The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time

by Andrew Gross

  This was insane. Karen sat there among her husband’s things at her wits’ end, growing angry, wishing she never had watched that documentary. It had changed everything. Why would you do this to us, Charlie? What could you possibly have done?

  Tell me, Charlie!

  She picked up a stack of loose papers and went to throw them against the wall. Just then her gaze fell to a memo from Harbor that was still there from a year before. Her eye ran down the office distribution list. Maybe they knew. She spotted a name there—a name that hadn’t crossed her mind in months.

  Along with a voice. A voice she had never responded to, but one that now suddenly echoed in her ears with the same ringing message:

  I’d like to speak with you, Mrs. Friedman…. There are some things you ought to know.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The address was 3135 Mountain View Drive, a hilly residential road. In Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

  Karen found Jonathan Lauer’s address in one of Charlie’s folders. She checked to make sure it was still valid. She didn’t want to talk with him on the phone. It was a Saturday afternoon.

  There are some things you ought to know….

  Saul had said it was just a matter of personnel issues, compensation. Karen had never heard from him again. And it wasn’t that she didn’t trust Saul. It was just that if they were turning over every stone, the way Ty wanted to, she thought she might as well hear it from Lauer directly. She had never called him back. It had been an awfully long time.

  But suddenly Charlie’s trader’s cryptic words took on a more important meaning.

  Karen pulled into the driveway. There was a white minivan parked in the open two-car garage. The house was a cedar and glass contemporary with a large double-story window in the front. A kid’s bike lay on the front lawn. Next to a portable soccer net. Rows of pachysandra and boxwood flanked the flagstone walkway leading up to the front door.

  Karen felt a little nervous and embarrassed, after so much time. She rang the bell.

  “I got it, Mommy!”

  A young girl in pigtails who appeared around five or six opened the door.

  “Hey.” Karen smiled. “Is your daddy or mommy at home?”

  A woman’s voice called out from inside, “Lucy, who’s there?”

  Kathy Lauer came to the door, holding a rolling pin. Karen had met her once or twice—first at an office gathering and, later, at Charlie’s memorial. She was petite, with shoulder-length dark hair, wearing a green Nantucket sweatshirt. She stared at Karen in surprise.

  “I don’t know if you remember me—” Karen started in.

  “Of course I remember you, Mrs. Friedman,” Kathy Lauer replied, cradling her daughter’s face to her thigh.

  “Karen,” Karen replied. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know you must be wondering what I’m doing here, out of the blue. I was just wondering if your husband might be at home.”

  Kathy Lauer looked at her a bit strangely. “My husband?”

  There was a bit of an awkward pause.

  Karen nodded. “Jon called me a couple of times, after Charlie—” She stopped herself before she said the word. “I’m a little embarrassed. I never got back to him. I was all caught up then. I know it’s a while back. But he mentioned some things….”

  “Some things?” Kathy Lauer stared. Karen couldn’t quite read her reaction, nervousness or annoyance. Kathy asked her daughter to go back into the kitchen, said she’d be along in a second to finish rolling the cookie dough with her. The little girl ran off.

  “Some things about my husband’s business,” Karen clarified. “By any chance is he around? I know it’s a little strange to be coming here now….”

  “Jon’s dead,” Kathy Lauer said. “I thought you knew.”

  “Dead?” Karen felt her heart come to a stop and the blood rush out of her face. She shook her head numbly. “My God, I’m so sorry…. No…”

  “About a month ago,” his wife said. “He was on his bike coming back up the road, up Mountain View. A car ran into him. Just like that. A hit-and-run. The guy who hit him never even stopped.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Dock 39 was a dingy, nautical-style bar in the harbor, not far from the navy yard. A shorted-out Miller sign flickered on and off in the window, while a carving of a ship’s bow hung above the entrance on the wooden façade. From the street Hauck could see a TV on inside. A basketball game. It was playoff time. A crowd of people gathered whooping around the bar.

  Hauck stepped inside.

