Category 7

by Evans, Bill; Jameson, Marianna

  CHAPTER 20

  Friday, July 13, 7:20 P.M., Financial District,

  New York City

  Like so many days so far this summer, it had been beautifully clear. The New York City sky had displayed its best keep-the-tourists-happy blue and the only clouds in evidence had begun life as contrails. Slow upper-atmosphere winds had diffused them slowly throughout the day, turning the heavens into a canvas of high, castellanus cirrus clouds, what some ancient, poetic skywatcher had christened “mare’s tails.” They lay before the setting sun, ready to be painted with colors at the higher end of the spectrum. It would be a gorgeous night. The carriages in Central Park would have waiting lines half a block long, and from Harlem to TriBeCa the streets would be teeming with life as the city gave up the heat of the day and let the night air cool it down.

  Kate turned away from her window, thirty floors above Wall Street and the massive hole in the ground near it, and looked again at the documents open on her computer screen. She had at least a few more hours of reading and number crunching to do, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. She had friends to meet and music to hear.

  Set so near the water, Battery Park would be balmy and breezy, and she was going to enjoy the night. If the music wasn’t any good, at least the conversation would be. And she’d even be doing a good deed by introducing Elle to some new people. Feeling pretty good about herself, Kate started putting away her files and closing down her computer.

  Ever since that quick conversation with Davis Lee at the party in Iowa, where he’d given her permission to present her paper, she’d been making notes and crunching data for her talk whenever she could spare the time. The three storm events that had triggered the paper would seem ordinary to a layman, and maybe even at first glance to most meteorologists. After all, a hailstorm in Montana, a flood in Minnesota, and a straight-line windstorm in Oklahoma were hardly unusual given the time of year and the geographical locations. That’s probably why no one but she seemed bothered by them, she thought with annoyance. But they’d cost her traders some calls, and that was never a trivial thing. Coriolis didn’t have the reputation it did because it made bad calls; its reputation was based on performance. High, reliable, consistent performance that rested on her group’s ability to give the traders the right advice within the right time frame.

  Early dry runs of her presentation had come up five minutes short of the allotted time. She always talked too fast when she was nervous, and speaking in front of groups always made her nervous. And if she was five minutes short of material while talking to her bathroom mirror, that might translate to fifteen minutes in front of a crowd. That’s why she’d decided to include data about the Caribbean storm that had nearly knocked Richard off the roof and, thank God for coincidences, even tragic ones, that freak storm that had just happened in Death Valley. And now she could add Simone’s escalation. She just hoped what she said would start to chew away at somebody else’s brain. Someone with some answers.

  “Darlin’, you need a man.”

  Kate smiled at the sound of Davis Lee’s deep Southern voice and swiveled to face him. As bosses go, she couldn’t wish for a better one. He was easygoing, paid her lots of money to do what she loved to do, and stayed out of her way. “I don’t need a man; I need a wife. Men just cause trouble. I need June Cleaver.”

  He laughed, stepped into her office, and settled himself in the same chair Elle had sat in earlier in the day. It was the only one that wasn’t stacked high with manila folders, bound reports, and printouts from the plotter. “What’s keeping you here so late, Miz Kate?”

  “Notes on the mystery storms.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I hope delivering this paper will mean that you let it go, Kate. I can pretty much guarantee there will be other ones down the road you’ll find just as strange,” he replied, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

  The comment brought a quick frown to her face, but she gave herself a shake and looked him up and down. “Where were you? Client meetings?”

  He nodded, his expression either bored or tired, and let out a slow breath. Everything he had on, from his suit to his shoes, was conservative and probably custom-made. He exuded confidence and good taste and was every inch a high-level Wall Streeter.

  She pointed to the leather gym bag blocking her doorway. “You came here straight from Kennedy on a Friday night and you think I need a social life?”

  “I came from Westchester. Smaller airport, shorter lines. And yes, I think you need a social life. I’m going out later. I’ll bet you’re not.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she leaned back in her chair. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Glad to hear it, because all work and no play makes Kate—”

  “I’m not dull; I’m determined, Davis Lee. There is something very odd about those three storms beyond the fact that I failed to predict them,” she said, raising a hand to silence his argument before he could launch it. “But that fact alone is a big deal because, first of all, I don’t like to make mistakes. Secondly, if I can figure out why I missed them, I’ll be able to be more accurate the next time those conditions arise. Thirdly, I like to maintain my street cred around here. And fourth, the company lost out on some sweet money because of my inability to predict them.”

  “The company comes fourth in line? I thought you were a company gal.”

  “Davis Lee?”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes, then gave another silent laugh. “You must’ve been hell on wheels growing up.”

  “You have no idea. So, I believe this is customary about now.” She reached into her bottom desk drawer and pulled out a three-quarters-full bottle of Macallan single malt and watched Davis Lee’s eyebrows rise.

  “Well, damn. Just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me anymore.”

  “This okay with you?”

  “I’m generally a bourbon man, honey, but I’ll make an exception. I’m not sure which question to ask first, why you’ve got it there or what happened to the first few fingers of it?”

