Crash

by David Hagberg

  “I can still be useful, Reid. I know all the players down here, and we still need to cover our asses after opening bell in the morning. I know which buttons to push, and I’m capable of pushing them.”

  “You fucked up, Spence.”

  “Things that can’t be predicted sometimes go wrong,” Nast said. He wasn’t going to bring up Betty telling the president that she’d overheard them at the Kittredge this morning talking about Abacus.

  The only thing he could do now was wait until the virus did its job, and he’d be home free.

  “That’s what you were supposed to cover for us.”

  “You’re still going to need me as your chief economist, and I have my portion of Abacus.”

  “I’ll get back to you on both of those possibilities,” Treadwell said. “But now get the fuck off the phone, I’ve got some fires to put out up here. Shit that you were supposed to take care of, genius.”

  The phone went dead, and Nast hunched over in despair, letting it slip out of his hand and fall to the ground. He began to cry, something he hadn’t done since he was a child. Everything he had worked for, everything that meant anything to him, was gone, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  A man, obviously homeless, with a small cardboard sign that read GOD BLESS YOU, walked past. “Hey, brother,” he said to Nast. “It could be worse. You could be me.”

  Nast looked up, took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket, and gave it to the man.

  “God bless.”

  * * *

  Treadwell had put the call on speakerphone so that Dammerman could hear. They looked at each other. “The goddamn fool.”

  “Look on the bright side, Mr. T. The market is down twenty percent today, trading suspended. The shorts you and I made through the Caribbean banks are paying off big-time. And when Abacus kicks in at opening bell tomorrow, we’ll hit the jackpot.”

  Treadwell nodded, but his stomach was in a knot. “With Betty on our ass, and now Farmer—who never had any qualms about taking my money—on board the witch hunt, we have to watch our step.”

  “They didn’t even give the bank a second look after we made that great short in ’08. The pols huffed and puffed, but no charges were ever filed.”

  “It might be different if this creates another Great Depression.”

  “Nobody can trace Abacus back to us. The Whalen boyfriend can’t prove a thing. And his girlfriend has disappeared along with the flash drive antidote. Problem solved.”

  “No unauthorized personnel will be allowed inside this building until after opening bell. I want Butch to be perfectly clear. It’s all hands on deck starting right now.”

  Dammerman nodded.

  “I want your men armed.”

  “Done. But in the meantime, what about Spence? I don’t think we should give him a dime.”

  “We wouldn’t want him to turn state’s evidence.”

  Dammerman shrugged. “Accidents happen.”

  Treadwell turned away. He had a bitch of a headache coming on, something a couple of aspirin wasn’t going to make go away.

  “By this time tomorrow we’ll have the world by the balls,” Dammerman said. “If Washington wants the economy to keep going, it will need Burnham Pike to help finance the recovery. The only investment bank that didn’t go up in flames.”

  Treadwell was lost in his thoughts and didn’t reply. Too much could still go wrong.

  “The funny thing is, Nast thinks I’m his friend. But I was never able to stand the sanctimonious son of a bitch.”

  The flat-screen television on the wall across from Treadwell’s desk was tuned to CNBC. He glanced at it as the talking heads were in the middle of a discussion of how the widespread market carnage was due in a large part to the failure of the Treasury bond auction plus the bank turmoil brewing in China.

  The television program switched to Gina Sutton, the White House press secretary, who was announcing that the president’s economic adviser, Spencer Nast, had resigned to spend more time with his family. But she turned and left, taking no questions.

  “Everyone knows that was a crock of shit,” Dammerman said. “No one resigns from anything to spend more time with their family. And the typical visual would have been for the president to appear with Spence, telling everyone about how much the guy contributed and how much he would be missed.”

  Treadwell looked away from the television. “What if they arrest Nast, and he turns on us in exchange for leniency?”

  “Then we’re cooked.”

  “Nast has to vanish. Clear?”

  “Consider it done, Mr. T,” Dammerman said.

  94

  Dammerman returned to his office just down the corridor from Treadwell’s and shut the glass door. He went to the window and looked north toward the Chrysler and Empire State buildings as he worked to get his thoughts straight.

  Things were getting a little too fuzzy around the edges for him, and it gave him the willies. Especially Dammerman’s melting down and ordering Nast taken out, which made no sense at all. As much of an idiot as Nasty had always been, he was a high-profile player in Washington. And making him disappear, though certainly doable, would present a number of problems, not the least of which would be a full-court press by the D.C. police and almost certainly the FBI.

  Despite what he had told Treadwell, Dammerman didn’t think he should give any orders right now to make Nast go away like Cassy Levin. It would be too risky.

  In ’08 Treadwell was the man, almost single-handedly bringing BP out of the subprime mortgage mess that the company had helped stoke. But now he was caving in, and maybe going to the gala at the Met this evening would help calm him down. He’d always liked the attention from the high society set that his position and his wife’s money gave him.