  The place was dark, smoky, jammed with bodies fresh from the docks. A noisy throng at the bar was following the game. The Pistons versus the Heat. People were still in their work clothes, blowing off steam. Dock workers and seamen. No office crowd here. Ray Dubose had told Hauck that this was where he could find him.

  Hauck caught the barman’s eye and asked him for a Bass ale. He spotted Pappy, huddled with a few guys drinking beer down at the end of the bar. The old man seemed disinterested in the game. He stared ahead, ignoring the sudden shouts that occasionally rang out or the jab of his neighbor’s elbow when someone made a play. At some point Pappy turned around and noticed Hauck, Pappy’s eyes narrowing balefully and his jaw growing tight. He picked up his beer and stood up, pushing himself away from his crew.

  He came over to Hauck, pushing through the crowd. “I heard you been asking about me. I thought I told you to head back to where you came.”

  “I’m trying to solve a murder,” Hauck told him.

  “I don’t need you to solve no murder. I need you to leave me alone and go back home.”

  “What did you stumble into?” Hauck asked. “That’s why you won’t talk to me, isn’t it? That’s why you quit your job—or were pressured to. Someone threatened you. You can’t keep pretending it’s going to go away. It won’t go away now. Your son is dead. That’s what that ‘accident’ up in Greenwich was about, wasn’t it? Why AJ was killed.”

  “Get the hell away from me.” Pappy Raymond pushed away Hauck’s arm. Hauck could see he was drunk.

  “I’m trying to solve your son’s murder, Mr. Raymond. And I will, whether you help me or not. Why don’t you make it easy and tell me what you found?”

  The more Hauck said, the more the anger seemed to build in Pappy Raymond’s eyes. “You’re not hearing me, are you, son?” He thrust his beer mug into Hauck’s chest. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need it. Go on out of here. Go back home.”

  Hauck grabbed his arm. “I’m not your enemy, old man. But letting your son’s death eat away at you by doing nothing is. Those ships were falsifying something. They were empty, right? There was some kind of fraud going on. That’s why AJ was killed. It wasn’t any ‘accident’ up there. I know it—you know it, too. And I’m not backing off. You don’t tell me, someone will. I’ll pitch a tent on your goddamn lawn until I know.”

  A roar went up from the bar. “C’mon, Pappy!” one of his buddies yelled to him. “Wade just hit a three. We’re back down by six.”

  “This is the last time I’m telling you.” Pappy glared. His gaze burned into Hauck’s eyes. “Go on home.”

  “No.” Hauck shook his head. “I’m not.”

  That was when the old guy raised his arm and took a swing at him. A wild one, his fist catching on the shoulder of a man nearby, but the punch of a man who was used to throwing them, and it surprised Hauck, catching him on the side of his face. The mug shot out of his hands, crashing to the floor, spilling beer.

  People spun around to them. “Whoa…!”

  “What is it you want from me, mister?” Pappy grabbed Hauck by the collar. He raised his fist again. “Can’t you just go back to wherever the hell you’re from and let what’s happened here die out? You want to be a hero, solve someone else’s crime. Leave my family alone.”

  “Why are you protecting these people? Whoever they are, they killed your son.”

  Pappy’s face was barely an inch away from Hauck’s, the smell of beer and anger all ov
er him. He raised his fist back again.

  “Why?” Hauck stared at him. “Why…?”

  “Because I have other children,” Pappy said, anguish burning in his eyes. His fist hesitated. “Don’t you understand? They have children.”

  Suddenly the wrath in the old man’s eyes began to diminish, and what was left there, in his hot, tremoring irises, was something else. Helplessness. The desperation of someone boxed in, with nowhere to turn.

  “You don’t know.” Pappy glared at him, lowering his fist, releasing Hauck’s collar. “You just don’t know….”

  “I do know.” Hauck met the old man’s eyes. “I know exactly. I lost a child, too.”

