Reckless (36 page)
Authors: Andrew Gross
But it was the third book, underneath, that, like some kind of superconducting magnet, held her stare.
Yes, it can.
Naomi removed it from the pile. It was a travel book, about a destination the al-Bashirs might have once visited.
The thing was, she had seen the very same destination just two days before.
On the ski-lift ticket at Dani Thibault’s farmhouse. In Serbia.
She fixed on the cover. A snowcapped mountain rising from a valley bathed in amber light. It couldn’t be a coincidence. At this stage, there were no coincidences. Her heart started to beat like crazy. She had found it. She had found the link that bound them together.
Gstaad.
N
aomi motioned Hauck inside with a concealed wave, closing the door behind him. She showed him what she had found.
“Two days ago,” she explained. Her voice was hushed yet driven with renewed emotion. “In Thibault’s farmhouse. I didn’t think it meant anything. Just one of the things I found searching through his possessions. A ski-lift ticket.” Naomi’s eyes twinkled.
“To Gstaad.”
“Okay.” Hauck nodded, picking up the book and staring at the cover.
“It’s a ski resort,” Naomi said. “In Switzerland.”
“I know it’s a ski resort,” Hauck replied.
“Sorry. Just check out what’s inside.”
He leafed through the glossy pages. It was filled with scenic photos of ski runs, the snow-covered mountains in winter, and in summer, the picturesque village. He found a bookmark inside. On the highlighted page, one side had a description of one of the resort’s most treacherous runs, the Chute; the other had a shot of beautiful people in expensive ski clothes sunning themselves on a deck at lunch. At a fashionable restaurant, high on the mountain.
Christina’s.
In the margin, someone had scrawled some words. Maybe al-Bashir. Hauck tried to make it out.
“It says, ‘The Gstaad Gang,’” said Naomi, who already had.
“The Gstaad Gang?”
“Something took place there.” Naomi’s eyes were bright. “This isn’t just some tourist book. Thibault and al-Bashir, both there. It can’t just be a coincidence. What do you want to bet Hassani’s been to Gstaad too?”
Hauck looked at the book. He felt it too. The throbbing in his chest. “What we have to find out is when al-Bashir might have been there and see if Hassani was there at the same time.”
“We can do better than that,” Naomi said. “Lift tickets have dates on them.”
“If we happened to have it,” Hauck agreed.
“We do. It’s in my camera.” She lit up in a grin. “I photographed everything there.”
Her face now shone with renewed purpose. If they could connect everyone there at the same time, they might have a reason to go at Hassani. He’d be a slippery one to latch on to, maybe protected by the Bahraini or Emirates government, but this was the best they had.
“We can track his movements through immigration,” Naomi said. “Through credit card records.”
She was right. No way this was just a coincidence. Something
had
happened there. Between Thibault and al-Bashir. And maybe Hassani. He stared at the hand-scrawled margin note. Underlined. A surge of optimism coursed through Hauck as well.
The Gstaad Gang.
“Who knew about this?” he asked Naomi. “I’m talking about the arrangements around al-Bashir.”
She shrugged. “Gavin Toller of MI5. Linda Maxwell, my counterpart at the office of the Exchequer.” Britain’s treasury department. “Obviously, it was passed along to the police.”
“Who else?”
Hauck asked, his gaze fixed on her. He meant back home.
“Rob Whyte, my boss. I’m sure he ran it up the line. Just what are you saying, Ty?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. Except that someone knew Thibault was Kostavic and in Novi Pazar, which was something we fell upon only by accident. Now al-Bashir…I have a suggestion, Naomi. Actually, it’s not so much a suggestion as it is something that would be really, really smart and might end up keeping us alive.”
“What’s that?” Naomi asked, her look darkening.
“Until we find out where this goes”—Hauck held the Gstaad book in his hand—“don’t call this in.”
H
assan ibn Hassani passed through customs at JFK and found the private limo driver waiting for him in the terminal.
His private security man followed a step behind.
