The Big Fear (23 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

VERONICA

When he climbed back out of the subway, the parade was in full force. Leonard was mystified at the men marching toward their corner offices. There was not a glint of perspiration on the razor chins; the haircuts remained unmatted after twenty minutes on the train; the cuffs peeked neatly out from under the suits. The choreography was precise, balanced, and keen. The bodies were angular, the shoulders wide. These boys would hit the gym during lunch to watch cable news and retreat to their desks for the afternoon to make the predictions of their favorite talking heads come true.

It all happened without dirt, without blood, without any of the grime or grease that clung to the municipal machine. These private sector guys, Leonard thought, never sat across a gray table in a dim room with a thirty-year-old tape recorder to question a florid man in a blue suit about what he had done in the darker corners of a breaking city. The crumbling tendrils of East New York and Highbridge, to them, had been cleaned and packaged and cut into tranches to be sold to development funds, and if there were still people living out there and calling it New York, well, it was no concern to the cogs climbing the towers on Wall Street. These men, pulling electronic trinkets out of their pockets to check the time despite the Tag Heuers on their wrists, had never crossed a river since coming to Manhattan, and didn’t know or care what lay over the bridges and through the tunnels. They were living in the city that was still booming; the last four years were, to them, a wrong turn that they would soon pay someone off to correct. They had never seen the general public. Leonard pressed his way through them and toward Veronica’s building.

The elevator took forever. Leonard had his back against the wall to keep perceptive neighbors from peeking at the back of his waistband. He had swept in with the badge. The man at the desk had barely cared. In his suit, with his badge, he could have walked through any lobby in the city. Here on Wall and Broad, the firms were mainly interested in sealing off the inner sanctum from tourists, and couldn’t be bothered to stop a skinny white guy in a twelve-hundred dollar suit from roaming around wherever he wanted, even if the suit was stolen and, if you looked closely, he was armed. Plus having the guard call upstairs would have meant that they’d know he was coming, and Leonard’s plan demanded surprise.

The elevator stopped at another floor and another lackadaisical burnout stumbled toward his cubicle. Leonard reached into his pocket to check on his evidence. It was dry and secure. He realized, as he patted it, that it was just as dangerous as the gun resting upon it. He stood up, settling his shoulders back and breathing deep. For the first time in a week, he was clean and showered and dressed with a crisp professional flair. His hair was combed and you couldn’t tell from looking at him that he had killed a man the day before and had a gun tucked into the back of his pants. As the door chimed open and ushered him into the expensive anonymous lobby, he realized that he fit in perfectly.

Perched at a lush desk was a small woman in a large suit looking bored in her elegant prison. The kind who had come to New York ten or fifteen years ago from Omaha or Spokane or Albuquerque with the idea of hitting the big time in some creative career: actress, painter, videographer, it was all basically the same. Most of them took temp jobs of one sort or another and by the time they figured out they weren’t destined to be profiled in the Arts and Leisure section, they were professional administrators, keeping the wheels of the big city running without ever figuring out what was going on behind the nearest set of closed doors.

“You weren’t announced.”

Leonard flashed the badge toward her. “And I’m not going to be.”

It was the woman’s chance to play tough. “I don’t care if you’re the FBI or whoever. I’m supposed to call before I let anyone back.” Leonard took the phone from her and slid it back to the cradle. He set his badge on the desk and reached into his waist. He hadn’t wanted to show the gun so soon, but some people need a little extra convincing.

“Like I said, I’m going to go in there, and you aren’t going to announce me. Do you understand?” Her eyes pasted to the gun, she grew small and weak before him. He had to talk with Veronica before Eliot could act. He wouldn’t have shot her if she’d fought him off, but she didn’t know that. Maybe she would call the police as soon as he was gone, but by the time they came inside he would have Veronica to vouch for him and Eliot to hand over. If everything went well. She curled up in her chair, hands on her lap. She didn’t care enough about this job to risk her safety. Her main goal was just to get through the day so she could get on with her life at five o’clock, and with a man holding a gun in front of her that goal took on a whole new meaning.

