“A few more years and I am going to start my own company,” he confided in an excited whisper. “Security, I think. For Westerners doing business in the Rodina. Maybe insurance. Our people will need insurance one day. I am not certain yet.” Giving her arm a friendly punch, he smiled. “Maybe we work together. I give you a job.”
“Maybe.”
“Not what you are doing now. You cannot continue with your work forever. I think you should move into public relations. You are young. You are pretty. How many languages do you have?”
“Four, maybe five, if you count Baku.”
“There, you see. If nothing else you can be a translator.”
Tatiana smiled, wanting to convey a measure of interest. In truth, the prospect sounded appallingly dull. Business. Public relations. A translator. Her world possessed a more pungent vocabulary. Slut. Thief. Whore. Words that had been tattooed across her soul long ago. And more recently, killer.
She made a show of returning her magazines to her carry-on bag, then leaned back her head and closed her eyes. Enough talk of the future. Of dreams that might never come true. It was time for work. Time to begin steeling her mind to the task ahead.
Killing came easily. All she had to do was imagine a man’s body on top of hers, his brow knit in concentration, his mouth open, dripping with lust, his eyes swallowing her whole as if her beauty was his for the taking. She would feel his pounding, taste his sweat. Her vision would grow hazy, the periphery dissolving into a grainy white cloud. Only her target would remain in focus. At the final moment, she would drift outside of herself and watch as another woman pulled the trigger.
Boris had told her it was rage, because she was upset about her time in the convent. She wasn’t to blame, he said; anyone who had spent fourteen years in a state-run orphanage would feel the same. She recalled the bowls of kasha, twice a day, every day, the haircut every six months, the dull scissors shearing her hair to the scalp, the bar of lye that came next to burn away the lice, taking two layers of skin for good measure.
She remembered the sacred sisters’ midnight ministrations. The awkward touches under her gown, the cold raw hands, the bony fingers and ragged nails probing her private places, the sour breath smelling of cabbage and wine and whispering for her to stay quiet, that she was doing God’s work, and all the while the chafing of their bristly mounds against her leg, punctuated by the staccato, irreligious grunts.
Tatiana swam through the smells, the sensations, the images, pleased they no longer frightened her or moved her in any way. Yes, she agreed, anyone would feel the same as she. But it was not rage they would feel, or anger. They would simply feel nothing.
Killing was easy if you were not alive.
Gavallan rose at seven. After a long run on the beach, he showered, then breakfasted on the veranda. The effects of the exercise and the lush surroundings left him feeling restored. Hardly himself, but not the shell who’d crawled into bed the night before. He put in a call to Emerald, explaining he’d be back that night, then left word for Tony or Meg to call him pronto.
At nine sharp, he knocked on the front door of 1133 Somera Road, the residence of Raymond J. Luca. He decided to play it straight from the get-go, explain that he too had learned that something was amiss with Mercury and ask where Luca had gotten his information. But the door never opened. In Gavallan’s new world, nothing went as planned.
Returning to his car, he’d spotted a neighbor walking a pair of toy poodles. He was an older man with gray hair, glasses, and a wary eye behind the welcoming smile. Gavallan asked him if he knew Ray Luca, and if so, where Luca worked.
“You a friend of his?” the man asked.
“You might say that. We were at M.I.T. together.” Gavallan thanked his stars for Jason Vann’s inquisitiveness.
“Another egghead, eh?” The older man chuckled. “Don’t know what I’d do without Ray. Helps me with my taxes. Saves me a couple hundred bucks each year. And the kid won’t take a dime. It’s not right, I tell him.”
“That’s Ray. He’s a sweetheart. Say, I went by his house, but he’s not home. Know where he works?”
Gavallan didn’t want to come on like the authorities and made sure not to press too hard. Soon enough, the older man, who’d introduced himself as Ralph O’Mara, gave up the information.
“You can find him at Cornerstone. 714 Atlantic. He’s a whiz, that boy. All we talk about is the market.”
“Got any recommendations?” Gavallan asked before heading to his car.
“No, just one to stay away from.”
