Drummer In the Dark (30 page)

Wynn fumbled in his pockets, came up with the sheet of paper he had prepared, and flattened it on the lectern. Four breaths later, he realized he had pulled out Graham’s message by mistake. He stared at the single word, illuminated now by the chandelier overhead and by his own churning dread.

“Congressman Bryant?”

“Just a minute.” With an eerie sense of calm, he pulled out the proper page and said as instructed, “Mr. Speaker, I move for the inclusion into H.R. 451, the current appropriations bill, an amendment entitled . . .”

“Yes, Congressman?”

Wynn looked up at the balcony and saw Esther seated beside a very worried Kay. The name on the page suddenly seemed incomplete. “Entitled the Hutchings Amendment.”

The speaker shifted through the pages before him. “You are renaming what I have here before me as the Jubilee Amendment?”

“I am. Graham Hutchings dedicated his life to seeing this matter addressed.” Esther watched him with a look of stunned disbelief. Kay Trilling, however, crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. She gave him a single nod. “It seems the least we can do is honor him in this way.”

“Very well. I have before me a motion to amend H.R. 451 with the Hutchings Amendment. Do I have a second?”

A voice from the chamber intoned, “Seconded and move for a voice vote, Mr. Speaker.”

“Seconded.”

“Very well. All in favor of the inclusion of the Hutchings Amendment, say aye.” Wynn added his voice to those others from the chamber. “All opposed?” When no one spoke, the Speaker rapped his gavel. “The ayes carry. Congressman, do you have further business before the House?”

“Yes, Mr. Speaker.” Following the script to the letter now. “I move to vote on appropriations bill H.R. 451.”

“Seconded.”

“So moved and seconded. All in favor? All opposed?” Another bang of the gavel. “The ayes carry it. As the companion legislation has already moved out of the Senate, H.R. 451 will next be considered by the Conference Committee.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Wynn continued, “I move to recess.”

“So moved.”

“Seconded.”

“All in favor? Very well. The House is recessed until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Wynn accepted a few more handshakes on his way out the rear doors. He noted a few solemn thanks, then heard the man who had relinquished the lectern tell his neighbor that it was a historic event. The congresswoman beside him shook her head, eyed Wynn with unmasked pity, and said, “Now the blood will flow.”

42

Tuesday

E
RIC DRISCOLL SAT behind the wheel of his Porsche and worked to unfreeze his mind. He had followed the traders from First Florida’s downtown headquarters to the Kissimmee strip. The town had not so much grown as mutated, grafting on one hideous segment after another until the main drag became a twenty-mile-long neon netherworld. Eric sat in the parking lot of a bar sporting a fifty-foot-high sign that promised honky-tonk heaven. The lot was full of pickups, mud-spattered SUVs, and customized vans. His Porsche stood out as boldly as the Lexus and Ferrari and two Mercs the traders had parked in the handicapped zone. He watched the last of them careen into the club as the bouncer greeted them and held the door. They had claimed this place as their own and paid to ensure they were well protected. Eric swallowed hard and worried over past and future mistakes, just inches away from real nausea.

Reluctantly he left the safety of his car and hurried across the parking lot. It was raining slightly, a warm, sticky mist that felt like the world was sweating with him.

The doorman gave him a brief look, then jerked his chin toward the collection of gleaming metal parked alongside. “You with them?”

“Y-yes, I guess . . .”

“You better move your machine over where I can keep an eye on it.”

“No.” If he got back in the car, he wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to flee. “I won’t be long.”

The bouncer shrugged massive shoulders. “Your wheels, man.”

The music struck with fists of acid rock. A trio of ladies danced the central aisle, while another pair concentrated on the poles rising from the circular stage to his right. The boys from First Florida were clustered in two booths to one side of the circular stage, waving bills and drinks at the women. Two of them rode the padded hammock separating the booths. Eric tried to saunter over and slip into the booth, but failed. One trader spotted his move, hooked an elbow into his neighbor, and instantly Eric confronted a phalanx of hostile faces.

“I’m a spot man on Hayek’s floor,” he shouted.

One of the traders, the guy Colin had attacked with the bush, used the partition as a saddle and slid down beside Eric. Up close the man looked bloodless. “So?”

“So I want a switch. The world’s getting stale over there. Word is, you’re the guys in the know. The hot data’s all coming your way.”

