Swimming with Sharks

by Nele Neuhaus

  Alex pressed her face into her hands. This brutal man had proposed marriage to her just a few days ago! She wiped the tears from her cheeks. Nick Kostidis had asked for her help a number of times, but she’d refused because she was afraid of the consequences. She’d been too big a coward, and now Nick’s family had been cruelly annihilated. Alex closed her eyes. Wasn’t she also to blame? She had known since last summer that David Zuckerman had been killed on Sergio’s order. If she had told Nick at the time, everything might have turned out differently. Or not? She felt more miserable than she ever had in her life. She gradually realized the far-reaching consequences of her discovery, and she almost regretted her curiosity. This was no longer about lies and hurt pride. If she used her knowledge, undeniably triggering an enormous scandal, then more than just her job would be on the line. Sergio wouldn’t sit idly by while his empire wavered, and she knew exactly what he was capable of. She was scared, terribly scared. And there was no one who could help her.

  The flight from Boston landed at eight thirty. Oliver and Alex took a cab together to Manhattan.

  “What are you going to do now?” Oliver asked in concern.

  “I can’t do anything,” Alex replied. Fear had overcome her. She made sure that the dividing glass to the driver was closed, but she still whispered.

  “I know that Sergio had David Zuckerman killed last summer, and that he ordered the assassination attempt on Kostidis. If he finds out that I have the slightest idea, then I’m dead.”

  Oliver gave her a perplexed stare.

  “I have to keep playing along and try to maneuver myself out of this mess by making bad deals. And I’ve got another idea.”

  “What are you going to do with these documents?”

  “I’ll put them in a safety-deposit box at some bank.”

  “Let me take care of that,” Oliver said, grabbing her hand.

  “No.” She vehemently shook her head. “I don’t want anything else to happen to you. I have to fight this war by myself.”

  They looked at each other in silence.

  “Thanks,” Alex whispered when the taxi stopped in front of her building.

  “Please take care of yourself, Alex,” Oliver said seriously, “and call me soon. We’ll find a solution together.”

  She nodded and quickly kissed his cheek before she got out. Just the thought that Sergio owned the apartment in which she lived filled her with horror. After she took a shower and got dressed, she pushed the printouts of the numbered accounts beneath the TV.

  On her way to the subway, she bought a paper and came across a small article on the fifth page while riding downtown. One of the journalists wondered why Syncrotron had filed for bankruptcy yesterday as there’d been noticeably active trading in Syncrotron shares recently. “The question remains,” Alex read with a grim smile, “who would buy shares of a company such as Syncrotron that apparently had liquidity issues and no future. At the very least, this small manufacturer of circuit boards that became a total bust (due to incompetent management and lack of innovation) will turn into a nightmare today for these daring investors.”

  Alex folded the newspaper. Zack should know by now that MPM was sitting on a pile of worthless stock. She didn’t think that the company would get into any serious trouble because the stock purchases were likely fully financed by LMI or even personally by Sergio. There would be no callback where the borrowed money would have to be returned, which is what happened every now and then when a speculator placed a wrong bet. Nevertheless, it was possible that the SEC would initiate an investigation. It was very unusual for someone to accumulate such a large position in a company known to be on the brink of bankruptcy. This absolutely smelled like insider trading. Alex wished that she could hole up somewhere. The lack of sleep and the terrible news about the bomb had her depressed, and she didn’t feel up to the challenge of an imminent confrontation with Sergio or Zack. The clarity with which she saw her situation was frightening, paralyzing. Just one small mistake on her part could have fatal consequences.

  At nine thirty, Alex paced through the blue-tiled Wall Street subway station to the escalators. She could hardly believe that life continued as if nothing had happened. In light of her discoveries and the tragedy, it seemed that everything should be different now. But in the bright Monday-morning sunlight, the city seemed as busy as ever. Alex saw her secretary standing near the glass door at the entrance of the trading floor. She’d been desperately waiting for her.

