The Manhattan Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  She’d booked a two night deal when she’d booked the flight. It was 3:20 p.m. local time now and New York was freezing, but busy. There wasn’t any snow falling, but pale clouds were threatening, and the temperature was touching zero.

  When she stepped out of the cab, an arctic wind sliced into her.

  The reception at the Grand Hyatt was enormous, on two wide levels, with elevators leading up to the main reception, and banks of lifts sucking guests up to their rooms in the seemingly endless floors above. All she wanted to do was dump her stuff, have a large coffee to stop her body slowing down, and head up Lexington Avenue to 45th Street, three blocks away, where BXH had its headquarters.

  From her room, on the fifteenth floor, she could see down 42nd Street. She felt hungry. Then suddenly starving. She went to the lobby restaurant to eat. She dosed herself with a double espresso, a Manhattan burger and double fries. It was the type of comfort food she’d eaten when she was in university.

  Her plan was to go to the BXH press conference, and come out of the crowd and confront him. If he was there, that was. And if he wasn’t, quiz his colleagues until they told her where he might be. If he hadn’t been arrested already, of course.

  She clattered her knife and fork onto the square green plate. She was ready.

  It was after four in the afternoon when the taxi pulled up outside the bank. She was tired and it was too cold to walk, even if it was only a few blocks. And the way the wind was racing down Lexington, as if a pack of Alaskan wolves was running behind it, made her glad she hadn’t been foolish enough to try.

  The BXH building sat on a gigantic neoclassical base of grey granite. The row of columns on its third floor made it look like an ancient temple or mausoleum. And up above that, almost in the clouds, it had a crown of similar pink pillars. It was taller than most of the skyscrapers around it and gloomier-looking, all grey and with smaller windows than the more modern buildings nearby.

  The Grand Central Post Office, with its grey pillars and neoclassical doorways, looked miniscule beside it. Sean had told her all about the BXH building’s history when they’d visited it the last time. How it had opened with a big party in early 1928. A good year for parties in New York, by all accounts.

  As the taxi let her off she looked up, bending her head back almost until it hurt, as she tried to see the top of the BXH building. Three blocks away the iconic art deco Chrysler building with its seventy-seven floors was the only taller building nearby. The BXH building, the Chrysler Building, and the other lesser skyscrapers stretching away into the distance, gave Lexington Avenue the feel of a concrete canyon.

  She pushed through the high glass doors. They had shiny brass rivets around their edges and brass fretwork panels.

  The entrance lobby had a deeply coffered ceiling like the inside of an egg box, tiers of pink marble columns, and faux-ancient brass and glass torches spewing light high up on its walls.

  The comparison with BXH’s ultra-modern headquarters in London was striking. The New York building was the kind of place cigar-chomping old-school financial barons operated from when New York was the capital of the world. The building in London was about the future of finance, all minimalist and anonymous. It was a building that could have been moved to Shanghai or Delhi or wherever the next wave of growth was going to come from.

  Her footsteps echoed as she crossed the giant black and white tiles of the hall. Everything was shiny, reflecting the yellow light blazing from the torches high above. On the far side of the lobby, an out-of-place-looking row of half-height thick glass turnstiles separated the public area of the lobby from a row of elevators beyond. A shiny ebony reception desk dominated the lobby. Behind it two guards, one black, one white, both giants, waited.

  They stared at her with far-off expressions as she came towards them. Her tight dark denims and zipped-up black suede jacket were out of place here, she knew, but she smiled at them anyway as she came forward and tossed her hair off her face.

  ‘Can we help you, ma’am?’ His belly was a whale’s. His white shirt bulged over it. His epaulettes were gold braid. His smile back at her was real though.

  ‘Hi, what time is the press conference?’

  ‘Which press conference, ma’am?’ His colleague was looking at her warily, leaning back, as if wondering if he’d seen her someplace before.

  ‘The BXH merger press conference.’

  ‘That’s at seven, ma’am. You want me to reserve you a seat?’

  Could it be this easy?

  ‘Sure.’ She gave him a bigger smile.

  ‘May I see your press ID, ma’am?’

  Her smile faded.

  ‘Aaah.’ She patted her pockets as if she was checking for it. She couldn’t tell them the truth. The last thing she wanted was for Sean to find out she was here and not show up.

  ‘I’ll bring it with me at seven.’

  ‘You do that, ma’am. This is strictly a press only event.’ He had a half-suppressed smile on his face. There was going to be no easy way to get by this guy.

  ‘See you later,’ she said.

  They didn’t reply.

  She turned away, then turned back again. ‘Can anyone from the press get in?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said the other guard. He had a voice like gravel being stirred. ‘You gotta be on the list to get in, ma’am.’

  39

  Li clicked the Skype encoder software button. It would be thirty seconds before the link with Beijing would be active. He wiped a breadcrumb from the faux-Louis XVI dining table and looked around the room.

  The Carlyle was the grandest of the five-star hotels in Manhattan. The suite he was in, the Churchill, was the best in the 1960s-era building that dominated Madison Avenue, but still he wasn’t happy. It wasn’t the suite. Its marble bath, original artwork and connecting deep-pile carpeted rooms were perfectly acceptable. The summons he had received by text was what was troubling him.

