“I’ll bet,” said Gavallan.
Cate took off her sunglasses and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her motions were clumsy, and he could sense her reticence, her confidence gone AWOL. Vulnerability was a new color for Miss Catherine Elizabeth Magnus, and to his dismay, it rendered her in a flattering light.
“After a couple of weeks, Alexei grew tight with the locals,” she went on. “The traders took him under their wing. They treated him as if he were one of their own. Then, it just happened.”
“What happened?” asked Gavallan.
“Alexei learned that Kirov and his crew were manipulating the market for aluminum futures. Kirov was buying the stuff from the country’s smelters at something like five cents a pound and selling it on the international market at forty-five cents. We’re talking major piracy.”
“I’d say a markup of nine hundred percent qualifies.”
“Alexei showed me what he’d found and I told him he had to go to the police. He didn’t want to. He knew it would be dangerous. It was ’96, remember. The oligarchs were at war with each other. Anyone who said a bad word about them ended up dead. Every day there were bodies on the street. He just wanted to quit and go back to the States. But I insisted. I held his hand, and together we went to the district attorney, or whatever you call that post in Russian. The next day, Alexei disappeared. We took the Metro to work together. He went to the first floor. I went to the fifth. We had our usual lunch date, but he never showed. They found his body on the banks of the Moskva River a week after that. He had a bullet in his head. His tongue had been cut out. I left the country the same day.”
Gavallan kicked at the grass, doing his best to take it all in. He felt aghast and betrayed. Mostly he just felt enraged. Ten people had died this morning, ten precious lives that might have been saved had Cate not withheld her secret history from him. He didn’t think it necessary to offer his condolences for one more person he’d never met. Stepping closer, he pointed a finger at her heart. “You worked for Kirov? You knew he’s a murderer? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cate shook her head disconsolately. “What’s there to say? Yes, I worked for Konstantin Kirov. Yes, I got my boyfriend killed. It’s not something I care to remember. Don’t be mad, Jett. I told you: It was another life.”
“No!” cried Gavallan, slamming his hand against the roof. “It was our life! I told you everything. The best and the worst of it. I gave you my other life. What makes you so special you couldn’t give me yours?”
“I tried a thousand times. You weren’t listening.”
“The hell you say. You think if I knew that Kirov killed your boyfriend I’d have gone ahead with the deal? That if the FBI and the Russian government were checking him out, I’d have kept Mercury on the calendar? I’m sorry, ma’am, if you hold so low an opinion of me.”
“Don’t you be self-righteous with me. The deal’s had warning signs on it since day one. You and the rest of the market were so hungry for a winner you never stopped long enough to check them out.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true and you know it.”
The barb pierced Gavallan, its sting all the sharper because she was right. “You want true?” he railed. “Ray Luca is dead. Nine innocent men and women are dead. None of them will be going home to their families tonight or tomorrow or ever again. All because I’ve continued pushing Mercury, when you knew I shouldn’t have. Oh, and there’s something else you ought to know: Graf Byrnes is alive. He called me after you ran out of the ball the other night. He told me the deal was good, that we could go ahead, but he made it clear Kirov had put him up to it. That’s where he is right now, I imagine—locked up somewhere in Russia with a gun to his head. For all I know, he could be dead by now. Since you know Kirov so well, honey, why don’t you tell me what Graf’s chances are.”
“Damn you,” she shouted, her lips trembling, a solitary tear streaking her cheek. “You’ve got no right.”
“Lady, I have every right. Mercury was my deal. Like it or not, I’m just as responsible as Kirov for those ten people who died today.”
“I’m so sorry.” The sobs came in huge waves, tremulous currents that racked her shoulders and sent shudders down her spine. Part of Gavallan demanded he comfort her, and almost instinctively, he stepped forward. But, reaching an arm toward her, he caught himself and pulled back. No, he told himself. She deserves this.
“Okay, I should have told you,” she said finally. “I see it now. I didn’t and I should have and I’m sorry.”
“Damn right you should have,” he boomed, his anger bursting like a thunderclap around them.
“I said I’m sorry. What more do you want?”
Gavallan said nothing. He felt estranged from her. He decided he’d been right—he didn’t know her. Maybe he never had. And that was what hurt most.
“I didn’t want to put you at risk,” she said, wiping at her tears, fighting to control her breath. “I just wanted to pull down the IPO. I thought if I could stop the Mercury offering, that would be enough to get at Kirov. A man like him only cares about money.”
“And Ray Luca was your helper?”
Cate nodded. “A friend at the Journal went to school with him, knew about his playing the Private Eye-PO.”
Gavallan turned his back and walked away a few steps. He was working the angles, trying to sift what was left of Mercury from the cinders of Cate’s emotional firestorm. He kept revisiting his tour of Mercury’s offices in Geneva and Kiev and Prague, seeing room after room of routing equipment, offices humming with motivated employees. Mercury had the vibe of a successful, efficiently run company, and that was something you just couldn’t fake. “I saw the fax in Luca’s bedroom—the one from the prosecutor general’s office. It’d been sent from your home. Where did you get all your information, anyway?”
“One of the detectives who investigated Alexei’s murder was part of the task force looking into Kirov’s affairs. Detective Skulpin is his name. Vassily Skulpin. We both knew Kirov was behind Alexei’s death, but Detective Skulpin could never gather any proof. Over the years we kept in contact, and when Skulpin’s task force began to move against Kirov he let me know. Detective Skulpin was the one who told me Kirov had faked the due diligence.”
Gavallan winced as if he’d been slapped. “He told you that?”
“He has an informant inside Mercury. The informant said that someone who works for Kirov was covering up its faults, painting a prettier picture than reality allowed. The only proof was the photos. And then the receipts.”
Of course Kirov had faked the due diligence. If Luca’s claims were true, there was no other way to have slipped it by. Kirov faked the due diligence.
“Look,” he said. “Let’s get to the hotel. I’ve got to pick up my things. If we hurry we can still make the three o’clock flight back home.”
Cate slid behind the wheel and started the engine. They drove in silence for a minute or two, then Gavallan shot her a sidelong glance. “The hotel’s just up the road, north side of Manalapan.” He brought a hand to his forehead. “Oh, shit, my rental car. I left it a block away from Luca’s.”
“We’ll pick it up later,” said Cate. “Right now, let’s go get your bags. The Ritz-Carlton, right?”
Gavallan rolled his eyes without humor. “Remind me to have a word with Hortensia about keeping my travel plans quiet,” he said, referring to his housekeeper.