Drummer In the Dark (39 page)

68

Tuesday

O
UR AGENTS FOUND the house by the light the fire made against the rain.” Agent Welker sounded grim as the news he carried, hard as the night. “The old place went up like a torch. Rain was hissing and dancing off the roof. The local cops stopped a lone male driving a Chevy with stolen plates. Turns out he smelled like he’d bathed in gasoline. Had quite an arsenal in his trunk. He refused to supply any ID. They’re holding him on suspicion of arson.”

The room around him was a single set of eyes, silent as the grave. “What about Jackie?”

“I’m sorry, Congressman. I really am. The agents tried to make it up the stairs. The place was a furnace. These are good men, believe me, I checked. If they say they tried, that’s what they did.”

A chiming came from where his jacket was slung over the sofa back. Wynn gestured at the room, urging someone to pick up his phone. Carter was the first to move. “I understand.”

“Apparently the agents heard music and they think a voice. But who was actually in there, we won’t know until the firemen finish going through the ashes.”

Carter stepped over to him and said, “It’s Jackie.”

The agent heard that. “You’ve got the woman on another line?”

“Hold on a second,” Wynn said, trading phones. “Are you all right?”

“Barely. We almost had a heart attack. We were just working away, minding our own business, then whoosh. The whole place went up like a bomb.”

Jackie did not sound the least bit worried. In fact, if Wynn had to put a name to her tone, it would have been elation. “Where are you?”

“Millicent Kirby’s upstairs front room. We wanted to go to a hotel but Millicent wouldn’t leave her house. We knew they were on to us soon as they cut our feed into Hayek’s mainframe. But we had enough by then. Almost everything, in fact. Colin just did these huge dumps. Basically ever since then we’ve been trying to figure out what it is we’re looking at.”

“You’re not making any sense, Jackie.”

“Colin is a genius. He rewired my phone so it played over my stereo, we left on all the lights, then worked up here with his cellphone dialed to my apartment number. We could hear ourselves talking from the back porch. Brilliant.” She paused to cough. “Millicent hasn’t been up here in twenty years. We’ve had sneezing fits that’ve lasted for hours. The place smells of mildew and cat pee and we can’t get the window open. It’s awful.”

“I know this woman?”

“She’s my landlady. Crazy as a loon. But a sweetheart.” A voice spoke behind Jackie. She seemed to stifle laughter as she went on, “Colin says I need to get to the business at hand. Don’t mind me. I’m giddy over not being a crispy fritter. Not to mention what we’ve discovered.”

The phone in Wynn’s other hand began squawking angrily. Wynn said, “Hold on one second.” He took the other phone, said, “Ask your agents if there’s a woman named Kirby living nearby.”

Welker said tightly, “We’ve got a felonious situation on our hands, and you want them to play twenty questions?”

“She’s Jackie’s landlady. Jackie says she’s hiding upstairs with somebody named Colin.”

“Who?”

“I have no idea. Oh, and tell your men the Kirby woman is apparently not entirely sane.”

A huffing breath, then, “Why should she be any different?”

Wynn returned to the cellphone. “What have you discovered?”

“Oh, man,” Jackie replied. “This is sweet. It really is.”

69

Wednesday

W
YNN WAITED UNTIL five o’clock the next morning to waken the Fed official, Gerald Bowers. It had taken Jackie and Colin that long to sift through all the data and come up with something that resembled a case they could walk around with. Show to people, convince others they weren’t totally off the wall. Add to that another half hour it had taken to explain it in single syllables so that Wynn and Kay and Carter could understand.

But when he got the Federal Reserve Bank official on the line, Wynn stared down at the pages in front of him as if they contained the cuneiform scribblings of some alien race. Which is why he woke the man up with, “Sir, I have reason to believe that the nation’s financial system is going to be attacked this morning.”

“It happens every day at nine, Congressman.” The man croaked a tune that truly fit his appearance. “The moment Wall Street hits that morning bell.”

