by Frank Stein
For a second I thought she was going to salute the statue, but then she turned back to me. “All those years in the army. All those years fighting and killing for Miss Liberty, the great bitch.” Then she smiled. “But now I’m cashing in. Damn, I love this country.”
SIXTY-THREE
Mo and I met for breakfast at the Ritz at seven on Saturday morning. She had tracked down the three folks from Charter Capital the previous night while I had been on my extended smoke break with Lori Hildebrand. Mo wasn’t happy about me talking with Hildebrand. She was even unhappier when I told her about Hildebrand’s military service.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s a civilian now. If anything, it makes what she’s doing even more disgusting. She’s directly channeling private American funds to countries that are all too happy to kill our soldiers, and if that isn’t the greatest insult to anyone who’s ever worn an American uniform, I don’t know what is,” said Mo. She gulped her coffee and stared me down. “Just stick with the goddamn plan. I told you not to spend too much time with any of these people. You should have given her the damn cigarette and walked back into the room and scoped out the Charter Capital people like you were supposed to.”
I was a bit taken aback by Mo’s hostility. So far she had been in a light-hearted mood, but that seemed to have changed over the past day. Not surprising, I guess. Her upcoming agenda items were eleven murders and one suicide. Of course, I still didn’t really believe Mo would kill herself. Sure, I didn’t doubt she had thought about it for years, probably planned it, and perhaps now it seemed more real to her after Simone’s dramatic exit. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she did eventually take her own life. Just not yet. There was unfinished business, more killing to do. She couldn’t bring me in and then just leave me here.
We stepped out onto West Street and lit our cigarettes in full view of the rising sun. After taking in some of the morning air along with our nicotine, Mo stepped in front of me and turned to face me.
“I guess there’s no reason for me not to tell you this. I got a bit defensive earlier because I didn’t want you to think this was personal.” She smiled. “Well, I guess it is personal, but that doesn’t change anything. She meets the Network’s objective criteria anyway.”
I didn’t say anything. I was starting to suspect where this was headed, and my earlier optimism began to fade. Perhaps this last assignment would take care of Mo’s unfinished business. Perhaps she really would leave me after it was done. Leave me and go join her daughter.
“You’ve guessed it, haven’t you?” said Mo. She had turned away, but I could tell she was smiling.
“Jungle sense,” I said.
She turned back to me and laughed. “Well, don’t head out to join the great apes just yet. It couldn’t have been that hard to figure out.”
I laughed and flicked my cigarette into the street. The burning butt bounced into the path of an old tourist couple, and they looked at me as if I were one of New York’s sights.
Mo went quiet for a bit, and then sighed before continuing. “Hildebrand was Sheila’s commanding officer.”
I had guessed it, but I still paused and swallowed hard. Then I nodded. “Didn’t she recognize you last night?”
Mo snorted. “She would have if she had bothered to come to Sheila’s funeral.”
I looked at the ground.
Mo looked away and went on. “Still, I’m glad she didn’t. Maybe Sheila’s friends wouldn’t have spoken to me as openly if Hildebrand had been there.”
“Spoken to you about Sheila’s tour? Iraq?”
Mo nodded. “Her last month there was unusually bloody in terms of mistakes.”
“Mistakes like what? Killing civilians?”
“Yes. Which happens, of course.” Mo shrugged. “It’s a war, and war is messy. Soldiers make mistakes or get bad intelligence. Or both. That’s part of the deal.”
“So what happened?”
“Her platoon had taken out a couple of homes. Sheila wasn't on the front lines, of course, but she was one of the first in to survey the damage. Apparently one of the homes was full of young women, children, and a few infants. All were blown to bits.” Mo sighed. “Sheila took it pretty hard. I mean, she had seen blood and death before, but I guess this really got to her.”
“I don’t doubt it. Can’t say I’d be able to handle it either.”
