Full Circle (9 page)

Peter's features cleared somewhat. “Have you indeed?”

“One is a German company. Herrstadt.”

Joshua rose from his chair. “Spell that.”

Adam did so. Joshua stepped in beside his chairman and typed into the computer. Joshua read off the screen, “Herrstadt's specialty is structural engineering. Traded on the Frankfurt exchange. Three hundred million euro turnover.” Joshua glanced up. “Their stock is down forty-one percent for the year. Hardly a ringing endorsement.”

Adam replied, “Herrstadt specializes in overseas public works projects. Bridges, roads, sewage systems. They won a major contract for rebuilding Basra, the main port city in Iraq. Four months ago, their two top engineers were kidnapped. Their men were freed, but the company has since pulled out of the country. They lost a ton in retainer, and they had no project to take up the slack. It's put them in the red for the year. They're listed on the Frankfurt exchange. Their stock tanked.”

Joshua stood by the computer. He wore what was apparently his standard uniform of white shirt, dark pants, dark tie. His face was as starched and narrow as his clothes. “This is a reason to invest in them?”

“Before the civil crisis, they were the largest road builders in the Congo.”

Joshua protested to the company chairman, “This is insane. The Congo makes the Iraq crisis look like a cakewalk.”

“It did,” Adam corrected. “But not anymore.”

Peter said, “Let the man finish, Joshua.”

“The United Nations has just pulled off the first free elections in forty years,” Adam went on. “There is a growing sentiment among companies specializing in the developing world that the Congo is going to be the next big success story. The worldwide commodities market is exploding. Copper prices have doubled, silver is up five hundred percent. The Congo is a major supplier of both. The new government's first act was to sign a contract with Newland Mining for one new project with proven reserves of fifty million metric tons of copper ore, valued at four hundred billion dollars.”

Joshua bent over the computer. “So we could invest in Newland. They're a sound company with solid footing in the Congo.”

“Newland's stock is up sixty percent in the past three weeks.”

Joshua typed, studied the screen, then glanced at Peter. The chairman said, “So we were late on Newland. Why this German firm?”

“To reopen the diamond mines and keep this new cop-per mine viable, there has to be stability. The UN has agreed to keep peacekeepers in the country for another four years. One of their stated aims is to supply protection directly to the builders of new infrastructure, especially roads to the outlying regions.”

Joshua demanded, “How do you know Herrstadt is going to build them?”

“Because,” Adam replied, “Herrstadt is the only company invited to bid.”

Joshua said to the chairman, “How could he possibly know this unless they are granting him insider access?”

“Nobody has granted me anything,” Adam retorted. “And who is ‘they'?”

Peter asked in return, “Would you please explain to Joshua how you obtained this decidedly confidential information?”

“It was announced weeks ago. The financial press dis-counted it because of Herrstadt's pullout from Iraq. The chair-man has since said their pullout was part of the ransom demand to free their two kidnapped executives.”

“Or so you say.”

“If you scroll down, you'll find it all in the company's latest quarterly update.” Adam watched Joshua bend back over the keyboard, and added, “There's something else. Even facing this drastic loss and the slide in both stock price and earnings, they have not fired a single employee. Which strongly suggests they have a backup plan.”

Peter asked, “How much do our foes have invested in companies relying on third-world projects?”

Joshua remained focused upon the computer screen.

“Nothing. Isn't that the correct sum, Joshua? Nothing whatsoever?”

Adam asked again, “Who do you think I'm spying for?”

Peter said, “Would the both of you be so good as to give us a moment alone?”

Adam followed Kayla from her father's office. He did not need an analyst's brain to see the facts branded in the air before his eyes. The company was in dire peril, and even if it managed to survive a bit longer, Joshua Dobbins wanted him gone. Kayla was leaving, her own dreams in tatters. His pocket was full of money he had not earned, he was dressed in clothes for a job he might not have tomorrow, and his heart was wrenched by the thought of losing a woman he had known for one day. “Let's go for a walk.”

He did not speak again until they were outside the front doors and Kayla was shivering in a wind he could not be bothered to feel. Adam took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “I know you've got a world full of reasons not to trust me, and if you refuse I won't try again. But like I told you in town, I want to help. And the only way I can do that is if you tell me what's going on.”

To her credit, Kayla neither hesitated nor asked what he was talking about. “Before he started this company, Daddy worked for a company called Madden and Van Pater—”

“Sure. They're known as mvp.” Adam made no attempt to hide how impressed he was. “You see their ads everywhere. mvp, the most valuable player on your financial team.”

Kayla went on, “When Daddy left, he took some of their clients. They've been gunning for him ever since. Daddy is convinced they're behind this latest crisis.” She swept the hair out of her face. “He was arguing with Joshua this morning, saying they needed to hire a detective to see if they could find any evidence to back his assumptions. Joshua insisted it was too dangerous, that MVP has a spy in place and would love nothing more than to use news of an investigation to fire up a public scandal.”

“We could hire an independent detective agency. See what we can dig up.”

“With what?”

“The money you gave me.”

The air slipped from her in a long sigh.

“I don't care what you say, Kayla. I haven't earned it and I don't like the idea of taking a handout.” Another thought hit him. “While we're at it, we might as well hunt for your thief.”

“What?”

“You said he was a banker, right? What was his name?”

“Geoffrey Rambling.”

“Right. Was his bank British?”

