Tam hadn’t yet been able to meet either Ted’s or Nadia’s gazes, but she steeled herself for it. What else was there to say but, “I don’t understand why. You didn’t even get the money.”
Ted looked guilty but not the least bit chagrined. “It was never about the money.”
“It was about making sure I wasn’t credible for Markoff’s trial.”
“At first.” Ted looked not the least cowed or worried. In fact, he looked every inch like he had the world by the short and curlies. “Nadia is the one who saw the bigger opportunity when Markoff’s people approached her.”
Nadia shrugged and said nothing.
“You told Ted to tamper with my immigration record, my passport verification... I think out of everything, that surprised me the most.”
She gave Tam a direct look, with none of her usual coy evasions. “That’s how they got to me. I don’t know how they found out. They offered me papers, contracts, faked adoption records—they had copies of everything. They thought I would do anything to keep the past a secret when they’d just handed me all the evidence I’d never been able to piece together about my grandparents. The ones who farmed me out like the accidental mongrel offspring of their thoroughbred son. I agreed to facilitate a crisis for you in exchange for the box of documents. I knew what Ted could do with a little focus. And I knew what a little well-placed gossip could do.”
“Why Wren Cantu?”
Nadia looked like she wanted to ignore Kip, but her satisfaction with her own handiwork kept her talking. “She was supposed to be one of the big headliners at the New York Public Library benefit. She shows up an hour late and spends the night 234
being rude to everyone and with a spoon up her nose. But she can get an invite to any party in that town. I spent the last five years doing all those fundraisers, all that charity work. I watched porn stars and politicians’ mistresses trump me and realized I was going about it all wrong. If I can’t have celebrity, I’ll take notoriety. It’s a bigger paycheck in the end.”
Now that they were talking, Ted had the air of a professor propounding on a pet theory. “You just don’t get the new world order, and you were never going to. Our whole business model is a relic. Rich enough, big enough, you can’t fail today. You can steal anything, ruin a natural wonder, profess ignorance as wisdom, and go on getting richer and richer. All you have to do is blame anything and everything except a corporation for oil on beaches, cancer clusters in school kids, whatever the crime. Toss the public a villain and protect big business and you can be rich, famous and respected.”
“You’ve been rehearsing that speech,” Tam said, her numbness finally giving way to anger. “Did it take you long to believe it?”
“You can be pissed all you want. But Nadia and I are going to be thanking you all the way to the bank. I knew you’d catch us.
You were incredibly predictable. You even brought in a staffer.
Barrett was one of four I had already identified. Only time you surprised me was running for it on Friday morning. I thought the Feds would wind you up enough to keep you in town. Instead, you dropped off the planet. Still, I was pretty sure you’d get here this morning.”
“You’re going to prison.” Kip sounded about as angry as Tam felt. Nadia favored her with a pitying look. “We’re heading for minimum security and with good behavior, ankle bracelets. It’ll give me a chance work through those documents they gave me and write my exposé of my father’s cult and how his parents covered it up. How much do you think his family would pay me not to publish it? I’m betting there’s a house on Star Island in it for me.”
Tam didn’t know what Robert and the embassy agents were 235
making of the conversation but she had been aware of Martin LeRoi’s discreet voice recorder from the beginning. Tam said,
“So this really was about money. I was just collateral damage.”
Ted laughed. “It’s always about money. All it takes is being wildly successful, and I just was. I hacked six banks and embarrassed the premier fraud detection company in the country. Once my book hits the shelves I’ll be doing commentary about corporate hijinks and the failures of big government, and making more in a week than I do in a year now. Life on the Dark Side: One Man’s Corruption by the System. Catchy, isn’t it? And I have the other necessary ingredient—a smokin’ hot wife with brains.”
Tam shifted her gaze to Nadia. She wasn’t serious when she asked, “And you get your own reality show?”
Nadia’s reply was dead serious. “Or a talk show, or my own column at the big blog sites where I get to decide who’s hot and what’s news. We’ll have many friends, and they’ll respect our resourcefulness. We’ll be welcome at Martha’s Vineyard.”
My respect, obviously, means nothing, Tam thought. “The people you worked for—did they know you expected to fail?”
“Those people, they’re not the forgiving type,” Kip added.
“They expected results for their money.”
They both shrugged, with a shared, half-amused glance between them. Ted answered, “Here’s the ironic part—Vernon Markoff doesn’t know anything about it. We were brought on by one of the sons trying to score points with Daddy. This works, he’s a hero. It doesn’t work, Daddy never knows he’s a failure.”
So much for hoping that this mess would further incriminate Markoff and give him more time in jail. “But you’re going to tell the world all the details so you can get famous.”
Nadia rolled her eyes. “Why on earth would we tell the whole truth? It’s Ted’s book. He’s not under oath.”
Tam couldn’t help the glance she shot at Kip. She shrugged in defeat—she would never understand people who could exist in such a moral vacuum. Sadly, she considered that they could be right about where they ended up. Maybe she could preempt some of their notoriety with an exclusive interview for that sleazy 236
reporter. The very thought repelled her.
Robert had been watching their exchange with a weary smile.
Apparently, the Langhorn point of view was nothing new to him.
Nevertheless, his understanding nod at Tam helped her feel that the world hadn’t completely turned night into day. To Martin LeRoi he said, “I believe we’ve complied with your urgent information request. I’ll be sending over the additional details.”
“You’ve been more than helpful, and the United States thanks you,” LeRoi responded.
All the courtesies observed, they were urged to their feet.
Though their escort was not even touching them, there was no way to walk through the bank discreetly. Handcuffed ducks in a row, they drew raised eyebrows from the bank staff and outright gawks from the customers. Tam hoped nobody had a cell phone camera.
They were all separated during transport, each of them in a separate car. Tam’s was last and she was relieved to see all three ahead of her pass through the embassy’s tall wrought iron gates.
She had only the briefest glimpse of the colonial portico of the main building, brilliant in whitewash and choked with crimson bougainvillea. Her head was spinning—Ted and Nadia were utter strangers to her. How could they believe they lost nothing if they took the path to wealth through notorious crime and false, public penance?
They were marched—firmly but not discourteously—into a small side building behind the main structure. Tam suspected it was a holding area for U.S. citizens waiting to leave the country by diplomatic escort, and she wasn’t wrong. Nadia and Ted went directly into separate rooms of their own. It was satisfying to hear the locks click into place.