Crash

by David Hagberg

  “Get the fuck outa here,” Dammerman said.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but if you don’t release Ms. O’Connell and step away, I will have to help you do it.”

  “You’re fired,” Dammerman shouted.

  Todd was on him in a flash. “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice flat as he broke Dammerman’s grip on Julia’s upper arm and shoved him away.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I really don’t want to hurt you, Mr. Dammerman, but I will.”

  Julia got between them. “Its okay, Todd. I’ll take it from here.” She turned to Dammerman. “I’m going upstairs now to straighten this out with Reid.”

  “You’re staying here,” Dammerman told her. “I’m ordering it.”

  “Order this, Clyde,” Julia said, and she gave him the finger then stepped back. “How’d you like to head upstairs with me?” she asked Todd.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A half dozen of Julia’s IT personnel were lined up outside the glass-walled office and holding their phones up as they took videos of the encounter with BP’s COO.

  “I wonder what HR is going to say when I show them the videos of your assault on me,” Julia said, and she and Todd marched out the door.

  74

  Treadwell looked up as Heather showed up at his door. Ashley came around from behind her desk to stop her, but Treadwell waved her off.

  “You’re back,” he said when Heather came in and shut the door.

  “I didn’t like where we left it,” she said. She sat down on the chair in front of his desk. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ve said all there is to say.”

  “Not a chance in hell. All you have to tell me is: ‘Yes, darling, I’d love to cut you in on the deal.’”

  “Okay, if that’s the way you want it … darling,” Treadell said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumor, but I’ve taken BP to cash. I think the situation in China is going to blow sky-high, and soon. Added to that is our own government’s debt. We’re buried up to our ears and there may be no realistic way to pull us out of a downward spiral.”

  Heather said nothing.

  “I don’t know if you’re following my logic, but this deal you’re talking about is BP going to cash. Simple. And if you want us to take Rockingham in the same direction we’d be happy to offer the service.”

  She crossed her arms. “That’s it?” she asked skeptically. “I understand what’s happening to the market because of China, plus the failure of the Treasury auction. And I even understand why our stock is taking a beating today. But you taking your firm to all cash? That’s the ‘greatest financial coup in history’?”

  Treadwell shrugged.

  “The way you were talking about the deal was making money, not just avoiding losing it.”

  “If we can maintain our capital when all hell starts to break loose, then we’ll be in a decent position to take a lot of money during the recovery. And that means your company will ultimately be the beneficiaries because we’ll have the resources to not only help you expand but maybe give you the capital to buy up other companies at recession-rate prices.”

  Heather smiled. “Why do I feel as if you’re bullshitting me?”

  “What makes you think something like that?”

  “Back at the apartment you told me that talking to Betty Ladd would be the biggest mistake of my life. And you said that my wanting to get in on your deal might be something I didn’t want. Sounded like threats to me.”

  “Betty would screw you over just because you and I were together. And as far as the deal goes, we’re talking about very big money. And if it goes south, which is always possible in any deal, you could get burned.”

  “You got a text that said ‘the Levin girl is gone and the kid is missing.’ And she was the one who supposedly came up with an ‘antidote’ to a virus. So quit fucking around, Reid. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Not now,” Treadwell said. “I’ll call you later.”

  Butch Hardy, along with one of his female security people, showed up. They had a word with Ashley, who had apparently called them.

  Treadwell motioned them in. This wasn’t how he wanted the situation to develop, but he wanted to get rid of this fool. “Ms. Rockingham was just leaving,” he said. “See her out of the building, would you, Butch?”

  “You bastard,” Heather screeched.

  The female security officer took Heather’s arm. “No trouble, now, young lady.”

  Heather pulled away. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  Hardy and the woman each took an arm, dragged Heather to her feet, and marched her out the door.

  “Call me?” she shouted. “We’ll see who calls whom!”

  75

  Julia O’Connell got off the elevator and crossed the hall, Todd trailing right behind her, as Hardy and one of his people marched Rockingham’s daughter, screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs, out of Treadwell’s office.

  Julia stepped aside as they passed.

  “I can blow the lid off the entire fucking deal!” Heather shouted, spittle flying from her lips. “The flash drive with the antidote. The missing girl and her friend.” Her eyes locked with Julia’s for a moment. “Your boss banging me! It’s all recorded. Every bit of it.”

  Hardy and the woman cop dragged Heather onto the elevator, and then they were gone, the sudden silence on the floor almost deafening.

  Treadwell motioned for Julia to come into his office.

  “I’ll handle this,” she said to Todd, who handed her a cell phone he’d gotten from one of the ITs downstairs.

  “Show him this.”

  “You have pictures from downstairs?”

  Todd grinned. “It’s already starting to go viral on Instagram and Facebook.”

  Julia patted him on the shoulder, then went into Treadwell’s office, closed the door, and sat down across from him. “That was quite a show.”

  “The woman is certifiable,” he said.

  “Yes, but she apparently has a pretty good idea what’s going on,” Julia said. Her gut was on fire. “Just how much does she know, for God’s sake?”