Leonard pushed through the double doors and tucked the gun back into his pants. He didn’t want to tip off the drones that an armed man had come in among them. They might think a madman had come in to shoot up the place. Or visit vengeance on them. Most of them probably deep down would have been relieved. He turned toward the secretary and put his finger to his lips. Silence. Against the roar of the crowd in their cubicles, she wouldn’t have heard him if he had said anything anyway.

He knew where he was going this time, past the streaks of suits, the shouts into cheap plastic phones, and the smacks of frustrated hands into flimsy keyboards. The kids howling in their cubicles could have been in their own universe as Leonard passed them. No one turned his head, so no one saw the crease in the back of Leonard’s jacket and the metal it concealed. As he approached the corner, he saw a sealed door at the end of the hallway. That would be where Eliot sat. He turned to Veronica’s, opened it, and stepped inside.

Veronica swung her cold green eyes to attention. Her fingers stopped twitching at the keyboard. Leonard closed the door and the noise of the office was nearly totally shut out. Veronica pushed away from her desk.

“What are you doing here?”

“I found something out, Veronica. I found out where they are going next.”

“I told you to call me. I told you I could meet you. Do you know what could happen to you in here? Do you know what could happen to me?”

“There isn’t time, Veronica. It’s happening today. It’s happening right now.”

She stood up from the computer. She stepped past him and closed the door. Cut off from the floor, the office was small and plain. You can work so hard to make it and what you get are twelve feet by twelve feet and a couple of fancy computer monitors.

“A cop got killed last night, Leonard.”

“Like I said, there isn’t time.”

“The paper said where it was. The building he died in front of. Wasn’t that where Davenport lived?”

Leonard looked at her hands. People who are nervous, who are worried, or who are lying show it in their bodies. At DIMAC, when he was interviewing suspects, Leonard would notice the wrists that wavered, the fingers that tapped aimlessly. Nervous extremities would tell him that a building inspector or a bus driver was making it up as he went along. Veronica Dean stood calm and still. She had told him that the cops were working for Eliot. She was in as much danger as he was. He was going to have to trust her.

“He came after me, Veronica. He wanted to kill me. He tried to.”

“I understand.”

“I was at Davenport’s. I found what you were looking for. Then Del Rio showed up and tried to kill me. You didn’t see that in the paper.”

“No.” Her eyes opened, broad and sweet and full of sympathy. “I’m sorry. I told you there was danger.”

Leonard nodded. “I know.”

She came around the desk, a serious figure in the cold angular office. “You said you found something?”

Leonard reached around and fished out the drive. Best not to let her know about the gun. Just because she said that she understood doesn’t mean she couldn’t get suspicious. Finding out that he was walking around with Brian Rowson’s gun might change her mind. He suddenly wished he hadn’t even brought it. It wasn’t as though he would use it on anyone. He spread the papers on the desk.

He handed her the drive. She booted it eagerly. Leonard pointed out what she already knew, and showed her what she was just learning too.

“Most of it is the e-mails that we saw before. Instructions. Acknowledgements. Shorts. But there is something more. It had today’s date on the front. It’s schematics. It shows the structural supports for—”

“The Bank of Bremen building.” Veronica had seen it right away. Just from the shape of the footprint on the first page. The sweet sharp angles and the marking of Albany Street. The shiny downtown bauble that was finally nearing completion, the final jewel in the necklace surrounding what had once been the site of the wreckage.

And if they hit the building, it would be all over. The new administration could survive a spike in the crime rate. It could survive a little more dog shit on the streets, a little more grime on the subways. Leonard himself had seen, just the night before, how the city had grown looser and freer as the order that had been imposed upon it over the past twenty years slackened its grip. Sparks was wrong to think that New Yorkers would once again embrace an iron fist just because a couple of cranes snapped or someone found a few hundred rats in a restaurant.

