Trojan Horse

by David Lender

  He pored over the language of the “services” section of the engagement letter yet again. Lighten up. He was letting it get under his skin. Yassar would tire in time; he could outlast him. He looked back down at the “fees” section, the most important to Daniel, the one that had resulted in the thorniest negotiations. Retainer fees of $250,000 per quarter, $1 million on announcement of any deal, and .5 percent of any deal value, no less than $5 million, nor more than $30 million per deal.

  “Good,” he said aloud. He lifted his head, hearing Lydia’s voice in the hall. Cindy buzzed him. “Lydia’s here,” she said as Lydia entered his office with characteristic long strides.

  “Hi!”

  “Hi, lover,” he said. Before he could get out from behind his desk to receive her, she bustled up to him and planted a kiss on his mouth. “Well this is a pleasant surprise.”

  “Thought I’d pop in and visit the great man at work.”

  He stepped back so he could admire her. Stunning. She wore a blue silk dress. Prada? Elbow-length blue gloves adorned her hands and arms despite the August weather, and an Audrey Hepburn-style, wide-brimmed hat perched on her head. A pair of Jackie Onassis-sized sunglasses swung from her hand. “You’re name-dropping with every step today.”

  She kissed him again, this time pushing him over backward into his chair and knocking her hat off. She laughed as she reached for it. “You can pick on me all you want. But I’m in such a good mood you can’t get to me.”

  “So what puts you in such a good mood?”

  “I’m so pleased with myself I’m brimming over.” She retrieved her hat and sat. “I’ve planned a surprise for you.”

  “Hardly a surprise if you’re telling me.”

  She looked at him, smirking. Beautiful.

  She glanced at his desk, then at the draft of “Presentation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Selected Worldwide Acquisition Opportunities in the Refining and Marketing Sector,” made a short observation of the summaries of the target companies reviewed in the presentation, then a long one at the engagement letter he was working on. “So, Yassar’s still haggling?”

  Reads upside down. A skill only investment bankers have. She’s in the wrong profession. “Yes, Yassar’s still haggling.”

  “Hmm. The last nickel on that rug he’s selling you.”

  “No, lover, I’m the one who’s selling him the rug now.”

  “Don’t be so sure, darling. Perhaps he’s a better salesman than you think.”

  “Okay, whatever.” Did she enjoy flummoxing him? But maybe she was right. Maybe Yassar was leading the dance. Daniel shrugged and sat back. “You said something about a surprise?”

  “I’m throwing a party.”

  “And?”

  “You’re invited.”

  “Great. When? Where?”

  “Tomorrow night, at your Milford house. I’ve invited a half-dozen of your friends for your birthday, so be there.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Anything else?”

  “Well, it’s also a bit of a short-term going-away party for me. A friend of mine came down with pneumonia so I’m back off to Europe for a few weeks.” She frowned and cocked her head to the side. “Sorry, darling, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Daniel didn’t hide his disappointment. “I’ll miss you.”

  Cindy buzzed Daniel: “Walter Purcell and Steven Pace.”

  “Okay.” He looked at Lydia. “This’ll only take a minute.”

  The two junior colleagues, team members on Daniel’s presentation to Yassar, entered and stood in front of Daniel’s desk. He didn’t invite them to sit, because he didn’t want to spend much time on the draft at this crude stage. He reviewed a few choice comments and handed Purcell his markup of the draft with a look designed to remind him he knew better than to send him something so poorly executed. Lydia occupied herself in a corner chair reviewing—no, poring over the company summaries.

  “You were a little overbearing, darling,” she said after the two left. “I like these.” She handed him three summaries.

  Yes. She’s in the wrong profession, he laughed to himself.

  They kissed. She wiped the lipstick off his mouth, then reapplied hers. “Bye, darling. What time do you think you’ll be up to the country tonight?”

  “I’ll try to leave early. Eight by the time I get there.”

  “Great. I’m taking your Porsche, okay?” She waved on the way out. He turned back to his work, smiling. Then Brenda’s words came back to him. “Slow down.”

  By 12:30, Daniel decided to forego the remainder of his business day and buzzed Cindy. “I’m leaving early for Milford.”

