by David Lender
Sasha stood with her back pressed against the wall and watched as the team leader made hand signals and head motions to his men. He ordered a group to stand guard, then led most of them down the labyrinthine passageways that rimmed the outside perimeter of the palace toward Prince Ibrahim’s chamber. She watched the team leader disappear from sight around the first turn of the corridor. For some reason Sasha was seized by the premonition that something was wrong. She pushed herself out from the wall, trotted toward the prince’s chamber.
One of the team members, who had spread themselves in pairs in firing position, grabbed her by the wrist as she passed. A bolt of adrenaline coursed through her. She clenched her teeth and shot a glare at the man. His widened eyes showed fear. She jerked her arm away and continued. She was now aware of the exhilaration of life-threat and the calm purpose that drove her.
He’ll never forgive me, again crashed through her consciousness. It sucked the strength from her, but she kept on. She reached the next turn, the last before Ibrahim’s chamber and saw the team leader ten feet from the door. At that moment three Saudi guards bustled around the next turn in the corridor. She felt hot blood rush to her face and a charge of anger erupt from her chest. She saw two of the squad members three meters beyond the team leader rear their heads back like horses at the sight of fire, then crouch over their weapons.
Shots hissed from the two squad members’ silenced Uzis. The three Saudi guards were hurled backward in a spray of blood amid the crack of bullets ricocheting off the marble walls. Their bodies hit the floor with thuds. Two more Saudi guards materialized at the same turn, M-16s aimed from the waist. Bursts from their guns flashed stars of flame from their barrels and flattened the two squad members. The squad leader froze, the hesitation of death, five feet from the prince’s door. An instant later twin bursts from the Saudi guards’ weapons slammed him backward into the wall.
Sasha forced herself to bury her panic within her. Next she was aware of the rush of her own breathing and the momentary sense she should conceal herself behind a tortured wail. Instead, she stretched out an arm and raised a hand toward the guards. They lowered the muzzles of their automatics and nodded to her in recognition. She pressed her back against the marble wall, her feet inches from the pool of blood that oozed from the team leader’s body.
“More!” she called in Arabic and motioned with two fingers back down the corridor toward the window she had opened. The men nodded again, crouched over their weapons and trotted toward the turn in the corridor. She squinted at the two guards as they passed, seeing the panic in their faces, and resisting her own urge to flee. She slid down the wall, noting the Beretta and silencer protruding from the team leader’s holster.
This mustn’t fail, she told herself again. She yanked the Beretta from the team leader’s belt and gave the silencer a jerk counterclockwise to make certain it was anchored in place. Then she held the gun at arm’s length with both hands and fired one round into the back of the first guard. She saw the startled look of terror in the eyes of the second as he turned. She aimed the gun at his chest and pulled off two more rounds.
Three gone, five rounds left. She ran up to the two fallen men with the gun outstretched. The second one down didn’t move, the first did. She put another round in the back of his head. She spun and darted toward Prince Ibrahim’s chamber, gulping air in huge breaths as she thrust herself through the door. The glow from the digital clock outlined the shape of the prince, who sat upright in bed, staring directly at her. She raised the gun at his chest. “Pig!” she said in Arabic.
“Sasha, I don’t understand,” the prince stammered.
“Then you don’t deserve to,” she said, and pulled the trigger. He lurched backward onto the pillows. A circle of red expanded on his white nightshirt directly over his heart. Sasha stepped forward, lowered the Beretta and fired another round into the Prince’s skull just behind his right ear. Then she dropped the gun.
Her brain told her what to do next—run for the window at the end of the corridor, throw down the rope and escape—but her body wasn’t nearly as composed as the voice in her head. Her breath came in gasps, her stomach churning at the smell of the blood puddled on the floor as she passed the bodies toward the first turn in the corridor. She shot a glance over her shoulder. Still no other guards. Thank God. She heard a crackle of static from a portable radio on the squad leader’s belt and heard the words, “We are blown! We have casualties and are aborting! Prepare transport! Minutes one!” Seconds later she heard shots and screams from someplace. An alarm sounded and the corridor lights flashed on. As she reached a turn in the corridor, one of the squad members must have triggered the C-4, because a yellow-white glare flashed as bright as the sun. A shock wave whooshed down the corridor and threw her over backward to the floor.
Sasha jumped to her feet and ran down the corridor. She saw six squad members near the window, leaping out and down the rope each in turn. By the time she reached the window they were all down the rope. She leaped over the top without looking down. As she slid down the rope she listened for the sound of the three BMW 535s she knew the squad would have waiting for their escape. They were her only hope. But she couldn’t hear them. She could only hear the pounding of her heart in her ears and the ringing from the sharp blasts of the guns and that malevolent C-4 blast. She knew she was beginning to think again and not just act on instinct and adrenaline and the passion of what she believed in, and she realized she might survive, and that even with the disastrous intervention of the Saudi guards, and her split-second improvisation, the plan hadn’t gone so horribly awry.
