The First Billion (31 page)

Cate stared at him for several seconds without answering. He’d surprised her. He could see it. Maybe she didn’t want to see how much she’d torn him up, but that was all part of it. He was through hiding his feelings. Abandoning her hostile stance, she leaned forward and put a firm, unemotional hand on his arm. “Jett, we had three good years. Three
great
years. But they’re over. We both have to go on. It’s as simple as that.”

Gavallan covered her hand with his. “But they’re not supposed to be over. We were supposed to be with each other for the rest of our lives.”

Her composure left her in stages, like ice slowly melting. She lowered her eyes, and he could see her lip trembling. She began to shake her head. She looked up once, trying to say something. She got out one word—“damn”—and that was it. The tears broke, and after a second she put her head on Gavallan’s chest and let them come.

“Just leave it, Jett,” she whispered throatily, catching her breath. “Please, just leave it. For me.”

Gavallan put his arms around her and hugged her. Okay. He would leave it. For now.
For her.
He hoped that someday she would tell him. But with sadness, he realized it would have to be on her own time, and of her own will.

He helped Cate to her seat, then kneeled and looked out the window. An orange scythe slit the horizon. He checked his watch. It was midnight Eastern Standard Time, or 6 A.M. in Geneva. Their flight plan had taken them northeast from Boca Raton over the Atlantic, past Bermuda, then east toward the European continent where the sun was already rising. In an hour they’d cross the southernmost tip of Ireland, then continue over England and France, entering Swiss airspace from the northwest.

“You think he’ll be there?” she asked, eyes glued to the wondrous sight of dawn’s approach.

“Pillonel? Yeah, I think so. He’s got a place outside of town where he grows his own grapes. Each year he sends over a case of his wine as a Christmas present. Not bad stuff. Anyway, he’s always going on about coming out to visit his winery. I figure if it’s decent weather, odds are he’ll be playing the grand vintner.”

“What makes you think he’ll talk to us?”

“I can be persuasive when I have to be. Besides, we’ve got plenty of help. Luca’s last letter and that fax to the FBI won’t hurt. A guy like Pillonel’s got a heck of a lot to lose if he gets caught. He’s got to be feeling a little nervous already.”

“And you’ll play on his guilty conscience?”

“Yeah. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll beat the living tar out of him.”

“Ah, a diplomat.”

Gavallan bridled at her dismissive tone. In case she’d forgotten, they’d passed diplomacy a ways back, somewhere after Graf Byrnes had been kidnapped and before Ray Luca had taken a bullet in the head. “Whatever works.”

“You sound like Alexei.”

“Ah, the mysterious Alexei.”

“You’re mad I never told you?”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Cate glanced up, her eyes red and swollen. “You can be mad, but don’t be unkind. I don’t want to cry again for a month.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cate dropped her eyes to the floor, hiding her hands in the ends of her sweater. “I had to identify his body. Seeing him like that, so damaged, I wanted to die myself. I had urged him to go to the police. I’d hugged him and told him he would be a hero for exposing Kirov. It was my fault. Alexei wasn’t a fighter. When he heard me talk about Kirov stealing from his country, breaking the laws that men like him had just made, he adopted my anger as if it were his. He joined my armchair rebellion. It was his way of showing that he loved me.”

Still on his knees, Gavallan reached out a hand and touched her cheek. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for someone else’s actions. Maybe you asked him to go to the police, but he made that decision himself.”

“Maybe, but still . . .” Cate shuddered. “I never realized how bad I might feel. Even now.” She reached for his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. “I see now I should have told you. I’m sorry, Jett. Forgive me?”

He nodded, filled with affection for her. Not a sexual yearning, but a stronger, deeper emotion, an encompassing happiness simply that he was there with her.

The cockpit door opened and the pilot stepped into the cabin. “We’re an hour out,” he said. “Weather looks fine in Geneva—a few clouds, otherwise it should be a sunny day in Switzerland. Mr. Dodson, you have any idea when you’ll want us to be ready to take off again? We’d be appreciative if you could give us some idea of our destination ahead of time. We’re required to file a flight plan, even if we don’t stick to it.”