  “Not enough to cause anything more than a nuisance.”

  “Well, you have another nuisance you’ll have to deal with,” Julia said. She brought up a video on the phone and shoved it across to Treadwell, who watched it with a stony face.

  “Jesus,” he said, looking up.

  “What are you going to do about Clyde? Talk about certifiable. The man is an animal who needs to be put into a cage.”

  “I’ll talk to him, but in the meantime we have to keep this among ourselves.”

  “It’s on the internet already.”

  Treadwell sat back. “My God,” he said softly. “Now of all times, Julia?”

  “I didn’t start it.”

  “You did by meeting with Betty.”

  “We talked about family, damnit.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know you and she are cousins?”

  “Because you and Betty hate each other’s guts, and I don’t want to be a part of that mess,” Julia said. “But it brings us right back to the … situation. What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to stay the course. Less than twenty-four hours.”

  “What about Cassy?”

  “She’s gone,” Treadwell said. “Permanently.”

  Julia looked away for a moment. “Fraud is one thing, Reid, but murder is another.”

  “She was kidnapped, and all I know is that she is no longer a problem. Our hands are clean. Your hands are clean.”

  “In the meantime, what about Clyde? The bastard assaulted me, and you need to do something about it.”

  “Your call. All I ask is that you wait until the dust settles. After opening bell tomorrow, we’re all going to be busy around here.”

  Julia was mollified, but just barely. “I want an apology,” she said. “A public apology in front of my staff.”

  “Done,” Treadwell
said.

  After a long moment, Julia nodded. “In the meantime, keep him out of my hair.”

  “What about Abacus? If Cassy really had the antidote, could it be used by someone?”

  “Not off-site. Everything that goes out of here has a BP marker. Somebody would have to be on the premises to make it work.”

  “Are you sure?” Treadwell asked.

  “Absolutely,” Julia said.

  76

  Julia took Todd with her back to her office in case Dammerman came after her. She was frightened of not only what he was capable of doing to her but of the entire plan and her involvement with it.

  When she thanked her IT tech and dismissed him, she got on her cell phone and searched for the number of the reporter Betty Ladd had told her about.

  A man answered on the third ring. “What is it?” he demanded. He sounded drunk.

  “Mr. Wren, I’m Julia O’Connell, and I’m trying to find out about Reid Treadwell. I think that he’s mixed up in something that concerns me. You were the journalist who wrote an exposé on him.”

  “Treadwell? He cost me my job, my career, my marriage, my kids, everything. Now I live in a tiny shithole above a Chinese restaurant. Me and a few dozen roaches. He and his pal Clyde Dammerman framed me for insider trading. Said I was front-running a merger announcement. Hell, I never even owned a share of stock, but they faked records to show I was lying. So I served time.”

  “I’d like to see the material you gathered on him.”

  “I know who you are. You work for him at Burnham Pike. Why’d he put you up to this? Hasn’t he already screwed me enough?”

  “Yes, I work for him, and he’d be angry to learn I called you. But I’m leaving the firm, and I have to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “Even if you’re telling the truth, who cares? He got a court order to seize all my material, and now it’s under permanent seal somewhere. They even threatened my publisher with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit, and the coward caved, even though my proof was solid. The paper ran a retraction, took the story off the web, and fired me.”

  “I managed to dig up a copy. Your story documented how Treadwell framed Ted Partridge, his rival for a big job at BP, and the man went to jail for front-running, the same as you. And your story seemed solid to me.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  “I want to know if you came up with anything else.”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe. The guy is smooth and classy on the outside, but it’s only a cover. In fact, he’s nothing more than a sociopath. No empathy for anyone. All he cares about are his good name and his career. I found out that when he was a kid—for fun, mind you—he used to blow up frogs with firecrackers. And in college he framed a professor who was bringing cheating charges against him. His climb up the path to success is littered with enough bodies to put Macbeth to shame.”

  He disconnected, and Julia sat back with the single thought that she was next on Treadwell’s list.

  77

  Valentin Panov had gone on a grocery and vodka run, and when he got back, a couple of the guys helped him put the stuff away in the cabinets and fridge. At thirty-eight he pretty well figured he had found his place in the world, a situation where he belonged.

  He’d grown up in a small town in Russia’s wild far east, not far from Vladivostok, and from the age of fourteen he’d been a runner for the mob, helping hijack shipments by sea of just about everything from condoms to cigarettes to booze, and once even four Mercedes SUVs.

  At sixteen he’d killed his first man, a security guard on the docks, and instead of traumatizing him, he’d thought it was the greatest accomplishment of his life. Thereafter he’d been a marked man, of interest to the local cops, and held in high esteem by the mob, and finally the big guys in Moscow, some who’d originally earned their chops in the old KGB.

  By the time he was twenty-nine it was suggested by a friend that he get out of Russia. Some people in Brighton Beach would be waiting when he got off the plane, and they would have a job and a home for him.

  He’d never once looked back, never once regretted the move, and never once missed his old friends. The U.S. was his home, a land of opportunity where the pickings for the right man were unlimited.

