“Septimus,” he called. “I’m here.”
“Come on back. You can’t miss me.”
Astor walked to the end of a short corridor, where an open door admitted a stream of light. Reventlow sat behind an unassuming desk. There was a bookshelf behind him and a small table to one side. A window looked over the roof of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“Glad you could make it,” said Reventlow. “Sorry to make you come so far uptown this time of day.”
“Cutting it close,” said Astor.
“I have your account details in my system. My banker is expecting my call. Any change in the position?”
“No.”
“So you’re amenable to taking the full three hundred million dollars?”
“We don’t need quite that much to meet the margin call, but we’ll take it for a cushion. You sure you want to do this?”
“Are you sure the yuan is going to depreciate?”
Astor stood up and walked around the room. He didn’t answer Reventlow. The truth was that he wasn’t sure about anything anymore, least of all whether the Chinese government was going to devalue its currency, as Magnus Lee had promised. If the China Investment Corporation did in fact have something to do with his father’s death, and therefore with the attack that Palantir (and Edward Astor) believed was imminent-whatever it was-Lee could not be trusted. For the first time, Bobby Astor had come to see himself as part of the plan. He didn’t know how or why. He only knew that there was a degree of interconnectivity that defied coincidence or happenstance. His malaise was only compounded by Septimus Reventlow’s continued desire to invest $300 million in Comstock.
“You know,” said Astor, “you never told me where the Reventlow family earned its money.”
“A long story,” said Reventlow. “Past history. No time to go into it now. Did you bring the paperwork?”
“In my briefcase,” said Astor. “I just need a few signatures. Did the money come from Germany?”
“Partly, but from before Germany became Germany. You might call it Prussian with a dash of White Russian. Berlin by way of Kiev. Dynasties long since dismantled and consigned to the scrap heap.”
“I didn’t realize it was only you running things here. No secretary?”
“I prefer to see to all administrative details.” Reventlow motioned toward his phone. “I think I should make the call.”
Astor stopped pacing. It came to him that Reventlow was the more nervous of the two. His normally ashen countenance was flushed. Despite the air-conditioning, perspiration dampened his forehead. Then again, thought Astor, he stood to lose quite a bit of money if Comstock went belly-up.
The shelves behind Reventlow were decorated with a dozen Lucite tombstones, mostly small mounted mementos of completed financial transactions. Astor studied them, interested to learn what other investments Reventlow had made, besides pouring $300 million into a wobbly hedge fund. His eye stopped on the third tombstone. For the second time in an hour, he felt as if he’d been struck in the chest by a baseball bat.
“What do you know about these guys?” he asked.
Reventlow took the tombstone that commemorated the purchase of Britium Technologies by Watersmark Partners. “I have a substantial investment in Watersmark. They send me one for every deal.”
“Every one?”
“Yes.”
“What about Silicon Solutions? Watersmark was involved with that transaction, too, weren’t they?” Astor found the tombstone buried among the others. Before he could comment, his phone vibrated against his leg. “Excuse me, I need to check this.” The message from Marv Shank read, “Getting our money? Hey, two FBI agents just came in looking for you. Janet McVeigh wants you to report to her at 26 Federal Plaza by five or else she’s going to issue a warrant for your arrest. Call me when you leave RCH.”
“Important news?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
Astor set down the tombstone. “You work with Oak Leaf Ventures, too?”
“Sit down, Bobby.”
Astor took a seat.
Reventlow steepled his fingers. “What is it you think you know?”
“First off, that I don’t need your money.”
“That’s too bad. You’re going to accept it.”
“So you’re in on this?”
“Yes, Bobby. I’m in on this. And so were you, the moment you accepted our money.”
“Why did you kill my father?”
“I had nothing to do with it. The Secret Service killed him, and no one will ever prove otherwise.”
“Because of Britium?”
“Not because of Britium-with Britium’s help. The Empire Platform is the greatest weapon that has ever been invented. Forget the nuclear bomb. Why wipe out a city when we can take over an entire country without anyone’s even knowing it?”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“If you know about Watersmark and Oak Leaf, you already have the answer.”
“It isn’t a coincidence that the China Investment Corporation is on the same floor.”
“No.”
“And you…you’re not Chinese.”
“In fact I am. I wasn’t lying about the Russian ties. My grandfather was Count Radzinsky. He went to Shanghai to escape the purges after the White Russian army was defeated in the revolution. I inherited more of his genes than I would have liked. When it was decided that I would come to America, I had surgery to help things along.”
“Ray Nossey told me that the Empire Platform was invulnerable to hacking.”
“For the most part it is. That’s why we like it so much.”
“But then…”
“How do we manipulate it? Through people like you and your friends at Watersmark and Oak Leaf. You know already that the CIC owns between thirty and forty-five percent of both, as well as several other private equity firms. Enough to exert some control inside the boardroom. Not enough to be visible outside it. We influence Watersmark or Oak Leaf or the others to purchase companies whose products and technology use Britium’s products, especially the Empire Platform. Once we take control of the company, we use our insider status to legitimately gain access to the source code controlling the products. Buying Britium itself was the pièce de résistance.”
“And then?”
Reventlow smiled, as if he’d escaped a simple ploy.
“I take it Mr. Hong is a friend?” said Astor.
“Herbert? A brilliant man. On the record, he works for Watersmark. But each day he goes to work in Britium’s office. Each day he has free, unfettered access to every system using Britium’s technology.”
“Like giving a thief the keys to your house.”
Astor thought about the companies whose annual reports he’d found at Penelope Evans’s home. Between them, they manufactured power plants, communications satellites, missiles used by the navy and air force, and much, much more. He’d been right to suspect that the private equity firms were the common factor, just in a different way than he had imagined.
“The Flash Crash back in July of 2011-was that you?”
“A test to see if our theory was viable. It was. Frighteningly so. We had to scramble to patch things up and cover our tracks. We certainly didn’t want a full-scale meltdown-then.”
“Was Feudal you, too?” Astor was referring to a recent incident involving Feudal Trading, a bank that had lost over $500 million in the course of three hours when it accidentally uploaded a faulty algorithm into its trading software.