The Crowns Vengeance

by Andrew Clawson

  If one of the largest investment institutions in the country would risk their clients’ money with such a cavalier attitude, what did that say about the people who comprised such a nation?

  Whatever his feelings on American morality, Drake turned to another matter. He needed to update Nigel Stirling as to his plans for eliminating Parker Chase and Erika Carr.

  Phone in hand, Drake dialed Nigel’s private line, only slightly leery of the fact that two hundred years of work was now dependent on Tom Becker’s lethal hands.

  Chapter 39

  Inside the elegant dining room of Del Frisco’s, Boston’s power brokers rubbed elbows over perfectly seared prime rib and long-stemmed glasses of Pinot Noir. A setting sun lent sparkling red diamonds to the glassy water’s surface, the perfect complement to sweeping views of Liberty Wharf and downtown that greeted patrons as they entered the stylish modern establishment. The one-of-a-kind art collection complemented a unique, vibrant atmosphere which housed curving booths and intimate table settings. In the main room, an impressive circular bar boasted several thousand vintages of hand-selected wine.

  Built to showcase the unique beauty of Boston’s waterfront, Del Frisco’s had incorporated other, more secluded areas into the open layout. On the upper floor were several private dining rooms, each accessible via staircase, the entire floor concealed behind additional wine racks open enough to allow some ambient light through while keeping each private room hidden from view.

  Inside the private level’s lone corner room was a single table, around which two people sat, candles glimmering on the red tablecloth. A woman laughed demurely, one hand resting just above the plunging neckline on her red evening dress.

  Spencer Drake found that he was enjoying himself, this evening with Liz doing wonders for his over-burdened mind. Liz was sharp and witty, a devilish beauty. Qualities a man could appreciate.

  After speaking with Nigel about eliminating the troublesome Dr. Carr and her boyfriend, Spencer had tossed his phone into the plush center console of his Aston Martin DBS, ready for an escape. With primal excitement, his foot slammed down and the V12 engine responded instantly. Over five hundred horses roared to life and he rocketed ahead, Liz losing her lipstick as she was thrown back into her seat.

  It was cliché, but Drake secretly loved tooling around in James Bond’s vehicle of choice.

  “What do you say to a second bottle? The sommelier was spot on with our first selection.”

  Liz was radiant in the soft candlelight. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Drake?”

  “Never, my dear.”

  Her pouting lips sent an electric thrill down his spine. The moment was lost, however, when the maître de appeared at the door. “Mr. Drake, please excuse the interruption, but you have a call.”

  Who could be calling? No one even knew they were here.

  “Take a message.” He’d left his phone behind for a reason.

  “I tried, sir, but he was most insistent. The gentleman’s name is Stirling, and he said it is of the utmost urgency.”

  Drake froze in his chair. Nigel was not given to hyperbole. “Bring me the phone.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Their elegantly dressed host hurried away, only to reappear moments later bearing a handset resting atop a silver platter. He disappeared after setting the tray on Drake’s table.

  “Nigel, what in the world is going on? How did you know where to find me?”

  “You are a creature of habit, Spencer. There are only certain establishments you favor.”

  The man was unbelievable. He had informants everywhere.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve received some most distressing news. Do you recall my grandfather, Horatio?”

  “Of course. A lovely man.”

  “Yes, he was. He had a fondness for travel, particularly to the Hawaiian Islands. Did I ever tell you about his visits there?”

  The breath caught in Drake’s throat. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation later.”

  “Spencer, the file has been accessed. By a man connected to our friends in Philadelphia.”

  Drake clenched the phone so hard he thought it might shatter. Across the table, Liz’s eyes grew wide. “I’ll ring you in half an hour.” Spencer threw the phone down and stood from the table, his chair falling to the ground behind him.

  “We have to leave.”

  “Is something the matter?”

  Drake threw a stack of hundred dollar bills on the table. “Put your coat on. I have to get home immediately.

  She knew better than to press the issue. Twenty-five minutes later, the graphite gray English sports car squealed into his driveway, having covered the fifteen miles to his home in record time.

  Leaving a sullen Liz in his wake, Spencer barged through the towering front door and went straight to his private office. Inside the mahogany-paneled room, which he’d personally designed in the classic style of a nineteenth century English men’s club, Drake punched the speed dial button for Nigel Stirling.

  Several rapid clicks confirmed the call was being routed through an encrypted line.

  Nigel dispensed with the pleasantries. “The CIA just accessed the file.”

  “Bloody hell. How do you know?”

  “I have a contact within Interpol, and as part of their cooperative agreement with the Americans, they have access to certain levels of intelligence reports. The file containing my grandfather’s transcript is among those files, and I was told that it has been accessed by an internal agent for the first time in forty years.”

  “That’s just perfect. Who’s looking into it?”

  “An agent by the name of Nicholas Dean. He’s based in their Philadelphia office.”

  Which was where Erika Carr lived.

