by Roman Klee
Was she worth it or was her pay a virility symbol for measuring her success against fellow Wall Street CEOs? Did she have some kind of special features that marked her out from the crowd? A certain way of holding herself? What in God’s wisdom had she been given that mere mortals lacked?
And there was also something else weighing on their collective minds. They wanted to know how a company like Solomon could justify the huge payout, when it was supposed to be managing their money.
The Sisters had chosen Solomon’s wealth management division to look after their Sacred Orders’ stock, bond, commodity and property portfolios. With a combined annual income running comfortably into eight lucky figures, clearly they took to heart the parable of the talents.
At the next shareholders’ meeting they intended to put forward a motion calling on the board to re-examine its remuneration policy, especially for top executives.
Sister Wendy in particular, was paying the most attention to Alva Grenelund’s little speech. She had an iPad on her lap and was busy touch-typing. She did not appear to be very impressed.
She was not the only one. Nathan waited impatiently for the service to end. His excuse for leaving the office only had limited time value. He felt like he had returned to the lion’s den. The big boss Alva Grenelund had probably forgotten about Nathan and the business with the S.E.C..
But he might bump into someone he could not so easily ignore. And they would immediately get the wrong idea of why he had turned up.
The congregation sang the final hymn and Nathan hoped the service was coming to an end. Then almost as soon as the organist finished playing the last note, he heard someone behind him say, “I thought I recognized you!”
At first Nathan didn’t connect the voice to a face. Then he remembered. He turned to see Dick Winger, grinning.
“Howya doin?”
“It’s good to see you too,” replied Nathan hoping he sounded like he meant it.
“Did you know he was only forty-five?”
Nathan didn’t, but said he did anyway. With luck their conversation would turn out to be brief.
“I heard they’re collecting for the family mausoleum. I guess they could use the money from his BOLI. Anyhow, Dean’s gonna be next to the Grenelund family. Can’t get better than that, right?”
Nathan had no idea what Dick was talking about, but thought it best to agree.
“Are you going to the reception afterward? Best excuse to get totally off my face!”
Nathan shook his head. There was no time, he had to get back to the office. He then expected Dick to ask who he was now working for, but instead Dick said, “Have you heard this one?”
Nathan was not supposed to reply. And anyway, he wasn’t prepared for a joke, considering where they were. Still, he knew good taste had never been one of Dick’s foremost strengths.
“How does the Solomon daily prayer go?”
“No idea, but you’re gonna tell me, right?”
“Oh Lord give us our daily bread … and make every day a Zero Loss Trade Day!”
Dick was the trader whose personal license plate for his gold Lamborghini Aventador, read ZL TD, followed by the size of his annual bonus, 69M (which stood for sixty-nine million dollars). He expected to be rewarded with a partnership before year end.
“Not bad,” said Nathan doing his best to suppress a laugh. “So what are you trading these days?”
“Well, they used to call them exotics, I like to call them super exotics.”
Nathan’s deliberate blank expression indicated he was none the wiser.
“I’ll give it to you in two words—STRIPs and L.A.Y.D.E.E.s. Can’t get enough of them!”
“So you mean, you’re into stripping ladies for a living?”
Dick laughed, “That’s funny college boy, very funny. So, tell me, who’s the patron saint of Solomon Brothers?”
Nathan realized this was another one of Dick’s jokes. He had no idea.
“St. Marks, you friggin’ dumb-ass!”
Dick Winger shook Nathan’s hand and left him to work out what he had just said. Nathan wanted to get the hell out of there before bumping into someone else who would start asking him a bunch of new questions he didn’t feel like answering.
He spotted a way to walk around the congregation and over to the steps that led down to the crypt. Nathan left a data stick inside a violin case, placed next to the tomb of Montgomery. There was a concert rehearsal in the crypt later that evening, and he assumed someone would collect it then.
On leaving, he caught a priest making the sign of the cross and suddenly felt a chill travel down his spine. But by the time he got back to the Trust’s office, he had dismissed as mere superstition the silly notion that the priest’s gesture was meant for him. And besides, he had something more important to do than worry unnecessarily.
He needed to call Thom.
Δ = T –20,521,440
Nathan parked his hired Jeep Cherokee in the secure underground garage, removed his hastily packed Samsonite B-Lite from the passenger seat and headed for the elevator. He was back on familiar territory. No meet and greet point for him. Because he was flying to Aspen with Budd Wright’s daughter, it was JetSet all the way—ten minutes to take off!
Then he hesitated and began to wonder whether what he was doing really was a great idea.
How was a white-water rafting weekend going to lead him closer to Liz? That was the question his boss back at the Trust wanted answered. And Nathan had to deliver pretty darn quick. If it was just an excuse for a weekend play away, then he would find himself in trouble, with a lot of explaining to do.
In one sense, Nathan was putting at risk everything he had worked for up to that point. Only he didn’t see things like that. Maybe his interest in Carla was developing into something serious, beyond a professional relationship.
Remember Nathan, you must become more than just a best friend.