  “Alex!” she called in relief and ran toward her. “Finally! The telephone’s ringing off the hook! And Mr. St. John is waiting for you in your office. He’s really pissed off!”

  “Thanks, Marcia,” Alex replied. The familiar environment helped her cope with her confusion. She crossed the trading floor and nodded to the traders, who were yelling and wildly gesticulating on the telephone as usual. She flung open the glass door to her office with élan. Zack, who’d been wandering around nervously, quickly turned around.

  “Where the hell have you been all weekend?” he yelled furiously. “Why don’t you answer your cell phone?”

  “Good morning, Zack,” Alex replied, pretending to be calm. “I was in the country. Did something happen?”

  “What’s going on with Syncrotron?”

  “Syncrotron?” Alex feigned astonishment. Zack’s face was as white as a ghost. He had dark circles under his eyes. There was nothing left of his arrogance and pride.

  “Yes, damn it! Are you deaf?”

  “Why are you so upset?” Alex sat down and began to look through the phone messages Marcia had placed neatly on her desk.

  “Here!” Zack slammed the newspaper that she’d already read on the table, sending her notes flying. He poked his finger at the article about Syncrotron’s bankruptcy so hard it seemed he wanted to pierce the tabletop. She shot a quick glance at the newspaper.

  “What idiot would buy stock in this company?” she said calmly. Zack went speechless, and his face turned bright red.

  “But…but…you…” he stammered, then gave her an uncomprehending look. Alex had never mentioned a single word about Syncrotron. He had just found a note on her desk and plans for an LBO in her computer.

  “I what?” Alex looked at him with her eyebrows raised, but on the inside she felt triumphant. Zack had stepped right into her trap without even checking the facts about Syncrotron, as any proper banker should have done. He stared at her with a murderous rage.

  “Why are you even upset?” Alex forced herself to smile. “We’re in no way involved with Syncrotron.”

  That was too much for Zack. He was so full of anger that he couldn’t even think straight anymore.

  “You worked on an LBO for Syncrotron!” It burst out of him. “I know for sure! The numbers looked good, and it seemed like a safe bet!”

  “Why would I have prepared an LBO for a company that was sure to go bankrupt soon? That would have been a total waste of time.” Alex shook her head unsympathetically. “What makes you think that?”

  “I…I’ve…I’m…” He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hands and then took a deep breath. “I saw the papers on your desk.”

  Alex couldn’t believe that he actually admitted to it.

  “If I understand you correctly, you snooped around in my desk,” she said. “Apart from that blatant lack of respect, I have to tell you that…”

  She paused and then slapped her hand against her forehead as if something had just occurred to her.

  “Ahh, now I know what you’re talking about!” she said. “I had a new potential client. It’s already been a couple of months; I think that I even told you about it. I did actually prepare some numbers for them. I just replaced their real name with an alias. Maybe I picked Syncrotron.”

  Zack looked as if he would faint at any second.

  “I do that frequently.” Alex smiled. “After all, I don’t want everyone to know right away what I’m working on.”

  Zack fell into the chair in
front of her desk and ran all ten fingers through his hair.

  “I can’t believe you snooped around my desk—”

  “Damn it!” Zack hissed, interrupting Alex. “Such stupid shit! You assign different names to your clients? That’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “Why are you so upset?” Alex acted dismayed. “It’s my decision how I code my projects.”

  Zack’s gaze wandered through the office aimlessly. This is how desperate investors must have looked after the crash on Black Monday, when they heard that they’d become penniless overnight.

  “I see.” Alex looked at him closely. “Don’t tell me that you’ve speculated on your own account? And you got smoked.”

  She leaned back.

  “Did you actually invest in other deals I told you about? That’s called insider trading.”

  “I could wring your neck,” he hissed through his clenched teeth. Then he jumped up and left her office. The smile vanished from Alex’s face. His fury removed any lingering doubts. Zack hadn’t shied away from breaking into her computer and rifling through her desk in order to find out what she was working on. She was part of a huge scheme, and that was the irrevocable truth.

