The Takeover

by Stephen W. Frey

  “How do you know?”

  “The New York Stock Exchange has an internal watchdog unit called Stockwatch, which is set up to track any unusual trading patterns in specific stocks. We know someone on the inside who is in that group. He reports that our stock has not aroused their interest.”

  “But our contact has no idea why we would be interested. Is that correct?” Rutherford was naturally security-conscious.

  “None. He is simply reporting to us the names of stocks being scrutinized. He doesn’t know of our specific interest.”

  “How much have we spent so far on the purchase of shares?”

  “Roughly a billion.”

  “Jesus Christ, Granville! I didn’t know we had that much.”

  “Yes. Actually we have another billion left, but that will be used as part of the equity for the leveraged buyout when we publicly announce our offer to purchase.”

  “So there will be no further share purchases?”

  “Not much, if at all.”

  “At what price will we announce the public tender?”

  “Hard to say for certain. Probably around seventy-five dollars a share.”

  “So we’d make about fifty dollars a share on what we’ve bought so far.”

  “Yes. About two billion in total, and we get back the billion we have already invested to buy the shares. But remember, that two-billion-dollar gain will be offset by the one billion we’ll lose in the leveraged buyout.”

  “We still come out of it with three billion, which is a billion more than we started with.”

  “Making money on the deal isn’t the primary objective, Bill.”

  “Understood. But it’s a nice side benefit. Besides, we’ll need a good bit of money to take care of our people after this is over.”

  Winthrop folded his hands on his lap and glanced out the window. “I hope tonight’s mission goes well.”

  “It will. Phoenix Grey has never failed me.” Rutherford’s right foot twitched involuntarily.

  The movement was subtle, but Winthrop noticed it.

  “What about Falcon?” Rutherford asked. He did not want to talk about the mission.

  Winthrop glanced into Rutherford’s cold, black, sharp eyes. “What about him?”

  “Has he joined NASO yet?”

  “No, he hasn’t. All in good time.”

  “How do you know he’ll accept NASO’s offer?”

  “I know.” Winthrop’s voice became ice cold. “He’ll join us, though he won’t know he has.”

  Rutherford hesitated before asking his next question. Typically he never hesitated before asking anyone a question—not even the director of the CIA. But then the director was not in Winthrop’s league. Very few were. Rutherford had checked. “This isn’t personal between you and Falcon, is it?”

  Winthrop searched Rutherford’s eyes. “No. That would be irrational.”

  Rutherford tapped a finger against one of his large front teeth. “When is the next meeting?” Rutherford did not want to dwell on the question—or the answer. He simply wanted to let Winthrop know what he was thinking.

  “Three weeks. It will be the next-to-last meeting before the Pleiade Project goes live.”

  * * *

  —

  Anwar Ali leaned back against the brick wall and pulled a long, settling breath from his Camel cigarette. Killing was the easiest profession in the world, provided you knew what you were doing. Ali slowly blew smoke into the cold night air. The key to the profession was not to kill anyone important. A very simple rule. The international assassins who killed politicians, judges, and filthy rich tycoons were insane. Sure, they made millions for each hit, but then they had world-class intelligence agents tracking them down for the rest of their lives, agents equipped with the latest technology and the latest weapons and, worse still, the ability to use the weapons and the technology without asking questions. Ali ticked off the agencies quickly: the Israeli Mossad, the CIA, what was left of the old KGB, and a new cooperative unit out of the consolidated Europe. Government-sanctioned killers who loved their jobs. A dangerous combination.

  Ali preferred to murder low-profile, middle-class drones. Instead of high-tech agencies, he was pursued by inept local authorities who often did not find the victim’s body until weeks after the kill. By then the body was cold and the clues were scant. His clients were primarily small-time hoods, small business owners, and jilted lovers. As a result of his clientele’s composition, Ali was paid less than his high-profile counterparts—much less, in fact. Generally not more than twenty thousand dollars per kill. But he had a large home in Carmel with no mortgage and a substantial cash hoard in the bank. He had been killing people for nineteen years and only once had he come close to being caught.

