Marston stared back. “You can’t be serious, Lewis.”
“I am absolutely serious.”
Marston shook his head. “There are huge risks in raising and managing a purely speculative fund of the size you are proposing. If we didn’t earn the kinds of returns you are talking about, we could end up negatively affecting our mainstream asset management business, at which we make a pretty penny. Worse, a slip up in a speculative fund might inhibit our ability to go public. At the very least we wouldn’t get as good a price from public investors. No, Lewis. We should forget about this fund idea and go public at the earliest possible moment. That is my decision, and there is no room to negotiate with me.” Marston leaned forward over the table triumphantly, as if he had actually wrested control of the firm from the senior partner at that exact moment.
Webster turned his dark gaze upon Polk. “Is this your decision as well, Graham?” Webster’s whisper seeped through the deathly silent room.
Polk swallowed hard as his eyes flickered back and forth between Webster and Marston. Webster would require that both he and Marston record their vote, and the partnership would have access to that record. If he voted with Webster, the other partners would see that he had not voted for what the majority wanted, and when the day came for Webster to step down—and that day would come sooner rather than later—Marston would remind the others that he had voted to go public and that Polk had voted with Webster. If he didn’t stand up to Webster now, Marston would end up controlling the firm because the others would vote for Marston as senior partner at that point—hands down.
Polk shifted in his chair. He did not like the fire he still saw burning in Webster’s eyes, but there was no choice. Polk took a deep breath. “I have to agree with Marston,” he said quietly.
Webster nodded once slowly, then leaned forward toward Polk. “Are you absolutely certain of your decision?”
“Yes.” Polk did not hesitate this time. So the partnership would die. He glanced over Webster’s shoulder at Harley Walker’s portrait. Sorry, old man, he thought, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Fine.” Webster’s voice was even. “I’d like you both to take these home with you tonight and glance through them at your leisure.” From the floor Webster picked up the two thick brown packages that the man in the hotel had given him and slid them to Polk and Marston respectively. He smiled widely, as if he were giving out Christmas presents. “But I would caution you. You probably want to open them when you are alone.”
Marston’s triumphant expression faded from his face. He picked up the package from the tabletop. “What the—”
“Don’t bother opening it now, Walter. I’ll give you a little sample of what’s inside.” Webster’s whisper was gentle, almost soothing. “Let’s see. It seems that for years now you’ve been making millions from a venture you own most of down in Argentina. But you haven’t been reporting this income to the Internal Revenue Service. The ownership structure is very complicated, and it isn’t immediately obvious that you actually own any of the stock or that you’ve ever brought money back to the States so that it would be subject to U.S. taxes.” Webster’s voice developed an eerie quality. “But the records in your package prove conclusively that you do own ninety-five percent of the venture and further prove that you have repatriated funds to yourself here in the United States, a total of almost twenty million dollars. You’re looking at fifteen to thirty years in a federal penitentiary. The Argentine authorities would probably be interested to know that you’ve been ducking taxes down there as well.”
Webster turned purposefully toward Polk, who clutched his package against his chest. “Graham, you’ve been playing with lots of little ten-year-old boys out at that private home in Staten Island, haven’t you? You’ve had to pay quite a bit to do it too, but that’s your business. Anyway, it’s all on the videotape in your package. Nice graphic footage of your interludes. Shove that into the VCR at your Upper East Side apartment and show it to your co-op neighbors. If you don’t, I will. But I won’t stop with your co-op neighbors, you can rest assured of that. Every partner here will see that tape. And so will the New York City Police Department.”
It was Webster’s turn for triumph. In thirty seconds he had destroyed them both.
Marston started to say something but stopped. There was nothing to say.
“I’ll expect your votes on my desk at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We will remain a partnership for at least another two years, and you will give me full authority to begin immediately raising the fund I described earlier. Is that clear?” Webster smiled.
Marston and Polk nodded as if in a trance.
“Very well, you may go.”
The two men rose unsteadily, grasping their packages of influence.
“One more thing, Marston,” Webster said.
The two men stopped and looked back.
“I will be taking Mace McLain out of your Real Estate Advisory Group.” Webster smiled. “He’s the brightest man at this firm, and I’ll need him for the fund. He will no longer report to you.”
Marston nodded wordlessly. Webster could have said anything at this point and he would have agreed.
Webster’s eyes fell to the empty glass left on the mahogany table. “Learn to pick up after yourself, will you, Polk?” Webster smiled. “You certainly have quite a few dirty little habits, don’t you?”
Quickly Polk retrieved the glass. Then he and Marston melted from the room.
Slowly Webster turned his chair toward the huge fireplace and the portrait of Harley Walker. He smiled again. Perhaps this would work out well after all. Perhaps it was as the man had said. In the long run they all would come out of this much stronger than before. And it beat the hell out of that lice-infested cell waiting for him at Leavenworth.
Far below, the bell of Trinity Church began to toll midnight.
