Stephen Frey

by Trust Fund

  “Find what?” Bo demanded.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Bo grabbed Ramsey by his necktie, jerked him up from the ground into a sitting position, and slammed his mouth with a right. Ramsey hit the ground heavily, groaning for mercy. “I’ll do that again,” Bo threatened, grabbing Ramsey by the tie once more.

  “Ernie Lang,” Ramsey moaned through blood oozing from a split lip.

  “What?”

  “Warfield’s computer guy.”

  “What about him?”

  “Tell Lang to look for something called RANSACK in the network,” Ramsey gasped. “Tell him to dig deep. He can tell you much more than I can if you give him that code.”

  Bo stood up quickly. RANSACK. The word Jimmy Lee had whispered in his ear just before taking his final breath. Bo had had no idea at the time what that could mean. “Get out of here, Frank,” Bo snarled. “Go back to your apartment building, get your suitcase, and get as far away from New York City as possible. Go to a small town, change your name, fade into the background forever. Forget your desire to be rich. That’s the best advice I can give you. Because if you don’t and you make yourself easy to find, you’ll end up like Dale, Teddy, and Tom.”

  Bo stood by the same chair in the Waldorf lobby where he had met Michael Mendoza only a few days before, waiting expectantly, worried that somehow she had become caught up in what was going on. His whole body relaxed out of relief when he spotted her. “Ashley,” he called quietly.

  She hurried to where he stood, then dropped her suitcase and hugged him tightly. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why did you want me to come to the city so quickly?”

  “Before I can answer that, I need to ask a question of my own.”

  She said nothing, but looked up at him curiously.

  “Last night you were about to tell me why you left for Europe after college and never came back.”

  Her eyes dropped to the carpet.

  “Please tell me now,” Bo said.

  They’d been apart for years, but she still recognized that tone in Bo’s voice. He would not be denied an answer this time. “This is still hard for me to talk about.”

  “I understand,” he said compassionately, “but I really need to know.” He had called Ashley two hours ago, insisting that she pack her bags immediately, get to the train station near the estate without alerting anyone, and meet him here. He had already gotten her a room under a false name. She wouldn’t be going back to Connecticut. Very soon it wouldn’t be safe for anyone there. “You said you had an affair when you were very young,” he pushed. “When you found out we were adopted.”

  “Yes.” Tears filled her eyes. “He was my first. It lasted only a week, then he wanted nothing to do with me. I was nothing more than a conquest for him,” she said sadly.

  “Who was the affair with?”

  She covered her eyes. “I’m so terrible.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Bo said gently, pulling her close. “Tell me, Ashley.”

  She took a deep breath. “It was Michael. Michael Mendoza.” She put her hands to her face. “Ginny was always so nice to me and that’s how I repaid her. I’m terrible. I’m so ashamed.”

  Bo pulled Ashley to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s all right. Michael is the one who ought to be ashamed.”

  Ron Baker stood at the podium beneath white-hot lights, shielding his eyes as he looked out at a sea of reporters. He was already sweating profusely despite the fact that he had taken his place behind the microphone only a few moments before. “Can I have some quiet?” he pleaded over the hum of speculation circulating among the press. There had been no advance word from Baker’s campaign staff as to the nature of the announcement. “Please!” Slowly the room settled down. “Thank you. I will read a prepared statement and answer no questions.” Baker reviewed the words on the index cards one more time. He was nervous as hell. “For personal reasons, I am withdrawing my bid to become my party’s nominee for the office of president of the United States,” he said, his voice rising as reporters began shouting questions. “From this day on I will do whatever I can to help the candidacy of Reggie Duncan. I believe Mr. Duncan will be a strong leader of this country. He has earned my support, and yours. Thank you!” Baker tried to ignore the pandemonium as he trotted for a door held open by two aides.

  Three thousand miles away, in Manhattan’s city hall, the detective—backed by a number of high-ranking local and federal law enforcement officials—tapped the microphone in front of another large throng of reporters. Just like the reporters attending Ron Baker’s news conference, these people had no idea what was coming. However, their sources had told them that the announcement, to be made by a joint task force of the New York City Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would be a blockbuster.

  “For the last several days,” the detective began slowly, “we have been conducting an investigation into what we had originally believed was a routine break-in and robbery attempt at the offices of Reggie Duncan’s campaign headquarters in Harlem. Several nights ago we apprehended a man fleeing those offices.” The detective took a deep breath. He knew what he was about to say would touch off a firestorm. They had considered trying to keep a lid on the investigation for at least twenty-four more hours, but experience told them that someone would leak the information soon. It was simply too hot, and they wanted to make certain they were controlling the flow of information. “It turns out that the man we apprehended was on the payroll of Paul Hancock’s campaign. He was—” But the detective’s voice was drowned out in a roar of chaos as the press began screaming questions and at the same time madly dialing cell phones to report what they had just heard to their offices.

  The detective shook his head as he watched members of the press strive to be the first to report the incredible news. Then his expression turned grim. Over the last two days he had received information definitively linking the man they had arrested outside Reggie Duncan’s office to Paul Hancock. Detailed information from an anonymous source. It had been too easy, he thought, as if someone inside Hancock’s campaign was trying to take the candidate down.

