex–New York City gold shield.”

  “I’ll find Cassy, and when I do I’m coming after you,” Ben said. “Count on it.” He hung up.

  Chip had looked up from his laptop. “I assume that was the bank’s chief of security, but I thought you weren’t going to call him.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Well, it didn’t sound good to me. What’s the upshot?”

  “He was lying.”

  “If he was involved in hiring some Russians to kidnap her, you can bet that he’s on the phone right now telling them that a pissed-off SEAL is on his way.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Are you considering the possibility that they’ll just kill her and dump the body somewhere?”

  “Not until they find out what she did with the flash drive,” Ben said.

  “Are you really going to the bank to confront him?”

  “He’s a start,” Ben said. “But what have you come up with?”

  “Not as much as I wanted. But the plates on the Caddy are of a sequence assigned to Brighton Beach, so at least we’ve confirmed what we already thought we knew. But the time of the ambulance didn’t pan out, though it got me thinking about her friend that you’ve told me about.”

  “Donni Imani.”

  “They’re close?”

  “I think so.”

  “But I was thinking that maybe she and her friend left work together, and maybe she gave him the flash drive when she realized what was going down.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But while you were talking with Hardy, I got on the bank’s directory and came up with Imani’s and Cassy’s workstation addresses. I tried messaging them both, but neither answered. Next I tried their phones, but again got no answer.”

  “Cassy’s gone, and maybe Imani was taking a break.”

  “I called his immediate boss, a guy by the name of Masters. I told him that Donni was an old pal and we were supposed to have lunch together. He told me that Imani had already left the building.”

  “What are you driving at?” Ben asked.

  “I demanded to know if he left alone or with Cassy Levin,” Chip said. “And the guy was a natural. He said he and Cassy left the building practically hand in hand.”

  “Proving what?”

  “Like I said, when she realized something was going down, and why, she passed the flash drive to her friend and told him to run.”

  “Okay, assuming Imani has the flash drive, where’d he take it?”

  “To the morgue,” Chip said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I checked for emergency calls in the vicinity of where they grabbed Cassy. There was no nine-one-one mention of a woman being kidnapped, but there was a fatality about that time a block and a half away on Broadway. When I checked the morgue with Imani’s name I got the hit. His body is there, and I’m betting the flash drive everyone seems to want is with his things.”

  “What about the Russian Cassy caught on her phone?”

  “I sent his picture to Niklai Radchenko, who’s one of the neighborhood coordinating officers in the section of the NYPD’s Sixtieth Precinct that covers Brighton Beach. I got a hit almost immediately, and he wants me to call him on his direct line.”

  “I don’t want to involve the cops.”

  “I sent the pic in the blind,” Chip said. “The decision is yours, but I’d like to call this guy to find out what he knows.”

  Ben didn’t like it and he was about to say so, but Chip held him off.

  “I’m doing research on the Russian mob for The New York Times, and all I want to know is if he’s connected.”

  “He’ll check your background, and he’ll want to know how you got the picture.”

  “It only took a minute to set up a newsroom address that’ll come directly to me. But right now we’re only stabbing in the dark. We need a location.”

  Ben looked away. “I’m afraid for her. Afraid that she’s gotten in over her head. Butch Hardy seemed like a scumbag.”

  “Your call, Ben. All I can do is provide you with decent intel.”

  “Do it.”

  “Guys, we’re about twenty minutes from landing,” the copilot called back. “I’ll need you to shut down your computers and ph
ones in about ten.”

  “Got it,” Ben said, as Chip brought up the cop’s number on his phone in speaker mode.

  The cop answered on the first ring. “Radchenko.”

  “This is Chip Anderson, I’m the one who sent you the photo.”

  “I know, I checked you out. How’d you get the shot, and where was it taken?”

  “Downtown, and I took it. I just want to know where I can find him.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to trade him the picture for his story.”

  The line was silent for a couple of moments. “I would advise you against trying to make contact with him. He’s about as bad as they come, but he’s well connected and for the moment we can’t do a thing. No proof.”