  Attention that Dammerman had always thought was pure bullshit. Personally, he’d never parted with a dime for charity. If the do-gooders wanted to raise money, why not go out and earn it themselves instead of dressing up in tuxedos and holding out their begging bowls?

  No one in Queens, where he was born and raised, did silly shit like that.

  In the meantime he had to take care of himself with some insurance.

  He went back to his desk, where he took one of his burner phones out of a drawer and called Dieter Kristof, his alternate broker, one of the wheeler-dealers who managed off-the-grid transactions with money stashed in offshore banks and other places that the IRS didn’t need to know about.

  Kristof was a former BP broker who’d served three years in the medium-security federal prison at Otisville in western New York state for a number of trading violations. He’d never changed his modus operandi, but now he was doing business in Hong Kong, guzzling mai-tais and banging the local girls, whom he impressed with his money.

  Treadwell had his own alternate brokers, but for security reasons and just plain common sense neither of them knew who the other dealt with.

  Given the business with Heather Rockingham, the flash drive that had somehow gone missing, and Cassy Levin’s ex-SEAL fiancé showing up out of the blue playing the macho man bullshit, Dammerman had decided earlier today to switch gears and reverse his order to short the S&P 500 to the tune of $20 million—betting that the market would take a nosedive.

  “Honorable Ho’s,” Kristof answered with his slight German accent.

  “Six plum wines to go,” Dammerman replied. It was their code this month.

  “It’s a done deal. But it beats the hell out of me why you’d want to unwind this trade. The market is already down twenty percent, so even if it stays there, you’d clean up by morning.”

  “I’ve got my reasons,” Dammerman said. “No footprints leading back to me.”

  “As usual. But it hurts to think of the serious money that could have been added to your account.”

  “Talk to you later,” Dammerman said, and he broke the connection.

  Tax havens, especially in Hong Kong, where privacy laws blocked outside taxing authorities suc
h as the IRS from looking into their customers’ affairs, were strictly protected. This was a good thing under most circumstances. But he didn’t want to take any chances right now. It was just a gut feeling, but he’d always gone along with his instincts.

  With the way things had been going since noon, Dammerman had decided to bail, just in case, and then try to keep Reid on track. And it wouldn’t be the first time, or probably the last.

  In college when they’d first met, Treadwell was a sharp customer—unflappable, self-possessed, charming, but dumb in a lot of ways. Like being caught cheating on a test. Dammerman had been working as an intern at BP, and he’d cooked up a deal that got the professor fired and Treadwell off the hook.

  Since then Treadwell had cut a lot of corners, and Dammerman had been right there backstopping him.

  But this time was different. Taking out Nast would be a problem. But there were others too. Julia O’Connell was definitely a weak link, especially because of her connection with Betty Ladd, who already had a major issue with Reid. And Butch Hardy, who knew too much, but not the real reason why they were involved with the Russians.

  * * *

  Dammerman phoned Hardy, who was downstairs in DCSS, and asked him to come up.

  “Good, I was planning on talking to you anyway. We have a problem.”

  “What’s the issue?”

  “I’ll be right up,” Hardy said, and he hung up.

  Dammerman sat holding the phone to his ear for a beat before he could calm himself enough to put it down without going ballistic. No one hung up on him. No one.

  Hardy showed up a couple of minutes later. Still holding himself in check, Dammerman waved him in.

  “I can’t get ahold of the Brighton Beach guys,” Hardy said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I called to find out if they’d managed to get the flash drive, but they won’t call me back. I was even going to offer them some extra money. A bonus. But nothing.”

  “You told them you wanted them to give back the money we already paid. Why the fuck should they want to talk to you again?”

  Hardy spread his hands. “If you told me why the flash drive is so important, maybe I could think of something else.”

  “What’s on it is none of your fucking business,” Dammerman shouted, finally losing what little self-control he had left. Failure was never an excuse. Never.

  Hardy’s jaw clenched. It was obvious that he didn’t like being talked down to. He was a guy from the streets, and no bullshit top-floor exec was going to treat him that way.

  But Dammerman didn’t care. “What’s on the drive doesn’t matter. Nor do I give a shit about your Russian friends. But we do have another problem that might be coming at us sometime tonight.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hardy said evenly.

  “The problem is Whalen. I think it’s a good bet that he’ll try to get in the building tonight. I don’t want that to happen.”

  “I have two officers on eight-hour shifts overnight.”

  “I want all hands on deck, and that includes you.”

  “Against one man?”

  “It’s possible he got the flash drive your Russian pals couldn’t get. I don’t want it anywhere near this building.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck what’s so important on some flash drive, but my people—me included—will need triple pay if we’re going to do an overnighter.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Dammerman shouted. “Why did we pay your douchebag Russians a shit pot full of money to get a goddamn bit of plastic from a corpse? Your people should have put a gun to somebody’s head and demanded to be shown Imani’s body!”

  “The morgue is crawling with cops. They would have taken down our guy, or he would have told them God only knows what, which could have led back to us. Or didn’t you consider that?”

