Nele Neuhaus - Swimming with Sharks

“I couldn’t bear to lose Alex now as well.”

Frank had never seen Nick Kostidis cry before, and to see this man whom he admired and truly liked in such pain hurt him to the depths of his soul.

Sergio sat in his office at the VITAL Building and watched a photo of Alex flash on the news. They could keep frantically searching for her all they wanted, because they’d never find her. The telephone rang. Sergio looked up. It was his private, tap-proof line that he used only for special calls.

“It’s me,” a male voice said on the other end of the line. “What about the woman?”

“She won’t talk again,” Sergio replied.

“Good. I have my hands full putting the brakes on the deputy US attorney and the mayor. It’s inevitable that some people will have to be sacrificed.”

“It’s all right,” Sergio replied calmly. “De Lancie wasn’t that valuable anyway, and Whitewater was about to retire.”

“Connors arrested Harding. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Harding was arrested?” Sergio froze.

“Yes, but that won’t be a problem either. He won’t utter a word—he’s too smart for that.”

“And too greedy.” Sergio relaxed a bit.

“Maybe,” the man laughed.

“The important thing is that you keep me out of this mess.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. Once enough heads have rolled, the president and the public will be satisfied. There will be heated discussions, some people will pack their bags, and then everything will be business as usual again.”

“What about Kostidis?” Sergio asked.

“What about him?”

“Don’t underestimate him.”

“Kostidis isn’t involved in the investigation, and the deputy US attorney does as I say.”

Sergio nodded. “What should I do?”

“Just act normal. If the woman doesn’t reappear, then the US Attorney’s Office has nothing concrete but the statements. And as long as no one spills the beans, there’s no trail leading to you.”

“How sure can I be about that?” Sergio furrowed his brow. “They’ll pressure people.”

“No, I’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen,” the man said with a quiet laugh. “We’ve fixed bigger things than this before. Just think of the Iran-Contra affair, or Kennedy, or Watergate.”

Sergio laughed too.

“All right,” he said, “everything else should be as we discussed. Once this unpleasantness is water under the bridge, then we’ll take on Ortega and you’ll be a hero.”

“Very nice. I’ll call you when I hear something new.”

“Thanks,” Sergio said, “I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up, grinning in satisfaction. That pathetic idiot from the US Attorney’s Office and this bastard of a mayor should just try to keep on him! Neither of them would even get close.

Tate Jenkins entered Connors’s office with a cup of coffee in his hand. The deputy US attorney sat at the conference table with a bleary-eyed expression in front of a stack of files.

“How far are your people with the indictments, Connors?” Jenkins inquired, sitting down.

“They’re working on it,” Lloyd Connors replied and leaned back. “But without Alex Sontheim’s testimony, we have nothing but speculation.”

“That woman doesn’t matter anymore,” Jenkins said. “The material we have is enough to remove half of the city’s political elite. We already have a dozen confessions. What else do you want?”

Connors looked at the deputy director of the FBI, astonished. “I want the people who pull the strings,” he said. “I want the mastermind behind this, not just the small fries.”

“I don’t know whether you can call the police commissioner of New York or the US attorney for the Southern District ‘small fries.’” Jenkins raised his eyebrows. “Get your people moving, Connors. I don’t feel like waiting until Christmas. I want the indictments on my desk by tomorrow.”

“But I can’t possibly go public with this whole thing tomorrow!”

“Why not?” Jenkins took a sip of coffee from his plastic cup. “We have bulletproof evidence; we should pounce before anyone disappears or blows their brains out.”

“I want the mastermind,” Connors persisted, “and in my opinion, that’s Vitali. If it says in the newspaper tomorrow that his bribery scheme was busted, then he’ll cover his tracks. We need Sontheim as a key witness against him.”

“And what if she took off and doesn’t surface again?” Jenkins asked. “How much longer do you want to wait, Connors? Until the whole case goes up in smoke?”

There was an awkward silence before Connors responded.

“But I—”

“Let me tell you something,” Jenkins interrupted him. “Let’s wait another twenty-four hours. We’ll go public if she doesn’t show up by then. I’m getting pressure from above. The president expects something to happen, you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” the deputy US attorney said with a helpless shrug, “but if we don’t get to the root of this, after a brief interruption things will just be the same again.”

“You’ve got twenty-four hours to find the woman,” Jenkins cut him off. “One full day, and not a minute more. Then we’ll step in front of the press.”

Jenkins finished his coffee. Connors turned to his files again. He was dead tired, and not particularly optimistic about the case. If Alex didn’t show up soon, then Vitali would get away again unscathed. Connors thought about Nick, and he slowly understood his frustration. Vitali was slippery as a fish.

Alex scanned the small room. It was daylight behind the dirty curtains. She moved carefully, and sharp pain flashed through her body. She looked at her wrists and saw the blood-encrusted wounds where the restraints had cut deeply into her flesh. And suddenly the memory was there again, and the horror returned in a vicious wave, bitter as bile. She remembered all of the gruesome things that had happened to her. A tear ran down her disfigured face. She had experienced the worst things imaginable to any human being, and during those horrifying hours—where she thought she’d go crazy out of fear—something had irrevocably broken inside of her. To be at someone’s mercy, the futility of being unable to defend herself, had been worse than the pain, even worse than realizing that they were trying to kill her. The wounds and bruises would heal, but what about the trauma? Just a few days ago, she was one of the highest-paid investment bankers on Wall Street, juggling billions of dollars. She knew the most important people in the city, in the entire country. Until recently, she had a bright future ahead of her. Now she had nothing left but her bare bones, and even that wouldn’t be worth much if Sergio found out that she was still alive. He’d do anything to finally finish her off.

Alex curled up beneath her blanket and sobbed. Her life would never be the same again. The spirits that she had called upon herself would haunt her for her whole life. She saw no future; there was no one she could trust. Alex suddenly paused. Yes! There was someone who cared for her, someone who could possibly help her. She lay motionless in her sagging bed, the thin mattress’s springs cutting into her back, and she stared at the dirty ceiling that had turned yellow from the nicotine of thousands of cigarettes. She needed to call Nick. Right now.

“Nick, I can’t wait any longer,” Lloyd Connors said in an emphatic voice. “I know what it means if we make this affair public today, but what the hell am I supposed to do?”

The deputy US attorney was a shadow of his usual self.