Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Charlotte Larsen
All rights reserved.
ASIN: B07GD2C3RP
ISBN: 9781718131781
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Cover design by Juan Villar Padron,
http://www.juanjpadron.com
Special thanks to my editor Janell Parque
http://janellparque.blogspot.com/
Prologue
For longer than anybody cares to remember, my family has had the means to occupy positions of respect and influence in society. Although some generations excelled in making money while others took pride in spending it, we’ve belonged on the sunny side of life for hundreds of years materially speaking, that is. On the other hand, we’ve had more than our share of suicides, incest, murders, madness, and pure decay.
In fact, my family has been defined by generations of madness. It’s something to which we’ve grown accustomed. We identify with all its ramifications. Not that we consider the aberrations to be “insanity” in the common sense of the term, but rather as highly evolved sensibilities and God-given rights.
The violence that members of the family have caused has been an expression of our noblesse oblige, our commitment to clean the world of vermin. The suicides have occurred under dramatic, even romantic circumstances. A few have been made into films and recounted in novels. All in all, our lives, our loves, and our feuds have always excited and charmed the public, while the authorities could often be persuaded to look the other way.
In later years, the family fortune was seriously challenged a few times most recently during the Great Depression, in which my grandfather, in his youthful exuberance, lost nearly everything. Only slowly and with uncharacteristic fanaticism did he manage to save the scraps and propagate our assets. He did this so well that my father, and later I, consequently were born without duty.
A destiny I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
Chapter 1
Somewhere in a European capital, in the anonymous lobby of a five-star hotel, two men are speaking in hushed tones. They are surrounded by the kind of prewar opulence that seems a necessary backdrop to any serious conversation between distinguished-looking gentlemen in custom-made suits. To the uninformed eye, the two men appear to be having a relaxed and leisurely discussion; however, the topic of their conversation is rather more sinister.
One of the men might be pushing fifty, yet his face is curiously untouched by age. But his air of distinction, full head of salt-and-pepper hair, deep-set eyes with not the slightest hint of humor, and slightly liver-spotted hands give his age away. His name is Georg Schwartz; he is the founder and head of the management consulting firm known as Schwartz Corp., a company generally assumed to be the one serious contender to world leadership in strategic consulting next to McKinsey, yet with an entirely different line of activities below board. Activities that very few people know about.
The other man, in his late thirties, is a tall, slim man with that particular brand of pale elegance that usually signifies well-developed intellect but low virility. He is the eldest son of one of the founders of the second-largest legal firm in Europe. Born into world dominance as an heir to Remington Partners, having had to do little but follow in the footsteps of his more ingenious forefathers, he is a man with little or no imagination, but with a burning desire to be number one and to do his family proud. He is yet another man needing his father’s approval. Needless to say, he hasn’t achieved it yet, and there is not much to indicate that he will.
Nobody would doubt that these two men had plenty of reasons to do business together. But very few knew that they were meeting today, or what was on the agenda.
Swirling the brandy around his glass, Schwartz looks at his companion and says, “I’ll need everything you’ve got on the twenty senior partners. Everything! Every little scrap of information, from their grad schools to now. Their family history, their love life, their political affiliations, their quirks, their eccentricities. It’ll give us a head start. Although my researchers are without a doubt the best in their field, they’ll be wasting valuable time sifting through information you already have in your possession.”
The younger man nods without saying anything.
“And you will need to occupy yourself somehow. Get out of the loop. Best if you could go through a very public and messy divorce or come down with a heart attack. Or something like that.” He looks inquisitively at the other. “What can you do to convince your clients, colleagues, and the press that your attention is not on the firm, but elsewhere?”
The younger man shows no surprise. “My marriage is too good to waste.”
Schwartz speaks languidly, but in a manner that doesn’t allow for objections. “I think you will find that very little in life is too good to waste if you really want to be on top.”
There is a brief silence while the younger man seems to debate with himself whether to assert his authority. He chooses not to. “All right. There’s a history of heart failure in the family. I can check myself into Mount Sinai for a while. How long do I need to be away?”
“My guess would be about two months. I’ll let you know once we’ve established the particulars of the case. Staying put for a while will prevent you from being tarnished. Which you obviously need in order to make the most of the game we secure for you. We’ll take care of the press and make sure your confinement is known widely enough. We’ll keep your name well away from the events that will unfold in the coming months. Mount Sinai is, naturally, one of the places we have contacts, so we can ensure that your cover isn’t blown.”
“Fine. Anything else?”
