Steven Gore - Absolute Risk

Gage called Viz, who’d taken Arndt home and then had checked the layout of the surveillance in Central Park.

“It’s practically a convention out here,” Viz said. “It’s hard to tell who’s who. Hicks is in his usual spot along with two others spread out on either side. And there are two vans stationed at either end of the block that are using as much bandwidth as T-1 lines, but I have no way of knowing whether they’re aware of each other.”

“I need you to come back inside and turn all of the bugs back on as soon as Abrams and I leave.”

Gage disconnected, then called out to Abrams, who was in his bedroom changing into his suit, “You have a large briefcase I can use? I need to take a lot with me, but I don’t want to be seen with my Rollaboard and clue them in that I’m on the move.”

“In my study. There’s an old-style leather catalogue case in the closet.”

Gage retrieved his nonencrypted cell phone to make a call so that those intercepting him would believe that they knew where he was going and called Alex Z.

“Abrams and I are on our way down to Washington,” Gage said. “By helicopter. We’ll stop along the way to pick up one of his underlings.”

Abrams came back into the living room, tying his tie, as Gage turned the phone off again.

“Should you be telling our plans to the other side?” Abrams asked.

“When they hear on the news that you’ve been called to Washington, they’ll assume the rest is true, too. Except I’ll be getting off where they think someone is getting on.”

Abrams smiled. “I like my job better than yours. It’s a lot simpler.”

Gage collected Abrams’s briefcase, stuffed it with his own attache case, along with a change of clothes, and then pointed toward the door.

Abrams’s limo took them first to the helipad, then to Newark Airport where Gage got off. To disguise his trail, Gage rented a car with the unused Federal Reserve card that Abrams had given him the previous week, and then headed north toward Boston. Three and a half hours later, he pulled up in front of the Turkish halal cafe down the block from Ijara Automobiles.

The owner, sitting by the cash register, lowered his paper and cast dead eyes at Gage as he entered.

Abdul Rahmani, the only customer in the cafe, neither looked up nor rose from his seat.

Gage pulled up a chair across from him.

“You’re as much of a bungler as Hennessy,” Rahmani said, shaking his head. “I should’ve known.”

“Ibrahim could’ve picked up his phone at any time since I first came knocking on your door.”

“Why should he have? There’ve been dozens of people looking for him over the years. Investigators. Intelligence agencies. Business reporters. Professors. Graduate students. Hedge fund managers-why should he bless you of all people with a call?”

“Because I know the truth about what happened to him.”

“That only means that you know what he knows.

Bravo.”

“Thinks he knows-and he’s wrong. Maybe dead wrong.”

Rahmani spread his hands. “So? Let’s hear it.”

“I’ll tell it only to him, and only in person. I’ll also explain to him why some of the people he thought were his friends are now on the hunt for him.”

“It doesn’t make a difference, they won’t find him. No one will ever find him, unless he wants to be found. I don’t even know where he is.”

Gage inspected Rahmani’s face, trying to discern a connection between his aggression and door-slamming protection of Ibrahim and the fact of his calling to get Gage to come to Boston. He then surveyed the cafe, wondering whether it was bugged.

“How long would it take for you to get in contact with him?” Gage asked.

Rahmani shrugged.

Gage walked over to the counter and grabbed a takeout menu and a matchbook and brought them back to the table. He drew out the flowchart that he’d drawn for Casher, showing Ibrahim’s connection to the Group of Twelve. He then spun it around so Rahmani could see it.

“Can you describe this to him?” Gage asked.

Rahmani reached for it. Gage pulled it away. Rahmani’s face reddened.

“It’s not complicated,” Gage said. “Just memorize it.”

Gage let Rahmani stare at it a little longer, and tore it up. He then removed Rahmani’s saucer from under his coffee cup, piled up the pieces, and set them on fire.

Gage held his open hands over the flame and then rubbed them together.

“Let’s see whether this generates a little heat where Ibrahim is, too,” Gage said. “And then maybe a little light.”

Vice President Cooper Wallace sat alone in his office in the Executive Office Building after the security briefing. He flicked on the television and then changed the channel from CNN to CNBC. He wasn’t interested in the political pundits’ speculations, but in the numbers that reflected the financial mind of the country. The header rotated from the prices of gold, silver, and oil to the Dow and NASDAQ. They’d both dropped four percent on the news of the transition, then gained three back. The same in London and Berlin.

At first, he felt relief. The markets had time to absorb the news about the president’s health, to weigh it, to allocate their resources, and decided that the world wasn’t coming to an end. Maybe those economics textbooks were right after all. It really was a self-adjusting mechanism, a collective mind that takes in data and prices itself accordingly.

But then a shudder of self-doubt waved through him.

Maybe it wasn’t confidence in him that the market was showing, but a belief that the president would soon resume his place as the captain of the ship of state and that Wallace’s assignment was merely to hold the rudder steady in the meantime.

He, too, had watched the surgeons’ press conference. He, too, had felt no doubt that the surgery would be routine and successful. He, too, saw the confidence in the wire-rimmed Harvard Medical School faces of the white coats. He, too But then his mind twisted back down the tunnel of the past, to the president calling him into his study, warning him to think and to listen.

You want to be president in two years, but something could happen to me, and you’d be sitting in this chair tomorrow.

Now the white coats seemed like costumes and the wire rims like props and their words spoken from a script written by the president.

Tomorrow had arrived.

Chief of Staff Paul Nichols knocked on his door, then entered.

“This is the list,” Nichols said, handing Wallace a sheet bearing five names. He then pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Russian and Chinese interpreters are standing by. The French, German, and Japanese presidents will speak to you in English. The British prime minister will go first.”

Wallace skimmed down the page. He didn’t mind the others, but was disgusted by the thought of having to call the Chinese president to reassure him that the pull on the American oars would remain steady. He could see the man’s soft, round face, beaming like the owner of a company store No, that wasn’t it. It was the self-satisfied smirk of a colonial master. They owned the debt and therefore had the U.S. by the pocketbook.

Americans could still feed themselves, but they had to cook on Chinese stoves and in Chinese pots and pans and pay tribute in the form of interest on a trillion dollars of treasury bonds. If Casher is right, Wallace thought, they have us not only by our hearts, minds, and consumer cravings, but by the balls.

Wallace reached for the remote to turn off the television. He hesitated as an inset box appeared showing Manton Roberts standing before a microphone. The business reporter’s voice was replaced by Roberts announcing that National Pledge Day would include prayers for the president’s recovery.