No one paid attention to the chartered bus that crossed the tarmac a little after 6 p.m. and pulled up to the rear of the aircraft. Nor did anyone notice the twenty-three men and women who alighted from the bus and climbed the mobile staircase onto the plane, having bypassed normal airline check-in procedures, security checkpoints, and passport control. When boarding was announced, the passengers sighed and filed onto the aircraft. No one said a word about the gringos already seated in the cabin. Nor did anyone comment when the plane landed in Mexico City and they were asked to remain in their seats while the gringos exited before them.
Two men waited for the twenty-three inside Benito Juárez International Airport. One was tall and broad-shouldered and wore the uniform of the Guardia Nacional. The other was short and dumpy and wore a wrinkled suit and expensive sunglasses. The soldier smiled and spoke loudly as he welcomed the group to Mexico. He had wonderful teeth. The short, fat man in the rumpled suit told him to shut up and get moving. The soldier clamped his square jaw shut and led the twenty-three to a door across the hall from Immigration Control.
Another uniformed official waited inside a large, unremarkable room. He asked the visitors to line up and have their passports ready. One by one, he examined the travel documents. All were new Portuguese passports that had never been stamped. The official had worked in immigration for many years. He knew that citizens of the European Union required a visa to visit Venezuela. He also knew better than to point out this discrepancy. One by one, he returned the passports to their owners. He did not, as was his custom, stamp each. Nor did he pass any through the optical scanner that recorded a person’s entry and read the biometric magnetic strip containing the visitor’s personal statistics. The official was a smart man and possessed a remarkable memory. It did not require significant effort to memorize two of the passport numbers and the names written inside. The official had many masters.
Thirty minutes after setting foot on Mexican soil, the twenty-three boarded a private bus and were driven to a respectable hotel on the outskirts of the city. Here they showered, changed clothes, and enjoyed a traditional Mexican dinner of carnitas, tortillas, and frijoles. Each was allowed one beer.
At 11 p.m., the first of three vans pulled into the hotel’s forecourt. Eight individuals—six men and two women—climbed aboard. All were trim and fit and in high spirits. They did not speak Portuguese but a mixture of German, French, and English. The van drove them to a private airstrip north of the city. A Pilatus P-3 waited on the asphalt runway. The eight stowed their bags and mounted the staircase. At midnight, the Pilatus took off and pointed its nose north for the five-hour flight to its destination.
Team One was airborne.
The second van collected a group of seven, six men and one woman. Again, all were fit to look at, impressively so. In contrast to the plain van that had picked up Team One, this one was painted sleek black and was as shiny as if it had been driven directly from the car wash. Two golden interlocking S’s adorned the doors on either side. The van drove west across the city to a private airport that catered to the city’s wealthiest citizens—industrialists, oilmen, ranking officials, and the landed gentry who counted as Mexico’s aristocrats. Tonight, however, the armed guards manning the main gate waved the van past without even a cursory inspection.
The van continued to the western end of the 6,000-foot runway where a Cessna Citation business jet waited, stairs lowered, navigation lights flashing, a uniformed steward standing by to help his passengers board. Like the van, the jet had the symbol of interlocking S’s painted on its fuselage.
At 1 a.m. the Citation radioed “wheels up” to the control tower. Its flight plan called for a first leg northwest to the city of Puerto Vallarta before it turned due north, crossed the United States border at El Centro, and continued on to its destination, San Francisco. Somewhere over the Sierra Madre mountain range, the pilot dipped the nose and descended to 6,000 feet. He plugged new coordinates into the plane’s navigation system. Moments later, the wings banked and the needle on the plane’s compass swung to east by northeast. The pilot was pleased to note that the fuel needle had barely strayed from full an hour after takeoff. His passengers were going to need every mile he could get if they hoped to reach their destination.
Team Two was en route.
