Headhunter

by Robert Young

  *

  By mid-afternoon Hogg has run him through enough of the mechanics of the process that he knows which parts he’ll be taking on and exactly how that will leave a trail of transactions on various trading platforms with his fingerprints on.

  He can’t fault Horner’s thinking. By the time it collapses there will be so many things pointing at Campbell - all the notes and research at Scorpio, all the meetings he’s attended, all the deals he’s placed - that he’ll be the obvious fall guy; the patsy for anyone that comes looking for a perpetrator of yet another financial crime.

  Horner’s name is nowhere in any of it of course, and whatever he stands to make will no doubt be routed and recycled through any number of shell corporations and trusts that it would be impossible to track.

  Campbell wonders about Scorpio though. There are people there who will be tainted and though he has already concluded that Scorpio itself was set up by Horner for the purpose of lending yet more credibility and complexity to his network he cannot see who might be part of it.

  He himself was recruited to be drawn back into Horner’s web for the purpose of the man’s revenge and to take the fall for the whole scam. He did wonder for a moment whether Scorpio had been a set up from the start just to get Campbell. But if Horner wanted him, he’d have found some cheaper, simpler way to drag him out here. No, Scorpio served a purpose, several in fact, but who else was culpable?

  Lawson had disappeared from sight the moment they arrived, which told him nothing conclusive. Maybe he was a chaperone to get Campbell out here and into position for Horner. Maybe he had some other purpose in the plan or maybe he knew nothing of anything and was just following orders. But Campbell couldn’t accept that entirely, not after seeing him that Sunday in the office shredding fistfuls of documents, not after the thing in the bathroom.

  He had always seemed to him to be putting up such a front as to be hard to take seriously. He’d assumed it was just that the man was a pompous ass trying to project a certain image of himself to the world, cretinous as it was. But now, all that showiness and bluster started looking overdone.

  Which leaves Lisa. She’s told him that she was tasked with keeping an eye on him, for reasons now clear to them both. But they’ve tried to kill her already and the look of terror on her face in that basement when Dusan put a bullet through a paint pot and showed everyone what it might do to a skull seemed genuine enough. It can’t have been part of an act and as Hogg had told him, Dusan and Hari weren’t a part of this, not from the start, they were just here to see it through and then tidy up.

  So he was back to the start. He had only one ally left, and he had no idea where she was or what they might have done to her.

  He looked at Hogg sitting at the workstation, tapping keys and wondered if it was time to start in on him again. For all he’d been told of his situation, the other man still had not agreed to help Campbell. Too scared to go against such powerful men who would punish any transgressions brutally. Too scared to think straight or face up to the truth. Or perhaps he just wasn’t scared enough yet.

  SIXTY THREE

  It is getting late in the day when Hogg checks his watch and then taps on the video calling icon on the desktop.

  ‘Horner will want a progress report,’ says Hogg as he adjusts the camera to get them both in frame on the screen. Campbell nods and waits to see Horner appear.

  It rings for a while, long enough to make Campbell think that it won’t be answered, but then it goes quiet as the video link establishes and he can see the side of Horner’s face at the edge of the view. His hand seems to hover near the camera too, as though he is trying to block it whilst he finishes another conversation. It does nothing to block the sound of course.

  ‘When I ask where he is, I’m not looking for you to tell me that you don’t know. I need you to know,’ he says sharply.

  ‘I can’t babysit all of them,’ replies someone off screen, the voice unmistakeably belongs to Rookes.

  ‘Well you wouldn’t have to if you’d have done it right.’

  He hears a door close and then Horner sits down at his desk and rights the laptop so the camera points squarely at him. Campbell wonders whose absence has Horner so agitated.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ begins Horner. ‘How are you doing? Productive day?’

  Hogg speaks up then, with an assurance and defiance that has almost all of them fooled. Campbell’s shock at hearing him speak up is soon diminished at the tremulous sound of his breathing. The man is terrified. What’s he doing?

  ‘I think I’d like to have a little more reassurance first. I want to know my money is safe and I also want reassurances about getting home when the job’s done.’

  ‘Reassurances?’ says Horner with a frown.

  ‘I want my flight booked. I want the tickets in my hand.’

  What sort of security does he imagine that gives him? If his name is on a flight roster somewhere, they can’t touch him? Because of course, nobody ever missed a flight before. What does he think will happen if he leaves an empty seat? An immediate manhunt?

  ‘What’s changed Mr Hogg? Why the sudden demands?’ Horner asks but as he finishes the sentences he looks up and beyond the camera.

  They hear voices from a small distance.

  ‘Are you busy Michael? Something important?’ the accent sounds oriental and Campbell won’t need to camera to move to confirm that Hari is here, Dusan no doubt at this side.

  ‘Nothing major. Just some administrative issues. I’ll be done in a second.’

  ‘Please, don’t stop on our account.’

