Crash

by David Hagberg

Her left eyebrow rose. “You’re spending the night with that tramp of yours?”

  “It’s a thought,” Treadwell said, smiling. “But we’re going to have a big day when the market opens in the morning, and I have work to do to get ready for it.”

  “I’ll get my own ride,” she said. She started to leave, but then turned back. “And, Reid, don’t bother coming back to the apartment. Ever. I’m done with you and your little girlfriends.”

  He watched her march across the room with a feeling of relief and regret. Relief that he wouldn’t have to put up with her bullshit again, and regret that he would be losing her money. But in a few hours he’d have plenty of money of his own.

  He called Lawson to have the car brought around, and then left the party the same way he’d come in, with his head up, but with an odd feeling of power he’d never had before. Actually killing someone was a rush.

  Outside, the Maybach was just gliding up to the curb. Lawson jumped out and opened the rear door for Treadwell, the sounds of sirens in the distance.

  * * *

  At the firm, Treadwell told Lawson that he wouldn’t be needing him until just before opening bell.

  Inside, the lobby was busy with Hardy’s security people, the outlines of shoulder holsters visible through their blazers.

  They nodded politely as he walked down the hall and boarded the executive elevator. Hardy hadn’t been there, but it was enough that he’d managed to get the flash drive and have his people standing by to keep Levin and her boyfriend from getting into the building.

  The overnight traders would be busy working the foreign markets, but they’d be even busier when everything went to hell after the opening bell in eight hours or so. And it would be the same downstairs in DCSS when the techies realized that somehow they’d missed something bigger than even they could imagine had happened, right under their noses.

  No one else was on the top floor except for Dammerman, who sat at his desk watching the Asian trades on his Bloomberg monitor.

  He looked up when Treadwell came in. “It’s ugly over there, especially in Shanghai,” he said. That market was where China did a majority of its trades, and it had been feeling the brunt of the country’s banking crisis for some time now.

  “Everything is in position, right?”

  Once more Dammerman laid out the plan. It was reassuring, like listening to a familiar prayer. “As the market opens, Abacus is triggered in our system. It won’t do much damage to us, just enough so we can claim later that we got hit too. We can say that our defenses were better than everyone else’s. The SEC and others will never find where it originated. All trading networks are linked worldwide. Abacus spreads to the NYSE, and then to the rest of the exchanges and investment firms all over the map. They’ll be out of operation for days, weeks even, who knows? Meanwhile the financial system’s gears are stripped. No one can raise capital, trade stocks or bonds or anything.”

  Treadwell cast his absurd straw boater aside. “We have hours to wait for this, and it’s already driving me nuts.”

  “Makes two of us,” Dammerman said casually, talking almost as if he were describing a ballgame, not a financial apocalypse. “This will be like dominos falling. When the Russians blow up the NYSE’s backup computer, the world will think terrorists were behind the market meltdown. With the system shattered, people will panic.”

  Treadwell nodded. “Everyone will want their debts repaid right away. And once trading does resume, the system will clog with sell orders. Utter chaos. And guess who’ll be left to dig civilization out of the crash?”

  “Neither Washington, nor any other government will know what to do. We come out of it on top.”

  “For a price.”

  “A sweet price,” Dammerman said. “Abacus is unstoppable.”

  “Where’s the flash drive?” Treadwell asked.

  Dammerman pulled it out of his shirt pocket and handed it over.

  Treadwell couldn’t help but smile. “We might as well get rid of most of the security guys in the lobby. We don’t need them now.”

  “I wouldn’t be so fast, Mr. T.”

  “Isn’t this thing encrypted?”

  “Like nuclear launch orders. None of the nerds downstairs could figure it out, and when I called Masters in to take a quick peek, all he could do was shake his head.”

  “What about Julia? She might be able to figure it out.”