Gavallan said good-bye before O’Mara could give him the name. He already knew what it was going to be anyway.
The Delta Airlines 727 inched forward on the runway. Out the window, Howell Dodson counted seven jets lined up in front of him, waiting to take off. Friday morning gridlock at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
“Rush hour—my, my,” he said to DiGenovese. “Who’d have thought it? Least we’ve left the gate. Won’t be but fifteen, twenty minutes till we take off. We’ll be on the ground by nine, you’ll see. Do some of that New York City driving, you can have us in Delray Beach in an hour’s time.”
Dodson had decided not to alert the Dade field office to their arrival. Protocol demanded that an assistant deputy director be met by the office’s ranking agent. He’d have to explain why he was in the area. That meant going into the flimsy case on Kirov and the even flimsier reason for looking up Mr. Raymond Luca. Breathe one word of premeditated murder and someone would suggest setting up surveillance on Luca’s house.
No thank you, said Dodson to himself. He didn’t care to waste the Bureau’s resources on snipe hunts. DiGenovese’s hypothesis about Gavallan’s murdering ways left him unconvinced.
“Roy,” he said, “I think I’m going to avail myself of the free time to catch up on some rest. Twins never did get to sleep last night. Tell you, it’s danged tough being a new father at my advanced age.” And tucking a pillow under his head, Dodson settled in for a little shut-eye.
DiGenovese sat in the seat next to him, glowering.
Upon landing, Boris and Tatiana rented a car and the two drove the sixty miles north to Delray Beach. The morning was hot and muggy. The sun sat high in a hazy blue sky. The heat made Boris uncomfortable, and Tatiana wondered if it was too much for him. Every two minutes he had to wipe his brow and take a swig of the bottled water. Tatiana, though, was too taken by her new surroundings to notice the heat. From her first step inside the airport, she was mesmerized. Everything was so clean, the floors waxed a brilliant white and free of cigarette butts, gum wrappers, newspapers. Everyone appeared tanned, fit, and prosperous. And so many smiles. Not a worried brow among them.
They stopped once at a sporting goods store in Fort Lauderdale, where a man was waiting for them in the parking lot. He introduced himself as Andrei and spoke with a Georgian accent. Later Andrei explained he worked with the American branch of the Solnetsevo Brotherhood, the business group that controlled Moscow’s northern neighborhoods.
Andrei led them to his car, opened the trunk, and handed Boris a green training bag. Inside was a map of Delray Beach, with instructions on how to find Mr. Raymond Luca and a layout of the building where he worked. He was a “day trader,” Boris had explained with some envy, a man who made his living trading the stocks of important companies. Tucked in the bottom of the bag were two 9mm pistols and several boxes of ammunition.
Back in the car, Tatiana took a nail file from her purse and carved an x into the nose of each bullet to make it flatten on impact. Then she fed the bullets into the clip. She enjoyed the crisp click each emitted upon entry. Finished, she used her palm to drive the clip into the pistol.
“I’m sorry, my little bird,” Kirov had said, “but on one point we must be clear. There can be no survivors. No witnesses. It is for the best. For your safety and mine.”
With the help of Andrei’s map and the rental car’s onboard navigation system, they found the offices of Cornersto
ne Trading. Parking the car a block away, Boris told Tatiana to wait while he entered the building and checked if Raymond Luca was in. She watched him cross the street, thinking he did not look so bad dressed like an American in blue jeans, a white button-down shirt, and high-top tennis shoes. It was nice to see him in something other than a black suit.
She was dressed in nearly the same attire, except that her shirt was a blue and white chalk stripe and her tennis shoes were white and dainty.
Boris returned five minutes later.
“He is there. Fourth cubicle to the right.”
“What is a ‘cubicle’?” Tatiana asked.
“Like a little jail cell. Four walls that rise to your chest and a chair inside. He is seated working at his computer. He wears a baseball cap. Yankees of New York, I think.” Though his face was grave, his eyes were bright, overexcited. “You are ready, little sister?”