The driver took Hassani’s expensive Hermès carry-on, exchanging the usual pleasantries about the trip with him. Hassani had used the man before. He led them quickly to the custom BMW 750i, which was permitted to wait for him at the curb, the security man hopping in front. They drove into the city.
As the car navigated the bumper-to-bumper traffic along the Van Wyck Expressway, Hassani got on the phone. He was here, principally, as a representative of the Bahraini royal family’s interests, for the annual meeting and the preceding board meeting of Reynolds Reid. A year ago the sultan had made a six-billion-dollar mezzanine investment in the ailing firm, which converted, if needed, to almost 7 percent of the company. That was eighteen points ago on the stock. The sultan’s six billion was now worth less than half that.
But Hassani knew that was about to change.
It would change because Reynolds Reid was clearly going to be one of the survivors in the world financial collapse. Not simply a survivor but a clear winner. When the world calmed, it would be more powerful than ever. And now, with a place at the table, who would be better set to represent their country’s vested interests?
One just had to have patience, Hassani knew. As well as take the long view.
This was a twenty-first-century kind of jihad.
Apart from Reynolds, Hassani also had other affairs to attend to in the States. He had legitimate business interests there and in Canada. And various other matters not so transparent. There were Islamic cultural organizations, religious freedom groups that funneled money from back home into mosques and Islamic communities in upstate New York.
That reflected the other side of his causes as well.
He found his mind wandering and he stroked his goatee, his thoughts flashing back to Sera, his new treasure back in Dubai. How sad he was to have to leave her behind. But he had to focus on other things here.
The car went through the tunnel into Manhattan and then wound its way up Park Avenue to the Waldorf Astoria, where Hassani had the six-room Roosevelt Suite, which was sometimes home to visiting heads of state. He told the driver and the security man to wait while he was shown around his quarters, quickly showered and changed, put on his Brioni pinstripe suit, custom-made Turn-bull and Asser shirt, and a yellow Alan Flusser tie. In half an hour he was back downstairs, totally refreshed.
He decided he would walk and told the driver he could pick him up again in two hours’ time. He was heading to 457 Park, on Fifty-fourth Street. The tall glass headquarters of Reynolds Reid, only five blocks away.
It was a beautiful day and Hassani felt safe enough to enjoy the summer weather in New York. Street vendors were out on the avenue, selling kabobs and pretzels to office workers who sat sunning themselves outside their buildings. His security man kept up a couple of paces behind.
On Fifty-fourth, he recognized the familiar stone and glass tower with the iconic intersecting “RR” wrapped in a lion’s tail. He almost felt an owner’s pride.
Crossing the street, he passed through the large glass doors and walked up to the marble desk in the reception center. He announced himself to the guard, who printed off a VIP security badge and directed him to a private elevator bank that served the executive offices on the forty-second and forty-third floors. As the elevator whooshed them high above Manhattan, he knew there was much to talk about.
The largest bank in California had gone belly-up this week. In Spain, the leading real estate developer was underwater. The walls were tumbling, one by one, with even more speed than they had imagined. Mighty Lehman Brothers and Citi—their stocks were now the lowest they had even been. Everything was in play, if you had access to an unlimited supply of capital. The carnage was only beginning. Only those who had the long view, who had the required patience to accept the pain, with the promise of future reward, future domination, would be there to pick up the pieces in this new world.
The elevator opened on forty-three. Hassani and his security man stepped out. A pretty, nicely dressed secretary was there to greet him. Hassani admired her and wondered if something might be arranged later on. (Though the thought did also cross his mind that she might be just a tad old for him.)
The woman smiled and said, “Mr. Simons is waiting for you now.”
She led him along a row of important-looking offices, executives who wouldn’t even be there now, earning their large bonuses, Hassani mused, were it not for the timely investment of his own king. She led him into a spacious conference room. Hassani motioned to his man to wait outside.
“Make yourself at home,” Peter Simons’s secretary said. “Mr. Simons will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you.” Hassani smiled.