  She laughed. “Why don’t you go over to the kitchen and get a few coffee mugs and some ice cubes and I’ll tell you.”

  He obliged her, then reseated himself.

  “It was a Christmas present,” she said, pouring two healthy drinks into the logoed mugs. “And the giver drank it. I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “Now that’s a damned shame.” He accepted the offered mug with a nod. “How am I supposed to take advantage of you then?”

  “Like any other guy would. Dazzle me with expensive gifts and get me drunk on luxury,” she said drily. “Now, do you want to hear more about the mystery storms? Or was there something else you wanted to talk about?”

  “A combination of the two.”

  “Don’t be cryptic.”

  He took a sip from the mug, then set it on the stack of papers next to his chair. “Since you’re hell-bent on some sort of confessional track, I won’t lie to you, Kate. Not everyone missed those storms.”

  The man whose eyes met hers was the real Davis Lee, the financial wizard and smooth politician with the pedigree of a Georgia aristocrat and the survival instincts of a subway rat. That was the Davis Lee she trusted.

  Ordinarily.

  Right now something in his tone made her wary, and like a cold breeze on a warm day, it was unexpected and unwelcome.

  “What do you mean, not everyone?” she asked.

  “There were one or two deals called against your advice. Successful deals.”

  That chill, wary breeze brushed past her again. She shivered this time. “Whose deals?”

  His glance flicked over her. “Mine.”

  The word might as well have been an angry hand across her face. She snapped bolt upright in her chair. “You ordered deals against my advice? You?”

  “Don’t look so stunned. I was raised on a farm. I know a few things about weather.”

  “Excuse my candor, Davis Lee, but you know jack shit about weat
her,” she protested, not caring that his expression changed from tired to annoyed at her blunt pronouncement. “What made you go against my advice?”

  “Kate—”

  “Don’t patronize me, Davis Lee. This is not good news. I want answers.”

  “The only answers that matter are the results.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment. His unsubtle warning didn’t change her thinking. She knew—knew—there was something very wrong about those storms, but looking for that something wasn’t reason enough to threaten her. Or shouldn’t be.

  She thought of Richard’s warning and, fighting a shiver, broke eye contact and looked out the window at the darkening sky.

  Kate looked like she’d just finished a sprint, as if there was too much adrenaline and not enough oxygen in her blood. That was fine. He’d let her poach in her own hot water for as long as she needed to.

  Davis Lee leaned back in the chair in Kate’s cluttered office and took another sip of the scotch. How anybody could stand the stuff was beyond him. It smelled worse than a mange bath and tasted like kerosene. A nice, smooth bourbon, like the eighteen-year-old Elijah Craig he had waiting for him in his own office, was what he would have preferred, but it went against a Southerner’s nature to turn down a hospitable invitation. Besides, he had business to discuss, and this sort of business was always better conducted with a drink in hand and no one else around.

  “What were the results?” she asked eventually, turning to face him.

  “We didn’t make a lot on the calls. The other side made some money.”

  The “other side” was Coriolis Engineering Corporation, the older sister to the boutique investment firm Kate worked for, Coriolis Management. CEC specialized in cleaning up and rebuilding disaster-stricken areas, so her reports made it to the CEC planners’ desks, too.

  Her surprise was fading. She sank back into her chair and picked up a pen to fiddle with. “You told them what you were doing?”

  “No, they spun on a dime after the fact.”

  She went quiet again for nearly a minute. “So all the staff meteorologists missed these storms and you—”

  There was a line between stubborn and stupid, and Kate was closer to crossing it than he ever thought she’d get. He shook his head and lifted the mug of scotch to his mouth. “Kate, don’t split hairs. It’s not helping anything, including your career,” he replied over the rim, and watched her sit up straight again.

  Okay, that one sunk in.

  “My career? Davis Lee—”

  “Carter’s the one who caught your mistakes, Kate,” he lied without preamble, and watched her recoil as if he’d poked her with a live wire. Her brown eyes widened with surprise and she started gearing up for another fight instantly.

  “What do you mean he ‘caught’ them?” she demanded.

  That firecracker personality would have sat better on a redhead than a dirty blonde, he thought lazily. He set the mug on her mess of a desk, folded his hands behind his head as if he were settling in for a chat, and kept his eyes, half lidded, trained on hers.

  “He reviews everything. Tracks some things. Always has.” He shrugged. “He tracked those storms and differed with your opinion.”

  As he’d anticipated, she stayed quiet. No doubt she was busy calculating the odds of keeping her job.

  “It’s damned convenient that we have the construction side of the business to offset the investment side sometimes,” he continued. “But when these sorts of things happen, especially clustered like these were, it glows like a big red ‘kick-me’ sign in his eyes.” He let out a heavy sigh. “You know I don’t like having to ‘manage’ you, Kate, and that’s why I let you be. But I have to warn you, darlin’. You’re on his radar screen now, and that’s not a good place to be.”

  “But you don’t want me to try to find the problem?”

  She was incredulous and he wished she weren’t. That she was too damned stubborn by half was only part of her problem. Not knowing when to keep her mouth shut, that was the other.

