The First Billion (48 page)

67

Cate waited in front of the visitors’ entrance to the Exchange, pacing back and forth, craving a cigarette, though she’d never smoked in her life. The morning air was cool and invigorating, the sidewalk bathed in the shadow of the surrounding skyscrapers. Still, she was sweating. Every minute or so, she checked her watch.
Where was he?

She searched the parade of faces, men and women walking purposefully up and down the street. Businessmen in three-piece suits, tourists in shorts and T-shirts, artists carrying sketchbooks and easels. At the corner of Wall Street and Broad, street vendors were selling black-and-white photos of Manhattan, magazines, financial texts. The pavement pulsated with the vibrant human cargo. Hugging her arms around herself, Cate wondered if she was doing the right thing. She knew very well the consequences of her actions. Once taken, there would be no going back.

“He’ll serve two or three years, tops. And there’s no guarantee of that,” Pillonel had scoffed in the archives of Silber, Goldi, and Grimm’s headquarters. “Besides, it’s not the government he should be afraid of, it’s his partner.”

She thought of the nasty little dacha north of Moscow, the crude torture chamber with its floor stained black by blood. She remembered Alexei and Ray Luca. She forced herself to imagine the countless others who had suffered or died at Kirov’s hands, and the countless more who would surely follow. The blood ties to her father, frayed and fragile, unraveled yet further and finally broke, taking with them her doubt. Someone had to stop her father. At last, she had a way.

A tented canopy had been erected on the sidewalk. Beneath it, two long tables were stacked high with caps and T-shirts bearing the Mercury logo. Handsome young men and women were giving the merchandise to passersby, along with brochures describing the company. Cate looked on, disgusted. It was a fraud, a farce, a fairy tale with a very unhappy ending.

She stopped her pacing long enough to check her watch and compare the time against that of the clock on Federal Hall. Both read 9:20. Her heart raced. Where was he?

“Ekaterina Kirova?”

“Da?”
Cate spun. A wiry, dark-haired man attired in a neat houndstooth jacket stood in front of her. She’d never met him before, but she knew him intimately: the soulless eyes, the distrustful smile, the shadow of a beard pushing up an hour after shaving. “Dangerous,” Pillonel had said of her father’s partner. His
krysha
. “From the bandit country.”

“You have something for me?” he asked.

Retrieving the compact from her purse, she removed the last disc and told him what he would find. “Hurry,” she said.

But in contrast to her anxious demeanor, the Chechen was all too relaxed. He held the disc between his fingers, examining it this way and that as if deciding whether or not to purchase an expensive piece of jewelry. “No need. Everything is already taken care of.”

“What will you do?”

The man from the bandit country met her gaze, and she felt a chill pass through her. Saying nothing, he slipped the disc into his pocket, bowed ever so slightly, and walked off.

The party of three had grown to six. Dodson and Gavallan led the way. DiGenovese, Haynes, and the muscle came behind. Haynes and his two agents had donned the shapeless jackets favored by specialists on the floor. Strung out along the corridor that ran parallel to the floor, weaving in and out of the milling throngs of traders, brokers, and specialists, the group managed to avoid looking like the war party it was.

Dodson pulled up at one of the double doors leading onto the floor. “All right, Mr. Gavallan. Here we are. You heard Agent Haynes. Kirov just left the specialist’s booth and is on his way up to the podium. Lead on. And remember—calm, brisk, and orderly. We find Kirov and we take him into custody.”

The New York Stock Exchange was divided into four trading rooms: the Main Room, the Garage, the Blue Room, and 30 Broad Street. There was no hierarchy among them. The Exchange’s seventeen trading posts, scattered across the floor like giant bumpers on a billiard table, were divided evenly between them. Wide passageways lead from one room to the next. But when people thought of the Big Board, it was the Main Room they envisaged. It was here that trading was inaugurated from an elevated podium every morning at nine-thirty, and here that was halted every afternoon at four.

Gavallan led the way into the Main Room. It was large and airy as a convention hall, two hundred by two hundred feet. The ceiling stood several stories above a century-old plank floor. American flags of every size and shape dominated the décor, sprouting from every trading post and hanging on every wall. Brokers’ booths ringed the floor’s perimeter. Ninety percent of orders to buy and sell shares traveled electronically through the “superdot” computer system directly to the specialists’ booths, where they were automatically mated, buyer with seller, at an agreed upon price. This 90 percent, however, accounted for only half the share volume that traded each day. The remaining 10 percent of trades accounted for the other 50 percent of the volume, and these large, or “block,” trades required the human attention of both broker and specialist.