  Horner’s eyes drop slowly to the screen as he realises that he will have to do this with an audience. The very last audience he would choose to have in the world at this time.

  ‘Things are moving on. I just want everything in place for me,’ says Hogg, apparently encouraged by Horner’s compromised position.

  ‘So long as your end progresses as instructed, you have nothing to worry about,’ says Horner.

  ‘I’ll decide that. My end will progress just fine so long as I’m satisfied you’re keeping your word.’

  Oh Christ, thinks Campbell, he’s making a play. He’s heard everything Campbell’s told him about the men they are up against and he thinks he’s better going it alone. He thinks he can bargain with them.

  Horner is silent for a while as he watches Hogg’s face. Everyone is silent. Campbell can see that there is some residual frustration from his confrontation with Rookes, annoyance at someone absent who should not be, and two people present that he would rather were not. But to have his authority challenged in this way by Hogg is far worse. The big man’s timing is dreadful and it will be critical for Horner to deal with this right.

  ‘This is no time to lose your nerve Caspar.’ Horner has lowered his chin and looks at Hogg almost through his eyebrows. He looks like an animal preparing to charge.

  ‘Michael,’ says Hogg, like using his first name in response is in some way engaging the man on the same level. ‘You misunderstand.’

  ‘I can assure you that is not the case,’ says Horner and he opens a desk drawer without looking down. The sound of it sliding out over its runners sounds like a growl.

  When he pulls out the gun, he holds it in full view for a moment, until he knows Hogg has seen it and then he places it on the desk.

  Campbell frowns. What kind of threat is that supposed to be as they stare at him over a wi-fi connection? Is he suggesting that he will get in his car and come over to Hogg’s apartment with it? Somehow it lacks immediacy but nonetheless the stakes have just been raised, just as is inevitable in any negotiation. What else does Hogg have here, Campbell wonders, to hold over Horner in the face of this threat?

  ‘That kind of makes my point,’ says Hogg.

  ’No, it makes mine.’

  Campbell can sense something shift in the room, a change in the energy, the crease of Horner’s brow or the darkening of his tone. He’s not encouraged.


  Hogg has overstepped a line here, or simply fumbled whatever advantage he felt he had. Nevertheless he’s picked entirely the wrong time to do it and entirely the wrong approach. Horner’s banking on everything running smoothly and from the failed attempt to kill Lisa and Campbell, to the conversation with Rookes when they walked in, that has not been the case. Indeed, the very presence of Hari and Dusan on the island is not part of Horner’s plan.

  ‘Well, we’re not going to just sit back and let things happen, not without taking a few precautions.’

  Campbell hears the word we jump out of Hogg’s mouth and it is all he can do not to turn and stare at him in disbelief. Now Hogg was dragging him into the mess he was making?

  Horner’s eyes shift from one side of the screen to the other, like he’s now looking at him, not Hogg. Campbell stares back, expressionless. He is furiously trying to figure out his next move. If he backs away from Hogg then he abandons him to Horner’s mercy and loses any hope of cooperation he might still hope to win. But jumping on board right now is clearly suicidally stupid and since Horner’s seen right through the bluff, is tantamount to surrender.

  Horner’s face is implacable for a while and then he smiles and looks at Hogg again.

  ‘A formidable partnership to be sure,’ he says. ‘You’ve certainly outflanked me there. And at such a late stage.’

  Campbell’s not so much irked by the mocking smugness of Horner’s tone as he is far more alarmed by the clear edge of malice that it is tinged with and the darkness burning in his eyes. Horner has taken all the pushing he will take and will not accept any further loss of the initiative.

  ‘How to respond,’ he says and his eyes move back and forth across the screen, at both of them.

  He can see that Horner knows Hogg is bluffing and that he is making it up as he goes. He knows there is no plan or allegiance between Campbell and Hogg because Hogg is a poor liar and Campbell’s surprise was too hard to conceal. But he also knows that Hogg’s attempt to join forces with Campbell is somehow genuine. The big man has recognised his position and wants to find a way out.

  And if he has chosen to depend on Campbell, that makes Campbell Hogg’s weak spot. He needs only to expose Hogg’s weak spot to extract his complicity and surrender.

  Horner’s hands go to the sides of the laptop, out of shot as he disconnects wires and then he picks up the gun. He lifts the laptop and the camera rolls and shifts, begins to break up a little. He sees that Horner is out of his seat, rounding his desk. There is a glimpse of the two men standing near the doorway and the camera picks out chests and chins. Horner steps past them and then looks into the camera again for a moment but says nothing.

  The frame on screen continues to bounce and shift as Horner carries it with him through the house, through a doorway and then he can see a handrail sliding past as Horner descends down a flight of stairs.

  ‘Shit,’ whispers Hogg. ‘Oh shit.’

  The basement.

  The disorienting movement of the camera halts for a moment and the picture swings up to Horner’s face again. Hari and Dusan are trotting down the stairs in the background, following Horner.