But no one could keep governing the city if a building came down. Especially if it was a new one, a tall one; if it was shiny and glass and it was put up within spitting distance of where they all remembered their long walk starting. Sergeant Sparks was planning to take out the Bank of Bremen building and Eliot was going to make a profit on the whole thing.

“They are going to blow it up, Veronica. As we speak, Eliot is probably selling the bank short, the construction company. He’s going to make a mint.”

“We have to tell the police.”

“The police won’t believe us. The police are looking for me. If I call them they aren’t going to ask questions. They’re going to lock me up and I’ll never come out.”

“The FBI then.”

“Veronica. No one will listen.”

“I can call them. They’ll listen to me.”

“No, they won’t.”

He waited for it to sink in. She was smart enough that she wouldn’t need convincing. Her plan was too simple: Call up the local precinct and ask them to spring into action and solve a plot to destroy a building. Leonard knew well enough that the police would take their time ambling downtown, convinced they were answering the call of an emotionally disturbed fantasist. And if they stumbled upon Leonard, it would be even worse. He was a man suspected of killing a cop. The moment any law enforcement caught up with him would be the moment he went to jail for the rest of his life. As he leaned over the table looking at the map, he could feel the dead cop’s gun tucked tight into his waistband. Once they found him with that, the game would be over.

“What then?”

“We have to confront Eliot. He can call Sparks off. And if he can’t, we have to go there and stop him ourselves. I’ve already told the only person who might believe us.”

He could sense her watching him. She might have seen the gun. She would have to understand that it was going to be dangerous. That there were risks they were taking. She had warned him of the danger after all, and he had kept at it.

“I’m afraid of him, Leonard. All of these cops are working for him.”

“He’s just a quiet old man in a quiet old office, Veronica. And if he tries anything, there are two of us. And if all else fails . . .”

He didn’t have to say anything more. She was watching the crease in his jacket as it drifted back over the gun. He had been beaten down by one cop and threatened by another. His back and his head bore the evidence of assaults by armed men. Confronting Eliot would be far from the most frightening thing he’d done in the past few days. Still, he was glad that she would be in there with him. She was strong enough, had faced enough danger herself. He stood up. Veronica’s steel eyes watched as his jacket straightened out over the weapon.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

ELIOT

As Leonard followed Veronica into Eliot’s inner sanctum, the man hardly paused at his drawing pad. The noise from the cubicles was stymied; the view was nearly impressive. But the man himself sat unhurried, drafting something in longhand at his heavy desk. Leonard stepped forward, suddenly hesitant to interrupt, like a schoolboy waiting to be granted permission to speak. Eliot finished his letter and set his pen back in its cradle before looking up. His eyes flashed a bit at Leonard, as though he almost recognized him. Like when someone you have only spoken to on the phone turns out to look so different than you imagined.

“Mr. Holm-Anderson, my name is Leonard Mitchell. I worked with Christine Davenport.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. I read that the police solved that business with your commissioner. A terrible tragedy.”

“They didn’t solve anything.”

Eliot nodded to Veronica. “Ms. Dean. I see that you have met Mr. Mitchell—the government worker? I had the pleasure of working briefly with his supervisor.”

It was a soft enough jab, and Leonard could take it. He walked toward the expansive corner of the office, toward what seemed to be a real enough fireplace. The Buildings Department wouldn’t let someone actually run a fire in one of these buildings, but the hearth gave every impression of being genuine. Veronica swooped in behind him. With her backing him up, Leonard had the strength to confront the man behind the desk.

“It’s over, Eliot. We’ve found your man in the police department. Sergeant Sparks. We know what he is planning to do today. What he’s been doing over the past few years, for your benefit. We have seen the plans for the Bank of Bremen building.”

Eliot glanced over Leonard and Veronica. He seemed to be searching the room. Looking for a way out maybe. Then he turned toward the window. “You know, you can almost see the Bank of Bremen out the window, if your angle is right. You have to crane a bit to look around another of these monstrosities we all work in.”