Lowering his shoulder, Gavallan nudged his way through a knot of brokers talking last night’s hoops and walked onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Keeping a driven pace, he wound his way across the floor, passing the trading posts where IBM, 3M, Freddie Mac, and AIG were traded. The posts bristled with television monitors, flat screen displays, computer keyboards. Eleven minutes from the opening—9:18:25, by the digital clocks hanging high on every wall—each was surrounded by clumps of specialists balancing their orders prior to the start of trading. It was difficult to see more than fifteen feet ahead.

Gavallan reached the post that housed the electronic offices of Spalding, Havelock, and Ellis, the specialist firm assigned to trade Mercury’s stock. The booth was a hive of activity. Twenty or thirty brokers crowded around Deak Spalding, the firm’s top trader, shouting to be heard. It was a scene that played out whenever there was strong demand for a stock, or strong pressure to sell it.

Gavallan glanced toward the podium. A Mercury Broadband banner was draped across the balcony below it. Another larger one hung on the wall behind it, just below the gargantuan American flag that daily paid tribute to the United States of America and the free market it fostered.

“Well, look who’s here,” said Deak Spalding. “The devil himself, back from the dead. Hey, guy, how are you? I had old man Grasso himself here not two minutes ago, with your buddy Kirov and some of your troops. Gonna be a big opening. Gotta love it.”

Spalding was a broad, florid man with an Irishman’s ruddy nose and gift for gab. A pink carnation adorned his lapel.

“Doing good, Deak, thanks. Which way’d he—?” A soft hand fell on Gavallan’s shoulder and he spun to see to whom it belonged. “Hello, Tony.”

“Jett. You’re back. Thank God, you’re all right.”

“You weren’t expecting me?”

“Frankly, none of us were,” said Tony Llewellyn-Davies. “Not a word from you since Friday. The FBI saying you’re a murderer. We didn’t know where you’d gone or what you’d been up to.”

He was dressed nattily in a double-breasted blue blazer with his requisite gray flannel slacks and club-striped tie. His cheeks were flushed, his blue eyes excited.

“I find that a little hard to believe,” said Gavallan. “You if anybody should have been able to tell them. After all, if you’re such good friends with Konstantin Kirov you ought to have known.”

Llewellyn-Davies bit back his surprise, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “We’re hardly ‘friends.’ I’m sure I hardly know him any better than you do.”

“Cut the crap, Tony. I’ve spoken to Graf. He told me about the call . . . the one you conveniently forgot to relay to me. You knew firsthand Mercury was rotten a week ago. Actually, I guess you knew it a long time before that. Anyway, it stops here. We’re pulling the plug on the deal. It’s over. I just want to have a quick word with Kirov before I let everyone else know.”

“Jett, no . . . you’re mistaken. You’re talking nonsense. Really, you are.”

“How could you? We built something. We did it together. Seven years, Tony. Christ, you’re on the board as it is. What was it? More money? A spot at the top? What he offer you?”

Looking at his associate, Gavallan felt betrayed, ashamed, and naive. Part of him still thought it couldn’t be. Not Tony, of all people.

“I don’t know. Respect. A chance.” Llewellyn-Davies sobbed, a single pathetic cry, and lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Jett. Give me a minute to explain. Not here—come into the booth. It’s already embarrassing enough as it is.” He tried to smile, and a tear ran down his cheek. “The floor doesn’t need to see a pooftah having a good cry.”

“I haven’t got the time. Tell it to your next employer.”

Llewellyn-Davies grabbed at Gavallan’s sleeve. “No, Jett. Please. I can make it right. You’ve got to believe me. Don’t be a stupid git. It’s just me . . .
Tony
. Come on.”

The official clock read 9:20:51. Gavallan found Dodson and asked him to stay right where he was and, no matter what, to prevent Spalding from initiating trading in the stock. “Give me two minutes. I’ll be right back.”

“Two minutes, Mr. Gavallan. Then we get Mr. Kirov ourselves.”

But Gavallan was already moving, and Dodson’s words were drowned by a chorus of babbling voices. Gavallan and Llewellyn-Davies walked the short distance to the Black Jet Securities booth. Curious faces greeted them along the way, along with cries of “Jett, great to see you,” “Hey, boss,” and “We got a kicker today!”