  Horner moves to set the laptop down and the shaking stops as it comes to rest. Then he spins it round and suddenly Campbell feels his insides flip.

  Lisa sits on a mattress in the corner, her legs drawn up to her chin, sheets twisted around her. She wears a dirty t-shirt, too large for her, and her cheeks are dirty and smeared. Her wrists are bound with thin plastic ties that he can barely see in the grainy image of the video feed.

  ‘Do you know what this man does?’ asks Horner, leaning down to look at Campbell and Hogg on the laptop. ‘Do you know which particular industry he has a large share of?’

  ‘Lisa,’ Campbell says, hoping for some sort of reaction form her, but she is too scared by the basement and the men that have arrived here again to respond at all.

  ‘Sex trafficking,’ Horner declares, but Campbell had already arrived at that conclusion.

  ‘Worldwide operation, lots of girls, lots of clients. Lots of money.’

  ‘Wait,’ says Campbell. ‘Just wait Michael. Cam down, please.’

  ‘You would not want her to fall into his hands would you? You cannot begin to imagine how that might be, where she might end up and in whose possession.’

  Hogg hasn’t spoken a word and Campbell sees on the horrified look on his face that he knows what a terrible miscalculation he has made, and not just today. Hogg stares at the image of the girl on the screen, balled up and helpless and finally understands what he has got himself involved in, what he has done.

  ‘No,’ says Hogg quietly.

  ‘We can’t have that,’ says Horner as he moves into shot at the edge of the screen, a step closer to Lisa.

  The arm with the gun rises slowly and Campbell watches but does not understand.

  ‘No,’ repeats Hogg, almost a whisper.

  Horner straightens his arm, draws in a breath and then fires.

  SIXTY FOUR

  It is pain that snaps him out of it eventually. Pain inflicted on him by Rookes for the very purpose of snapping him out of it.

  But the better part of twenty four hours pass before they lose patience and resort to such measures. The deafening explosion of the gunshot caught them all by surprise, nobody really expecting that Horner would do it.

  He had delegated the job of killing Campbell to his cronies in an elaborate plot which had proved ineffective but that had been designed to maximise his suffering, rather than to insulate Horner from the task itself. But for everything they all knew he was capable of, none had expected that he would so coldly and unhesitatingly gun down the girl that way.

  He had been losing control of the whole thing by small increments. The arrival of Hari and Dusan who had unpicked his careful precautions, the way Rookes and Hogg had both figured more of it out than they were supposed to and the manner that Campbell and his infuriating tenacity continued to torment him. He had refused to die and now he was turning Hogg into a problem too.

  He had been pushed into committing this desperate act, not just to exact some further punishment on Campbell but to show all of them watching that he still remained in charge despite what they might have been beginning to think.

  It was he who had conceived and designed the whole scam with the bank and the dummy corporations, the creative creation of money, he who had arranged for Campbell to be moved into position and set up for the fall so that there would be a culprit - either dead or alive - when the whole house of cards collapsed in on itself.

  He had made a declaration by shooting her that was clear and unambiguous but Campbell had gone almost catatonic from the moment the trigger was pulled and he had watched her thrown backward across the mattress.

  Somewhere in the fog of shock and grief that fact began to render itself in Campbell’s meandering thoughts and his resolve began to reform itself as lucidity returned.

  But he was still withdrawn and in something of a trance when Rookes arrived with his orders. Waiting had not worked, so now they would try another way to get his attention.

  Rookes began to slap his face, increasingly hard, and when that drew no response, he broke a finger.

  It was enough.

  Focus returned to his eyes and Campbell fixed on Rookes’ face and he withdrew his hand sharply.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘Sharpen up sunshine,’ Rookes said and gone was that slightly jocular mocking tone that seemed the man’s hallmark. Something had changed. The dynamic of the whole situation had shifted dramatically for all of them with Lisa’s killing and Campbell could see from the set of his jaw and look in his eye that Rookes knew that everything was set on a knife edge now. The better to get this finished, however it was going to play out.

  ‘Get out,’ said Campbell. ‘We’re not done here.’

  Rookes watched Campbell’s eyes fix on Hogg at his workstation and he nodded silently and left.


  Nothing stirred in the room for long minutes after the door closed. Hogg sat in his chair, scarcely breathing, waiting for Campbell to say something now he had regained his tongue.

  He couldn’t quite find the words to frame his fury and Hogg cracked first, unable to bear the silence any longer.

  ‘Say it. Say something. Say it’s my fault.’

  Campbell said nothing. Hogg turned to face him. He’d been crying.

  ‘I couldn’t have known,’ he started and then stopped himself and tried to return Campbell’s gaze but faltered and dropped his eyes, heavy under the weight of shame.

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you Caspar,’ said Campbell, his voice flat. ‘But you are going to do what I tell you to.’

  Hogg’s shoulders betrayed him, giving away the sobs he was trying to suppress. He knew now he had no other choice than to try to repay Campbell what he was owed.

