The Prince of Risk (33 page)

“L
aGuardia air traffic control is denying us permission to land,” reported the captain of the Gulfstream G4 to Alex. “The wind across the runway is gusting to sixty knots.”

“I have an agent waiting for me on the tarmac.”

“I don’t care if the president of the United States is waiting for you. A gust hits this plane when we’re about to touch down and it will flip us over like a tiddlywink.”

Alex squeezed herself in between the pilot and the copilot. “You heard what’s going on,” she said. “This is a matter of national security. We are hours away from an attack on the city. Put us down.”

The captain consulted with the copilot. “Get strapped in. We’re going to have to go in like a Zero at Midway. I hope you’re used to hard landings.”

Alex hurried to her seat and pulled the safety belt tight against her stomach. A minute later the nose dipped, then dipped some more. Her bag slipped from beneath her chair and slid the length of the cabin. She didn’t think of retrieving it. The plane hit an air pocket and bounced noisily. She gripped the armrests harder.

“Oh, Father,” she said to herself, “help me through this.”

She wasn’t sure whether she was praying to Hoover or to the Lord above.

And then the plane began to rock and roll.

Barry Mintz stood on the tarmac at the base of the stairs. More than ever he looked like a rumpled teenager, all gangly limbs and a head of red hair standing on end in the driving wind.

Alex walked past without acknowledging him. She kneeled to kiss the runway, rose, walked 10 feet away, and vomited.

“A little rough coming in,” said the pilot, standing with arms crossed in the doorframe.

“She okay?” asked Mintz.

“She’ll be fine. She’s one tough customer.”

“Tell me about it,” said Mintz.

The clouds that had threatened since early evening rolled overhead, dark and ominous. A few drops of rain fell. Alex returned, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. Screw it. The suit was still soiled with Salt’s blood and she was fresh out of hankies. A little puke wouldn’t hurt. A man from Customs and Border Protection stood nearby. Passport formalities were handled quickly. Alex accepted her passport back and turned to Mintz.

“Good news, please.” It was an order.

“We got him,” said Mintz. “The South Africans pinged Beaufoy’s phone to a home in Darien. We rousted the real estate agent out of bed. He leased the residence to a foreign gentleman from Singapore who paid with a cashier’s check for a three-month period. Same MO as at Windermere.”

“Name on the lease?”

“An alias. We ran it and got nothing.”

Alex picked up her bag and started toward the car. “Call SWAT and the local police. Tell Jan McVeigh.”

“Um, Alex…hold it. You’re not even supposed to be working the case. Bill Barnes is already out there. He’s leading the SWAT team in. He said he’s going to be breacher.”

“Are you in contact with him?”

“He sent a two-man probe team. They have ten heat signatures inside the house.”

“Any sightings?”

“Not sure.”

Alex considered this. Her motion sickness had disappeared the moment she puked, but now a new, more troubling nausea threatened to take its place. “Are you telling me that there are ten bad guys inside the safe house fourteen hours after Salt called Beaufoy to give him a heads-up that I was on the trail? No chance.”

The door to Mintz’s Ford opened. A portly, disheveled man with a five o’clock shadow got out. “Hey, Alex, long time.”

“Marv,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“We can’t find Bobby. He isn’t answering his phone. He’s not at home. I’m worried that something’s happened to him. You know—what with his looking into his father’s death. I called looking for you and got put in touch with Special Agent Mintz.”

“Mintz, did he ever go see Jan?”

“Negative.”

Alex checked her own phone and saw that Bobby hadn’t called back. He never failed to return a message promptly. “Where was he last?”

“He left the office at three to visit a client named Septimus Reventlow at 49th and Park,” said Shank. “Reventlow says the meeting was over quickly and Bobby left a little after four.”

“Who is this Reventlow?”

“An investor. He has a lot of money in one of our funds. The thing is, Bobby was in a pickle. He had a big bet that went south on him. Reventlow put in three hundred million to help us meet a margin call. Essentially, it saved the company. There’s no way Bobby would not call me to talk about it.”

“He didn’t say a word? Not even a text?”

“He talked to our CFO to tell her to expect an incoming wire transfer. That’s the last we heard.”

“And that was at four?”

“More or less.”

Alex weighed the information. If Bobby left Reventlow’s office at four, he would have had plenty of time to make it downtown for his appointment with Janet McVeigh. “What about Sully? I left two messages for him.”