A third van collected the final group of eight. The van drove all night east through the jungles of eastern Mexico. At 5 a.m. they arrived at the port city of Vera Cruz. The eight did not board a ship, however. Instead, they proceeded to a private airstrip owned by one of the multinational oil corporations based there and boarded a Bombardier business jet for the two-hour flight up the coast to Tampico. In Tampico they exchanged the jet for a CH-53 helicopter, formerly in the service of the United States Marine Corps but purchased recently by Noble Energy Corporation. The helicopter was spacious inside and fitted for another class of able-bodied men and women: roughnecks.
At dawn, they took off for the short flight to Tamondo.
Tamondo was not a city. It was the name of Noble Energy’s newest oil rig located in the Kaskida Field, 250 miles southwest of New Orleans.
Team Three was under way.
32
Dinnertime at Comstock.
As Astor pushed through the doors to his firm and hurried down the corridor toward his office, he was assaulted by a barrage of scents. Teriyaki chicken battled with microwave bean burrito. Someone was having lamb curry and someone else an Italian dish with enough garlic to make his eyes water. He might as well be in the cafeteria of the United Nations building.
The time was a few minutes past seven, and the trading desk was nearly as full as when he’d left that morning. The market had closed two and a half hours earlier, but only the parents left before six. The diehards stayed till nine. Two of the quants from the arb fund were throwing a Nerf football. Astor intercepted a pass and drilled a bullet right back. “That’s how you throw a spiral,” he said.
The trader raised his hands and said, “Touchdown, Astor.”
Astor smiled and patted him on the back. The boss didn’t mind a little ass-kissing now and again.
Marv Shank rounded the far corner with a sheaf of paper in his hands and a giant, dripping hamburger in the other. “The prodigal son returns.”
Astor waited at the entry to his office and extended a hand to show Shank inside.
“Where were you all day?” asked Shank, collapsing into a chair with a huff.
“Private business.” Astor sat down and scanned the market indices. The position was solid. The yuan hadn’t moved a tick since the disturbance that morning.
“Enough with the top-secret bullshit,” said Shank. “I’ve got twenty big bills in the fund. Call me cheap, but I consider that a lot of dough. If you’re not here on a bat-shit day, I deserve to know the reason why.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right then,” said Astor. “Just give me a minute to decompress, and while you’re at it, put a napkin under that burger. You’re making a mess. I mean, come on.” He hit a button under his desk to shut the office door, then obscured the window so no one could see in. “This goes nowhere.”
“Schtum,” said Shank, zipping his lips closed.
“Schtum.”
And so Astor told him. He told him about getting his father’s text and about stealing the agenda out of his desk at the Stock Exchange. He told him about speaking to Penelope Evans and the shock of discovering her body. Here Shank stopped him. “You broke into her house, found her dead, and then did what?”
“We looked around for clues that might help us figure out who did it.”
“And you never called the police?”
“Sully and I decided it would be better for the firm not to.”
Shank nodded, satisfied for the moment. “Go on.”
Astor described the disparate materials found in her house and asked if Shank could make something of it. Shank mulled this over but ultimately said he couldn’t. Astor did not tell him about Mike Grillo. It was
a sound rule of thumb never to tell someone everything, even your best friend.
“So that’s where I was today,” concluded Astor.
Shank sat stone-faced, saying nothing.
“It’s okay to talk,” said Astor. “Schtum doesn’t mean you’re suddenly mute.”
“I’m the Jew here,” said Shank. “I know what schtum means. And I’m not being mute. I’m being absolutely fucking speechless. Tough titty if you find my language offensive. Or maybe I should say it like you Upper East Side Episcopalians—‘Pardon me, Robert, but I’m a bit tongue-tied.’”
“It’s a mess, all right.”
“A mess?” Shank shook his head. “A mess is when you don’t clean up your room or you forget to pay the electric bill three months running or you have two girlfriends and you made a date with both of them on the same night. That’s a mess. This is…it’s…well, I don’t know what this is, except that it’s wrong.”