Mo nodded. “Anyway, after a week of nightmares and thoughts of suicide, she apparently went to Hildebrand and asked to see an army psychiatrist. Hildebrand wouldn’t let her. She said Sheila was within a month of the end of her tour, and she needed to stick it out.”
“But why? Hildebrand was worried about her own reputation? Didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t manage her people?”
“Yes. ‘For the sake of all the women in the service,’ is apparently what she told Sheila.” Mo shook her head. “Again, I get it. I understand the mentality of a female commander being tougher in general and especially so on the women under her command. But there are limits, and from what Sheila’s army brothers and sisters told me, Hildebrand was way over them.”
I paused as I considered my next words. “You think it had something to do with Sheila being a Muslim?”
Mo shot me a look. “Absolutely not. Our armed forces are actually very sensitive about that. No, this had nothing to do with race or religion. It was just old-fashioned sexism.” She slowly began to walk back to the hotel, and I followed.
I shrugged. “Either way. You were right. None of this has any bearing on what we’re about to do. I told you about my conversation with Hildebrand. She’s obviously using contacts from her army days to make deals with god-knows-whom in all kinds of unknown countries and fragments of nation-states. And you know that genocide is seen as the number one duty of all these little self-proclaimed prophets and leaders of military governments.”
A few months earlier I might have tried to argue that we report Hildebrand to some kind of government agency, but now I knew better. I wasn’t even sure what laws she was breaking, let alone how to prove it. The only thing clear was that she had forfeited her right to live in the land of the brave and free. Indeed, forfeited her right to live.
Mo smiled as the wood-and-glass doors of the Ritz slid open for her. She looked over her shoulder at me. “It just seems like a nice way to finish up. Like a cherry on top of the dessert that follows a long and satisfying meal.”
The image of a red cherry gave way to thoughts of a blood spattered room with eleven bodies piled in the corner, Lady Liberty looking on and smiling at her two righteous warriors.
SIXTY-FOUR
“No blood,” said Mo. “At least not for the first two sessions. It’ll be too hard to clean up.”
It was late Saturday night, and we had just left the Ritz after an exhausting day of presentations, nauseating amounts of polite conversation and networking, and a reasonably enjoyable dinner followed by drinks and live music. Many of the symposium attendees were still in the Ritz’s ballroom getting loaded, while others had decided to head out on the town. It was around midnight, and Saturday night in Manhattan was only just getting started.
Mo and I had noted the rapidly increasing pile of empty bottles of hard liquor behind the makeshift bars in the Ritz ballroom. Noted with pleasure, because it meant everyone would be groggy, cranky, and sloppy the next day.
But the “no blood” warning worried me. I looked at Mo as we walked out into the clear night. “So no knives? Then what? We strangle them all one by one? Maybe we can do that with Jessup and Chin from MacroResearch since it’ll just be the four of us in the room. But Charter’s got three people, and it takes at least a few minutes to strangle someone, doesn’t it? That’s plenty of time for the odd one out to run and get the police or call someone or attack us. And I don’t even know where to begin with the six from NationFirst. One of those mini-Uzis sounds good right now.”
Mo laughed. We had walked east along the top of Battery Park and had turned left onto Bro
adway. Manhattan’s most famous street started down here, right near the equally famous Charging Bull—a sculpture which had appeared one night outside the New York Stock Exchange before being moved to the paved island near the city’s first public park, a small round spot called Bowling Green. The area was fairly deserted, and we sat on one of the benches and looked up at the century-old US Custom House.
“Calm down,” said Mo. “There’s only going to be four from NationFirst. Shanaya and Arvind won’t be there.”
The sales woman and the Indian-looking analyst, just as I had guessed. “Oh?”
Mo nodded. “Henri, the managing director, didn’t think they needed to be there. And I think that works fine. They don’t make investment decisions, and probably don’t really know what’s going on.”
“Okay. I guess that’s better. But still, it’s four of them. How the hell do we kill four people without any blood? Especially when one of them is ex-military. Did you see how big her biceps were?”
