Reckless
Authors: Andrew Gross
Reckless
Andrew Gross
To the memory of Eleanor Zorman—a devoted fan,
but an even better mother-in-law
Contents
Beep, beep! Beep, beep!”
They entered the house through the sliding glass doors in…
Remind me again,” Annie Fletcher asked, wiggling out of her…
The gleaming white Dassault Falcon touched down gracefully at Westchester…
They didn’t talk about it much. Over their coffee. The…
About two miles down, Hauck hung a right at Cat…
The bedroom had a few techs and detectives Hauck knew…
The Talon Group, Hauck’s new employer, was a worldwide security…
Roger Cantwell stared at his Bloomberg screen in dismay.
Over the next days, Hauck began digging into the background…
At the same time, Hauck did his best to keep…
Within days, the first responses on Thibault began to arrive.
Wednesday and Saturday nights Hauck coached a team of twelve-…
In the stylish dining room of her Normandy on Dublin…
Later, after everyone had left, Merrill took off her earrings…
It was after eleven, that same night, when Kevin Mitman…
It wasn’t them.
Roger Cantwell stared out at the dark Manhattan sky. The…
Once one of Wall Street’s most historic companies, Wertheimer Grant…
In her cluttered, windowless office, in the basement of a…
Monday afternoon, Hauck sat in his car across the street…
It took some time for the picture of Dani Thibault…
It was two in the morning and James Donovan was…
Thanks for coming in, Ty.”
The idea that Talon might use him as a kind…
His daughter Jessie came up for the weekend. Now that…
At 6:40 that Monday morning, Naomi came in from her…
The second investment manager to die under suspicious circumstances quickly…
On the way home, Hauck took a chance and stopped…
Hauck finally made it home at close to ten. He…
The cheers from the crowd and the thwack of the…
The connection he’d found between Dani Thibault and both dead…
What Snell had found coursed through Hauck. Thibault had claimed…
Outside the garage, Hauck pulled the Beemer into the first…
The chief’s office had been relocated to the newly completed…
My name is Naomi Blum, Mr. Hauck,” the petite agent…
There might have been a time, years back, Jack “Red”…
The man in the Burberry raincoat turned up his collar…
Thomas Keaton, secretary of the treasury, to whom the Office…
That Saturday night, at the Hamill rink in Greenwich, the…
Red O’Toole pulled the van into the crowded lot a…
Jared!” Hauck shouted toward the locker room and waited for…
The Greenwich police arrived a few minutes later. The first…
You have to learn to relax more, Ty.” April grinned…
The phone that they removed from Sonny Merced’s body led…
Hauck came around his desk. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”…
News of the impending collapse of the American banking system…
Over the past few days Hauck had done his best…
Their food arrived, but neither of them felt particularly hungry.
The easy part was grabbing a few days from the…
The international airport at Belgrade in Serbia looked like any…
The next day Hauck was having breakfast around seven in…
They decided the best approach was to stake out the…
A woman whom Naomi pegged as around seventy, in a…
Maria Radisovic’s blue Opel pulled out of the small alleyway…
Inside the farmhouse, Dani Thibault was going crazy.
They watched Thibault for another day from the same hillside…
Look!”
Naomi wound her way down to the farmhouse. She waited…
The lights were from a car coming up to the…
Hauck turned away from Thibault, glancing at the overhead TV…
The two men approaching from down the alley stepped closer.
Hauck raced back through town to Thibault’s farmhouse to pick…
They drove on past Thibault’s car in silence. Naomi was…
The young girl trembled a bit, clearly scared.
They arrived at Heathrow midday Saturday.
The al-Bashirs walked a couple of blocks toward Park…
All at once, the defiance in Marty al-Bashir’s face…
Behind the closed doors of their study, Sheera looked at…
Annie Fletcher picked out the set of spare keys to…
The car that came to take al-Bashir and his…
That wasn’t them! That wasn’t them!”
Empty, dejected, Hauck found his way back to Naomi, who…
By the time they made it back to al-Bashir’s…
Naomi motioned Hauck inside with a concealed wave, closing the…
Hassan ibn Hassani passed through customs at JFK and found…
Hauck flew back to New York on Sunday. Eight A.M.
Naomi flew back to Washington that Monday afternoon and went…
That first night back, Annie came over. Mondays, Hauck generally…
The e-mail flashed on Naomi’s laptop when she logged…
He was getting ready to leave when his cell rang.
She did jog on it.
Peter Simons was skimming the Wall Street Journal in the…
Naomi was at Reagan International, waiting for the government jet…
Red O’Toole leaned against the car and stared out at…
Two large black Suburbans pulled up in front of the…
Peter Simons was pleased.
They took the Amtrak Metroliner back to DC.
Hauck’s body went rigid with determination.
Hauck froze, focused on Naomi, as O’Toole made his getaway.
Only moments before, Thomas Keaton had stood behind the president…
The resignations of Thomas Keaton and his chief counsel sent…
He sat in the BMW looking out at the pleasant…
Agent Blum…Mr. Hauck…”
London.
B
eep, beep! Beep, beep!”
Amir, “Marty” al-Bashir’s six-year-old son, raced his motorized Formula One model around the dining room table, almost crashing it into Anna, the Lebanese housemaid, as she brought out their Sunday lunch of flatbread and spiced lamb.
“Amir, watch out!” his mom, Sheera, yelled. “You’ll run Anna over. Marty, is it not possible for you to tell your son to stop?”
“Amir, listen to your mother,” Marty called from the den, distracted. He and his older son, Ghassan—they called him Gary—were crouched in front of the wide-screen TV in the midst of a crucial football match. Manchester United versus Chelsea. The match was scoreless with only seconds remaining in the first half, and Man U was his son’s favorite team—they had just acquired Antonio Valencia, his favorite winger and the hottest foot in the game.
“Oh, no, look!” Gary shouted as Marty focused back on the screen. A Chelsea attacker had curled a thirty-meter beauty just inside the left post, an inch beyond the Manchester goalie’s outstretched dive.
“Damn, now look what you’ve made me miss, Sheera,” Marty groaned, deflated, “a goal!”
“A goal, big deal. Your son is driving that thing around the house like Jenson Button. Amir,
listen
…” Sheera’s voice grew firm. “If you don’t stop this instant, you can forget about going to Universal Studios when we are in L.A.
Do you hear?
”