  Hauck pressed something into Pappy’s hand as a couple of his friends finally came over and pulled him away, saying the old man had had one too many, offering to buy Hauck another beer. They dragged him back to the bar, where he sat, his face flushed with alcohol and incoherence, amid the hollering and smoke.

  Dejected, Pappy opened his fist and stared. His eyes widened. Then he looked back at Hauck.

  Please, his expression said, this time with desperation. Just go away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “Mom?”

  Samantha knocked on the bedroom door.

  Karen turned. “Yes, hon.”

  Karen was on the bed with the TV going. She didn’t even know what she was watching. The whole ride back to Greenwich, it beat on her—Jonathan was dead. Struck by a car coming down from the hill while cycling back to his home. Charlie’s trader had been trying to tell her something. He had a family, two young kids. And just like that boy who had Charlie’s name in his pocket, who had died in Greenwich the same day Charlie disappeared—Jonathan had died the same way. A hit-and-run. If she hadn’t had the thought to go and see him, she would never have known.

  Samantha sat beside her. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  Karen turned down the volume. “What do you mean?”

  “Mom, please, we’re not idiots. You haven’t been yourself for over a week. You don’t exactly have to have a medical degree to see that you don’t have the flu. Something’s going on. Are you okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay, honey.” Karen knew that her face was saying something different. How could she possibly tell her daughter this?

  Sam stared. “I don’t believe you. Look at you. You’ve barely left the house in days. You haven’t been working out or gone to yoga. You’re pale as a ghost. You can’t keep things from us. If they’re important. You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No, baby.” Karen reached for her daughter’s hand. “I’m not sick. I promise.”

  “So what is it, then?”

  What could she possibly say? That things were starting to piece together that were really scaring her? That she had seen her husband’s face after he’d supposedly died? That she had come upon phony passports and money? That he may have been doing something illegal? That two people who might’ve shed some light on it were dead? How do you drag your children into the truth that their father had deceived them all in such a monstrous way? Karen asked herself. How do you unleash that kind of hurt and pain onto someone you love so much?

  “Pregnant, then?” Sam pressed her, with a sheepish grin.

  “No, honey”—Karen smiled back—“I’m not pregnant.” A tear built up in her eye.

  “Are you sad about me going off to college? Because if you are, I won’t go. I could go somewhere local. Stay here with you and Alex…”

  “Oh, Samantha.” Karen pulled her daughter close and squeezed. “I would never, ever do that to you. I’m so proud of you, hon. How you’ve dealt with all this. I know how hard it’s been. I’m proud of both of you. You’ve got lives to live. What’s happened to your father can’t change that.”

  “So what is it then, Mom?” Sam curled up her knee. “I saw that detective here the other night. The one from Greenwich. You guys were outside in the rain. Please, you can tell me. You always want honesty from me. Now it’s your turn.”

  “I know,” Karen said. She lifted the hair out of Sam’s eyes. “I’ve always asked that from you, and you’ve given it, haven’t you?”

  “Pretty much.” Samantha shrugged. “I’ve held a few things back.”

  “Pretty much.” Karen smiled again, looking in her daughter’s eyes. “That’s about all I could ask for, isn’t it, honey?”

  Samantha smiled in return.

  “I know it’s my turn, Sam. But I just can’t tell you, honey. Not just yet. I’m sorry. There are some things—”

  “It’s about Dad, isn’t it? I’ve seen you looking through his old things.”

  “Sam, please, you have to trust me. I can’t—”

  “I know he loved you, Mom.” Samantha’s eyes shone brightly. “Loved all of us. I just hope that in my life I’m lucky enough to find someone who loved me the same way.”

  “Yes, baby.” Karen held her close. Tears wound their way down her cheeks as they clung to each other there. “I know, baby, I know—”

  Then in mid-sentence she stopped. Something unsettling crossed her mind.

  Lauer’s wife had said he was set to testify regarding Harbor the week he was killed. Saul Lennick would have known that. Let me handle it, Karen…. He had never told her anything.

  All of a sudden, Karen wondered, Did he know?