  Alex gathered the messages and started to sort them. Sergio had tried to reach her. She had to call him now for tactical reasons, even though every part of her being opposed it. Since this morning, her aversion had turned to pure fear. She needed to pretend that she was outraged about Zack’s illegal dealings and his breach of trust. She needed to act normally. Under any circumstances, she couldn’t raise Sergio’s suspicions.

  After the bombing, a wave of compassion washed over the population—even those who didn’t support Nick Kostidis and his policies sincerely grieved for the mayor’s family. Countless people placed bouquets of flowers at the gate of Gracie Mansion and city hall. They lit candles and waited patiently in the sweltering summer heat to sign one of the condolence books. The bombing had been the feature story on TV and radio stations nationwide for the past ten days. Even the tiniest development was extensively covered. Wild speculation about the bombers’ motives circulated in the media, but little progress was made in getting to the truth. Outside city hall and Mount Sinai Hospital, concerned citizens and reporters waited patiently for news about the mayor’s health. All of the city’s churches and synagogues held services for the victims of the attack.

  Frank Cohen had lived through the worst ten days of his life. Since that fateful Sunday morning, he had been peppered with questions from all directions about the incident at Gracie Mansion. Although he wasn’t an eyewitness, agents and officers of the FBI, the NYPD, and the Department of State asked him the same questions over and over. Did Nick Kostidis have enemies? Of course he did—what a stupid question! Any man in his position had enemies. With his blunt candor, Nick had inevitably stepped on some toes.

  The worst thing about the endless questioning was that Frank actually knew who was behind this attack, but he couldn’t say a word until he had spoken to Nick. Filled with horror, he recalled the sight of Raymond Howard. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the man’s badly burned face. The explosion had ripped off both of his hands. It would have been more merciful if he had died right away.

  When the security officers rushed Nick into the house after the bomb went off, Frank rushed to Howard’s side. Just five minutes before, Ray Howard had been a good-looking man with a fit body, but now he was a horrific sight. His hair, his eyebrows—everything was burned. His skin looked as if it had shrunk. Ray looked like a mummy, but he was still alive. Despite his disgust, Frank leaned over him as the paramedic carefully wrapped the burned body in aluminum foil. Ray had extended what was left of his arm toward him, and the eyes in this cruelly disfigured face looked up at him in desperation. He tried over and over to tell him something before Frank finally understood. Ray was telling him who was responsible for the attack, but that was no surprise. The really shattering insight was that Ray Howard—who had been Frank’s colleague for six years and worked by his side almost every day—was the mole Nick had been so desperate to uncover.

  Frank Cohen took on the difficult task of calling the relatives. He called Mary’s sister Maureen, her parents, and the parents of Britney Edwards. He talked to the shocked and crying staff at Gracie Mansion, and then he drove to city hall to take on a responsibility that weighed heavily on his shoulders. All he wanted to do was hole up somewhere and cry. He worshiped Nick Kostidis like a father and it grieved Frank enormously that he couldn’t help him. But he couldn’t afford to collapse. He had to stay strong—unlike Allie Mitchell and many other members of the mayor’s staff. Everyone at city hall was paralyzed in the days after the attack, wondering how they could possibly go on with their work. Official events were canceled, and all flags in New York City flew at half-mast. Hundreds of condolence calls and letters flooded into the mayor’s office each day. It was a small consolation that there were kind-hearted people in this cold, monstrous city. Although he usually shunned public appearances, Frank rose to the challenge. He spoke to the press, helped the deputy mayor put a crisis team together, and kept a level head. He helped clean up the debris from the explosion after the police had concluded their investigation. Not a trace remained of Sunday’s tragedy, which had wiped out four lives and possibly destroyed another one forever.

