Reckless (33 page)
Authors: Andrew Gross
“Yes, everything’s alright, Sheera,” he snapped, his mood shifting. “Stay with the boys. I’ll be there soon.”
Naomi said, “Getting back to that conversation, Mr. al-Bashir, directly after it, you altered the investment strategy of your firm, did you not?”
“What do you mean I altered our investment strategy?”
“The very next day, Monday, February ninth, your fund began liquidating most of your financial interests in the United States markets. In fact, across the globe. Just to be clear, you’d call those interests
sizable,
would you not, sir?”
“Yes, of course, they’re sizable. We’re a significant fund. But whether or not you say it was a result of any conversation—”
“In fact, you began shorting the stock of many of the largest financial entities in the market. Citicorp, Goldman, Bank of America, AIG…”
“I’m not sure of the exact date.”
“Lehman Brothers, Beeston…,” Naomi went on, her eyes locked on his shifting gaze. “Wertheimer Grant.”
The Saudi’s complexion grew pale.
“If you don’t mind me asking, was Mr. Hassani some kind of partner in your firm, Mr. al-Bashir? Or one of the lead investors?”
“You seem to know very well who the partners are in my firm, Ms. Blum,” the Saudi reacted with irritation.
“Just to be clear, sir, it’s
Agent
Blum.” She stared at him and continued. “But he
was
someone from whom you took investment advice?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. We were just two people discussing their views.”
“Yet you immediately altered course after that conversation.
Why?
”
“I think this has gone far enough, Agent Blum. I suggest this may be something you would want to take up with our attorneys, if you’re alleging there is something I’ve done wrong. Whatever it is you are trying to prove, it’s not for this location or this time. I think your five minutes are up.”
“I’m pretty sure this is something you would definitely
not
want me to run by your attorneys, Mr. al-Bashir. Do the names Marc Glassman and James Donovan mean anything to you?”
The Saudi blinked, now seeing where the conversation was leading. “I believe they were those two financial traders who died suddenly in the U.S. One was a home break-in. The other a suicide…”
“That’s correct, Mr. al-Bashir,” Naomi said, “except for one thing. There was no suicide. Mr. Hauck here has proved that. Both were murdered.”
“I didn’t know that,” the Saudi said. He glanced uneasily at Hauck, concerned about where this was going.
Naomi pressed on. “That sudden shift in strategy certainly changed the price of a lot of stocks, didn’t it, Mr. al-Bashir?”
He shrugged. “Anyone could see the financials were ready for a tumble. We were simply early on that one.”
“Yes, they did tumble, didn’t they, sir? Royal Saudi is one of the largest players in the market. Its support or withdrawal can move an entire sector, can it not? As it did.”
“I think the verdict is already in on that one, Agent Blum. But I still don’t know where you’re going—”
“Where I’m
going,
Mr. al-Bashir”—Naomi’s gray eyes fastened on him—“where the U.S. government is going, is that shortly after that shift in strategy, after their firms’ stocks had already been cut by more than two-thirds in the past year, Mr. Glassman and Mr. Donovan were both murdered. After their deaths it was discovered each secretly had lost billions in trading and concealed those results from their firms, making their companies’ balance sheets all the more fragile. These were considered the last straws, so to speak, in driving these firms into insolvency,
correct
?”
Al-Bashir nodded blankly.
“Dragging down the rest of the market, wouldn’t you say? Like a chain of dominoes.”
“Along with several other causes,” al-Bashir replied. “You
have
heard the words ‘subprime mortgage mess’ at Treasury, haven’t you? Or ‘credit-default swaps’? Or maybe, ‘reckless’?”
“Yes, they’ve come up. What if I could make the case, Mr. al-Bashir, that both Mr. Glassman and Mr. Donovan had been receiving substantial outside payments to commit such actions? And that those payments could be tied directly to Mr. Hassani? And, through another of his associates, tied to their murders as well?”
Al-Bashir’s face knotted tighter. He put his glasses back on, his face pale. “I’m going to walk away now, Agent Blum. I think I’ve had enough of this.”
“Before you do,” Naomi said, “two more quick things. One, does the name Dani Thibault ring a bell with you?”