5
He was a soldier, though his uniform was not that of a regular army. As a soldier he followed the orders of his commanding officer to the letter. Because as a soldier, if he stopped to question authority, he could be dead in the next instant. The bullet could find you in that moment of insubordination. It was that simple. Alive or dead: which did you want to be?
Sweat poured down Slade Conner’s face as he crouched in the jungle at the edge of the remote dirt runway. The Honduran night was hot, steaming with humidity, and he had not yet fully cooled down from the arduous task of sledgehammering forty-two steel rebar rods into the narrow runway so that they protruded eighteen inches from the dirt’s surface in six neat rows of seven bars each, as he had been ordered to do.
Slade flicked a mosquito from his cheek. He had never questioned the order, but as he scoured the night sky, while in the middle of dense foliage twenty miles from the nearest town—a town which was really nothing more than a ragtag group of shacks at the edge of a mountain stream—the shred of doubt that he had been trying so hard to ignore since leaving Washington four days ago began to worm its way into his thoughts again.
“Damn it!” Slade smacked at another mosquito, this time digging into the back of his neck, rolled the dead insect’s carcass into a neat ball against his skin, then pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and brought it before his face. Even at a distance of only a few inches he could barely discern the bug’s shape on his fingertip. The night was too dark for him to see clearly even to his hand. That was good. It meant that the pilot of the small plane would never see the truck hidden beneath the vines and leaves. More important, he wouldn’t see the rebar on the runway until it was too late.
Of course Slade didn’t really care about the pilot. Killing a drug runner was of no concern to him. Drug runners were the scourge of the earth. It was the person who was supposed to be accompanying the pilot on this flight that concerned Conner.
The plane was on its way from the jungles of Colombia to a small airstrip east of Lopeno, Texas
, loaded down by a cargo of cocaine with a street value of more than twenty-five million dollars. Though the drug lords had recently become more brazen and diverse in their methods of flooding the United States with the drug, most cocaine still entered the country in two- and four-seater planes. The one being used tonight was a smaller craft and would refuel at one of two airstrips deep in the Honduran jungle before continuing its flight toward the United States. At least that was what his information indicated.
Above Conner a large branch suddenly snapped and crashed noisily to the jungle floor ten feet away. Instantly he stood and reached for the flashlight that fitted snugly in his wide leather belt, then thought better about pulling it out. He did not want to take any chances on giving away his position to the plane. He was also confident that the cause of the branch breaking was not human. He had scoured the terrain several times this afternoon and this evening and was certain no one was in the vicinity. The only road into the airstrip was an old logging path, which he had mined in several places. The branch must have broken under its own weight or that of an animal.
Slade stared in the direction in which the branch had crashed to earth and listened. He thought he discerned a slight rustling that he had not noticed before. A snake? The constrictors down here were big and could easily snap a branch under their great weight during an evening hunt. He hated snakes. Poisonous, nonpoisonous, it didn’t matter. He had attempted to lose this phobia through therapy, by holding a variety of snakes with the help of trainers at the Washington Zoo, but nothing had worked. Slade’s right hand dropped to the handle of the 9 mm pistol wedged deep into the holster strapped to his thigh.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Slade noticed the blue landing lights illuminate. There were ten of them embedded in the dirt runway to guide the pilot onto the ground at night, and he had been careful not to sledgehammer the rebar into the runway near them. Slade’s pulse accelerated. They were close. The pilot would have turned on the landing lights from the plane.
Slade moved through the tangle of bushes and vines, farther from the edge of the short airstrip, farther from where the branch had come crashing to earth only moments before. He wanted no part of the snake—if that had been the cause of the disturbance.
At first the sound of the plane’s engine was nothing more than a high-pitched hum, as if a mosquito were circling close to his ear. But the hum grew steadily louder until the plane roared overhead just several hundred feet off the ground. It moved over the field and into the distance. So the pilot was being careful, Slade thought. He wasn’t landing on his first pass. Slade wondered if the pilot had landed at the other strip first, twelve miles away, and found the empty tanks from which he had siphoned the fuel yesterday. If the pilot had found the empty tanks, he might be suspicious.
Slade pressed himself behind a huge tree as the plane passed low over the field again. There might be heat-sensing equipment on board, and though the heat Slade generated could easily be that made by an animal, he wanted to give those in the plane no reason to make any alternative plans. As the plane buzzed past again, he leaned from behind the tree trunk and watched the craft’s orange lights disappear over the treetops. His heart pounded beneath the perspiration-drenched khaki shirt. Again he felt for the 9 mm, this time for a different reason.
The sound of the plane’s engine faded to almost nothing, then began to increase in intensity again. The men were landing this time. He could feel it. They were probably low on fuel and late, and though somehow they sensed danger, they had no choice but to come to earth here. Slade leaned farther out from behind the tree, his fingertips clinging to the rough bark as he stared at the treetops, waiting for the light of the small craft to reappear. Beads of salty sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes. He rubbed the droplets away quickly, then looked back up at the treetops. As he did, the lights of the plane appeared, descending quickly toward the waiting blue landing lights.
