The Italian Divide

by Allan Topol

  “I don’t operate that way. People on my staff have thoroughly studied Turin Credit. We’re convinced it’s an excellent bank with dedicated employees. I want to keep it that way.”

  “Will you change the direction of the business?”

  “Right now the bank is strong in Italy, Western Europe, and the Middle East. I would like to expand into Asia and Latin America. Those areas have the potential for growth.”

  “Would that mean transferring employees out of Italy?”

  “Some perhaps, but I envision an overall gain in employment here.”

  Carlo looked over his note pad.

  “Anything else I can tell you?” Craig asked.

  “Where can I find information about the Philoctetes Group?”

  Craig gave him his card. “Check our website.”

  He and Betty had revised it before he returned to Italy. He was confident it would withstand scrutiny.

  “Elizabeth was right,” Carlo said. “This is big news. It’ll be on the front page of Italy Today tomorrow morning.”

  “Good. I’ll look for the article.”

  “By the way, where will you be staying in Italy? In case I want to check any facts or talk to you again.”

  “I’ll be moving around a lot, but when in Turin, I’ll be at the Grand Hotel Sitea”.

  “Am I allowed to say that in the article?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Same reason I don’t want any pictures. I’m afraid I may be a target. I don’t want to make it easy for anyone to find me.”

  Craig had to stick with his story, but he realized that disclosing his hotel in the article was irrelevant. There were only a couple of luxury hotels in Turin, which was where a private equity high roller would stay. He was registered under the name Barry Gorman. By tapping into hotel computers or making a couple of phone calls, Zhou or his goons could find out where Craig was staying. That was okay with Craig. He wanted Zhou to launch his attack against Barry Gorman.

  As soon as Craig separated from Carlo, he called Giuseppe.

  “Any news about Ilana Goldoni?” he said anxiously.

  “Not a thing. We have a large force on the case. They’ve combed the entire Bologna area. Absolutely no trace of her. They’re expanding the perimeter of their search.”

  “Have the parents heard anything from the kidnappers?”

  “Not a word.”

  “That confirms what I thought,” Craig said grimly. “Zhou is waiting for Goldoni to contact McKnight who is no doubt back in Hong Kong which will never extradite him. He’s waiting for Alberto to tell McKnight he’s ready to sell.”

  “I agree with you. That means we have to move quickly. At some point, Zhou may decide Ilana’s not giving him the leverage he wants and kill her.”

  Paris

  Unless it was raining hard in the evening, Elizabeth walked from her office at the International Herald across the Jardin des Tuileries and across the Pont de la Concorde to her apartment just off Boulevard St. Germain on the left bank. This evening there was fog and a little drizzle. Not enough to keep her from walking.

  As she cut across the Tuileries, it was a little after ten in the evening. Elizabeth was deep in thought, recalling the numerous Italian news stories she had seen today—all announcing how much of a commanding lead Parelli had. She also tried to think of how she could get the critical information she needed linking Parelli to Zhou so she could destroy Parelli’s campaign.

  Because it was nighttime, only a scattering of people were walking on the paths that cut across the well-tended grass. She heard footsteps behind her.

  When she turned, she saw two young men who appeared to be Chinese in the dim light. They were both close to six feet tall and powerfully built, and were about twenty yards behind her. She felt a surge of anxiety, but told herself not to become paranoid. There were plenty of Chinese people in Paris. All of them weren’t working for Zhou.

  Still, she recalled what had happened at Beijing Airport. Zhou was definitely after her. Ever since she and Craig split up twenty-one months ago, and Zhou’s men followed her, she had grown accustomed to keeping a gun with her at all times. She reached into the bag draped over her shoulder. She felt around until she clasped the .22 in her hand. At the same time, she increased her pace.

  She strained her ears to listen. The two men were walking faster as well. She began to run. They were running, too. And they were faster.

  She realized that with the risk of attack by Zhou she had been foolish to take such a deserted route home. She would have been better staying on wide boulevards with pedestrians. But it was too late to dwell on that.