“I already thought of that. The bank has never heard of him. It was just another lie. One of a billion.”

“This bank where he supposedly worked, where does it operate?”

“In the City. The financial district of London.”

“They say the most successful lies are those that parallel the truth. So we ask the same PI to see if Rambling worked some-where near that bank. Do you have a photograph?”

“I burned them all.”

“And the name he gave you is probably bogus.” He read her expression as serious incredulity. “Well, maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.”

Kayla reached one hand up and around the back of his neck. Pulled him down. And kissed him on the cheek. Soft, almost sisterly, a fragile touch, there and gone in an instant.

But a kiss just the same.

Adam breathed an astonished, “Wow.”

“That was a mistake.”

“Not from where I'm standing.”

“You don't know me, you have no ties to us or our problems, and here you are, doing your best to help.”

“It's not much.” His heart was racing now, trying to deal with the aftershock. “Kayla, let me invest the money your father gave you for your project.”

She headed back inside. “I need to talk this over with Daddy.”

“Don't take too long. Every day counts in this business.”

“Believe me, Adam, I know that all too well.”

chapter 10

T
hat evening, Professor Beachley's entire household came out to see them off. Two of the lodgers, both older than Adam, complained that the professor should have asked them if she had wanted to go.

“I did not ask Adam,” she replied, using her walker to make it down the front lane. “I merely accepted his invitation.”

Mrs. Brandt placed the wheelchair in the taxi's trunk, then watched approvingly as Adam helped the old lady settle into the rear seat. She took the walker from Adam and said, “She's right, you know. You were a dear to ask her.”

The town center was packed with students rushing to ser-vices. Their robes flapped behind them like broken wings. When they pulled up in front of Christ Church, Adam paid the taxi and settled her into the wheelchair. He maneuvered the chair beneath the towering college gates, doing his best to keep the chair steady as it jounced over uneven flagstones. As they passed through the broad college portal, a man in a dark suit and odd bowler hat emerged from the porter's lodge, his weathered face creased in smiles. “Professor Beachley, as I live and breathe.”

“So nice to see you again, Lester. How is the wife?”

“Growing old before her years, Professor. Wishing she could serve up this latest crop of students in a stew.”

“No doubt the two of you will have them trained in time.” She reached back to pat Adam's hand upon the handle. “This is one of my lodgers, Adam Wright.”

The porter touched one chapped hand to the rim of his hat. “Sir.”

“Adam works for Peter Austin's firm. You remember his late wife, Amanda.”

“Like it was yesterday. Many was the time I chased her daughter off the main fountain.”

“Do give your wife my best. Come along, Adam. We mustn't be late.”

The main quadrangle was impossibly large, ringed in ancient stone buildings as ornate as a square crown. The early December dusk transformed the central fountain into a play of water and shadows. The wheelchair squeaked softly as they entered a quieter realm, one entirely removed from the city beyond the gates. Dr. Beachley sighed, “Isn't it wonderful?”

“Amazing.”

“I do so miss the old place.” She pointed to her right. “The far door was once my family's abode. Isaac Newton lived there in another time.”

He glanced over, but saw nothing save shadows. Overhead, the stars were being erased by a sweep of coming rain.

“Henry the Eighth was one of the college's main benefactors.” Her casual tone made it sound like the donation had arrived the previous week. “The colleges who protested Henry's formation of the Anglican Church treated us like lepers. But Christ Church has always made a habit of going against the grain.”

From the outside, the church was just another door set in the quad's far corner. Inside, however, a different realm was revealed. Adam waited patiently while one robed figure after another greeted Dr. Beachley. She was careful to introduce him, but Adam paid little attention to the stream of people, save for the smiles that wreathed all their faces. Dr. Beachley entered the main chapel surrounded by a bevy of professors who insisted upon settling her wheelchair by the dons' high-backed benches and then made a space for Adam.

All save Dr. Beachley rose for the choir to enter, who were led by crimson-robed clergy. The only illumination came from soft lights upon the stained-glass windows and candles in tall crystal globes. Hundreds and hundreds of candles. When they were again seated, Dr. Beachley motioned him closer. “Most of this church hails from the fifteenth century. But the floor and pillars and some of the stained glass date from the original cathedral of Oxford, one of the first erected in England, so old the dates mingle with the dust.” She pointed at the huge round stained-glass window opposite them, of a knight in armor slaying a dragon. “Legend has it the glass was made while Saint George was still alive. Which between you and me is a bit of old rubbish.”

The all-male choir sang John Tavener's rendition of “The Lamb
,”
the voices young and crisp and vibrant. The priest then rose and gave the packed hall a formal blessing. Dr. Beachley sighed in pure pleasure and patted his hand. “You have made an old lady very happy.”

The stone hall was built to the proportions of a different era, so tall the carved roof swam in the candlelight. The pillars were broad as redwoods. The floor flowed and rippled with the cur-rents of time. The hall was built as a long and narrow cross, with the pews set to face one another across the central aisle. The pews rose in stairlike order, the nave at the front and the choir at the far end by the doors. The nave was separated from the main hall by a thousand-year-old screen. The stained-glass windows were five stories tall. The audience rustled as they sat once more. The service continued in a cadence from a time beyond time. The choir and the priest both alternated between Latin and English. The seats, the screen, the altar, the speaker's platform, the roof, were all stained by centuries of candle smoke. The Bible was big as a gilded sail and rested upon a stone eagle whose claws held a golden crown.