He already told Carla that his wife could not make up the numbers. (He still thought it best to keep quiet about the divorce.) And Carla assured him it was not a problem. She had several friends who were longing for an invigorating weekend away in the bracing waters of the Colorado and the clear mountain air of the Rockies.
Not everyone wanted to spend aimless days by the side of a pool, being served Margaritas by white uniformed cabana boys and snacking on lobster rolls.
As Nathan waited for the elevator to the V-VIP suite, he heard a car approaching. He turned to see the grille of a Lexus LX 570. He waved and Carla stuck out her arm from the passenger side and waved back. Dirk was driving and there were two people on the back seat. That made five in total—there was still one person missing.
They started unloading their luggage from the Lexus. To Nathan’s way of thinking, they obviously didn’t know the meaning of traveling light.
Then he understood why. No one in the family was actually going to carry anything, except purses for the women. Coming to their assistance were two baggage handlers on a golf cart. Before Nathan had time to count the number of Louis Vuitton and Coach matching travel accessories, they were all swiftly away and would not be seen again until the end of the return journey.
The smiling flight concierge at owner services, told them they would have to sit it out in the V-VIP suite for about an hour, because there was a temporary delay due to bad weather. But with luck they might get an early break, so it was best to be prepared. Despite the hardship of not taking off ten minutes after arriving, everyone was still eagerly looking forward to their adventure.
Except Nathan became strangely hesitant. Carla noticed his anxiety and was about to ask him if he felt alright, when he came up with a question of his own. He wanted to know whether anyone else was coming.
“Yep, Ricco is. He’s been working in Dirk’s family office for years. I figured he could use a short break.”
/> “There’s no need to wait for him. He already arrived,” added Dirk.
Nathan thought he detected a higher than normal tension in the air and imagined he was on safe ground when he casually mentioned the Super Sweet Sixteen Birthday party again.
“So I guess Sophia is still sore about how the party ended?”
Carla replied, “You know Nathan, that’s all water under the bridge.” And although she smiled, Carla gave the impression she was holding back. What she really wanted to say was something like, let’s not go there again, I don’t want to dwell on the past—period.
Well, that was obviously one subject he had better not mention during the weekend if he was going to get any kind of payback from his intensive investment of time—three whole days. The JetSet V-VIP suite made up part of a private hangar at White Plains Westchester airport. As well as the usual facilities for the pilots and crew, the entire top-floor housed an exclusive lounge area, divided into three zones plus an observation deck.
The first zone resembled a London gentleman’s club, with mahogany paneling, worn leather chairs and buttoned couches, gold framed pictures of hunting scenes and old books. There was a full bar, with a highly polished marble counter and off to one side, a small discreet wine tasting room. The mirrored back bar reflected liquor bottle labels ranging from Campari to Southern Comfort. Six chrome and whale foreskin covered barstools, provided perfect perches for enjoying a relaxed cocktail or two, even a light snack before boarding.
The Zen-Zone was at the opposite end of the room, behind sound proof panels. Pared down simplicity, low seating and neutral colors were designed to still and quieten the mind. It looked over a Zen garden—the absence of shrubs discouraging the number one plane hazard—birds.
Then finally there was the Chill-out Zone for kids (and large kids) to play computer and video games. It was equipped with the latest versions of Xbox Kinect and PlayStation 3.
Sanchez had already beaten everyone to the Xbox and was busy practicing his moves on Dance Central. Sophia and her friend Kristy, joined him and they soon switched to a game of Samurai Showdown Sen.
It didn’t take long before Sanchez was reminding the girls of the place where he grew up when he was young and the local neighborhood kid, whose afternoon of fun was made up of cooking live kittens in a microwave, followed by joyriding in a stolen Ferrari 559 GTO and a fist fight with a driver who disrespected him.
Then it was off to his favorite crack dealer, followed by target practice with his new Glock 17 G4 handgun (the twenty-fifth anniversary edition).
Ricco Sanchez was not what Nathan expected. To start with, he was the kind of guy it was impossible to miss in a crowd. Around six foot six, he weighed at least two-hundred and fifty pounds. The results of endless hours in the gym were plainly visible.
His hair was tightly cropped, he wore an earring in his left ear and on one of his exposed forearms was a tattoo of a dagger surrounded with the words peace and love. Nathan hoped his sense of shock did not register on his face, because if nothing else, it would have revealed his own prejudices.
If Sanchez was the type of guy they hired at the Bruening family office—well, Nathan needed to be more open-minded. He hadn’t even spoken to him yet.
Only, Nathan simply could not get out of his head how Sanchez looked more like a bodyguard or the kind of hired muscle whose job it was to intimidate a business partner if a deal turned sour.
Nathan walked up to the observation deck. He noticed two technicians crawling over a Gulfstream 550, testing the undercarriage. He quickly looked across to his right and saw several private hangars with smoked glass annexes and silvered windows. One of them belonged to Solomon Brothers. The rest were owned by competitor Wall Street banks as well as corporations that had become household names on the American breakfast table.
