Mold’s office building was one of the top ones of the list. The instant his martyr brothers could fan out, this building was to be one of the first to be irradiated. The brothers would be freshly barbered, dressed in the uniforms of Wall Street—suits by Armani, Boss, Jil Sanders. They would have ID that would bear up to a security guard’s scrutiny. Muhammed would give the order that one martyr stay in the lobby and another martyr brother come up here, to the fifty-fifth floor, and blow himself up right in front of the snotty secretary’s desk. Mold would die instantly. His company, everything he stood for, would be gone in an instant, everything untouchable for decades.
It calmed Muhammed right down. Mold was giving off the waves of aggression typical of a Wall Street trader turned hedge fund manager. His temper tantrums were famous. He was used to screaming, intimidating underlings to get his way.
Muhammed looked at Mold calmly, at this dead man walking.
Only a few days to go.
He looked around, then chose a chair and sat down just as Mold said, “Have a seat.”
The chair was by a hot new designer and was made of paper. Muhammed had read that it sold for $10,000, enough to feed hundreds of people in the camps for a year.
Richard Mold deserved to burn. They all did.
Muhammed hitched his trousers so as not to ruin the excellent crease, and crossed his legs.
Silence.
It irritated Mold. His deeply tanned face turned tight, his eyes narrowed. “So, Preston, what’s this about?” he asked coldly.
Muhammed waited a beat, then spoke. “I have a piece of information you might find interesting, and in exchange, I want a name and a phone number.”
Mold’s thick gray eyebrows drew together. “What’s the info and what name?”
Muhammed plucked at the crease of his trousers, enjoying the feel of the fine linen. He let a minute go by, two. Oh, he’d learned the subtle ways of power of the West. Mold watched him, face growing even tighter.
Finally, Muhammed gave a small sigh. “A company you invest in, a very well known corporation, has just announced one of its best quarters ever. A double-digit increase in sales. Its stock has risen by almost fifteen percent on the strength of the report. But it’s false. The CEO is hiding almost twenty billion dollars in losses and the FBI will arrest him in four days’ time. If you short that stock, you can make millions. In four days.”
Mold’s face betrayed nothing but Muhammed knew the thoughts going through his mind. Over the past week, several corporations had announced big gains after almost two years of recession. Muhammed could be referring to any one of a number of companies. Guess wrong and you lose a bundle. Guess right, ah. Make millions in an instant. Add to your reputation as a miracle man. To someone like Mold, it was irresistible. He and his kind were born for this kind of challenge.
That tight slash of a mouth opened, cranked the words out. “And what would you want in return for that name?”
Yes! It was a done deal.
“Another name,” Muhammed murmured. “All we both want is a name.”
Mold wasn’t one to utter unnecessary words. He simply stared.
Muhammed leaned forward slightly, lowered his voice. “Some time ago, I heard that there is a man the financial community…uses. When there are problems you can’t buy your way out of. I want the name and contact details of the man who makes problems and people go away.”
Silence. Utter silence.
They were so high no sounds could penetrate and one of the things the woman outside was there for was to prevent noises or distractions. There was no sound at all. Even the air-conditioning was utterly quiet.
Mold watched his eyes for a long moment, then took out a sheet of thick stock, clicked his Cross pen and wrote. The sound of the pen moving across the thick paper was loud in the morning silence. Mold folded the sheet once, twice, then slid it across his desk.
Muhammed had taken his own pen and written out the name of a company on the top of a page torn from theWall Street Journal.
The name was that of the second-largest corporation in the US. It had just announced record sales after the long slump. As far as Muhammed knew, the figures were correct. Mold would sell short and lose a lot of money.
It wouldn’t matter, because in four days, Mold, his company, the corporation and all of Wall Street would be gone.
Muhammed folded the newspaper page neatly in half and slid it across the half acre of Mold’s desk, pocketing the paper Mold had written on without looking at it.
He rose, briefcase in hand. He didn’t make the mistake of offering his hand. They stared at each other for a moment. Muhammed bowed his head soberly and walked out, feeling Mold’s eyes boring into the back of his head and hearing the slight crinkle of the piece of paper in his pocket with the name of the man who would solve his problem and help him bring down the world.
Georgia
The name was Sean McInerney.He worked undercover often and had had numerous aliases, but Sean McInerney was the name he’d been born with.
