The Protégé Page 20

  “I’ve got to talk to you about some of these reps and warranties Maddox wants in the Hush-Hush purchase agreement.”

  “Is it that urgent?”

  “He really wants to—”

  Gillette’s phone beeped, indicating another call. “I’ve got to take this, David. We’ll talk when I get to the office in a few minutes.” He switched over. “Hello.”

  “Christian, it’s Daniel Ganze.”

  “Yes,” Gillette said, dropping the folded newspaper on the seat between Stiles and him.

  “You can call Marilyn McRae now,” Ganze said simply, relaying a number that Gillette jotted down. “She’s really looking forward to talking to you. Also, I should have more on your father tomorrow, or maybe Monday.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We’ll be speaking to you next week about the move north as well. Understood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, talk to you then.”

  Gillette stared straight ahead for a few moments after Ganze hung up, then looked down at the Los Angeles telephone number. It was shaking in his fingers.

  “You okay, Chris?” Stiles asked.

  “Fine,” he answered, slipping the number into his wallet.

  “Not even going to give me a clue about what’s up? I mean, I didn’t ask why we had to do all the CIA-wheelman driving this morning on the way to the airport, and I didn’t ask who it was you went to see in Richmond. I figured all that was business. But this is personal, I can tell by the look on your face. What was that call about?”

  “It was one of the guys I saw in Washington yesterday,” Gillette answered, his voice raspy. “He called to give me my blood mother’s telephone number. Like I told you he was going to.”

  “Oh.” Stiles looked away.

  Gillette could tell Stiles was disappointed that something tangible had come of the Washington trip. Stiles didn’t trust these guys. “I’ll tell you how the call goes after I talk to her.”

  “Thanks. I’d like that.”

  When Gillette reached his office, he pulled Marilyn McRae’s telephone number from his wallet, put it on his desk, and stared. A lifetime he’d been waiting for this, he thought as he eased into his chair. A lifetime he’d thought it would never happen, and now here it was, thanks to Boyd and Ganze. Who were these guys?

  “Christian.”

  Allison. She was leaning into the office. Debbie must have gone to the ladies’ room and left the door unguarded. She usually didn’t leave until seven, and it wasn’t even six yet. “Hi.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Um, yeah.” He slid a manila folder over Marilyn’s number as Allison closed the door, then came in and sat in the chair in front of his desk. “What is it?”

  “I wanted to let you know that Jack called me this afternoon, and he’s very excited about working with you. To quote. He believes a Veramax-Everest partnership would be ‘unstoppable.’ ”

  “Jack’s a salesman.”

  “Sure, but all you care about is that he’s retaining counsel so he can start drafting documents for your investment. And he’s almost finished writing that apology letter to Rothchild for keeping him out of the Racquet Club. He’s doing what you told him to do. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Gillette couldn’t stop thinking about how easily Mitchell had climbed on board the Everest train. How he hadn’t negotiated at all. And how Veramax’s bread-and-butter products—aspirin, nose drops, and cold medicine—were perfect nanotech delivery options. His mind was becoming cluttered with puzzle pieces he hoped wouldn’t fit together. “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t get so excited.”

  “Do you think it’s strange that he didn’t negotiate with me at all?”

  Allison shook her head. “Nope. I’ve known Jack a long time. He’s a very gut-feel kind of guy. He liked you right away at dinner last night, I could tell. He must have liked your proposal, too.”

  “Mmm.” Deals rarely went down like this.

  “Jack talked to that friend of his again, too. The guy who owns the leasing company. He must have given you a great report because the guy wants to see you as soon as possible. I did some number crunching this afternoon while you were gone, and it’s an even better fit with our company in Atlanta than I first thought.”

  Allison Wallace was a deal hound, and Gillette loved it. “Great. Talk to Debbie and set it up. It would be better if he could come here. But if not, I’ll go back to Pittsburgh.”

  “Okay. By the way, where were you today?” she asked.

  “Looking at a company.”

  Allison crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back into the chair. “Remember we talked about full disclosure the other night?”

  “Sure.”

  “That explanation didn’t sound like full disclosure. How about some more specifics? I am your partner.”

  Gillette picked up a pen and tapped it impatiently on the desk. “Look, I’m not going to tell you about every step I take during the day. I don’t have time to keep you up to speed on every detail.”

  “Details, details,” she repeated slowly. “You mean like when you have your security guy check with people I know to see if I’m a coke fiend?”

  Gillette’s eyes snapped to Allison’s.

  “The least you could have done was let me know what was going on,” she kept going. “You didn’t like it when People put you in that article without telling you. And that was good pub.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “So I sniffed a little over my cheeseburger,” she continued, her voice rising. “I told you, I have allergies.”

  “I know.”

  “But you didn’t take my word for it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” she said, putting a hand to her ear. “I don’t think I heard you.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “That’s it? That’s all I get? An ‘I’m sorry’?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to go out on the boat with you this weekend.”

  Gillette pursed his lips. “How did you hear about that?”

  “I overheard Faraday on the phone talking about it.” She hesitated. “So, do I get to go?”