“Nothing. I tried his home, too. Nada. Don the doorman hasn’t seen Bobby either. It’s like the two of them have disappeared.”

Mintz took a call. “Barnes is suiting up. They have the place surrounded. If we want to make it out there, we have to go now.”

A drop of rain hit Alex’s cheek. She gazed up at the sky. Any minute, it was going to dump buckets. She looked at Marv Shank, then back at Mintz.

“What was Sully driving?” she asked.

“The Sprinter,” said Shank.

“Get in. Let’s go find my husband.”

Alex’s first assignment upon joining the Bureau had been bank robbery. The work was fast and exciting, and there were plenty of arrests. She was shot at twice (both misses), and she herself shot and wounded three assailants. Good times. Bank robbers, she learned, were not the smartest guys in the room. Most were druggies, drinkers, your basic street-level perp in need of a quick five grand and too stupid to consider that ten years of hard time were too steep an interest to pay on the money. Many used stolen cars in the commission of their crimes, thinking that a hot vehicle would offer an anonymous getaway. Nine out of ten forgot that nearly all late-model automobiles come equipped with LoJack, a location finder/radio transmitter hidden in the rear tire well of an automobile. If the car was stolen, the LoJack office nearby would activate that car’s transmitter and immediately receive a ten-digit GPS location, pinpointing the car to a 2-square-foot patch of planet Earth. It could also, if desired, disable the car’s engine.

Bobby’s half-million-dollar Sprinter had the same kind of LoJack as any Nissan or Hyundai, except that Mercedes-Benz charged $5,000 for it instead of $500. Alex needed two calls to get a mark on the Sprinter; the first to the insurance company to get Bobby’s license number and the second to LoJack to ask the company to turn on its transmitter. In three minutes she had the location of Bobby’s Sprinter.

“It’s at 27 Foxhollow Road, New Canaan,” she announced after hanging up.

“Sully lives in New Canaan,” said Shank.

“I know.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Shank went on. “Sully never drives the Sprinter home. It’s Bobby’s car.”

“Well, it’s there now, and it’s not moving a muscle,” said Alex. “The engine has been disabled.”

Shank remained unsatisfied. “But if Sully’s at home, why isn’t he answering his phone?”

The drive to New Canaan took forty minutes. Alex shooed Mintz aside and took the wheel. She was done with being a passenger. The winding country roads were her own private racetrack. If her aggressive driving bothered anyone, no one dared admit it.

Sully lived outside the city, and she needed her onboard navigation to steer her through the country roads. She abandoned the GPS when she turned onto Foxhollow Road. She had an easier beacon to follow. Directly ahead, a wall of flame rose into the sky. Cresting a rise, she saw a platoon of fire trucks pulled up in front of John Sullivan’s home. The Sprinter was parked a few yards away. Alex slid in behind an EMT’s truck and got out of the car. The firefighters were only just arriving and were running to attach a hose to a hydrant. The chief stood by the main engine, establishing his battle plan.

Alex flashed her identification and introduced herself. “Is anyone inside the home?”

“Too hot to go in,” the chief responded. “The place could collapse at any second. We’re going to spray down the roof with water and retardant, then send a team in the front door.”

Alex ran as close to the entry as the flames would allow and called Bobby’s name. No reply came. The heat was ferocious, battling her back. She called again, but there was no response. A firefighter tugged her sleeve and told her to retreat from the flames. Alex shook her arm free and stayed where she was. “Bobby!”

The flames were growing rapidly, the crackling of timber and popping of the dry shingles lending the blaze an explosive, hazardous character. She looked for ways to get closer, if only to be able to hear her ex-husband’s cries. If he was alive, she wanted to know it.

Then she saw something. On the ground, inches from the garage door, lay a small, colorful card.

“Give me a pole,” she said.

A young fireman handed her a long pole with a rubber grip that was normally used to move fallen power lines. She approached the blazing garage door with caution. When she was 10 feet away, she used the pole to retrieve the card.

“What did you find?” asked Mintz.

“He’s inside.” Alex handed him Bobby’s driver’s license and broke into a run.

“Where’re you going? Alex!”

