The First Billion (22 page)

On a personal note, it would be Ray Luca’s pleasure to cancel Mr. Jett Gavallan’s largest IPO. There was a symmetry to the affair that pleased Luca’s mathematical mind.

One thing was certain: It would be a helluva way to launch the Private Eye-PO’s investment newsletter.

Refocusing his eyes on the collage of screens, Luca felt a new energy plucking him up. He might not ever become a billionaire, but from where he stood in his beat-up Docksiders and floral-print shirt, “millionaire” sounded damned impressive. He’d done the math a thousand times. By multiplying the number of daily hits on his website by the standard browser-to-buyer conversion rate of 2 percent, he’d arrived at the figure of three thousand wise men and women willing to fork over five hundred dollars a year to receive the Private Eye-PO’s twice-monthly newsletter. A cool one and a half million in revenues for a start.

Luca felt giddy at the prospect. If nothing else, at least he’d have the money to win visitation rights with his daughters.

It was then that he remembered his sell order for Merck. In the ten minutes he’d been daydreaming, the market had moved against him. Merck was trading at 38
¹
⁄
₂
and falling fast. He sent in his order and was filled at 38
¹
⁄
₈
. Instead of making five hundred bucks, he’d lost almost two thousand.

Luca dropped his head into his hands. It was time his luck changed.

26

Gavallan arrived at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach a few minutes before midnight. Once in his room, he set down his bags, opened the windows, and stepped onto the balcony. The smell of gardenias and the sound of the sea washing onto the beach greeted him. He always forgot how far south Florida sat, how tropical it could feel. It was hard to believe he was still in the States and not in some island paradise. A second later the first mosquito buzzed his ear and landed on his cheek. So much for paradise. He slapped at it, then went to the bedside phone and checked for messages left at his home. The first was from Tony Llewellyn-Davies.

“Jett, where the hell have you been all day? Thought you were sick in bed, laid up with a summer flu. Anyway, Jett, if you’re not in bed now, go there immediately. I’ve got a piece of bad news. Jack Stuyvesant called from Lehman about the bridge loan to Mercury. Seems his board gave it the thumbs-down. They won’t accept the ten-million-dollar tranche to Mercury. Meg told him that Graf had called and said that everything was hunky-dory. She tried to get him to take a smaller piece instead, five million, even three, but Stuyvesant said Lehman wouldn’t lend Kirov twenty bucks if it was guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. That’s not all, I’m afraid. Barron Bleriaut at Merrill is out, too. Same reasons. At least he was polite about it. Said if we got all the news sorted out about Mercury, he’d be back in. So that’s it. Looks like us poor sods are left holding the bag. Fifty million of our best Yankee greenbacks in Mr. Kirov’s pocket. ‘Course, it will be all to our favor once we get Mercury public, that much more change in
our
pockets. You might want to call Jack or Barron if you get a chance. A word from the lord of the manor might be in order. Cheers.”

Gavallan slumped onto the bed, the phone dangling from his hand. Lehman was out. Merrill was out. Black Jet was left holding the entire fifty-million-dollar bridge loan to Kirov. But maybe it was just as well, he figured. Save an extra lawsuit or two down the road. Running a hand through his hair, Gavallan wasn’t sure he could believe the string of bad luck. His right eye twitched, then twitched again, and he realized he’d developed a tic. Maybe this was what it felt like to be shell-shocked.

Fifty million of our best Yankee greenbacks in Mr. Kirov’s pocket.

That’s it, Gavallan said to himself. That’s the death knell. He could almost hear the bells pealing.

Unless somehow he could turn the company
. . . No, Gavallan admonished himself, discarding the idea as quickly as it had come. It’s foolish to keep hoping.

With great effort, he took off his clothes and climbed under the sheets. Sometime later, he fell asleep.

From her seat in the executive jet bound from New York to Miami, Tatiana stared transfixed at the limitless plain of water spreading below her in every direction. She had never seen the ocean, and it made her feel small in a way she never had before. Not forgotten or useless or empty, which was how she felt when she had driven across the endless Russian countryside traveling from her convent school near Novosibirsk to Moscow. But small in a way that left her comfortable and secure, feeling part of something large and wondrous, and maybe even magical.

The ocean, she decided, made her feel happy. It was an odd sensation.

Next to her, Boris Nemov yawned, then looked at his watch. “Eight o’clock. Good. We will land in thirty minutes. Did you get any sleep?”

Tatiana said yes, lying. She was much too agitated to sleep. She could not get Konstantin Kirov’s words out of her head. She had never heard him so angry.