  ‘We all killed her. Me, you, Horner. Those meatheads, Rookes. She’s been scared and tortured and then put down like an animal and it was all of us did it.’

  Hogg’s shoulders dropped and shook and he raised a hand to his eyes. He was in so deep now, so lost that all he had left was despair. He could see clearly his mistake in taking this job and he may not recover. But he may yet choose how he went.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hogg says as he gathers himself. He cannot manage more, though it is clear he wants to.

  ‘Me too. I’m sorry. And I’m fucking furious. How about you?’

  Hogg looks at him. He looks terrified and cornered and slowly, gradually, Campbell can see that fear give way to a rising anger too.

  Hogg’s had enough of being cowed and bullied. He is getting up off his knees.

  They look at each other for a long moment and before Hogg can ask the question, Campbell answers it. ‘You threatened him and he didn’t believe you. What’s the use of a threat you can’t carry out? Only one thing left to do now - follow it through.’

  SIXTY FIVE

  They work solidly for three straight days with scarcely a break for eating or sleeping. Rookes checks in with decreasing frequency to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to. Hogg has to snap him out of what looks like a trance a few times, imagining that Campbell is being haunted over and over just like he is by the killing of Lisa.

  But it isn’t that, or not just that. He is focusing his rage, concentrating every scrap of his fury and his anguish on one man, determining how revenge will be taken. How it will feel. He is seeing Horner on his knees, pleading for mercy.

  As time passes, he stays locked into the job at hand. There’s plenty of work to keep them busy, coordinating Horner’s scam - the Inflatable Pyramid is what Campbell takes to calling it - and ensure that the shares in circulation are kept out of the wrong hands until the right moment. The wrong hands being normal investors rather than their target audience, for whom there is more communication, more direction and the final phase of the process is close at hand now. The timing of what Hogg and Campbell are planning is going to be critical.

  The rest of the time is spent searching for what Campbell knows is out there somewhere, though it will not be signposted or obvious. It will not likely be listed on an open exchange but on the closed books of some specialist organisation, a hedge fund or an investment bank. But they know what they are looking for, know all the names of Horner’s dummy corporations and they just need to find and follow the crumbs.

  Horner has handed them the clue. His vanity trumping his discretion with an inevitability that Campbell is coming to rely on. He cannot resist letting someone know just how good he is, even if it is only a handful of people. It is not how Horner is wired, just to sit quietly on the information and let it fall into place. He can’t do that. He needs the recognition from someone even if he is technically in hiding.

  Campbell has figured out that the level of disruption does not need to be significant to throw the whole plan. It is tightly run and narrow in scope, the easier for Horner to control it. But that same tightness and close control allow for simple and effective manipulation. Hogg is too deep into the mechanics of it all, sees only numbers and code to really divine meaning from Campbell’s vision but it is beginning to come clearer.

  ‘The small number of shares means that you control the share price more easily. The price rises or falls based on the number of buy or sell orders you see. So if you have a million shares in circulation and a hundred trades, that’s not going to make much of a move in the price, even if they are all placed at once. But if you have two hundred shares in circulation, and a hundred orders, well that’s a different story entirely right? That will really move the price.’ Hogg has heard it two or three different ways and Campbell repeats it for him again, as much as anything so that he gets it clear in his own mind, let alone Hogg’s.

  ‘Even then, you want the trades close together, just like Horner’s instructions. We’re telling these guys to trade across a very small time frame. Too close and it looks far too suspicious but too far apart and it won’t have the same effect. So once all the trades are placed, the price is pushed up.’

  Hogg nods and lets the other man rehearse the steps in the process again.

  ‘This is when Horner wants everyone to start selling and all at the same time again. The price will collapse, but so long as everyone does it right, it won’t matter too much as the purchase money wasn’t theirs but the sale proceeds will be, so it’s all profit. You can’t do the buys and the sells too close together as that will also look too suspect. Minutes apart stands out, but hours apart doesn’t, not with the high speed nature of markets and news flow. And that is the weak link. The hours in between buying and selling, there to make it look passingly legitimate and evade the attention of anyone who might be watching. It’s the soft underbelly of Horner’s plan.’

  ’That’s where we step in,’ says Hogg.

  ‘More to the point, that’s where we get the market to step in,’ corrects Campbell. ‘Horner wants it to collapse because once everyone sells out and makes their buck, he’ll be holding insurance on the companies and will make a bundle on that.’

  ‘Run me through that again. How do you get insurance for shares falling? Surely everyone would get that?’

  ‘It’s not on the shares, it’s on the debt. All of these companies have issued debt - bonds - to each other, to the bank. It was part of the set up process and inflating everything in the first place. What Horner will have is called a Credit Default Swap, a CDS. The Credit Default Swap is designed for when the creditor suffers a default.’ Campbell emphasises the words so as to really underline the point. ‘Which is to say, the borrower fails to repay the lender. The lender loses that money. Unless he has an insurance policy against just such an eventuality.