The trader rolled his cigar in the ashtray and exchanged silent communication with his pals. One passed a quick hand signal, too fast or too alien for Eric to catch. The trader asked, “How’d you know where to find us?”

“I followed you guys. Figured it was best to chat where others wouldn’t see.”

The trader raised up and whistled once. Loud.

Instantly a man bigger than the doorman was by the booth. “You rang?”

The trader pointed a thumb in Eric’s direction. “This slimeball is bothering us. You know how much we dislike being bothered.”

“Hey, wait, I came all the way out here—” But a hand gripped Eric’s jacket and plucked him away.

The trader was already climbing back onto his padded saddle, flicking lint from his jacket. “Bye bye, slimeball.”

Eric made the mistake then. Worse than his foulest trade. Worse than having gotten involved with Shane Turner. But the entire club was watching this gorilla drag him across the floor, guys pointing with their beers and laughing at the joker in suit and tie being hauled away. So he took a swing.

The bouncer didn’t even flinch when Eric’s fist struck the stone-hard muscles covering his ribs. He just veered slightly. Not far, a couple of feet. But he also accelerated his forward motion, until Eric connected head-first with the nearest pillar.

Stars erupted, a skyrocket explosion of pain and light. Eric wanted to black out, but he couldn’t even do that. So he was still alert enough to hear the laughter and the jeers as an entire bar bid him a fond farewell.

The world was canted slightly to his left now, as the bouncer dragged him toward the exit. The bouncer slammed through the door and dumped him in the puddle beyond the awning. “Don’t ever come back.”

C
OLIN SAT IN HIS car two rows back from the entrance, his wipers clearing the mist. He watched as Eric raised himself from the oily water. He saw the doorman’s mouth move but did not open his window to hear what was said. Colin doubted whether Eric heard the bouncer either as he blundered toward his Porsche. His suit was streaked, his forehead bleeding. Eric touched the rising welt and winced. It seemed to wake him up slightly, for he managed to find his keys and unlock the car. He slipped out of his jacket, used it to smear the greasy water from his face, then tossed it on the pavement. Ditto for the ruined tie. He touched the welt another time, then his rapidly swelling lip.

Colin watched the Porsche fire up and rumble from the parking lot. Softly he asked the night and the rain, “Who are you doing this for, and what have they got on you?”

43

Wednesday

W
EDNESDAY MORNING JACKIE showered and dressed and drove to Eric’s development. This time she simply parked on the street and walked by the gatehouse. The subterfuge was over. If security wanted to question her and call ahead, that was their problem. But no one said a thing. She followed the street to where the town houses bordered the golf course. A central lake in front, acres of green beyond. The place sparkled.

The morning dimmed the instant she saw Eric’s face. “What happened to you?”

“Take a wild guess.” He backed away from her and the day ahead, took another look at the mirror over his sideboard, and dabbed his eye with ice wrapped inside a towel. His left eyebrow was gouged with a bloody furrow, his eye was black, his bruised cheek so swollen he could have been holding a pear in his mouth. “I’ve been at it for an hour. The swelling hasn’t gone down and the color’s gotten worse. What am I supposed to say to the guys?”

“Who hit you, Eric?”

“Don’t go dumb on me, okay? Come in here.”

She stayed where she was. “We can talk right where we are.”

“It’s safe, Jackie. That’s your name, right?” He stepped back into view. “I’m not the one doing the whacking around here. And we are definitely alone.”

Reluctantly she moved into the house, letting the door close behind her. Tasted the air.

“Come on through, will you? I’ve got to get to the office.” Eric waited until she had followed him through the entrance, then swept a hand over the cash piled on his dining room table. “Fifty-three thousand dollars. Free and clear. Take it and get out of my life.”

“I can’t—”

His voice rose a full two octaves. “Get a good look at my face, will you? This is what it’s cost me so far, having you show up out of nowhere and shove me into the twilight zone.” He pushed the money toward her. “I’ve been stashing this away for Shane. I knew sooner or later he’d be coming through that door, telling me it was payback time.”

“This was for Shane?”

“You don’t listen so good. This is
yours
. Shane’s got what, another two years before he’s up for parole. I’ll scrounge up another bundle for him.”

“I need that information, Eric.”

“Don’t you get it? Those guys are going to wipe me out!”