  Vincent Levy and Sergio Vitali sat across from each other at La Côte Basque, a renowned French restaurant on West Fifty-Fifth Street. Levy felt the need to tell Sergio what went wrong with Syncotron after Alex clued him in. He would have preferred not to tell him, but new safety measures were in order that required discussion.

  “Unfortunately, Zack acted the fool,” Levy concluded his remarks.

  “This man is a weak link,” Sergio replied.

  “Yes. Unfortunately. Especially when it comes to Alex Sontheim,” Levy confirmed. “Sometimes it almost seems like he’s jealous of her success.”

  Sergio furrowed his brow in thought. Alex had been outraged when she called him, and he had to force himself to listen calmly and not scream at her. She was at Gracie Mansion as the mayor’s guest on Saturday night! Was she double-dealing? Why else hadn’t she told him about this invitation? What did she talk about with Kostidis? Did she know he was behind this bombing? He couldn’t afford to underestimate Alex under any circumstances. She was too clever. He couldn’t afford any mistakes, but at the moment, it seemed like she was provoking him to do exactly that. Because of St. John’s stupidity, she could be growing suspicious.

  “We need something that we can use against her,” Levy contemplated, “but what?”

  Sergio cleared his throat. He had been thinking about that for days. He knew that Levy was right.

  “We’ll open an account in her name and deposit money from deals that she closes for LMI. We’ll book a flight in her name to the Bahamas, send a woman who looks like her, and once the account is open we’ll have leverage against her.”

  “Hmm.” Levy pondered. “That sounds pretty good.”

  Sergio reached into his inner jacket pocket.

  “Here’s her passport,” he said. “I have too many things to deal with right now. Take care of St. John and see to it that things calm down. I don’t need any unnecessary problems right now.”

  “But…I…” Levy hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “Umm…I know that you and Alex…well…umm…”

  “I bang her every now and then.” Sergio kept a straight face. “So what? That doesn’t mean that I’m taking any business risk because of it. Do what you have to do. You have my blessing.”

  The hospital room was large and bright. It had a magnificent view across Central Park through the galvanized-steel wire mesh of the security windows, but Nick saw neither the green leaves nor the silvery shimmering lake. He sat slumped on a chair and stared aimlessly at the wall. His hands, with which he usually gestured so vividly, were bound and lay limply in his lap. The burn wounds on his face looked b
lood-red in comparison to the deathly pallor of his skin.

  Frank Cohen fought back tears when he saw his boss. Whoever had killed Nick’s family with the intention of getting to him had achieved his goal. The Nick Kostidis Frank knew had died the second they turned to ash. Frank wanted to say something to console him, something compassionate and understanding—something that Nick might have said in such a situation—but he couldn’t think of anything.

  “Hello,” Frank said timidly. Nick turned around slowly. Frank was shocked to see the dull, lifeless look in his bloodshot eyes. The burns and flesh wounds on his body would heal, but no one could possibly imagine the psychological scars.

  “Frank.” Nick’s voice sounded coarse and strange. The drugs had put him into a numb, deadened state. “Christopher’s car wouldn’t start,” he suddenly said. “I suggested that they take my car. They didn’t want to leave too late because of the heat.”

  Frank bit at his lip trying not to cry.

  “I insisted. I couldn’t possibly have known…” Nick stopped and took an agonized breath. “They’re dead now. And it’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s not,” Frank objected quietly.

  “Yes, it is. I didn’t take those letters seriously. I didn’t listen to Mary. It’s my fault that they had to die.”

  Nick’s face was expressionless. He seemed neither desperate nor close to a nervous breakdown. He was completely devoid of emotion, which was terrifying.

  “Ray was the mole I was looking for. He knew about the bomb in the car. He would have let me die, but he wanted to prevent my family from dying.”

  Frank swallowed and fought his tears.

  “Why? Why did he do that? I knew him for such a long time, and I trusted him.”

  Frank didn’t know how to respond. He’d asked himself this very same question over and over again.