Tatiana nodded her head. Somewhere back up the road, her tourist’s fascination had faded, replaced by a professional’s icy detachment. She did not wish to speak. The pistol tucked into her pants, she simply nodded.
“I will be in the alley in back of the building,” Boris continued. “Once you enter, you have one hundred twenty seconds. Eight men downstairs. Two upstairs—the managers. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move. Do you understand?”
Again, Tatiana nodded. Shifting in her seat, she adjusted the bandages that flattened her breasts, then pulled the baseball cap lower on her head. Boris took her hand and kissed it. “Go now.”
Tatiana opened the door without a backward glance.
Eight downstairs. Two upstairs. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move.
One hundred twenty seconds.
Go.
27
Yesterday was the zone. Today was multitasking.
Ray Luca backhanded a glob of ketchup from his mouth and planted his double chili cheeseburger on the only available sliver of free desk. Chewing contentedly, he flicked his eyes from monitor to monitor and screen to screen, from the market being made for Intel to the closed-circuit feed of Thoroughbreds taking their morning run at Hialeah, to the “Money Honey” on CNBC reporting live from the floor of the Exchange and back again. At the same time, he sipped at his coffee, tapped out a series of buy orders, and managed to hum a little ditty.
Let the good times roll. Yeah baby, let the good times roll.
The market was up strongly. The sky was as blue as a Tiffany gift box, and on his lap was a completed copy of the Private Eye-PO’s latest editorial concerning the Mercury Broadband offering. He particularly liked the title. “Mercury in Mayhem.”
Another bite of the double chili cheese, a gulp of coffee, then a moment’s glance to reread and edit.
Private sources report an explosive confrontation Thursday afternoon outside Mercury Broadband’s Moscow offices on Kropotkin Ploshad between OMON militia troops led by Russian prosecutor general Yuri Baranov and members of the FIS (read KGB) loyal to Konstantin Kirov. Armed with a search warrant, Baranov had hoped to seize financial records incriminating Kirov in the theft of $125 million from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Kirov, law-abiding citizen that he is, denied the OMON troops entry, preferring to let his legion of house-trained espiocrats do his talking for him. No doubt he’ll call Baranov’s visit just another case of political harassment motivated by his advocacy of free speech and a free press.
The question Luca had yet to answer was what members of the state security apparatus were doing at Kirov’s offices and why they had stood to his defense. It was akin to the CIA’s defending Ted Turner on American soil.
Whatever Kirov may say, the Private Eye-PO continued, there can be little doubt, dear hearts, that not only he, but Mercury Broadband as well, is skating on very thin ice. Do tell . . . if he didn’t steal the $125 million, who did? Maybe we should ask Jett Gavallan for the answer? After all, if he’s Kirov’s banker, who better to point us to the missing loot?
Stay tuned, campers, for more news from the Russian Kleptocracy.
Luca put down the pages, pleased but tired. It had all started just after eleven last night, when Jack Andrew, a correspondent for the Financial Times in Moscow, had called him in a furor to demand how he had known beforehand about the raid on Kirov’s offices. Luca dodged the question, instead pounding Andrew for every detail imaginable about the encounter. Afterward, like any solid journalist, he double-checked his source. He phoned his contacts at the Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Moscow Times. All of them said they’d heard whispers about the raid, but as yet could get neither Kirov nor the prosecutor general to confirm or deny.
Adding a few comments here and there, Luca folded up the article and put it back into his briefcase. He’d meant to get it onto his server and uploaded to his web page this morning, but he’d overslept, and his cardinal rule was never to miss an opening. Good thing, too. The market was riding an updraft the likes of which he hadn’t seen in a year. Fifteen minutes after the opening the Nasdaq was up 80 points and the Dow up 100.
In a parallel universe, Mazursky and his crew were yelling loud enough to rouse the Miracle Mets. Let ’em, thought Luca. With the news about Kirov, he’d be out of there inside a month. The newsletter would do better than he’d ever imagined. Forget three thousand subscribers. Why not four thousand? Five thousand? Ten, even? Luca would buy a little house and a Boston Whaler he’d had his eye on. He’d arrange a weeklong trip to Disney World for the girls. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince his wife to come back to him.