Sasha ran for the hole in the perimeter wall. At 10 meters away from it she heard the staccato bursts of Uzis from two of the death squad members stationed at either side of the hole. She saw two more men running in front of her and now they were in the 10-foot-deep crater where the wall had been. She could see one of the black BMWs on the other side. She heard bullets whiz past her head. The dust from the explosion that hung in the air tasted musty in the back of her throat. She felt the rubble of the wall beneath her feet and lost her balance, then dove into the crater. She landed on her stomach and wheezed for breath but the air wouldn’t flow into her lungs.
Sasha could still hear the sharp retort of those Uzis and then even they went silent. Her eyes were wide open again and she couldn’t breathe but her legs were starting to work and she tumbled down on top of somebody or something, she couldn’t tell which, and then two men were dragging her by either armpit up the other side of the crater and she could see the open door of the BMW in front of her, hear the engine racing, and felt herself being thrown headfirst inside. She smashed her face on the floor and felt another body dive in on top of her and then the car was moving. Soon it was moving fast and she realized that not only was she alive but that she was going to make it out of there. And in that same instant a flash of anguish shot through her brain: But where do I go from here?
The crack of automatic weapons awakened Prince Yassar. He reached for his telephone, but there was no one to call, so he placed the receiver back in its cradle. Over the next five minutes he alternately sat and waited for someone to come, then got up and took a few halting steps toward the door to his outer suite, uncharacteristically uncertain. Should he fling the door open into the corridor and investigate for himself? Then a stiffly formal sergeant knocked sharply and entered the room. Prince Yassar observed the sergeant’s stony face. He expected bad news and felt as if the weight of it were pulling his jowls toward the floor. He stroked his forehead. Sweaty.
“Prince Yassar, sir,” the sergeant said expressionlessly, staring as he said the words, “Your son, Prince Ibrahim, has been murdered.”
Yassar felt the words burst in his chest like a hollow-point round. He closed his eyes, knowing already that it was true. She tried to warn me. His sigh emerged as a moan.
Yassar glanced from side to side as if to find a way to escape. He hung his head in resignation, then glared up at the serge
ant. Why are you telling me what I already know? What I already have imagined in my worst fears? He felt that he wanted to strike the little man.
“There were no other civilian casualties,” the sergeant continued, still with no expression in his voice, on his face. Only that vacant stare. And the measured tones. “But five guards were killed in the corridor only meters from Prince Ibrahim’s chamber, and three of the provocateurs”—Yassar noted with rising anger the ridiculously mispronounced French word—”were killed in the corridor. That, and twenty-three other soldiers are dead in the courtyard, most from the explosion. Everyone else is accounted for and safe, except one of the prince’s concubines.”
Yassar opened his eyes. They felt like black pools of moist agony. And rage. He realized the strength had been sucked from his limbs and now tried to move his arms, wanting to strike at this pompous man. But he all he did was motion for the soldier to continue. “It is Sasha. She is gone,” the sergeant said, “and we found a disabled microswitch on the window used to thwart the alarm, as well as an electromagnet and a grappling hook and rope. It would appear the death squad had help gaining access to the palace.”
Yassar tried to stand and still could not. His legs trembled and he placed his hands on his knees to steady them, leaned forward, then slumped backward onto the bed.
“We found a gun on the bed. We found footprints in blood leading into the bedroom and then out again,” the unbearable fool continued. “And we did not find Sasha.”
Yassar felt the words like the twist of a knife in an already mortal wound. He closed his eyes again. Sasha? How could Sasha do such a thing? He felt his face contort. He raised his head and looked at the man, this man who would say such things, feeling the conflict of his anger against what he knew in his heart to be true. Sasha, whom he had taken under his patronage, treated like a daughter, and who had honored him like a father. Sasha, who had heeded his need for her to both minister to and keep his beloved, yet wayward, son in line. This cannot be true. But his shoulders curled over.
The sergeant continued his unemotional droning as if he were pushing through a checklist. “The perimeter of the palace is now secure and no intruders are believed left inside. Except for the three who were killed, the remainder of the assassination team appears to have escaped.”
How can this mechanic, this mere functionary defile the memory of my son with his prattle? Yassar felt his strength returning as his anger rose. He sighed, then lifted himself from the bed, seeming to bear the weight of his dead son as he did so. He wanted to crush the man’s head like a melon for having the audacity to bring such a message with such methodical reserve. The sergeant reached out and put a hand on Yassar’s shoulder. Anger boiled in Yassar at the touch. He whirled, all the strength that had been drained from him in the last quarter hour focused in a single fist that he lashed toward the sergeant’s face. A roar emerged from his breast, the single word, “No!” And then with the same ferocity of effort he stopped the blow just inches from the man’s face. He hung his head so the man could not see the tears he knew he could not stop. He reached forward blindly, unclenched his fist and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He squeezed it and pushed the sergeant toward the door. “Go. Please, go,” he whispered. He heard the sergeant back out and shut the door.