“No sir. This is something different. At least, that’s what we think. Or thought.” Wynn looked helplessly across the room. The Hutchings parlor was much the same as it had been upon Wynn’s arrival. Graham was lying down in the other front room, but the last time Wynn had checked, the old man’s eyes were open and fully alert. One staffer had surrendered to fatigue and was sacked out on the floor by Graham’s bed. The tables were littered with papers and coffee cups. The air had the stale quality of gritty exhaustion. “Somebody come help me out here.”

Carter merely smiled. Kay watched him with the grim satisfaction of seeing an acolyte come into his own. “You’re doing fine.”

“Thirty seconds,” Bowers finally growled. “Then I’m hanging up only long enough to call Welker and have him lock you in a cage.”

“Too late. Welker is on the FBI jet they’ve sent down to collect Jackie and Colin.”

The voice on the other end sharpened a notch. “Who?”

“They’re supposed to be arriving at National about seven,” Wynn said. “Why don’t you come join us. Hear this straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“And why on earth should I do that?”

“Because,” Wynn announced. “They’ve located Tsunami.”

T
HE RAIN PASSED with the dawn. Not that Jackie gave it much notice. The FBI formed a three-car convoy in Millicent’s front yard. Two men with shotguns stood sentry at either end of the porch. Welker waited in the front hall as first Jackie, then Colin, used the downstairs bathroom, showering under a trickle of rust-colored water, trying to scrub away the fatigue and the fear.

When Jackie came out of the back room, her wet hair was plastered to the same shirt she had worn the previous day. And all night. It was all she had. Everything else had gone up in the backyard bonfire. Welker paid her clothes no mind whatsoever. He glanced at his watch and said once more, “We really need to be going.”

“Almost ready.” Jackie slipped by the agent and walked down the back hall. Millicent was in the same place she had been since the agents stormed her house. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Mrs. Kirby will be fine,” Welker replied, stepping in behind her. “We’re stationing an agent here on permanent watch.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Jackie said, seating herself beside Millicent, taking her hand.

“Ms. Havilland, we need to be leaving
now
.”

Jackie massaged Millicent’s hand, shifting in her seat until she was as close as she could get to the center of the woman’s roving gaze. “You remember how you told me you were afraid of being alone in the dark? This nice man will be around just to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The gaze might have been as scattered as sunlight on windswept waters, but the voice was all there. Soft and precise and terrified. “They’re going to put me in a home.”

“Not a chance in this world.”

“You don’t know. They’ll watch me and they’ll see what they want to see.”

“Millicent, look at me.” Jackie waited until the woman had brought her gaze under some semblance of control. “How would you like me to move in upstairs?”

The fragile shoulders lifted a fraction. “Live with me?”

“It won’t be all the time. I don’t know where I’m going to wind up after this, but I doubt it will be here.” Jackie pushed away thoughts of any future beyond the next few hours. “I’ve got some money coming. At least, I think I do. We could have some people come in, build me a little apartment I’d use whenever I’m in town. Would you like that?”

The tiny woman used her free hand to wipe shaky streaks down both sides of her nose. “We could be best friends.”

“That’s exactly right.” Jackie rose, then bent down and kissed the top of Millicent’s head. Her hair felt like spun glass. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She turned to the FBI agent and gave a little nod. Welker lifted his wrist to his lips and said, “Heads up. We’re moving.”

70

Wednesday

B
URKE STUDIED THE dawn beyond his window. The rain had passed with the night, and the sun rose within a pristine sky. He reached for his phone and dialed Hayek’s private line. The hand holding the phone stank of petrol and charred wood. He had showered four times after finally arriving home and still could taste the fumes.

The man answered himself. “What is it?”

“I’m just making sure,” Burke replied, “you want me to go ahead as planned.”

“Yes, Burke. I want you to do exactly as we discussed. Make the two calls. Report back to me. Now precisely which portion of this did you not understand?”

“But Crawford hasn’t checked back in. Which means he might have been arrested. And we still don’t know what Colin Ready managed to steal or whether—”

“Fear, Burke. When you begin to question the course of events, remember that. The greater their terror, the larger our gain.”

