Swimming with Sharks (63 page)

“Hello, John,” Connors said in a calm voice, “these are Deputies Spooner and Khazaeli from the US Marshals Service. I apologize for disturbing you on a Sunday afternoon, but we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“What is this about?” de Lancie asked curtly. “You’re coming here at a rather inopportune time. Can’t we discuss this tomorrow morning at my office?”

“I’m afraid not,” Deputy Spooner said, “unless you want everyone to hear about it.”

“Hear about what?”

Spooner and Connors exchanged a glance.

“May we come in, John?” Connors asked politely.

“First, I’d like to know what this is all about.”

“As you wish.” Spooner shrugged his shoulders. “We have a reasonable suspicion that you’ve accepted bribes on multiple occasions.”

All of the color disappeared from the US attorney’s face. De Lancie stood there as if paralyzed, silently staring at the three men.

“May we come in?” Connors repeated.

“Yes…yes, of course,” de Lancie whispered and took a step back. “Let’s go to my study.”

John de Lancie only tried to deny the allegations for a few minutes. When Connors presented him with a copy of the bank statement from
Levy & Villiers, he collapsed. With tears in his eyes, he admitted that he’d accepted bribes from Sergio Vitali. As quid pro quo, he had agreed to do Vitali a favor every now and then.

Lloyd Connors felt a dizzying sensation of triumph. Until this moment he’d feared that the mere existence of the bank statements wouldn’t be enough to prove that Vitali was handing out bribes, but de Lancie’s confession established the connection. Now everything was clear. The testimony of just a single person in court would cause a lot of trouble for Vitali, and there were plenty of others on the list who had been bought too. It was simply incredible. This seemed to be the first time that the US Attorney’s Office really had an airtight case against Sergio Vitali. Connors thought about the mountains of evidence against this man and all of the witnesses who’d suddenly disappeared or lost their memory. He also remembered, with a quiet sense of guilt, that many people at the US Attorney’s Office—himself included—had sneered at Nick Kostidis’s futile efforts to prove Vitali’s crimes. But Nick had been right all along.

De Lancie confessed to everything in a whimpering voice. It almost seemed as if he were relieved to have freed himself from this burden that had weighed on him for so many months.

“What’s going to happen now?” he asked, trembling.

“That depends on you, John,” Connors said, shaking his head. “It’s your choice. If you resign from office and serve as a witness, then we could possibly refrain from charging you with corruption. Otherwise—”

“No, no,” de Lancie interrupted him quickly. “I’ll do it. I’ve made a mistake, a huge mistake. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I don’t want my family to suffer from this.”

“Your name will be in the headlines,” Connors said. “You’ll have to live with it. However, you won’t be charged and sentenced. If you cooperate with us, then we might be able to prevent you from being disbarred.”

De Lancie’s face was as white as a sheet. Was he thinking that his ambitious plans for the future had been destroyed in a single blow?
Connors knew that the job as US attorney for the Southern District was just a stepping-stone for big politics, but this dream seemed to be over now.

Connors opened his briefcase.

“Here’s a statement I’ve prepared for you. Read through it and sign if you agree with its content.”

De Lancie swallowed as he read the document.

“If I sign this, then I’m done,” he whispered. His hands were shaking.

“I can arrest you, John,” Connors said, “if you prefer. You have the right to remain silent. With a clever lawyer you might be able to squirm your way free from this mess, but it’ll take a long time and all the dirt will stick to you longer. You know what’s going to happen. Apart from the criminal proceedings, the IRS will knock on your door. And I’m pretty sure that it won’t be easy to explain to the IRS where you got the money to pay for this mansion and your children’s expensive schools.”

De Lancie broke into tears and covered his face with his hands. Without sympathy, the three men watched the US attorney sob like a little child.

“Will you sign it?”

“Yes…yes…” He slowly stood up and walked to his desk with wobbling steps. Without looking up, he signed the paper, admitting his guilt.

Connors waited for the ink to dry.

“You’ll call in sick tomorrow. Please don’t leave your house until further notice.”

“I’m under house arrest?”

“Yes,” Connors said as he stood up. “If Vitali contacts you, I advise you not to tell him anything about our conversation. We’re not after you, John, but a much bigger fish. We’ve tapped your telephone so that you won’t be tempted to stab us in the back.”

“I won’t do that,” de Lancie said, as he sat back down.

“I hope not. I don’t need to tell you what the consequences would be.”

De Lancie silently stared after the three men as tears ran down his cheeks. When his wife entered the study with a frightened expression, he made no effort to hide them.

John de Lancie was just the first on a long list of men who were paid unexpected visits on this Sunday afternoon. Tracy Taylor and Royce Shepard traveled all over the state of New York accompanied by US marshals, just like their boss. As Nick Kostidis had anticipated, all of the accused turned out to be cooperative. Sergio Vitali’s empire had started to shake, but he didn’t notice the tremors that were headed for him.