The older man thinks for a while. “Yes. You should spend your time away from the grindstone to think about what you’ll do once you have the field for yourself. Mind you; it won’t last forever. I can clear the space for you, but you need to make the best of it. It’s your job to carve out a position that will keep the competition forever at a distance. You see, we never do repeat business of this kind. Waste of time. If people can’t manage the gold we lay at their feet, we won’t bother to retrieve it for them again. How does that sound?”
“As I expected. Professional.”
The older man gets up and extends his hand. “Fine. You’ll hear from me. Get on with the heart attack.” With that and a slight smile, Georg Schwartz turns away.
As he leaves, the bartender discretely lifts the phone.
In a ballroom less than six hours away by plane, Francis Scott-Wren is doing what he does best: flirting with the wife of some business tycoon or other, while simultane
ously keeping all his senses open in order to pick up information. Something is up tonight. He can feel it. Amid this display of lifted eyebrows and thousand-dollar décolletés, in this sea of couture gowns and tailored suits where the shadow of hope still lingers, he can detect one or two jarring notes. Notes not picked up by the casual observer, but inevitably sniffed out by his finely-tuned mind.
He makes his excuses to the woman by his side, whose face, despite copious amounts of Botox, is briefly shadowed by disappointment. A band is playing nondescript jazz on a gilded platform. Chandeliers sparkle with a small country’s worth of jewels. The dark burgundy drapes are heavy velvet, and the black-and-white floor is marble. Among this quintessence of inferior taste and superior wealth, clusters of people move about, glasses in hand, gossiping, mingling, discussing real estate prices, beach houses, somebody else’s divorce settlement, golf. An ordinary evening in the lives of those inhabiting the material stratosphere. Donating money to a cause few even knew about in the first place, and nobody bothers to recall. Some disease or other. Who really cares? As long as the Diors and the Balanciagas and the Chanels get an outing and another night is taken care of.
Francis saunters from one group of people to another. His expression of sophisticated, ironic boredom is practiced to perfection. Walking with a feline swagger, chin lifted, eyes half closed, looking disdainfully down his nose, he is the epitome of cynical disillusionment. Irresistible to some, infuriating to most.
Nodding to an acquaintance here, raising his glass there, winking to a few former lovers along the way, stopping for a short while in one group before moving on to another. Nothing interesting. The evening is an exquisite exposition of banality and superficiality. That is until he comes across a group of senior partners from the city’s top-tier legal firms and their escorts. He overhears one of the partners saying something about a man named Wharton having disappeared.
Francis decides to stick around. In a practiced move, he slips next to the oldest, most soignéed of the women, slides his finger along her arm, and whispers theatrically, “My God, where is the imagination of these people? Have you ever seen so many last-season gowns in one place?” The woman throws back her head and laughs in an affected but satisfyingly loud way, raising the attention of the men. Just like he knew it would.
“Good evening, I am Francis Scott-Wren.” He offers his hand to each of the men in turn, while the women eye him with all the predatory instinct of a nearly extinct race. After a few pleasantries and unsatisfactory attempts at uncovering mutual acquaintances, the men return to the topic of Wharton, having quickly wearied of the frivolous bachelor whose attention seems to rest exclusively on the women.
“What do you mean, disappeared?” one man insists.
“Well, as it turns out, Wharton failed to show up at a board meeting at one of my clients,” one of the men explains. “It seems his wife hasn’t seen him, nor has anybody else since Tuesday morning when he got into his town car to go to the office. And then…puff!” The man gestures for dramatic effect. “Wharton was there one moment and gone the next. Vanished without a trace. His car and driver disappeared along with him.”
“Maybe he’s just had enough of the rat race and wanted out. Perhaps right now he’s living a wet dream on a boat in the Pacific, daiquiri in one hand, a gorgeous something in the other. Who’d blame him?”
“No, no. You clearly don’t know Wharton. He is Smith, Turner, and Stevenson. He’s a very decent guy, completely dedicated. He’s been in charge of daily operations for years, answering directly to the board. He lives and breathes for that company. His family is merely a backdrop, a necessary prop for the successful modern lawyer. Wharton would never do something like that. Hasn’t got the imagination.”
Nor do any of you buffoons, Francis thinks while his mind is processing this new information and matching it with existing bits and pieces. Nothing conclusive comes up, yet his intuition tells him there is reason to be suspicious. Aloud, he says, “Ah, well, a toast to the unimaginative,” raising his glass with a sardonic wink. The women smile indulgently, while the men seem relieved as he moves away languidly as though he had nothing else to do but saunter around, glass in hand, like the rest of this insipid crowd.
