Reckless Page 15

  Thibault started walking the other way to the south.

  Across the street, Hauck followed, several paces behind.

  He had left the office early, telling Brooke he had some errands to attend to. He felt a little out of practice at what he was doing. He hadn’t done this kind of thing in years.

  On Fifty-fourth, Thibault stopped in front of a store window, seeming to admire a tie. Then he continued, taking a call on his cell. On Fifty-third Street he made a right, heading west. Hauck crossed after him, hunching into his jacket against the rain, twenty yards behind.

  Tall, swarthy, with thick, black hair that came over his collar, Thibault cut a commanding presence. It wasn’t hard to see why women might be drawn to him. Halfway down the block he veered into a recessed courtyard set between two larger buildings. It looked like a restaurant. He opened the glass doors and went inside.

  The place was called Alto. Hauck had heard of it. Italian, fancy. The kind of place his boss, Foley, was always trying to drag him to. Annie would have been impressed.

  He went up to the door, and through the glass, he saw Thibault remove his coat and hand it to a pretty hostess. It looked as if they were familiar with him there. He seemed to recognize someone at the bar and went straight up to him.

  Hauck waited as Thibault greeted the man and took a seat, and then stepped in.

  “Dining with us tonight?” The hostess, a twentysomething gal in a sexy black dress, smiled from behind a counter.

  Hauck smiled back. “Just meeting a friend at the bar.”

  Thibault was seated at the far end of the crowded bar. His friend, who was Mediterranean looking, wore a nicely tailored sport jacket and open white shirt.

  Hauck found a nook at the opposite end. The female bartender came up and he ordered a beer. Something Belgian. Palm. For the occasion. Through the maze of shifting bodies and faces, he watched them.

  The two appeared to be friends. Even over the loud din, Hauck occasionally heard Thibault’s deep-throated laugh. He’d gotten a drink—it looked like vodka—and he shifted the stool around and sat, his back to Hauck, chatting with his friend. They clinked glasses, Thibault patting him affectionately on the shoulder.

  Hauck knew he was crossing the line. He had resolved not to accelerate the situation but to find out whatever he could, and at the same time, he knew this would send Foley off the deep end. But Thibault was clearly concealing something, and whatever it was, Hauck felt certain it led back to Glassman and Donovan. On his cell, he snapped a photo of them through the crowd. When the time came, maybe he’d have something he could give to Naomi or Chrisafoulis.

  With a cherry on top.

  Thibault signaled for another drink. When he turned, there was a moment when it was almost as if the man’s eyes shifted down the bar and, through the crowd of faces, locked directly on Hauck. Their gazes met momentarily.

  Hauck took a sip and glanced away. A shiver traveled down his spine. Don’t be careless. Whatever you do.

  A moment later the hostess came up and told them their table was ready. Thibault threw out some bills, signaled for the drinks to be sent directly. He let his companion proceed first, with a pat to his back, then followed as the hostess led them both upstairs.

  Hauck watched them disappear, then slipped out of his spot at the bar and went over to where Thibault had been sitting. The female bartender tried to clear off his space. Hauck reached for the empty glass.

  “Mind if I take this?” He winked. “Souvenir.”

  The bartender hesitated at first, her eyes darting past Hauck, maybe to search out someone in charge, not sure.

  Hauck put a fifty on the bar. “This ought to cover, right?”

  Her eyes grew wide, and she started clearing off the remaining glasses and napkins, raking in the bill. She nodded. “Ought to cover it just fine.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Thomas Keaton, secretary of the treasury, to whom the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence reported, was able to spare Naomi and Rob Whyte, her boss, just ten minutes. That was all. He had a meeting at the AG’s office. Naomi and Rob literally rushed over to the main building, making some last-second copies, files in hand. She had shared what she knew with her boss, and he decided it was worth the call.

