The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time (36 page)

Two weeks later

Hauck drove his Bronco up to the large stone gate.

He lowered his window and leaned out to press an intercom button. A voice responded. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Hauck,” Hauck said into the speaker.

“Drive up to the house,” the voice replied. The gates slowly opened. “Mr. Khodoshevsky is expecting you.”

Hauck made his way up the long paved drive. Even applying the slightest pressure on the gas, his right leg still ached. He had begun some therapy, but there were weeks ahead of him. The doctors told him he might never again walk without the trace of a limp.

The property was massive. He drove past a huge pond. There was a fenced-in field—for horses, maybe. At the top he drove up to an enormous redbrick Georgian with a magnificent courtyard in front, an ornately crafted fountain in the center, with water spilling out of sculptured figures into a marble pool.

Billionaires ruining things for millionaires,
Hauck recalled. Even by Greenwich standards, he’d never seen anything quite like this.

He stepped out of the car. Grabbed his cane. It helped. He climbed up the steps to the impressive front doors.

He rang the bell. Loud choral peals. That didn’t surprise him. A young woman answered. Attractive. Eastern European. Maybe an au pair.

“Mr. Khodoshevsky asked me to bring you to the den,” she said with a smile. “This way.”

A young boy, maybe five or six, raced past him riding some kind of motorized toy car. “Beep, beep!”

The au pair yelled out, “Michael, no!” Then she smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

“I’m a cop.” Hauck winked. “Tell him to try and keep it under forty in here.”

He was led through a series of palatial rooms to a family room at the side of the house, featuring a curved wall of windows overlooking the property. There was a large leather couch, a recognizable contemporary painting over it that Hauck took to be immensely valuable, though he wasn’t exactly sure about the guy’s use of blue. A huge media console was stacked against a wall, a stereo that went on forever. The requisite sixty-inch flat-screen.

There was an old-time Western movie on.

“Lieutenant.”

Hauck spotted a set of legs reclining on an ottoman. Then a large, bushy-haired body rose out of a chair, wearing baggy shorts and an oversize yellow T-shirt that read
MONEY IS THE BEST REVENGE
.

“I’m Gregory Khodoshevsky.” The man extended a hand. He had a powerful shake. “Please, sit down.”

Hauck eased against a chair, taking his weight off. He leaned on his cane. “Thanks.”

“I see you’re not well?”

“Just a little procedure,” Hauck lied. “Bum hip.”

The Russian nodded. “I’ve had my knee worked on several times. Skiing.” He grinned. “I’ve learned—man is not meant to
ski through trees.” He reached for the clicker and turned down the volume. “You like westerns, Lieutenant?”

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“Me, too. This is my favorite:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
. Never quite sure exactly who I identify with, though. My wife, of course, insists it’s the ugly.”

Hauck grinned. “If I remember, that was one of the film’s themes. They all had their motives.”

“Yes.” The Russian smiled. “I think you’re right—they all had motives. So what do I owe this visit to, Lieutenant Hauck?”

“I was working a case. A name came up that I hoped might mean something to you. Charles Friedman.”

“Charles Friedman?” The Russian shrugged. “I’m sorry, no, Lieutenant. Should it?”

The guy was good,
Hauck thought. A natural. Hauck looked back at him closely. “I was hoping so.”

“Although, now that you mention it”—Khodoshevsky brightened—“I do remember someone named Friedman. He ran some benefit in town I went to a year or two ago. The Bruce Museum, I think. I made a donation. I remember now, he had an attractive wife. Maybe his name was Charles, if it’s the one. So what did he do?”

“He’s dead,” Hauck said. “He had a connection to a case I was looking into, a hit-and-run.”

“A hit-and-run.” Khodoshevsky grimaced. “Too bad. The traffic up here is unbearable, Lieutenant. I’m sure you know that. Sometimes I’m afraid to cross the street myself in town.”

“Especially when someone doesn’t want you to succeed,” Hauck said, staring into the Russian’s steely eyes.

“Yes. I imagine that’s true. Is there some reason you connected this man to me?”

“Yes.” Hauck nodded. “Saul Lennick.”

“Lennick!”
The Russian drew in a breath. “Now, Lennick I did know. Terrible. That such a thing could happen. Right in the
man’s own home. Right here in town. A challenge, I’m sure, for you, Lieutenant.”

“Mr. Friedman was killed himself a couple of weeks back. In the British Virgin Isles…Turns out he and Mr. Lennick were financial partners.”

Khodoshevsky’s eyes widened, as if in surprise. “
Partners?
Crazy what’s going on around here. But I’m afraid I never saw the man again. Sorry that you had to come all the way out here to find that out. I wish I could have been more help.”