  Did he know Charlie was alive?

  “Yes, baby…” Karen kept brushing her daughter’s hair. “I hope to God one day you do.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Saul Lennick waited on the Charles Bridge in Prague overlooking the Vltava River.

  The bridge teemed with tourists and afternoon pedestrians. Artists sat at easels capturing the view. Violinists played Dvořák and Smetana. Spring had left a festive mood in the city. He looked up at the Gothic spires of St. Vitus and Prague Castle. This was one of his favorite views.

  Three men in business attire stepped onto the span from the Linhart Ulice entrance and paused underneath the east tower.

  The sandy-haired one, in a topcoat and brown felt hat, wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, and with a ruddy, cheerful face, came forward holding a metal briefcase, while the others waited a few steps behind.

  Lennick knew him well.

  Johann-Pieter Fichte was German. He had worked in the private banking departments of Credit Suisse and the Bundesbank. Fichte possessed a doctorate in economics from the University of Basel. Now he was a private banker, catering to the highest financial circles.

  He was also known to represent some of the most unsavory people in the world.

  The banker was what was known in the trade as a “money trafficker.” His particular skill was to be able to shift sizable assets from any part of the world in no matter what form: cash, stones, arms—even drugs on occasion—until they emerged in a completely different currency as clean and perfectly investable funds. He did this through a network of currency traders and shell corporations, a labyrinthine web of relationships that stretched from the dark corners of the underworld to boardrooms across the globe. Among Fichte’s less visible clients were Iraqi clerics and Afghani warlords who had looted American reconstruction funds; a Kazakh oil minister, a cousin of the president, who had diverted a tenth of his country’s reserves; Russian oligarchs, who dealt primarily in drugs and prostitution; even the Colombian drug cartels.

  Fichte waved, angling through the crowd. His two associates—bodyguards, Lennick assumed—stayed a few paces behind.

  “Saul!” Fichte said, embracing Lennick with a broad smile, placing his case at Lennick’s feet. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, my friend. And for you to come all this way.”

  “The price of a service job.” Lennick grinned, grasping the banker’s hand.

  “Yes, we are only the high-priced errand boys and accountants of the rich”—the banker shrugged—“available at their beck and call. So how is your lovely wife? And your daughter? She’s still up in Boston, is she not? Lovely city.”

  “All
fine, Johann. Thank you for asking. Shall we get on?”

  “Ah, business.” Fichte sighed, turning to face the river. “The American way…His Excellency Major General Mubuto sends you his highest regards.”

  “I’m honored,” Lennick said, lying. “And you will return them, of course.”

  “Of course.” The German banker amped up his smile. Then, in a soft voice, staring ahead, as if his gaze were tracking a far-off bird that had landed on the Vltava, he explained. “The funds we discussed will be in the form of four separate deliveries. The first is already on account at Zurich Bank, ready to be transferred upon your say-so to anywhere in the world. The second is currently held at the BalticBank in Estonia. It is in the form of a charitable trust designed to sponsor UN grain shipments to needy populations in East Africa.”

  Lennick smiled. Fichte always had a cultivated sense of irony.

  “I thought you’d appreciate that. The third delivery is presently in non-cash form. Military hardware. Some of it your own, I am told. It should be leaving the country within the week. The general is quite insistent on the timing.”

  “Why the rush?”

  “Pending the status of the Ethiopian military buildup on the Sudanese border, it’s conceivable His Excellency and his family may be forced to leave the country at fairly short notice.” He winked.

  “I’ll see to it the funds don’t sit unproductive for too long,” Lennick promised with a smile.

  “That would be greatly appreciated.” The German bowed. Then his tone turned businesslike again. “As discussed, each of the deliveries will be in the amount of two hundred and fifty million euros.”

  Well over a billion dollars. Even Lennick had to marvel. It crossed his mind just how many heads had had to roll and thousands of fortunes wiped out to assemble such a sum.

  The banker said, “I think we’ve already gone over the general agreement.”