  She was a little nervous. This was by far the most sensitive investigation of her career. She had looked into some of the notable hedge fund frauds and the possible dealings of an Iranian bank to dump dollars through the Middle East, trying to drive the currency down, but never anything like this. The stock market was down 30 percent since the beginning of March. Two of the world’s largest investment banks had failed. Two more, Citi and Bank of America, had plummeted into single digits. Not to mention Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which were reeling.

  And now she could pretty much prove that the deaths of two rogue traders, traders whose losses had sunk their banks, were, in fact, not unrelated incidents but connected.

  The whole thing was one large domino effect, and she felt she knew exactly the point where it all started.

  At this point, whatever “evidence” she had, at least from a prosecutorial point of view, was, at best, flimsy. No more than a weak connection between a shadowy individual and the traders who had suddenly died. Looking deeper would have to involve other agencies. The FBI, the SEC, the AG’s office, maybe Interpol. They had to find out who Thibault really was. Who his contacts were. Whether there were any deeper involvements with the two dead traders. Whether money had changed hands. And most likely without taking him into custody. The cryptic message delivered to Marty al-Bashir that had sat on her desk without any apparent meaning now tolled in her brain like a warning bell.

  The planes are in the air.

  The secretary’s office was at a corner of Treasury’s vast limestone building overlooking the Washington Mall. Naomi had never even been to this part of the building before. Timeless portraits of past secretaries and historic figures lined the mahogany-paneled halls. Hamilton. Chase. Morgenthau. Baker.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Rob said as they sat outside the suite waiting. “If you happen to be wrong on this, I can always land a job as a regional bank auditor in northern Montana.”

  Naomi nodded, adjusting her suit. “Hopefully, you’ll need a secretary there.”

  The door opened and Keaton’s secretary came out. “The secretary will see you now.”

  Whyte stood up. Let out a breath. “More like a snow blower.”

  They stepped into the large, window-lined office. Keaton, in a pinstripe suit and with a shock of white hair, came around to what seemed the mother of all conference tables, and just to add to the effect, the Washington Monument was clearly visible through the window. Naomi swallowed. No pressure here. The head of the Treasury had been at Justice, not to mention his highly regarded career as a Wall Street deal maker. Naomi had met him once briefly when he set up their task force and visited them across the street.

  “Ms. Blum,” he said, nodding cordially but not shaking her hand. “Rob. I asked Mitch Hastings to sit in, if that’s alright with you?”

  It wasn’t meant as a question. Hastings was the no-nonsense chief counsel to the Treasury Department. She had seen him in the background at the hedge fund CEO and auto bailout congressional hearings.

  “Of course.” Whyte nodded. “Mitch…” The lawyer smiled back tightly and indifferently.

  Naomi bit her bottom lip and took a breath. Here goes…

  “I’m afraid I have to be at the AG’s office in ten minutes.” Keaton glanced at his watch and then at Whyte. “So I’ll ask you to start right in.”

  “Mr. Secretary,” Rob said, “Naomi’s come up with a few things. Things we think you ought to be aware of.”

  The treasury secretary sat down directly across from her, nodding peremptorily. “Alright.”

  Two of the most influential figures in the government had their gazes directly on her.

  “A few months back”—Naomi cleared her throat and remove
d a file from out of her bag—“a phone transcript landed on my desk. From the NSA. The text of a call between a well-known Bahraini financial figure, Hassan ibn Hassani, who is suspected of passing funds to certain organizations that appeared on the Terrorist Watch List, and an investment manager in London. A Saudi named Mashhur al-Bashir—Marty al-Bashir, as he’s known in the trade. He’s currently the chief investment officer of the Royal Saudi Partnership.”

  Thomas Keaton folded his hands in front of his face. “I’m familiar with his name.”

  “The transcript,” Naomi said, her leg racing under the table, “referred to some kind of ‘change in direction’ for their strategy. If al-Bashir was to be involved I can only assume it meant a change in investment policy. Why a Bahraini financier would be discussing this with him, we don’t know. But the conversation concluded with a bit of a concerning statement—‘the planes are in the air.’”