Hauck reached for his cane. “Not a total loss. I don’t often get to see a house like this.”

“I’d be happy to show you around.”

Hauck pushed himself up and winced. “Another time.”

“I wish you good luck with your leg. And finding who was responsible for such a terrible thing.”

“Thanks.” Hauck took a step toward the door. “You know, before I go, there’s something I might show you. Just in case it jogs something. I was down in the Caribbean myself a week ago.” Hauck took out his cell phone. “I noticed something interesting—in the water. Off this island. I actually grabbed a snapshot of it. Funny, only a couple of miles from where Charles Friedman ended up killed.”

He handed the cell phone to Khodoshevsky, who stared curiously at the image on the screen. The one Hauck had taken on his run.

Khodoshevsky’s schooner.
The Black Bear.

“Humph.” The Russian shook his head, meeting Hauck’s gaze. “Funny how lives seem to intersect, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“No more,” Hauck said, looking at him.

“Yes, you’re right.” He handed back the phone. “No more.”

“I’ll find my way out,” Hauck said, placing his phone back in his pocket. “Just one last piece of advice, Mr. Khodoshevsky, if you don’t mind. You seem to be partial to westerns, so I think you’ll understand.”

“And what is that?” The Russian looked at him innocently.

Hauck shrugged. “You know the expression ‘Get out of Dodge’?”

“I think I’ve heard it. The sheriff always says it to the bad guys. But of course they never do.”

“No, they never do.” Hauck took a step toward the door. “That’s what makes westerns. But just this once, you know, they should, Mr. Khodoshevsky.” Hauck looked at him closely. “
You
should. If you know what I mean.”

“I think I understand.” The Russian smiled.

“Oh, and by the way”—Hauck turned, tilting his cane at the door—“that’s one hell of a sweet boat, Mr. Khodoshevsky—if you know what I mean!”

“Flesh becomes dust and ash. Our ashes return to the soil. Where, in the cycle set before us by the Almighty, life springs up again.”

It was a warm summer day, the sky a perfect blue. Karen looked down at Charlie’s casket in the open grave. She had brought him back home, as she promised she would. He deserved that. A tear burned in the corner of her eye.

He deserved that and more.

Karen held tightly onto the hands of Samantha and Alex. This was so hard for them, harder than for anyone. They didn’t understand. How he could have kept such secrets from them? How he could just walk away, whatever he’d done? Whoever he was?

“We were a family,” Samantha said to Karen, confusion, even a measure of accusation, in her trembling voice.

“Yes, we were a family,” Karen said.

She had come to forgive him. She had even come to love him again—in a way.

We were a family.
Maybe one day they would love him again, too.

The rabbi said his final prayers. Karen’s grip tightened on their hands. Her life came back to her. The day they met. How they fell in love. How one day she had said to herself he was the one.

Charlie, the captain—at the helm of the boat sailing in the Caribbean. Waving to her from their private cove at the end.

Her blood coursed with the warming current of eighteen years.

“Now it is our custom to pay our last respects to the dead by throwing a handful of dirt, reminding us that all life is transitory and humble before God.”

Her father came up. He took the shovel from the rabbi and tossed a small patch over the casket. Her mom, too. Then Charlie’s mother Margery, his brother steadying her arm. Then Rick and Paula.

Then Samantha, who did it in a quick, wounded manner, turning away, She handed the shovel to Alex, who stood over the grave for a long time, finally facing Karen and shaking his young head. “I can’t, Mom….
No.”

“Honey.” Karen squeezed him tighter. “Yes you can.” Who could blame him? “It’s your father, baby, whatever he’s done.”

Finally he picked up the shovel and tossed in the dirt, sniffling back tears.

Then it was Karen’s turn. She picked up the shovelful of soil. She had already said her good-byes to him. What more was there to say?

I did love you, Charlie. And I know you loved me, too.

She tossed it in.

So it was over. Their life together.
I just buried my husband today,
Karen said to herself. Finally. Irrevocably. She had earned the right to say that.

Everyone came up and gave her a hug, and the three of them
waited a moment while the rest started to go down the hill. Karen looped her hand through Alex’s arm. She wrapped her other around Samantha’s shoulder, bringing her close. “One day you’ll forgive him. I know it’s hard. He came back, Sam. He stood outside on the street and watched us at your graduation. You’ll forgive him. That’s what life is all about.”

As they headed back down the hill, she saw him under a leafy elm, standing off to the side. He was wearing a navy sport jacket and looked nice. Still with his cane.

Their gazes met.

Karen’s eyes filled with a warm feeling she hadn’t felt in many years.

