by Jon Land
“Yes,” said Michael Tiranno, “I’ll accept the charges.”
FORTY
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA
“Michael, thank God!” Scarlett managed.
“Hey, baby,” Michael said, “do you miss me?”
“Please, you need to listen. I don’t know how much time I’ve got,” she said, thinking of the men in suits and the police officer.
“What’s wrong?” Michael followed, his tone changing instantly.
“Something terrible has happened. My team, they’re all—”
Before Scarlett could continue, she felt a grasp like iron fasten on her shoulder, easing her around.
“Are you shure you’re okay?” the bartender asked her, his gray eyes seeming almost translucent.
She wanted to pull away, but his grasp was too strong. “Scarlett, who else is there?” she heard Michael ask. “I heard another voice.”
“Would you like me to get you shome help?” the man was saying. “Shome medical attention perhapsh.”
“No. I told you I’m fine. Please,” Scarlett said, cursing herself for letting the man sneak up on her this way.
“Scarlett, whose voice is that? Where are you?” Michael’s voice was louder now, more assertive. “Are you still in Romania? Tell me exactly.”
“Yes, the village of Bună Ziua. That’s where I’m calling from. I found something, Michael, something incredible. I think it’s what we’ve been looking for. I can’t believe it myself. If I’m right—”
“You musht let me help you,” the bartender interrupted.
“Please, not now.”
“It would be my pleashure,” he continued.
Scarlett felt his grasp tighten, saw something change in his eyes.
“Michael,” she managed.
FORTY-ONE
LAKE LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Michael felt himself stiffen, the hairs prickling the back of his neck. “What’s happening, Scarlett? Tell me exactly where you are.”
“It would be my pleashure,” Michael heard the other voice say faintly.
“Scarlett, who’s with you? Who is that man?”
“Michael—”
A thump sounded, silencing her words.
“Scarlett, what’s happening? Talk to me!”
A thud, followed by more silence.
“Scarlett?”
And Michael heard the distinctive click of the phone being hung up an instant before the dial tone returned.
* * *
“The archaeologist’s call was indeed placed from a bar in the Romanian town of Bună Ziua, population twelve thousand,” Alexander told Michael an hour later, as he jogged one of the wall-mounted fifty-inch monitors to a map of Romania, then narrowed in on a mountainous corner of Transylvania.
“That’s close to the location of Scarlett’s dig.” Michael had found the number for the bar from which she’d called and dialed it a dozen times, but the phone rang unanswered on each occasion. “I can tell from the mountains,” he added, ready to try dialing again.
Alexander clicked on the Image icon and Google Maps brought up a shot of the actual establishment and the town square around it. “But the local authorities found no trace of her there and insist there are no witnesses willing to say she was ever on the premises.”
Something terrible’s happened.…
Michael’s next call was to Romania’s Ministry of Culture, the government entity that had signed off on the permits for the dig in Transylvania and arranged for the necessary variances, and facilitated the site logistics—all in return for a sizable cash stipend. Initially, Michael failed to get anyone on the phone, finally managing to reach an underling who professed to have no knowledge of any tragedy befalling Scarlett’s team in the field. Nonetheless, the man promised to contact the proper authorities to investigate further and get back to him once he heard something.
Michael wasn’t holding his breath in that regard. He knew corruption in the Romanian government ran rampant and, if some terrible tragedy had indeed befallen the archaeological team under his sponsorship, it stood to reason that at least some elements of the government were involved. Perhaps the stipend his company paid hadn’t been large enough. Perhaps this was a not so gentle exercise in extortion to get more money out of him.
But Michael doubted that. Gravely.