“Leave Hildebrand to me.” Mo lit a cigarette. “And NationFirst will come in last.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “So . . .”
Mo smiled. “So there’ll be some blood.”
“So you’ve got NationFirst scheduled at the end. And Charter Capital is coming in second?”
Mo nodded.
“I didn’t really talk to that crew, but I did meet them.” I paused and lit my own cigarette. “Three of them, right? All had southern accents. Maybe Georgia or North Carolina. I don’t really know.”
“The two men are from Tennessee,” said Mo. “The woman is from Atlanta. Caitlin. She runs the firm, and the two guys are her day-to-day managers. Polite people. Hopefully they’ll die politely as well.”
I laughed involuntarily as I tried to imagine how someone could die politely. I looked up at Mo. She was red in the face from trying to suppress her giggles.
It looked like this was going to be fun after all.
SIXTY-FIVE
Sunday morning came around, and I got to the Ritz by eight. Mo and I didn’t meet for breakfast. She thought it would be good if we weren’t seen together a lot, a strategy we had been following all weekend. Although I had been working on Mo’s projects for several months now, the lack of time spent in the office meant that no one would know that we were particularly close.
As expected, most of the attendees were in rough shape after the long night. The breakfast buffet was virtually unattended, and there were almost as many Ritz employees present as there were symposium attendees. The morning’s first general session was equally well-ignored. For a moment I worried that our targets had overdone it the previous night and would decide not to show, but I was wrong. By late morning, all nine of our soon-to-be victims were in the Ritz’s ballroom looking exceptionally fresh and well-groomed. Perhaps it was the extra sleep. Or maybe they each woke up with a premonition of what would take place that day, and subconsciously wanted to look their finest. As someone famous once said, you should always dress as if you’re going to get murdered in those clothes.
As we broke for lunch, I watched Mo greet each group separately and casually, and from the genuine smiles that broke out as she shook hands, I could tell she had made an impression on most of them. Now I understood why they were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning. They really were expecting to get something valuable out of the afternoon sessions.
Mo ate lunch with the NationFirst group, and I could see that even Hildebrand was yielding to Mo’s charm. For a moment I thought I saw Hildebrand sneak a peek down the top of Mo’s low-cut black blouse, but then I felt embarrassed at my blatant stereotyping. Regardless, if Mo was getting through to Hildebrand, my major cause for concern was being addressed.
I ate with a bunch of C&C analysts. As they discussed their hangovers and giggled with pride at how they popped some pills at a club, danced all night, and then watched the sunrise from the wooden boardwalk of the Brooklyn Bridge, I mentally rehearsed the afternoon’s activities.
Jake Jessup and Paul Chin from MacroResearch would be coming in at two. We planned to meet in the living area, and the three-person couch and matching armchairs all faced the large window that overlooked Ellis Island, New Jersey, and the Statue of Liberty. We’d invite Jessup and Chin to sit on the sofa, counting on the fact that their attention would be drawn to the soft blues of the sky and ocean. Mo and I would circle behind them and use our super-high-tech murder weapons: plastic ties.
Yes, those stiff plastic ties that you use to bundle wires together. The ones where you push one end through a tiny loop at the other end, and there’s an automatic one-way locking mechanism that only lets you make it tighter. The ones we had were extra-large, and they were permanently locking, meaning that the only way to remove them was with a serrated knife or thick scissor.
We’d be forming the ties into large loops beforehand, loops big enough to go around a head. Then we’d slip them over the appropriate heads and pull the ends in tight. And that would be it. No trying to break someone’s neck. No strangling someone with your bare hands while staring them down. Nothing else to do except make sure our victims didn’t break too many things as they struggled and writhed and suffocated and died.