But as soon as Francis leaves the ballroom and is out of sight of the guests, he moves in an altogether different manner. He walks briskly and purposefully; pulling out his mobile, he sends a short message.
His car is already by the curb as he exits the building. He slides into the back seat where a woman is waiting, surrounded by office equipment and technology. By the look of it, she could run an entire operation from the back seat. As the car takes off, Francis leans back and lets out a long sigh. “Dear me, the people I need to mix with! The futility is staggering.”
“You could always just come clean,” his assistant offers with a shrug, the laconic manner of which suggests she already knows the answer.
“Not an option.” He smiles at her to take the sting out of his words. “Okay, Angela, here’s what I need you to do. Get hold of Dhammakarati and Jo and have them report to me. Tonight. Around midnight eastern time. I don’t care what time it is in Sri Lanka or whether they’re in the middle of some Buddhist ceremony just get them on the secure line. I also need a small team of researchers. Ask Thomas for the best he has, and to make sure they are up and running at the office in Copenhagen. Get him all the gear he might need. Tell him I’ll be there for a briefing tomorrow. I want them ready by morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and desperate to get started. Also, make sure the jet is standing by. I need to go there tonight.” He pauses for a moment. “Oh, and check to see whether Julia can make it to Copenhagen tomorrow night. I might need her for camouflage in case the wrong people pick up that I am there.” Angela doesn’t lift an eyebrow once but continues taking notes in a controlled and unrushed manner.
By the time the car reaches his home on Mercer Street in SoHo, he has told her what little he knows or rather, what little she needs to know. Angela is one of those rare gems who operates best on as little information as possible. She seems to be completely devoid of the slander/gossip/curiosity gene that often forms the backbone of the assisting breeds. She’s been with him for years since his university days. Of course, back then, her job was rather different. She spent most of her time keeping track of the women he slept with, waking him up in time to make it to lunch, or procuring test questions prior to the exams. That was years ago when they were both so much younger.
Since then, they have each honed their skills. Francis has perfected his dual role as the consummate bachelor in the public eye and the sharpest industrial operator in the lesser-known part of his life. And Angela has become savvier about what goes on in the global business community than any other overpaid personal assistant in the city. She’s never married, never had children, and for all Francis knows, never dated. He occasionally wonders whether she ever was or maybe still is secretly in love with him. Or perhaps she was one of those women full of affection and love, but far too emotionally inhibited to be able to surrender to a man or to a woman, for that matter. In all, she has the qualities of a great personal assistant. Completely loyal and dedicated, but never overstepping personal boundaries. A sad fate, really, but useful.
Angela follows him upstairs to the converted loft that has been his New York home for the past ten years. While he gets on the phone, she arranges his flight, packs his bags, organizes the researchers, and finally, just before ten o’clock, tracks down Dhammakarati, who promises to have himself and Jo on a conference call at midnight.
Chapter 2
An hour later, Francis is sitting in what appears to be a full-scale operational unit in the back of a jet that is taking off toward Copenhagen. The array of Wi-Fi routers, keyboards, plasma screens, and printers all add to the impression of a cutting-edge control center. Peculiarly, the walls are lined with books. And not just any books, but philosophical works, poetry, books on Buddhism, meditation, calligraphy, and art. It
is almost as if the literature was chosen deliberately to offset the immensely high-tech nature of the space. Apart from the communications unit, which seems to boast every top-notch gadget of the game, the rest of the interior is subdued. No cream leather or golden doorknobs, no mirrored tabletops or inches-deep shag piles. Instead, the surfaces are rendered in soft autumn hues ranging from burgundy to olive to deep purple. The furnishings are modern, of Scandinavian design, all clean lines, and no fuss.
Knowing there is still more than half an hour until midnight and that his conference call will be made on time, he allows himself a much-needed rest. Summoning the attendant, he asks for chilled white wine and a sandwich, and for soft jazz to be put on the sound system. But before long, his mind returns to the current problem.
Is this the right thing to pursue? It has been a while since Francis has entered into frontal attacks on any of the bigger operators. His organization has been cruising along nicely for some time, doing smaller jobs that have helped to keep it off the radar of the big players. Nice and safe, but way too boring and predictable.
He learned long ago the benefits of being uncompromisingly harsh on himself, of uncovering his true motives by constantly asking himself questions like, Why am I doing what I am doing right now? What do I hope to gain? What am I afraid of? These questions give Francis a degree of control over his subconscious and his emotions. He considers this highly confrontational, radical honesty to be a compensation for his failure to be honest with the world. He is brutally honest with himself, always knowing exactly why he acts as he does, yet he is perfectly able to keep his true motives hidden from the public eye.
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