  If she made it to the Place de la Concorde, which would be brightly lit with lots of traffic and pedestrians, she’d be safe. She gauged the distance and how rapidly they were catching up.

  Damn. I’ll never make it.

  If the two men were after her, she didn’t want to give them the advantage of attacking from behind. She suddenly stopped and pivoted to face them. As she did, she saw one of them pull a metal pipe about three feet long from inside his jacket. He raised his arm with the pipe. There was no longer any question about their motives.

  She guessed at their plan. One would tackle and hold her. The other would beat her with the pipe.

  She glanced around anxiously, but didn’t see anyone. Shouting for help was pointless. They were moving up fast. Only ten yards away now.

  She yanked the gun out of her bag and aimed it at them. They stopped dead in their tracks, stunned.

  Taking advantage of their indecision, she fired a round into the air. Then she lowered the gun and aimed it at them again. They must realize, she thought, if they come at her at the same time, she’d never be able to hit both of them.

  She watched the men closely. Neither made a move. Close up they seemed younger, not even twenty. Perhaps they weren’t hardened thugs, but students in Paris whom one of Zhou’s men had recruited.

  “Get the hell out of here,” she shouted in French, “or I’ll kill both of you.”

  To drive home her message, she fired two shots at the ground, one to the left the two men, the other to the right.

  “The next shots will be right at you. Now run before I shoot.”

  She held her breath.

  They turned and ran in the direction they’d come.

  Elizabeth realized it wouldn’t be safe to stay in her apartment. She’d have to move to Craig’s suite at the Bristol. She’d have to work from there for the next few days. That was alright with her, but first she wanted to stop at home and pick up some clothes and toiletries to take with her.

  Elizabeth turned around and ran across the Tuileries. As soon as she reached the Place de la Concorde, with its Egyptian obelisk in the center, she hailed a cab. Before getting in, she looked around. No sign of the two Chinese men.

  She gave the driver her apartment address.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled up in front of the four story old gray stone building. She asked him to wait. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  When he grumbled, she handed him twenty euros and said “Keep the meter running.”

  She dashed out of the cab.

  Climbing the steps to her second floor apartment, key in hand, she had second thoughts about the wisdom of stopping here.

  I’m being stupid. Zhou might have people waiting in the apartment.

  She should have gone right to the Bristol. She could have bought what she needed.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  Still, she refused to turn and run away. She pulled out her gun again and dropped her bag on the floor while she unlocked the thick wooden door. It creaked when she slowly opened it. After entering the apartment, she closed the door and slipped on the chain lock.

  As she looked around inside, the words, “Holy shit,” came out of her mouth. Her apartment was a total mess. Drawers had been opened and the contents spilled out. The cushions on the sofa were cut, the television screen shattered.

  Gun in han
d, she walked into the other two rooms, her bedroom and the study. Nobody was there, but those rooms had been ransacked as well. Her computer had been destroyed. Fortunately, her laptop had been in her bag. Her clothes were strewn everywhere. Some had been ripped and cut.

  The damage was a vicious act. Enraged, she wanted to shout and cry.

  She forced herself to think rationally. What did Zhou and his men hope to accomplish?

  It seemed unlikely they were looking for something on her computer or in her apartment. Nothing valuable was taken to make it appear that it was a break-in by burglars.

  No, that wasn’t it. Fearful they might not find her to kill her, the men must have done this damage to frighten and intimidate her. Well, they were sorely mistaken if they thought this would persuade Elizabeth to break off her investigation into Zhou’s relationship with Parelli. It had the opposite effect, making her more determined to get the truth and publish it.

  Quickly, she grabbed a duffel. Inside, she stuffed some clothes that hadn’t been destroyed and some cosmetics.

  She was preparing to leave the apartment when she heard men’s voices speaking Chinese in the hallway on the other side of the door.