Not that we were looking for ways to emotionally separate ourselves from our acts. We were just being utilitarian. If we got into a close-quarters struggle, chances were good that we’d take a hit or two. And how to explain conducting a business meeting in the Ritz covered in sweat and blood and with a bruise or two on the face? Besides, watching people squirm and gag as they choked to death would be plenty emotional.
If we pulled the plastic collars tight enough, it wouldn’t take very long. Perhaps three to five minutes, and then they’d at least be passed out if not dead. We’d leave the ties on their necks and simply drag them into the bedroom where they could complete the asphyxiation process in peace. Not so bad. Especially considering the misery their actions had caused. Actions that yielded fifteen-to-twenty percent—an obscene return for collateralized debt. The investment capital was being used to fund genocide in Africa and Eastern Europe, buy weapons to attack US and Allied interests, or fund the continuation of illegal regimes in South America or Asia. Sounds stereotypically dramatic, but there’s a reason such stories are now stereotypes.
It all seemed so far removed from a place like the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan. And it was, of course. That’s why these people found it so easy to ignore the ramifications of moving some numbers across the screen and watching the profits pile up. As they say on Wall Street, if it’s vaguely legal, then it’s moral enough. And if you haven’t been called on something, then it must be vaguely legal.
Well, these guys were getting called on it now. And that call would come from people who had their own beliefs about the correlation between law and morality. People like us.
I must have had an odd expression on my face, because one of my colleagues, an old business-school buddy, threw a piece of bread across the table at me.
“Hey, Frank. What’s up, man? Long night? You still tripping on something?” It was Joe Fletcher, an amiable guy who seemed to have lost a lot of hair since the last time I had seen him.
I snapped out of my self-righteous daydream and smiled. “No, just thinking about all the shit I have to do over the next few days.”
“Where’re you working these days? I’ve been buried in this nightmare project up in Albany, so I never come in to the office anymore.”
“California. SpacedOut,” I said as I picked up and ate the piece of bread Joe had thrown at me. “Mo Hussein’s project.”
“Damn, everyone wants to get on that project. Supposed to be a cool company. And it may turn into a long-term gig, which would be nice once winter gets here.”
I shrugged. “All companies look the same once you get inside.”
Joe laughed. “Yeah, being a consultant for a brand-name company is like being an OBGYN—once you’ve seen it from the inside, you can never look at it the same way again.”
I winced and looked apologetically at the two female consultants sitting at our table. They didn’t seem to be as offended as I was.
Joe noticed. “Sorry. Been working on a New York State Government project for the last two years. Those old guys in Albany talk as though women still aren’t even allowed to vote.” He sighed. “I need to get out of there before I go totally native.”
I nodded. “Going native” was a term used for a consultant who had spent so long with one client that they took on the culture and mannerisms of the client firm’s employees. It was a bad sign, and it defeated the entire purpose of bringing in an outside consultant.
I stood up and headed to the buffet table to grab some coffee. Joe followed me.
“But since we’re on the topic,” Joe said as he motioned towards Mo, “you hit that yet?”
Mo was standing some distance away with her profile towards us. She did look especially good in a dark brown pant-suit and tight black blouse.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said, forcing a smile.
“Why not? She’s divorced. And I heard she messes around with other consultants.”
I didn’t say anything, but I felt a weird pit in my stomach when I realized I had never asked Mo about her husband. Or maybe the feeling was related to the comment about Mo messing around on the job.
I felt indignant for a second, but I wasn’t sure if the emotion was directed at Joe or towards Mo. I grabbed my coffee and made a beeline for the terrace. I felt like a high school kid who just found out that the girl he likes is sleeping with some dude in class. I was pissed with myself, and glared at Lady Liberty and sucked down my cigarette so fast it made my lungs burn.
“Nervous?”
I whipped around. It was Mo. She was smiling and walking towards me with an unlit cigarette in her fingers. For the first time I noticed how trimmed her nails were. The nails of a murderer with an eye for detail. Someone who knew she’d be getting her hands dirty.