The words were the same, but not the power. Burke had the impression that Hayek himself no longer fully believed what he was saying. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Chaos. Turmoil. Frenzy. That is what we are after here. Remember this at all times. Our success will be determined by one thing. The market’s level of panic.” When Burke did not respond, Hayek continued, “War is won not merely by force. They must hear our approach like drumbeats from the forest shadows, and fear what they can neither see nor understand. That way the battle will be decided before we even commit our forces.”

Burke cut the connection. He went through the motions of following Hayek’s orders, trying to stifle the argument he could not bring himself to present to his boss. That they were overextended, dangling on the precipice. And the unknown was still out there, the menace still not entirely checked.

He dialed Thorson Fines’ home number. When the man answered, Burke said, “Be ready to start buying more dollar-long contracts.”

“But the new money hasn’t arrived.”

“It will.”

“When?”

“This morning.” Burke almost added, soon as the markets crash. But there was no need to reveal his hand. “Right after the markets open. Five billion will be transferred straight into your accounts. Remember, use Interbank only. Fully leveraged. Max out every credit line.”

Fines hesitated. “So it’s really happening?”

Burke hung up the phone. He said to the empty office, “I hope so.”

He unlocked his lower drawer and brought out the secret folder. The phone was answered by a voice more wheeze than sound. “Harris Forex.”

“This is Burke.”

A swift intake, then, “Back in five.”

“Make it less.” But the man had already hung up.

When Burke’s phone rang, he took a long moment and breathed hard before answering. It was not a big step in and of itself, except for the fact that he was afraid. Of what, he could not say. He was doing as he always had, following his master’s directions. But today the fever was not present, and he saw his actions with the cold clarity of one who was utterly divorced. Or perhaps one who had already lost. Still, he had no choice. So he answered the phone with a simple, “Yes.”

“Okay.” The sound of heavy breathing signaled a swift dash to a pay phone outside the building. “I’m here.”

“It’s a go.”

The breathing stopped, then restarted. “Go?”

“Exactly as we discussed.”

“And the money?”

“As promised, the second half will be paid upon confirmation that the insert has gone as planned.”

“I can only write the pieces and put them out, I can’t guarantee the papers or television will carry the spots.”

Burke started to say that it wasn’t the papers he was concerned about, then decided that was one point he definitely did not need to pass on. “Do what you can.”

71

Wednesday

T
HE FBI JET LANDED at National beneath a dawn hammered from blue and palest gold. Jackie had spent the journey reviewing the data with Colin, going through it all one more time, committing as much of it as possible to memory. But now, as she watched them taxi away from the main terminals and over to where a convoy of dark cars and gray-suited officials awaited them, she found it hard to conjure up her own name.

It helped marginally that Wynn was the second person up the stairs, behind the welcoming agent. He gave her a hug fierce enough to still some of the jitters, at least momentarily. “You okay?”

“No.”

“You look fantastic.”

“No I don’t. I’m wearing the same clothes I’ve had on for thirty-six hours, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I left Rome, and I’m so full of burned coffee they could plug me into the airport system and light up a runway.”

The cleft of his chin turned ax-blade deep, his smile was that big. “I’d say that pretty much sums me up as well.”

She reached back into the plane and pulled Colin through the door. “This is the man himself. Colin Ready, meet Congressman Bryant.”

The young man stammered, “I’m not certain I’m ready for all this.”

Wynn nodded agreement. “Who is?”

A voice from down below shouted, “I’m waiting!”

Wynn stowed his grin away. “Heads up.”

Jackie glanced over his shoulder and saw a man who made Carter Styles look good enough for the cover of
Vogue
. “Who’s the frog?”

“Gerald Bowers, Federal Reserve Bank.” Wynn gripped her hand and led her down the stairs. “This is not turning out as I’d hoped.”

The man waiting for them danced on the tarmac like an overhot junebug. He could not keep still, not even as his eyes tracked Jackie’s progress over toward him. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You called me in the middle of the night to say I’ve got to shut down the nation’s entire financial system because of
her
?”

