“We ain’t got much time. That text I just got? They’re on their way.”
“I can’t have anything to do with this.” Jake put the memory key down, pushed it back across the table. “I’ve got a family to protect.”
Donovan laughed. “How do you think you got this job?”
An ominous current slid down Jake’s back.
“Your friend, Sean, he helped me out. So I helped him out. Hired you.” Donovan pushed the memory key back to Jake. “There are encryption keys on there for some locked accounts. You keep that safe. We’re in this together.”
A commotion erupted in the front of the office. Through the smoky glass walls of the conference room, Jake saw a group of men massing at the front, one of them holding a piece of paper above his head. They wore bulletproof vests and spoke in loud voices. After more angry shouting, the secretary at the front pointed toward the conference room. The men in vests advanced toward Jake and Donovan, handcuffs out. Jake looked Donovan in the eye and grabbed the memory key, stuffing it into his suit vest pocket.
Donovan straightened his sleeves and admired his diamond cufflinks again, nonplussed. “You take care of that, Jakey.”
AUGUST 13th
Saturday
3
Upper West Side
New York City
“Tur…”
Jake propped himself up on the couch and leaned over his five-year-old daughter Anna’s shoulder. “Just sound it out,” he encouraged. “Tur…bu…”
“Turbulence!” Anna squealed.
Jake nodded. His daughter was a prodigy when it came to reading, something she must have gotten from his wife. Anna had decided she wanted to read to him from his Pilot and Plane magazine. He’d started taking flying lessons, and his daughter was fascinated with the idea that he’d be able to soar into the sky.
“Turbulence can a…” continued Anna, “…rise from a number of sources. Muh…”
Jake intervened again. “…can…eh…”
Anna waved him away. “Mechanical, mown…tane wave, frontal activity…“
“Good,” Jake encouraged.
“But in summer,” continued Anna, “the primary offender is convek…shun.” She nodded, trying to convey the seriousness of what she was reading. “As the sun heats the ground, convection turbulence chops up the sky…”
She stopped and turned to Jake, frowning. “Can something really chop up the sky, Daddy?”
“It’s just a figure of speech.” Jake smiled. “The sky doesn’t get chopped up.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Anna, time to get ready,” Elle called out from the kitchen.
Jake turned to see his wife’s head poking around the corner, smiling, her brown eyes twinkling. She was getting the lunch bags ready. Anna had piano lessons on Saturday mornings, then ballet in the afternoons. Elle wanted to take her for a walk in Central Park in between and have a picnic.
Anna squealed, “Okay, Mom!” and dumped the magazine into Jake’s lap before running around the dining table and heading for her bedroom.
Jake smiled as he watched her go. He was filling another role now—that of the doting father, teaching his daughter to read. Swinging his legs off the couch, Jake stood and stretched, admiring their apartment. “You’ve done an amazing job fixing the place up,” he said to his wife.
They bought the place two months ago, moving to the Upper West Side next to Columbia University, from their old—and much loved—loft in Chelsea. The new apartment had three bedrooms, and the area had access to better schools. All for Anna, of course, but Jake had emptied his bank account to make it happen, and the mortgage was crippling. With Atlas under investigation, the noose seemed to tighten around Jake’s neck.
“It’s been a team effort,” Elle replied, disappearing back into the kitchen.
Jake walked into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. “What y’all doing tonight?” He wasn’t Southern, but Elle was, and he liked to poke fun at her by using ‘y’all’ sometimes. “Still going to the Necrosis show?”
“Of course.” She brushed past him to the entrance, leaning down to grab a backpack from the doorway closet.
Jake lowered his voice. “Are you sure that’s a good environment for Anna?”
Back in college, his wife had started managing punk rock bands as a way of drawing her favorite groups to the small town of Charlottesville. Now she worked full time at Columbia as a researcher of infectious diseases, but she continued with the band management as a labor of love.
Jake first met her when he was twenty-three at one of her gigs down in the East Village. It was a few years after he and Sean moved to the city from upstate New York. Jake was tending bar when he heard screaming out back. Going out to investigate, he’d found Elle holding the lead singer of the band the bar had booked for the night. The singer was crying, cursing, and Elle was singing him a lullaby, cradling the two-hundred-pound-tattooed-and-Mohawked baby in her arms.
Jake was smitten on the spot.
Elle dropped the backpack onto the entrance table and stuffed the lunch bags inside. “Are you serious? You think my environment is bad for her?”
This wasn’t an argument he could win, not after the police had carted his boss off in handcuffs. To Elle, Donovan’s fate was a confirmation of her intuition. She never liked the man.
Jake wisely remained silent.
“Are you going to join us after your flying lesson?” asked Elle.
His fourth one was this afternoon. Jake’s early birthday present to himself for his upcoming thirty-fifth birthday, now two months away. “No, I have to go into the office and sort things out a bit. But I’ll walk to the piano lesson with you.”
“So you’re going to be away from home all day and night,” Elle stated more than asked. “It’s the weekend.”
Jake slumped into the couch. He felt the edge in her voice. “This isn’t easy, Elle.”