  The Mandarin character text message had been explicit in its brevity.

  CALL AT ONCE

  Only the identity of the originator caused him distress. The man who had sent it would normally never resort to sending text messages. The General Secretary of the Financial Reform Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was not a man to be kept waiting.

  The Skype screen was replaced by a small video link. It switched from black to showing an image of an ultra-modern apartment on Liangmaqiao Road, in the high class Chaoyang District of Beijing. Li knew the apartment. He had received a personal vetting there.

  ‘I am here,’ said Li, softly.

  The image still showed the wall with the original Rothko print and the edge of the sliding glass door to the balcony, but now it showed a flame too. A lit black candle, six inches tall and wide, had been placed on the desk in front of the laptop camera.

  Li breathed in quickly. The message was clear.

  ‘When the candle is finished,’ began the General Secretary’s voice. His tone was as hard as the triple glazed doors that led to his balcony, overlooking the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium. ‘A decision will be made as to how to finish the matter of our involvement with this project.’

  Li waited. When nothing else had been said after two minutes, and he thought he could almost hear the sound of the water feature on the balcony, he spoke.

  ‘I am clearing the stones,’ he said. ‘The benefits of this undertaking are worth your patience, General Secretary. What we find will transform our situation.’

  A hiss sounded from the Beijing apartment.

  ‘No more promises!’ The voice was angry. ‘One hundred and fifty-five years have passed. We are happy to wait a little longer.’

  Li didn’t reply this time. He was trying to work out what had angered a man who he had thought he could count on. The reference to the burning of the Summer Palace in Beijing, during the Opium Wars, was an unnecessary reminder of the importance of his mission, but the fact that it had been mentioned at all surely meant that pressure had been placed on his fr
iend.

  Perhaps the exceptionally large transfers to the branch in London had raised questions beyond the group he had already paid off. That had been his biggest gamble so far. But he’d had no choice. Lord Bidoner had insisted the money be transferred to his hedge fund.

  ‘Do not look for me again, until the item is in your hands,’ said the voice.

  The last image Li saw was the flame burning. Then the screen went blank. He let out his breath.

  Then, frustration etched into his face, he smashed his hand down on the table.

  The table rattled.

  He didn’t have much time. The black long-lasting candle would burn out in twenty-four hours. If he didn’t have what was needed by then he would soon after be a dead man waiting.

  He closed the lid of the laptop, then raised a fist to his lips. A long-forgotten memory had come back to him. He could almost smell the blood still, and feel the man’s trembling as the blade had sliced into flesh. That had been ten years ago.

  Was his turn coming?

  He smashed his hand down again.

  That could not happen. He would do whatever it took to ensure that.

  40

  Back on the street outside the bank Isabel walked to another smaller entrance to the BXH building around the corner on Lexington. It looked as if it was kept permanently locked.

  There was also a car park entrance, a lowered red steel shutter with a ramp going down, which presumably meant some of the staff could drive into the bank. She remembered something Sean had told her about the town cars that ferried BXH’s top managers to and from Wall Street. This must be where they came in and out, straight onto Lexington. Then a fast ride downtown.

  She headed for a diner, Luigi’s, which was open across the street. Inside was like being in a movie about New York. There were plastic chairs, plastic menus and a selection of food that could add inches to your waist in one sitting.

  She ordered a donut and coffee, looked at her watch. It was ten to five.

  The guy who served her was well over six feet. He had slicked-back black hair. He gave her a big smile from behind the counter. Above his head a yellow fan twirled.

  She found a table near the window.

  Was there any way she could get into the press conference? Did she know any journalists? Who was that editor she met a few years back?

  The only problem was, the Birmingham Weekly probably didn’t cover financial events in New York City. She looked around. This really was old New York, the kind of place Sean’s aunt and uncle would have loved.

  Sean’s uncle. That was it. He’d been with a big bank. He might know some of the journalists on the list. Maybe they could help her. It had to be worth a shot.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket. What time was it in Paris? Ten in the evening? She held the phone tight. As Karen’s number rang she leaned sideways so she could see the entrance to the bank’s parking garage. When would people start arriving? An hour before the press conference? Or were they all already in there?

  She looked up towards the upper floors of the BXH building. A quarter of the building, from the part she could see, was lit up. Did that mean there were lots of people up there working? She had no idea. It could be just what the place looked like every Saturday afternoon in winter.

  ‘Isabel,’ said Karen’s voice. ‘I’m glad you rang. I tried calling you at home. I thought your phone was busted. What’s happening? Did you find Sean?’

  Emotion came welling up inside her. For a moment Isabel couldn’t speak. She held the phone away from her, pressed her knuckles to her lips.

  Fight it. Don’t let it get to you.

  ‘No.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But I know where he is.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s terrible. I can’t believe he hasn’t contacted you.’ She spoke fast. There was an accusation in her tone too, as if she was getting ready to defend Sean.

  ‘Can I speak to Frank?’

  She heard a sigh, a rustling.

  Frank came on the line.

  ‘Are you okay, honey?’ were his first words. How typical. How decent. She used to think Sean was so like him.