  ‘Once the share price has collapsed, the next logical step is to default on the debt. How can you pay your debts if your company is collapsing, after all? Then you claim the payout from the CDS. My guess is that Horner stands to make more off this part than anyone else involved. Probably more than everyone else put together.’

  ‘Who would insure companies like these though? I mean, if you are going to insure someone’s debt, surely you want to know how likely they are to-‘

  ‘Default.’

  ‘- yes default. You want to be confident that those firms aren’t about to go bust before you cover them against going bust right? And if the owner of the firm wants cover, you want to know about him too?’

  Campbell is shaking his head. ‘You don’t need to own the debt to buy the insurance. That’s the beauty and the horror of CDS. Pretty much anyone can buy it against any issuer of debt.’

  ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘OK, think of it like car insurance. You only buy car insurance for your car right? In case you have a crash, or someone crashes into you. But what if you could buy it against my car? Or anyone’s? You own insurance on someone else that pays you out if they crash!’

  Hogg chews that over for a moment,
a frown lining his forehead.

  ‘Look,’ says Campbell. ‘If you owned debt issued by a company, and you had reservations about the creditworthiness of that company, you can buy Credit Default Swaps as a way to cover you if those doubts are correct. If the debt defaults, you collect on the insurance. If the company reneges on a debt that it owes to someone else, you get paid.’

  Hogg’s frown is intense and he’s still shaking his head.

  ‘You take out car insurance against Mr Smith. You’ve never met him, you have no dealings with him. Mr Smith and Mr Jones have a crash. You are not involved in that in any way at all. But you have insurance cover against Mr Smith having a car crash and now you claim on the insurance.’

  ‘OK. I can see why you might want to buy it. You don’t risk getting your legs broken or your car wrecked. But why would anyone in his right mind sell it? They’re on a hiding. They’re going to lose a load of money.’

  ‘Because you can sell a lot of it and make enough money on what you do sell that it won’t matter so much if you have to pay out occasionally. Car crashes happen all the time, but insurance companies still make money. See, it’s all just speculation. There’s a rationale for it, but mostly it’s just speculation; your seller speculates that the companies they insure won’t fail on their debt, your buyer speculates that they will.’

  ‘There’s a rationale?’

  ‘Sure. It enables the market to set an efficient indicator as to the creditworthiness of institutions, like an early warning system. If a CDS for a particular institution starts getting expensive it’s because more people want to own it as the risk of default is perceived to be increasing, then maybe that institution takes steps to remedy the problem - by recapitalising maybe - or to reassure the market that everything is OK.’

  ‘It seems like an awfully complex way to do that. Can’t you just check the accounts and see if they’re making money?’

  ‘Sure you can,’ smiles Campbell archly. ‘Because nobody ever cooks the books.’

  ‘But-‘ Hogg starts but Campbell holds up a hand.

  ‘It doesn’t matter why it happens or whether you understand it. It just matters that it does happen. All the time, every second of every day. It is a huge market, absolutely ginormous. Beyond your imagining. It made a handful of people billionaires virtually overnight when they bet against subprime mortgages in the US. When subprime borrowers did what subprime borrowers do and stopped paying their debts, a few smart people with the foresight to see it coming had loaded up on CDS against subprime and they cleaned up.’

  ‘And that is what Horner’s trying to do? Create some subprime companies to default on their debts and make a bundle overnight?’

  ‘Well yes, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘OK. So what then? How do we trip him up? Keep paying the debts? That sounds like an expensive way to spite the man.’

  Campbell smiles, pleased to have made a little progress with Hogg on a couple of levels.

  ’No, we invalidate his insurance.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘Tell the insurance people what they’ve done. Tell them they’re insuring fraudulent companies. I’d expect them all to consider that a breach of contract and to refuse to pay out any claims.’

  ‘Surely if we tell them that then won’t they just tell Horner they’re cancelling the contracts? He’d know something was up.’

  Campbell shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. See, then they may have to refund him, or they may have to report to their bosses up the line that they sold a Credit Default Swap without doing their proper homework and the bosses won’t want to hear that because that would mean they have to stop pretending they don’t know what goes on with their traders, and it might also mean that they would have to report it to the authorities. And nobody likes to have the regulators or the police sniffing around. No, they refuse to pay on grounds of fraud or nondisclosure and they’ll know that the only choices Horner will have will be to challenge the decision - which will expose the fraud - or go away quietly for fear of attracting trouble. Either way, Horner gets nothing.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘We need to find out who sold Horner the CDS contracts and warn them. Warning them is easy enough, but finding them won’t be.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No register, no easily available information on this type of thing. It will be quite specialised.’

  ‘Surely,’ Hogg says, ‘if there are fewer of them, that narrows the search?’

  Campbell shakes his head, thinking hard. ‘No, you need to know where to start looking for that to help us.’

  ‘Well where would Horner know where to buy it?’