  By 2:00 he had arrived at his house. The Porsche was in the driveway and the front door was unlocked. “Hello,” he called. He made a quick circuit of the first floor, but couldn’t find Lydia. Where are you, lover? “Lydia?”

  He went back into the den and found her notebook computer on the desk, open and still online. He walked to it and felt the unmistakable sensation of someone rubbing fine sandpaper on the back of his neck. What he saw wasn’t possible. It was the desktop of his own computer at the office, icons for deal documents and programs stacked in neat rows on either side of the desktop, and the folder of documents on his hard drive open in the center. His scalp tingled. What the hell? It was as if she’d hacked into his computer.

  He felt his pulse quicken as he ran upstairs to check the attic room he’d given to Lydia as her personal space, entering without knocking. She wasn’t there. He was leaving when he saw a pile of documents on the floor. He bent to examine them.

  German, French, Swiss, Israeli, American and Italian passports were lined up next to each other, flanking piles of various currencies and another pile of well-thumbed manila folders stacked two inches high. He opened the French passport. The name was Lydia Duffre and the photograph was Lydia’s. Again he felt the sensation of someone rubbing sandpaper on the back of his neck. This was wrong, all wrong. Who the hell is Lydia Duffre, why was she…? Was she hiding out from somebody? Was it drugs? Some kind of scam?

  He opened the German passport. Lydia Schiffer. The photograph showed a sullen woman without makeup and close-cropped, black hair. Unquestionably Lydia. Now the sandpaper was coarse grit, he heard his pulse ramming in his ears and tasted his stomach bile. He flipped through an Israeli passport, plunging on with greedy fingers. Lydia Goldman. He slapped it shut and fumbled through the Swiss, then the American, then the Italian versions. He laughed morosely, almost a desperate moan. Not a single one with “Fauchert.” What, did she reserve that name for me?

  He leafed through the euros, estimating there was at least the equivalent of 50,000 U.S. dollars. He didn’t need to count the American dollars to recognize that approximately $100,000 lay in four wrapped piles of $100 bills. He began to count the English pounds when he heard someone walking up the stairs.

  “Daniel?” Lydia paused on the stairs out of view.

  “Lydia,” he said in a monotone. His mouth was dry. Lydia resumed her ascent. He waited for her holding the passports and the bundle of Swiss francs. “What’s this all about?” he said.

  As she came into view, her eyes were wide, her mouth open with alarm. He saw her inhale, then exhale slowly, then a hardness formed in her eyes. “I can explain.”

  “I should hope so.” Daniel felt his chest heaving now, heard the tremor in his voice.

  “If I were you I wouldn’t adopt that tone with me. You did go into my room uninvited, after all.” She raised her chin. “I didn’t fantasize your telling me that room was my private space. You gave it to me and now I want to know why you went in there.”

  Daniel gritted his teeth. Cheap negotiating ploy. Turn a defensive position into an offensive one. He felt his hands beginning to shake. “You bring something like this into my house, and all you can say is I shouldn’t ‘adopt that tone with you’?” He waved the passports and money at her.

  “So first it’s my room, and now it’s your house?” She
walked toward him, her eyes leveled.

  “Yes, it’s my house and I’d like to know just what the hell is going on. Including what you’re doing screwing around with my computer at work!”

  “You want know what’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on. You’re invading my privacy!”

  “Privacy only goes so far, dammit! Just what’s this all about? What the hell are you doing?” Daniel’s breaths were short. His pulse thundered.

  She tried to grab the passports and currency. He threw them to the floor.

  “Oh, that’s constructive!” she snapped. Her mouth tightened into a sneer. “You don’t want an explanation! You just want to get angry and throw your weight around!”

  “I expect an explanation.”

  “Private client business.” She stepped to the side and pointed to the door. “Now get out of here!”

  “If anybody’s getting out of here it’s you. Now what’s going on?”

  Lydia ran out and down the stairs.

  Daniel stood in the middle of the room for a moment, breathing deeply, flexing and unflexing the muscles of his jaw, waiting for his pulse to return to normal, wondering what had just happened. Who is this woman?