Yassar turned back into the room. Then a dark sensation rose in him, one he had never felt before in all his years of adherence to the faith in his pursuit of the path of Allah: newborn hatred. I will avenge this act. I will find out who has done this and chase them down. And Sasha. I will find her and destroy her.
Excerpt from The Gravy Train
The
Gravy
Train
A WALL STREET NOVELLA BY
David Lender
Copyright © 2011 by David T. Lender
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact [email protected].
ONE
FINN KEANE AND KATHY FARGO sat next to each other in the back of Room 12 in the McColl Building at the University of North Carolina’s Keenan-Flagar Business School. Four rows separated them from the rest of the group in the Investment Banking Club meeting. At least 25 group members attended; this evening featured Jonathan Moore, the club’s president, crowing about his recruitment process and offer to become an Associate in Goldman Sachs’ Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
Finn leaned toward Kathy and said, “If I listen to any more of this crap I’m gonna puke. Come on, let’s go get a coffee or something.”
She smiled at him, nodded and they got up and left. A few heads turned as they clunked through the theater-style seats to the aisle, up the steps and out the door. Finn could feel eyes burning into his back. He was sure everybody in the club knew that Kathy and he were the only two who hadn’t received investment banking offers yet.
Finn held the front door to the McColl Building for Kathy as they went outside. She wasn’t a girl many guys held doors for, not much of a looker, so he knew Kathy liked it and always made sure to do it. When she’d told him she couldn’t afford to fly home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, he’d brought her home to Cedar Fork. Afterward Uncle Bob said, “Wow, she’s a big-boned one, huh?” Even before he brought her home, he could tell Kathy wanted something more between them. And a couple of times out drinking with classmates she made it clear to Finn it was there for him if he wanted it. He was always glad when he woke up sober the next day that he didn’t do it; he’d always have felt like he was taking advantage of her. He could tell she’d now settled into the knowledge it wasn’t gonna happen.
Kathy smiled and mouthed, “Thank you,” as they went outside.
“Moore was a pain in the ass before he got the offer, but now he struts around like a goddamn rooster,” Finn said.
“Yeah, but you have to admit, he landed the big one.”
Finn just nodded.
Kathy said, “I assume no change at your end or you’d have told me something.”
“No.”
“We’re running out of time.”
“I know. I’m taking the TD Bank thing if nothing else comes through. At least that’ll get me to New York.”
Kathy didn’t reply. He knew what she was thinking. She’d said it before: she’d worked in New York for three years before business school and told him New York wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“How about you?” he said.
“I guess I’ll take that Internet startup my friend offered me.”
Finn nodded. She’d told him about it, but he couldn’t remember the details. Only five or six employees, he thought.
“You did computer programming before B-school, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but they want me to be CFO. They’re all a bunch of undergrad computer science jocks. Don’t know anything about finance.”
“Sounds like it could be fun,” Finn said, knowing he didn’t sound convincing as the words came out. Nothing like that for him. If nothing in investment banking came through, he’d get to New York, then see if he could leverage the TD Bank commercial banking training program into a job on Wall Street, even if it took him a few years. That’s where he’d make it big. He looked at Kathy. “I forget. What’s the company’s name?”
“Facebook.”
TWO
“I WANT BODIES,” SIMON BUCHANNAN said. “Give me at least thirty. Maybe forty.” He stood up and looked at his four department heads across his desk, then strode out from behind it with long Senior Managing Director strides of his six-foot-six-inch frame. Buchannan took his time crossing the oversized office, wanting to seem he was looming out at his subordinates from between the skyscrapers up Park Avenue, like some avenging angel. He sat dow
n in the semicircle where his department heads reclined in soft chairs and a sofa around Buchannan’s coffee table.
“We’ve already hired two hundred Associates for this year’s incoming class,” the head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Group said.
“Then hire two hundred thirty or two hundred forty,” Buchannan shot back. Buchannan’s eyes accused him of incompetence.
“It’s April, Simon,” the Head of Corporate Finance said.
“Fellas, what is this?” Buchannan said and stood up. He summoned his best impatient sigh. “The markets are booming. IPOs. Converts. High Yield. Rates are low. The economy’s chugging along and corporate earnings are still going up, up, up. The entire Street’s firing on all cylinders. We need to bang this cycle until it drops.” He started pacing. “Bang it. Bang it hard. And BofA Merrill Lynch is still number one. You saw the first quarter underwriting statistics. I wanna beat these guys in equity offerings this year, give us a couple more years to catch them in debt underwritings, and in another year or two we’ll take on Goldman Sachs for number one in the M&A rankings.” He stopped and looked at his department heads, disappointed they didn’t seem to be summoning some urge to go out and win one for the Gipper. Maybe they were all immune to him by now because he intentionally acted so crazy and made himself so scary looking half the time. But Buchannan meant it. He wanted to win.
