by David Lender
CHAPTER 51
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. LANGLEY, VIRGINIA. “Hardly any traces of dental work to match. Didn’t make any difference, we all saw the whole thing,” Tom said to Nigel Benthurst and Ira Land, watching their pixels dance on the color split-screen. He managed a professional detachment in his voice. “I talked to Yassar. Turns out he’s maybe not as much of a cold fish as I thought. Said he came back here to try to help her.” Said he loved her like a daughter.
Nigel spoke up. “Otherwise, a successful campaign, old boy.”
“Agreed,” Ira said from his other side of the screen. “Our people say the al-Mujari is in shambles.”
“Worse shape than the, uhm, situation we created last time.”
“Yeah, but Sheik bin Abdur escaped. Again.” He knew what that meant. These Al-Mujari were like jock itch—with a lot of effort, you could keep it under control, but you could never actually get rid of it.
“It’ll be years before they’re able to, uhm, reorganize themselves.”
Ira said, “Maybe we can keep them down.”
Tom didn’t think he’d ever get the U.S. government to agree to another assassination plot. Not unless the situation was as extreme as the last week.
“Sorry about Sasha,” Nigel said.
“Yeah,” Tom said. “I guess Yassar feels worse than anybody. Trying to help her escape and it just went haywire. Still, maybe it was better for her this way. Terminal cervical cancer, metastasized throughout her system. Would’ve been a worse end.”
“Well,” Tom said after a moment, the businesslike tone back in his voice. Tom paused. He had to at least say it. “The thing that pisses me off more than anything else is that bin Abdur must have been thrilled when he heard they had…killed…Sasha.” He was trying out the words. Maybe if I say them enough, I’ll get past it.
He saw Nigel’s eyes on his, watching. “We missed our, our chance at bin Abdur this time,” Nigel said. “We didn’t take it last time. What do they say? The third time is a charm?”
September, This Year. A Safe House One Hundred Kilometers Outside Khartoum, Sudan. Habib got out of his Jeep, shuddered against the chill of the desert night. The spring was back in his step as he walked toward the ramshackle house that hid Sheik bin Abdur. A day’s rest did a mercenary a world of good.
He knocked on the door. A little man wearing a black robe opened it. Habib had been here before, knew where he was going. He strode directly toward the inner door and pushed it open. Sheik bin Abdur was sitting in the corner of the room, his eyes gleaming in the darkness as if illuminated by lights in his head. Those damned eyes. Never seen anything like them, Habib thought.
He surveyed the room, feeling the thrill of the dare, the challenge. He unzipped his windbreaker with his left hand, smoothly reached inside with his right and pulled out his Beretta with its four-inch silencer already attached. With a well-schooled motion, he put a single round directly between the two gleaming spots in bin Abdur’s head. Before anyone could react he put four more rounds in the four others who sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, one in each chest.
Habib surveyed his work for a few seconds, then left the room, not bothering with the little man in the anteroom as he left the building.
Last time I do business with you, old man.
September, This Year. New York City. Prince Yassar sat at the desk in his hotel room, working at his computer. He was logged in over a secure line set up a year earlier by the Saudi Secret Police and typed an email message to [email protected].
GREETINGS. AND GOODBYE. SIX MILLION DOLLARS ACCORDING TO YOUR WIRING INSTRUCTIONS AWAITING YOU AT YOUR CARIBBEAN AND CONTINENTAL LOCATIONS. YOU PERFORMED FLAWLESSLY. YOUR WORD IS GOOD. WE WILL REMEMBER THIS.
Y
He logged off and sighed. Know your enemies. He smiled. And know your friends. And know how to use your enemies and your friends for the purification of the Muslim world. He was peaceful, even as he gloried in his revenge. Perhaps he could live long enough to atone for the stain on his soul. He looked at his watch. It was time for prayers and then bed. He had a plane to catch in the morning.