The relationship was strictly business, mercenary all the way. Once they were airborne, Gavallan had bribed him with ten crisp hundred-dollar bills. Ask no questions and he’d tell no tales.

“Be fueled up and ready to go by four. I’ll give you a call later this morning to let you know where we’re headed.”

“That’s fine. Couple hours are all we need.”

The pilot left. Gavallan took off his watch and reset it for Geneva time. “An hour to go,” he said. “Think this bird’s got a decent shower?”

Cate pointed to the rear of the aircraft. “Give it a shot. Might as well get your money’s worth.”

He headed to the shower, but pulled up suddenly, hoping she might be getting out of her seat to join him. “Cate . . .” he started, but she was still seated, her eyes not on him but glued to the window, staring into the orange dawn.

He could only wonder what she was thinking.

38

You are happy, my friend?” asked Aslan Dashamirov.

“Relieved,” Konstantin Kirov replied. “I slept better knowing there was no longer a risk of someone slipping our papers to the police. It was a difficult business. I’m glad we’ve solved the matter.”

It was a cold, rainy Saturday morning. The two men walked arm in arm across the muddy field outside of Moscow where Dashamirov had set up one of his used-car lots. A row of crapped-out automobiles ran next to them. Fiats. Ladas. Simcas. None with less than a hundred thousand miles on them, though the odometers showed no more than a quarter of that. Scruffy pennants dangled from a line strung overhead. A ways back, tucked conveniently amongst a copse of baby pines, stood a blue and white striped tent where prices were negotiated and payments made, often in tender as suspect as the cars themselves: televisions, refrigerators, stereos, cigarettes, narcotics, women.

“I’m not so sure,” said Dashamirov.

“Oh?”

“No one talked. Not one of them admitted to working with Baranov or with Skulpin. Only the innocent are so brave.”

“You didn’t give them the chance.” Kirov hated himself for playing up to the Chechen. He was a brigand, really, an uneducated hood.

Dashamirov looked at him as if he were a wart on his finger. “I am thinking we did not find the right person.”

So that was why his
krysha
had called the meeting, thought Kirov. He should have known the man wouldn’t be so easily put off. Of course, Dashamirov was right. He was always right. This time, though, Kirov had beaten him to the punch.

He’d put his finger on the traitor, a young securities lawyer working in-house on the Mercury deal, and had taken care of the problem himself. Quickly. Neatly. Quietly. A single bullet to the man’s brain delivered in the comfort of the traitor’s own flat. None of this barbaric business with a hammer. Imagining the fierce blow against the skull, Kirov shivered, a spike of fear running right through him to the pit of his belly.

He stared at Dashamirov. The mustache, the crooked mouth, the eyes at once dead, yet so magnificently alive. The man was a beast. But a smart beast. He was correct in his assumptions. Only the innocent
were
so brave. The lawyer had spilled his guts after a few threats and a bloody nose. Had Dashamirov pressed him for details about the money missing from Novastar, it would have been Kirov getting the hammer yesterday morning.

The hammer.

He ground his teeth.

“What’s important,” said Kirov, “is that Mercury will go forward without any further problems. For that I have you to thank.”

“I was thinking rather about Novastar,” said Dashamirov, dropping his arm to his side, quickening his pace as the rain picked up. “The question of the missing funds haunts me, my friend. Where there is one rat, there may be more. Perhaps someone in your organization is stealing the money from the airline. A hundred twenty-five million dollars is too large a sum to take lightly.”

“Perhaps,” replied Kirov thoughtfully, “though that would be difficult. I alone have signature power over the airline’s bank accounts.”

“Yes. You are right. Perhaps it would be wise to study the books.” He opened his slim, spidery hands in a gesture of conciliation. “If, of course, you do not mind.”

It was not a request, and both men knew it. Kirov looked around. A dozen of Dashamirov’s clansmen loitered among the cars.
Vor v Zakone.
Thieves of thieves. God knew they were wealthy, but look at them. Standing around in the pouring rain, hair wet, clothing as sodden as the omnipresent cigarettes that dangled from their lips. In four days’ time, Dashamirov stood to take home 15 percent of Kirov’s billion—a neat $150 million dollars. The next day he would be here, or at one of the other fifty lots he ran in the northern suburbs of Moscow, standing in the rain, drinking filthy coffee, smoking.