Jackie found herself at a loss. Causing such havoc and pain was not part of her game plan. But the need for information compressed her heart into a space half its size. “What if Shane agrees to never get on your case?”

“What?”

“I have to have answers, Eric. What if Shane will agree to let you keep the money and never bother you again. Not ever.” She could scarcely believe she was saying the words. “Say he writes out a letter and I get it notarized, that you had nothing to do with it, and as far as he knows, you’re a perfectly honest employee?”

Eric gaped. “He’d do that?”

“If he did, you could keep the money and maybe even get a decent night’s sleep.”

He fumbled his way into a chair. Touched his eyebrow, winced, probed the side of his eye. Mused aloud, “None of these guys will talk to me. That’s how I got winged, trying the front door approach. They must’ve been warned.”

She tried to hold her attention exclusively on Eric and ignore the screaming in her brain over what she had just set herself up to do. “You’re talking about the traders at First Florida?”

“Who else?” Eric was still walking through potential strategies. “Hayek has gotten a truckload of new money from someplace.”

“How much?”

“We’re talking an entire new fund. Four big ones, maybe more.”

“Four billion dollars in new trading capital?”

He looked at her then. “What you said, it’s for real? Shane will cut me free?”

“I’ll go see him today.” Every word was a nail driven into her bones. “So Hayek set up these new traders to manage a new capital fund of four billion dollars. And this could be the Tsunami project?”

“I don’t know exactly how large the thing is or what it’s called. But it’s got to be pretty huge. First he set them up as a new in-house trading division, but that went down the tubes. Whether he then bought the bank to house them is anybody’s guess.”

“I’m not following you.”

“What I’m saying is, these guys are totally cut off. There’s no way I’ll get them to come clean.” He thought a moment longer. “What if I could get you the access code to one of their computers?”

“You can do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But that would be it, okay? Nothing more. You’d have to find somebody to make the tap and interpret the data.” He used both hands to swipe away mounting terror. “If I try this and get caught, I’m fried.”

“Find me a computer access code for one of the Tsunami group and we’re done,” Jackie confirmed. “When can you get it?”

“No idea. Call me in two days. No, call me soon as you’ve talked to Shane. We’ll meet, you’ll show me the paper. Signed, sealed, notarized. I want to know this is for real before I commit.”

44

Wednesday

L
A TARBOUCHE, THE LEBANESE restaurant on K Street, had been the client’s choice, not Valerie’s. The place had the sort of suede and chrome pretentiousness that appealed mightily to people eating on someone else’s ticket. Across from her sat the chief of the American Investment Managers, or AIM, the trade association that represented investment banks and portfolio managers and hedge funds.

He smiled as the waiter set down his plate of salmon
tagin
. In the restaurant’s meager lighting the lobster sauce looked yellowish green. There were six of them together in the quietest alcove the restaurant had to offer. Valerie sat beside one of the firm’s four partners, and her direct boss. Three other associates were also present, so the partner could bill AIM for their lunch hour. Valerie was there because the AIM chief had specifically requested her presence.

He used his fork to point at Valerie’s own salad and said, “That rabbit food’s not going to take you very far.”

“I don’t have much appetite today, I’m afraid.”

“You will.” The AIM chief wasn’t bad as lackeys went, fairly polished and able to mouth almost anything with sincerity. But he had the annoying habit of claiming his superiors’ comments as his own original thoughts. “I’ve been watching you operate, Ms. Lawry. You’re our kind of people. Sharp, hard-hitting, take no prisoners. I want you to head up our account.”

The senior partner dropped his fork. “Don’t you think that’s something we should discuss—”

“I’ve talked it over with my people, and that’s how it’s going to be.” As though the decision had been his to make. “Far as we’re concerned, it’s a done deal.”

Valerie wished she could be pleased. But she remained locked upon the morning’s bizarre beginnings. As she had left her Georgetown home, Jim Burke had called and demanded they meet him in a Rock Creek Parkway rest area. He had tersely spelled out directions and cut the connection.

Valerie made the drive in dark despair, knowing Burke had been sent to deliver the killing blow. She had let the Hutchings Amendment slip by her. They wanted her head on a chopping block somewhere private. She spent the drive searching frantically for some defense and coming up blank.

But when she pulled in behind the airport limo, Burke emerged only to hand her a cellphone and point toward the private overlook. With the morning traffic thundering behind her, Valerie lifted the receiver and waited for Hayek to attack.