  “That’s right. I don’t,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  For Christ’s sake, woman, stand down. “It’s a matter of perspective, Kate. One perspective is that there’s an environmental variable out there that went undetected for each storm.” He paused for a beat. “Another is that the one constant across the three storms was the forecaster.” He took another sip of the mange bath and tried to look sympathetic.

  She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and maintained eye contact, but the hand gripping the pen was white-knuckled.

  It was a good start.

  “Cut to the chase, Davis Lee. Am I a short-timer?” she demanded after a moment.

  “Not yet. It hasn’t happened often enough. But the next time might make it often enough.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Pay attention to what matters, Kate, and that’s the future. Move on. The word is ‘focus.’”

  She let out a harsh breath and reached for the mug, then lifted it to her lips. “If I focus any more both of my eyes will merge into one,” she muttered.

  Mission accomplished.

  Davis Lee stood up, then bent to pick up his duffle with one hand and his scotch with the other. “Duck and cover, Kate. I have no idea what the hell it is you do, so I can’t tell you how to do it better. Buy some new software. Get some new hardware. Hire another college kid. Just stay crouched in the tall grass and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It would be a damned shame to lose you.”

  He walked out of her office, crossed the quiet and mostly empty trading floor it flanked, and headed for the kitchen, where he dumped the remains of the scotch in the sink and rinsed out the mug. Once back in his own office at the far end of the floor, he shut the door and poured himself a real drink in the short, heavy, chilled Baccarat tumblers he favored. Settling into his chair, he let God’s gift to Southerners slide down his throat and swiveled to watch the darkening city come to life.

  Why the hell was Kate getting her panties in a bunch? The whole conversation had been bullshit, designed to rattle her branches. Carter didn’t give a rat’s ass about missing those storms, but she’d set herself up for it by going on about them. Who the hell knew if it would work. The woman was a street fighter. A bird dog that wouldn’t come in from the field despite a lack of prey.

  She hated to lose, hated to fail. She might be unpredictable, but her results were pretty damned consistent, which made the firms’ margins consistently high. That’s why he needed her focused on her job and not trailing her fingers in water best left alone. He couldn’t afford to lose her, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. There was no point in letting her get cocky.

  Davis Lee swirled his drink, idly listening to the two artificial ice cubes bump dully against the crystal. Real ice would have sounded better, but he preferred the taste of liquid gold unsullied.

  Sooner or later Kate would figure out that Carter Thompson didn’t care about the odd failure as long as he profited somewhere along the line. And it was rare that he didn’t.

  The story was that Carter was a poor farm boy from Iowa who put himself through school working construction sites until he’d started getting enough scholarships and grants to support himself. But after ten years in a dead-end mid-level job as a NOAA bureaucrat, he’d left low-paying government work to return to profitable pursuits by starting up a small construction company. Odd choice for a University of Chicago-trained meteorologist, but it had to have been the only thing open to him. What reasonable person would hire him? He was an arrogant bastard behind that grass-chewing, toe-in-the-sand façade. Nevertheless, all that hard work had made him the down-home billionaire he was today.

  Carter Thompson was Everyman and he’d achieved the American Dream.

  That’s the story the PR department spewed on a regular basis anyway. It had to be horseshit, even though Davis Lee hadn’t been able to find any holes in the story so far.

  Whether or not
the story was true, he couldn’t deny it had an element of genius about it. Carter’s understanding of the weather had enabled him to transform his pissant little construction company into an emerging player on the international scene in only ten years by specializing in emergency mobilization for disaster zones.

  Halliburton with a heart was what they called it in the liberal press, which didn’t bother Carter at all. The reality was that Carter Thompson had gotten filthy rich by profiting from other people’s troubles, yet there was no public outcry about it. Nobody picketed his sites; no whining victims’ organizations protested when the government granted his company hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts. Nope, the nation revered him because he wasn’t some behind-the-scenes, sweet-smelling, Armani-wearing executive no one ever saw. Just like Bill Gates, Carter had given the nation a face to go along with the company—a face that looked like the friendly old guy down the street who helped you fix your flat tire, went to church on Sunday, drank Budweiser out of a can, and played Santa every year at the local children’s hospital.

  America had embraced Carter as some kind of folk hero because he favored flannel shirts over French cuffs and gave the impression that he was still humbled and somewhat surprised by his success. And as far as Davis Lee was concerned, anyone who could take the American public’s predisposition to a mob mentality, neutralize it, then twist it into an illogical but adoring lovefest had the kind of business sense he couldn’t help but respect.

  The man had also become a private-sector force on the public-policy horizon: He infuriated Republicans by giving them lots of money and then challenging all their policy decisions, and he pissed off Democrats by arguing their side without providing any funding for the privilege. Regardless, politicians fawned over him because the electorate loved him. In Washington, that was the only currency that mattered.

  Contacting Carter under the auspices of a graduate school research project, Davis Lee had gradually worked his way into the man’s good graces. By the end of the project, Davis Lee had been offered the position of Carter’s chief strategist and, at his urging, Carter had quietly launched his investment firm.