The Saudi blinked. Hauck kept his gaze on him, measuring his reaction.
Clearly, it did.
“And the second…” Naomi squinted. “If you don’t mind answering, sir, just what did it mean, the parting phrase of your conversation with Mr. Hassani: ‘The planes are in the air’?”
A
ll at once, the defiance in Marty al-Bashir’s face seemed to drain. The Saudi blinked, removed his glasses again. Trying to gather his composure.
“What?”
Naomi had sucked him along like an expert prosecutor. Like a barracuda, Hauck thought with admiration, fixed on her prey. Hauck had seen this moment many times. The most hardened deniers begin to crack. Seemingly calm outside, but inside their brains revved frantically, trying to decide what to do. He couldn’t have done it better himself.
“I think you heard me, Mr. al-Bashir.” Naomi continued to gaze at him, knowing she had set him back. “What did it mean when Mr. Hassani said to you, ‘The planes are in the air’?”
“It meant nothing.” The Saudi cleared his throat and glared at her. He was an investment manager, hardly used to having to defend himself this way. “It was simply a phrase. A business conversation between two professionals. Mr. Hassani is a well-known figure. He has facilitated a mezzanine financing tier for Reynolds Reid with the Bahraini royal family, for God’s sake.”
“Then it shouldn’t be an issue to you if I share the transcript of that phone conversation with your employers, the Saudi royal family,” Naomi said, sensing the kill.
“Look…”
The young investment manager shook his head, seeing the arc of his life falling apart.
“Your career is over, Mr. al-Bashir. You conspired with a person who has known terrorist ties to defraud the already shaky world financial markets. You’ve made billions of dollars illegally. Investment managers were lured to commit financial fraud against their banks and take those firms over the edge. At best, it’s a conspiracy to manipulate the markets. At worst, it’s an act of terrorism, adjudicable under Homeland Security laws. Regardless, Mr. al-Bashir, when do you think is the next time we can expect to see your face on CNBC?
“Not to mention,” Naomi continued to look at him without letting him respond, “that as a result of this, four innocent people have been murdered.”
Al-Bashir’s color drained. He glanced toward his wife, who now was looking at him with concern, then took a few steps farther along the path, away from his family. He spoke back in a hushed tone, almost a whisper, but with a measure of desperation in it. “What is it you want from me, Agent Blum?”
“I want to know what was behind that phone call, Mr. al-Bashir, and how it ties into a plot to recruit Marc Glassman and James Donovan in an effort to destabilize the United States economy. The United States government wants to know.”
“I had nothing to do with any of that. All I did was merely shift our portfolio.”
“Oh, I think you
did
have something very much to do with that, Mr. al-Bashir. I think you had something to do with it the minute you bedded down with individuals like this. But unfortunately”—Naomi shrugged and inhaled a breath—“that’s not even your biggest problem right now.”
He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “What are you talking about?”
Naomi glanced over at the Saudi’s wife, now huddled with her boys, clearly worried about what was going on. “You have a lovely family, Mr. al-Bashir. I’m sure, like any husband and father, you would do whatever you could to keep them from harm.”
The Saudi’s gaze darkened. “What are you talking about?”
“Dani Thibault was murdered yesterday. He was shot, execution style. In Serbia. In a remote village we had traced him to. Thibault had recruited Glassman and Donovan with a series of payments that we can tie to Mr. Hassani. We believe his death was ordered by Mr. Hassani, to cover it up.”
Al-Bashir’s cheeks twitched. He swallowed and did his best to sound bold. “I still don’t know what that has to do with me, Agent Blum.”
“Well, it’s this: All the players in this plot, Mr. al-Bashir, are dead. Glassman, Donovan, now Thibault. All but one, Mr. al-Bashir…,” Naomi said, staring at him. “
You
. Puts a whole new meaning to the word, ‘reckless,’ doesn’t it, sir?”
“Listen,”
the Saudi said, sweat on his brow, “I sold stocks, that’s all. That’s the extent of what I did. I adjusted our positions, as any money manager might do. That happens as a matter of course many times in a year. There’s not a jury in the world that would convict me of anything illegal. There’s nothing, nothing at all, to connect me to any of these horrible crimes.”