Nathan recalled a rumor that Solomon planned to build a brand-new high-tech hangar at Westchester, with space for the firm’s half-dozen planes including two new Gulfstream 650 jets. The source was an aviation contractor, overheard by one of Nathan’s colleagues in the King Creole bar of the St. Marks Hotel. He claimed the Brothers would soon possess the premiere corporate hangar on the eastern seaboard.
The talkative contractor even let slip that Alva Grenelund put in an order for a new Boeing 767. The biggest argument she was having with her fellow partners, was not about funding the purchase of a two-hundred million dollar plane—no, they were arguing over the size of the bed for the separate rear cabin; an Eastern or California king or extra-long twins. Not surprisingly, she was pressing hard for an Eastern king.
One of the partners spoke out against Grenelund’s plan. Sure there were no nosy shareholders to interfere with the scheme, but if the politicians learned about it, then that would further complicate their relationship with Washington. And another thing, he would never ever fly with Grenelund for a split second, if it meant having to share the same bed.
Grenelund’s response was equally forthright. The guys in Washington would do as they were told. Wall Street controlled the purse strings. And if the law makers on Capitol Hill were not careful, they might end up triggering a bigger economic downturn than the Great Depression—unless they did what Wall Street commanded.
As for sharing a bed, Grenelund insisted the feeling was mutual.
Nathan didn’t personally know the source of the story, but it all sounded accurate enough to him. He was always amazed by what could be picked up in bars. Then he returned to the Wright-Bruening family.
Whatever caused the tension earlier, had now melted away. Carla and Dirk looked like the perfect couple. They seemed happy in each other’s company.
But if Nathan knew anything, it was that appearances were deceptive at the best of times. Nathan thought he detected an attempt by Carla to put some distance between the two of them. And this seemed strange since he was under the impression they were on a bonding weekend together. Then he realized if any bonding was going to take place, most likely it would not include him.
Δ = T –20,517,840
A smiling personal concierge asked Dirk if his party was ready to board yet. Breaking Sophia away from her Xbox was never easy. Eventually she relented after Ricco switched it off.
But once again, Nathan held back. And once again, Carla detected what she took for plane fright.
“You’re not a nervous flyer?”
Realizing he would be the subject of ridicule the entire weekend if he said yes, Nathan laughed off the question.
“No, not at all, I’m a frequent flyer. I have a card to prove it. No, I was thinking about something else.”
While the rest of the group was chatting and discussing the previous night’s football game, Cunningham had been in touch with Nathan. He’d sent him an email with the most recent results from the Swiss rescue team.
To everyone’s great surprise, JetSet was not the owner of the second plane Wright had left Zürich on either. They discovered it had been bought one week earlier by a new company called Yellowberg, based in Delaware and the transaction had not appeared on any publicly accessible records until recently.
According to the latest company filings, the shareholder was another company registered in Bermuda, but with no direct business dealings with any of Budd Wright’s other companies.
Nathan was left to think over the implications of this new information. Whether it changed anything was unclear, because on its own, it didn’t amount to very much. It simply demonstrated that JetSet had been selling off planes, presumably because its fleet had grown too big and demand had slowed down. His biggest concern was that one of those planes had crashed and another was missing.
Nathan didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but certainly the evidence was pointing toward some form of elaborate scam, possibly to defraud an insurance company.
For the first time ever, Cunningham signed off the email with the words, take ca
re.
And that made Nathan think. Take care of what exactly?
Nathan followed the rest of the group down to the waiting plane. He was the next one to climb the steps, and very much hoped the Gulfstream still belonged to JetSet. Because he was starting to think about how things had a habit of happening in threes. If someone else now owned their plane, maybe it would end up like the other two.
Carla placed a comforting arm on Nathan’s shoulder. “Hey, you’ll be fine, just remember to buckle up, we often hit turbulence over the Rockies.”
“Thanks, I needed to hear that,” replied Nathan. “Let me know when you got some words of comfort.”
Carla just smiled and they boarded the plane together.
Nathan had left all the details for planning the weekend, in what he assumed were Carla’s capable hands. He had no good reason not to trust her. Then on the other hand, why should she automatically get his trust just because of who she was?
Had Nathan been more questioning, he would have made sure his name appeared on the flight manifold. Instead, for some inexplicable reason, the normally efficient JetSet personal flight concierge forgot to include it.
No search party can find a missing person if it doesn’t even know who it’s looking for.
Δ = T –20,496,240
For Nathan, one of the positives of flying in a Gulfstream 550 was that everyone could stand up, everyone except Sanchez of course. But at least for Nathan it meant there was no chance of him having a panic attack at thirty thousand feet. Confined spaces could have that effect, it was like they suddenly closed in on him.
One of the partners at the Trust had a heart arrhythmia and suffered from a fear of flying. He often had to start client trips a couple of days before anyone else, so he could drive or get a train and arrive in time. Last minute changes to an itinerary really put his schedule out of shape. Fortunately, Nathan had not reached the same level of fear.