Don’t let them see the rebar. His heart felt as if it would explode as it pounded in his chest. Don’t let them see it.
The rubber tires clipped the second line of rebar, shearing off one landing support rod immediately. The plane immediately pitched forward, giving the pilot no time to react to the unexpected impact. The forward-mounted propeller bore into the dirt, spewing great clumps of sod and gravel into the air until the blades snapped and shot away from the fuselage. The two passengers were hurled against the windshield and then against the ceiling of the fuselage as the plane flipped over onto its spine and skidded on its overhead wings through the next line of rebar, which tore at the aircraft’s delicate skin like razors.
By the time what was left of the plane had come to a stop against the fifth line of rebar, Slade Conner was almost halfway down the runway, flashlight gripped tightly in his right hand, the light bobbing wildly before him as he sprinted. “Don’t blow, baby! Don’t you blow on me!” Slade whispered as he tore down the airstrip, following the light, dodging the few rebar rods still standing and the debris littering the ground. He needed to identify the passenger’s body, and a fire might render him unrecognizable. He had been given various markings all over the individual as means of identification, but if the body hadn’t been thrown from the plane, he would have to stay in this place until the flames burned themselves out, and that might be dangerous. Fire would attract attention, even in this desolate place. And if the body were burned too badly, he would have to open it up to make the identification. That was a task he did not relish.
Slade slowed down as he neared what remained of the craft. He sniffed the air but detected no fumes. So the plane had been very low on fuel, and the pilot had had no choice but to land. He switched off the flashlight, got down on his knees, crawled twenty feet to the right, then listened. If one or both of them had somehow survived the crash, he did not want to present an easy target. He squatted motionless for two full minutes, listening for any sounds of human life, but there was nothing.
Finally Conner began to creep toward the plane. As he did, he became aware of the plastic bags strewn about, some of them still full of the illicit payload. The drug lord would be mildly irritated at the loss, but there were other planes, many more pilots, and tons more cocaine. It was the loss of the passenger that would cause his fury. Because the passenger, if he was indeed on the plane, had enabled the drug lord to smuggle safely many more tons of cocaine into the United States than his competitors by providing important information regarding the identity of undercover agents and advance warning of raids and by alerting the drug lord to the timing and location of aerial night patrols. The passenger had done these things for a share of the profits. That was what Slade had been told.
The plane lay on its back, lodged against the rebar line. One wing had been neatly torn away from the fuselage, as had the stabilizer, but the passenger compartment appeared intact. Slade took a deep breath, then slowly rose to his knees and peered in through one of the cockpit’s side windows. The glass was completely gone except for a small ridge of jagged edges around the window frame. He took another deep breath, then switched on the flashlight. He could only pray that the passenger had been on board and hadn’t been thrown from the plane during the crash.
But there had been no need to worry. Carter Guilford, the senior field agent for all South American operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, lay faceup on the ceiling of the cockpit. His right arm had been completely severed from the rest of his body at the shoulder, and blood covered his face, but Slade recognized him immediately anyway. A CIA agent gone bad: that was what his commander had said, and it seemed he had been accurate. Here was Guilford, eyes wide open yet unseeing, lying amid the remains of the cocaine he had been helping transport and next to the dead pilot he had been abetting. “Obey your commander.” They were words to live by. There had been no reason to question. Guilford was a renegade agent. The only other explanation for his presence on the flight was that he was working undercover, but that wa
s impossible. CIA people as senior as Guilford did not work undercover. They were too easily recognized and were too great a loss to the agency if uncovered. Hell, Guilford was only a few rungs below Malcolm Becker, the director of the CIA.
The window of the plane was wide enough for Slade to crawl through. He did so slowly, careful not to cut himself on the jagged glass around the frame. He stared at Guilford’s open eyes as he inched toward the body. How could anyone turn against the country this way? How could he so blatantly forswear the people’s trust and the oath to uphold and protect the safety of the nation? Avoiding the blood trickling along the spine of the plane toward the tail, Slade slid next to the body. He checked the outside pockets of Guilford’s suede jacket, found nothing, then searched the inside pockets.
The date book was small, three inches by six, made of black leather, and trimmed with gold at the corners. Slade rested the flashlight on the ceiling of the plane, then leaned down and flipped through the pages in the glow of the bulb. His business was intelligence, so he was naturally drawn to such an article as this that might reveal much about the man. Suddenly he stopped, flipped back several pages, and stared at the entry. It made no sense. The commander had told him nothing that hinted of this second treason, only of his crimes of aiding and abetting the drug lord.
Slade’s eyes narrowed. A meeting, already to have taken place according to the book, between Guilford and Preston Andrews, vice president of the United States. Malcolm Becker and Preston Andrews despised each other and agents were never to meet with the vice president alone, yet here was the appointment in Guilford’s date book. Recently in Bogotá, according to the entry. It made no sense. Was that what this whole incident was really about?
The Vulture Fund Page 6