  ‘I can’t believe what’s going on, Frank.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in New York, near BXH’s headquarters. I was told Sean is here. He’s going to be at some BXH press conference in a couple of hours.’

  ‘For the merger announcement? And he hasn’t called you, told you what’s happening?’

  ‘No. He’s avoiding me. He came here and he didn’t even tell me. I can’t believe he’d do that.’ She wouldn’t have said that to Karen, but Frank was so open she knew he’d take it all the right way.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ.’

  She didn’t reply. She didn’t want to tell him the police were looking for his nephew. She didn’t want to shatter him completely.

  ‘My God, Isabel. Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?’ She could hear his breathing, slightly laboured.

  ‘Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding, Frank. There is one thing you could do though.’

  ‘Sure, whatever. I told Sean he was working too hard.’

  She rubbed her hand along the edge of the plastic covered table.

  ‘Do you still know people in the financial press here in New York? Anyone who might be on the invite list to this press conference? I want to get into it, Frank. I have to see him.’

  She heard a sudden intake of breath. Then silence.

  ‘I’m not going to cause a scene. I just want to surprise him. Sit at the back, find out what’s been keeping him away from his family.’ Her voice broke a little at the end, shook, then rose a notch.

  ‘Jeez, I don’t know, honey. Sean might …’ He stopped.

  ‘Please, Frank. I came to New York to see him. If I don’t get into that press conference, find out why he’s avoiding me, I’m going to go totally crazy.’ She could hear her voice rising all the way through that speech, but she couldn’t stop it. She almost shouted the word crazy at him.

  She glanced around to see if anyone was looking at her. The guy behind the counter was staring, wide-eyed. A woman two tables up had turned around and was giving her the are-you-a-wacko look.

  ‘I’ll see what I can come up with. Should I give them this number?’

  ‘Yeah. Get them to call me straight away. The press conference is in a couple of hours.’ Hope soared inside her.

  ‘Okay, honey. You take care now.’ The line went dead.

  She put the phone on the table by her coffee cup and stared at it, willing it to ring soon.

  What should she do if Frank didn’t know anyone? Should she go to the NYPD, get them to investigate, look for Sean? Was she deluding herself that she could find him?

  What a stupid mess.

  Her phone rang!

  ‘Hello.’ Hope spiked inside her again.

  ‘Hi, Isabel, this is Jenny from down the road. Just ringing to see if you’re okay?’

  Tiredness hit her, as if her blood sugar level had just dropped. Jenny and Isabel had been close the year before, but they hadn’t seen much of each other recently. She wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Jenny, hi. Listen, everything’s fine. Can I call you back? It’s just I’m waiting for a call. I’ll get back to you. I promise.’ There was an awkward silence.

  ‘Okay, Isabel.’ She sounded offended. The line went dead. Crap. But there was no way she wanted to be on a call if someone else tried her line. There’d be time for patching things up with Jenny later.

  She took a sip of coffee. At least there was one thing she could be sure of. Alek was safe.

  41

  Above the Atlantic, the Bombardier Global 5000 was following the edge of night. Behind was Europe, darkness and the twinkling of stars. Ahead was a snow storm and the late afternoon skies of Long Island, and the continent behind it.

  The cloud beneath them was a rolling blanket with occasional gaps, where you coul
d see down through cascading layers of deeper, roiling grey.

  Above, the constellations shone. The seven stars of the plough stood out to the north and directly above, the Milky Way was like a path of glittering marble.

  Adar had agreed to a long route, when the controller at Shanwick had offered it to him. It would mean them taking the most northerly U trans-Atlantic track, which would bring them well inland, over Newfoundland, but that suited him.

  He was flying at 42,000 feet and below the Bombardier’s maximum speed now, at Mach 0.7. An altered, slower flight plan had been agreed minutes before his departure. He had to ensure he arrived at La Guardia when his favourite senior immigration officer was on duty.

  The man would check all passports diligently and run them through the Department of Homeland Security IT systems, to ensure they weren’t on any watch list, but he was happy to do it with no more than a two minute visit to the cabin of the Bombardier to ensure there were no stowaways or obvious contraband, though he would check the hold properly. But Adar had nothing to fear there.

  The boy would be sleeping again, and groggy, by the time they landed in a few hours.

  He turned and looked into the long thin cabin. His colleague was sitting with the boy in the leather seats facing the TV screen. A Spiderman movie was playing. The boy had been told, when he woke, that he was being taken to meet his father. Then he’d been given sweets and a drink. It was a lot of effort to ensure they got the boy into the States without difficulty, but Adar did as he was told.

  When Lord Bidoner wanted something done he always had a good reason. And if a few people had to die on the way, then that was just collateral damage.

  Adar had known when he was recruited that murder was one of the tasks he would be asked to carry out, but after four years working as a mercenary in Chechnya, killing whoever got in his way, the idea was not unpleasant. He had shot families, children as young as this boy in front of their parents, to make them talk. Whatever was necessary.

  And he had become good at it.

  And now there was no turning back. No squeamishness could enter his mind. Because if he ever hesitated, his own life would be forfeit.