Her face softened. “How bad is it?” She meant what was happening with the fraud investigation at Atlas.
“Pretty bad.” Jake rubbed his face.
She paused.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?”
He paused.
“No,” he lied, feeling the memory key in his pants pocket.
Friday had been a disaster at work, with the police digging through Donovan’s office on the one hand, and calls from frantic clients wanting to pull their money from the company on the other. All the chaos had barely given Jake a free moment to think about the memory key. This morning, though, he could think of little else.
Sean was involved.
Something was going on.
Elle watched him. “Have you thought more about my idea?”
A hotel-restaurant in Virginia Beach, near her family, had gone on the market. Elle thought it would be the perfect situation for them. With his experience he could manage the place; she could book live gigs. It would whisk them away from the craziness of the city, and Anna could grow up nearer Elle’s family. Elle also had an opportunity for a research position at Old Dominion University.
“Yeah, I did.” Jake rubbed his face. “But the timing, it’s…”
“Uh huh.” Elle turned, shaking her head.
Jake exhaled.
They needed more money before they could do something like that, even if he liked the idea. Everyone he worked with had their ‘number,’ the hypothetical amount of money needed in their bank account before they could stop the madness, call it quits and head for the beach. In all the time Jake had been in the financial world, though, no matter how much money he saw people rake in, nobody left.
But he’d be different.
He just needed a few more years.
Jake pulled his sneakers over to put them on.
Anna appeared, ready to leave, done up in a black leather coat and sunglasses with a pink beret. Kids didn’t come cheap these days. She was on her phone—an old one of Jake’s he�
�d given her as a toy—talking to one of her imaginary friends. It was a real cellphone, but not connected to the network. The phone linked into the Wi-Fi in the apartment, though, so she could play web games on it. Carrying it around made her feel like an adult.
“Did you get that message from Sean?” Elle asked.
Jake looked up, one sneaker half on, his heart skipping a beat. “Sean left a message?”
There weren’t any new messages on his phone or email—he knew, he’d been checking. Jake almost called Sean at six that morning, but Anna had already been up.
“On the machine. Must have been from yesterday or the day before.”
Sean never left a message on their landline. Jake was surprised Sean even knew the number. He hadn’t heard from his friend in two months—which was unusual as they normally talked every week or two—but then Sean was jetting around the world dating models and setting up banks.
Jake squirmed around on the couch and grabbed the old-school answering machine they still had. He punched the ‘message’ button.
“You coming?” Elle asked.
“Jake, hi, it’s me,” Sean’s voice echoed from the playback. Traffic growled in the background. “Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch in so long.” A car honked in the pause. “But there’s something I need to tell you…”
The recording ended with a loud crashing sound.
That was odd. Jake pulled his phone out and dialed Sean’s private number. It rang four times before going to voicemail. Jake searched his contacts and found another number for Sean, the public one for his business, and dialed that next.
Elle and Anna stared at Jake from the entrance. “Are you coming?” Elle asked again, the frown on her face mirroring her impatience.
Jake held up one finger. “Sorry, just a second.” The number rang three times, and he was about to disconnect when it picked up.
“Sean, you there?” Jake said into his phone. Dead silence. “Sean?”
“I’m here,” came a reply, slightly garbled. “How are you, Jake?”
“I’m good.” Jake frowned. Sean sounded…weird. Not like himself. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Another pause. “I heard Donovan was arrested.”
Jake turned away from his family. “Yeah,” he whispered, “and he gave me something.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“I don’t know. But he said you made it for him.”
More dead space.
“Jake!” Elle stamped her foot. “Are you coming?”
He turned to face her, nodding. “Just one second.” He turned back away. “Listen, Sean, can I call you back? I really need to go.”
Two or three seconds passed before there was a reply: “Sure. And Jake, don’t worry about it.”
The line disconnected.
4
University Medical Center
Hong Kong
Mr. Yamamoto eased himself off the examining table and buttoned up his shirt. The doctor’s office looked nothing like the traditional ones at home in Japan, but he preferred the clean, antiseptic feel of a western-style executive clinic.
“How are the results?” Yamamoto asked.
“Perfect,” the doctor replied. “You are making an excellent recovery. Just make sure to get some regular exercise.” The doctor bowed and excused himself, leaving Yamamoto alone in the examining room.
They spoke in English. Despite the reversion to Chinese control, Hong Kong retained a strong undercurrent of its colonial roots. Yamamoto preferred to keep referring to it as Victoria City, something he knew irritated his Chinese counterparts, and the surprise he had in store for them today would perform even better in that capacity.
But perhaps he was giving them a great gift, as well.
Looking at himself in the mirror, Yamamoto executed a perfect Windsor knot in his tie with practiced ease. Dusting off the shoulders of his suit jacket, he put it on before inspecting himself one last time. He felt better than he had in years. Opening the door, he strode down the corridor, flanked by his two bodyguards who were waiting outside. His assistant was in the reception area with a cup of jasmine tea.