“If you’ll just—”

“Hang on, I’m not done here. You claim Hayek is planning to push our financial markets into meltdown, and your only basis for this pronouncement is a hacker and a lowlife flunky who’ve committed a serious felony by breaking into a fund’s trading system? How on earth do you know Hayek didn’t just plant the data, waiting for them to sneak in and steal it?” Bowers choked on his rage, then shouted, “Whatever those jackals in Congress end up doing to you isn’t nearly enough!”

Jackie slipped her hand out of Wynn’s, and closed the distance between them. “It so happens that I’m not the lowlife in this picture, bub.”

The man turned a choleric purple. “Young lady, get out of my face or I’ll have these agents introduce you to the local penal system.”

She moved in closer still, forcing him to stare up or back away. “You try that condescending tone with me once more, and I’ll use your tie for a noose.”

Bowers rounded on Wynn. “This is our contact? This is the star lead? A woman with no credentials you’ve got the hots for?”

Jackie reached over, gripped the little man’s lapel, and swung him back around. “If you’d manage to
shut up
and
listen
for
two seconds
you might learn something you can
use
!”

Wynn offered, “Why don’t we all ease off a notch here.”

Jackie ignored Bowers’ futile slapping at her grip, and kept him drawn in close. As the agents hustled toward them she hurried to say, “We know the data wasn’t planted because we used a trader’s own entry code to tap into Hayek’s mainframe!”

Two sets of arms pinned her and dragged her back. She might as well have been chained to stone peaks. She shrieked at the man, “Hayek isn’t running two funds. He’s got
three
.”

“Wait. Let her go.” Bowers shrugged his jacket straight. “What are you talking about?”

“First you tell these goons to back off!”

“It’s all right, gentlemen. We all just got a little carried away.” Bowers took a single step forward. “Three funds.”

“That’s right.” Jackie turned and called back up to where Colin still stood in the doorway of the jet. “Get on down here!”

He showed no interest in budging. “I’m just fine where I am, thank you.”

“Colin Ready is the one to explain the details. I just interpreted what he found.”

“Let’s just stick to you for the moment.” Another cautious step. “Three funds.”

“As far as I can tell, it’s the old shell game. Hide the pea with sleight of hand, right?”

A trace of the man’s bullish nature resurfaced. “We’re talking billions of dollars here, young lady.”

“The name is Havilland,” Wynn snapped. “Use it.”

Jackie took small comfort in Wynn’s presence. “Hayek supposedly has all his resources committed to the dollar, and he’s bought billions.”

“Correct.” The bank official showed the root cause of his ire, drawing out a handkerchief, wiping his hands, massaging the cloth until it knotted up and disappeared. “We can’t even determine how much he has acquired. But what makes it worse is how the entire market has followed suit.”

“Which is exactly what he planned. Today Hayek is planning to dump his dollars. Soon as the market opens. All of them.”

Bowers’ face resembled a drain whose plug had been ripped away. “He’ll be massacred.”

“Not,” Jackie replied, “if he has another team waiting in the wings to buy them back.”

T
HE K STREET CLOCK ticked to a faster beat than the rest of Washington. By the time the Beltway and local Interstates experienced their daily dose of gridlock, most of the lobbyists had been at their desks for several hours. Even so, Valerie hired a caterer for this particular dawn conference, since many of the senior figures in attendance were unaccustomed to the rigors of K Street attack mode. Behind the boardroom table ran a buffet of smoked salmon, eggs Florentine, baskets of fresh bread, whipped butter, fruit salad, and stacked briquettes of filet mignon. She waited for the team to settle down, then said, “Last night I was invited to a function at the Press Club. They were doing a charity roast of the Vice President. Midway through the evening, I was cornered by Senator Alfons.”

She resisted the urge to beam, their response was that strong. Hands up and down the table were trapped midair by the news. Senator Alfons of New York was one of the President’s staunchest allies. New York was also key to the President’s chances of reelection. She reveled in the spotlight of anticipation a moment more, then announced, “Alfons is coming out against the amendment.”