“This man is trying to harm us. Not just me, Tatiana, but you, too, and Boris, and everyone in our family at Mercury. He is spreading lies about the company. It is because of him that the American came to Moscow. You know, my sweet bird, that I abhor violence as much as you do, but sometimes . . .” His voice had trailed off, and she could feel his hurt, his fear, his apprehension.

“Boris will tell you what you must do,” he’d gone on. “It will be quick, but messy, and for that I am sorry. Get in. Do the job. Get out. The Americans will think it was one of their own. This type of thing happens every day there. ‘Running amok,’ they call it.”

Tatiana glanced at Boris, who had his nose buried in an American newspaper. “What do you find so amusing in the paper?” she asked.

“Amusing?” Boris cast her a sidelong glance. “Why, nothing. This is the
Wall Street Journal
. Business news. Nothing amusing at all.” He began to read the newspaper again, but stopped after a moment, lowering it to his lap. “I am not going to stay with Konstantin Romanovich forever, you know.”

“Oh?” Tatiana was surprised at the admission. Herself, she never intended on leaving Kirov. One of his TV crews had found her in a Petersburg brothel, a twelve-year-old runaway doing ten tricks a day. Incensed, Kirov had seen the house shut down and taken her in as his private ward. He gave her lodging, clothing, food. He was kind. (Which meant he’d never tried to sleep with her.) He was important, and she greatly enjoyed being in the employ of someone who commanded so much respect. No, she reassured herself, she would never leave. “What will you do?”

“A few more years and I am going to start my own company,” he confided in an excited whisper. “Security, I think. For Westerners doing business in the Rodina. Maybe insurance. Our people will need insurance one day. I am not certain yet.” Giving her arm a friendly punch, he smiled. “Maybe we work together. I give you a job.”

“Maybe.”

“Not what you are doing now. You cannot continue with your work forever. I think you should move into public relations. You are young. You are pretty. How many languages do you have?”

“Four, maybe five, if you count Baku.”

“There, you see. If nothing else you can be a translator.”

Tatiana smiled, wanting to convey a measure of interest. In truth, the prospect sounded appallingly dull.
Business. Public relations. A translator.
Her world possessed a more pungent vocabulary.
Slut. Thief. Whore.
Words that had been tattooed across her soul long ago. And more recently,
killer.

She made a show of returning her magazines to her carry-on bag, then leaned back her head and closed her eyes. Enough talk of the future. Of dreams that might never come true. It was time for work. Time to begin steeling her mind to the task ahead.

Killing came easily. All she had to do was imagine a man’s body on top of hers, his brow knit in concentration, his mouth open, dripping with lust, his eyes swallowing her whole as if her beauty was his for the taking. She would feel his pounding, taste his sweat. Her vision would grow hazy, the periphery dissolving into a grainy white cloud. Only her target would remain in focus. At the final moment, she would drift outside of herself and watch as another woman pulled the trigger.

Boris had told her it was rage, because she was upset about her time in the convent. She wasn’t to blame, he said; anyone who had spent fourteen years in a state-run orphanage would feel the same. She recalled the bowls of kasha, twice a day, every day, the haircut every six months, the dull scissors shearing her hair to the scalp, the bar of lye that came next to burn away the lice, taking two layers of skin for good measure.

She remembered the sacred sisters’ midnight ministrations. The awkward touches under her gown, the cold raw hands, the bony fingers and ragged nails probing her private places, the sour breath smelling of cabbage and wine and whispering for her to stay quiet, that she was doing God’s work, and all the while the chafing of their bristly mounds against her leg, punctuated by the staccato, irreligious grunts.

Tatiana swam through the smells, the sensations, the images, pleased they no longer frightened her or moved her in any way. Yes, she agreed, anyone would feel the same as she. But it was not rage they would feel, or anger. They would simply feel nothing.

Killing was easy if you were not alive.

Gavallan rose at seven. After a long run on the beach, he showered, then breakfasted on the veranda. The effects of the exercise and the lush surroundings left him feeling restored. Hardly himself, but not the shell who’d crawled into bed the night before. He put in a call to Emerald, explaining he’d be back that night, then left word for Tony or Meg to call him pronto.

At nine sharp, he knocked on the front door of 1133 Somera Road, the residence of Raymond J. Luca. He decided to play it straight from the get-go, explain that he too had learned that something was amiss with Mercury and ask where Luca had gotten his information. But the door never opened. In Gavallan’s new world, nothing went as planned.

Returning to his car, he’d spotted a neighbor walking a pair of toy poodles. He was an older man with gray hair, glasses, and a wary eye behind the welcoming smile. Gavallan asked him if he knew Ray Luca, and if so, where Luca worked.

“You a friend of his?” the man asked.

“You might say that. We were at M.I.T. together.” Gavallan thanked his stars for Jason Vann’s inquisitiveness.