  This contract had brought him to Temperance, Michigan, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. Ali had been here since Sunday, and already he was sick of the place. The early spring weather had been cold and raw since he arrived, and as a result he had developed a head cold. But the worst part about the place was that it was boring. The prostitutes were ugly and vulgar, and there was no gambling anywhere. At least none that he could find.

  Ali shivered in the night air and pulled the down coat tightly around himself. He wanted to return to the warmth of California and his familiar stable of hookers. It was wonderful sleeping with a different woman every night. Men weren’t supposed to be monogamous. And he wasn’t about to interrupt the natural order.

  Ali took one more puff from the cigarette, allowed the butt to fall to the pavement, and then snuffed it out with his shoe. He checked his watch in the dim glow of the all-night lights of the dry-cleaning store at the north end of the strip mall. Just after one in the morning. The mark was late.

  Ali wanted to get on the road back to Carmel. If he could only fly, he would be in his own bed by daybreak. But he had to drive, of course, because he was carrying weapons. He groaned at the prospect. The drive to Toledo from California had been brutal.

  He glanced around the mall again. Small-time hoods. They were the best clients. They never felt remorse for the killing. They didn’t try to cut the fee. They paid in small bills, and then they never wanted to see you again. Small-time hoods maintained their silence no matter what.

  Small-business owners were almost as reliable in terms of maintaining their silence. And you could count on the fact that no one would ever be able to trace the payment. Small-business owners took the sum out of petty cash, bit by bit, over several months so that there was no trail. Sometimes they tried to renegotiate the fee, but Ali did not renegotiate.

  Jilted lovers were the worst and riskiest clients. Their rage was steeped in passion, making them irrational. Even if they appeared rational on the surface, Ali had come to understand over the years that they were only seconds from exploding at any time. Jilted lovers, especially the men, could never erase the mental picture of their mate with another lover. Ultimately, after the execution, the odds were good that the jilted lover would feel remorse. When that happened, it put Ali in a vulnerable position because it could drag him into the situation. In the worst case, the jilted lover might feel such guilt that he or she would confess to the authorities.

  That had happened only once. Fortunately, in that instance the female client had not actually seen him. The woman’s brother had arranged the murder and would have been able to identify Ali easily, but Ali murdered the man before the police got to him. He would have never worked for a jilted lover again except for one thing. Ali liked money, and there were lots of jilted lovers in the world.

  Ali stared out over the small parking lot. It was illuminated by just two streetlamps and devoid of cars at this hour. Ali’s car was parked a mile and a half away at an apartment complex. The trip back would be a brisk run through fairly dense woods, but he had practiced the route several times each of the last two nights and there would be no problem. Ali
considered another cigarette but decided against it. In a few minutes he would be making his mark, and he wanted no distractions. Distractions could lead to jail, and Ali would commit suicide before going to jail. He had made that pact with himself long ago.

  Unfortunately, tonight’s client was a jilted lover, a wealthy old man whose young trophy wife was running around. Her lover did nothing but work out at a gym and steal other men’s wives—or so the husband claimed. A muscle head. But there was a twist. Apparently the muscle head was aware that the old man was wealthy and somewhat a pillar of the community. He had communicated to the old man that he had managed to take pictures of himself and the trophy wife in various sexual contortions without exposing his own identity. The muscle head was prepared to distribute these pictures to various indiscreet organizations unless he received a fairly substantial monetary compensation. Specifically, a million dollars. The muscle head believed he was meeting Ali tonight to exchange pictures for cash.

  A pair of headlights moved slowly into the strip-mall parking lot. Ali moved behind the corner of the dry-cleaning establishment and peered around the brick wall. As the car passed under the first streetlamp, he could see that it was not a marked police cruiser. But Ali would be careful. The police checked the mall at least three times a night—at least they had in each of the previous two evenings—and once the car had been an unmarked cruiser.