“All
right
.”

“This is dynamite,” another agreed.

“The timing could not possibly be better,” Valerie went on. “So far as we know, the committee will have a vote on the bill this very morning. Before they meet, we need to muscle our way into as many offices as possible. The Department of the Treasury, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the White House staff. They all need to hear the same message—this amendment critically damages America’s sovereignty, and backing it will do irreparable harm to the President’s chances for reelection. The President can’t afford to come out on any side but the senator’s.”

“Anybody who votes for this thing,” her former boss predicted, “will earn themselves a one-way ticket back to Iowa.”

Valerie leaned back, sipped from her cup, smiled at chatter she scarcely heard. The senior partner seated midway along the table gave her a fraction of a nod. Things were definitely going her way.

“
H
AYEK IS PLAYING a high-finance version of the old shell game,” Jackie repeated, swiveling around in her seat so she could take in Wynn and Bowers in the back. “Switching the pea around in plain sight, but moving back and forth until the placement is lost.”

She pointed behind them, to where Colin rode in the next car. The snarled traffic had them jammed in so tight she could see the worried pinch to his pale features. “Colin Ready told me how Hayek had built a second trading floor above the main one. He brought in this new team everyone hated, then seemed to climb down again and move them over to this bank he had acquired. At least for a while. But both funds kept growing at this incredible rate, and this week Hayek tells them the bank doesn’t have enough room, they had to bring these new guys back over. But with both funds awash in new money, who’s going to complain?”

“Hayek’s ownership of First Florida has not been officially confirmed,” Bowers said, his bark muted but still in place.

Jackie paused long enough to give him a look, then continued, “It wasn’t until last night that it all finally fell into place. I’ve been wracking my brains trying to figure it out. Then it hit me. Something Colin said sparked it off. How there was still activity going on over at the bank. A
lot
of money being kept in abeyance. Not even listed on the books. Held in offshore accounts, just waiting for Hayek to give the word.”

“You’ve lost me,” Wynn confessed.

“It was a trick perfected by Rothschild. Back in the early 1800s, he was the king of the European financial world. Whatever he said basically was followed by the entire market. Just before Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, all the banks were wondering if this was the end. Rothschild said nothing, but word spread that he was selling. We’re talking serious panic, getting rid of everything he owned, switching to gold bullion and diamonds. Exactly what you’d expect if you had to flee a nation about to lose a war.” Jackie squinted tiredly into the rising sun. “The markets just tumbled. But what they didn’t know was Rothschild was secretly buying everything back at fire-sale prices.”

Bowers demanded, “You’re telling us Hayek owns a
third
bank?”

“He doesn’t need one. A huge trading floor is required to handle different kinds of trades, and do them fast. But if all you’re handling are forward contracts through the Interbank, a handful of traders could dispose of billions in a matter of hours.”

Bowers leaned forward, snarled at the driver, “Can’t you make this traffic get out of our way?”

Agent Welker was senior enough to remain languid in the face of Bowers’ ire. “Sir, unless you’re in the President’s own convoy, the only way to get the Washington rush-hour driver out of your way is with a gun.”

Bowers drummed on the window, ground his teeth, finally decided, “We’ve got to act. I don’t like it, but we can’t take the chance you’re right. I’ll have my people start gathering a team. But we can’t hit the markets based on this kind of evidence. We’ll just have to wait and see if Hayek starts dumping dollars.”

Jackie’s eyelids felt coated with shards from the hourglass of lost sleep. “We might have something more. One question first. How has the market responded to all this publicity over the current legislation?”

“Frantic. Terrified. Think of oil dropped on a red-hot skillet.”

“There was something Colin found, or a part of something. We were halted before we could download all the files. They shut down their outside access. But what we came across got us wondering.”

As Jackie outlined her fears, Bowers received the information as he would news of his own demise. He spent a long moment massaging his chest, then kicked the front seat. Hard. “Shoot somebody if that’s what it takes. But get us into the city
now
.”