  “I haven’t been able to get ahold of her,” Dammerman said. “I called, emailed, texted, and told her to get her geeky ass back here on the double. But she doesn’t answer. Do you want me to send one of Butch’s people to her apartment to bring her here?”

  “She recognizes your number, and right now you’re not one her favorite people,” Treadwell said. He called her on his cell phone and put it on speaker mode.

  On the third ring she picked up. “It’s a little late to be calling, isn’t it, Reid?”

  “What’s going on, Julia?” Treadwell asked. “Are you okay?”

  It took her a moment to answer, and when she did it sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. “I’ve had time to do some thinking. I just can’t go on with this. I mean, killing a young woman who only thought that she was doing her job? Cassy was helping us, for God’s sake. And now we’re going to push the world into the second Great Depression?”

  “You weren’t bothered about any of this from the beginning. Abacus was your idea.”

  “I wanted to believe you,” she replied. “I set up Abacus as an experiment, and I went along with what Clyde wanted to do. But I was blinded by the money I’d make. I was foolish. But now I’m willing to tell the authorities just that.”

  “Can’t you see beyond the end of your nose?” Treadwell said, trying to keep his voice even, though he could feel the panic rising in his gut.

  “I didn’t sign on for murder,” Julia said.

  Treadwell had had enough. “Get up here immediately, because if you don’t, I’ll have some of Butch’s boys drag you here. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I’m sick of your games,” Dammerman bellowed.

  “Go fuck yourself, you ape,” Julia shouted back. “And for the record, Reid, I quit. My cousin will be pleased to hear it.”

  “You’re a part of this. If we go down, you go down.”

  “Betty will stand behind me.”

  “If you even think about going to her, I’ll make sure that you end up like Cassy Levin! I swear to Christ I will!”

  “It’s a done deal, and she’s primed to hack your balls off,” Julia said. “Do I make myself clear?” She hung up.

  Treadwell stood holding the phone in his hand, not knowing what to say for the moment.

  “Did she say what I thought she said?” Dammerman asked.

  “Get Hardy up here. We have to do some major damage control.”

  Dammerman looked up. “Here he comes.”

  107

  Hardy stalked into Dammerman’s office, and he didn’t look happy. “They said downstairs that both of you were here,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “I need you to add two people to the Levin list,” Treadwell said.

  “People you want dead.”

  “Levin’s a done deal, but we need Nast and O’Connell gone. I don’t want them testifying against us.”

  “That’s not going to be so easy.”

  “What are you talking about?” Treadwell demanded. “I want it done.”

  “That won’t look good, Mr. Treadwell,” Hardy said. “One BP executive plus the president’s economic adviser—himself a former BP exec—suddenly go down. The cops would come snooping around, and so would the FBI.”

  “Nast lost his job today because he’s an idiot, and no one would care if he got run over by a bus. And we’re staring down the barrel of a possible catastrophe to our entire computer system that Julia was supposed to prevent. It could cost this firm million, perhaps even billions. Not to mention our good name.”

  Hardy shook his head. “Why bot
her to off them? Nast has been fired, so go ahead and fire O’Connell. Two unemployed bozos.”

  “Maybe we’ll just fire your ass, and hire someone who knows how to follow orders,” Dammerman shouted.

  Hardy was angry, but he held his silence.

  “Leave it like this, Butch,” Treadwell said. “They can make allegations about us that we don’t want people with badges to hear.”

  “Well, I came up here to tell you something else that you’re not going to like,” Hardy said. “My friends downtown said there was a big shootout in Brighton Beach a few hours ago. A lot of Russians with criminal associations are dead.”

  “The guys you hired,” Treadwell asked.

  Hardy nodded. “The ones who took Levin. A witness supposedly told the badges investigating that they saw a man and woman leaving the house and driving off.” He glanced at Dammerman. “Could be Levin and her boyfriend—the ex-SEAL.”

  Treadwell sat down heavily in the chair in front of Dammerman’s desk. It felt as if the bottom had just dropped out.

