Due Diligence: A Thriller (55 page)

That was his, right at the top of the list. Pride. Lyall knew it now. The things he had done, they weren’t out of greed, or envy, or out of a lust for power. He was unmoved by those. They were for pride. The sheer joy of doing things that no one else could understand, the satisfaction of weaving his web around the rules that other people had created. The pleasure of outsmarting people and seeing them fail to discern it. The sheer sinful love of being cleverer than everyone else.

And Wilson had known it. Lyall could see that now. Had recognized it, manipulated it, exploited it. His own overweening, corrupting, self-congratulating, sinful pride.

Lyall stared at the crucifix, stared hard at the downcast face of the Lord. Downcast as if in disappointment at him. In grief. My son, what have you done? Where has your pride led you? Your pride. Your pride, your pride, your pride, your pride …

He sat in a reverie of self-recrimination. The Mass had finished. Around him, the congregation shuffled out.

Still Lyall sat.

“Excuse me.”

Lyall turned with a start.

It was the priest. “I don’t mean to disturb.”

“No…” murmured Lyall. “It’s okay…”

“I don’t know who you are, my friend. This is a house of God, and you are welcome to pray, whatever your faith. I wonder, though, if you need anything more.”

Lyall stared at him, not understanding.

“To talk.”

“Oh.”

The priest gazed at him expectantly. “Are you a Catholic? Do you need to confess?”

Lyall didn’t reply.

The priest waited a moment. The way he looked at Lyall, Lyall wondered whether he knew. “The Lord forgives, my son.” He pointed at a door. “I’ll be through there if you need me.”

Lyall nodded.

The priest walked away. He opened the door and disappeared.

Lyall thought about what the priest had said. But he wasn’t a Catholic. He didn’t believe in confession. Could a few whispered words expiate what he had done? Years of pride? A whole lifetime of pride?

Lyall looked at the crucifix again.

He got up and went back to the car.

*   *   *

In his office, Lyall turned on the computer. He opened a spreadsheet and buried himself in work. Figures. Numbers. They had always comforted him. The hours passed. Gradually, outside his window, over the river and the factories, the day brightened and the sun broke through the mist. At about eight-thirty he got a call from Doug Earl to tell him the TV was being set up in the boardroom so they could watch Wilson’s press conference live on Bloomberg. Lyall put down the phone and his stomach contracted in pain. He had a terrible feeling of dread.

God wouldn’t allow it to happen. He wouldn’t allow Wilson to get away with it. He wouldn’t allow him, Lyall Gelb, to get away with it.

Lyall got out his keys and opened the locked draw under his desk. He reached for the three envelopes he had put there. He had written the letters weeks ago, and they had been in the drawer ever since, in case the time came for them. Lyall lifted them now. The feel of the envelopes gave him a kind of comfort. They were white, crisp, heavy. The edges were sharp and clean. There was a kind of purity in them. He looked at them, one after the other. One was addressed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. One to the police. One to Margaret, his wife.

61

At nine-thirty in New York, Mike Wilson was in a suite at the Four Seasons, going through the presentation with Mandy Bellinger for the last time. A couple of minutes later, just after two-thirty in the afternoon in London, a Bentley pulled up outside the Royal Gloucester Hotel and Andrew Bassett and Oliver Trewin got out. They crossed the lobby, waited at the elevators, then emerged at the mezzanine floor. They didn’t notice the two men standing near the steps to the hotel, or the man in a turtleneck sitting in the lobby in a spot from which he had a full view of everyone coming in the door, or the two men having a conversation across from the elevators on the mezzanine level, one of whom wore a long overcoat that appeared slightly too large for him.

In the Raleigh Room, Sophie Greene, the Hill Bellinger associate who had flown in for the announcement, and Francesca Dillon, the BritEnergy head of public affairs, were making sure everything was in order as the camera operators from Sky and CNN set up. The Sky team positioned themselves at the back of the room and the CNN operator selected a spot halfway to the front on the right. Francesca Dillon took Bassett and Trewin to a small waiting area behind the main room.

The camera crews were just about set. A few minutes later, Sophie Greene opened the doors of the Raleigh Room and the journalists started to arrive.

