She had read numerous files on the reclusive billionaire. A profligate for the first decades of his life, spending exorbitant amounts on cars, boats, and turning his home into a fortress. The perfect place to stay out of the spotlight and the perfect excuse not to leave his home office. If there needed to be a gala or benefit, it could be hosted at his estate, where after an hour he could tuck himself safely away in one of his hiding rooms.
Trask was a master of hiding out, something he’d perfected in his teen years. The day Trask got his driver’s license in 1965, he uncharacteristically got the courage to ask his boarding school crush, Kathleen, to the drive-in to see The Beach Girls and the Monster, a beach murder mystery starring Jon Hall and Sue Casey. Halfway through the opening credits Kathleen noticed Christopher Andrews. The most athletic, the most likely to succeed and, apparently, the most likely to take whatever he wanted. Kathleen made up some excuse-Trask couldn’t recall it, or maybe he pushed it out of his mind-as he watched her toss her thick golden hair over her shoulder and slide into the front seat of Christopher’s ’64 Morgan Plus Four Plus. Trask finished the movie solo. Seventeen years later he introduced the extremely rare ’64 Morgan Plus Four Plus to his personal collection.
Things changed for Trask upon the unexpected death of his father, Clark Trask. According to the files on Trask, it was the discovery of a cache of letters written by his grandfather, Foster Trask, that had turned the young man around: his father was the beneficiary of shrewd, if contemptible, dealings his own father had enjoyed with the Nazis. Foster Trask was a junk man-turned-antique dealer who had buyers in Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Morocco. During the final days of the Third Reich, he had set up a small bank to channel mountains of cash from German institutions-concealed in Spanish chests, Louis XV dressers, and other pieces-to banks in South America… for a 10 percent fee, of course. The German expatriates benefited and the Trask family benefited, though young Clark was given all the credit.
Not only was Jacob Trask humiliated by his family’s close association with Hitler’s top advisors, but he was liberated by the revelation that his father was not the wunderkind investor he had pretended to be, but a front for the secret dealings of his own father. Since that discovery, Jacob Trask had used his resources to stand up for America, first against the Japanese takeover in the 1980s-when he bought an interest in every publicly traded company that mattered-then against the Saudi buying spree in the 1990s, during which he outbid the Saudis for property and corporations wherever possible, and now against the slow Chinese influx of capital. Muloni was particularly impressed as she considered what a remarkable mind Jacob Trask must possess to have foreseen that a mission like this would be necessary.
Muloni had been an active participant in the war on terror for her entire career, but now she would be on the front lines. She had a sense of being somewhat in control, which set her apart from other anxious passengers and airport workers who were looking into one another’s eyes, searching for anything foreign or dangerous.
She stopped as she entered the main terminal, looked around for a driver with a card that had her host’s name. She saw none.
After a moment of scanning the busy hall, Muloni noticed a liveried older woman approaching.
“I was afraid you had missed the flight,” she said.
“Sorry. No… I was watching the news at the gate.”
“Tragic. Just so tragic.”
Muloni nodded.
“I’m Liz,” the driver said.
“Happy to meet you.”
“Do you have any luggage, ma’am?” the driver asked.
“I don’t,” she replied.
“Will you follow me, then?” She smiled.
Muloni nodded. It was a nice smile, woman to woman, probably warmer than most new arrivals got. It was probably more than most of her passengers would have noticed. It didn’t unnerve Muloni, and it shouldn’t have surprised her that her host would have given her driver a photograph to identify the pickup. A name scrawled on a piece of cardboard was not the style of Jacob Trask.
There was no small talk. The silver-haired driver moved purposefully through the crowd; she was only about five foot two, but she had a no-nonsense stride. There was a spotless white stretch limousine at the curb, with a uniformed officer with Airport Security Services standing beside it. He wasn’t ticketing the vehicle or waiting for it to be towed. He was there so it wouldn’t be.
When the driver came through the automatic doors, the big man tipped his cap and walked away.
Clout, Muloni thought. A barrage of synonyms followed involuntarily. Influence, sway, wealth, control.
Power.
The democrat in her recoiled slightly at the thought of one man getting special treatment. But the child of a lower-middle-class home enjoyed being around it. The higher she’d risen in the CIA, the more she’d been exposed to privilege and the more she liked it. Like the reason she was here. It wasn’t just to give her a bit of control in a disordered world. It was to be part of something important, something special.
Muloni stepped into the car, filled with a feeling that was closer to resolve than to optimism.
But today that was enough.
CHAPTER 5
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Jostling through knots of confused, terrified pedestrians about a quarter mile west of the garage, Kealey and Allison saw the church a short distance ahead, its white-domed bell tower rising above Conway.
“That’s it,” Allison said, panting a little. “Sharp Street’s on the other side.”
They raced by an outdoor parking lot toward the churchyard, Kealey gripping her hand. Then he stopped abruptly a step or two past the lot’s chain-link fence. In front of him was a curbless lane running off to the right.
“What’s this road?” he asked.
“That’s the back of the original center,” Allison told him. “Events aren’t held there anymore, so I’m guessing the road’s used for deliveries.”
Kealey looked up the strip of pavement for another ten seconds or so. He noticed a car pulled parallel to the building at the end-a small black sedan. There was another vehicle in front of it, possibly another sedan. With the church partially obstructing his view, Kealey could barely see the rear bumpers or tell if either car was occupied.
“Ryan, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure wrong was the word. He could not even explain what it was about those cars that had snagged his interest, other than that he couldn’t think of a reason for them to be there. They certainly weren’t delivery vehicles, and they seemed a little too sharp, too clean to belong to staffers or folks who had come over to look for work on their day off. Anyway, why would just two cars have parked here?
“It’s nothing,” he said, nodding up the block. “Come on-we’d better hustle.”
They went on past the front churchyard, then jogged around the corner past the west gate. The smoke was thicker here, the noxious odor easily penetrating their improvised face masks. The moment they turned the corner, Kealey saw the roadway curve slightly to the left, to the mouth of what looked like a narrow ramp behind the original convention center. The second-story walkway between the old building and its extension was no more than 15 yards ahead, along with the doors Allison had told him about.
He quickened his pace, his hand firmly around Allison’s. Ten yards to go now. There were flashing red, yellow, and blue lights ahead on Pratt Street, commands from loudspeakers-indecipherable here, but probably shouting instructions to survivors. The police and firefighters themselves would be using their radios.
If not for being focused on his goal, Kealey might have instantly seen the cars shoot toward him from his right. As it was, his reaction was quick enough to avoid getting run over. He sprang out of the way as the first one barreled down the ramp in the back of the center, pulling Allison along so forcefully that she almost tripped.