  “If you’re worried about them coming back here, don’t,” Hardy said. “My security is tight.”

  “You damn well better have it right this time,” Dammerman shouted. “You chose the Russians. Sounds like it was Whalen, Levin’s SEAL boyfriend, who slaughtered your pals. One guy offed them all? Christ, how incompetent can you get?”

  Hardy made a fist. “Tell you what, fat boy, one more out of you and I’ll cave in your fucking face!”

  Dammerman jumped up. “You’re fired, asshole! I want you out of here now!”

  Treadwell had been staring out the window at the Empire State Building all lit up, but he pulled himself out of his funk. “I want both of you to calm down. Butch is going nowhere, because we need him. Some big stuff is coming down the road this morning, and we need to circle the wagons.”

  Dammerman sat down.

  “There’s more,” Hardy said.

  “Go ahead,” Treadwell said.

  “My friends uptown told me that a woman named Heather Rockingham was found shot to death in a stairwell at the Metropolitan Museum earlier this morning. Some preliminary testimony from witnesses had you and her having an argument before she disappeared, and you left.”

  “Who knows how many people she’s slept with,” Treadwell said. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some jealous wife murdered her.”

  “Possibly. But they want to interview you ASAP.”

  “Maybe later, after the opening bell,” Treadwell said, rising. “I’m going to my office now.”

  “Duke told me to ask you if you disposed of the gloves.”

  Treadwell missed a step, but continued out the door and down the hall.

  108

  In his office he made sure that neither Hardy nor Dammerman had followed him and might be watching through the glass walls before he put his pistol and the flash drive in a drawer. The police would need a warrant to search his office, which they might get, so he made a note to himself to find a better hiding place.

  But when the NYSE opened in a few hours, and markets around the world were turned upside down, no one would pay much attention to the murder of a minor executive in a nothing outdoor apparel company from the Midwest.

  Even though the hour was late, he phoned Rupert Leland, one of his alternative brokers, this one in Panama City. Leland had been on the bad side of the law for most of his life, finally escaping to Panama, where money bought anything you might need—including immunity from extradition to the U.K.

  “Top of the morning to you, then, Mr. Treadwell,” Leland said, his fake British accent high-born.

  “We’re good with our trades?”

  “Yes, sir. We closed the ten million short position, took out your fat profits, and wired the two million to your account in this lovely country.”

  “Just checking to make sure.”

  “Ta ta,” Leland said and rang off.

  Treadwell sat back and stared out the window at the dark harbor. Some of his maneuvers were going through, but he wished the opening bell would hurry.

  109

  It was very late, and all of Hardy’s people were in place. He moved through the ground floor talking with his people, one-on-one, where they were stationed. He didn’t want to call them together and leave any possible entrance unguarded. Not this late in the game.

  His first responsibility, as he saw it, was to protect the firm. It was what he was getting paid for. But his second, even more important responsibility was protecting himself. Because he sure as hell wasn’t going down because of whatever crap Treadwell and Dammerman had cooked up.

  “You guys have the pictures of Whalen and Levin,” he told Jack McGowan and the other three guys stationed at the Nassau Street entrance.

  “Whalen the ex-SEAL,” McGowan said. “Word is he was the shooter tonight out in Brighton Beach. That right?”

  “Could be, but I’m calling in some guys,” Hardy said, referring to his friends on the force. “You just keep him and the girl from getting in, and the guys will take care of the rest. But no matter what happens, the bottom line is neither of them gets downstairs to the DCSS. And that’s the order from the brass.”

  “That’s the word from Dammerman?” one of the other ex-cops asked. No one on the security staff had much use for BP’s COO, who treated them like garbage.

  “No. Treadwell himself.”

  “Fair enough,” McGowan said. The big man knew most of their names, and he was usually friendly, though sometimes distant, and he saw that they all got regular pay raises and a Christmas bonus.