“I know,” said Astor. “We should have called the police.”
“I couldn’t care less about the police. You shouldn’t have left the office to begin with.” Shank eyed Astor from beneath a frustrated brow. “Just as long as it ends here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re done. Finished. Over. Who do you think you are, Harry Bosch?”
“Look, I was just doing what any son would.”
“Really? ’Cause I got a dad, too, and I’ll tell you what this son would have done. I would have gotten on the horn with the FBI or the Secret Service lickety-split and I’d have told them all this stuff. They’re professionals. You’re a two-bit stock picker. What do you know about murder?” Shank frowned in disgust. “You tell Alex yet?”
“No.”
Shank picked up the phone and shoved it at Astor. “What are you waiting for?”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Now.”
Astor calmly took the phone and equally calmly replaced it in its cradle. “N–O.”
“Unbelievable,” said Shank. “Or maybe I should say ‘typical.’ You actually think that you can do a better job than the friggin’ FBI. Believe it or not, Bobby, there are other competent people out there. Some even more competent than you.”
“Doubtful.” Seeing Shank’s eyes narrow, he added at once, “Kidding, Marv. Really.”
“Sure you are. You’re a piece of work, know that?” Shank sank back in his chair and rubbed his scalp viciously with both hands, teeth clenched, issuing a brief, angry groan. “Worst of all, you blew off Reventlow. You let three hundred million walk out the door.”
“Come on, Marv. Calm down. Reventlow’s hot money. That’s not our style.”
“Since when do we have style?”
“Leave it alone, okay? It is what it is.”
Shank laughed humorlessly. “Who the fuck uses the word decompress?”
“I know schtum.”
“The last goyim. Detective Robert Astor. I should feel blessed.”
“Marv…on your chin…there.”
Shank rushed to wipe away an errant gob of mustard.
Astor felt a rush of affection for his business partner, colleague, and friend. Running a fund together was similar to being in a marriage. The job demanded the utmost in confidence, loyalty, and trust. The pressures were immense and unyielding. Probably the hardest part was just being able to remain in close proximity with someone else for twelve hours each day, week in, week out, year after year, without crushing his skull with a sledgehammer. Fifteen years and counting. Astor knew more about Marv Shank than anyone on the earth.
“So what’s up?” he asked.
“There’s a lot of scared Injuns out there,” said Shank.
“Anyone pulling out?”
“Too soon for that, but don’t be surprised when it starts.”
“It was a momentary blip. The entire episode lasted five minutes. How does anyone even know about it?”
“Because everyone knows everything.”
Astor knew this to be true. The Street ran on gossip, rumor, and innuendo. Traders spent their days on the phone to clients and colleagues passing along the latest news, be it true, false, or unverified. The reasoning was twofold. They needed to prove they were in the loop and thus “connected,” and if on occasion they were correct, they could claim to have brought “value added.” Anything to get a leg up on the competition.
“And you? Scared, too?”
“Nah,” said Shank. “When have you ever been wrong on something this big?”
“Exactly.” Astor brought up his appointments on the monitor. He was penciled in for a cocktail party at the New York Public Library, an opening at Gagosian’s gallery uptown, and a speech on the growing government debt at the Peterson Institute. It was Monday night. The week only got busier. There was only one entry for 8:30: “HH—Brooklyn.”
Astor stood.
“Where you going?” asked Shank. “The news conference in China starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Getting changed. I’ve got a thing at Helping Hands in Brooklyn. New vocational building. Why don’t you come along? We can watch the press conference in the Sprinter.”
“I live in Westchester. Why the hell would I want to go to Brooklyn?”
Astor shrugged. “Peter Luger after?”
“You think I give two shits about a steak right now?”
