The First Billion

"It's like this," Gavallan explained in an even tone, knowing he'd gone too far. "I can't turn myself in, and I can't inform the FBI- or for that matter the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange, or anyone else- that Black Jet is going to cancel the Mercury offering. Kirov has to believe I'm playing ball. He has to think I want the deal to go through as badly as he does. That's why I told Tony to call him and tell him I was standing behind the IPO a hundred percent. That's why I said that stuff about Mercury being a gem and Ray Luca's death a bad coincidence. I'm sending Kirov a message we're on the same team. Maybe it'll keep Graf alive until I can figure out a way to get him home."

"I get it," Cate said. "I'm not sure I like it, but I get it."

"Good," said Gavallan. "Glad to hear you're with the program."

Cate crossed her arms, shooting him a stern glance. "I was always with the program. Now, instead of riding me so hard, why don't you figure out a way to get us off this island."

"I'm working on it. I'm working on it."

Gavallan looked to his left and right, exhaling loudly. He was doing his best to think clearly, to come up with a plan that would get him out from under the FBI's thumb. Sometime during the last two days, his world had been turned upside down, and he was still trying to right it. Graf Byrnes's midnight call, Ray Luca's murder, Cate's miraculous last-second appearance, and a couple of sucker punches to boot- it had all left him feeling as beat-up as a secondhand catcher's mit.

At two o'clock on a Friday afternoon, eyes glued to the rearview mirror, his stomach in knots that at any moment the police car on his tail would hit the siren and pull him over, Jett Gavallan's emotional reserves had run dry. Grief, hope, worry- all were tapped out, and the only thing he was capable of feeling now was dread. For Graf. For himself and his company. For the whole damned world.

Inclining his head out the window, he caught a glance of himself in the mirror. He looked tired, a lined veteran of too many corporate campaigns. Thirty-eight going on sixty. Yet it wasn't the fatigue that surprised him, but the hunted look in his eyes. He appeared weak. Defeated. Once a warrior, he had been softened by a decade behind a desk, where nerve was a cocktail of figures and formulas, and risk measured in dollars, not lives.

And Graf? a fighting voice asked him. How's he faring right about now? He wouldn't be too thrilled to learn you're feeling a little long in the tooth. Get this through your head: You don't have a choice whether you're tired or not, whether you think you're up to it. Someone else is depending on you. You have an obligation. A duty.

The word galvanized him as no other could have, and he remembered a saying that Graf Byrnes had taught him at the Academy, words rich with sacrifice and the blood of history.

"A man can never do more than his duty. He should never wish to do less."

They had left the commercial center of Palm Beach and ventured into the northern residential district, where homes lay hidden behind twenty-foot stands of eugenias and gardeners needed cherry pickers to prune the trees. Parked along the curb, battered pickups loaded with lawn mowers and leaf blowers kept company with polished Rolls-Royces whose signature winged hood ornaments had been removed lest they inspire thieving minds. Gavallan wanted to make a U-turn and head for one of the bridges that led to the mainland, but he was fearful any move might be viewed as flight and make the cop want to pull him over.

"Jett!"

The police cruiser had turned on its strobes and hit them twice with its high beams. A moment later, the siren's shrill attack pierced the air.

Gavallan laid a hand on Cate's arm, swiveling in his seat to look over his shoulder. The police officer was waving them to the side. Running was out of the question. Palm Beach was an island. Three bridges linked it to the mainland and there would be a roadblock on every one before they could make it halfway across.

"Pull over," he said. "Up ahead by those hedges."

Cate edged the car to the side of the road, but a few seconds later she still hadn't slowed. He saw her looking at him uncertainly, her lips half moving; then suddenly, she spat out, "Jett, I have a gun in the car."

"What?"

"In the glove compartment. It was for protection. I was afraid of Kirov."

Opening the glove box, he lifted the pistol- a snub-nosed.38 police special- and took out the rental papers. "My God," he said, swallowing hard. "You mean business, don't you." Once the police found the gun, no amount of smooth talking would set them free. "Same goes as before. Pull over. We cooperate. 'Yes sir. No sir.' Whatever you do, don't tell them who I am. There's no way they can have a picture of me by now. We're tourists from California and we'll wing the rest. Somehow, we'll talk our way out of this."

He didn't believe it for a second.