On the mezzanine level, the man in the overcoat put his right hand to an earpiece, keeping his left arm lowered so as to hide the plaster cast at his wrist. “No,” he murmured. “No sign.” He glanced at the second man, who had his eye on a couple of journalists coming out of the elevator. The other man shook his head.

Downstairs in the lobby, Nick Prinzi listened to the response and kept his eyes on the entrance. He spoke via his mouthpiece to Frank, and the man in the car opposite the side entrance, and the man posted at the back of the hotel. No one was reporting anything.

At four minutes to three, Prinzi stood up. “Anyone see anything?” He heard the negatives come in. “All right, looks like he chickened out. I’m gonna head to the room anyways, make sure he hasn’t gotten past us. Keep watching. No one comes in the room without I tell them first. Got it? Whatever happens—
no one
comes in without my word. You do that, I’ll deal with you personally. We don’t fuck this up.”

He went up the stairs and walked past the two men on the mezzanine, exchanging a glance with them as he went into the corridor. In the lobby area near the elevators, coffee and pastries were set up for afternoon breaks for groups in the other meeting rooms.

He stopped outside the Raleigh Room. “Anything? Anyone?” He listened. All negative.

“Nick.” It was Frank. “You want we should stay out here?”

“Stay until I give the word,” said Prinzi. “I’m gonna go in and make sure there aren’t any surprises.”

He walked into the Raleigh Room just before Sophie Greene closed the door for the press conference to begin.

Outside, Rob and Emmy were running.

*   *   *

They had left the hotel at ten to three, nervous as hell, but with plenty of time, to judge from their trial run the previous afternoon, to get to the Royal Gloucester, get up to the Raleigh Room, and take a seat as the conference started. He didn’t want to get there too early. They turned down into Chesterfield, just as they had done the previous time, went over Hays and over Charles. But there was some kind of blockage on Queen. Some kind of cordon. Police. No one was going through.

They turned around, back up Queen. There’d be another way. Rob still had the map he’d printed. Quickly, he tried to orient himself on it. Right and left again. Or was it left and right? He spun the map. Right and left. “This way,” he said to Emmy. They started walking. Right. Left. Then there was a dogleg, wasn’t there? They did the dogleg. They reached a cross street. Wait. This wasn’t Curzon. Suddenly he was confused. Wasn’t this meant to be Curzon?

He pulled out the map again.

“Where do we go?” said Emmy.

“I’m looking!” He could feel time ticking. He was starting to sweat. He looked around for a street sign. Shepherd Street. Where was Shepherd Street? He checked the map. They were way past Curzon! He looked at his watch. Almost three. Did they let you into press conferences if you were late? He focused on the map again, trying to figure out the quickest way. They had to go right, left, then they’d be in a big street, then left again. Right, left, left, he said to himself. “Okay.” They started walking quickly. Right left left, right left left. They turned right. Rob checked his watch. Three. He threw a glance at Emmy and started running. The big street. Left. Okay. Should be the next left. He weaved around people, trying to get past them, glancing at Emmy to make sure she was with him. Here was the left. “Come on!” he said and swung into it. There was a sign up ahead of him. Royal Gloucester. Not the entrance he knew from yesterday. Must be another one. Didn’t matter. They ran for it.

The two men stationed in the car at the side entrance were watching the corner of Curzon Street up ahead. They hardly glimpsed the two figures running from the other direction before they were past them and turning into the hotel.

They looked at each other in alarm.

“Christ … was that?” One of them pulled the lapel of his jacket up to his mouth. “This is Mick. I’m not sure, but—”

There was a tapping on the window. Mick looked around with a start.

“Can’t park here, sir,” said the traffic warden, shaking his head and wagging a finger like a schoolteacher. “No, no, no.”

Rob and Emmy ran into the lobby. “There,” said Rob. The stairs to the mezzanine were directly opposite.

They raced past a startled Japanese couple waiting for the elevators. Then onto the stairs. Emmy looked up. A man glanced down from the balcony of the mezzanine.

She knew that face. For an hour, she had sat opposite it at the point of a gun.

“Rob!” she yelled.

He looked up. There were two of them, running across the mezzanine toward the stairs.

The door of the Drake Room opened. For the hundred and fifty people who were inside, it was time for afternoon coffee.

Suddenly the mezzanine flooded with people.