  “Nonetheless I’d like to try. Guys like that sometimes are in love with the media if they think they’ll get a fair story—some publicity.”

  Again the cop hesitated.

  “Look, I’ll share whatever I come up with with you. Who knows, maybe he’ll slip up and give me something you can use.”

  “Your funeral, Anderson,” Radchenko said, and he gave an address. “His name is Leonid Anosov, and he doesn’t work alone.”

  67

  It was well after lunch and Treadwell usually had a coffee at this time of the afternoon, but at the moment he was in absolutely no mood for anything. Ashley had asked if he wanted something brought up from the cafeteria, but he’d declined with a shrug.

  And sitting now in full view of anyone walking past his glass-walled office, he was trying to pretend that he was busy scanning the trade data on his machine, watching the financial news feeds, and answering emails. But the missing flash drive stabbed deep into his brain, and for now he could concentrate on nothing else.

  If Abacus were to fail, or worse yet, be revealed, he would be done. Maybe even have to do some jail time, a thought that was impossible to conceive. How the mighty have fallen, the unbidden thought came into his head. Maybe from the Bible his dad read to him when he was a kid.

  His phone chimed with an incoming text. It was from his wife, Bernice, once again reminding him about the Spring Gala tonight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  It was something he definitely didn’t want to do, especially not tonight of all times. But then again, this was another chance, like this morning’s visit to the NYSE floor, to show that nothing was out of the ordinary with him or with the firm.

  And he loved being noticed in public.

  For Bernice, though, the season was the lifeblood of her existence. She loved the arts and arty people, and she loved the pomp and circumstance of the parties. Be seen or be forgotten; it was as simple as that for her.

  Burnham Pike and Mr. and Mrs. Reid Treadwell were significant donors to most of the city’s cultural institutions, and just like Reid, she loved being noticed by the glitterati.

  Ashley buzzed him. “Mr. Dammerman on one.”

  Treadwell took the call. “What?”

  “I’m coming up,” the COO said.

  “A problem?”

  “Looks that way,” Dammerman said and hung up.

  Ashley was on again. “Mrs. Treadwell on two.”

  Treadwell picked up. “I just now got your text, Bernice.”

  “I don’t care if the market is melting down or the sun is swallowing Wall Street,” she said, a sharp edge to her voice. “You will show up at the Met tonight. Clear?”

  “We’re in the middle of something I can’t leave.”

  “At the Met. Tonight at eight.” She hung up.

  His wife didn’t have to remind him that despite his substantial Wall Street compensation package, she had a lot more money than he had. Or that he owed his career to her father, Thatcher Pike, whose ancestors had founded BP.

  Once he had tried to disagree with her whether to fire their live-in chef, a French-Algerian from Marseille. The man’s haute cuisine was too exotic for his tastes: Uzbek pickled vegetables, Laotian bamboo ginger quail, Ethiopian kitfo.

  “Is it too much to want a simpler dish from time to time?” he’d asked.

  Bernice had arched her left eyebrow. “You can take the boy out of Ohio, but you can’t take Ohio out of the boy,” she’d said.

  They had an ironclad prenuptial agreement, and they kept the chef.

  Dammerman showed up a couple minutes later, and he was obviously troubled.

  “What’s the issue?” Treadwell asked.

  “Some guy named Ben Whalen called Butch, claimed he’s a former Navy SEAL tough guy, and says he’s looking for Cassy Levin.”

  “What’d Butch tell him?”

  “Nothing.”

  Hardy got off the elevator and walked across the hall into Treadwell’s office, closing the door behind him. “We may have an issue, Mr. Treadwell,” he said. “I got a call from someone claiming to be Levin’s live-in or something.”

  “Clyde was just telling me about it,” Treadwell said. “What’d he say, exactly?”

  “Said that two Russians driving a Caddy kidnapped her right off the street. And says he’s on the way from somewhere, and he’ll be landing at LaGuardia. Says he’s coming to see me.”

  “Jesus, what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know how he’s getting his information, but what the hell do you want me to do if he actually shows up here?”