  Ali glanced quickly over his shoulder at the trees and bushes at the edge of the parking lot toward which he would run after the execution. For a split second Ali thought he noticed something unusual, a movement which seemed somehow unnatural, as if it did not belong. He squinted into the gloom, but there was nothing. Just branches moving in the breeze.

  The car rolled slowly across the lot to the covered walkway in front of the row of stores. It came to a halt before the Sicilian pizza parlor three stores down from the dry cleaner. The driver’s side door opened, and a man stepped out onto the blacktop. He shut the door gently and whistled once. Ali relaxed. It was the mark. The whistle was the signal. Ali pressed his left arm against his side, feeling for the .22 pistol hanging from the shoulder holster. It gave him comfort to feel the gun there, like an old friend. He had chosen the .22 because the silencer attached more easily than to his .38 or his .44 Magnum. And the .22-caliber hollow-point bullets would be just as deadly from close range.

  Ali’s heart began to pump more quickly. Even after nineteen years and so many marks, the adrenaline still flowed just before a kill. It was a good sign. When the excitement was gone, he would know it was time to get out.

  The mark stepped into the soft glow of the ultraviolet rays emanating from the card shop one store away from the dry cleaner and stopped. Ali pressed the .22 against his side once again for comfort, then whistled twice.

  The mark’s head turned quickly in the direction of the sound.

  “Move this way,” Ali whispered loudly, his Iranian accent still thick even after many years in the United States. He peered through the faint light, attempting to see the man’s face, but the light was not strong enough. It was always better to see a man’s face before you killed him.

  The mark moved five steps toward Ali.

  “Stop there.”

  The mark did exactly as he was told.

  Ali stepped partially out from behind the corner of the building. The other man was less than ten feet away now. Ali’s heart pumped furiously. “Do you have the pictures?”

  “What?” The mark’s voice cracked. He was terribly nervous.

  “The package.”

  “Yes, yes, I have the package. Do you have the money?”

  “Sure. Slide the package to me first.” Ali glanced around the parking lot.

  The mark reached into his coat pocket.

  “Slowly.” Ali melted behind the brick wall for protection in case the mark tried to pull a gun. He removed the .22 from his shoulder holster and quickly attached the silencer, twisting it onto the end of the barrel.

  The mark produced an envelope, bent to his knees, and slid it across the pavement toward Ali. With practiced timing the Iranian moved out from behind the corner of the building, knelt, scooped up the package, stood, trained the revolver on the mark’s chest and fired. The crack of the gun was muffled by the silence. Ali fired twice more into the mark’s chest as the man fell backward onto the pavement.

  Like a cat Ali was on the man. The mark moaned as he clutched his chest and stomach. Ali reached for the man’s wrist and noticed immediately that it was not as thick as it should have been if this man pumped iron. There was little life remaining in the pulse. Ali stepped mercilessly on the man’s neck, careful not to look into the pleading eyes, bent down, and fired once more, this time directly into the mark’s heart. He was careful to aim in such a way that the bullet would not ricochet back at him. The mark’s fingers twitched involuntarily for several moments, and then his eyes rolled far back in his head and his fingers lay still.

  Quickly, Ali began to stuff the envelope into his coat pocket. He rose, and as he stood, he came face to face with a 9-mm pistol. Ali attempted to raise his own weapon in defense, but he didn’t have a chance. The gun exploded into his face. For a brief moment there was searing pain, and then only darkness.

  The Iranian tumbled sideways onto the body of Jeremy Case. Phoenix Grey hesitated for a moment to see if either man moved again, but there was no reason to wait. Both were corpses.

  Phoenix reached into the pocket of his windbreaker for the Polaroids. He sprinkled pictures of the prostitute in various stages of undress over the two bodies. Grey had taken the pictures two days earlier in a remote Kansas field, promising five thousand dollars to the woman in return. Then he had shot her and dumped her body in a swamp. He hadn’t even considered letting her go. He wasn’t one to leave transactions open-ended.