  The treasury secretary raised his eyes. His gaze shifted to Naomi’s boss, Whyte. “This conversation was a couple of months back?”

  Whyte nodded. “Yes, in March, sir.”

  “So clearly there were no ‘planes.’” The treasury secretary exhaled. “At least in the most ominous sense, thank God.”

  Naomi cleared her throat. “I’m not so sure.”

  Keaton looked back at her. “Go on.”

  “February eighth was a Sunday,” Naomi said, drawing their attention to the next exhibit. “Beginning the following Monday, February ninth, our analysts who track this sort of thing indicate the Royal Saudi Partnership began to systematically divest itself of its positions in U.S. stocks, starting with its positions in the financial sector—which, as you can imagine, were quite sizable—and this had the effect of driving these stocks down. I won’t waste your time on it here”—Naomi flipped over a page—“but I can chart how the decline in these stocks originated from this particular point and how it weighed on the market as a whole. What it started was a worldwide sell-off in stocks.”

  “Helped along, I could add,” Hastings, the secretary’s counsel, countered, “by a wide array of factors.”

  “Yes, sir,” Naomi said, “no doubt. That’s precisely what I came here to discuss.”

  She opened another file and got up, placing hastily made copies in front of the two Treasury figures. She explained that it was nothing she could be 100 percent firm on yet, just the most circumstantial links between Thibault, as mapped out by the person she had interviewed, Ty Hauck, and the two traders who had suspiciously died. Traders whose concealed losses were of such a size they were the death knells of Wertheimer Grant and Beeston Holloway, dragging the rest of the financial markets to the edge.

  “And we all know where that has led,” Naomi finished up.

  “You’re suggesting there’s a possible criminal connection between these two investment managers’ deaths?” Keaton drew in a hesitant breath, paging through Naomi’s exhibits.

  “I’m saying that’s possible, sir,” Naomi said.

  “And that it’s somehow tied back to this Mashhur al-Bashir. Through this figure Thibault? Why?”

  “I’m just forwarding a theory, sir. One of our jobs is to put together possible unmaterialized threats and anticipate what might happen next.”

  “Yes, yes.” Keaton rolled his hand, fast-forwarding. “Go on.”

  “Okay.” Naomi took a breath. Here goes…“What if there were people on an organized basis, people of influence,” she suggested, “who wanted to do our country systemic harm, using a new strategy, a ‘change in direction,’ as they referred to it.” She steeled herself. “Not by flying a plane through our tallest buildings, like before, but by driving one, figuratively, sir, through the heart of our most vital national asset. The root of everything we stand for.”

  Keaton narrowed his eyes at her. Naomi had no idea if he was buying it.

  “The economy, sir,” she said. “The amount of economic wealth we have lost since the downturn, not to mention the unrest of our citizens, is impossible to measure. One could trace the start of the slide, I believe, to these two Wall Street investment houses going down.”

  The treasury secretary’s face began to whiten, almost matching his hair. He nodded soberly, glancing at his chief counsel, and seemed to draw his words with care. “But who would possibly gain? We are in a global economy. Every stock exchange around the world is reeling from the decline. Oil is selling at less than half what it once was. It would be economic suicide.”

  Naomi shrugged, anticipating the question. “I don’t know that yet.”

  “And you think there’s a chance this Thibault person might be somehow at the heart of this scheme?”

  “I’m saying it’s possible, sir, yes.”

  Keaton leaned back in his seat. “What do we know about him?”

  “His past is a bit vague, sir. He has a Dutch passport. It’s entirely possible he holds multiple passports. This ex-detective I mentioned, Hauck, he’s done some preliminary investigation through his firm and he seems to think he may, in fact, be Serbian.”

  “Serbian?” The secretary’s eyes widened. He leafed through Naomi’s exhibits. “Do we have the findings of this firm?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think we can go there, at least not right now. It seems someone has been trying to push Hauck off his investigation. And it’s possible, I only say possible,” Naomi added, knowing she was rolling the dice here, “his own firm may be somehow complicit in this.”