“Call him off, Eliot. If he goes through with it, you’ll go to jail. We have enough to tie you to him. Tell him to back down. I’m sure you don’t care about the people who are going to be killed, the damage you’ll do. But call it off for yourself. Just to save your own skin.”

Eliot was still looking out the window, still trying perhaps to catch a corner of the building in question by tilting his head just so. He answered Leonard without turning his head around.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The little disasters, Eliot. The money this firm made by betting against the crane company just before the collapse. By shorting the chemical plant in Staten Island before the leak last spring. The water taxi. The restaurant with the rats. Every one of them a boon to your firm. But you know this already. And you already know that we know because Christine Davenport showed you what she had found before she came here. And that’s why you had to kill her.”

Eliot turned finally from the window. “Your boss did show me that list. She did ask me how it was that this firm had made so many prescient bets about such terrible things. I like to think I have an expert team of analysts, but no one is that good, really. And when she gave me that list, those e-mails, those trades, I started my own investigation. I hadn’t seen those trades singled out like that before. I made some very interesting findings.”

He was still in his chair, sitting gently and at ease. Leonard could feel Veronica behind him. Both of Eliot’s hands were visible. Leonard didn’t need the gun. Eliot was just a banker in a suit.
Don’t escalate
. Leonard moved his hands away from his waistband.
But stay wary
. Leonard was watching the man closely, waiting for the moment he might have to pounce.

“You see,” Eliot went on, “this game is a tough one. Blood can be spilled. But there are rules, and at the end of the day, I prefer to succeed within them. You ask me about trades that I made. Look at my desk, Mr. Mitchell. I don’t make trades. I evaluate the work of my staff. I instill confidence in them. I don’t look at the price of practically anything from one day to the next. But everything my staff does is recorded. Every trade is accounted for. And so I had an accounting done. Would you like to guess, Mr. Mitchell, who it is that placed every one of the trades that your commissioner asked about?”

“He doesn’t have to guess.”

Leonard turned at the sound of Veronica’s voice. Her severe eyes were staring him down and her posture was suddenly hard, but Leonard didn’t notice that. He had been so intent on Eliot that he hadn’t even felt what she had done. And now the only thing he saw was that in her right hand she was holding the gun from the back of his waistband.

“Veronica.”

“What good does it do to come armed, Leonard, if you can’t keep your wits about you.” He hadn’t even noticed it was gone. She had been standing right behind him while Eliot was speaking and slipped it away.

“You told me that Eliot was in charge of the scheme.”

“You wouldn’t have gone to Davenport’s apartment if I had told you that you were working for me.”

“You’ve been behind the whole thing. You orchestrated the collapse. You’re going to blow up the building.”

“No, Leonard. Your friend the cop is going to blow up that building. I’m just going to make a fortune off of it.”

“Why tell me it was Eliot?”

“Your friend Mulino killed my best source. I have sources all over the world. Feeding advance notice of when they are making attacks. Sleeper cells need start-up funding too. And I had an inside line on the most effective stateside operation.”

“Detective Rowson.”

“He knew it was risky. He had been in charge of the rats in the restaurant. He had been in charge of the water taxi. He was supposed to be afraid. But once I told him how much money he could make by telling me, he wasn’t so afraid anymore.”

“So what about the e-mails? What about all the other countries?”

“Rowson told me what was going on in New York. I have a source in Indonesia who tells me when a gas pipeline will be targeted. I have a friend in Yemen who tells me which convoy is at risk. And each of those interests is owned by public companies. And the stock in each of those companies suffers when the attack goes down. And I know how to make money off of suffering. Detective Rowson’s operation was local. And it was never going to be found by the police. Because it was being run by the police.”

“And when he got found out, he was set up and he was killed.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he just got shot by someone who thought he looked suspicious. Or maybe he really was going to take down that ship and Mulino saved the day. I know it cost me plenty when I woke up and the ship was still afloat. I’d ask Rowson what happened, but he’s too dead to tell me.”

“And once Rowson was dead, Davenport found out.”