  Grey bent down to the .22-caliber pistol that had fallen from the Iranian’s hand, removed the silencer, and stuffed it into his windbreaker. Then he placed the gun back down on the pavement. The silencer would smack of professionalism, and he did not want that. Grey moved to the other man’s body and carefully pressed the 9-mm pistol into his dead, outstretched right hand. Jeremy Case was right-handed. He knew that. He knew everything about Jeremy Case.

  A double murder over a woman. The police would find holes in the story but would have no other explanation and in the end would be satisfied. Grey stripped off the latex gloves, shoved them into his pocket, and walked to where the envelope had fallen onto the pavement. He picked it up, careful to avoid Ali’s blood, which spattered the outside.

  Grey stared at the fallen Iranian for a moment. Ali had bought the jilted-lover story so easily. He had had no idea what was actually in that package or what was at stake. He hadn’t known who the other man really was or who the old man was and hadn’t even tried to find out. Chump hit men were so gullible and so stupid.

  Grey slipped around the corner of the dry-cleaning shop and moved quickly toward the woods. It had gone so smoothly. They would be appreciative.

  3

  The hospital reeked of disinfectant. Down the hallway, several nurses and doctors, clad in green surgical scrubs, rushed a supine figure atop a chrome stretcher into the emergency room. Their heads were covered with tight caps, and they screamed as they sprinted and banged between the double doors. Jenny shivered as she moved out of the hallway and into the private room. She hated hospitals. They reminded her too much of the weeks she had spent watching her mother fade slowly to nothing.

  Falcon lay asleep on the sterile bed. His head remained heavily bandaged, but despite the gauze and the week he had already spent at the Princeton Medical Center, he still seemed vibrant to Jenny, still tremendously charismatic. She stared at his face as she moved across the room. Fortunately the butt of the shotgun had smashed into his scalp and not his face. The cut had required twenty-three stitches, and Falcon had lost a great deal of blood, but ther
e would be no permanent damage.

  Jenny stood by the bed for several minutes, watching him breathe. She had witnessed him fall to the floor from the blow of the gun stock and seen the blood begin pouring from the wound. It was bad—that was obvious immediately. But she could do nothing to help him because Bernstein had pointed the shotgun straight at her after smashing Falcon’s head. For several seconds, what seemed like an eternity, he had simply stared at her. Then his eyes had begun to flicker into the tops of his sockets. Slowly at first, then rapidly, then furiously. Never had she been so scared. But suddenly her emotion had changed from terror to horror as Bernstein shoved the barrel of the shotgun into his own mouth and committed suicide, spraying particles of skull and gray matter across the ceiling.

  Even as the bloody spray from Bernstein’s brain began to mist down onto her and Froworth’s assistant, she had crawled to Falcon and covered the gaping wound with her own hand, screaming at the other woman to call 911. Falcon had remained conscious for a few moments, and as she pressed firmly against the wound, he had stared into her eyes, unable to speak. Then his eyes closed. She thought he was dead, but she did not release her hand, nor did she cry—until the paramedics had loaded him into the ambulance.

  Falcon’s eyes opened. “Well, hello there. Are you an angel?” His voice was strong.

  “Yes. You’ve died and gone to heaven.” She turned and moved to the room’s lone window.

  Falcon looked around. “Hmm. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind as heavenly decor. Perhaps you could speak to the chief angel and have things spiced up a little. Like, perhaps we could move a wet bar in here for starters.”

  So he was beginning to feel better again. “Oh, stop it!” Her tone was too reproachful, but Jenny couldn’t help it. She didn’t want him to hear her relief. That would have made her vulnerable.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Falcon groaned as he pulled himself to a sitting position.

  “Nothing! And is there really any need to groan, Andrew? Aren’t you overdoing it a little bit? I mean, it’s not as if you were hurt that badly.” She raised the window blind. It was sleeting. Spring was late in coming to the East this year. “You’re just a big baby,” she continued, “no different from any other man. Somebody gives you a little tap on the head, and you moan and groan and have to spend a week in the hospital.”