The Prince of Risk (8 page)

T
he first bullet struck her in the chest. She wasn’t sure where, only that she felt as if she’d been flattened by a truck. The second hit her in the same place, and even as she tumbled backward and her head hammered the doorframe, she knew that he was a professional. What kind of professional, she wasn’t sure, because by then she’d hit the ground and she couldn’t breathe, and even though her eyes were open, all she could see were skyrocketing colors.

Alex tried to raise her head, but nothing happened. The thought came to her that she was wearing her vest so the bullet couldn’t have penetrated the Kevlar plates and injured her spine. She tried again, with only a marginally better result. She didn’t like slackers, or anyone else who refused her orders, and the same went for herself. Angered, she ordered her fingers to curl, but for all her efforts, she remained as immobile as a petrified rock.

Gunfire battered the air, the bangs and concussions so loud that her ears hurt worse than her chest. There was a thud on the floor beside her, and like that, she could see again. Malloy was lying next to her. Blood spurted from his neck in messy arrhythmic geysers.
He’s a goner,
she thought.
No one can lose that much blood.
She knew this was a terrible thing, and that later she was going to be heartbroken. But for now she was too stunned to feel anything.

The floorboards shuddered beneath her. Feeling rushed back into her limbs. She raised her head in time to see Shepherd running up the stairs. He stopped halfway and fired his pistol. The shot sounded louder than the others and brought her back to her senses. More gunshots followed. She was in a shooting gallery at Coney Island, if every shot made you wince and rattled your insides. Jason Mara came out of the kitchen, firing across the room at Shepherd. He and DiRienzo had taken the back door to insure against Shepherd’s pulling a runner. Mara’s head snapped back. Blood splattered the wall behind him. He fell. She knew he was dead.

Shepherd continued up the stairs. Alex aimed her pistol and fired. And fired again and again. Filaments of plaster and wallpaper erupted around him. He twisted and pointed his pistol at her. He was 20 feet away, but she felt close enough to count the grooves in the barrel. He had her dead to rights. The muzzle flash blinded her. Wood splintered an inch from her ear. All this time, she kept firing. Sixteen rounds, she told herself, though she had no idea how many times she’d pulled the trigger. Her hand was sore from squeezing so hard, and her wrist was shaky. She paused for a second—less, even—trained the sights on Shepherd’s chest, then fired three times in succession. Shepherd appeared to hurl himself against the wall, rebounded, and flipped forward over the balustrade. His head struck the floor first, cracking the rotting planking. He didn’t move after that.

The silence was louder than the gunfire.

Alex struggled to a knee and turned her attention to Malloy. “Hang in there, Jimmy,” she said. “I’ll get help.”

Malloy’s eyes beseeched her. His mouth hung open, lips trembling. He was speaking, but the words were incomprehensible. He repeated himself and she understood. “My girls,” he was saying. “…love them.”

“Stay still, baby. It’s going to be okay.”

Alex avoided his eyes. She had to find his carotid artery. Her fingers probed inside the gaping wound, but there was too much blood and half his goddamned neck was no longer there. Malloy’s hand shot up and grasped her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. Slowly the pressure relaxed. The hand fell back to the floor.

“Jimmy,” she said.

Malloy stared lifelessly past her.

Alex stood. A pall of smoke drifted across the room, the cordite so thick it burned her eyes. Mara was dead, too. She already knew that. DiRienzo lay a few feet away. He had a hole in his cheek and the back of his head resembled a savaged pomegranate.

She crossed the room. Randall Shepherd lay on his stomach, his head swallowed by the old, termite-eaten floorboards. She kicked him and he did not respond. She kicked him again, because he was an asshole. Kneeling, she put two fingers to his neck, but she could find no pulse. She could see into the space beneath the house. An olive-drab crate with yellow Cyrillic writing sat inches from her feet. She still had no idea what the writing said. It didn’t matter. There were numbers, too.

She could make out AK-47 just fine.

B
obby Astor stepped to the curb and raised a hand in the air. A steel-gray Audi SUV swerved into the right lane and pulled to a halt in front of him. Astor jumped into the back seat. “Good morning, Sully. You will kindly refrain from any mention of my father. I’ve been taking condolences for two hours now and I’m fed up with it.”

“Screw you, too,” said Detective First Grade (retired) John Sullivan, turning in his seat and fixing Astor with his watery blue eyes. He was sixty-seven, stout, and ruddy, very much in fighting trim. Since retiring from the force two years earlier, he’d worked as Astor’s official chauffeur and unofficial bodyguard. “My condolences on the passing of your father.”

“Condolences accepted,” said Astor. “Get me to midtown.”

Sullivan guided the car into traffic. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what a shitty day. First your dad and then this thing out on Long Island.”

“What thing is that?” Astor asked, only half interested. He freed the agenda from his back and set it on his lap, eager to study his father’s business dealings for a clue as to what
Palantir
might mean.

“In Inwood, near JFK. Three FBI agents were killed in some kind of operation. It’s all over the news.”

Astor looked up from the agenda. “Did they give any names?”