“Have you arranged everything?” Yamamoto asked in crisp English. It was the weekend, so arranging a meeting with the heads of several of China’s largest banks was no small feat.
“Yes, Chairman, we will be meeting at the head offices of Goldman Sachs.”
“Good.” Yamamoto nodded.
Neutral ground, and right next to the Bank of China complex.
It was a straight shot down Victoria Road from here, past the glass canyons of the city. It was also next to Hong Kong Park. Perhaps he would take a short walk afterward.
Outside, his driver stood at attention with the limo door open. Yamamoto slid into the cool interior, one bodyguard ahead of him and one behind, while his assistant opened the front door to sit beside the driver. Hong Kong had some of the worst traffic in the world, but he used this car as his traveling office. Someone was waiting inside for him, an outside consultant.
Yamamoto didn’t trust his own staff enough to share the details of his special project with them. No one besides Yamamoto and the consultant knew about it.
The car pulled away into traffic.
“Is Atlas Capital involved?” Yamamoto asked the consultant, Shen Shi Heng.
Shen Shi shook his head. “Not directly, but Danny Donovan was formally indicted on federal money laundering charges yesterday.”
The meme of the Western cowboy ran deep; Mr. Donovan had allowed it to consume him, leading to his downfall. Still, Yamamoto suspected Donovan would pop to the surface again, like a turd in a communal swimming hole.
“Do we have any exposure?” Yamamoto asked. He meant any risk of financial loss associated with the downfall of Atlas.
“Not according to the connections I can see,” Shen Shi replied. “But I haven’t had a lot of time to investigate that aspect of it. Why don’t you let me connect with your staff?”
Yamamoto let the insolence slide. For now. He’d made it clear that there was to be no contact with his staff. His bodyguards remained impassive by his sides.
“Did you prepare a map of the nodal points?” For months, Yamamoto had suspected a massive conspiracy in the banking world, and the data Shen Shi was collecting could prove it.
Shen Shi nodded and handed over a tablet. Yamamoto inspected the connection points, a smile spreading on his face. Many of the connections led into the Chinese Politburo, several others into the Peoples’ Liberation Army, and from there to a network of holding companies. His assistant pinged him with a message—they’d arrived.
“You are to come up to the meeting with me,” Yamamoto told Shen Shi, “but only speak when spoken to, and only answer my queries. Is that understood?”
Shen Shi nodded.
They exited the limo. Yamamoto stopped, again flanked by his bodyguards, to inspect the crisscross pattern of the Bank of China building beside them, and then entered the seventy-story glass tower of Goldman Sachs, where he and the consultant and bodyguards were whisked to the top floor. An administrative staffer greeted and ushered them into an expansive conference room with twelve-foot ceiling-to-floor glass walls. A glistening black oval table sat at the center, and seated around it were representatives of ten of the world’s largest banks.
Yamamoto dispensed with pleasantries. “Gentlemen, today I…” He stopped halfway from the doorway to the table.
Why was it so hot in here?
Yamamoto closed his eyes and tried to take a breath, sweat blossoming on his forehead. It felt like a python had wrapped around him, squeezing the air from his lungs.
“Yes?” the envoy from the Bank of China demanded. “Why did you drag us up here?”
▲▼▲
Shen Shi hung back at the doorway, two steps behind, unsure whether to step forward. From behind him, the two bodyguards sprang forward to grab Yamamoto as he faltered an
d fell forward, gagging and convulsing.
“Get a doctor!” one of them yelled into his walkie-talkie.
AUGUST 15th
Monday
5
Atlas Capital Offices
Long Island, NY
“Mr. Sinclair, I assure you that your money is safe,” Jake said into the telephone. “Whatever Mr. Donovan was—“
Angry shouting on the other end. Jake pulled the receiver from his ear.
“Yes, I know he’s the founder of Atlas,” Jake continued when the yelling subsided, “but you and I have a relationship—“
Now came a rush of expletives. Jake cringed. “I understand. I’ll start the paperwork, but in a few weeks…” His voice trailed away. Mr. Sinclair had already hung up.
Jake rolled his shoulders and stared at the lights flashing on his phone—two calls waiting. Two other clients scrambling to get their money out. Five years of work, all going down the drain since Donovan’s arrest.
As much as Jake liked to think of himself as a trader, he spent most of his time at Atlas Capital as a glorified go’fer for Donovan. Jake spent three years learning the ropes, verifying trades, running tickets, and last year he finally started making his own trades. Atlas did most of its trading electronically, automatically—half of the money it made was through algorithms designed by the geek group in the basement.
If half of what Atlas made was through automated systems, the other half was still earned the ‘hard’ way—through relationships and working the human side of the system as a ‘buy side’ trader. That was where Jake fit in, working the angles from the inside, talking to people and making deals. It made for a lot of late nights, and when Donovan said jump, Jake still asked, “How high?”
The question now: could he jump high enough to escape this mess? What nasty surprises might be lurking in the memory key Donovan gave him? Jake didn’t want to carry it on him or leave it at home, so he’d stuffed it into a potted plant in the entranceway.
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