  “Have him arrested,” Treadwell said. “Just get him out of our hair.”

  “On what charge?”

  “I don’t give a fuck. Trespassing. The son of a bitch threatened you.”

  “How far do you want me to take it?”

  “I don’t care. Kill him if you have to.”

  “I’m on it,” Hardy said, and he left.

  “We just need to get past opening bell in the morning, and nothing will touch us,” Treadwell said. He opened a drawer, took out a .45-caliber pistol, and placed it on his desk. “Maybe he’ll show up here and threaten me. The only thing I could do is shoot the bastard in self-defense.”

  “I didn’t know you were packing,” Dammerman said, a slight smile at the corners of his thick lips.

  “It was my dad’s gun from ’Nam, and he gave it to me when I went to college at Brown. Providence had a reputation as Rhode Island’s toughest town.”

  “Did you ever have to use it?”

  Treadwell hesitated for a moment, thinking back to that other time. “Almost,” he said. “My father always said that if the VC ever overran their position, and he was about to be captured, he’d blow out his brains first.”

  68

  After Dammerman left, Treadwell tried to get back to work on a departmental spending spreadsheet when Ashley buzzed him again. “Betty Ladd is in the lobby insisting on seeing you.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’ll tell her that you’re in the middle of a board meeting and can’t be disturbed,” Ashley suggested. She and just about everyone else in management knew the story between the two of them.

  “No, Ash,” Treadwell said. “Send her up.” Right now maintaining the illusion that everything was fine was the top priority.

  He hung up, and for a moment he stared at the pistol, and almost smiled with a little thrill of pleasure thinking about the possibility of shooting the bitch between her beady eyes. But then he put the weapon back in the drawer and closed it.

  Betty got off the elevator, charged across the corridor, and burst into Treadwell’s office, her fists clenched on her hips as she stood in front of his desk.

  Like a defiant schoolgirl called to the principal’s office, Treadwell thought, and he almost smiled again.

  “What have you done with Cassy Levin?” she demanded.

  “I checked after your call, and I was told that she works in our data center security suite. She tries to keep hackers and the like from invading our system. Apparently she had a bigger role at Murphy Tweed and was responsible for the disaster that sank the firm. Frankly, I don’t know why we hired her.”

  “None of it was her fault. She warned
them, but no one wanted to listen to her.”

  “Her excuses, or yours, don’t matter,” Treadwell said. “So what’s the issue?”

  “She called me and said that she had to talk, and that she was bringing something important. She sounded frightened. And that concerns me. A lot.”

  “I talked to her supervisor, who said she’d left for lunch. Pretty normal, Betts.”

  Betty shook her head. “You’re up to something, Treadwell. Goddamnit, I can feel it in my gut, see it on your fucking face!”

  “I think you ought to see a shrink. Really.”

  “I’m watching you. If anything has happened to that girl, I’ll make sure it comes back to you. And that’s a promise you can take to the bank.”

  “Before I have security escort you out of here, I have a question for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “I was told that you met with my technology officer today in Zuccotti Park. I was just wondering what you two talked about?”

  “Why don’t you ask Julia?”

  “She said that you were pumping her with questions about BP’s activities. But in view of your position with the exchange, that would constitute an official inquiry, something you’re required to inform us about beforehand. And trust me, Betts, my legal people would have no compunction about reporting your actions to the SEC.”

  “Stick it up your ass, Treadwell. It was family gossip, nothing more. Julia and I are cousins.”

  Treadwell was taken aback, but just for a moment. “Family or not, if I find out you talked about BP business, I’ll nail your ass to the barn door. Guaranteed.”

  69

  It took Treadwell a minute or two to get his temper in check after Betty was gone, then he picked up the phone and called Dammerman. “Betty Ladd was here wanting to know what happened to Cassy Levin, but then she left me with a little tip about one of our top people.”

  “That Julia is her younger cousin?”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “I just found out. Butch is here in my office, and he’s been looking into what Julia’s been up to today. Turns out that Betty has been helping Julia for a long time. Even opened the door for her to get a job here.”