  “First, I want to hear about those conditions you have.”

  “Conditions?”

  “Yeah, what you’d need from me to join Everest full time.”

  MCGUIRE REGAINED consciousness to a panoramic view of the stars, the loud roar of engines, the smell of salt air mixing with exhaust, and a throbbing pain at the back of his neck. He tried to move his hands, but they were secured tightly behind his back.

  The engines droned on a bit longer, then he heard them power down, then shut off completely.

  McGuire heard voices as the fishing boat drifted silently through the water, waves lapping at its hull, then he saw shadowy figures standing above him.

  “Who are you?” he asked. But they ignored him as they bound his ankles together tightly with wire. He didn’t fight them; that would have been useless. His wrists were tied, and there were at least four of them. His best chance was to cooperate. “Talk to me, come on.”

  A moment later, two of the men hoisted him to his feet while another cut the rope binding his wrists.

  “Now we’re making some progress,” he said to the one closest to him. “So, what’s going on here?”

  Suddenly two of the men grabbed his right arm and pinned it to a chopping block used for cutting bait. A third man snatched a meat cleaver off the fishing chair and slammed it down on McGuire’s wrist.

  McGuire screamed insanely, his body coursing with pain, his mind shuddering with anguish. He staggered backward as the two men who’d pinned his arm to the chopping block bent and picked up a huge anchor lying on the deck. Straining against the weight, they lugged it to the side of the boat. With a massive effort, they lifted it over the side and threw it in the ocean. It splashed loudly, disappearing into the black water, and a coil of rope began whipping after it over
the side.

  McGuire realized instantly that the other end of the rope was attached to his ankles, and he reached out with his left hand for the man standing next to him, but he was too late. The rope snapped tight around his ankles, sending him crashing to the deck, then yanking him over the side. He grabbed an aft cleat as he was going over, holding on with everything he had against the tremendous force pulling at his legs. One of the men moved to the cleat and with a grim look began peeling away the fingers of McGuire’s left hand.

  As he was about to go down, McGuire looked up into the face, expecting to see the man from the beach. But it wasn’t him, it was someone else. Someone he recognized.

  “You fucking—”

  But that was all he got out before his hand wrenched free and he splashed into the water. He screamed as the anchor dragged him toward the depths, his voice muffled by the water. He thrashed, trying desperately to pull himself to the surface, but there was no chance; the weight was much too heavy. For a few moments, he could see the lights of the boat through the dark water, but then, as he passed fifty feet below the surface, everything faded.

  GILLETTE SAT on his patio, looking out over Central Park from high above. It was a beautiful early autumn evening. Crystal clear with a chill and the wisp of wood smoke wafting over Manhattan as people with fireplaces took advantage of the first wave of cool temperatures.

  He reached for the cordless phone on the table and dialed Marilyn’s number. He didn’t need the piece of paper anymore. He’d looked at it so many times, he could have dialed the number backward.

  “Hello.”

  “Marilyn?”

  “Yes?” Her voice was already shaking.

  “It’s Christian Gillette.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  And then he heard sobs as he’d never heard sobs before.

  PAUL POINTED a finger into Wright’s cheek on the darkened street in front of his apartment building. “That better not ever happen again, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I told you, goddamn it. I have to know where Gillette is at all times.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All times!”

  “Yes, sir.” This was way out of control, Wright thought. Maybe he ought to go down to the local precinct and turn himself in. In the long run, he’d probably be safer.

  11

  “DO YOU MIND if I smoke?” Russell Hughes asked, reaching for a pack of Marlboros in his jacket pocket.

  Gillette and Wright were sitting in Hughes’s office, going through the Apex portfolio company by company with him, asking the tough questions. Gillette wanted to squeeze as much information out of Hughes as possible before he sank a billion dollars into another private equity firm. There was always the chance Hughes would slip up and give away something about Apex that would make Gillette back off the deal.

  The truth was, Gillette hated cigarette and cigar smoke, though he liked the smell of a pipe—his father had smoked a pipe. But Hughes was under a huge amount of stress, so he allowed the man his vice. “It’s all right.”

  Wright’s cell phone went off suddenly, ejecting a loud, shrill whistle throughout the room.

  “Jesus, David,” Gillette snapped, “turn that damn thing off.”

  Wright already had it out of his pocket and was staring at the number. “I’ve gotta take this,” he muttered, getting up and hurrying from the room.

  Gillette watched him go, irritated. Wright still had a thing or two to learn.

  “Can we talk, just the two of us?” Hughes asked when Wright was gone. Hughes’s eyes were rimmed with fatigue. “I’m sure David’s a bright young man, but I’d rather report to you. We’re closer in age, and I feel like I—”

  “Russell,” Gillette said gently, “save it. David’s going to be running Apex. Full stop. Got it?”

  Hughes nodded.

  “I know this is difficult for you, but that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  “Okay,” Hughes agreed quietly.

  Gillette picked up the next company file off the stack—marked “XT Pharmaceuticals”—and began browsing through it. “This is one of your better investments,” he said, not waiting for Wright to come back in. He had a lunch at one, it was already past eleven, and they still had twelve companies to go through. “It’s a solid company, growing, with good cash flow.”