“C’mon,” she told the kids, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”

As they approached him, Alex glanced at her, confused. “We already know Lieutenant Hauck, Mom.”

“I know you do, hon,” Karen said. She lifted her sunglasses and smiled at him. “I want you to meet him again. His name is Ty.”

Each book is a mirror reflecting the outside world, and I’d like to say thanks to the following, all of whom have brought the outside world to life for me far more vividly through the creation of
The Dark Tide:

Mark Schwarzman, Roy and Robin Grossman, and Gregory Kopchinsky, for their help on hedge funds and the movement of money across continents—all aboveboard, naturally.

Kirk Dauksavage, Rick McNees, and Pete Carroll of River-glass, designers of an advanced security software far more sophisticated than that portrayed herein, for their help with information about ways the Internet is mined for national security. As one character says, “I feel safer for it.”

Vito Collucci Jr., an ex–Stamford, Connecticut, police detective turned cable news consultant, and an author in his own right, for his help on police and investigative matters.

Liz and Fred Scoponich, for who you are and for the assists on classic Mustangs, too.

Simon Lipskar of Writers House for his support, and my team
at William Morrow: Lisa Gallagher, Lynn Grady, Debbie Stier, Pam Jaffee, Michael Barrs, Gabe Robinson, and, mostly, David Highfill, who throws me just enough praise to make me believe I know what I’m doing now and then, and enough direction to steer clear of my worst traits. And also Amanda Ridout and Julia Wisdom over at HarperCollins in London.

Maureen Sugden, once again, for her diligence and steadfastness in waging the good fight against italics.

To my wife, Lynn, with me every step of the way, and who always lifts me up to do my best.

But mostly to Kristen, Matt, and Nick, whom I am more proud of now, for who they’ve become as adults in the world, than all the dance recitals, college acceptances, and squash matches of their youth. Your reflection is on every page.

London.

B
eep, beep! Beep, beep!”

Amir, “Marty” al-Bashir’s six-year-old son, raced his motorized Formula One model around the dining room table, almost crashing it into Anna, the Lebanese housemaid, as she brought out their Sunday lunch of flatbread and spiced lamb.

“Amir, watch out!” his mom, Sheera, yelled. “You’ll run Anna over. Marty, is it not possible for you to tell your son to stop?”

“Amir, listen to your mother,” Marty called from the den, distracted. He and his older son, Ghassan— they called him Gary—were crouched in front of the wide-screen TV in the midst of a crucial football match. Manchester United versus Chelsea. The match was scoreless with only seconds remaining in the first half, and Man U was his son’s favorite team— they had just acquired Antonio Valencia, his favorite winger and the hottest foot in the game.

“Oh, no, look!” Gary shouted as Marty focused back on the screen. A Chelsea attacker had curled a thirty-meter beauty just inside the left post, an inch beyond the Manchester goalie’s outstretched dive.

“Damn, now look what you’ve made me miss, Sheera,” Marty groaned, deflated, “a goal!”

“A goal, big deal. Your son is driving that thing around the house like Jenson Button. Amir,
listen
. . .” Sheera’s voice grew firm. “If you don’t stop this instant, you can forget about going to Universal Studios when we are in L.A.
Do you hear?
”

As if on autopilot, the model race car came to a stop. From the floor, Amir caught his father’s amused gaze and grinned sheepishly. “Yes, I hear, mama.”

“Come on, boys, your mom’s gone to a lot of trouble for us. Let’s eat.” Marty rose and the family drew chairs around the sleek van der Rohe table in the stylishly decorated town house.

Outside, the view from the wide third-floor window of their fashionable Mayfair Georgian was over Hyde Park, among the most desirable views in town. The home cost close to six million pounds, but as the chief investment officer of the Royal Saudi Partnership, a sovereign fund of Marty’s native Saudi Arabia, it was hardly more than a rounding error on the daily tallies of one of the largest troves of investment capital in the world.

“Marty,” which al-Bashir had been called for years, was simply an Americanized form of Mashhur, his birth name, given to him in his undergraduate days when he had studied under Whiting and McComb at the University of Chicago and followed up with stints in portfolio strategy at Goldman and Reynolds Reid, and in private equity at Blackstone in New York.

It was only back home in his native country that Marty was called anything else.

Now he oversaw a giant fund with interests that stretched to every point on the globe and every conceivable type of asset. Stocks. Mezzanine capital. Currencies. CDOs. Complex derivatives. They also had vast real estate holdings— in New York’s Rockefeller Center and London’s own Trafalgar Square. When the price of oil rocketed, they bought up ethanol-producing sugarcane fields in Brazil. When the commodity fell, they bought up offshore U.S. development leases and massive tankers. Royal Saudi’s holdings were more than a trillion dollars. Their hands were in everything. In times of crisis, they had even been called on to prop up many national treasuries around the world.