“I will speak to my accountant immediately,” said Kirov. “He is in Switzerland. It may take some time.”

“By all means.” The courteous reply was accompanied by a damning smile. “There is no hurry. Have the latest quarterly report for Novastar, as well as the most recent banking statements for our Swiss holding companies, Andara and Futura, in my office by Monday.”

“I am in New York Monday,” said Kirov, puffing out his chest, trying to muster some authority. “We will price the Mercury offering that afternoon. We can sit down together when I get back in the country on Friday.”

“Monday,” repeated Dashamirov, less courteously. “By four o’clock. Or else I will begin looking somewhere else for the thief within your company. Somewhere closer to the top.”

A bead of sweat broke high on Kirov’s back and rolled the length of his spine.

“Monday,” he said, knowing it would be impossible.

39

The jet banked hard to the right and drifted lower. From her window, Cate stared as the city of Geneva rushed up to greet her, as if she were looking at a postcard from her teenage past. The city looked no different than it had when she’d last seen it, ten years before. The
jet d’eau
shot a geyser of water two hundred feet into a young blue sky. A flotilla of boats bobbed lazily on the lake’s scalloped surface. The prim row of banks and hotels that lined the Quai Guisan nodded a courteous “Welcome back.”

Beyond the cityscape, the Saleve rose vertically from a buckle of forest, a brooding granite soldier guarding the town’s southern flank. The only Calvinist remaining in a city gone to the devil. But the familiar sights brought forth no haze of nostalgia, neither a wish for the past nor a desire to recall her youth. They promised only trouble. This was her other life. Her secret self. The history she’d sworn to keep hidden. Stealing a glance at Jett, her stomach tightened. In fear. In sorrow. In anticipation. And as the plane touched down, the wheels bouncing once before embracing the runway, she shivered with a premonition of loss. She was certain that everything she’d spent her adult life working toward was about to come undone.

A white Volvo with the orange and blue markings of the airport police waited on the tarmac beside their assigned parking spot. Two policemen, submachine guns tucked under their arms, approached the aircraft.

“Let me handle this,” said Cate.

“Be my guest.” Gavallan handed her his passport and stepped aside. She didn’t know how he could stand there so calmly with a pistol tucked into his waistband.

Customs and immigration were conducted
“sur place.”
The policemen examined their passports. One climbed into the cargo hold to inspect their luggage while the other checked the flight log.

Keeping to English, Cate explained they had nothing to declare and were, in fact, only staying in Geneva for the day. A little sight-seeing. Lunch at the Lion D’Or. A run up to the UN. Would either care to join them? They needed a guide, she said, her itchy nerves fueling the giddy repartee. Someone who knew the language and could provide some local color. Could they tell her where Audrey Hepburn was buried? Wasn’t it near Crissier? And didn’t Phil Collins live nearby?

Suddenly, the policemen were all smiles. Beneath the blue berets, neither was more than twenty.
“Pheel Collins? Oui, oui, il habite tout près.”
He lives nearby. But neither could come up with the town. As for guides, they were unable to help.
“Désolé, Madame,”
they replied. They were in the midst of their annual military service and their next scheduled leave was not until the following Friday.

Thirty minutes later, she was driving a rented Mercedes sedan along the highway. Jett sat beside her, a map spread upon his lap. “Keep your eye out for the Aubonne exit,” he said. “Looks like it’s about twenty klicks down the road. Just up from the lake.”

Cate shot him an apprehensive glance, frightened by his retreat into military vernacular. He’d been brooding since they’d crossed over the continent, speaking less and less, avoiding her gaze.

This is the Jett Gavallan I don’t know, she mused. The Air Force Academy grad who never whispers a word about his time in uniform. The jet jock who clams up at the first mention of the war he fought. He’s going back, she realized. He’s suiting up for battle.

“Klicks being what?” she asked. “Kilometers?”

