The First Billion

"Before I visited Silber, Goldi, and Grimm's offices this morning, I took a few precautions to cover my ass, just in case something like this happened. You see, I'm pretty thorough, too. First thing I did was make a copy of Pillonel's original due diligence report and send it to my lawyer. We spoke, and I filled him in on everything that's gone on over the past couple of days. I told him that if I didn't get in touch by Tuesday morning at the opening, he should contact the stock exchange and the SEC's enforcement division. I gave him instructions to hand over the real due diligence report and to inform them that Black Jet was pulling the Mercury IPO."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" Gavallan picked up the brandy and downed it in a gulp. Fuck it. He needed a drink even if the poison came from a scoundrel like Kirov. "Pillonel was a big help too. Sang like a canary, Jean-Jacques did, right into my attorney's tape recorder. I wouldn't say the confession was entirely of his own free will, but so what- it'll do in the short run."

"You're lying." Kirov broke off his stare and retreated behind the sofa. "You didn't have time to make a copy."

"We had plenty of time."

"No, no. It's not possible. It simply isn't." The words were high-pitched, almost hysterical. Kirov's mouth twitched and his eyes furrowed in thought. "Why should you have bothered taping a confession? Was it not your intention to turn Pillonel over to the police? No. No. You're lying." And as he reasoned through Gavallan's actions, his voice calmed, the steady confidence returning. "You couldn't have known you were being followed. You had every intention of flying back to the States with your precious evidence. Maybe even with Pillonel. There was no reason to take precautions at that point. I wouldn't have. You're lying. I know it."

Gavallan shook his head, his iron gaze letting Kirov know he was not. Putting down the snifter, he pointed a blunt finger at his host, his jailer, his willing executioner. "Here's the deal: Tomorrow morning, you will wire me the fifty million dollars you borrowed from Black Jet. With interest. Graf, Cate, and I climb on board a commercial airliner and fly back to the States. And you will issue a statement that due to unforeseen market conditions, you've decided to postpone the offering to a later date." Gavallan thought about Ray Luca and the others at Cornerstone, enraged that no one would ever be brought to trial for the crimes. "Believe me, you're getting off easy."

Kirov's eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets, to expand with boiling hatred. "So now you're issuing ultimatums? Look around you- you're hardly in the right place. If you like ultimatums, however, I'll be happy to give you one of my own: The Mercury offering will go through. It will be a bigger success than any of us dares imagine. We shall earn our two billion and then some. And you, dear friend, will help see to it. Do you know why? Do you? Because if you don't, Mr. Grafton Byrnes will die. Slowly. Terribly. Very, very painfully. And you will be on hand to watch it."

"Fuck you, Konstantin. You've got the wrong guy. I don't respond well to extortion."

Kirov laughed, an ugly derisory snort. "We'll see very shortly what you do or do not respond to. Personally I think your story about Pillonel is utter shit. But not to worry: One way or another we'll ferret out the truth. Either Jean-Jacques Pillonel will tell me or you will." He smiled invitingly. "I guarantee it."

51

This was where all paths led.

To Russia.

To Moscow.

To her father.

Cate waited alone in the wood-paneled den off the entry hall. The lights were dim, and the room smelled of new carpet and worn leather. Through the heating vents, murmurs of a violent conversation drifted to her ears. Jett and her father were arguing, and it made her afraid. She'd spent her last teenage years here. Something about the Edwardian house seemed to goad its inhabitants into perfectly dreadful behavior. "She used to lie with her ear to the floor, listening to every word of her parents' fights, wincing, crying, silently ordering them to stop and make up.

The past.

Everywhere she looked it was crowding in on her, suffocating her with nightmares and obligations.

Moving to the window, she drew a curtain and peeked outside. If she lifted her eyes, she could make out the top floors of Moscow State University, towering above a stand of trees. Well past midnight, the building's lights were ablaze. Built in the late 1940s as one of seven "Stalin Skyscrapers" meant to showcase Soviet prowess in architecture and engineering, the university was ever the brilliant trophy. The stern spires and bold, conformist tower were masterpieces of their kind and stirred in her pangs of nostalgia so strong as to be painful. It was not the first time this evening she'd been overcome with sentiment.