  “Where’s Leonid?” he asked one of the kitchen crew.

  “Upstairs, waiting for you to get back.”

  Panov went up to Anosov’s room, where their computer was located, and knocked once on the doorframe.

  “Vstupat,” Anosov said. Enter.

  He was sitting at his desk, and he looked up. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Restocking the pantry.”

  “Well, I have a job for you, and it has to be done immediately,” Anosov said. “With no fuckups. Ponimayu?” Understand?

  “Da.”

  “The guy who got nailed by the garbage truck when we picked up the Levin bitch was almost certainly taken to the city morgue. His name is Donni Imani. I want you to go over there and look through his personal possessions. He may have been carrying a flash drive.” Anosov held one up. “Just like this.”

  “I don’t know where the place is.”

  “It’s inside Bellevue Hospital, in Kips Bay just above Twenty-third on First Avenue.”

  “I haven’t had lunch yet,” Panov said.

  “Right now, and don’t fucking come back empty-handed. This is important. Our entire operation could depend on it. Are you clear?”

  “They only give out that kind of shit to a relative or cops.”

  “Tell them you’re his uncle,” Anosov said. “Again, the guy’s name is Donni Imani.”

  Panov nodded.

  “Jump.”

  78

  They had decided to keep the white Caddy out of sight in the garage until they were sure that no one was looking for it, so instead Panov took the Subaru hatchback he’d used on the grocery run. He took the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, traffic busy as usual, then headed north up FDR Drive straight to Kips Bay.

  He got lucky with a parking spot not too far from the main entrance to the hospital, and inside followed the directions on the directory down to the basement, where the morgue was located.

  A heavyset woman in jeans and a man’s white shirt was on the phone behind the reception desk when he walked in. No one else was present.

  When she was finished, she hung up. “May I help you, sir?”

  “My nephew had a horrible accident earlier today, and I think he was brought here.”

  “Name of the decedent?” she asked.

  Panov didn’t know the word. “Sorry?”

  “Your dead nephew, what was his name?”

  “Donni Imani.”

  The woman entered something on her computer. “Donald.”

  “Donni.”

  She looked up with a smirk. “No Donni, only a Donald Imani, age nineteen, involved in a vehicle-pedestrian accident, extensive trauma.”

  “He went by Donni, but that’s him.”

  “Your name?”

  “Tom Raven.” It was the name on his New Jersey driver’s license.

  “ID?”

  He took it out of his wallet and handed it over. She scanned it into the computer.

  “Is that necessary?”

  “You have a problem?” the woman asked, handing his license back.

  Panov had had enough of her officious attitude. “Yes. My nephew was run over by a fucking garbage truck, and I want to claim his body. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “The name of the funeral parlor?”

  “I haven’t picked one yet.”

  “Come back when you’ve decided,” the woman said. She did something else with her computer. “You can discuss it with his parents when they get here from Miami tomorrow. In any case, they have priority.”

  Panov didn’t know what to say, except that he wanted to strangle the bitch.

  “Will there be anything else, Mr. Raven?”

  “Can I at least see the body?”


  “That’ll be up to his parents.”

  “For Christ fucking sake—”

  “Do I need to call the police?”

  Leonid was going to blow his top, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  A man in a white lab coat walked in, glanced indifferently at them, and then went through the swinging doors into the back.

  “Mr. Raven?” the woman said.

  Panov turned and left.

  79

  Betty Ladd was just getting ready to head down to the trading floor for the third time, to check what the mood was with less than a half hour to go in the session and the stock slide accelerating, when her cell phone rang.

  The caller ID was for Denise Baker, a waitress at the Kittredge, who was one of Betty’s informants. She’d texted earlier about the meeting among Treadwell and a few of his executives and Spencer Nast, but hadn’t added much more except that they’d been deep in conversation.

  The club was where a lot of Wall Street’s movers and shakers met to discuss just about everything that had happened, was happening, and was likely to happen on the Street, and the waitress was a good resource who was well worth the extra two hundred in her tip envelope each week.

  Betty answered. “Hi, Denise, have something new for me?”

  “I was too busy until now to give you everything about the meeting with Mr. Nast and the folks from BP.”

  Betty couldn’t help but smile. “Tell me, dear.”

  The day had been difficult starting just after lunch, when the market had lost 13 percent, tripping a circuit breaker that halted trading for fifteen minutes so that everyone could stop and take a deep breath. And at this moment stocks were approaching the 20 percent–loss threshold, which would shut the market down until opening bell tomorrow.

  She was hoping that Denise would have something useful to tell her about Reid. Maybe even something that was relevant to what was happening to the market.

  “Most of the time I wasn’t close enough to make out everything they were talking about, but I managed to get the gist of it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Anyway, Ms. O’Connell was talking about a virus, and Mr. Dammerman said that it could have an effect on just about every stock exchange in the world,” Denise said. “It sounded crazy to me, but they raised their coffee cups to toast someone or something in Amsterdam, I think.”