“Something terrible has happened. My team, they’re all…”
They were all what? The dig was at this site in Romania thanks to his financial support, Scarlett continuing the quest on which he had set her. He had to find her, had to save her. Fast. She was, she was …
Images flooded his mind of the times they’d shared, interludes in cities like London and Florence and a few times at dig sites themselves where she endeavored to teach him things in which he pretended to be interested. Smiling was easy when picturing spending the night with her in a tent or a primitive lodge room. She was so different than all the other women he’d been with, often so enamored with themselves as to not fully appreciate the world around them. Scarlett was different; the world was everything to her, its intellectual origins explaining the very existence of civilization. Questions Michael found himself pondering so often now validated and enhanced by this woman who never stopped looking for the answers.
“I can’t believe it myself. If I’m right…”
Scarlett Swan’s final words to him about whatever it was she’d uncovered, cut off in midstream.
“I have to find her,” Michael heard himself saying, watching Alexander’s expression tighten. “What is it, Alexander?”
“The dig’s location.”
“What about it?”
“Nothing,” he said, his eyes no longer meeting Michael’s.
Michael moved back to the glass wall overlooking the rear of his property, Naomi and Alexander following his reflection in the glass, as Nero uttered a low, guttural growl, sensing something awry. Finally he turned slowly, looking toward Alexander.
“Good. Then call McCarran Airport. Tell them to have the Boeing fueled and ready.”
Naomi came toward him before Alexander could respond, shaking her head. “We’re in the midst of a crisis here, Michael. A public relations nightmare that will have the sharks who walk on land snapping at our asses. There’s blood in the water and we’re looking at a feeding frenzy if we don’t get a handle on all this fast.”
“And you can handle things just fine on your own.”
“Handle things? Listen to yourself, Michael. You’re not thinking straight.”
“Yes, Naomi, I am.”
“By later today, the authorities will be lined up ten deep to talk to you. That’s not something I can just handle. The Daring Sea suites are going to be closed for God knows how long, and we’re trying to find lodging for all the high-roller guests evicted from their rooms who haven’t fled Vegas already. What happened is all over the news, nationally, and our reservation operators can’t keep up with all the cancellations—at last check, wait times on the phone are stretching to nearly an hour. We’re sixty percent empty, which means we’re going to be hemorrhaging three million dollars a day. And beyond that we’ve got a guest who wasn’t who he claimed to be being lifted in pieces from the water.”
“And I thought we had real problems,” Michael said, trying for a wry smile he failed to muster.
Naomi ignored his attempt at humor. “You mean, like the fact that our bonds are likely to trade further down when the markets open, by ten percent at the very least? Aldridge Sterling makes Max Price look like a schoolboy, Michael. And if he really is involved and keeps pressing, we’re looking at a massive short sale that could substantially dilute Tyrant Global’s value and our ability to borrow.”
“There are very few people in the world I trust with my life. Two of them are standing with me in this room right now. Scarlett Swan is another, for different reasons entirely.” Michael stopped without elaborating further. “I have a phone, Naomi. I can deal with all this from where Alexander and I are
headed.”
“And where’s that?”
Michael looked toward Alexander. “Transylvania.”
FORTY-TWO
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Naomi Burns was hardly surprised when FBI agent Del Slocumb showed up right on time at the Seven Sins’s first-floor corporate offices later that morning. She was waiting for an update from Michael and Alexander when informed he was in the reception area. Naomi briefly flirted with the idea of making this man, who’d turned his various pursuits of Michael Tiranno into an Ahab-like quest, wait for a time, but then thought better of it.
“Ms. Burns,” he greeted, rising stiffly from his chair, wincing from knee pain in what she had learned stemmed from an old football injury. “I told your boss to expect me this morning, but I understand he’s not available.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Well, according to officials at McCarran, he left last night on Tyrant Global’s seven-thirty-seven. Not like Mr. Tiranno to run from a crisis, is it?”
“I wasn’t aware even federal agents were able to obtain such information without cause.”
“National security was the cause.”
“And how does that concern Mr. Tiranno?”
“Many view him as a threat.”
“Many?”
“After last night’s blackout, I should think so.”