He nodded without looking at her.

“Just don’t let me miss the turnoff,” she said, though she knew the way to Aubonne as well as to her own home.

“I won’t.”

Jean-Jacques Pillonel did not live in Aubonne, but in Lussy-sur-Morges, a quaint village situated high on the vine-covered slopes of Lac Leman (she would never call it Lake Geneva) about halfway to Lausanne. She knew the spot only because one of her art teachers had lived there, a man named Luc Caprez with whom at the age of eighteen she’d had her first affair. Luc and his briar pipe, who spoke of the courage to live a dangerous life, dangerous meaning to brave the landscape of your ideals, to pursue your dreams no matter where they led. Luc, who lectured her even while making love.

She kept her foot firmly on the gas, taking the car to 160 kilometers per hour as she passed the exits for Nyon, Gland, and finally, Rolle, where she’d gone to school for four years at Le Rosey. She glimpsed the campus to her left. The schoolhouses were done up as old villas and sat on a plateau cut into the hill. She took in the steep mansard roofs, the limestone façades, and the window boxes heavy with purple and red geraniums.

But it wasn’t the sights so much as the smells that lent her a melancholy feeling and sent a current of doubt rustling across her belly. It was the smell of sun-warmed soil carried by an easy lake breeze; of Saturday afternoons trawling the back alleys of Geneva; of Sunday mornings saddling horses at the stable.

It was, she realized, the long-absent smell of her youth.

Cate caught sight of her eyes in the mirror and was frightened at their intensity. When had she adopted the mantle of crusader? she wondered. Had she finally embarked upon the “dangerous life” she’d promised herself she would one day lead? Or was she just tagging along with Jett for the ride?

Until now, she’d been content to fight through others. At the K Bank, she’d transferred her dissatisfaction to Alexei and let him do the dirty work. As a reporter, she hid behind the banner of the paper, relying on its influence and reputation to forward her watered-down causes. In her bid to derail Mercury, she’d recruited Ray Luca to fire her broadsides. As always, she preferred to remain one step removed, a gray eminence sheathed in fear.

But overnight things had changed. The battle had landed on her doorstep with a thud, a personal invitation stained with the blood of innocents. RSVP Konstantin Kirov, Moscow. There was no more escaping, no more hiding behind another.

This was the dangerous life.

Yet it was not guilt that had led to her decision. It was you, she said to Gavallan’s silent profile, seeing in his strained, concentrated features the determination that had brought him so much success, the confidence that had led him to the brink of disaster, and the generosity of spirit that had captured her heart. I came because of you. Because I can’t let you go on with all you don’t know. Because your foolish confidence isn’t enough to save you. Because I love you and you’re all I have left.

As she settled into her seat, Cate’s eyes once more found the sparkling asphalt. Grimly, she saw the days ahead playing out. All paths led in the same direction, ended at the same destination. What would happen when he found out? How could she explain? Above all, Jett was an honest man. He detested liars. She was sure she detected a new coolness between them since she’d brought up Alexei. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. How could he ever love a woman whose entire life was a lie? Sooner or later, he would discover the truth. And she would never have a chance to win him back.

“There it is,” said Jett. “Aubonne. A thousand meters.”

Cate signaled and guided the Mercedes off the highway. “Which way now?” she asked, sliding into the left lane.

“A left under the bridge, then bear to your left again.”

I know,
she wanted to say.
I used to live here.

She was struck by a desire to touch him. She reached out a hand, only to pull it right back. Let him go, she told herself silently. He looked at her and she tried to smile. “I’m glad I’m here,” she said.

For a moment, Jett’s eyes softened, and a question danced beneath his lips. As quickly, it was gone.

“Turn here,” he said, spotting a sign with the name of Pillonel’s village. “Morges is at the top of this road. Pillonel’s house is at 14 Rue de Crecy.”

“Roo-duh-Cray-cee,”
she repeated, correcting him, her schoolgirl’s accent still perfect.

Gavallan eyed her remotely. “You never told me you spoke French.”

Cate shook her head, laughing sadly. What the hell? Sooner or later, he was going to find out everything anyway.