by Allan Topol
“I’m sorry, we have to terminate our meeting,” Alberto said.
“The bastards kidnapped Ilana,” Parelli said, sounding outraged.
“We don’t know anyone kidnapped her. All we know is that she’s gone missing.”
“Who are you involved with in business conflicts at this time?”
“You have to leave, please. I must call the authorities.”
“I promise I’ll leave. Just answer my question.”
“I can’t.”
“Nobody should use a person’s child that way.” Parelli looked indignant.
“Please leave me—”
“I will. But I’ll also do what I can to find Ilana. I have friends in the Bologna area.”
“No, no. Please don’t do anything. The authorities will—”
Parelli turned and left the office.
Alberto immediately called Giuseppe and told him what Dora said.
“I’ll get right on it,” Giuseppe said. “I’ll use people who are expert in matters like this. I’ll also tell Craig Page. He’s had experience in these situations.”
“Do you think McKnight kidnapped her? To put pressure on me?”
“That thought has been running through my mind.”
“I’ll kill McKnight.”
“Do you know if he’s still in Italy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t tell anyone else about Ilana. Tell Dora to keep it to herself as well. Secrecy is always better in something like this.”
“Sorry. I already did.”
Alberto told Giuseppe about his conversation with Parelli. “It was stupid of me, but I was so upset when Dora called. I forgot he was in the room.”
“What’s done is done. Hopefully, Parelli won’t get in the way.”
“Meantime, and this is critical, you have to let me know immediately if anyone tries to contact you about your daughter. We’ll hook up recording devices to your office and home phones. Make sure they are plugged in. If anyone calls, keep them on the line for one minute so we can get their location.”
“One minute is a long time for this.”
“I realize that. Thirty seconds for sure.”
* * *
In Paris, Craig’s phone rang. He saw it was Giuseppe and answered it immediately.
“I messed up,” a very distraught Giuseppe said.
“What happened?”
“Zhou and McKnight kidnapped Alberto’s daughter, Ilana.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no.”
“I should have given her protection. It’s all my fault.”
Craig felt equally responsible. He could have suggested it to Giuseppe, but he had thought that after McKnight’s second meeting with Alberto, the Hong Kong banker was satisfied he had a deal and wouldn’t have taken any action at least for a week. Craig’s guess was Zhou hadn’t been content to let events play along for that week.
“I’ve launched a major effort to find Ilana. Alberto will let me know as soon as he hears anything.”
“That’s all you can do. You’ll find her.”
Craig didn’t have much confidence in those words.
* * *
As soon as he finished talking to Giuseppe, Alberto went home to be with Dora and to wait for the police to install the recording device on the home phones, hoping the kidnapper would call.
As soon as he walked into the house and before the police came, his home phone rang. “Is this Alberto,” he heard in a Russian accented Italian.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“You better sell if you ever want to see your daughter alive again. This is your last warning.”
“If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”
The phone went dead.
The doorbell rang. It was the police with the recording equipment.
Beijing and Paris
Fear gripped Elizabeth. Her knees were knocking.
Two minutes ago she had handed her passport to the official seated behind the glass window at Beijing airport. He had studied it and looked at her, and then back at the passport. And then again scrutinized her. Finally without saying a word, he pressed a button next to his computer. She knew what that meant: a question had been raised about her identity and whether she should be permitted to leave the country.
Seconds later, two powerfully built men in army uniforms, guns holstered at their waists approached her. One said, “Come with us.”
With one in front and the other behind, and Elizabeth pulling her suitcase, the three of them walked down a long corridor and ended up in a small dingy windowless office where a woman sat behind a desk with a computer and phone on top.
Elizabeth’s supposition was that Zhou had put out an alert for Elizabeth Crowder. Her life depended on her protecting her Simone Morey identity.
The men took positions in corners of the room. The woman, heavyset and sullen looking, with cakes of flesh under her eyes, pointed to a chair in front of her desk.
“Is there a problem? I have a plane to board.”
“I’m well aware of when your plane leaves. You have plenty of time. Now sit.”
Elizabeth did as she was told while trying to stay calm and keep her fear under control.
“This was a short trip for you, Miss Morey,” the woman said in English.
“Yes. I had a business meeting to attend.”
“What’s your business.”
Elizabeth was ready for this. “I’m with Total. The large French oil company based in Paris. In the development department.”
She hoped the woman wouldn’t check, but before leaving Paris, Elizabeth had spoken with a friend at Total who would communicate with his colleagues in Beijing to support her cover.
The woman didn’t reach for the phone or computer. Instead, she pointed to one of the men. “Search her bag.”
The two hoisted it on a table and carefully examined everything inside. It all fit the Simone Morey cover. Total materials. A couple of French paperback novels.
“Your briefcase.”
Elizabeth handed it over. Again, it was all consistent with her cover. She had packed it carefully.
“Okay. Stand up,” the woman said. “Strip down to your underwear.”
Controlling her anger, Elizabeth complied. The woman came out behind the desk and first checked Elizabeth’s clothes, which she had tossed on the chair. Then she checked inside Elizabeth’s bra and behind the front of her pants.