  “Ernie Lang.”

  “That’s me. What the hell do you want?” Lang asked without looking around. He was Warfield Capital’s chief technology officer and he was hunched over a keyboard entering the last of a pile of sensitive financial information into the firm’s network. His lair was a large, windowless room located one floor below the firm’s trading floor and executive offices. “I don’t have time to be interrupted,” he added loudly, spinning his chair around toward the voice. “How the hell did you get in here any—” He stopped cold. “I . . . I’m sorry, Mr. Hancock. I certainly didn’t expect to see you down here.”

  Bo smiled reassuringly. “No need to apologize.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?” Lang asked nervously.

  Bo closed and locked the door. “Everything concerning Warfield’s portfolio is on our network, correct?” he asked, taking a seat beside Lang, scanning the room to make certain they were alone.

  “Yes.”

  “How up-to-date is the network?”

  “Up-to-the-minute,” Lang said proudly, delighted by the chance to show off in front of one of the Hancocks. “The system is tied directly to the trading floor as well as the other departments. As soon as an investment is made, I know about it.”

  “Good.” Bo put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “What we’re going to talk about tonight is extremely confidential. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let me be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings later.”

  Lang nodded. “Okay.”

  “I am going to ask you to perform what I believe are several fairly simple data-mining requests. You will not discuss what we talk about with anyone. It’s as simple as that, got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are we crystal clear on that?”

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sp; “Yes.”

  “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Can we perform these data requests transparently?”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean, can we log on without creating a record? I don’t want anyone to know we went into the system.”

  The young man nodded slowly. “It will take some doing, but I can go back in when we’re finished and erase our tracks.”

  “Good.” Bo nodded at the keyboard in front of Lang. “First of all, I need to see if a wire transfer has arrived at one of our Chase accounts.”

  “That’s easy. We’re directly linked to Chase’s computer.” Lang tapped on the keyboard, flashing through several screens. “Here’s a list of all our accounts over there, Mr. Hancock. Which one do you want to examine?”

  Angela, Mendoza’s aide, had called Bo on his cell phone only a few moments after he’d let Frank Ramsey up off the ground in Central Park. As Bo watched Ramsey jog away, she’d confirmed that she was wiring Warfield five hundred million dollars as he had requested. “That one,” Bo said, pointing at a string of numbers on the screen.

  “Jesus,” Lang exclaimed as the account detail appeared on the screen.

  Bo smiled to himself. There it was. A half-billion-dollar deposit. “Now I need you to locate a specific investment in our portfolio.”

  Lang hesitated. “Excuse me, sir, but you can do that from the personal computer in your office. The network is set up so that you and Mr. Ramsey can get to everything,” he explained. “You and he are the only ones with that kind of universal access, except for me, of course. I’m happy to help you, but you can review from upstairs all assets and all liabilities including a full list of institutional investors who are funding us. We’ve been over that before,” he said deferentially, not wanting to irritate Bo.

  “I know that, but I’m having trouble finding one investment that I’m certain is in the portfolio. It isn’t showing up on my screen when I search.”

  “Perhaps it’s been sold and you weren’t informed,” Lang suggested, tapping on his keyboard to bring up the system’s main menu. “Once investments are sold, you wouldn’t be able to access them on-line. After an investment is sold, the record of its being a Warfield asset is stored in a data bank off-line. I’d have to dig it up for you, but that wouldn’t be hard.”

  “I don’t think it was sold.”

  “What kind of investment is it? What sheet should I be reviewing? Can you tell me that?”

  “The private equity sheet.”

  “That’s sector Q,” Lang muttered to himself, entering a data request. Moments later an alphabetized list of names appeared on his screen. “Here we go. What’s the specific name of the investment?”

  “RANSACK.”

  In a seventeenth-floor corner office overlooking the sprawling Tysons Corner Mall in northern Virginia, an automatic e-mail registered on Scott Trajak’s personal computer at Online Associates. If Trajak had received the message instantly, as he was supposed to, he would have notified his contact immediately and Bo wouldn’t have made it back to the Hancock estate that evening. As it was, Trajak had fallen ill with a bad spring cold and had taken the day off to recover from a burning sore throat and nausea. To knock himself out he’d taken a double dose of powerful cold medicine, and so he didn’t hear his cell phone or his home computer—both of which were connected to his office computer—alerting him that an unauthorized user had inspected the RANSACK file at Warfield Capital.

  Not until tomorrow morning would he understand what had happened.

  CHAPTER 18

  Paul sat slouched in Jimmy Lee’s study chair, a bottle of whiskey and a half-full glass on the desk before him.

  “How much have you had?” Bo asked, standing near the door. Paul hadn’t looked up as Bo opened the door and walked into the room.

  “What do you care?” Paul’s voice was subdued and his speech slow.

  Bo’s eyes flickered over the honey-hued liquor behind the black-and-white Jack Daniel’s label.

