Swimming with Sharks (46 page)

Ten minutes later, they were on the third floor of this fortresslike monastery. He stopped in front of one of the doors and knocked.

“Come in!” someone called, and Nick opened the door. The whitewashed room had dark oak beams on the high ceilings and was modestly furnished. Beside the massive, dark wooden desk were floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and the only wall decorations were a wooden cross and a framed picture of Pope John Paul II. A lean, white-haired Jesuit priest sitting at the desk looked up in surprise.

“Nick!” the priest exclaimed, and a warm smile spread across his face. “How nice to see you!”

“Hello, Father,” Nick replied.

“How are you?” The priest took Nick’s hands in his and looked at him with total sympathy. Alex figured he was older than he looked, for she had never before seen such wisdom as in his kind eyes.

“I’m doing better,” Nick replied. “Thank you.”

“Inscrutable are the ways of God.”

“Yes. It’s difficult, but I think I’ll make it.”

“You are always in our prayers.”

“I know. Thank you.”

Only then did he seem to remember that he wasn’t alone.

“Father, allow me to introduce Ms. Alex Sontheim. She’s a friend of…Mary’s and mine. Alex, this is Father Kevin O’Shaughnessy.”

“Hello.” Father Kevin extended his hand toward Alex, and his firm handshake surprised her.

“Father Kevin is an old friend of mine,” Nick explained. “I was an altar boy in his church.”

“Sit down, please,” the Jesuit offered. Alex, whose knees were still soft as butter, smiled gratefully. She sat down on one of the simple wooden chairs, which was as uncomfortable as it looked.

“Someone just tried to shoot me here in the cemetery,” Nick said, and Father Kevin turned pale.

“
Shoot you?
In our cemetery?” He made the sign of the cross.

Nick told him briefly what had happened and then grabbed the telephone. Alex, whose body was still shaking, noticed that his voice sounded almost as firm and energetic as when she knew him before. He called his assistant—this Frank Cohen who’d brushed her off so determinedly yesterday—and repeated the whole story. Then Nick turned to Alex.

“How are you?” he asked, sincerely concerned, and grabbed her hand.

“That’s what I should ask you.” She tried to smile but hardly managed it. “You’re the one who was shot at, after all.”

Nick gave her a friendly look. The desperation had vanished from his dark eyes.

“I owe very much to you, Alex,” he said quietly. “You brought me back to life today and saved it shortly thereafter. As of this morning, I felt like I’d rather be dead, but now I realize that I’m still clinging to my life.”

Father Kevin, who had been listening silently, cleared his throat.

“Can I help in any way, Nick?”

“I’m sorry that something like this had to happen here of all places,” he responded. “The police will be here any minute.”

Father Kevin looked worried.

“The main thing is that no one got hurt. Do you have any idea who this was?”

Nick’s face darkened, and he swallowed slowly. Alex slightly squeezed his hand, which she was still holding.

“I’m afraid,” he said in a strained voice, “that it was the same people who tried to kill me with the car bomb.”

A half hour later, the otherwise peaceful cemetery was filled with people. The police searched every corner for evidence that could point to the perpetrator. Officers of the NYPD Crime Scene Unit examined the broken tombstone and the bullet, which had been fired by a precision rifle with a silencer. They crawled under the yew tree in search of footprints and talked to other cemetery visitors.

Nick introduced Alex to his assistant, who had rushed over from city hall. She had pictured him completely differently—much older and less pleasant—after their phone conversation the previous day. Frank Cohen was actually hardly older than she was, and he had a serious, narrow face and short dark hair. Behind his thick glasses, she detected an emotion in his eyes she was all too familiar with: fear.

“Nick,” she said quietly, “I can’t tell the police where I know this man from.”

He looked at her.

“Before I talk to the police, I’d like to tell you everything. Please.”

“Of course,” he said. “We’ll tell the police that you’re a random visitor at the cemetery. Okay?”

Alex nodded in relief.

“Come with me,” he said as he put his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go to my office. They don’t need us here anymore.”

This was Alex’s first time at city hall. She was impressed when she looked around the office of New York City’s mayor. During the past few hours, she had completely forgotten Nick’s position. She knew many powerful and influential men, but Nick Kostidis was the first to show her that even a powerful man could experience emotions.

Frank Cohen brewed some coffee. Alex initially thought that she couldn’t eat anything, but then suddenly felt as hungry as a wolf. After two cups of coffee and a sandwich, she felt much better. She eased into telling her story. She briefly explained to them what she did at LMI and then talked about Sergio. She was astonished how easy it was for her to talk to the mayor and his assistant about all the things that she had been keeping completely secret. It almost felt like a confession, and she was relieved. She told them about the conversation she had overheard at Sergio’s birthday party last year, about the assassination attempt she had witnessed, about the warehouse in Brooklyn, and her suspicion that Sergio and Levy were exploiting her information for insider trading. Then she shared with them what she’d discovered about the secret slush-fund accounts on Grand Cayman. Both men listened to her with growing consternation. Nick stared at her, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

“What do you think about that, Nick?” Frank said. “De Lancie, McIntyre, Whitewater, Rhodes, Senator Hoffman, even Jerome Harding.”