Appearing disappointed, she said, “Get dressed and take your things. You can board your plane.”
Elizabeth kept a grim expression on her face, not daring to show the relief she felt.
Half an hour later, Elizabeth was among the first to board. She took her seat in the business class cabin, 7B on the aisle.
Still no message from Mei Ling.
She was worried but tried not to panic. What had happened? Had Mei Ling been taken into custody and couldn’t even send a message?
Her leg was shaking. Her foot was tapping the cabin floor.
She checked her watch. It was ten minutes until the scheduled takeoff. As she looked up, a Chinese flight attendant, a young women, headed in her direction. She stopped next to Elizabeth’s seat.
“Are you Simone Morey?”
For an instant, Elizabeth forgot that was the name she was using. She recovered quickly. “Yes,” Elizabeth said anxiously, wondering if soldiers were outside the plane to arrest her.
The woman reached into her pocket and extracted a small envelope, which she handed to Elizabeth. The front of the envelope was blank.
When the woman walked away, Elizabeth ripped open the envelope. Inside was a piece of paper folded over. Typed on it was the word “No” and that was all.
So Mei Ling had been forced to yield to Zhou. That made Elizabeth’s situation even more precarious.
Anxiously, she watched the minutes tick down to take off. With two minutes to go, two Chinese men in mechanics uniforms came on the plane. Soldiers in disguise?
�
��We’ll have short delay for a mechanical problem,” the captain announced. Passengers groaned. They knew that the plane could be delayed for hours while repairs were made. Elizabeth gripped the armrest of the seat with white knuckles. Was this just an excuse to hold the plane until soldiers came for her?
She kept her eyes on the open cabin door. Nobody else entered the plane. After the longest forty minutes of her life, the captain announced, “We’re cleared to go. Just completing the paperwork.”
Take-off followed fifteen minutes later.
It may have been an Air France plane, but she wouldn’t be safe until they cleared Chinese air space. Before that, they could be ordered to turn around, and she could be pulled off the plane.
Hours later when the pilot announced, “We have now cleared Chinese air space,” Elizabeth was ready to shout for joy.
She signaled a nearby flight attendant. “I’ll have a glass of champagne.”
* * *
As soon as her plane landed at Charles De Gaulle, she called Craig. “Where are you,” she asked.
“In Paris at the Bristol. Waiting for you and hoping you’d call.”
“Oh, Craig, I love you.”
“That is music to my ears. Where are you?”
“At Charles DeGaulle. I’ll be at the Bristol as soon as the cab can get me there.”
That was thirty-five minutes later. When Craig opened the door to his suite, she took a look at his bruised face and blurted out, “Oh my God!”
“Some thugs in Singapore wanted me to leave with a souvenir from my visit.”
“Do you hurt?”
“I heal fast.”
“So I’ve learned. I just wish you didn’t end up as a punching bag all the time.”
“I’m afraid it’s part of the game.”
“At least the way you play it.”
“What happened in Beijing?”
She threw herself into his arms. “I never thought I’d get out.” She sounded distraught.
“Tell me about it.”
“First, I want to soak in a hot tub for about half an hour. Then I’ll be ready to talk.”
“Good. I’ll order some food from room service and a good bottle of wine. That’ll help you make the transition.”
“You think good food and wine can fix everything.”
“Well, most things.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Craig was sitting across the room service table from Elizabeth, hanging on every word as she recounted her brief and harrowing trip to Beijing.
He was so relieved she was safely back.
At the end, she said, “Bottom line: we now have confirmation that one of Zhou’s aides was in the Venice hotel room with Parelli. We also know that Mei Ling was unable to control Zhou. I was happy to get out of there. And how was your day?”
He told her about Singapore and Washington. Then about his dinner with Alberto. When he began telling her about the disappearance of Alberto’s daughter, Ilana, he could barely speak. It brought back awful memories of Zhou’s murder of his own daughter. “Giuseppe’s doing everything possible to locate Ilana,” Craig said. “But it’s easy to hide people. I don’t have a good feeling about this. Zhou’s vicious and cruel.”
“Let’s be optimistic. Giuseppe knows the countryside. Speaking of that, how’d you find out about this place in Orta?” she asked.
“I read about it in a guidebook.”
“Liar. Why didn’t you ever take me there?”
“You were pursuing your career.”
“What was her name?”
He had no intention of telling her about his friend in Milan, which would have triggered more questions, such as: “What was she like? Was she better than me in bed? Was she …?” Now that he was back with Elizabeth, he’d never see the woman again.
“Okay. That was the commercial. Can we go back to the program?”
“I guess so. Some day when you’ve had too much to drink, I’ll get it out of you.”
“Now let’s talk about my Barry Gorman ploy. As I told you before I was so rudely interrupted, Alberto is willing to cooperate. Giuseppe will help us put it together. So I’m ready to roll.”
“What’s your first step?”