“Another egghead, eh?” The older man chuckled. “Don’t know what I’d do without Ray. Helps me with my taxes. Saves me a couple hundred bucks each year. And the kid won’t take a dime. It’s not right, I tell him.”

“That’s Ray. He’s a sweetheart. Say, I went by his house, but he’s not home. Know where he works?”

Gavallan didn’t want to come on like the authorities and made sure not to press too hard. Soon enough, the older man, who’d introduced himself as Ralph O’Mara, gave up the information.

“You can find him at Cornerstone. 714 Atlantic. He’s a whiz, that boy. All we talk about is the market.”

“Got any recommendations?” Gavallan asked before heading to his car.

“No, just one to stay away from.”

Gavallan said good-bye before O’Mara could give him the name. He already knew what it was going to be anyway.

The Delta Airlines 727 inched forward on the runway. Out the window, Howell Dodson counted seven jets lined up in front of him, waiting to take off. Friday morning gridlock at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

“Rush hour—my, my,” he said to DiGenovese. “Who’d have thought it? Least we’ve left the gate. Won’t be but fifteen, twenty minutes till we take off. We’ll be on the ground by nine, you’ll see. Do some of that New York City driving, you can have us in Delray Beach in an hour’s time.”

Dodson had decided not to alert the Dade field office to their arrival. Protocol demanded that an assistant deputy director be met by the office’s ranking agent. He’d have to explain why he was in the area. That meant going into the flimsy case on Kirov and the even flimsier reason for looking up Mr. Raymond Luca. Breathe one word of premeditated murder and someone would suggest setting up surveillance on Luca’s house.

No thank you, said Dodson to himself. He didn’t care to waste the Bureau’s resources on snipe hunts. DiGenovese’s hypothesis about Gavallan’s murdering ways left him unconvinced.

“Roy,” he said, “I think I’m going to avail myself of the free time to catch up on some rest. Twins never did get to sleep last night. Tell you, it’s danged tough being a new father at my advanced age.” And tucking a pillow under his head, Dodson settled in for a little shut-eye.

DiGenovese sat in the seat next to him, glowering.

Upon landing, Boris and Tatiana rented a car and the two drove the sixty miles north to Delray Beach. The morning was hot and muggy. The sun sat high in a hazy blue sky. The heat made Boris uncomfortable, and Tatiana wondered if it was too much for him. Every two minutes he had to wipe his brow and take a swig of the bottled water. Tatiana, though, was too taken by her new surroundings to notice the heat. From her first step inside the airport, she was mesmerized. Everything was so clean, the floors waxed a brilliant white and free of cigarette butts, gum wrappers, newspapers. Everyone appeared tanned, fit, and prosperous. And so many smiles. Not a worried brow among them.

They stopped once at a sporting goods store in Fort Lauderdale, where a man was waiting for them in the parking lot. He introduced himself as Andrei and spoke with a Georgian accent. Later Andrei explained he worked with the American branch of the Solnetsevo Brotherhood, the business group that controlled Moscow’s northern neighborhoods.

Andrei led them to his car, opened the trunk, and handed Boris a green training bag. Inside was a map of Delray Beach, with instructions on how to find Mr. Raymond Luca and a layout of the building where he worked. He was a “day trader,” Boris had explained with some envy, a man who made his living trading the stocks of important companies. Tucked in the bottom of the bag were two 9mm pistols and several boxes of ammunition.

Back in the car, Tatiana took a nail file from her purse and carved an x into the nose of each bullet to make it flatten on impact. Then she fed the bullets into the clip. She enjoyed the crisp click each emitted upon entry. Finished, she used her palm to drive the clip into the pistol.

“I’m sorry, my little bird,” Kirov had said, “but on one point we must be clear. There can be no survivors. No witnesses. It is for the best. For your safety and mine.”

With the help of Andrei’s map and the rental car’s onboard navigation system, they found the offices of Cornerstone Trading. Parking the car a block away, Boris told Tatiana to wait while he entered the building and checked if Raymond Luca was in. She watched him cross the street, thinking he did not look so bad dressed like an American in blue jeans, a white button-down shirt, and high-top tennis shoes. It was nice to see him in something other than a black suit.

She was dressed in nearly the same attire, except that her shirt was a blue and white chalk stripe and her tennis shoes were white and dainty.

Boris returned five minutes later.

“He is there. Fourth cubicle to the right.”

“What is a ‘cubicle’?” Tatiana asked.

“Like a little jail cell. Four walls that rise to your chest and a chair inside. He is seated working at his computer. He wears a baseball cap. Yankees of New York, I think.” Though his face was grave, his eyes were bright, overexcited. “You are ready, little sister?”