CHAPTER 52
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. NEW YORK City. Daniel felt one of those curious absences of emotion he’d experienced over the last day. He held his head erect, as if balancing an imaginary object on his nose.
He wondered if the cosmos were mocking him. He’d been sitting here like this at the beginning of the summer, just before meeting Sasha.
Eleven thirty. He told himself he’d get up soon, at least move around the office. He saw a shape. Cindy, his assistant.
“Daniel, you have a visitor in conference room two…” Her voice trailed off. She looked at him apprehensively.
He got up and walked toward the conference room.
As Daniel entered the conference room, he realized he’d been holding his breath, felt air rush back into his lungs. “Where is she?” he asked.
“Safe,” Yassar said. “An airplane ride away.”
“You think it worked?”
“If Tom Goddard believed it, I think the al-Mujari will.”
Daniel felt a wave of guilt. “Sorry we had to put him through that, but it needed to be convincing.” She’s escaped them for good. He started to laugh and choke back tears. He collapsed into a chair. “Nafta told me she tried to convince Sasha three or four times once she knew her cancer was terminal.” He felt stinging moisture in his eyes, a burning in his throat.
Yassar observed him in silence.
After a moment Daniel said, “I need to see her.”
“If you choose to.”
What’s, he crazy? “Choose to? Where is she?”
“As I said, safe.”
“What’s the mystery?”
“No mystery, Daniel, I’m just protecting her. You have two choices, each with significant consequences.”
Daniel waved him off as if he were talking to one of his subordinates.
Yassar continued, “Stay here, work for us as our advisor—we need a man with your talents—and you’ll be well compensated.”
Daniel was beginning to wonder why Yassar was being so obtuse. “Yassar—”
Yassar held up his hand. “Or go to Sasha, live on in hiding, leave your entire life here behind. Everything. Forever.”
“Okay, are you finished now? When can I see her?”
“Be certain. No turning back.”
“Yassar. Knock it off, will ya?” Daniel smiled from his heart. It was hers, always would be.
Daniel headed straight for his senior partner, Jean-Claude Dieudonne’s office. Miss Chuckings, all ninety officious pounds of her, was sitting behind her desk outside his closed door. “Morning, Miss Chuckings, is he in there?” He walked into Dieudonne’s office.
“Mr. Youngblood, you can’t—”
Two guests sat at Dieudonne’s coffee table. So Dieudonne was staging the Intimate Gathering today. Closing a deal, Jean-Claude? “Good morning. Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen. Jean-Claude, I’m resigning, effective immediately. I’m assigning my contract for the Saudis to Michael Smits, including my work in progress. Good luck with your fiscal years.”
He plucked a Cohiba Esplendido from the humidor on the credenza and walked out.
CHAPTER 53
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. Incense and murmured prayers drifted upward in the back room of the rented chalet, which would be the first way-station in their journey. Sasha knelt in front of the makeshift puja she had created out of an end table. She recited in Sanskrit, periodically opening her eyes to gaze upon the photograph of Swami Kripananda and the statue of Ganesha. A ring of flowers encircled a photograph of Nafta in the center of the puja.
She thanked Nafta from her heart, offering prayers for her, feeling unworthy and grateful at the same time. Honoring her. When she finished she said a final farewell to Nafta and left the room, quietly closing the door, as if not to disturb her friend’s sleep. Yassar turned to look at Sasha from his chair in the Great Roo
m at the center of the chalet. She softly kissed him on the forehead before taking a seat next to him. Dear Yassar.
They sat in silence. “Nafta told us you were unwilling to do it,” Yassar offered, “but once we had discovered the assassination plan…” Sasha’s eyes were lowered, but she felt Yassar’s gaze searching her face. “Daniel and I declined at first. But she said it was the only way you’d ever be free of it all. She said she didn’t want you watching your back for the al-Mujari the rest of your life.” He paused. “And she wanted a way for you to know some happiness now that you had finally found someone.” He paused again, then murmured, “This was a true gift.”