“Going public with my competing offer for Alberto’s bank. Either in a radio or a newspaper interview that won’t show Barry Gorman’s picture. I can touch up my appearance a little, but I want to minimize the risk of someone concluding Barry Gorman is Enrico Marino and a phony. Any ideas who could do the interview?”
“A friend of mine, Carlo Fanti, is a top reporter at Italy Today. He told me where Parelli was staying in Venice, so I owe him a favor I’d like to repay. He’d love to do this. I’ll tell him you’re giving him an exclusive.”
“Would he be willing to do it without Barry Gorman’s picture?”
“If I tell him that’s a condition. The story’s good enough.”
She checked her watch. “Too late to call Carlo this evening. I’ll call first thing in the morning.”
“Perfect. That takes care of Zhou’s bank move. Now what do we do about his Parelli operation?”
“After we cleared Chinese air space, that’s all I thought about for the rest of the long plane ride.”
“What’d you decide?”
“I don’t have enough to write an article exposing Zhou’s financial support for Parelli.” She sounded dejected. “The fact that Parelli had a meeting with a Chinese man in his Venice hotel room who is an aide of Zhou’s doesn’t get me far enough. I know what my boss is like. He’d kill the piece. I need more evidence. Somehow I’ll figure out how to get it if it’s the last thing I do.”
Milan
While preparing for his interview with Carlo Fanti, Craig thought about his appearance. There wouldn’t be any pictures, but Craig still had to worry about Carlo recognizing him as Enrico Marino. Perhaps Carlo had no interest in racing and had never seen Enrico Marino, but then again maybe he was an avid fan. Craig decided to do some minor touch ups and hope that was sufficient. He colored his black hair a sandy brown. He bought a pair of glasses with plain glass lenses. When he looked in the mirror, he was satisfied that he had sufficiently changed his appearance.
Craig met Carlo in the lobby of the Italy Today newspaper building. Elizabeth’s friend was in his fifties with a stubble of a beard and a friendly smile. He shook Craig’s hand firmly. “I’m pleased to meet you, Barry Gorman.”
Craig, who was accustomed to making snap judgments about people, decided that he liked Carlo.
“Likewise,” Craig replied. “Elizabeth said lots of good things about you.”
“How do you know her?”
Craig had to be careful to stick with the Barry Gorman bio and the fake Philoctetes website. He was a Stanford undergrad and went to Harvard Business School. But they couldn’t have met when she was at Harvard. He was too much older.
“We met when we were both in New York. She was working for a paper there. I was with a private equity firm based in Manhattan.”
“Was it romantic?”
“Just business. She was covering one of my deals that had international implications. She’s a helluva reporter.”
“You can say that again. Let’s go to the café down the street. I find it easier to talk there.”
“Sure. Whatever you want. Elizabeth told you no pictures. You okay with that?”
“I can live with it. I was wondering why.”
“Once, I was in a bidding contest for an acquisition and the principal on the other side hired someone to use a little force to get me to back off. Since then, I figure if they can’t recognize me, it’ll be harder to hit me.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Wish I weren’t. Business can be like warfare.”
Carlo led the way to a small café. There he directed Craig to a remote corner that was deserted. He picked up two coffees at the bar and joined Craig.
As he sat down, Carlo stared at Craig for a few second
s. Craig held his breath, hoping Carlo didn’t recognize Enrico Marino.
The reporter didn’t say anything. Instead he removed a pen and steno pad from his bag. “I’m old school,” he said. “No computers.”
“Whatever works.”
While Craig sipped his coffee, Carlo said, “Elizabeth didn’t tell me what this was about. She just said that her friend Barry Gorman was in private equity and he had a real scoop. So you better start from scratch.”
“Okay. How much do you know about private equity?”
“It’s a way for rich people to get even richer.”
They both laughed. “You’re close. I head up a private equity firm based in San Francisco, the Philoctetes Group. We raise money from investors. Then I travel around the world trying to find investment opportunities to put that money to work. Right now I have a fund of 50 billion I’m working with.”
As Craig had been talking, he noticed Carlo writing furiously. He paused for a minute to let Carlo catch up.
“What brings you to Italy?”
“I learned that control of your largest bank, Turin Credit, is in play. I just made an offer to buy Alberto Goldoni’s stock.”
Carlo looked startled. “I never thought that Alberto Goldoni would sell. That bank has family history.”
Craig smiled. “I don’t want to appear crass, Carlo, but if the price is right, everything is for sale.”
“Who else is bidding on it?”
“Victoria Bank of Hong Kong made a 20 billion euro offer. I went to 25 hoping to wrap it up quickly, but Victoria has deep pockets. They may keep bidding. That’s what I like about this business. You never know what your competitors will do.”
“Sounds as if you enjoy what you’re doing.”
“I love it.”
“If you get control of Alberto’s bank, will you change how it operates?”
“Absolutely not. Alberto is a superb manager. I’d like him to remain on for at least a couple of years as CEO to make sure we keep it on the tracks.”
“You won’t start firing employees and take all those cost-cutting measures I heard about with private equity owners?”
