“Looks like he thought of everything,” Liz said, moving to the door ahead of Svengrad, who took a moment too long to come out of the chair. She pushed through to the sister server room and quickly out the secure door back into the office area, Svengrad now right behind her.
Danny Foreman and Gaynes watched them, Danny fuming, but to Liz’s surprise, he stepped aside and allowed room for them to pass. Gaynes, who held Danny by the elbow, never took her eyes off Foreman. Lou had explained to Liz that Danny’s motivations were in question, and it seemed possible that in these few minutes, Gaynes had given him a choice of options.
Liz had nothing to say to Danny Foreman. She wanted her children back home and, at the very least, the semblance of an ordinary life returned. She wanted out of this party, out of this building, and nothing more than to be home in bed, though she knew it could not possibly be that simple for her.
Gaynes said, “Whatever you did in there… Security crashed. Special Ops is on their way up. Foreman and I are going to try the stairs. You, Mr. Svengrad, I would suggest should return to the party. You try to leave now, they’ll question you. Mrs. B., it’s you they’re after, I’m afraid. It helps us all if you can delay them a little.”
Liz nodded. The group broke up as Phillip approached.
“Mr. Svengrad,” the CEO said in his best host voice. He didn’t look comfortable all of a sudden. “I see you’ve met Elizabeth!”
“Yes,” Svengrad said. “She was just explaining some of the complications of the switchover to me,” he said, eyeing Liz. “Quite impressive.”
Phillip eyed Liz and looked into the server room. There was no telling what might become of her when suspicions and the inevitable interviews began. Phillip stepped closer to Liz, throwing an arm around her. “Hell of a party, Liz. Well done.” He looked at Svengrad. “You have any more questions, Mr. Svengrad, why don’t you address them to me.”
At that moment, four undercover detectives rushed from an elevator, turning the heads of many in attendance.
Liz felt choked with emotion when she saw Lou among them, his eyes searching the room and finding her. He then registered Svengrad’s presence as well and a triumphant look overcame him. Proud. Defiant.
“What’s this?” Phillip asked, looking suspiciously at Liz.
“This…,” Liz said. “This is my husband.”
TWENTY-FOUR
LIZ AND BOLDT STOOD INSIDE the front door of their home, LaMoia’s Jetta parked and running at the curb. It was five in the morning, a pale hinting of the sunrise rimmed the horizon. They’d both been up all night, she in debriefings with Special Ops, Boldt writing a report that was mostly lies.
“I told them exactly how David did it,” Liz explained. “He split the money into tens of thousands of tiny amounts-a few cents, a few dollars-and tacked those amounts onto trades as Securities and Exchange Commission fees. It worked because the SEC account is one of only a very few accounts that we don’t audit unless the government files a complaint. David kept the funds moving through the system, these tiny amounts charged as SEC trading fees, impossible for us to connect or follow. Only the software knew where that money was on any given day. My guess is that at the end of the quarter, just as the SEC fee funds were about to be wired to Washington, the seventeen million was collected into the SEC fee account we hold for the government, giving David a chance to ‘find’ it”-she drew the quotes-“and wire it out. It would be safe there for a few weeks, a few months, even years. He got locked up, and it just stayed in the system, looping around, impossible for our auditors to identify. The merger meant our SEC account would be closed, the balance paid-all this happens invisibly and automatically each quarter, the government being paid what it’s owed-but the merger forced him to wire the money out or lose it forever. The government would have eventually reported the overage, and maybe then we’d have finally figured it out.”
Boldt said, “They could only grab the seventeen million four times a year.”
“I’m guessing. Yes. He wouldn’t have wanted it to be lumped together for very long, nor very often. Auditors might have spotted that, though even that’s doubtful. The whole purpose was to keep it moving.”
“And no one reported the incorrect SEC charges on their statements?”
“How many investors are going to question a few cents more on an SEC trading fee that’s a charge they probably don’t pay attention to anyway? He did the smart thing: He hid that money out in the open.” She changed the subject, asking, “What do you do if he doesn’t give you the tape?”
“John has one of his wild ideas. He’s been studying terrorist technologies for the past two weeks and, typical of him, has ‘borrowed’ a device.”
“You’ll be careful.”
It was a sentiment impossible for her not to express, but Boldt wished she hadn’t. He didn’t want to think of this upcoming meeting as dangerous, though he knew otherwise. Judging by Svengrad’s tone of voice, he had already been hit with the surprise. Boldt’s mission was to deflect and redirect the blame.
“It’s more ridiculous than dangerous,” he said of LaMoia’s idea.
“You’ll have backup?”
“Speaking the lingo now?”
“I’m a fast learner,” she said, “and don’t avoid the question.”
“Not officially, no,” he told her honestly. “That would mean answering all sorts of questions at some point, questions you and I don’t want to answer.”
“Forget that,” she said. “I’d rather answer questions, pay a fine, go to jail, than be stupid about this.”
“John will be there. Outside. He’ll call for backup if needed. It’s a meeting is all,” he said, trying to reassure her. “We expected this.” He corrected himself, “I expected this.”
“It’s not worth it, Lou.”
“It is,” he said. “It’s very much worth it.”
“Not if you’re at risk.”
“It’s not like that. Honestly. If I thought it was, I wouldn’t do this. He’s not going to arrange a meeting if he plans on torturing me; his goons are going to bust in here and do it. He has questions. That’s all.”
“We gave him his money. He should be happy.”
“Absolutely,” Boldt said, trying to keep the lie out of his eyes. “Maybe he wants to thank me.”
She leveled a look onto him, and he knew then that she knew. He saw the first twinges of realization sink into her. “What did you do?” She closed her eyes, then looked at him fiercely. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
The trouble with marriage was that all that familiarity, the years of arguments and discussions, of practical jokes and conspiracies, meant that one’s barriers became invisible to the spouse, easily penetrated. Liz looked through him and read his thoughts effortlessly.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You conned a con man? Lou? Speak to me!”
“I followed my conscience on this one.”
“It was all done, Lou. We did it. Over! The children,” she pleaded, as either her concern or her anger glassed her eyes.
“Exactly,” Boldt said. “I’m not saying I did anything, but if I did, I did it for the children. No lies, right?” This had been their mutual agreement going into parenthood, to lead by example. The comment struck deeper, as he knew it would. They’d been living nothing but lies for too long, and for him this was a fresh start instead of a continuation.
He kissed her good-bye without saying anything more. He had no sense that he was heading into anything more dangerous than on any other day of work. A meeting was all. She accompanied him to the front door. An unmarked police car still watched the house. Boldt hoped this meeting with Svengrad might end the need for such precautions.