  A moment later a blast of energy propelled him toward the stairs. “Goddamn you!” He bounded down the stairs, two at a time to the second floor. He heard the kitchen door slam. “Lydia!” he yelled. He tore down the stairs to the first floor then out the kitchen door. The gate was open to the front and he ran through it, feeling his pulse in his ears, gritting his teeth with anger. As he reached Broad Street he saw her turn the corner at the traffic light, running full tilt. By the time he reached the intersection he’d lost her. He ran for another block, but still couldn’t see her. He stopped, panting, sweating, his heart pounding. Damn. When was the last time he’d run a 200-yard sprint?

  He stood on the sidewalk catching his breath. He tried to collect his thoughts, decide what to do. He stood, staring, eyes unfocused, thinking. What the hell is going on? Who the hell was I just talking to? His stomach was turning flips.

  Daniel lost track of how long he stood there, his thoughts in a jumble. He made up his mind he’d throw her out, whoever she was. Didn’t need this in his life. Then he decided he’d sit her down, look her in the eye and find out just what was going on. But what kind of woman runs around with stuff like that, pretending to be somebody else? He’d set those investigators from Kroll & Co. on her that he used for background checks on prospective clients, trace her back to Europe.

  But what was she doing to his computer? Her standing there giving him the righteously indignant routine was a sure sign her story would be a lie. And the files, what were they? Maybe it was a scam. She was savvy enough to pull one off. Throw her out and check his bank accounts, fast. Damn, this is bizarre.

  He walked around the corner, then toward his house. He smelled smoke, then saw it in the air. He heard the town’s fire engine with its siren blaring, horn blasting as it came up Broad Street toward the intersection. In the next moment he saw smoke coming out his kitchen door.

  His pulse rammed in his temples as he ran to the front door. He ran into the dining room, where he saw the source of the conflagration. Lydia had pushed the dining room table to one side and placed a metal garbage can from the kitchen in the center of the rug in the dining room. Manila folders were strewn on the floor; a robust blaze leapt from the can.

  He darted his gaze around the room. There! He grabbed a vase of flowers from the breakfront and tossed the water uselessly into the garbage can. He heard the kitchen door slam. Lydia! He ran toward the kitchen, looking back over his shoulder to see flames still dancing from the can.

  He wanted to follow Lydia outside, but lurched toward the sink to refill the vase. He ran back into the dining room and doused the trash can again just as Rich Freeman, manager of the local hardware store, burst through the door with his volunteer fireman’s outfit on. “Get an extinguisher!” Daniel yelled.

  Freeman motioned to one of his fellow firemen. “The CO2!”

  An hour later Daniel stood in the center of the dining room looking through morose eyes at the patch of rug shampoo he had just sprayed on the Oriental carpet. Now what? He turned toward the door to the kitchen, the site of Lydia’s exit. Was any of it real?

  Now he could feel it, that same soul-ripping pain he’d felt after Angie died. The sensation he’d been unable to recapture at dinner with Brenda at Raoul’s a few weeks back. The heaviness he felt in his chest now and the sensation of the extra ten pounds he carried in each of his limbs was worse than he could remember, in part because he felt ridiculous for letting himself get involved with someone he now realized he knew nothing about.

  He watched the foam sink into the carpet. Curiously now, his infallible gyroscope had deserted him: his early-warning-system stomach was gone—where was it?

  He closed his eyes, trying to forget where he was for the moment, conscious only of the fact that a basketball now seemed to be lodged in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. He exhaled painfully. How could I let this happen? He tried to say it aloud, realized he couldn’t. He waited until he had control of his throat again. “Lydia, who are you?” he said finally to the empty house.

  July, This Year. Milford, Pennsylvania. Lydia arrived at the Black Walnut bed and breakfast just outside town. Stupid, she chastised herself. Should have been more careful.

  She threw her bag down on the bed and unpacked her notebook computer. It wasn’t so much that she was in a rush to get off her message, she simply needed to use up some nervous energy. She booted up and dialed out through her communications software, logging into the computer account she was using that week to deposit her messages in Geneva University. Stupid.