Sasha raised her eyes to Yassar’s. She wondered if she could live well enough to deserve it, and as quickly absorbed that thought as one to revisit again and again, her remembrance of Nafta. They sat in silence again.
September, This Year. New York City. He had visited his parents, his brother and sister-in-law, and Sammy and Mickey. Now Daniel stood in the doorway of Michael and Brenda’s apartment. “I guess this is it.”
“Drop us a line or something,” Michael said. “We’ll be pissed if you don’t.”
“Bet your ass,” Brenda added. Her voice was choked.
Michael bear-hugged Daniel. “Take care of yourself.” Brenda stepped forward, those eyes of hers calm, accepting it, and wrapped her arms around both of them.
September, This Year. Geneva, Switzerland. The Gulfstream V must have touched down as softly as a mother kissing her newborn child on the cheek, because Daniel didn’t awaken until the copilot came back to rouse him. He groaned. His contact lenses were stuck to his eyes. What a way to wake up to his new life.
“We there?”
“Yup. And a half hour early. Can we get you anything, Mr. Youngblood?”
“No, I’m fine.” He looked out the window. It was just dawn, everything in an orange-and-yellow glow from the rising sun. Somebody popped the door open and he felt a flutter of anticipation, then, truly waking, a smile that seemed to emanate from someplace inside him and possess his entire being.
The copilot looked out the window. “The car should be here. I’ll phone if you want.”
“No problem, if the car’s a few minutes late, it’s a few minutes late.”
He’d left it all behind. He’d wired money to the bank in Geneva and it was now just a question of selling off the apartment, the Milford house and a few miscellaneous assets. But none of that mattered. He saw the headlights of a car driving out to meet the plane.
He put on his sports jacket, checking the right breast pocket where he normally kept his Blackberry to confirm that his toothbrush, his only luggage, was there. Then he started down the steps.
The back window of the car rolled open and he could see Yassar’s head, his black eyes picking up the reflected light. The other rear door opened and Sasha emerged, eyes flashing, a few wisps of hair streaming sideways in the breeze.
Daniel paused when he saw her. He didn’t think there was a way to explain what he was feeling, seeing Sasha frozen there, black eyes sparkling, that one moment seeming from another time. He met her at the bottom of the steps and embraced her as though he finally knew he was home.
“What took you so long?” she said.
The End
Excerpt from The Gravy Train
The Gravy Train
A Wall Street Novella by
David Lender
Copyright © 2011 by David T. Lender
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact [email protected].
ONE
FINN KEANE AND KATHY FARGO sat next to each other in the back of Room 12 in the McColl Building at the University of North Carolina’s Keenan-Flagar Business School. Four rows separated them from the rest of the group in the Investment Banking Club meeting. At least 25 group members attended; this evening featured Jonathan Moore, the club’s president, crowing about his recruitment process and offer to become an Associate in Goldman Sachs’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
Finn leaned toward Kathy and said, “If I listen to any more of this crap I’m gonna puke. Come on, let’s go get a coffee or something.”
She smiled at him, nodded and they got up and left. A few heads turned as they clunked through the theater-style seats to the aisle, up the steps and out the door. Finn could feel eyes burning into his back. He was sure everybody in the club knew that Kathy and he were the only two who hadn’t received investment banking offers yet.
Finn held the front door to the McColl Building for Kathy as they went outside. She wasn’t a girl many guys held doors for, not much of a looker, so he knew Kathy liked it and always made sure to do it. When she’d told him she couldn’t afford to fly home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, he’d brought her home to Cedar Fork. Afterward Uncle Bob said, “Wow, she’s a big-boned one, huh?” Even before he brought her home, he could tell Kathy wanted something more between them. And a couple of times out drinking with classmates she made it clear to Finn it was there for him if he wanted it. He was always glad when he woke up sober the next day that he didn’t do it; he’d always have felt like he was taking advantage of her. He could tell she’d now settled into the knowledge it wasn’t gonna happen.