Hauck finally intervened. “This has nothing at all to do with any jury, Mr. al-Bashir. This woman is trying to save your life. Your family’s life. Don’t you understand?”
The Saudi glared back at him, about to challenge him. But the fight seemed to go out of him.
Naomi took his arm. “If I wanted to have you arrested, we’d already be having this conversation in a cell, Mr. al-Bashir. You have no way out. You’ve put yourself and your family at great risk. But what you
don’t
want,” she said, her tone softening, “is for there to be no way out and for you to end up dead.”
A cast of recognition settled over the Saudi investment manager’s face. He grew sullen. He ran his hand through his hair and glanced, seemingly out of answers, toward his wife and kids.
“What if I just walk away? Do nothing?”
“Then
I’ll
do nothing.” Naomi shrugged. “Other than maybe make sure that the transcript of that conversation I referred to gets in the hands of your employers. They may not feel the same way, I suspect, when it comes to how their investments are being handled. We’ll also let it be known that we had this conversation. About Mr. Hassani. Considering what just happened to Mr. Thibault, are you really willing to take that chance?”
The Saudi wiped his mouth. He released a long, deflating breath as the full measure of his predicament seemed to fall on him.
“I’m giving you a way out, Mr. al-Bashir. In our protective custody. For your cooperation. You can hold on to the majority of your assets. Those that were rightfully earned. But what we want to know, sir, is what was the extent of this plot? Who was involved? Where does it lead?”
He shook his head. “I need time.”
“You have no time, sir. Go back home. Talk it over. I’ve arranged a car from Scotland Yard to be stationed outside your house. I’m sorry for all this, sir, but the time to answer is now.”
B
ehind the closed doors of their study, Sheera looked at her husband, aghast.
He had told her everything. How his roots with Hassani went back many years. To when he was a young student. Not even in the U.S. At the university in Riyadh. How they had singled him out. Educated him. Groomed him. For a purpose. For one day.
How his sensibilities had been so different back then.
“How could you possibly have gotten in with people like this?” His wife tearfully shook her head.
“I never thought about them for twenty years,” al-Bashir said. “It was before I went to the U.S. Before I met you. As time passed, I thought they had forgotten the debts. I thought life had let me be free of them.”
“These types of debts are never forgotten. Life will never let you be free of them.” Sheera sat forlornly on the couch. She looked at him, something angry and judgmental in her eyes. “You should have refused, Marty. You should have gone to the police.”
“They would have killed me, Sheera, if I didn’t comply.”
“And they will kill you now that you have.”
He wanted to go over and sit next to her, his wife for all these years, the most treasured thing in his life. But he was sure she would just pull away. This had drawn a line between them. Maybe forever. “I’m so sorry. We’ll get to keep much of what we have. I know what it is to give this up.”
“To give this up?”
She lifted her eyes and regarded him as if she was horrified. “You think for one second this is what I care about giving up?
This house?
Your fancy position? The things it has brought us?” From out in the hall, they heard the sounds of their boys playing. “It’s
them
. Amir and Ghassan. It’s
their
lives that matter to me. Will they now be targets? Will we live in fear the rest of our lives? Wherever we are…These are debts that don’t get forgiven, Marty.”
He glanced, empty of all hope, out the window. There was an unmarked car parked across the quiet street. “I’ll call Arthur,” he said, closing the drape. Their lawyer. “He can arrange some kind of deal.”
“It’s not about lawyers, Marty. Not this time.” She picked up one of Amir’s Transformer robots from the floor. She smiled and looked up at him. Resigned. Even forgiving. Tears flooding Sheera’s eyes, she held out the toy. “I think we made our choices long ago.”
Marty al-Bashir nodded. Tears in his eyes too. Tears of shame. Of fading hope for them. “We did, didn’t we, Sheera.”
A
nnie Fletcher picked out the set of spare keys to Ty’s house from where she knew he always left them, along the side of the house behind some flower tubs in a fake rock. She went up the stairs and let herself in.
The alarm signal beeped. She pressed in the code, 70794.