Men like Daeniker’s host, Francis Xavier Regan.
Like many of the world’s super rich, the reclusive Canadian billionaire ruthlessly shielded his privacy. Very few people were ever invited onto his property and they were always subject to close scrutiny. Tabloid journalists and other trespassers were met by armed watchmen and snarling dogs.
Tires crunched on wet gravel as the Mercedes swung onto a long drive. East Wind Manor’s age-darkened stone façade, turrets, and chimneys loomed ahead through the dreary gray light of the fading day. Beside its massive front door, a somber manservant stood huddled under an umbrella, waiting to greet him.
Once indoors out of the damp, Daeniker eyed his surroundings with interest. Stone floors overlaid by beautiful Persian rugs, dark oak paneling, gleaming suits of armor, ornate coats of arms, and walls lined with expensive paintings conveyed an overwhelming aura of both vast wealth and a distinguished and ancient lineage. The wealth was Regan’s by right, the Swiss thought cynically. But since his immigrant Irish father had been nothing more than a day laborer, the noble lineage belonged entirely to this purchased house.
Meeting the billionaire in the flesh did nothing to dispel that cynical view.
Regan, a tall, burly man in his midsixties, nodded curtly to a chair. “Well, Mr. Daeniker?” he demanded. “What have you got for me?”
Unfazed by this rudeness, the Swiss banker opened his briefcase and took out a thick sheaf of documents. The international consortium he represented wanted to buy two of the other man’s privately held North American enterprises — FXR Trucking and Regan Air Freight. And the Canadian wanted to sell. Though these midsized transportation companies were the original foundation of his enormous fortune, Regan was not a sentimental man. In President Stacy Anne Barbeau’s overtaxed and overregulated America, neither business was worth his continued investment of time and money.
Donning a polite smile, he handed the documents across the desk. “I think you will find everything is in order, Mr. Regan.”
“Maybe so,” the other man said brusquely. “And maybe not.”
Daeniker frowned, feeling uncertain for the first time. Both sides had already agreed on a price. Even more important, neither wanted to trigger any “inconvenient” scrutiny by government tax officials and regulatory agencies. What kind of game was Regan playing now?
The billionaire looked back at him with a cold expression. “Your clients like to live dangerously, Mr. Daeniker. If they’d dicked around with me for just twelve more hours, they would have been shit out of luck.”
The Swiss banker nodded. Regan was due to depart on his annual sailing vacation at dawn the next morning. Every year, before the worst winter weather hit the Isle of Man, he took his prized Dutch-built yacht, Bear Venture, on a weeks-long cruise south to Spain and then across the Atlantic to his second home in the Cayman Islands. And he made it a rule never to conduct any serious business while at sea.
“I regret the various delays,” Daeniker said. He spread his hands. “But when one is dealing with the different interests of so many prospective investors, they are sometimes unavoidable.”
Regan snorted.
For a moment, Daeniker had the uncomfortable impression the other man knew he was lying. In truth, his real client had carefully controlled the timing of their negotiations. From the beginning, his orders had been clear: The deal must be concluded only in the hours just before Regan set sail from the Isle of Man.
“Unavoidable or not, those delays are going to cost you,” Regan said, showing his teeth. He stabbed at the contracts with one powerful forefinger. “I’ll sign these. But my asking price just went up fifty million euros.”
Daeniker raised an eyebrow. “Fifty million euros more? For what reason?”
“For two reasons,” the other man told him coolly. “First, your buyers have inconvenienced me. They’ve wasted my time with bullshit. Nobody does that for free.”
Regan leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “And second, as a means of guaranteeing your clients’ continued anonymity. It’s obvious that this ‘consortium’ of yours is nothing but window dressing. And ordinarily, I don’t do business with folks I don’t know. But I’m willing to make an exception in this case… at a price.”
Daeniker kept his mouth shut.
“So here’s the situation as I see it,” Regan went on. “Your real buyers have tried hard to hide themselves.” He shrugged. “Maybe because they want to dodge some confiscatory taxes or nitpicking regulations. Or maybe because they’re the sort of people who need new ways to make dirty money a little cleaner. So what I figure is that your mysterious principals really don’t want my security people poking and prying around to identify them, Mr. Daeniker.” He smiled thinly. “My bet is that you’re empowered to sweeten this deal to make sure it goes through on time… and without any inconvenient truths coming out. Correct?”
Daeniker sat motionless for several moments, thinking fast. At last, he sighed. “Such a circumstance was not entirely unforeseen. I am authorized to go a bit higher, but no more than—”
Regan shook his head. “We are not bargaining here.” His eyes were stony. “The price goes up fifty million. Or you leave empty-handed. It’s your call.”
“You are a hard man, Mr. Regan.”
The other man nodded. “That I am. Which is why I’m sitting on this side of the desk and you’re on the other, Mr. Daeniker.”
An hour later, Willem Daeniker watched the dark stone walls and dim lights of East Wind Manor disappear behind him, swallowed up by night and rain. The Mercedes swung onto the main road, heading back to the airport where a private jet sat fueled and waiting. Frowning, he pulled out his smartphone and typed a short text message to Russian president Gennadiy Gryzlov waiting impatiently in Moscow, sixteen hundred miles due east of the Isle of Man: Arrangements complete. Cost 50m higher than hoped. Unfortunately, seller still shows regrettable curiosity.
Stars speckled the moonless night sky — tiny points of light glittering in the midst of infinite blackness. Far below, in inky darkness, an elegant craft more than a hundred meters long and with a displacement of over four thousand tons slid gracefully through long, rolling waves. Without any running lights illuminating her superstructure, the destroyer-sized ship was almost invisible.
Seen in daylight and from a distance, Brodyaga looked like a luxury mega-yacht, not a warship. Her sleek lines and floor-to-ceiling windows mirrored those of other gleaming, ultramodern private vessels owned by the world’s wealthiest men and women, including a number of Russia’s leading industrialists and business oligarchs.
In reality, Brodyaga was a disguised intelligence and special operations vessel for the Russian Navy. If necessary, she could discreetly slip in and out of foreign ports that were otherwise off-limits to Russia’s surface combatants and spy ships. Nor was she routinely trailed by Western warships and aircraft while at sea — which gave her the necessary freedom of movement to conduct any number of covert missions.