Vanished

by Joseph Finder

  But the brass elevator doors gleamed, and the elevator cabin still smelled of warm brass machinery and old leather. It still ascended slowly yet smoothly, the whir and clunk of gears somehow reassuring.

  It seemed impossible, but the penthouse floor still had the aroma of my father’s pipe smoke.

  There were a lot more workers up here, buffing the granite floor and replacing broken tiles and retouching the paint. I’d once read a piece in The New York Times about how the Graystone Building had fallen upon hard times, its occupancy rate had fallen to under forty percent, and its owners had been looking to sell for years.

  It looked like the building had a new owner.

  A couple of carpenters, who were restoring the mahogany wainscoting in the elevator lobby, glanced at me without interest. I walked slowly down the hall to the big corner office.

  A woman was coming out: a tall, buxom blonde. Very attractive. Far more beautiful than the photo Dorothy had sent to my cell phone. I nodded, but she didn’t nod back.

  Empty of any furniture or carpets, its oak parquet floor covered with white dropcloths, the office seemed even more spacious than I’d remembered it.

  The sunlight flooded through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he stood, his back to me, looking out over Manhattan. His arms were spread, his hands pressed against the glass.

  I wondered whether he remembered that Dad sometimes used to stand exactly like that.

  He must have heard me enter, because he turned slowly. He flinched, but almost imperceptibly. Only a brother would have sensed it.

  “Hey, Red Man,” Roger said.

  98.

  I didn’t say anything.

  I approached, arms outspread, and when he opened his arms for a hug, I punched him in the stomach. Hard.

  He doubled over, glasses flying. For almost a minute he dry-heaved, clutching himself, head down, then he managed to stand erect, if unsteadily, crimson-faced.

  “That wasn’t very brotherly, Nick.”

  “No?” I said.

  He took a few faltering steps and picked up his glasses and put them back on.

  “Great view,” I said. “I’d forgotten how great.”

  “Best in the city, I always thought.”

  “You lease the whole floor? Just like Dad?”

  “Actually, Nick, I own the building,” he said softly. Proudly. “Good price, too. A very motivated seller.”

  “Nice.”

  “Did Lauren tell you where to find me?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Lauren’s done a far better job of protecting your role in this than you had any right to expect. No, I got your address from Candi. Or should I say, Margaret.”

  For a few seconds he looked stymied. He tilted his head to one side: his skeptical expression. I knew it well.

  “Oh, not from her personally. From her cell phone. In your booty e-mail.”

  “Booty e-mail?”

  “The secret e-mail addresses you and Candi used to arrange hook-ups.”

  “I thought I deleted all that stuff.”

  “It’s nice to be underestimated sometimes,” I said.

  “You’re good,” he said with a short laugh. “And, what? Once you got her cell number, you used some sort of private-eye hocus-pocus to find out where she’d made calls from? Including right here?”

  “Hocus-pocus,” I said, nodding. “Yep. Magic.” The GPS locator chip in the cell phone used by “Candi Dupont”-Margaret Desmond-had yielded the location of her phone calls to within fifty meters. Which gave me the building address pretty quickly. “Though I couldn’t decide where to look first: the old house in Bedford, or here. She called from both places. That surprised me, the Bedford house. I thought some rich hedge-fund manager bought it a couple of years ago. I didn’t think he’d want to sell so soon.”

  “Hedge funds are in trouble these days. Besides, everyone has a price.”

  I nodded. Smiled. Tell me about it, bro. “And sometimes the family has to pay it.”

  “Believe me, Lauren and Gabe aren’t going to suffer. They’re not exactly going to be paupers.”

  “Her payoff, right? Her divorce settlement? For all she did to help you?”

  “No, bro. Because I still love her.”

  “Heartwarming,” I said. “No one shows it the way you do. At least Dad didn’t arrange a hit on Mom before he disappeared.”

  “Oh, come on, Nick. You really think I’d hire someone to bash Lauren’s head in? What kind of guy do you think I am?”

  “I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

  “My guy was just supposed to knock her out. Nothing more than that.”

  “She almost died, you know. And then, thanks to you, Koblenz sent one of his guys to kill her. Who came very close to succeeding.”

  Roger looked ashamed suddenly. He hung his head. “She’s okay now. Thank God.”

  “Maybe. But not Gabe. After what you’ve put him through in the last couple of weeks. That leaves scars. Not that you care.”

  “Of course I care. I still love the kid. Lauren, too.”

  “What a guy.”

  “I did what I had to. To protect them.”

  “No,” I said. “You did what you did to try to pull off the greatest heist in history. Even if it meant a little collateral damage. Like Marjorie Ogonowski, who seemed to be the only friend you had at Gifford. You know about her by now, right?”

  I could tell from his expression that he knew about her murder. And me, I thought. I almost became his collateral damage, too. But I’d never give him the satisfaction of hearing me say it out loud. “Well, I guess you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, huh?”

  “I had no choice.”

  “So you staged the greatest vanishing act of all time,” I said. “With the help of a couple of guys you lured away from Paladin. While you were in the process of taking their company over. Well played.”