  Keaton looked up. “Run that one by me again.”

  “It seems they represent other parties,” Naomi said, “who might have a vested interest in this story not coming to light.”

  “Other parties?” Now the treasury secretary’s gaze grew heated. “Other parties such as whom, Ms. Blum?”

  “Such as Reynolds Reid, sir. I’m told they’re seeking to pick up some of Wertheimer Grant’s operations…”

  “Yes, we’re involved in those negotiations. For Christ’s sake, what’s the name of this security firm?”

  “The Talon Group,” answered Naomi.

  “Talon?” Keaton swallowed, concerned. “You must be kidding. They’re all over this fucking town.”

  Keaton stared blankly back at her and pushed back his chair. His eyes flicked to his watch. He gritted his teeth.

  Naomi glanced at Whyte, wondering if he was asking himself the same thing—whether they should both be making their reservations to Missoula around now.

  “This doesn’t get out!” The head of the Treasury looked at Hastings peremptorily. “Not to the FBI, not to Justice. And for God’s sake, not to the press. Until we have more. Agent Blum, you’ve done a creditable job on this. You can engage whatever means necessary with respect to these two traders’ untimely deaths to find out whatever you can on this Thibault figure.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ll authorize a probe by NSA. Maybe there’s been some direct contact between him and this Marty figure, the Saudi fund manager. Or that Bahraini, Hassani…”

  Naomi looked toward her boss, pleased. “I’m already on that, sir.”

  “And maybe this Hauck might prove useful. You say he’s an ex-detective. How the hell did he ever get himself involved in this situation in the first place?”

  “Marc Glassman’s wife, who was killed along with her husband at their house in Greenwich…” Naomi shrugged. “Apparently, she was a friend of his. He was looking into her death on the side and became doubtful it was part of a burglary break-in. It was simply a coincidence that his security firm got him involved in probing into Thibault on a personal matter.”

  “A personal matter?” The treasury secretary pushed back his chair, standing up. “Well, it seems we’re damn lucky if you ask me. Just following up on the death of a friend…What is the man, some kind of white knight?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Naomi said, suppressing a slight smile.

  “Well, he’s about to get his armor dinged a bit if this turns out to be true. Give me something to go on,
Agent Blum. Find out who Thibault is. Just keep it, for now, under the radar. I don’t want this out.” He headed around to his desk. Naomi assembled her files to leave. “And Agent Blum…”

  “Sir?” Naomi turned.

  The treasury secretary smiled. “Good job.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  A rush of relief mixed with exhilaration followed Naomi all the way back to her office. She almost felt lifted off her heels.

  “Good job,” Rob Whyte said, exhaling, as they crossed M Street to their building.

  “Cancel that reservation then?” she replied playfully. “To northern Montana?”

  He patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t we just see how it goes?”

  When she got back to her office, Naomi stepped behind her desk. Files on various cases she was looking into were piled high. Thick, bound reports as high as the slit in the basement wall they called a half window.

  Maybe she’d work her way up to a full window soon.

  Her assistant, Talia, came in after her expectantly. “So how did it go?”

  “Well”—Naomi blew out her cheeks in mock relief—“I’m still here!” Of course, she hadn’t told Talia what her meeting had been about.

  “This came for you while you were out.” Talia dropped a FedEx carton on her desk.

  The sender’s address read Greenwich, Connecticut.

  “Thanks.”

  Naomi waited for her to leave, then slit open the top of the heavily taped carton. She took out a large plastic bag, and sealed in it, protected carefully in bubble wrap, was a clear drinking glass, like a lowball glass.

  There was a note attached. Naomi opened it.

  Compliments of Dani Thibault, it was signed. Then underlined: Go to town!

  Naomi smiled.

  She knew exactly who it was from. This would get the ball rolling.

  And underneath, the white knight had written, underlined again, Have you thought it over yet?