  Hardy had his own opinion, which he kept to himself. Fact is, he’d never liked anyone on the top floor, especially not Dammerman, but definitely not Treadwell either. BP’s CEO was nothing but a slick-talking con artist who would screw over the little guy any chance he got.

  There were stories about how Treadwell had dodged trouble more times than once, walking over people on his way to the top, some of the time with Dammerman’s help.

  He looked through the glass doors as a blue-and-white, the roof mount unlit, slid up to the curb and stopped. He went outside as Roger Adams climbed out of the passenger side.

  They shook hands, and Hardy moved his friend down the empty street away from the front doors. “I’ve got all hands on deck, but I’m glad you’re here, Rog,” he said.

  “I’ll do what I can. But you have to know that Young will probably spring Whalen if we take him in again. It’d only be a matter of time before we’d have to let him walk out the door.” Adams’s view of Mayor Bill Young was not positive. “Apparently he’s pals with Whalen’s boss, some big-time admiral down in D.C.”

  “Five will get you ten that Whalen’s prints are going to be all over the place in Brighton Beach. Makes him a mass murderer.”

  “The Russians were scumbags, and no one is going to shed a tear if someone wiped them out. Anyway, it looks like they kidnapped his girlfriend, and he went out there to rescue her. Single-handed. Lots of extenuating circumstances that the press would love to get ahold of. And I’m already in deep shit.”

  “Look, all I need is for you to help keep him and Levin out of circulation for the rest of the morning, maybe till noon. I mean with the shooting, he’s at least a material witness. And how do you know he was a white knight saving his lady? Maybe he had a drug deal that went bad, and he and the Russians had a falling-out. Shit like that happens all the time. Just saying.”

  “I’ll take major flak from Voight, because if Young tells my commander to jump, Voight will ask how high.”

  Hardy stepped in closer. “Okay, I gotta tell you some heavy shit. Maybe save your ass, save both of us if it comes to that. But just remember you didn’t hear this from me. A little bird whispered in your ear with a promise of secrecy.”

  “Fine. What is the little bird whispering?” Adams said.

  “A lot of bad shit is going down upstairs. The brass were the ones who ordered Levin to be kidnapped, and they paid big mone
y for it to happen. I’m not sure exactly why, but it has to do with some computer program, or something on a flash drive they wanted back.”

  Adams looked stunned. “You mean your bosses? The head honchos of Burnham Pike? Holy crap.”

  “Treadwell and Dammerman are the perps. Whatever they cooked up had to do with enough money that they were willing to resort to kidnapping and murder.”

  “Okay.”

  Hardy spread his hands, palms up. “I’m clean. But this could be a big bust for you.”

  “I’ve always had your back, Butch.”

  “I know,” Hardy said. “And it’s a two-way street.”

  They shook hands, and Hardy went back to the front entrance, a slight smile on his lips. Getting back was sweet. But getting even was even better.

  110

  Ben stood guard while Cassy took a quick hot shower when they got back to the motel. Chip had found an all-night grocery store where he picked up some coffee and sweet rolls, which was all she’d said her stomach could handle for the moment.

  Although she had to get dressed in dirty clothes, she insisted that Chip show her what he had downloaded to his computer from the flash drive. And as soon as it had come up she’d sat back, a deeply disappointed look on her face.

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  “I’ve got some work to do before this can be used.”

  “Did I screw it up?” Chip asked.

  “There was a onetime-use Burnham Pike security marker embedded in the program. If the flash drive had been downloaded to a BP computer it would have been recognized as being legitimate. Downloaded into a foreign computer—your laptop—the markers were erased.”

  “Your flash drive and my computer talked with each other?” Chip asked.

  Cassy nodded.

  “You need to show me how you did that.”

  “Later,” Cassy said, bringing up the first page of the program. “I need to fix this before we can load it into BP’s system to neutralize Abacus.”

  “How long will it take once you’ve downloaded the thing?” Chip asked.