Sullivan’s blue eyes peered at him in the rearview. “Not yet. You know—have to contact the relatives first. Why?”

“Alex was on a raid last night.”

“Long Island?”

“I think so.” Astor speed-dialed his ex. He tapped his foot, waiting for her to answer.

“You’re an hour late,” said Alex when she picked up. “And yes, I’m all right.”

Astor was more relieved than he cared to admit at hearing her voice. “Was it Jimmy?”

“He, Jason Mara, and Terry DiRienzo.”

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

“Yeah, well.”

“What happened?”

“You know I can’t discuss it. Listen, I’m busy right now. We can talk later.”

Astor hung up, shaken, feeling somehow as if he were the one who had dodged a bullet.

“She okay?” asked Sullivan.

“Same as ever. Her partner was killed. Jim Malloy. Good guy.”

“God bless,” said Sullivan.

“Yeah. God bless,” said Astor. “What the hell was she doing out there?”

Sullivan didn’t answer. There was a time when he’d worked with Alex. The two didn’t get along. He called her a maverick and thought she was too keen on taking risks, too eager to put herself and her team into the line of fire. Astor had no grounds to argue with him. Alex was Alex. She knew only one direction: forward. And always at top speed. Astor was the same. He often thought it was their similarities that had drawn them together, each seeing his or her own best traits in the other. It had made for a torrid romance. But narcissism, in whatever form, wasn’t a good recipe for a long-term relationship.

Astor’s phone buzzed. He checked the number. “What is it, Marv?”

Shank’s voice rattled the car’s speakers. “We got problems. Some of our guys called. They saw what happened earlier. They’re nervous about the position.”

By “guys,” Shank meant the banks that had lent Astor the money to finance his bet on the yuan. Astor checked the monitor built into the rear seat. The yuan was holding steady at 6.30. “We’re good. What are they complaining about?”

“Afraid it might happen again. They’re talking about upping our margin deposit.”

“They can screw themselves. A deal’s a deal.”

“Tell that to our lenders. If you’ve got a minute, you might want to stop by and boost their spirits.”

Astor knew this was an order, not a request. “Who?”

“Brad Zarek.”

Zarek was a senior VP who ran the prime direct brokerage department at Standard Financial. Not Astor’s favorite guy. “How much are we into them?”

“Four hundred million.”

Four hundred million was a substantial sum. Zarek had every right to be calling. “Listen, Marv, any other day I’d be there in a heartbeat. I’ve got something else going.”

“This isn’t any other day. If Standard Financial sneezes, all the other guys will get the flu.”

“Yeah, all right. Call Zarek and tell him I’ll be over. Listen, I gotta go.”

“Head over there now. The sooner we nip this in the bud, the better. You coming back in, after?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe, my ass. It’s not just the banks that are calling. I’m fielding calls left, right, and center from our clients. People are scared. They don’t want to talk to a schmuck like me. They want the schmuck whose name is on the fund.”

“That would be me.”

“That would be you, schmuck.”

“Yeah, okay…I’ll see what I can do.”

And the hits keep coming,
thought Astor. He leaned forward and told Sullivan to take him to Standard Financial’s headquarters at 45th and Sixth. Astor patted his driver on the shoulder. “Hey, Sully, sorry I barked at you like that earlier.”

“Don’t sweat it, chief. I’ve gotten worse.”

John Sullivan had first pinned on a badge in 1966 at the age of twenty. He’d seen all the hot spots: narcotics, vice, homicide. Somewhere in there he’d been shot. Word was he’d pulled the bullet out himself and chased down the bad guy. Astor met him when Sullivan was working with Alex on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, better known as the JTTF, the force within a force run together with the FBI and a multitude of smaller agencies.

Astor didn’t need a full-time bodyguard, but he didn’t mind having someone licensed to carry a firearm drive him around town. There was an additional upside to hiring a cop as a chauffeur. When necessary, Sullivan could drive as fast as needed, run every red light in the city, and park where his heart desired, or rather, where Astor told him to. No detective first grade, retired or otherwise, ever got a traffic violation in New York City.

Astor turned his attention to the agenda. He opened to the month of July and began reading. It was apparent that Edward Astor kept a meticulous record of his activities. A check of the past Monday showed a 7 a.m. breakfast with the CEO of a prominent social networking company about to do its IPO, or initial public offering. At nine there was a meeting with Sloan Thomasson to review the itinerary of the Germany trip. Nine-fifteen brought “P. Evans” for an “update.” By 9:30 he was expected on the floor to ring the opening bell with a United States marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor. And so the day continued—meeting upon meeting—until 7 p.m., when he departed.

The days afterward had been equally busy. Edward Astor arrived before seven in the morning and never departed before seven at night. Twelve-hour days were the norm, fourteen and fifteen hours all too common. Astor saw where he’d acquired his own work habits. He was reminded of the saying apropos of those who chose a career on Wall Street: “You won’t know your children, but you’ll be best friends with your grandchildren.”

Astor turned to the past Friday, his father’s last day in the office. The day started with a breakfast, this time with the chairman of the floor traders’ association, followed by a meeting with “P. Evans.” Astor thumbed back through the past ten days. It appeared that his father had had no fewer than twenty meetings with “P. Evans” during that time, and that didn’t count the times they’d breakfasted and lunched.