  Campbell looks at Hogg for a moment, his eyes glazed. ‘Yes. That might be it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe that’s how we start looking; where Horner bought it. We try to buy some.’

  SIXTY SIX

  Lawson tried to figure out how it had gone this way. He had been on a good run and had won more hands than he had lost. But still he was in a hole.

  The few hands he had lost had been the few he could least afford to of course, but having taken a few slugs of the exceptional whisky and then accepted the offer of a loan, he was up on the deal by a distance inside half an hour.

  One big loss had set him right back but he stuck at it and it kept coming good, wins piling up.

  So how was it now that the credit was gone and the sun was up?

  There were four of them running the game. Never playing, just watching. They were well dressed and well groomed and the man who had picked him up the night before outside the casino was watching him ever more closely, with his dark, close-set eyes.

  Lawson’s brain began to race as he cycled through what options he might have. They did not look the types to take an IOU or to let him walk out of there with a promise to return with their money. He would need to find a way to pay them. Could he get something from the bank? Maybe get the driver to take him and wait whilst he arranged a withdrawal.

  But he knew there wasn’t nearly enough cash available. He was waiting on his big payout from Horner to come though, but that would only come when that job was done.

  He knew the CDS contracts he’d arranged for Horner would be worth something, perhaps he could make a call. Sell one on and use the proceeds - he had set up more than Horner had asked for after all.

  But it would take time to find a buyer, he’d need a terminal to do it and the money would not come direct to his own account.

  ‘I see you’re finished playing,’ says the driver with the close, dark eyes.

  Lawson nods and stands. No point delaying the inevitable.

  ‘Would you come with me?’

  Lawson follows him through the suite toward the table with the food and the drinks.

  ‘Something to drink? Some refreshments?’

  ‘Thanks,’ he says and pours a large measure of the Scotch with an unsteady hand.

  ‘Shall we talk about the credit? How would you like to repay?’

  ‘Look, what’s your name?’

  The man looks at him for a moment before he replies. ‘I am Vincent,; he says in a way that tells Lawson only that the man’s name is not Vincent at all.

  ‘Vincent,’ he says and gets half way through a sentence about how much he can get his hands on right away, but the other man can see where this is going and stops him with a look.

  Lawson flashes on the CDS again, thinks frantically how he might put it to use, if there’s any way it can be accessed or even transferred to this man, so he can profit himself.

  He knows it won’t work, that there’s no chance of explaining how it would work or even have the man believe a word.

  His silence is telling and Vincent walks to the door and bids Lawson follow him. Lawson finishes the large measure of Scotch and replaces the glass on the table heavily.

  He steps through the doorway and is shown along the corridor and into the lift. The man leans for
ward and presses the B for basement.

  When the lift pings and the doors slide open he follows the man out into the underground parking level and for a moment he wonders if this is it, whether they would be so ruthless and vengeful to kill him here amid the concrete and parked cars.

  But that makes no sense. It is the money they want, the money that they have wanted from him since the moment they marked him, walking out of the casino looking pleased with himself.

  Vincent thumbs the key fob and the side lights flash on a nearby SUV. Lawson climbs in to the passenger seat and buckles up.

  ‘I am going to drive now,’ says Vincent.

  Lawson nods.

  ‘You are going to tell me where,’ says the man whose name is anything but Vincent, and twists the key.

  Lawson nods again and stares out the windscreen and finds that over the lingering flavour of the Scotch he can taste the panic.

  SIXTY SEVEN

  Campbell is surprised to find himself back in Horner’s presence and concerned to see that they have all been assembled here. Something is afoot.

  Rookes gathered he and Hogg up and sped them silently to Horner’s office.

  Horner himself seemed agitated and tetchy but like he was trying to keep a lid on it. He was saying nothing though. As keen as he was to share his triumphs, he liked to keep his failures to himself.

  Campbell felt a gnawing anxiety that he and Hogg and their efforts were about to be exposed. They had barely got any further with their search though, maybe a half dozen phone calls. But then just as he’d hung up on the last one, chewing over the remark the man had made about telling him “the same thing I told the guy yesterday” before dismissing his enquiry out of hand, Rookes had interrupted them.

  All the instructions are in place for the scam now. Everyone has the relevant account numbers, the details of the trades, where to place them and at what time. They all know that when it is done, Horner’s bank will transfer their ‘profits’ to the account of their choosing - Jersey, Switzerland, right here in Grand Cayman perhaps - and they can melt into the scenery. Hogg’s system will collapse itself, the websites and the network of email accounts and other lines of communication will shut down and disappear.

  It has been designed this way such that Horner can feel safe knowing that if anyone is watching, they will not detect the signs of a coordinated process, orchestrated by a single source with Hogg directing the various participants from his terminal. By knowing their parts and following the steps the trades will look like nothing more than the independent actions of different investors from all over the world.

  By the time anyone realises what is going on it will be over and everyone gone. All they will find will be a ringing alarm and an empty vault. That is, at least, the plan.