  “Are you certain he’s interested in your grandfather? The file on Pearl Harbor must be simply massive. There’s only a single piece from Horatio in the whole stack.”

  “My informant told me Agent Dean specified the name Stirling in his search query.”

  Icy fingers skittered along Drake’s spine.

  “Bloody hell. Are you certain?”

  “Of course I’m certain, you fool. I don’t have to tell you what this means.”

  Drake recalled another piece of information regarding Agent Dean, passed on in Nigel’s earlier message.

  “Did you say this Dean fellow has some connection with the pair in Philadelphia?”

  “That’s the worst part, Spencer. Earlier this year Agent Dean was involved with the Philadelphia police investigation into the murder of Parker Chase’s uncle. The dead man was a professor at Penn, actually mentored Erika Carr. He was shot in his apartment, and for some reason Nicholas Dean became involved. He’s listed on the blasted police report. No idea what he did, but he’s on there.”

  Only a fool would assume this was coincidence.

  Spencer’s mind rapidly filled with numbers, calculating the profits he could realistically expect to keep once their oil charade was over. The rough estimate quickly approached a half billion dollars.

  A fair sum to pocket while the American economy collapsed all around him.

  “Nigel, I believe we have pushed this as far as I dare. If in fact Agent Dean is somehow aware of our existence, our window of opportunity is rapidly closing.”

  “My thoughts exactly. My plane will be landing at Logan International in thirty minutes. I suggest we rendezvous at your office to discuss the final phase of this operation and to monitor the situation with Agent Dean and his two youthful companions.”

  “Agreed. I’ll be there in one hour.”

  The line went dead, and Drake stood silently for several moments, gazing through the cherry surface of his bar, fingers drumming idly on the polished wood. Beneath his feet, the teak floor seemed to hum with energy, a sensation that climbed from his legs, coursed through his torso, and tingled past his cheekbones.

  The time was upon them. Events set in motion two hundred ye
ars prior would finally be realized, and England would have her revenge against the rebellious colonists, the cause of his once mighty nation’s fall from her rightful perch atop the world order.

  Chapter 40

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Bright sunlight filled the room, birds chirping outside as dawn asserted itself, blue sky stretching to the horizon promising another beautiful summer day in the city of brotherly love.

  On a couch in his late uncle’s apartment, Parker cracked open one eye, disdain for nature’s alarm clocks written on his tired face.

  He’d been up until well past midnight, working with Erika to uncover a connection between the mysterious telegram found at Pearl Harbor and Aldrich Securities. Erika had scoured Penn’s database for any further clues, but her search had failed to unearth anything of value. Nothing else that linked Aldrich with either Horatio Stirling or any other suspicious events was located.

  Parker soon tired of being her lackey and decided to conduct his own line of inquiry, focusing on what he knew best. He dug through the financial records for Aldrich Securities, which as a publicly traded company was required to disclose a wealth of information to the federal government. After eight fruitless hours, Parker had fallen onto the couch in his uncle’s study, exhausted. It seemed that just as his eyes closed, the sun had appeared to wake him from a deep slumber.

  Now vertical on the brown leather, which he’d always thought resembled a shrink’s treatment couch, Parker realized that he’d drooled on a pillow.

  A lovely start to the day.

  Parker rose to the soundtrack of every joint in his body popping like fireworks. A lifetime spent smashing into other large men in pads had left its mark. His joints may have ached, but at least football had paid for school.

  The wooden floorboards creaked sporadically as he padded to the bedrooms. In a guest bed, he found Erika curled into the fetal position, apparently unaffected by the streaming sunlight that splashed onto her face.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty. Wake up.”

  She jolted up in bed, hair flying like a modern Medusa. “What is it? Where are they?”

  “Where’s who? It’s me, crazy girl.”

  She rubbed her eyes vigorously, both hands kneading the sleep from her body. “What time is it?”

  “Just after eight. I think I fell asleep around three.”

  For some unknown reason that elicited a glare from Erika. “I know you did. I was up for another hour after you bailed on me. However, I didn’t find anything.”

  “Same here,” Parker said, spirits quickly dimmed. “I can’t believe the trail would go cold right now.”

  “It didn’t go cold.” She rose from the still made bed, having never burrowed under the covers. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She brushed past him, softly moving toward the kitchen where a coffee machine waited.

  “Think about it. What we’ve found isn’t a coincidence. For the past two hundred years, people associated with England who also have a connection to Aldrich Securities have been actively attempting to undermine the United States. It’s a fact, and now we have to find out why it’s been happening.”

  Parker wouldn’t go so far as to call their suspicions factual, but he liked her enthusiasm. “And how do you propose we do that? I looked through every available record on Aldrich for the past decade and haven’t found a thing.”

  She dumped a full pot of water into the machine and fired it up. “Then keep looking. There’s a connection out there, waiting for us to find it. Oh, and in case you forgot, someone tried to kill us yesterday. A man the CIA can’t identify. You think that’s a coincidence?”