Monday, December 6, 2000—Zurich, Switzerland

Alex woke up after ten hours of sleep feeling better rested than she had in days. She called Justin, and he confirmed that he had managed to block the secret files at Levy & Villiers. No one could delete them now, unless they were willing to destroy the entire computer system. Alex hung up and treated herself to some champagne with her room service breakfast. Her successful escape and the excitement of the last few days had put her into a state of manic euphoria, and she felt so safe that she would have loved to call Sergio to mock him. Instead, she called Nick Kostidis at home. It was the middle of the night in New York, but it was only a few seconds before he picked up.

“Yes, hello?” Alex heard a sleepy voice. She felt her heart start pounding, and she hesitated.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Nick, it’s me. Alex,” she said. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“Alex!” Nick sounded wide awake at once. “Don’t worry about it! How are you?”

“Good, thank you. Did Justin give you the e-mails?”

“Yes, he did.”

Nick told her about his meeting with Engels and Jenkins and that all of the men who were questioned about the corruption allegations had confessed to their crimes.

“The murder charges against you have been dropped unofficially,” he said, “and things are moving. The US Attorney’s Office is working at full speed.”

“That’s a start.”

“Tate Jenkins urgently asks you to come back to New York. The FBI will protect you.”

“That’s hardly reassuring,” countered Alex. “Just think about David Zuckerman.”

She lay on the bed and stared at her hotel room ceiling. How would it feel to be frightened and in hiding for an entire lifetime? The thought of a life on the run sobered her. This wasn’t an exhilarating game or an exciting movie with a happy ending—her situation was deadly serious. Her euphoria suddenly vanished, and the champagne tasted flat.

“Justin Savier is very worried about you,” Nick said, although he really wanted to tell her that he was the one most worried.

“Tell him that I’m doing well,” Alex replied. “Did Mark Ashton or Oliver Skerritt get in touch with you or Justin?”

“No,” Nick replied, “unfortunately not.”

Alex felt a chill. Mark and Oliver were probably in serious trouble, while she was safe in Switzerland sipping champagne. And although the idea to go into hiding somewhere and never return to New York was appealing, she also knew that she couldn’t turn her back on her friends.

“Alex,” Nick said emphatically, “you’re in great danger. Vitali will try everything to get a hold of you.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Yes, I am,” Nick replied in a hoarse voice. “Very worried. The fact that you’ve stolen money from Vitali will make him furious. I know what he’s capable of, and I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

These words affected Alex. She felt that they came from the heart. The mayor of New York, this powerful man, was worried about her! And rightfully so.

“I didn’t steal the money,” she said. “I’ll give it back to him if he leaves me alone. I don’t want to be on the run for the rest of my life. But he can’t forgive me for leaving him and…”

“And what?”

“…and coming to you, of all people.”

There was complete silence again for a moment. His voice felt so close, it was as if he were standing right next to her, without the entire Atlantic Ocean between them.

“You’ve saved my life once,” Nick said softly. “At a time when I was struggling, you bolstered my spirit and helped me move on with my life. I’ll never forget that. Whenever you need help, you can count on me.”

Suddenly, she felt a lump in her throat and tears pushed into her eyes. “I…I’ve got to go now. I’ll get in touch with you again, okay?”

Henry Monaghan was furious that Alex Sontheim had escaped. What’s worse, someone had hacked into LMI’s central computer without his noticing. It undermined his authority as the head of security, and it was his own fault. Of course, no one would ever tell him that to his face. He desperately needed to recover his tarnished self-confidence.

He sat with Phil Fox—his closest staff member—in the basement security control center of the LMI Building trying to figure out who had snooped around in their corporate network. Without a doubt this someone was clever, because nothing had been destroyed. They were dealing with a professional who was already familiar with the system, and that significantly limited the circle of potential suspects. The windowless room, filled with state-of-the-art security technology, was cloudy with Monaghan’s incessant cigar smoke. There were fifteen cigar stubs in the ashtray already when he lit himself another one.

“And?” Fox asked after Monaghan hung up the phone.

He had called the company that had installed the system five years ago, but no one was familiar with the software.

“They think that only someone who programmed the system could hack into it. He said that software manufacturers leave a back door open so that they can enter the system unnoticed at any time.”

“Sure,” Fox said, nodding, “I know that. Where should we start searching?”

“Which operating system are we using?”

“BankManager 5.3 by IBM.”

“Great,” Monaghan said with a frown, chewing on his cigar pensively, “IBM’s a pretty big organization.”

“It is,” replied Fox, “but there couldn’t be too many people who worked on BM 5.3. There are just a handful of programmers at that level.”

Monaghan looked at the IT specialist and then picked up the telephone. After four phone calls, he was speaking with the head of software development at IBM. Monaghan quickly described his problem. However, he carefully kept the reason for his call to himself.