  That Campbell and Hogg know this gives them their only possible advantage and Campbell feels keenly how otherwise vulnerable they are, surrounded again by dangerous men like Rookes and Horner.

  He stares at his nemesis as he paces the carpet and clenches his jaw. Horner who has so recently graduated from mere scheming and fraud straight up to cold-eyed murder. He still can’t quite believe that the other man had it in him, still cannot shrug the feeling that the threat in the room comes from Rookes or from Hari and Dusan, that Horner was and should always be thought of as a pen-mightier-than-sword sort of criminal.

  But there is a sequence on loop in his head of Horner’s hand gripping the handgun and pointing at Lisa and squeezing on the trigger, the shock of the sound of it and the sight of her body thrown down like a ragdoll, limp and empty. It is still so profound and raw that he can only cling tight to the boiling black fury inside that sustains him. He sees her smile at him across the table of the restaurant as they sat on the floor and drank wine, hears her confession on the sand, sees her modelling swimsuits the night before the flight, giddy with excitement. He can feel her skin and smell her hair and for Campbell she is not gone and may never be.

  So what is it they want? Surely they have not spotted what Hogg and he were attempting in that room, unless they’d bugged it and were listening in? But why bother with that? Why be so subtle when you can just stand a guy in the room to scowl at them and listen to their every word?

  No, that would compromise the careful process of division that Horner has created, making sure that nobody knows too much. There was something else and Horner looked as though he were working up to it.

  ‘Everything is in place?’

  Hogg nods. ‘Just as instructed. Details of the account numbers, timings. Everything.’

  Horner nods. ‘It may be necessary to delay,’ he says.

  ‘Delay? How long?’ Hogg frowns and looks worried at the prospect of having to prolong the process.

  Horner shakes his head absently. ‘A day or so. Maybe. Something’s come up. Minor hiccup,’ Horner tries to inject a breeziness into his voice that lacks all sincerity.

  ‘We can send out more instructions of course but the whole thing happens soon. We’d have to send everything out at the same time or at least if we stagger communications, the late ones will be left very little notice to act. And there’s no way of knowing if everyone will receive it now that they think they already have their final instructions.’ Hogg is talking fast from the nerves and is clearly rattled by what Horner is asking. What he says is true enough, but he’s also scared of why Horner is asking this, as much as what he’s asking.

  Campbell watches his face for some signal. The tension there is clear enough and the way he seems to be searching for the words to say and to suppress his frustration at Hogg’s babbling indicates that he’s holding back. This approach of his to keep the information compartmentalised and fragmented so as to retain overall control is one thing, but this seems different: like he doesn’t want them to know what’s happening because he himself is worried. It’s not about control, it’s about fear.

  So what’s he scared of? Not he or Hogg for sure. He’s certain he has them cowed and though he may be worried that Rookes knows more than he’d like him to, he does not know enough to cause a real problem. The show of strength in shooting Lisa was as much for Hari and Dusan’s benefit as Hogg and Campbell. The scam was in place as it was supposed to be, as he so meticulously planned, so why the need for the delay? What was missing?

  Something nags at Campbell as Hogg starts talking again and he tries to reach for it as he watches Horner wave a hand to silence Hogg.

  What’s missing?

  Hogg has either missed the gesture Horner makes or chooses to ignore it and keeps talking, his voice rising in pitch with the agitation. It catches with Campbell, snowballs with the other thing that’s started rolling in his mind.

  Maybe it’s not what is missing, but whom.

  That nervous speed-talking does it, reminds him of someone who has been absent since their arrival on this island. Lawson.

  Where is Lawson?

  Is that what Horner is so keyed up about? Didn’t he catch him saying something about it to Rookes yesterday? “Find him Rookes so that the next time I ask you, you’ll have an answer.” Why would he be worried about Lawson, enough that he would suddenly want to delay the whole operation?

  Hogg shut up as Horner snapped at him and the penny dropped for Campbell all in an instant. Lawson was running the CDS part of the plan for Horner but had gone missing.

  Why else delay unless Horner stood to miss out? Why else the nerves and agitation instead of his usual imperious manner? Because he knows that the delay will anger Hari and Dusan and for all the credit he may have gained with them by shooting Lisa, he is still - rightly - terrified of them. They who will make a noose for him from his own entrails.

  And of course, with all this compartmentalising, the cellular nature of the plan, it would make sense that he would have someone else set up that aspect of it. The questions he and Hogg were asking themselves about where Horner would buy his CDS contracts from were on the right lines but the real answer was that he wouldn’t. Ju
st like everything else he would get someone else to do it and keep his fingerprints off everything. Like a conductor with an orchestra, he would create a symphony without touching an instrument.

