Nele Neuhaus - Swimming with Sharks

Alex rushed past the Tweed Courthouse toward Foley Square. She didn’t pay any attention to the astonished looks of the few passersby as she raced past the US Court of International Trade. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw that her pursuers were closer on her heels than she’d realized. She turned right onto Leonard Street, where, near the corner, a group of Japanese tourists stood in the pouring rain, wearing raincoats and posing for photos. Without slowing down, she cut through the group and bumped into a Japanese man, who lost his balance and fell to the ground. The tourists cursed at her with flailing arms, which forced Alex’s pursuers to sidestep them.

This move cost them valuable seconds while Alex crossed Centre Street. Cars stopped with screeching tires as she ran across the street. Her strength was dwindling, and she was completely out of breath, but she could see Columbus Park ahead of her, barely a block away. Suddenly, a dark car turned in front of her and three men jumped out. Alex felt like a deer in headlights as she looked around. Three men blocked her way with grimly determined faces. The other two pursuers came running up behind her, gasping for air.

“Stop!” one of the three men yelled and spread his arms as if he could really stop her. Right at that moment, a silver Dodge turned from Baxter Street onto Hogan Place as a bicycle messenger sped down the street. He tried to evade the Dodge, but his tire slipped on the wet pavement. The young man fell on the ground, and his bicycle was hurled in front of Alex’s feet. She didn’t hesitate for a second. She grabbed the bike and swung herself onto the seat.

One of the men tried to grab her arm. With the strength of adrenaline triggered by her fear, she kicked him in the balls with all her might. He let go of her arm and yelled out in pain. Alex pedaled through Columbus Park faster than she’d ever ridden a bike before, thinking her lungs might explode any second. After a few minutes, she was at the very center of Chinatown—which was still bustling despite the rain. She ditched the bike on a street corner, vanishing into a maze of alleys between stalls and Chinese restaurants.

“She slipped through our fingers,” Silvio Bacchiocchi reported to his boss, leaning on the Dodge’s fender while grimacing in pain. The other men standing around him were irritated and soaked to the bone. No one laughed about Silvio’s mishap. This woman was infuriating. It was pointless to continue the chase because they couldn’t find someone hiding in Chinatown. The Chinese didn’t like it at all when people were chased through their neighborhood. They sided with anyone on the run, and they would certainly provide protection and shelter for a distraught woman.

“Are you too stupid to catch a woman?” Sergio yelled into the phone. “That’s unbelievable!”

“My guys saw her at city hall. But she ran like the devil, and then she snatched a messenger’s bike and disappeared into Chinatown.”

Silvio omitted the fact that Alex had kicked him in the balls.

“If she’s not standing here in front of me by this afternoon,” Sergio replied, “then I’ll hold you personally responsible, capito ?”

“Understood.” Silvio hung up the phone.

Sergio closed his eyes for a moment. Alex was a clever bitch. Under different circumstances, he would have admired her for her courage and cleverness—but there was simply too much on the line in this case. Sergio hated her, yet there was also something inside of him that painfully longed for her. There was no question in his mind that she had been the first woman for whom he felt more than mere physical desire. However, she was also the first to betray and lie to him like this. Once he got a hold of her, he would beat her until she begged for mercy. She would bitterly regret the humiliation she had caused him!

“And?” Levy asked when Sergio had put away his cell phone. Sergio turned around quickly.

“And what?”

“Did they get her?”

“No,” Sergio answered grimly. The telephone on Levy’s desk rang.

“What is it?” LMI’s president answered in an irritated voice. “I’m in an important meeting…Excuse me?”

Sergio could hear the agitated voice coming through the receiver. Levy listened silently, finally thanking his caller.

“Who was that?” Sergio asked. Levy, who had been under enormous pressure and was drinking much more than he could handle, looked bleary-eyed at Sergio.

“That was Lester Roman, our manager of strategic partnerships. He noticed a large transaction coming through one of our accounts this morning. Someone electronically requested the liquidation of MPM’s account in the amount of fifty million dollars.”

Sergio stared at him without comprehending. “How can that be? Doesn’t that require the approval of the account holders?”

“Yes, it does,” Levy confirmed, “but it happened. Everything was processed properly. No one thought it was suspicious because our employees routinely process very large transactions. Roman only got suspicious when he saw the name of the account holder during a routine check.”

He paused and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.

“St. John entered the request, and Sontheim must have confirmed it. According to the account list, they were the sole owners of the MPM account and therefore were authorized to move the funds.”

“Where did the money go?” Sergio asked after recovering from the initial shock.

“To an account at California S&L in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles.”

“Who entered the transaction? Zack was already dead last night!”

“The request appeared on the computer this morning. It was approved at 8:31, originating from my computer. Everything was handled properly, and the password was correct. The responsible account manager compared the name of the person making the request with the account holder and approved it.”

“From your computer?” Sergio was stunned and let himself sink into a chair. “That means that Alex was in this office an hour ago and sat calmly at your desk while hundreds of people were looking for her!”

“Fifty million dollars,” Levy whispered, “and we can’t even announce it publicly!”

Sergio stared blankly at the wall. Alex was even more audacious than he could have imagined. While they were searching for her in the building, she had stolen fifty million dollars from him outright. “I’m going to kill her,” he growled. The thought that she had fooled him again tore him up inside. He—Sergio Vitali, who was so smart and cunning that his profitable businesses had operated unimpeded for decades—had been double-crossed by this bitch! Sergio briefly contemplated calling Nelson, but then he dismissed the idea. He grabbed Levy’s telephone.

“What are you going to do?” Levy was nothing more than a frightened bundle of nerves.

“I’ll finish her off.” A cruel smile swirled around Sergio’s lips. “She and her accomplices. Every cop in this country is chasing her now. She’s going to pay for what she did to me.”

He dialed a number that he knew by heart.

“This is Sergio Vitali speaking,” he said when someone answered. “Please put me through to Mr. Harding.”

Alex watched the news at a small joint in Chinatown. The police were looking for her because of Zack’s murder. It was pointless to go to an airport because the risk of getting stopped was too great. She left the restaurant and walked in the rain to Canal Street, where she hailed a cab.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked.

“Port Authority,” Alex replied. Neither Sergio nor the police would check all the buses that left the city. On her way to Forty-Second Street, she managed to calm herself down some. She had escaped Sergio’s men by a whisker, but she certainly wouldn’t be so lucky again. These men were dead serious. Things had been snapping quickly into place over the past forty-eight hours, and she had triggered it all. Alex leaned her forehead against the taxi’s window. Would she have blown the Whithers deal if she had known what would happen? Zack was dead—murdered by the same men who were after her now. She shuddered when she realized that her life as she knew it was over. The thought that she was on the run, without a clue as to how and when it might end, was so frightening that she wanted to cry.