  “It’s a very solid company,” Hughes agreed. “So solid even the damn government’s interested in it.”

  Gillette stopped scanning. “What do you mean?”

  “There were some guys up from D.C. a while ago who wanted to use it as a cutout for a new technology they were trying to hide. Typical DOD clandestine ops kind of crap, but I called my contact at the CIA, and he said to stay away from them. I’m glad I did, too. They wanted me to sign some bullshit confidentiality agreement that could have put me in San Quentin doing hard time for the rest of my life if I’d sneezed the wrong way.”

  Gillette stared at Hughes for a few moments, then looked down, trying not to give away his shock. “What’s ‘a while ago’?”

  “Few weeks.”

  “Did they tell you what kind of technology it was?”

  “They made it seem like the biggest thing since electricity, but they didn’t get into any specifics. It’s probably all just hype, but like I said, I called my guy at the CIA and that was that. So I’m not sure if it was real or not.”

  “How do you have a CIA contact?”

  Hughes fidgeted uncomfortably. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell anyone about this. It’s classified.”

  “You want to keep your job?” Gillette asked. He didn’t like to be this way, but he needed the information. Now.

  Hughes nodded.

  “Then tell me.”

  “Look, you can’t say anything about this.”

  At that moment, Wright opened the door and stepped back into the office.

  “David,” Gillette said, “leave us alone for a few minutes.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll let you know when you can come back in.”

  “Chris, I—”

  “David!”

  Wright stalked out, shutting the door hard.

  Gillette turned back around to face Hughes. “Tell me about your CIA contact, Russell.”

  Hughes took a measured breath. “Are you familiar with cutouts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s why I have a CIA contact. One of our portfolio companies is a cutout.”

  “Which one?”

  “The last one on the list.” Hughes pointed at a piece of paper that had the names of every Apex portfolio company on it. “The information technology company.”

  “Omega IT?” Gillette asked.

  “Yeah. Omega does IT consulting for financial institutions all over the world, including the Middle East. While the Omega people are installing and updating computer systems, they add a few extra options the customers don’t know about. Options that let people in Washington watch money come and go.”

  “To track terrorist money,” Gillette spoke up. “Probably al-Qaeda in particular.”

  “You got it.”

  “But why would Middle Eastern banks let a U.S. company do their IT work? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “They don’t know it’s a U.S. company. With the CIA’s help, we’ve set up an elaborate corporate structure that winds its way through dummy relationships in Belgium and France and hides the ultimate ownership very effectively.”

  “I want to talk to your CIA contact,” Gillette said tersely.

  “If you’re going to buy Apex, you’ll have to talk to him. About Omega. In fact, he’ll demand to talk to you. I’ll set that meeting up right before we close the deal, when we’re certain everything’s a go.”

  What Gillette wanted to talk to Hughes’s CIA contact about had nothing to do with Omega IT. “I don’t want to wait that long. Set it up as soon as possible.”

  “WHAT HAPPENED back there, Chris
?” Wright demanded. They were heading back to Everest in the limousine. “Why did you make me stay out of the room for the rest of the meeting?”

  “Russell and I got into some sensitive issues about a few of the Apex employees. Severance. Stuff like that.”

  “Shouldn’t I be in on those discussions if I’m going to run Apex?” Wright asked, his voice rising.

  “Calm down, David, there’s no reason to get upset.”

  “I’m not getting upset, I’m just trying to understand. Am I still going to run Apex?”

  Gillette said nothing as he scrolled through e-mails on his Blackberry. At this point, he needed to have direct contact with Hughes, and he didn’t want Wright trying to find out why.

  “Chris?”

  Still nothing.

  “Chris?”

  “Russell is going to report to me for a while, until we’ve had a chance to understand exactly what we have at Apex.”

  “What the hell happened? I thought I was the man.”

  “I made a decision, David. I’ll let you know when you’re going to take over. It’ll probably be a few weeks. For now, concentrate on Hush-Hush.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “I’ll concentrate all right.”

  “CHRIS.”

  Gillette looked up from his computer at Debbie. “Yes?”

  “I know this sounds crazy, but there’s a woman in the lobby who says she’s your mother.”

  After talking for two hours last night, Gillette and Marilyn McRae had ended their conversation with a promise to get together next week. He’d told her he’d come to Los Angeles after finishing his business in Las Vegas and they’d have dinner. So it couldn’t be her. Gillette stepped out from behind his desk and started to follow Debbie to the lobby. Then it hit him. Lana.

  “HEY, POP.” Christian rose from the lumpy living room couch and moved toward his frail grandfather. Pop was shuffling in from the kitchen, pulling his blue oxygen tank behind him like a long-in-the-tooth hound dog on a leash. A lifetime in the coal mines of western Pennsylvania and thirty years of Camel no-filters had left him without much in the way of lungs.

  “Let me help you,” Christian offered, holding out his arm and guiding the old man to the couch. “How you feeling today?” They sat beside each other, Christian’s palm resting atop his grandfather’s gnarled fingers.