And he had found the perfect piece of scum to make it happen.
What a lark that that scum had ended up seducing his ex-wife.
Simons knew, in the end, he was only speeding up the inevitable. Reynolds Reid would be poised to pick up the pieces. Some of his competitors would be blown away; that was bound to happen. Surely he would suffer losses. Personally. As well as the firm. In the short term.
But in the end, he would be one of the winners. The innovative player. The one who alters circumstance to fit design. They would be made stronger by the gale.
After breakfast he had a board meeting. At that meeting they would ratify the acquisition of Pacific-West, California’s largest bank, which had just been taken over by the Fed. They had picked up coveted pieces of Wertheimer. And ArcCo, the country’s largest mortgage company. They would announce it at the annual meeting this afternoon.
What they would never announce was just how it all came to be.
Simons’s car pulled up at the Fed on Liberty Street. His driver, Carl, leaned back around. “Shall I let you off here, Mr. Simons?”
“Great, Carl. Stay close to the phone. I should be back down in ninety minutes. We have to be back up at the office by ten.”
“You got it, sir.”
Simons stepped out onto the street. There was only one thing that gave him pause.
His friend.
At his core, Hassani was still too much of an ideologue for him. He still carried this crazy belief in jihad. People who believed too strongly in anything always made Simons a little nervous. It made him smile that despite the lavish meals and the warm hugs of friendship, the Bahraini probably shared the same doubts about him as well.
You never knew how that would fall.
Heading through the gilded door, Peter Simons reminded himself he’d have to do something about that.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Naomi was at Reagan International, waiting for the government jet to take her to New York. She had finally found a moment to look over what Ty had sent.
She was on her way up to connect with Anthony Bruni, a senior agent in charge of the FBI Financial terrorism task force. Together, they would take Hassani into custody later that day.
Keaton had given the word. It was delicate. There were many entanglements between the U.S. and Bahrain over matters of national security. The king might well be enraged. Hassani might even claim diplomatic immunity. As the jet rolled out, Naomi quickly scanned through Ty’s attachment. The e-mail it had arrived in said, Proof Hassani was there. And check out who else.
Excitedly, Naomi clicked back and forth between the three hotel guest lists. Her blood whipped like a squall running through her veins. Thibault. Al-Bashir. Hassani. All highlighted in Ty’s document. She felt vindicated.
They’d all been there.
Just as she had laid it all out weeks before. Only this made the case against him a hundred times stronger. Not to mention her job security. Naomi took out her BlackBerry and was about to place a call back to Ty when the “who else” he was referring to hit her like a lacrosse stick to the face.
Peter Simons.
Peter Simons was head of one of the largest investment banks in the world.
Naomi’s stomach almost climbed up her throat. Simons was there. She tried to wrap her brain around what this meant. It made it a whole new thing.
It was no longer about jihad or some terrorist plot to cripple the West; this was a deep-rooted conspiracy, one that sprang up not from overseas but from within. Naomi tried to grasp it. How did anyone profit from this kind of thing? What did Reynolds Reid have to gain?
A military officer came through a door. He nodded at Naomi. “Agent Blum, your aircraft’s on the tarmac now.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” Naomi said, her body breaking out in an exhilarated sweat.
Could there be others?
Excitedly, Naomi scrolled up and down the three lists, shifting between hotels, the two nights.
Other names began to pop out. Important names.
Marshall Shipman. Shipman was chief of Orpheus, a large hedge fund. She felt her hands tremble. Stephen Cain. Cain ran a boutique private equity group. A mini-Blackstone. Vladimir Tursanov. A huge Russian financier.
Hassani. Al-Bashir.
The Gstaad Gang.
She took out a pad and feverishly scratched the names on it as she read on. It left her feeling queasy and uncertain, like she was facing the unclimbable walls of some deep well she was at the bottom of.
She realized she was opening a Pandora’s box of something that was way beyond her control. Like al-Bashir had said on the landing before he was driven away. This was much larger than simply terrorism.
She punched in Ty’s number on her BlackBerry.
“You see what I found?” he answered on the first ring. “Simons.”
“Simons is only the tip of the iceberg, Ty. It was a plot-a plot to take down the markets. Not some terrorist thing. Well-orchestrated, by some of the most influential people in the investment world. From within.” Her mouth was dry. “I don’t know what we stumbled into.”
“Is it possible this was just a part of other meetings that were scheduled around it? Legitimate meetings?” Hauck asked.
“No. Nothing like this. Nothing this big. It would be public. I would know about it.” She had to hold her head to keep it from spinning.
“Naomi, who have you shared this with?” Hauck pressed. His voice was laced with urgency. “Who approved the arrest? Who else knows?”
“I went directly to Thomas Keaton. I…” As soon as his name fell off her lips her heart slowed to a stop. “Oh my God, Ty…”
She hadn’t seen it before, but now she did. It was all there. Not behind some curtain. But in plain day. Hassani. Al-Bashir. Tursanov.
Simons.
She had to hold her stomach from lurching up inside her. Even a blind person could see. If they knew what they were looking for.
“Naomi, what-”
“Ty, I need you to meet me in New York. I’m about to board a government jet. We’re taking Hassani into custody. Today, after the Reynolds Reid meeting. But Hassani’s only the front man for this…” She put her fingers to the front of her head as if she was trying to keep it from exploding. “Oh, God, what have I done, Ty?”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Red O’Toole leaned against the car and stared out at the New York landmark.
He had been told to come here and wait. That this was a final job for him. An important one. Then he could collect his last pay and disappear. He had sensed a tone of desperation in his contact’s voice. He knew that sign-like in the field when a position had become too hot to hold. Taking on fire. He’d been in several of those, and this one had that feel. You always had to have a way out. A line of retreat.
He was mapping his now.
He knew he’d done more bad stuff in his time than he cared to admit or remember. He figured one or two more added to the list wouldn’t mean shit when it came to an accounting of these things. It’s not like he’d set out to do them. If his dad, a devout man, was still alive, he’d have said, Johnny, don’t do anything you can’t repent for. That’s the one rule.
O’Toole smiled and wondered if there was enough repentance left in the world for what he’d been forced to do.
He knew Merced had been ID’d. His name was now all over the news. They knew his background. In Iraq. At Global Threat Management. Sonny had always been careless. And a little desperate. O’Toole realized it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for them to find a connection back to him.