Enraptured by this rosy vision of the future, he found it difficult to breathe. It could happen, he told himself. It really could. The family back together again. Ray and his four girls. It was all he had ever really wanted.
Minutes passed and the market continued higher, headed straight for the stratosphere. Volume. Tick. S&P futures. All were rocketing up, up, up. One after another he put on a buy, not bothering even to take profits on his earlier positions. At ten o’clock, the Nasdaq was up 150 and the Dow the same. A quick tally showed him ahead twenty-five grand.
Once in a while Luca looked down at the briefcase. Part of him said to close his positions, take his profits, and get home to post his newest article—the sooner the better. But Luca ignored the voice. He wasn’t leaving today. Today he was a trader. He could be the Private Eye-PO tomorrow, and for the rest of his life.
Hello, Ray.”
Luca jolted in his chair as if he’d seen a ghost. “Jett Gavallan. What a surprise. What brings you round these parts?”
“I’m sure you can guess. You’ve been doing some good work—or should I say your sources have. Looks like I was wrong about Mercury.”
Luca eyed him warily. “You’re going to cancel the deal?”
“Postpone it. The company isn’t all bad. Maybe it isn’t everything we billed it to be, but there’s some decent stuff there. It’s Kirov I’m worried about.”
“So you heard?” Luca’s eyes flashed triumphantly.
“Heard what?”
“Yesterday there was a . . .” Luca sat back, rubbing at his chin as a mean-spirited grin darkened his features. “Sorry, Jett, you’ll have to wait and see.”
Gavallan lowered himself onto his haunches so he could look Luca in the eye. “Ray, this isn’t about Synertel. I’m sorry about what happened. It was a lousy turn of events. I can imagine it was a letdown.”
“A ‘letdown,’ was it? Is that what you call losing a billion dollars? Having your wife throw you out on the street? Watching your children shy away from you because they’re too embarrassed to give you a hug? A ‘letdown’?”
“Like I said, I’m sorry it turned out that way. It was a tough break.”
“What the hell do you know about ‘tough’? You, sitting up there in your luxury penthouse, driving your snazzy car? You bankers are all bloodsuckers. Best friends when times are good, out of there like lightning when things get rough. Payback, Gavallan. This one’s on me.”
“I did what I had to do. You wou
ld have done the same thing if you were in my place. Look at me, Ray. You know it’s true. Now, listen, I need your help. I have to know where you got your information about Mercury. I’m trying to work back up the chain, figure out who pulled the wool over our eyes.”
Luca laughed, a little wildly. “You’re not serious? You don’t just expect me to tell you.” Shifting his gaze away from Gavallan, he spent a moment tapping an order into his computer. “Tell me, what do I-bankers earn these days? An hourly rate will be fine.”
“This is a lot more important than what I earn.”
“Two hundred an hour?” Luca cut in. “Or am I out of date? Three hundred? Four?”
“It’s not just about Mercury and Black Jet. You’re in this too, Ray . . . or the Private Eye-PO is. We need to talk. You could be in a lot of danger.”
“Danger? Ooh, I’m shivering. Can’t you see me shaking in my boots?” He tried on another smile, but Gavallan’s grim expression stole his mirth. “What kind of danger?” he asked after a moment.
“I’m not sure exactly. But if I can find you, so can Konstantin Kirov. After all the crap you’ve been spreading on the Net about his company, I don’t think he’ll be in a charitable mood.”
Something in Gavallan’s tone reached Luca. The angry cast to his eye softened and the tension left his shoulders. “Okay, okay,” muttered Luca. “But I can’t leave now. Take a look at the market. I got to make some money.”
“Take a break.”
“Got too many open positions. Tell you what, though. I’ll stop at noon for fifteen minutes. Believe me, that’s all we’ll need. Meet me next door at Alberto’s. We’ll have a cup of coffee.”
“Deal,” said Gavallan, rising to go, happy to get out of the rancid confines. “See you at twelve. Alberto’s, right?”
The First Billion Page 22