Kathy smiled and mouthed, “Thank you,” as they went outside.
“Moore was a pain in the ass before he got the offer, but now he struts around like a goddamn rooster,” Finn said.
“Yeah, but you have to admit, he landed the big one.”
Finn just nodded.
Kathy said, “I assume no change at your end or you’d have told me something.”
“No.”
“We’re running out of time.”
“I know. I’m taking the TD Bank thing if nothing else comes through. At least that’ll get me to New York.”
Kathy didn’t reply. He knew what she was thinking. She’d said it before: she’d worked in New York for three years before business school and told him New York wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“How about you?” he said.
“I guess I’ll take that Internet startup my friend offered me.”
Finn nodded. She’d told him about it, but he couldn’t remember the details. Only five or six employees, he thought.
“You did computer programming before B-school, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but they want me to be CFO. They’re all a bunch of undergrad computer science jocks. Don’t know anything about finance.”
“Sounds like it could be fun,” Finn said, knowing he didn’t sound convincing as the words came out. Nothing like that for him. If nothing in investment banking came through, he’d get to New York, then see if he could leverage the TD Bank commercial banking training program into a job on Wall Street, even if it took him a few years. That’s where he’d make it big. He looked at Kathy. “I forget. What’s the company’s name?”
“Facebook.”
TWO
“I WANT BODIES,” SIMON BUCHANNAN said. “Give me at least thirty. Maybe forty.” He stood up and looked at his four department heads across his desk, then strode out from behind it with long Senior Managing Director strides of his six-foot-six-inch frame. Buchannan took his time crossing the oversized office, wanting to seem he was looming out at his subordinates from between the skyscrapers up Park Avenue, like some avenging angel. He sat down in the semicircle where his department heads reclined in soft chairs and a sofa around Buchannan’s coffee table.
“We’ve already hired two hundred Associates for this year’s incoming class,” the head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Group said.
“Then hire two hundred thirty or two hundred forty,” Buchannan shot back. Buchannan’s eyes
accused him of incompetence.
“It’s April, Simon,” the Head of Corporate Finance said.
“Fellas, what is this?” Buchannan said and stood up. He summoned his best impatient sigh. “The markets are booming. IPOs. Converts. High yield. Rates are low. The economy’s chugging along and corporate earnings are still going up, up, up. The entire Street’s firing on all cylinders. We need to bang this cycle until it drops.” He started pacing. “Bang it. Bang it hard. And BofA Merrill Lynch is still number one. You saw the first quarter underwriting statistics. I wanna beat these guys in equity offerings this year, give us a couple more years to catch them in debt underwritings, and in another year or two we’ll take on Goldman Sachs for number one in the M&A rankings.” He stopped and looked at his department heads, disappointed they didn’t seem to be summoning some urge to go out and win one for the Gipper. Maybe they were all immune to him by now because he intentionally acted so crazy and made himself so scary looking half the time. But Buchannan meant it. He wanted to win.
“Simon, it’s April,” his head of Corporate Finance, John “Stinky” Bates, reminded him again.
“So it’s fucking April.”
“Yes, it’s fucking April and all the top kids from all the top business schools are gone. We’ve milked Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton, Chicago, all of them dry.”
“So get me lateral hires from other firms. Dip down to the second tier business schools, hell, go to the third tier if you have to, just get me the bodies. Or it’s my ass.” Buchannan thought of the new house his wife had been harping about, prayed to the unknown for a $15 million bonus again, then thought of what his mistress wanted and looked back at his department heads in renewed earnest. “I didn’t get to be head of Investment Banking by screwing up, and if I start firing blanks, I’m gonna be out on my ear.” Buchannan gave Bates a look that told Bates he was lazy, stupid and paunchy. “Got that, Stinky?”