  Campbell considers saying something but holds back. Horner is only happy when he’s in command and smug and right now he’s off balance. Telling him that he knew why would knock him further but to what end and what advantage? Just to see him more uncomfortable? No. Campbell recalled the set of boxing sessions he’d done back in London and some of the lessons he’d learned. Even he knew that there was no use taking a swing unless you knew that you’d land it properly.

  The best advantage is the one your opponent doesn’t know you have. If he knows he’s got a weakness - a cut, or a glass jaw - then he can deal with that and defend it. If you go for that weakness too early, you’re just letting him know what to defend.

  Horner was talking now as Campbell tuned back in. He was asking for 48 hours and for a way that Hogg could make sure that the message got through - mark it as urgent, send more than one.

  ‘You have the problem with data flow again though; the more we send, the more visible it is, particularly if it is concentrated. A big data-burst like that, it will be like a siren.’

  ‘He’s right,’ adds Campbell, ‘not to mention that it’s Wednesday. 48 hours takes you into the weekend so you’re actually delaying until Monday before you can do any trading. People will wonder why it’s being pushed back so long. It isn’t two days, it’s five.’ He does his best to sound cautious and even helpful and keep the smile off his face.

  Horner eyeballs him, angry at the fact that he’s making sense and pointing out the awkward truth. They all know who he means when he says people.

  It seems as though Hari and Dusan are present, even when they aren’t.

  Hogg is about to start up again when they hear the front door open and they all turn. Is that them, he wonders, arriving just on time, conjured forth by the very mention of them? He cannot see through the doorway but Horner can and the expression on his face is one of bafflement.

  Campbell stands instinctively, feeling his pulse quicken. Horner is not wearing the usual look of anxiety that fixes in place when Hari and Dusan are around. There’s recognition there, but confusion too.

  Lawson walks into the room. He is not alone.

  ‘Giles?’ Horner says looking past him.

  A tall man with dark, close-set eyes follows Lawson in and by the look on Lawson’s face, something is badly wrong. He is sweating and not from the heat.

  ‘Michael. Hi,’ Lawson begins, his attempt to sound confident and relaxed failing entirely. ‘I wonder if I might impose on you for a moment?’

  The dark eyed man looks around the room and comes no further. He assesses their numbers and then shifts his hands closer to his body. Campbell guesses he is armed and that he is ready to draw a weapon. His eyes flit between Horner and Rookes and he tries to decide which of them is in charge, which represents a threat.

  ‘What on earth is this? Where the hell have you been?’ Horner can see that the man with Lawson is unlikely to be friendly but cannot figure out why. On top of everything else he has to contend with, this is a most unwelcome development and his frustration and fraying nerves are evident in the tone of voice and the flickering eyelids.

  ‘I was hoping you might advance me some money. My bonus. We’re almost done now, and I’ve dealt with what you asked me to so…’

  Horner listens but his brow furrows. Why is Lawson asking this? Why now and why in the company of this menacing stranger?

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing Giles, nor what you’ve done, but this is no concern of mine.’

  ‘He owes. He needs to pay,’ the dark eyed man barks and his eyes flash on Rookes again. He has clearly discounted Hogg and Campbell from the equation.

  ‘That may be so,’ says Horner to the man. ‘But it is still no concern of mine.’

  ‘Michael please. I can explain later. I… I don’t need all of it. I’ll waive the rest in fact, if you’d just… ‘

  ‘It is payable upon completion of the job. The job is incomplete,’ Horner is indignant. His eyes are fixed on Lawson and are burning with furious reproach.

  In his peripheral vision, Campbell sees movement and watches as Rookes takes a step forward. He’s done watching.

  ‘Are you going to introduce us to your friend? Or was he about to leave?’ says Rookes.

  Dark-eyes tenses and shifts himself a little further behind Lawson. His hand moves closer to his body and Campbell sees Rookes clock the action and mirror it.

  ‘This is Vincent. An acquaintance to whom I owe a debt. Once he has his money, he’ll be on his way,’ says Lawson, his voice an octave higher. He’s in between the security man about to go for his gun and the man behind him who has brought him here under duress. He knows well enough the stakes even as they rise sharply, beyond his control.

  ‘It’s nearly done though isn’t it?’ Campbell blurts out. He can feel the tension in the room jumping and spiking. ‘Now there are no more delays. Now that you have what you need.’

  Campbell is addressing Horner and Horner looks back at him as he realises that Campbell knows something, has understood Lawson’s importance and the risk that his absence had brought.

  ‘That’s it now isn’t it? Giles has what you need, everything else is in place. No need to postpone.’

  Horner might see what Campbell is saying makes sense, he might know that he’s just trying to defuse the situation and get rid of the intruder, but when he sighs and reaches for the desk drawer, Campbell knows that it isn’t a cheque book he’s reaching for.

  He watches Horner shake his head and reach into the drawer. He sees the expression on his face of defiance and resolve. One too many people trying to interfere, one too many people trying to gatecrash his party and not for the first time. Horner won’t accept this.

  ‘No,’ he says and he points the handgun at Vincent.