He and Sheera had met in the U.S. while he was at Reynolds and she, a daughter of a prominent law professor from Beirut, was studying economics at Columbia. They’d been married for twelve years. The job had given him ease— most would say luxury— and over time, they acquired many Western ways. They had a flat on the Côte d’Azur, a penthouse in the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York; they took the family skiing at Gstaad and Aspen;
Gary and Amir were enrolled in the finest schools. His only regret was that, to appease the royal family’s wishes, his wife had had to give up her own career to raise her family. Sometimes he wished that despite his rise to the top of the financial world and the important responsibilities that had been bestowed on him, if only she could handle the investments and he could manage the kids, both their home
and
the Saudi royal portfolio would be in better hands.

Sunday was their traditional family meal. Afterward, they might head a few blocks away to Hyde Park and kick the football around a bit. On the way back, they might stroll along Shepherd Market window-shopping the fine antiques and new fashions. These days, with teleconferencing and the financial network set up here, he jetted home barely twice a year, mostly to see his folks. He had been away from Riyadh for so many years, distanced himself from their customs, that Marty pretty much thought of the royals as clients now rather than brethren. And he knew, because of the results he produced, his overseers looked the other way.

“Okay, who wants first?” Marty picked up a plate and looked around. “The
cook
!” he said proudly, and spooned some of the stewed lamb over the yogurt and bread and handed it to his wife, serving her first in the Western way. If his parents ever saw him, they’d be horrified.

The trill of his cell phone sounded from somewhere in the house. His office.

Sheera shook her head and groaned. “Now on Sundays too?”
“I’ll make it short. Promise.” Marty got up. “You just make sure you save me some of that lamb.” He winked a warning at Amir, whose appetite seemed to never end.

With the vast amount of activity Royal Saudi controlled there was no such thing as boundaries when it came to nights or weekends. Their interests ran every day, 24/7, across the globe. Though the aroma of lamb and fresh baked bread made ignoring the call momentarily tempting.

Marty followed the ring to his office and shut the door, stepping over the cables to the Wii video game attached to the TV. Gary’s Christmas gift— another Western concession! The BlackBerry was vibrating on the coffee table and Marty sank himself onto the couch, tightrope-walking over the brightly colored Lego Transformer that had been left on the floor; this one was Amir’s.

Never ends
, he sighed.

He expected it to be Len Whiteman, his second at the firm, but Marty’s mood shifted when he checked the digital readout and saw “Private Caller.” His stomach clenched. Cautiously, he drew the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“I hope this call finds you well, Mashhur al-Bashir.”

The use of Marty’s Saudi name jolted him. He knew immediately who it was. The first call had come six months ago, preparing him. He had just been hoping against hope, as time marched on, as their lives grew and prospered and became more acclimated, that the real call would never come.

“I am well,” Marty replied, his throat dry, returning the greeting in Arabic.

“Our sons and daughters around the world require your service, Mashhur al-Bashir. Are you prepared to do what is asked of you?”

Marty thought to himself that it had been so long. His views, passions, had all been so different then. Never religious, or even political. It was simply more about pride in his culture. The dismissive manner in which his nation had been treated by the West. They had given him his start, his education. Now he had lived among them for years and had changed.

Six months ago the first call had come. Reminding him of his duty. What he was expected to do. In a flash, all the prosperity in his life and the good fortune he had earned seemed a universe away. There was no turning away from this. He realized he owed them everything. All his good fortune. He had made his bed a long time ago.

“Yes,” Marty al-Bashir answered dutifully. “Good. The tide of events is evolving,” the caller said, “don’t you agree? Global opportunities have shifted. We, here, are not happy with certain signs. We feel it is time for a change in direction. In strategy. Do you understand?”

“I have a new plan already drawn up,” Marty replied. He knew the ramifications that would result from it and he closed his eyes.

“Then begin it,” the caller said, “starting tomorrow. Execute your job, Mashhur al-Bashir. The rest is already set.” The caller paused a second. “Shall we say, the planes are in the air.”

They hung up, the sounds of his family, laughing, returning from outside. Marty remained on the couch for a while.

All he knew and had grown used to was about to change.

He got up and stepped over to the window, accidentally kicking over his son’s Transformer, the Lego pieces flying about.
“Damn.”

Tomorrow, the world would wake up, go to school, to work, laugh, love, eat with their family, everything seeming the same. But by day’s end there would be a change like the world had never seen.

He bent down and picked up his son’s broken Transformer, the brightly colored pieces all around.

“God, help us all,” Marty al-Bashir muttered in perfect English.