The room had a large rosewood table that might have seated as many as forty, and a sprawling, wall-to-wall vista of midtown Manhattan. In one corner there was a Giacometti bronze on a pedestal. Hassani had acquired such tastes himself, having studied at the Sorbonne. A six-foot-wide video presentation screen boasted the familiar logos of all the iconic brands that Reynolds Reid had acquired, ready for the upcoming board meeting. A set of antique silver tea and coffee pots sat on the credenza.
As Hassani admired the view, a private door to one side opened. Peter Simons stepped in.
Simons was tall, lanky, raw boned, slightly graying. He was fifty-six, but with his still light-brown hair and fit, trained body, he looked much younger. He came over and hugged Hassani with open arms.
“Hanni!”
“Peter.” The two embraced, kissing each other on each cheek in the Middle Eastern fashion. “It’s very good to see you again, my friend.”
Simons patted the Bahraini warmly on the back. “I’m glad you could be here.”
There was much to talk about before their meeting, but first the Reynolds Reid CEO leaned close to Hassani’s ear and said, his voice no louder than a whisper, “
One thing…
That little matter in London, which so concerned us…It’s been taken care of, I presume?”
“Completely taken care of, my friend.” Hassani gave a pat to the CEO’s back. “Let us get on to other things.”
H
auck flew back to New York on Sunday. Eight A.M. Monday, he was back at his desk.
The plane ride back was the first time he’d been able to think about what Steve Chrisafoulis had shared with him, the connection between Talon and Sonny Merced, the man who’d attacked Jared at the rink. He recalled how Foley had tried to put the brakes on his investigation into Thibault, citing the firm’s “other” interests with Reynolds Reid.
It also worried him how someone was always one step ahead of them in Serbia and London. Only a handful of people in the world knew about Thibault. Or al-Bashir’s connection to Hassani.
Was it possible he and Naomi were being played?
Around ten, one of the partners transferred in a call from Tom Foley. “Glad you’re back,” his boss said with seeming enthusiasm. “Ready to go forward?”
“Totally ready,” Hauck said, looking to deflect any questions on where he had been.
“Good. I want you in on a lunch meeting Skip Haley is holding up there around noon on Landmark Communication…”
Landmark owned television stations and was looking to make an Internet acquisition. Hauck told him he’d sit in.
Naomi had remained an extra day in the UK, to check with some contacts there and see if they could pin Hassani in Switzerland on the date of the supposed meeting in Gstaad.
They knew the date in question, June 26, a year ago, from Thibault’s lift ticket. If they could pin Hassani there, coupled with the flow of funds from Ascot through Thibault to James Donovan’s account in the Caymans, that might be enough to restart their investigation. Something had brought both al-Bashir and Thibault to the Swiss resort. Hauck began to wonder could there have been others? Others they didn’t know about. Something al-Bashir had said before he stepped into the car:
It was never about terrorism…This was much larger than terrorism.
A thought occurred to him. He took out his BlackBerry and searched through the contact files for a name from years before, when he worked for the Department of Information at the NYPD.
Marcus Hird was a criminal inspector from Kantonspolizei in Zurich. They had gotten to know each other at a conference they both attended in DC and later, Hauck had done a favor for him, actually for his cousin who had moved to Greenwich to work for UBS; the cousin’s son had been caught with some beers behind the wheel. Hauck had gotten the boy off with a suspended license and probation.
Hauck located the number. It was four P.M. over there. The overseas call went through and connected with the usual short beeps.
“
Bitte,
Hird,” the inspector answered officiously.
“Marcus,” Hauck said. “It’s Ty Hauck. From Greenwich. In the States.”
“Ty!”
the Swiss inspector exclaimed, switching to almost perfect English. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” Hauck agreed. They exchanged a few pleasantries about work; Hird’s cousin, who was now back home; and the man’s son, who was now a student at the local polytechnic college. Hauck then got to why he was calling: “Marcus, there may be something you can do for me.”
“Always happy to assist the local police there in any way I can,” the Swiss detective said politely.