  “You’re here to gloat, aren’t you?” Paul asked, reaching for the glass. His natural confidence seemed shattered, as if today had been a very bad day.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t toy with me. I’m sure you’ve heard about the breakin at Reggie Duncan’s headquarters. It’s being broadcast over every radio and television station in the country, even as we speak.” Paul took a long swallow of whiskey. “But you probably didn’t need to hear it from a newscaster, did you?” he asked, peering at Bo suspiciously over the rim of his glass.

  “What are you talking about, Paul? What’s going on?”

  Paul nodded. “Okay, I’ll play your little game.” He slowly lowered the glass to his lap. “Late this afternoon a joint task force of the New York City Police Department and the FBI announced that several nights ago they’d apprehended a man trying to escape after breaking into Duncan’s headquarters. The man was carrying sensitive information he had stolen from Duncan’s offices.”

  Bo crossed the study to stand in front of the desk. “Go on,” he said.

  “I’m sure you know the rest.”

  “Go on!” Bo demanded.

  Paul swirled the ice in his glass and took another sip. “When they took the guy down to the precinct for questioning, they found a name scribbled on a piece of paper in his pocket. The name was Ray Jordan—my campaign treasurer.” He shook his head. “The guy made bail an hour later. The person who came to the precinct tried to use a check drawn on one of my campaign accounts to put up the bail money. When the cops wouldn’t take the check, he produced cash on the spot.”

  “Have you talked to Jordan?”

  “Jordan denied knowing anything about what was going on.”

  “It’s obvious that you’ve been set up.”

  Paul clapped slowly several times, spilling whiskey in his lap. “Of course I’ve been set up, little brother, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve already been crucified by the press and the public. The damage is done. I’m Tricky Dick all over again. Reggie Duncan will be the party’s nominee.”

  “Why Reggie Duncan?”

  Paul chuckled. “Very good, Bo. Playing this one all the way out. Acting like you haven’t heard that Ron Baker has dropped out of the race and pledged his support to Mr. Duncan.”

  “I haven’t had time to listen to anything today, Paul. I’ve been trying to hold our family’s fortune together.”

  Paul glanced up. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his head wobbling slightly from the alcohol he had been consuming for the last two hours.

  “Warfield Capital had a liquidity crisis at seven o’clock this morning. Stillman shut us out.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Paul sat up in his chair and placed the glass back on the desk, a stunned expression on his face.

  “Believe it. We failed on a fifty-million-dollar bond transaction with Stillman last night and they spread the word around Wall Street that we weren’t good for our bids,” Bo explained. “At that point the market shut us out across the board. Reuters and Bloomberg were screaming about our problem by seven-fifteen and it was a very long day.”

  “How could that be?” Paul whispered. “Aren’t we worth ten billion dollars or something? How could we fail on a fifty-million-dollar transaction?”

  “Your friend Frank Ramsey put Warfield into some very bad investments. They lost value quickly over the last few months and depleted our capital reserves in the process.”

  “Oh, my God.” Paul reached for the Jack Daniel’s and refilled his glass. “Are we going to make it?” he stammered. “Will Warfield survive? I mean, is it critical?”

  “Yes, it is, and I honestly don’t know if Warfield can survive. I have implemented several emergency measures and raised over half a billion dollars in cash, but Ramsey made several huge investments that are totally illiquid, including a two-billion-dollar transaction with a firm down in northern Virginia. We have tens of millions of dollars worth o
f hedge maturities coming due every hour. We could run through that five hundred million very quickly if people gang up on us.” Bo paused. “I’m very interested in that northern Virginia firm, Paul.”

  Paul took a long swallow of whiskey and looked away.

  Bo leaned over the desk. “What has been going on at Warfield Capital for the last year? I know now that I wasn’t sent to Montana because you and Jimmy Lee were worried about me screwing up your campaign. I know that was a red herring.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Paul said, defiant to the end.

  “Tell me, Paul!” Bo shouted. “What has been going on?”

  Paul slumped down in his chair again.

  “Paul!”

  “It’s so complicated.”

  “Tell me,” Bo demanded once more, teeth gritted.

  Paul gazed at his glass for several moments. “Politics is all about information, Bo.”

  “Everything is about information, brother. Now talk.”

  “Jimmy Lee wanted to make certain I won the election,” Paul mumbled. “He wasn’t going to take any chances.”

  “So?”

  “So with the cooperation of certain influential people he erected an information-gathering system. We collected all kinds of nasty skeletons.” Paul took a long swallow of whiskey. “Several people who were going to run against me in the primaries didn’t because we had very damaging information on them. Through back channels we made it clear to them that we’d release the information if they tossed their hats into the ring. We didn’t want them to have a chance to even get started.”

  “What about Baker and Duncan?”

  “We had information on Baker too,” Paul replied. “That’s why he dropped out of the race today. We had evidence of him visiting child pornography sites on the Web, and we knew that his wife had an abortion, which would be devastating for a conservative platform candidate. We told him we’d use all of that against him. We let him in the race up until now because there had to be somebody real running against me or we wouldn’t get any publicity. The press wouldn’t pay any attention because they’d figure the race for our party’s nomination was over, and the other party would get all the ink. We knew the information we had on Baker was so damaging that he’d drop out as soon as we laid it on him. We were right.”