  One of them inserted a key or a burglar’s tool in the lock. In horror, she watched the door begin to open. Then the chain lock stopped it. They would easily smash through that, Elizabeth decided.

  With her bag in one hand and the duffel in the other, she ran to her bedroom in the back, closing the door behind her. She threw open the window leading to a small verandah and tossed the bag and duffel over the railing to the grassy patch below. She took off her shoes and let them fall to the ground as well. Then she climbed over the railing and lowered herself down while holding on. Once her arms were fully stretched, she let go and jumped. As soon as she hit the ground, she rolled to break her fall. Quickly, she grabbed her shoes, the bag, and duffel, and ran to the waiting cab in front.

  She told the driver to drop her at the corner of Rue St. Honore and Franklin Roosevelt. She wanted to walk the last six blocks to the Bristol, to make sure she wasn’t being followed.

  As she walked, she realized she would need Craig to give his authorization to the Bristol for her to use his suite, but she didn’t want to use her own phone.

  In the Bristol lobby she explained her situation to Eric, the front office manager. He immediately called Craig on a Bristol phone, then gave her a key, and led her up to the suite.

  She had eluded Zhou again, but she realized she was pushing her luck.

  Beijing

  The news of Barry Gorman’s competing offer for Alberto’s stock hit Zhou like a ton of bricks. He never saw it coming.

  He was perplexed and dismayed as he read the online version of Carlo Fanti’s article in Italy Today, which McKnight had forwarded to him electronically.

  In response, he called McKnight and screamed at him, “Why didn’t you close the deal with Alberto? You’re an incompetent piece of dog shit.”

  “I tried. Believe me,” McKnight stammered. “Do you want me to make a higher offer to Alberto? Go up to 30?”

  Zhou was thinking. Something didn’t seem right about the Barry Gorman offer. For starters, Barry Gorman had told Carlo Fanti that Victoria Bank of Hong Kong had made the initial offer and exactly how much that offer was. Yet the offer hadn’t been announced publicly. Gorman could only have gotten it from Alberto, but Alberto knew his life was on the line as well as his daughter Ilana’s. Even if Alberto had gotten another legitimate offer out of the blue from Gorman, he wouldn’t have given Gorman the details of the Victoria Bank offer. If he had, he would have made Gorman keep that confidential.

  Alberto had to be afraid for his life, and Ilana’s as well, unless … unless all this was being manipulated by the authorities who had offered Alberto protection and were trying to find Ilana. The more Zhou thought about what was happening the more it smelled like a fish in a house after five days. Alberto had to be cooperating with the authorities to encourage Zhou to make a mistake and to lower the boom on him.

  Zhou told McKnight. “Don’t make another offer right now. ‘Sit tight.’”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you question my judgment. I said sit tight.”

  Zhou hung up the phone and called in Chi Fan, his director of financial research. Chi was a tall, thin man in his fifties with black-framed glasses and a leathery face. “I want you to find out everything you can about a private equity firm based in San Francisco called Philoctetes Group and a principal in that firm by the name of Barry Gorman.”

  “How soon do you need it, Honorable Zhou?”

  “In one hour.”

  Without hesitating, Chi replied, “You’ll have it, then, Honorable Zhou.”

  That pleased Zhou. He liked subordinates to do what they were told.

  While waiting for Chi, Zhou called Qing Li in Paris. “What happened with Elizabeth Crowder?”

  “At first, my men couldn’t get their hands on her so they wrecked her apartment to scare her into breaking off her investigation of Parelli. Later they found her. They planned to beat her to death, but they failed.”

  “What happened?”

  “She pulled a gun and chased them off.”

  “Fools! Where is she now?”

  “They lost her.”

  “You should toss them both into the Seine with concrete in their boots.”

  “I already sent them back to Beijing. They will be disciplined there. I’ve gotten two men from the state security branch at our embassy in Paris. They are now watching her apartment and office.”

  “Good. Let me know when they find her.”