Astor returned to the most recent Friday. At 9:15, the notation listed “Update on Special Project—P. Evans,” whatever the “special project” was. The day ended there. He noted a diagonal line drawn through all meetings scheduled after 10 a.m., along with the word
canceled.

Why? Astor wondered. Sloan Thomasson had felt certain that nothing had been bothering his father that morning. He was not sick. So what had forced Edward Astor to cancel all his appointments?

Astor’s thumb returned to the entry for 9:15. “Update on Special Project—P. Evans.”

He suspected that Penelope Evans might be the one to tell him.

A
stor’s first call was to Penelope Evans’s home phone. After six rings, the call went to voice mail.

“You’ve reached the home of Penelope Evans. If you’d be so kind as to leave a message, I’ll get back to you promptly. Toodles.”

An Englishwoman. Cool, resolute, educated, with a royal’s plummy upper-class accent. A snob if ever there was one. And then the chirpy “Toodles,” Miss Evans thumbing her nose at herself and merry old England. A good sport, then.

Astor placed the second call to her cell. Six rings and counting. As he prepared to hang up, someone picked up. He waited for a greeting, but no one spoke. “Hello?” he said.

Silence. Astor pressed the phone to his ear, unsure if he heard a person’s rushed breathing. “Miss Evans?” He added hurriedly, “This is Robert Astor—Edward Astor’s son. Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Yes, hello. As I said, this is Robert Astor. I just left my father’s office. I was wondering if I might speak to you for a few minutes.”

“What about?”

“What happened in Washington last night. I was wondering if you had an idea why he might have gone down there.”

“Why would I?” asked Penelope Evans quickly, defensively.

Astor turned the pages of the agenda, his eye landing on Penelope Evans’s name time and time again. “Mrs. Kennedy said that you and my father worked together on a number of projects,” he replied. “I thought that he might have mentioned something to you.”

“My work involved targeting new customers for the Exchange, updating software on our trading platforms, and writing research reports.”

“According to her, you helped my father with everything.”

“I did my job.”

“She was very complimentary of your efforts,” said Astor. “Were you working together on any projects for the government?”

“No.”

“So you wouldn’t have an idea why he had to rush down to D.C. to see Martin Gelman and Charles Hughes?”

“No.”

“And you and he never worked on any project that might be considered…” Astor searched for the word. “Perilous?”

“I already said no.” She was no longer just defensive but downright bitchy.

Astor held his temper. It was apparent that the woman’s skill set did not include lying. There must not be a course in it at Oxford or wherever she’d gone to university. He was done with the kid gloves.

“Listen, Miss Evans,” he began again. “Penelope…I can tell you’re upset. Scared, even. I would be, too, if my boss got himself killed trying to deliver an urgent message to the president. I know you were working closely with my father, and I know it wasn’t just targeting new clients and updating trading software. So let’s cut the song and dance, shall we? On Friday morning at nine-thirty, immediately after meeting with you to discuss some kind of special project, my father canceled all his meetings for the rest of the day and got the hell out of Dodge. Something was up. I’m asking you again, what were you working on?”

“Why are you calling me, Mr. Astor? You haven’t been a part of your father’s life for years.”

“Because he contacted me last night.”

“Edward phoned you?”

Astor paused. He wasn’t sure if it was surprise or jealousy he heard in her voice. He knew only that the tone belonged to a woman who had cared for his father.

“For the first time in five years. I think he was in the car on the way to the White House. He knew something was wrong—that he was in some kind of danger. Anyway, he texted me. Just one word. Can you guess what it was?”

Penelope Evans did not reply. Astor didn’t hurry her. Finally she said, “They hear everything. That’s why he went to Washington. He had to tell them.”

“Who’s ‘they’? Palantir?”

“Palantir’s the source. He told us about them. Of course, we suspected—at least, your father did. Edward didn’t trust anyone. He was smart.” Evans sniffed, and Astor could imagine her drawing herself up straight, gathering herself. “They’re listening now,” she went on. “They’ll have keyed on the text your father sent you. Your phone will be in their system. It was one of their acquisitions. They hear everything we say.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Astor repeated.

“I’ve said enough, Mr. Astor. You don’t need to be any more involved in this matter than you already are.”

“My father thought differently.” There was a pause. He could hear the woman breathing rapidly. “Please.”

“Not over the phone.”

“I’m free now. Where can we meet?”

“Do you know Morse code, Mr. Astor?”

“No. Why should I?”

“I do,” said Sullivan, who could hear the call on the speaker system. “She can spell it out and I’ll do my best.”

A tap for a dot. A “Shh” for a dash.

There followed an excruciating two minutes of cat and mouse with Sullivan doing his best to decipher the series of dots and dashes. “Got it,” he said afterward.

“Sure?” asked Astor.

“I was an Eagle Scout, wasn’t I?”

“How quickly can you meet me?” asked Penelope Evans.

“An hour,” said Sullivan.

“Please hurry.”