  “You vouched for them, you fuck head,” Dammerman said. “Spetsnaz and all that horseshit. Now all you’re giving me are excuses.”

  “Watch who you’re calling a fuck head, asshole!”

  Dammerman got to his feet. “I’ll call you anything I want to call you. I scraped your ass out of the gutter after the department fired you. I gave you your life back along with a lot more pay and perks than you ever got as a cop. And you know what? I can take it away just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Fuck head!”

  Hardy was seething with anger, but he didn’t raise his voice. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “I don’t care if you have to drive out to Brighton Beach, but I want you to make sure your pals don’t screw the pooch in Jersey tomorrow morning. Can you at least get that much through your thick head?”

  Yes, sir,” Hardy said through clenched teeth. “I can get it through my thick head.”

  “Then get the hell out of here. And try not to fuck up again.”

  95

  By the time Chip had parked at Bellevue Hospital, he’d gotten no hits from the NSA search program. “This could take time,” he said.

  “We don’t have time,” Ben said. “Any way to speed it up?”

  “Not without the risk that my incursion would be discovered, in which case I’d be blocked from their mainframe, and a couple of guys with guns would come looking for me.”

  “Stick with it, and hope I get lucky inside.”

  “You’re going to need someone to play the role of a lawyer, so I’m coming with you this time,” Chip said.

  They went into the main building and took an elevator downstairs to the morgue, where a woman in jeans and a white shirt was at a desk behind the counter.

  “May I help you?” she asked, getting up and coming to them.

  “We’re here to identify the remains of Donald Imani, who was killed in a traffic accident earlier today,” Ben said.

  “His sister asked if I could stop by for her,” Chip added.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “The decedent apparently has a lot of friends and relatives, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told his uncle: Mr. Imani’s parents will be arriving in the morning to claim the body.” She started to turn away.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” Chip said. “My name is Chip Faircloth. Lieutenant Commander Faircloth, Naval Office of the Judge Advocate in Washington, D.C. And actually, we’re here under orders. The decedent may have been carrying material sensitive to an investigation we’re involved with.”

  The woman wasn’t impressed. “What information?”

  “It’s classified.”

  “Bring me a court order.”

  “May I have your name, please?”

  “Margaret Singer.”

  “If need be, Ms. Singer, I’ll order an investigation into your apparent attempt to impede a federal inquiry. I could have people here within the hour.”

  The woman said nothing.

  Chip nodded. “Someone will be in touch with you and your superiors later this afternoon.” He turned to Ben. “We’re wasting our time here, Captain,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They were halfway to the door when the woman stopped them.

  “Wait,” she said.

  They pulled up short and turned around.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” she said. “I’m just trying to do my job, is all.”

  “The same as us,” Chip said.

  “May I see some ID?”

  They went back to the counter and Chip produced his U.S. Navy identity card.

  The woman copied it on a machine under the counter and handed it back. She phoned someone named Larry, who came out a minute later in a white lab coat.

  “These gentlemen would like to look at the belongings of Imani, Donald A. If they wish to take something away with them, have them sign a four fifty-one.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Larry said. He was a young man with a broad smile, which Ben thought unusual in a place like this.

  He led them back past an autopsy room, to the refrigerated area where bodies were kept in drawers stacked three high in a dozen rows. He opened a mid
dle one four rows along, a puff of refrigerated fog rising.

  “Take your time,” he said. “I’ll be just down the hall on your way out.”

  A clear plastic bag with Imani’s bloodied clothes plus a large manila envelope were lying at his feet on top of the sheet.

  Ben took out the envelope and opened it. Besides a wallet, seventy some dollars in bills and change, a small plastic holder with toothpicks, another with dental floss, there was a small black flash drive with the word SCANDISK printed on one side and SCANDISK CRUZER 408 plus some other symbols and numbers on the other side, and a narrow strip of paper with a string of numbers and letters on the bottom.

  “That it?” Chip asked.

  “Nothing else is inside.”

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here, this place gives me the willies,” Chip said.

  Ben pocketed the device, and on the way out they stopped at the kid’s desk where Chip signed for it, and then they went through the double doors to the front desk.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Margaret asked.

  “Yes, we did,” Chip said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “You’re welcome, just don’t mention my name.”

  * * *

  Back at the car Chip powered up his laptop and accessed the NSA program, but no hits had shown up yet. “What do you want to do next?”

  “Bring up the call Hardy made on his landline to this Russian.”

  “All he wanted to know was if they’d found the flash drive, but then the call ended,” Chip said. He pulled up the call and played it back.

  “Again,” Ben said.

  Chip did it again.

  “The guy is definitely Russian, and he talked like a soldier.”

  “We knew that already.”

  “What was the area code of the number?”

  “Six four six,” Chip said. “And I already checked, it’s in Manhattan, not Brighton Beach. Could mean she’s in town and not across the river in Brooklyn.”

  “She’s in Brighton Beach.”

  “Are you sure?”