  PROBLEMS. NEED ADVICE. I AM COMING IN TO TALK.

  LYDIA

  She encrypted the message, deposited it in the account and logged off. She walked to the mirror. Her eyes were red. No surprise. She’d felt a thickness in her throat ever since getting into the taxi. Tears began streaming down her cheeks.

  BOOK 2

  CHAPTER 9

  JUNE, TWENTY-NINE YEARS AGO. VEVEY, Switzerland. “These mountains are spectacular,” Sandra Chase said, looking out the window of the limousine. The black stretch Mercedes labored up the mile-long winding drive to the hilltop chateau owned by the Countess Del Mira. Towering evergreens, meticulously maintained stone walls and lanterns bordered the drive and heightened the expectations of visitors approaching the summit. “How is Christina? I haven’t seen her since she got back from India. How long has it been?”

  “Two months,” Ophelia replied. “She’d been in that ridiculous ashram for four years. But now she’s never been better. But whatever possessed a bona fide Italian countess—she’s a Del Mira for God’s sake—to throw it all away and go seek enlightenment in some Swami Kripananda’s ashram in the first place?”

  “In the first place, she didn’t throw it all away. It was sitting back here in Switzerland waiting for her. In the second place, what’s wrong with it?” Sandra adopted Ophelia’s sarcastic tone. “I mean, what’s wrong with a wealthy, eccentric European—whom many, including yourself, call an adventuress—seeking the teachings of a Guru at a time when people are open to such things—even wealthy, eccentric European adventuresses?”

  “Look, Sandra, I’m up for a lark as much as the next one, but this went a bit too far.”

  “Perhaps it was her feelings for Sasha.”

  “Has she adopted her?” Ophelia looked at Sandra with an accusing stare that demanded an answer. “Nobody’s quite sure how she came by her in the first place.”

  “I don’t know. But I’m told Christina went to the ashram to raise the child with some formal base in spirituality.”

  “Something that is clearly beyond the grasp of Christina herself!” Ophelia laughed. “No matter. Her parties are more extravagant than ever. The themes!”

  Livinia Duke cooed her agreement. “‘A Night at the Opera’ la
st month. She had a set from La Bohème and a twenty-piece orchestra in her library. And Pavarotti sang.”

  “Hmm,” Sandra said. “I thought she’d changed.”

  “Oh she’s changed all right,” Ophelia said. “All that silliness about her ‘teachings.’ I’m certain Christina doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about when she prattles on about Brahman as the one Supreme Reality, without attributes, unmanifest, eternal, all knowing, all this, all that, all pervading…” Her voice trailed off into laughter. “At one point she told me this Brahman created the tangible world as mere sport, a diversion.”

  Livinia shrugged. “At least she’s got the sport part down, because she’s certainly relishing the temporal satisfactions of the material world.”

  “Yes,” Ophelia added. “She learned in India to appreciate them as more eternally satisfying than she ever did before.”

  “And Sasha?” Sandra asked.

  Ophelia clasped Sandra’s forearm. “Oh! An absolute delight. She’s precious, a beautiful and spirited child.”

  “Christina relates to her not as if she’s a daughter, or a dependent, but rather a partner.”

  “They’re coconspirators,” Ophelia said.

  “Co-seducers,” Livinia added. “And they create exquisite entertainments. They weave a spell together.”

  “I’m surprised,” Sandra said. “I was told Christina was calmer and that she actually had a faraway quality, you know, a light in her eyes.”

  “Really, darling, it’s a comical notion that a woman who can taste the difference between a 1949 and 1957 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Richebourg and actually tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue has truly discovered the meaning of life.”

  The car reached the top of the drive. The view of the hillsides, now covered with greenery, didn’t disappoint. Nor did the grandeur of the fifteenth-century complex imposingly presiding over the mountain overlooking Lake Geneva, the town of Vevey, and beyond. All fifteen thousand square feet of it, thick blocks of limestone half-covered with ivy, muscular oak timbers holding forth within. Sandra reflected that it had been no mean feat to maintain the chateau’s premises and four-hundred-acre grounds while the Countess was in India. But a staff of twenty-five certainly helped.