  When Chi returned to Zhou’s office, he was holding a stack of papers, as well as a small computer. Zhou pointed to the chair in front of his desk and Chi sat down.

  “What did you find out about the Philoctetes Group and Barry Gorman?” Zhou demanded.

  “Very mysterious, Honorable Zhou.”

  “That tells me a lot.”

  “To be more precise, there was no Philoctetes Group until twenty-one months ago.”

  “So what? New private equity groups start up all the time in the United States.”

  “I realize that. Barry Gorman’s resume is the problem. It lists schools he graduated from, Stanford and Harvard Business School, and two investment banking firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, that he worked with before he started Philoctetes Group.”

  “And?”

  “I had one of my people hack into the computers of Stanford and Harvard and also the employee records of the two investment banking firms. There’s no record of Barry Gorman in any of those. That’s why I said very mysterious.”

  “Well, well, well.”

  Zhou stood up and paced around the office thinking about what he had just heard.

  After a few moments, he said, “You were right. It is very mysterious. Good work.”

  Chi held out his papers. “Would you like to see the results of my work, Honorable Zhou?”

  Zhou shook his head and dismissed Chi.

  Alone in his office, Zhou leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought some more. As he did, the cloak of mystery gradually lifted.

  Barry Gorman was a fictional creation. He had an American name, spoke like an American during the Carlo interview, and had American schools and companies in his bio. Who could have done that? Had to be someone in the United States. That meant Barry Gorman was a CIA creation.

  Zhou said the letters “C – I – A” aloud. Immediately, he thought of Craig Page.

  To Zhou, the Barry Gorman ploy sounded like something Craig Page would have done. Elizabeth Crowder was in this up to her eyeballs. She and Page had always worked together. And Page would have done anything he could to get even with Zhou because of the death of his daughter and because he would never be safe while Zhou was alive.

  Zhou was convinced that Barry Gorman was Craig Page. He had to know for sure.

  He picked up the phone and called Winst
on Tyler, the US Secretary of the Treasury in Washington. “You must come to Beijing immediately,” Zhou told Tyler. “It concerns your new bond issue.”

  After a momentary pause, Tyler responded. “This is not a good time for me. I am scheduled to testify before Congress.”

  Zhou refused to take no for an answer. Nor could he afford a delay. Establishing that Barry Gorman was Craig Page was the most important thing for him. He replied, “And it may not be a good time for me to roll over the bonds and participate in your new issue.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Tyler said. “We agreed when I was in Beijing that—”

  “Agreements are always subject to renegotiation. If selling your bond issue isn’t important enough for you to come to Beijing, well, then …”

  “How about next week?” Tyler asked.

  Zhou was convinced Tyler was so anxious to sell his bonds and so gutless that he would yield. He said, “Sorry Professor, you must come now.”

  After another pause, Tyler capitulated. “Okay, I’ll leave today.”

  “Excellent. Email me your ETA.”

  When Zhou put down the phone, he was satisfied. At least one thing was going right: he was able to manipulate Tyler. The American treasury secretary was now critical to Zhou.

  While waiting for Tyler, Zhou refused to stand still. He reread Carlo’s interview with Barry Gorman. Probably the man was Craig Page. Then Zhou had to kill him to avenge his brother’s death. Even in the unlikely event that he wasn’t Barry Gorman, he still posed a threat to Zhou. The man was an obstacle to Zhou closing the deal for Alberto’s stock. Either way, Barry Gorman had to die.

  Zhou summoned one of his computer experts. “I want you to find out where Barry Gorman is staying in Turin, Italy. It’s likely to be one of the luxury hotels.”

  Ten minutes later, Zhou had the response. “Grand Hotel Sitea in Turin.”

  He called Qing again. “I want you to leave your people in Paris searching for Elizabeth. You should fly to Turin immediately. A man using the name of Barry Gorman is staying at the Grand Hotel Sitea in Turin. At least some of the time. If he’s there now, I want you to kill him. If he’s not, I want to stay there until he returns. Then kill him.”