Naomi looked at him. “Yeah, there’s more. But now we’re getting into things that someone like me shouldn’t be telling someone like you. You understand?”
He nodded. “I understand.”
She told him about the call intercepted from Hassan ibn Hassani to Marty al-Bashir in London. The sudden shift of one of the largest investment funds in the world, which started the plunge of the financial markets the very next day, building on the mortgage debacle, fears of Fannie and Freddie failing, the world creeping to the edge.
Glassman and Donovan just gave it the final, invisible nudge.
“Someone was paying them off. Someone used them to start the slide in motion. You want to hazard a guess, when we fully dig into Thibault’s accounts, where the flow of all that money originated from?”
It was huge. If this was an organized, plotted attack, it was terrorism. Poor April, he thought…How could she have known the forces behind what happened? Her family never had a chance.
“So why me?” Hauck asked finally.
“My people don’t want an interagency thing on this until we know more. If any of this leaks, it’s the sort of thing that would only create more chaos in the markets. Plus”-the agent’s gaze softened and for the first time she didn’t try to hold back her smile-“you seemed to desperately want in.”
Hauck smiled back. “I suppose I did, didn’t I? Look, my 401(k)’s in the shitter as much as the next guy’s, Agent Blum, but for me, this isn’t about the markets. It’s not about what happened to Wertheimer Grant. These people did what they did. But innocent people were killed to hide what they knew. One of them was a friend.”
“I understand.” The Treasury agent nodded.
“That said”-he shrugged-“I have been known to stumble into a well-concealed conspiracy every once in a while…”
She nodded, pleased. “So I’ve heard.”
“The first thing is to locate Thibault-Kostavic,” Hauck said, correcting himself. He looked at her.
“I have my people tracing him out of Paris.”
“Any luck so far?”
“Not yet.” She shook her head. “It’s a big world.”
“It is…” Hauck’s mind flashed back to something he remembered from weeks before. “Luckily for you, I think I know where he is.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The easy part was grabbing a few days from the office.
He was owed that much. Foley had even suggested it. Not to mention he had just brought in a fat new account.
The hard part was squaring what he was about to do with Annie.
Not telling her the truth behind what he had let himself be drawn into. The reason her son had been attacked. About where he was about to go. And why.
He’d wanted in all along, hadn’t he? If he was honest.
From the start.
Hauck sat on the deck in the dark with a beer, looking over the sound. He followed the flickering lights of planes descending into LaGuardia across the water. He put his moccasins up on the railing.
It was one of those shifting lines in the sand where you had to make a call. What side you came down on. Who you fought for.
Who you let down.
April deserved that much, didn’t she? He thought back to the last time he had seen her and remembered her beaming face. This is Evan, Ty…
Then the wind suddenly shifted and the line was gone all over again. He knew why he was doing it. Why he was putting it all at risk. His job. Everything he had grown comfortable with.
Annie.
He knew why, and if he was honest with himself he could say it now.
It wasn’t all buried in the past.
It was his last time there-at the group. Dr. Rose had given him the okay to leave. His obligation to the department was complete. For weeks, he’d been feeling restless, boxed in. Ready to get on with it again. He’d grown to accept that there were simply things that had happened. Events out of his control. An unguarded moment where fate had intervened.
“I put my résumé out to a few places,” he told the doctor after the last session. “One in a town outside of Boston, where my sister lives. One in PA. I even sent one up to Greenwich.”
Dr. Rose seemed pleased. “In the group you said you still blame yourself a little. For what happened…”
Hauck shook his hand and smiled. “I guess I’ll always blame myself a little; I just figure I can do it with a paycheck coming in.”
It bothered him that April hadn’t been there. They had grown close over these weeks. Their talks…He would miss her. And he wondered: when they saw each other again, in a different place and time, would it ever be the same? Life would interfere. It always seemed to. He wished he could tell her they would always be friends.
He took the subway home, picked up something to eat at the Italian deli down the block. Went upstairs.
Around eight, he was watching a game when his cell phone rang.
April. Her voice sounded a little fuzzy. “Ty…”
“Gee, you skipped out on me,” he said, pretending to be hurt, not fully realizing it then. “I wanted to say good-bye.”
“I didn’t talk to Becca’s school,” she said, woozily. “I’m sorry, Ty. They won’t know on Monday…”
Her words were garbled, her thoughts random and unclear. Alarm sprang up in him. His mind immediately flashed to her wrists. “Know what? April, are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m alright, Ty, I told you, didn’t I…you were just passing through…”
He bolted up. “April, listen to me, what have you done? You’re not sounding right. Have you taken something?”
“Just to make me sleep, Ty…I really need to sleep. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you…”
“Where’s Marc?” His blood rushed with alarm. “Where’s your husband, April? Where’s Becca?”
“He’s away, Ty…Always away. In Hong Kong. Becca’s with her friend…” Her voice started trailing off.
“Where are you, April? Where are you now?”
“At our place. In the city. I’m sorry, Ty; you know that, don’t you? I so wanted to be there for you…I…”
He knew the address. On East Sixty-fourth. He had dropped her off there once after one of their talks. “You keep it together, April! I’m coming. You hear me, April? I need you to stay awake. You hang on. I’ll be right there!”
On his landline he dialed 911. Reported a possible suicide in progress. Gave the address. Her name. On his cell he tried to keep her on the line. Alert. Her voice kept growing woozy. It sounded bad.
He ran downstairs and into his Bronco, talking to her all the time. He had an old rotating top hat from his department days and threw it on top.
Lights flashing, he sped down the Van Wyck, to the LIE, to Queens Boulevard and the Queensboro Bridge. He kept pushing her to hang on, to stay awake. He felt like he was losing her.
At some point, April’s voice fell off.
“April!” He veered off the bridge onto Sixtieth, his heart racing at a hundred miles an hour. A minute later he was there.
An EMT van and a police car with a flashing light were pulled up in front. Hauck screeched to a stop behind them. He talked his way up, flashing his old police ID at one of the cops. When he got there, they already had her on a gurney with an IV in her veins and were giving her oxygen. Her eyes were rolled back, her pupils small. He kneeled down and took her by the hand and squeezed. “I’m here, April. I’m here…”
A glimmer of life flashed back into her eyes.
She murmured, “Ty…I’m sorry, Ty. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Your big day…I just didn’t want to feel so alone. Not anymore.”
“You’re not alone, April.” They said they had to take her now. Her pulse was weak and they’d already called the hospital. He held her hand as they wheeled her out to the elevator. “Not anymore.”
He stayed in the ICU while she slept until dawn. The doctors said she would recover. But if they’d been fifteen minutes later…She’d taken seven Sonestas along with some muscle relaxers.