  “Actually, Nick, you disappointed me, I have to say. I was convinced you’d identify my ‘abductor’ ”-he made air quotes with two fingers on each hand-“as a Paladin employee.”

  “With a little more time we would have. The license plate was good enough to finger Paladin. Which was the point, wasn’t it?” Obviously, they’d switched plates with a Paladin vehicle. And meant for me, or someone, to locate that gas-station surveillance camera and make the connection. “Though I’m surprised you trusted any of those Paladin guys.”

  “They’re all for sale. Look who they work for. Whoever writes their paychecks buys their loyalty.”

  “So you had someone steal a body from a hospital morgue to set up your final trick,” I said. “No matter how it might traumatize your son.”

  A pained expression wracked his face. “That was unfortunate, but necessary.”

  “All to convince Gifford and Paladin that you were dead? Just to buy yourself a little time while you arranged to steal the company?”

  “Not just that. Also to protect Lauren and Gabe.”

  “Whose lives you endangered in the first place,” I pointed out.

  But he ignored that. “After Paladin started putting pressure on Lauren, I had no choice. She started panicking. I almost lost her. I had to keep her from giving the whole thing up. I mean, look, when it comes right down to it, she’s a mother first and foremost.”

  “Yeah,” I said dryly. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nick,” he said, “I’m sure you know the story about the family that’s hiding from the Nazis, right? They’re in the basement, or hiding under the floorboard-I forget, a mother and father and a couple of kids and a tiny infant. And the Nazi soldiers are searching the house-”

  “Yep,” I said impatiently. “And the baby starts to cry so the mother puts her hand over his mouth to stop his cries. Smothers her own child. Feels it go limp.”

  He nodded. “She kills her own baby to protect the rest of the family. A hard thing. A haunting thing. But what choice did she have? The life of a tiny child weighed against
the life of an entire family?”

  “You have a point?”

  “Whatever Gabe and Lauren had to endure, it was for their own protection.”

  “Protection? No. This was about bread crumbs.”

  “Bread crumbs?”

  “Easter eggs, maybe. Laying down a false trail for me.”

  “Well, not for you. For the cops or the FBI. I certainly never wanted Lauren to call you in. That was Gabe’s doing.”

  “Sorry to screw up your plans.”

  He shrugged. “But you didn’t. Not at all. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. See, diversion is a major part of every magic act. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

  I thought of the story that Victor and Lauren both told about Roger’s attempt to extort money from Paladin-which I doubted was true. He was after far more than ten million dollars. And everything buried just deep enough that I’d have to dig. Which made it all plausible. And then I thought of that “missing” billion dollars in cash, which Stoddard put me onto, which led me to Carl Koblenz, and I knew that Roger had somehow set that up as well. All in the interests of creating a false trail that pointed toward Paladin. But why? To neutralize them? To keep the heat on them? That part I hadn’t figured out yet.

  “So you hired the cargo guy yourself,” I said. “To steal the container. Which you knew Paladin was shipping.”

  He tipped his head to one side modestly. “And gave him Koblenz’s cell phone number to use only in case of an emergency.” He chuckled. “I can only imagine what Koblenz would have said if he’d gotten a call from the guy.”

  “What if Stoddard hadn’t put me on the job?” I said.

  “Why would he assign anyone else? Leland Gifford specifically requested you.” He gave me a wink, and I immediately understood that it was actually Lauren who’d put in the request, in her boss’s name. “I knew I could count on my little brother to protect me like you always did. That’s the thing about families. Even when we grow up, we play the same roles.”

  “And yours was always as Dad’s Mini-Me. Has he been pulling the strings the whole time from his prison cell? The greatest swindle of his career? He wanted his empire back, didn’t he? Probably his idea, too, this whole scam.”

  “Give me a little more credit than that, Nick.”

  “I do. You always saw Dad for what he was.”

  “You can’t be disillusioned if you never had any illusions to begin with.”

  “And you couldn’t have done this without him.”

  “Probably not,” Roger admitted. “I know a lot about offshore finance. But he really knows all the ins and outs. His firm was structured just like Gifford Industries, you know. Both family firms, both privately held by offshore entities. For tax reasons. Liability reasons.”

  “I see,” I said. “So you convinced Leland Gifford to restructure his company after he acquired Paladin, right?”

  “You been going to night school, Nick? You got it. I told Gifford he had to create another layer of offshore insulation, in order to shield himself from liability. He knew about all the kickbacks Paladin gave the Pentagon. He was smart enough to see that, with a new president in the White House, the worm was turning. He knew he might have to take the fall. He could be facing Congressional hearings, maybe even prison time, if he wasn’t protected. So he did what I urged him to do. He temporarily transferred beneficial ownership.”

  “‘Beneficial ownership,’” I said. “In other words, the title to the company. To all of Gifford Industries, which included its new subsidiary, Paladin. Am I right? Since Gifford’s privately held?”

  “And I always thought you had no interest in finance.”

  “Just the bare minimum,” I said. “Just enough to catch the assholes.”

  “Just enough knowledge to be dangerous, huh?”

  “Guess that makes me dangerous, Roger. So-what, you had to disappear until the transfer became permanent? Until the mandatory waiting period had expired?”