  She had a point. He may have agreed with her, but proving it was a different ballgame altogether. Try as they might, the mystery surrounding Aldrich Securities was reticent to reveal its most recent secrets.

  “I have a few other ideas I can follow up on,” Erika offered, opaque as ever. “But that’s not happening until after we eat.”

  Parker flipped on the television, looking for any updates on the futures market. An excited female anchor was on screen, lips moving rapidly without sound. Beside her perfectly styled brunette hair was an oversized photo of a metal barrel.

  Once the sound kicked on, Parker’s jaw dropped.

  “To reiterate, we’ve just received word that OPEC, whose twelve members allegedly control eighty percent of the world’s oil reserves, has announced a nearly one hundred percent increase in daily oil production, from fifty-eight million barrels per day to one hundred million barrels per day. No reason was given for the increase. This news was met with astonishment, as the twofold increase is far and away the single largest daily jump in oil production in world history.”

  “Erika, get in here.”

  “Hold on a second, I’m looking for coffee filters.”

  He raced into the kitchen. “OPEC just announced that they’re doubling oil production.”

  She was less than impressed. “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “Don’t you get it?”

  She finally seemed to hear him and looked up from the coffee pot.

  “Spencer Drake and all his cronies are screwed,” Parker told her. “Completely, utterly screwed.”

  He saw the gears begin to turn, and realization slowly dawned.

  “You’re right. They put all their money into futures, assuming that the price of oil would go up. Is this bad?”

  “It’s beyond that. For starters, Aldrich Securities may no longer exist after today. If they overextended themselves, Drake could go to jail.”

  “Why would he go to jail? Investing is a risk and sometimes you lose your money.”

  “Because from what Ben told us, Drake and his cohorts were using funds they shouldn’t have to fund their investing. Aldrich may go bankrupt, and if people who put all their money into Aldrich’s banking services lose everything, they’ll be swimming in lawsuits. Drake won’t have the shirt on his back when the lawyers are through with him.”

  “But isn’t that money insured by the federal government? I thought the FDIC prevents people from losing their money like they did in the Great Depression.”

  “They do, but it only applies to deposit accounts, up to a quarter million per. If you have money in something other than a deposit account, you’re probably out of luck. The program assumes that banks won’t take unnecessary risks with your money. ”

  She took a step back, bumping into the counter.

  “So you’re saying it could all happen again?”

  “I don’t want to believe it, but it’s looking that way,” Parker confirmed. “And if you think about what Treasury Secretary Webster might do, the situation doesn’t get any better.”

  Erika lifted a wayward strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “What are you talking about?”

  “Gerard Webster opposed the bailouts from 2008. He believes that no company is too big to fail. If Aldrich Securities or any other investment firms get in over their heads, I doubt he’d throw them a lifeline.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. If you screw up, you should have to deal with the consequences,” Erika responded, arms crossed. “I know personal responsibility is becoming something of a joke these days, but making people accept the consequences for their actions is the right thing to do.”

  He agreed, but there was so much more to it than that. “I think you’re correct, but remember that customers who put their money into Aldrich deposit accounts expect that money to be there when they need it. A checking or savings account isn’t an investment, it’s a deposit. Banks aren’t supposed to take risks with deposits.”

  “In that case, why wouldn’t the government just refund the money and throw Drake and his buddies into jail?”

  He barked a harsh laugh. “One, it’s not technically illegal yet. Why it took this long to outlaw proprietary trading is beyond me, but it has. Two, do you realize how much money these men have? Th
ey’re each worth billions. They could put together a team of lawyers and legal experts that would make O.J.’s crew look like a bunch of scrubs. And he got away with murder. Putting Spencer Drake in jail for an offense of any type would be almost impossible. Men like him are almost above the law.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but stopped short. In a small voice devoid of hope, she asked, “So what can we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He hadn’t felt this drained in a long time. Whoever they were up against had more money, men with guns, and if they were correct, hundreds of years of experience. What could two people do against a force such as that?

  “We can’t do anything right now.”

  He headed back to the bedroom and changed into a fresh shirt.

  “I need to get out of here and clear my head. Maybe Nick will have new information for us, a lead on Drake or this Stirling guy.”

  She followed him in, jumping into a tight pair of curve-hugging tan shorts, the high-cut bottoms frayed ever so slightly. “Good idea. I’m getting so bogged down in my research I can’t think straight.”

  Before exiting the apartment, Parker slipped her gun into the waistband of his jeans. With his T-shirt untucked, it covered the weapon from view.

  “I don’t want to take any chances even though we’ll be right back. Whoever came after us could do it again.”

  Parker locked the door behind them, the hallway already growing warm courtesy of the large bay windows at each end. They took the stairs, and emerged from within the converted schoolhouse to find the sidewalk empty. It was a few moments before he remembered it was a weekday, and most people would be at work.

  Across the street, two men sat in a black Lincoln Navigator, sipping coffee with the windows down. He almost missed them, with their seats tilted back and faces partially obscured by the doorframe.