“I can’t believe it.” Nick leaned back and ran his hand through his hair. “If that’s actually true, then…”

Frank Cohen jumped up excitedly.

“This scheme goes even deeper than we ever suspected!”

Nick suddenly looked tired and very depressed.

“Now I understand why I never had a chance against this man,” he said in a low voice. “Howard informed them about all of my actions. And all the others covered his back no matter what he did.”

“We might be able to get all of them.” Frank’s eyes gleamed. “We could finally drain this swamp of corruption! Nick! This is what you’ve always been fighting for!”

Nick stood up and stepped to the window. He looked out pensively.

“No,” he said after a while.

“But why not?” Alex asked in surprise. He turned around and met her gaze.

“I can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. “Vitali will find out where we got our information from.”

“How could he find out?” Frank protested.

“You must do this, Nick.” Alex made herself heard. “Frank’s right. You could free the city from this terrible corruption with a single blow.”

“No,” Nick repeated, “I can’t take responsibility for this.”

“But—”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Alex,” Nick interrupted her. “Too many people have died on Vitali’s orders. He tried to have me killed again today. If he finds out that you’ve given me this information, then he’ll also kill you. And that…no…I don’t want that to happen.”

He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders.

“I may need to resign as mayor.”

Nelson van Mieren made himself comfortable in first class on the United flight from Chicago O’Hare to La Guardia. He had gone to Chicago for the weekend for business, but the talks went nowhere. He was frustrated that these three days had been nothing but wasted time. On top of that, he had missed his eldest grandson’s birthday party. While passengers boarded the airplane, Nelson opened the newspaper he had picked up in the departures lounge. One headline caught his eye immediately, and he froze when he caught sight of the drawing that was placed directly below the bold caption.

Shots Fired at Mayor Kostidis
Early Sunday morning, less than three months after his wife and son were killed by a car bomb, another assassination attempt was committed against New York City’s mayor, Nick Kostidis, at St. Ignatius cemetery in Brooklyn. Several eyewitnesses observed a man aiming at Kostidis with a precision rifle from a distance of about forty yards. It was one cemetery visitor’s presence of mind that saved the mayor’s life. The shooter was able to flee the scene, but police artists created this sketch based on eyewitness descriptions.

Nelson van Mieren turned pale. His heart was racing, and he realized that he was breaking into a cold sweat. The drawing of the alleged shooter—whom Nelson knew all too well—was alarmingly accurate. There was no doubt that this was Natale Torrinio, called “the Neapolitan.” Nelson closed his eyes. His heart was pounding in his head. He realized that Sergio had sent him to Chicago under false pretense so that he could take his time and set the Neapolitan on the mayor. Sergio had lied to him when he reassured him that he had nothing to do with the bombing of the mayor’s car. The realization that his oldest friend had lied to him was the most painful feeling Nelson had experienced in his life.

Sergio thought it was a bad joke when the butler from Mount Kisco called his office to say that Constanzia had left early in the morning by taxi—with four large suitcases and a few bags. She hadn’t announced where she was going. Although it didn’t fit into today’s schedule at all, he ordered his sons to go to Mount Kisco. Then he took his helicopter there to determine what had happened.

Sergio was in a murderously bad mood after his best man Natale had botched the job yesterday. There hadn’t been an opening to get to Kostidis for weeks. He’d been constantly surrounded by a line of bodyguards. It was Natale’s idea to kill him at the cemetery because he found out that Kostidis didn’t let his security follow him to his family’s grave. It seemed like an easy enough operation. He could generally rely one hundred percent on Natale, but this time he’d not only missed his mark but had also been seen. Sergio could have dealt with that, but Natale also claimed that he saw Alex together with Kostidis at the cemetery.

Sergio had unsuccessfully tried to call her at home and on her cell phone, so finally he sent his people over to her apartment. They confirmed that she wasn’t there. She only appeared again at six that evening. Someone with a blue Honda had dropped her off at home, and Sergio was close to going on a rampage when he heard about that.

Then he found a letter addressed to him on his desk in his Mount Kisco house. He tore it open impatiently and read the few lines Constanzia had written in her sweeping handwriting:

Sergio,
I’m leaving you today. I thought long and hard about this decision, but after Cesare’s death I no longer see any possibility of continuing my life as it has been up to now. My sons don’t need me anymore. And you don’t need me either, if you ever have. I can’t stand the house and the loneliness anymore.
Constanzia