“Oh, so you believe Mr. Tiranno was behind that, along with all the other baseless charges you’ve leveled against him. All the casinos were blacked out, Agent, and much of the entire city.”
Slocumb smirked, clearly enjoying himself. “I wouldn’t put it past him; I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
This cat-and-mouse game had been going for years now, ever since the FBI’s investigation into the implosion of the Maximus Casino on the current site of the Seven Sins, for which Michael had been fully exonerated. In everyone’s mind, that is, except Del Slocumb’s.
“And only one casino was the site of an inexplicable death at the same time,” Slocumb continued, leaving the thought dangling.
“So now you suspect Mr. Tiranno of concocting the blackout to draw attention away from killing a man he didn’t know and met only in the course of signing an autograph. Can you at least listen to yourself, Agent?”
“I’d rather listen to Mr. Tiranno explain himself.”
“He’s otherwise detained.”
“Where?”
“None of your business.”
“Would he rather face inquiries from the State Department?”
“Is this a national security interest, too?” Naomi asked him.
“The victim was a foreign national. You tell me.”
“I can tell you Mr. Tiranno will be available to meet with you just as soon as he handles some other matters requiring his immediate attention.”
“A strange time to leave the city, don’t you think, Counselor?”
“Why don’t we continue this in my office, Agent Slocumb?”
* * *
“What Mr. Tiranno does and why he does it is none of your business,” Naomi said, taking the matching fabric chair next to Slocumb’s set before her desk.
Slocumb smirked. “I thought Durado Segura might be chasing him.”
“Durado Segura is in no condition to chase anyone.”
“Yes,” the FBI agent agreed. “Interesting skills your boss has acquired. And always running to the rescue of pretty women in distress. I wonder if a career in politics might be in his future.”
“I was just wondering the same thing about you.”
Slocumb gazed around at the elegant furnishings that adorned Naomi’s office. She had chosen the pastel wall shades, subtly colorful tapestries, and warm, milky lighting personally, creating a work environment that best exemplified her choice in wardrobe as well, color-keyed to form a perfect match with the office’s light tones.
“And I know the first place I’d come for a donation,” Slocumb told her.
He hesitated to let his point sink in, his cocoa-shaded features growing tight enough to exaggerate the patchwork of wrinkles forming around his eyes and the furrows lining his brow. A marine who’d served in Desert Storm, Slocumb had a protruding chin at the bottom of a square, angular face and still wore his now graying hair in a close-cropped military style. Naomi remembered him as a smoker, but he carried no smell of that with him today and she noticed his teeth looked freshly bleached.
She made sure Slocumb could see her stiffen in response to his last remark. “I’m not sure how to take that.”
“We’re just having a nice friendly chat here. There’s no reason to get testy.”
“Remember, Agent, I’m still a lawyer.”
As chief executive officer and corporate counsel of Tyrant Global and King Midas World, Naomi’s office was fittingly the largest on the floor, offering a view of the hotel’s lavish pool and faux beach area through its one-way windows. The floors were bamboo, the furniture fitting a modern Oriental motif that Naomi found both soothing and functional, an elegant match to the office’s light shading. Her favorite piece was a beautiful indoor fountain given to her as a gift by Michael’s investors in the Seven Sins Macau, a nearly identical property currently under construction in that booming city. Strange how it had been so much easier to arrange the variances and building permits there than it had been for Michael originally in Vegas. Partly because of a past that was the subject of much scrutiny and legend, some of which had left Michael and King Midas World perpetual targets. The FBI’s Del Slocumb was hardly the only official who’d focused his sights here, just the most stubborn and relentless, given that he blamed his lack of advancement in the Bureau on his failure to ever deliver anything of substance on Michael Tiranno.
“Did I mention Tyrant Global’s seven-thirty-seven had filed a flight plan for London, Ms. Burns? Could you tell me what was so urgent there that your boss had to leave Las Vegas in the midst of such a crisis?”