Llewellyn-Davies opened the door to the manager’s office and showed Gavallan in.

It was more a shoe box than a place of business. Two desks pushed against each other crowded one wall. Next to them stood a waist-high server, a monitor, and a printer. There was a refrigerator and a microwave oven, a Bridge data monitor, and another desk covered by telephones. The walls were papered with notices from the Exchange. Like any other essentially blue-collar workplace, there were the obligatory topless photos. Tastelessly, someone had glued a picture of Meg Kratzer’s face onto the torso of a black woman with enormous breasts. A second door led to the corridor outside the floor.

“Out, both of you,” Llewellyn-Davies said to a pair of clerks. “On the double.”

Gavallan nodded at them and they left.

Llewellyn-Davies shut the door, then turned, leaning his back against it. “What a mess, eh?”

“You’ve got a minute, Tony. Get going.”

“Oh, fuck a minute. Come to your senses. Seventy million dollars. The firm’s future, for Christ’s sake. Let it go.”

“It’s done, Tony. The deal’s canceled.”

Llewellyn-Davies stared at him, his pinched, patrician features clamped into a mask of hate. “I’m sorry, Jett, but that’s out of the question. Too much work. Too much sweat.” The tears had vanished. His eyes were clear, burning with an inner purpose, a rage that Gavallan had never seen in him before. “We need this. You, me, all of us. It’s our bloody savior. Can’t have you taking us all down as a matter of pride or principle. I don’t want to hear about rules. Sod all the rules. Made to be broken, what?”

“Mercury’s revenues are a sham. Kirov’s going to jail. The FBI’s got information tying him to the theft of a couple hundred million dollars from one of the companies he controls. The Russian government is all over him. Now come on. Let’s go outside and talk to Deak Spalding.”

“Kirov assured me he’s remedied the shortfalls in infrastructure. It’s only a question of months until his revenues are up to snuff. It’s time to close an eye. For everyone’s good.”

What was he trying to do? Gavallan wondered. Intimidate him? Threaten him? Did Llewellyn-Davies actually for a moment think he might change his mind? Gavallan stepped closer to the man he’d been so god-awful stupid to trust. “Move, Tony. I have to go.”

“Afraid not, chum.”

It was then that Gavallan saw the gun. It was a strange gray pistol with a silencer. Plastic, he thought. The bullets would be too. No metal detector in the world could have sniffed it out.

“Some fancy hardware, Tony. A present from Kirov?”

“You damn fool, Jett,” said Llewellyn-Davies, shaking his head, his voice tightening. “Don’t you see, it’s your fault. All of this. Mercury’s a gem, just like you said. We’ve got to see it to market.”

“Out of the way.” Gavallan stepped forward, and the Englishman fired a round into the floor.

“Christ,” shouted Gavallan, freezing, raising a hand. “Have you lost your mind? Put it down.”

Llewellyn-Davies held the gun out in front of him, grasping the butt with both hands to control the palsied shaking. “Sorry, Jett. No can do. It’s not that I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I am, believe me. It’s just that it’s time I did something for myself. Think ahead. What do you think happens to me if the deal goes sour? Do you think we don’t all know how strung-out the firm is? How long do you think the new owners of Black Jet will keep me on? One look at my health records and they’ll pack me off with a nice little check and a pat on the back. ‘One less liability.’ ‘Start with a clean sheet.’ All that utter crap. I won’t have it. I’ve worked too bloody hard for too bloody long to start over again somewhere else—Christ, if there’s someone else who’ll even have me.”

“It’s over, Tony. We’ll all make out okay. Put away the gun. What are you going to do? Shoot me? Here, in the Exchange? And then what? The FBI’s right outside. Where are you going to run?”

“Yes, I bloody well am going to shoot you. Don’t have much choice, do I?”

Someone banged on the door to the office. “Hey, open up. Jett, you in there?” There was no mistaking Bruce Tustin’s obnoxious voice. “Gavallan, you there? I saw you crossing the floor. You can hide from your girlfriends, but not from your uncle Bruce . . . Jett?”

Gavallan nodded toward the door. “Your move, Tony.”

Llewellyn-Davies extended his arm, eyes wincing, head turning slightly away. A moment later, his hand dropped. He began crying. “Oh, damn it all. Damn you . . .”