“She did. And the police have ways of taking care of people who are going to betray them. She wasn’t going to tell me anything either. But I knew I could count on you to find out for me. You climbed right up into her home and brought me just what she had been trying to hide.”

So Veronica herself was just catching the crumbs of other people’s conspiracies. Only in it for the money: she didn’t care if the bombs were being set by terrorists abroad or police at home, what mattered was knowing ahead of time and turning it into profit. The information age. But right now, no matter what Leonard knew about her, there was nothing he could do to stop her. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Leonard had the same gun pointed at him. If he had followed her orders and called her, told her to meet him somewhere, then she probably would have just taken the flash drive and killed him. By forcing her to confront Eliot, he had probably saved his life.

Eliot himself was quietly shifting himself up in his chair. With a gun pointed his way, he sat oddly stronger. He crossed his hands in his lap and pointed his chin at Veronica. “So the plan is to kill us both now? Shoot us and then walk to your office and make the trades, then take the elevator to the lobby and saunter over to your apartment? Mr. Mitchell here just showed you the sergeant’s plans for the first time, I am led to believe. You haven’t even made your bet against the bank yet? As far as you know, this attack is going to happen today. It would be a shame for you to miss it because you were so busy murdering us.”

Veronica guided the gun down to hip level, watching both men carefully, calmly. For the first time since she had taken out the gun, Leonard saw a hint of fear in her eyes. He was too cowed now to attack her himself. But Eliot was right: She had let Leonard lure her in here before she had a chance to make any trades. She hadn’t been able to take him outside and kill him. She hadn’t been able to get on the phone and short Idlewild Construction. He had made her confront Eliot, and now she was as stuck here as they were.

And Leonard wasn’t alone anymore. Now he had Eliot. Not the villain after all, Eliot could get a senator or the head of the FBI on the telephone if he deigned to pick up such a device. For a woman holding a gun, Veronica looked peculiarly cornered. She walked backward toward the door out to the trading floor.

“I’m going to go into my office for a few minutes, gentlemen. You can both stay here. When I finish what I’m doing, I’m going to put this gun in my purse and leave the building. I never had any intention of hurting either one of you. Once I leave, neither one of you will ever hear from me again. You can do your best to stop Sparks from doing what he’s planning, but I’m not sure you can. In fact, I’m about to go bet against it.”

As she backed away, she lifted the gun and waved it before the two men, just to let them know she was serious. She tugged at the door, slipped out through the trading room to her office, and rushed to her desk. Eliot’s door slowly drifted shut, cutting out the noise from the crowded hallway.

Eliot burst up from his hardwood chair and dusted his slacks, suddenly bright, brisk, and full of energy. He tugged at the hem of his jacket to smooth out the crease from sitting so long. Leonard saw the trim elegant man in a new light: not the evil mastermind of a plan to profit off of misery, but a sage from another time, scornful of the world he was born into and what you had to do to succeed in it.

“I’m not proud of myself, Mr. Mitchell. I never have thought any more highly of what I do for a living than of what anyone else does. But there are lines I don’t cross and there are rules that are in place for a reason. I should have noted what she was up to sooner. It took me a few days of auditing to be sure. Now, we have about five minutes. If you’ll come with me.”

Leonard stared dumbfounded as Eliot crossed the empty expanse of his office toward the fireplace. Eliot reached around the side of the mantle and twisted an unseen latch, opening a false door to a grim industrial stairwell.

“I am required to have a separate fire stairwell in this office, given its size and its distance from the stairwell on the other side of the floor. I found the proposition ghastly and had my designer cover it with the fireplace, which is also not permitted. My own little inside joke, I suppose. It never occurred to me that it would come in so handy.”

The door open, Eliot stepped into the cold concrete atrium, thick metal handrails guiding him toward a narrow set of dark solid stairs. The stairwell exposed the lie of the manicured office; Eliot worked in just another anonymous corporate husk, no matter how many knickknacks he had collected to warm it.

“Are you coming?”

“Where are we going?”

“Down twenty flights, and then to the Bank of Bremen. There is a disaster to avert yet, young man.”