“Business.”
“You said that already.”
“Then why did you ask me again?”
“Let’s discuss Edward Devereaux, who was killed here last night.”
“A tragic accident,” Naomi said, nodding, probing Slocumb’s knowledge of the death as well as his intentions.
“That wasn’t his real name, you know. We identified him from fingerprints lifted from the hand found in the Daring Sea. His real name was Pierre Faustin. He’s a French national.”
“That much I was aware of.”
“Did you know he worked for Interpol?”
FORTY-THREE
SARDINIA
Aldridge Sterling sat at his desk within the nine-thousand-square-foot, seventy-five-meter yacht, watching the sun shine over Porto Cervo in the distance.
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Sterling said from his grand office on the upper deck of his yacht, looking out over a spectacular 360-degree view of the surrounding ocean. This while he engaged in a call over his Polycom speakerphone, simultaneously checking a screen displaying the Hong Kong markets. Yesterday, one of his wealth management funds made fifty million in the first hour of trading there, his fee thirty percent of all profits generated on behalf of his clients.
“How could I not be?” a thick, deep voice responded. “Please transfer all these funds into my offshore accounts. I will have my finance minister contact you for all the necessary paperwork.”
Sterling’s primary clients, the ones who’d made Sterling Capital Partners the most successful hedge fund in the world, were primarily the heads of rogue states and nations. They came to him because he was expert in hiding their vast wealth and resources from prying eyes in their own countries as well as internationally, especially now that the American Department of Justice had become increasingly vigilant and aggressive in such pursuits. Legally established accounts in places like Panama, the Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg built up over more than a decade afforded Sterling this luxury. And his own genius at manipulating his AUM funds through shell entit
ies that existed only on paper of his own making kept the authorities none the wiser of his efforts.
“By the way, thank you for the excellent referral last week,” Sterling said. “You may have opened up a whole new market for me.”
“Just remember that when it comes to taking out your commission.”
“Of course,” Sterling grinned. “After all, it’s the people’s money, isn’t it?”
Sterling had had his yacht custom-made in Italy by the luxury manufacturer Benetti. Big Whale had been outfitted with a sprawling, view-rich master suite, and twenty staterooms that allowed it to sleep upward of forty guests. It was decorated in dark cherrywood and beige marble with leather-upholstered furniture, white carpeting, and walls covered in mauve silk. It featured a fifty-seat theater, two swimming pools, an eight-person whirlpool tub, a boardroom, a gymnasium, four Riva speedboats, a helipad on the flybridge, and an impressive array of diving gear Sterling wanted to pretend he used. The yacht’s massive twin-diesel engines and twenty-five-thousand-gallon gas tanks were capable of putting out twenty-eight knots even in rough seas.
Gazing back toward Porto Cervo, though, Sterling could see any number of yachts that were even bigger than the Big Whale at a price tag that made his eyes bulge. Mostly they belonged to Arabs, illiterate mongrels made billionaires without ever working a day in their lives. If not for the oil over which they were lucky enough to live, they’d be dirt. He’d made many of them an even greater fortune over the years but, then, they’d made him a fortune, too.
And someday, very soon, Sterling would own a bigger yacht than theirs anyway. So big he’d turn the Big Whale into a dinghy for it.
“Mr. Sterling?” a male voice called tentatively from the door leading to the twenty-five hundred square feet of office space. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” continued the man dressed in the white uniform not of a sailor, but a nurse. “It’s your father. The senator’s having one of his spells.”
Barely acknowledging the man, Sterling climbed the outdoor spiral staircase up to the top deck where Senator Harold Sterling spent his days when they were here instead of New York, Palm Springs, or his estate in the Florida Keys. It was a laborious chore to have his father moved from place to place, but one Aldridge Sterling found well worth it since there was no better motivator for his relentless pursuit of ultimate success than the senator’s presence.