Alex climbed into Mintz’s car and circled the fire engines, navigating a path through them until the Ford sat at the head of the driveway. The fire chief pounded on her window and yelled for her to move the car away. She ignored him. She hit the horn three times, then floored it, driving the Ford straight through the garage door, sending flaming wood and cinders in all directions.

Bobby crouched in the center of the garage, fire licking at him from the ceiling. There was a snapping sound and a timber fell from the roof and landed on the car’s hood. Bobby opened the passenger door and got in. Alex threw the car into reverse. Her eye fell on another body, this one prone and motionless, a crust of blood forming a halo around its head. “Sully?”

“Dead.”

A second timber fell, striking the car. Alex reversed through the flames. In seconds they were in the driveway, safe. Bobby pointed to her face. “Your eye,” he said. “What happened?”

“The job. It’s nothing.” Alex looked at the bloody towel wrapping his hand. “What did they do to you?”

“Asked me some questions. I told them what they already knew. Look, we have to get out of here. He’s going after Mike.”

“Slow down. Who’s Mike?”

“Michael Grillo. A PI who does some work for me. I hired him to find Palantir. Paul Lawrence Tiernan. That’s his name. I mean, Palantir’s name. Grillo sent a text saying he’d found him and had the report. Reventlow’s going there now.”

“Septimus Reventlow? Where?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be too far. He said he’d be back.”

Alex called over Barry Mintz and gave him Palantir’s name. “Look for an address in the tristate area.”

“Right away,” said Mintz.

Alex took the swathed hand and unwrapped the towel. “Oh, Bobby.”

“Looks worse than it is.” Emotion overcame him, and he sobbed. He banged his good fist on the dashboard. “The bastard,” he said, gathering himself. “He didn’t even blink an eye. He liked doing it.”

“Who did this, Bobby? Was it Reventlow?”

“Septimus Reventlow and his brother Daniel. Just so you know, Reventlow isn’t their last name. It’s Lee. They’re from China.”

Alex couldn’t take her eyes from her ex-husband’s ruined fingers. Three were missing fingernails, and the flesh underneath hung in tatters. As gently as she could manage, she replaced the towel. Bobby winced but said nothing. He was in shock.

“Calm down,” she said. “You can tell me what happened in a second. Right now, there’s someone here who wants to see you.”

Astor got out of the car. Marv Shank hit him like a linebacker coming on an all-out blitz, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tight.

“Easy, Marv.”

“Sorry.” Shank released him and Astor saw that he was crying, too. “If you want a friend…”

“Buy a dog,” they said in unison.

“Had me worried,” said Astor. “For a minute there, I thought you were getting soft on me.”

“Thought you had a heartbeat.”

“Never.”

Astor hugged Shank, then said he needed to talk to Alex. “Sure thing,” said Shank.

Astor walked to the end of the drive with Alex. He told her about everything that had happened since she had left. She, in turn, related her discovery that her investigation into the arms cache at Windermere was in fact linked to his father’s death. Sadly, she had no information about Reventlow’s and Salt’s ultimate target.

“And they lit the fire to burn you to death?” asked Alex.

“I lit it myself. I figured it was the only way I could get out. I thought if someone saw the flames, they’d call the fire department and that would be that. Things got a little out of control.”

“How did you do it?”

“There was a lawn mower in the garage that had a little gasoline in the tank. I looked around and found some Hornet Coils and a box of Ohio Blue Tips. I piled some dry leaves and tinder that Sully had put in the trash on top to get the fire going. I think I may have put a little too much.”

Barry Mintz jogged over to them. “715 West 44th Street,” he said. “Paul Lawrence Tiernan’s address.”

“That’s it,” said Astor. “Grillo had him pegged to be somewhere in midtown. We need to hurry.”

“The only place you’re going is to the hospital,” said Alex.

“No chance. I need to see Palantir’s report. I can go after.”

Mintz pulled Alex aside. “I just got off the horn with Jan,” he said quietly. “Bill Barnes is going in.”

“No way Beaufoy and his men are still there. Salt tipped them off fourteen hours ago that we were on their trail. Let me talk to him.”

“Too late. D.C. gave the green light. Barnes isn’t talking to anybody anymore.”

Alex turned away, not sure whether she was angrier because Barnes was risking his men’s lives on a fool’s errand or because she wasn’t there to go along. She looked at Bobby. “Okay,” she said. “Get in the car. Let’s go find your friend Mr. Grillo.”