  “And everyone always said I was the smart one.” He smiled with what could almost pass for admiration.

  “But you couldn’t have pulled this off without the RaptorCard,” I said. “Having your name on the paperwork was only part of it. You also had to transfer the company’s assets to your own personal accounts, right? Which is why you needed me to break in there and steal it.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “You almost screwed the whole thing up.”

  “Sorry to hear it. How so?”

  “I gave Koblenz’s admin a boatload of money to go into his safe and get me the RaptorCard. Would have gone much more smoothly if you hadn’t broken in and stolen the damn thing. So I had to improvise.”

  “Well done,” I said, and I meant it. I continued leading him along: “But I’m still not clear about something. That fake swap-trading you for the RaptorCard-how’d you know for sure I actually had it?”

  Roger hesitated, but only for an instant. “Koblenz.”

  “I see.” I saw the lie at once, but I didn’t pursue it. I knew the truth. “Well, you finally got your payback, didn’t you?”

  “Payback?”

  “Leland Gifford never really respected you. Never promoted you. I guess you got the job you deserved all along. So what happens to Leland Gifford now? You’re going to park him in a nursing home somewhere? Give him a monthly allowance?”

  “Don’t worry about Leland Gifford. I paid him off handsomely. He’ll retire an extremely wealthy man. But I’m keeping him on. I’m not really an operational guy.”

  “And he’s not going to talk anyway, is he? It’s not in his interest.”

  “Very good. You got it. If the details of Paladin’s kickback arrangements with the Pentagon ever became public, the spigot would get turned off. The Defense Department would be forced to cancel all of its contracts. Paladin would be worthless. Gifford would lose his multibillion-dollar investment in his own company. So he’s better off with some money than nothing. It’s win-win.”

  “You seem relaxed and calm,” I said. “Secure, even. You really think you’re safe?”

  “Who’s going to come after me? Gifford? Granger? Koblenz? They all work for me now.”

  “Tell that to Allen Granger. He lives in fear of his own employees.”

  “That’s why I’m keeping him on. Let them all think he’s still their boss. Some of these ex-military guys are crazy.”

  “I’m an ex-military guy. Don’t forget.”

  “But you’re not crazy.”

  “Not everyone would agree with that. Anyway, bear in mind, people aren’t always rational when they get angry. And you’ve got a lot of enemies.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about yourself?”

  I shrugged.

  “What are you going to do, kill your own brother?”

  “No,” I said, after waiting just long enough to make him nervous. “I’d never do that. But some courts might consider what you did theft. Criminal, even. Crazy as it might sound.”

  “Who’s going to charge me with theft? Leland Gifford? He doesn’t want to go to prison. He’d be liable for all of the kickbacks Paladin made, because he knew about them. From the due diligence I did. I made sure to let him know.”

  I nodded slowly, felt for the cell phone in my pocket, looked up. “For all the due diligence you did, you’re entrusting your entire financial empire to some fleabag offshore bank? Really, Roger. That’s where you really blew it. Don’t you realize how quickly those offshore havens fold when the U.S. government puts the squeeze on them? Look what happened to Nauru.”

  Roger always hated it when I knew more than him about anything. “Yeah?” he said. “You consider Barclays, B.V.I., fleabag? Come on, bro. Nothing but the best.”

  “Barclays in the British Virgin Islands?” I said. “That’s in, what, Tortola? All right. I underestimated you.”

  He smiled. “You know, Nick, there was an ancient Chinese philosopher who once said that battles are always won or lost befo
re they’re fought.”

  “Someone told me that,” I said. “You know a lot about war, Roger?”

  “Just theoretically. And just enough to be dangerous. So are we done here, bro? Because I have a lot of work to do. I’ve got a conference call scheduled, and we don’t even have phones yet.”

  “Almost,” I said. “Hold on a second.”

  I pulled out my BlackBerry.

  “Can you repeat that again?” I said.

  Roger looked at me, bewildered. “Repeat what?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was talking to my phone.” The cell phone in my pocket had been on and transmitting our conversation to Dorothy the whole time. It took her just a few seconds to pull up the SWIFT code for Barclays’ British Virgin Islands branch. As she read it to me again, slowly, I typed the numbers into a message field on my BlackBerry.

  I’ve always hated Bluetooth headsets-I don’t like walking around with a thing clipped to my ear like an extra in a Star Trek movie-but the one I was wearing was nonstandard. It was one of Merlin’s government-grade miniature earbuds. Roger’d never noticed it.

  “There we go,” I said, this time to Roger. I smiled, held up the BlackBerry. “The cool thing about the RaptorCard,” I said, “is how easy it is to build in a backdoor, if you know what you’re doing. Every single transaction you made, it sent me a copy. Right here.”

  Roger didn’t seem to know how to react. I could see the skepticism mixed with anxiety. “Yeah,” he said. “Like you know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, not me,” I admitted. “But one of my colleagues. Comes in handy to have friends sometimes. Now, watch closely. Nothing up my sleeve.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” A tendril of panic had entered his voice. Slowly he came around to my side of his desk. “What’s this all about? Because I did what you were too much of a candy ass to do?”