Rob reached for Emmy’s hand and grabbed it as they got to the top of the stairs. They charged into the crowd, pushing people out of the way.

Prinzi’s men plunged in from the other side. People were falling, shouting. Rob pushed Emmy ahead of him, looked around, and shoved someone back into the path of one of the men. He felt a hand grab for him on the other side and he struck back hard with his elbow. There was a scream of pain. Emmy was through the crowd. “The third door!” he yelled. She ran. He looked around. One of the men was almost at him again. He felt a hand grabbing at his jacket and he chopped at it, tried to accelerate away. He could see Emmy at the door. She was opening it. The hand grabbed again, clutched him at the shoulder for a second, and then came away as the man behind him fell, throwing himself at Rob’s feet. He clipped his heel. Rob stumbled, tried to keep going, tumbling. He lunged for the door that Emmy had opened and fell into the room.

A woman standing by the door looked around angrily as Rob got to his feet. Outside, two men had pulled up at the room, panting.

“Are you coming in?” demanded Sophie Greene, the Hill Bellinger associate, in a forced whisper.

They looked at each other helplessly.

“All right,” she snapped, and closed the door.

She looked at Rob and Emmy disapprovingly, put her finger sternly to her lips, and turned away. People at the back of the room, who had been staring at them, turned their attention once more to the front. Andrew Bassett was speaking on a podium.

Finally, thought Rob, Bassett would have to listen. He took a couple of steps forward and opened his mouth to speak.

He felt something slam into his chest. It knocked him back against the door, taking the wind right out of him.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” growled a man in a suit and gray turtleneck. “Don’t be alarmed. Security.” With his free arm he grabbed Emmy around the neck and pulled her against him.

“Get off her!” cried Rob.

Emmy yelled.

The man slammed his weight into Rob again, pulling Emmy down and muffling her shouts. “No problem, ladies and gentlemen. It’s all under control.”

Faces turned. Sophie Greene stared at what was happening.

“Andrew Bassett!” Rob tried to shout. “Andrew Bass—”

The man in the gray turtleneck short-jabbed him in the face.
“Shut the fuck up!”
he hissed, teeth clenched.

“Andrew Bass— Ahhh!”

“Shut the fuck up!”
Prinzi jabbed him again, then drove his elbow into his windpipe to choke off his voice. Prinzi was a massive man and he had all his weight leveraged against him, holding onto Emmy with an ever-tighter arm around her neck as she kicked and twisted to get loose. He had Rob against the door, and at the same time he was reaching for the handle, but the door opened inward and he couldn’t get it open. “It’s all right, folks, I’m security,” he said as he struggled to do it.

“Andrew—”

Prinzi drove his elbow in again.

“Excuse me,” said one of the journalists, a big, lanky guy with unruly hair, “is that really called for?”

“If you help get this door open I’ll remove these people and you can get on with your press conference.”

“Bloggers,” muttered another journalist. “They’re probably bloggers.”

“Still, that’s fucking rough,” said the lanky journalist. “One of them’s a woman.”

Prinzi hauled them both back from the door. “Now, if you’ll just open it for me—”

Rob managed to get an arm up and hit at his face. Prinzi knocked him back, but in the process his grip on Emmy loosened. She twisted free and ran down the room. “Andrew Bassett!” she yelled, hair disheveled, jacket half ripped off her shoulders and her eyes blazing. She stopped and pointed at the back of the room. “That’s Robert Holding from Dyson Whitney. You refused to talk to him!
Andrew Bassett!
”

Bassett looked at her in confusion. He had stopped speaking. There was silence. Emmy realized that every eye in the room was on her.

Suddenly Emmy saw that she was standing beside a television camera. She grabbed the end of it and swung it around. “Film him! Film that man!” she yelled at the startled CNN cameraman.

At the back of the room, Nick Prinzi still held Rob with an elbow to his neck. Now he found himself looking straight down the barrel of a television camera. Flashes started to go off from photographers in the room. He took his hands off Rob and backed away.

Rob came forward. The journalists watched him. The only interruption to the silence came from the click of cameras.

“I’m Robert Holding from Dyson Whitney,” he said loudly. Then he repeated it. “Andrew Bassett, I’m Robert Holding from Dyson Whitney.”