“Porterhouse? Onion strings?” The porterhouse at the Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn was acknowledged to be one of the biggest, juiciest, tenderest cuts of red meat on the planet and was always impeccably prepared. Astor looked at him askance. “Come on, Marv. It’s you. You can’t say no.”
Shank studied what remained of his hamburger. “Split it?”
“You on a diet?”
“Very funny,” said Shank, loosening up, the tension easing from his shoulders. “Deal. But you’re buying.”
“It’ll be a pleasure for the fearless man with twenty big bills in my fund. Give me a minute.”
Astor walked down the hall and entered a suite of rooms housing a private apartment. Finding the remote, he turned on the TV. He was interested not in Bloomberg but in local news coverage. Impatiently he flipped from channel to channel, seeing if he could spot any mention of Penelope Evans’s murder. As yet there was nothing.
He showered and traded in his suit for jeans, chukka boots, and a chambray shirt. Dressing, he noted that his eyes were tired, his face drawn. He tried to smile, but for once he could not. He told himself to buck up, that everything would be all right. It was no good. Things were spinning out of control. He feared his best efforts might do little to affect them.
“The market doesn’t care about before.”
He put his head against the mirror. His breathing was fast and shallow. One thing at a time. One evolution, then the next. He knew better than to think too far ahead, but the events of the day overwhelmed him. He saw Penelope Evans’s corpse in his mind and bit a finger to keep from crying out. Shank was dead on. He should have called the FBI, or at least contacted his ex-wife.
And now they were talking about steaks at Peter Luger?
Astor opened his eyes and stared deep into himself.
One thing at a time.
One evolution, then the next.
His breathing calmed.
He managed a smile.
He stood tall.
The eyes were still tired, the face just as drawn, but the veneer was back in place. There was no problem that the mature, confident man in the mirror could not overcome. He had to fool himself before he could fool everyone else.
As Astor left, he noted that his jeans were loose. He tightened his belt to the fourth notch. He made a note to order the porterhouse for himself and to eat every bite.
33
The Sprinter was a Mercedes-Benz passenger van on steroids. Painted a sleek jet black with no windows apart from the windscreen, the vehicle measured 24 feet in length and 7 in width and was tall enough for Astor to stand to his full height inside. The st
andard diesel V-6 had been replaced with a turbocharged V-12. Heavy-duty shocks cushioned the ride. The vehicle had been armored from top to bottom in case of armed insurrection. Boasting a fully fueled street weight of three and a half tons, the Sprinter required just six seconds to reach 60 miles per hour.
But the real improvements were in the interior.
Astor slid the door closed and took a seat in one of three Recaro leather lounge chairs. A 60-inch high-definition screen formed the wall separating the driving compartment. There was a sleek wood table, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a Bang & Olufsen sound system, and an iMac built into one sidewall. A couch in the back extended into a bed. There were enough bells and whistles to raise the final sales price to a lick over three hundred grand. Astor had nicknamed the vehicle the Imperial Destroyer, after Lord Vader’s ship. A hedge fund manager wasn’t officially on the dark side, but he wasn’t too far off.
“Turn on the tube,” said Shank, cracking open a beer. “I’m counting on some good news to salvage a piss-poor day.”
Astor hit the remote and the large screen came to life. It showed the same backdrop as that morning, a navy proscenium with American and Chinese flags and a wooden dais in the center. At precisely 8:15, the U.S. trade representative took the stage in the company of a diminutive Chinese technocrat.
Astor punched up the volume as the trade representative began to speak.
“After three days of full and frank discussions, I am pleased to announce that the Chinese government remains committed to its policy of allowing the yuan to slowly but steadily appreciate against the dollar.”
“What the…?” said Shank.
“Quiet.”
“And that it is the government’s stated desire to stimulate the growth of its domestic consumer market by allowing the importation of cheaper foreign products. It is the government’s decision to allow the yuan to appreciate a further three percent by the end of this year.”
Astor killed the volume as the Chinese official began to speak.
The Prince of Risk Page 14