Instead, the man had sounded almost jovial. “You must forgive this rather unorthodox means of communication, Ms. Lawry. But matters are coming to a head just now, and I wish to be utterly certain that our conversation is neither overheard nor recorded. This will be our last chat until things have settled down. I would be grateful for your assessment of events.”

He gut told her a carefully worded PR exercise was not required here. “Things,” she replied, “do not look good.”

“Please explain.”

“We’ve been blindsided. The appropriations bill was passed with the Jubilee Amendment attached, and this morning I’ve heard they plan to push the bill through Conference Committee at a record pace. Which means the time we have available to act is cut to a minimum.”

“Then fight harder.”

“We will, I assure you. We can pressure—”

“I want you to do more than pressure. I want you to create absolute havoc.”

Valerie hesitated. “Havoc comes at a very high price in Washington.”

“Spend it.”

“Just a minute. Please. You have to understand, we’re talking about people who shape national agendas. To make this a highly public issue will require bringing in the type of consultants who work on presidential races and shape national party politics. These people are not selling us their time. They’re selling
access
. Which they can use only so often. This means the price they charge is astronomical, far beyond anything we could logically bill our clients.”

“I will handle that. You will be hearing from the AIM representative today, just to make things official.”

“It would be wiser to hold off on a full frontal attack until the bill returns to the House and Senate floors for the final vote.”

“Impossible.” Hard and definite. “Timing is critical. I want national attention, I want battle, I want upheaval. And I want it now.”

“Nothing at this point can be guaranteed. No matter how much money you throw at it.”

She might as well not have spoken at all. “Whatever it takes, Ms. Lawry. Aim for havoc. I assume you do not require me to spell that out for you.”

V
ALERIE’S BOSS WAS nothing if not smooth in the clinch. “Well, certainly, Ms. Lawry is one of our most prized associates, and we’re delighted to see her appreciated by our top clients.”

As the waiter stepped in to refill their glasses, Valerie smiled coldly at her boss. His gaze flicked her way and held. Message received. Associate was no longer sufficient. She wanted her own partner’s chair.

“We’re also extremely concerned about the amendment the House attached last night to the appropriations bill,” the AIM chief went on. “Of course you’re aware of this.”

Valerie allowed the partner to stutter a moment before supplying, “We are.”

“I asked for this meeting to tell you that we want you to defeat it now.”

Valerie pushed her salad to one side, leaned forward, and took control. “It’s not that simple.”

“We’re paying you to make it simple.”

“The Conference Committee is stacked against us. There are a number of waverers, but not enough for us to be certain we can turn the tide.”

“So you’ll have to work a little harder. That’s how you justify your outrageous fees, coming through in moments like this. I want you to kill this thing while it’s still in committee. Under no circumstances is this amendment to make it back to the floors for a final vote.”

A
SINGLE BUILDING took up the entire eighteen-hundred block of K Street. The central atrium was eleven stories high and home to a semitropical forest and a stainless steel waterfall. The floor was tiled in a mosaic of marble and granite, the elevators at opposite corners guarded by dual security desks. The upstairs office suites came in two flavors, rich and opulent for the partners, cheap and tacky for everyone else. K Street rents were among the highest in Washington, and associates clustered in cubicles the size of padded cages. Natural light was something associates rarely glimpsed. The furniture was cubed and coldly modern, the atmosphere charged with desperate ambition, the infighting vicious.

Valerie’s sudden elevation to chief lobbyist on the AIM account meant her entry into the conference room was met with hostile envy. She fed on it as she would a carnal feast. “We are about to enter lockdown mode. Everything else on your desks is to be scrapped. We are going to attack, and we are going to do so tomorrow.”

While the shock registered, she bisected the chalkboard behind her with a line and continued, “We have to grimly salute the opposition. They have managed to place the amendment in an appropriations bill the President considers crucial and that contains perks for almost every district. Our only hope is to eliminate this one amendment while the bill is still in committee. But we are not into stealth tactics here. I fear the committee itself has been stacked against us. We must therefore create so much heat around this specific amendment with
all
the Senate and
all
the House that the committee members are forced to change direction.”

Someone along the table said the obvious. “This is going to cost them a bomb.”

“Bomb is the proper term,” Valerie agreed. “They are paying us for nuclear assault, and that is precisely what we are going to deliver.”