Andrew Gross - Reckless

“His name is Thibault,” Hauck said. He spelled it out. “First name Dieter. He also goes by Dani.”

“This Mr. Thibault is an American citizen?” Naomi Blum asked, making a note on her pad.

“Dutch. Or at least, that’s what he claims. His passport is Dutch. He might also have a Belgian one as well. Of course, that’s only the beginning.” He shook his head and smiled.

“So what is it people might want to distract you from, Mr. Hauck? Take me through.”

He did. Starting in his office with Merrill Simons. Then Thibault. The Conyers Farm photo-Thibault’s connection to Glassman. Knowing he could get himself fired for what he was divulging, for going around Foley-and probably would. Finally Thibault’s connection to Donovan, the phone calls to the super’s office where the second trader died.

Agent Blum made notes. She could take it from here. She had the resources on the highest levels. Find out who Thibault was. Subpoena the security video in Donovan’s building. Trace it back to Cat Rock Road. The black SUVs. Find the guy with the red knotted hair and the tat. Maybe a hundred ways everything could be tied to Thibault. What his motives were. Where it all led from there.

April. Find who killed her.

Naomi listened, making occasional notes. She asked astute questions. Her sharp eyes deepened as the links to Thibault grew more clear. When he was done, around forty minutes later, she thanked him. Made copies of what he’d found. He felt a little deflated when it was over. After giving up everything he knew. He realized that for four weeks his juices had been running.

And he realized how much he had missed that. How good it felt again.

When she was arranging her notes, Hauck said, “I’ve given what I have to you. Now you owe me a couple.”

Naomi Blum turned to him. “Okay.”

“The first is, how did you get onto this? You visited Donovan’s widow. That was a police matter, not Treasury. You weren’t looking into either of these people. How did you know?”

The agent shrugged. “When two high-level money managers die and both their firms fall apart due to their actions, it’s my job to check it out.”

“What do you think is happening?”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s one I can’t fully answer right now.” The agent started to get up. “What’s the second question? You said there were two.”

Hauck placed his hand on her arm, stopping her. “I want to stay involved.”

“Stay in?”

“I have a reason to keep looking into Thibault. Without attracting notice. There’s also the chance my firm could even be involved. It won’t hurt to have someone on the inside.”

Naomi shook her head. “Look, Mr. Hauck-”

“Ms. Blum…” She sat back down. “These people think I’m onto something. As far as they know I’m only looking into this matter for a client. But that can be useful. Whatever they’re hiding. You can chase down all the money wires, the fake passports, the overheard chatter, the e-mail trails. But I’m already involved.”

“How about I think about it,” the Treasury agent said. “It’s not exactly the policy of the U.S. government to put private citizens at that kind of risk.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” the agent said, standing up. “Look, Mr. Hauck, I know your background, and the United States of America owes you its full appreciation. But we have people who handle this sort of thing. Interagency people. The kind of money it takes to do what they’re doing-it’s the kind of money that takes on governments, Mr. Hauck, not suburban police departments. I know what you’ve already done, but to put it plainly,” the pretty agent said, looking at him directly, “you have no idea the shit-storm of trouble staying in this could bring on.”

Hauck stood up as well, opening the door for her. “I don’t mind trouble.”

There might have been a time, years back, Jack “Red” O’Toole reflected, riding the Metro-North train to Greenwich, that his soul was worth saving.

The teenage girl texting on her BlackBerry reminded him of someone from long ago. A girl he knew back in high school. Desiree Flynn. When he played linebacker at Haysville High in Kansas and the thought of stuffing the line and knocking heads for the blue and white of Kansas State was something he could reach out and touch. When maybe a job at a lathe at Great Plains Tool Company like his father had was a dream worth living for.

But that was before the sky grew dark and an F5 tornado crashed through town one May afternoon, leveling half of it, including the die plant.

Red O’Toole’s parents too.

Before he left to go into the army and developed a deft touch with an M4. Before IEDs exploded in his ears or, amped on Dianabol, he chased a fleeing insurgent into a stone hut in Hilla and emptied his mag on six “unfriendlies” sitting there-who turned out to be a family at the dinner table and their ten-year-old son, who’d been chasing after a soccer ball.

That was when the army sent him home with a full discharge, and he came back to a town of rubble and zero prospects, bad as anything he had seen over there, and he spent all of six days there, Desiree off in Utah somewhere, before signing up for two years with Global Threat Management, making five times what he did for Uncle Sam.

And got a bona fide, free license to use his skills.

They played a game when they went out on a field trip, beyond the Green Zone. They called it Tin Can. Try to knock one off the fence with their M4s. Except the “can” was more likely an old man who popped his head up watering his plants or boys playing cards on a rooftop as their armored convoy sped by.

O’Toole kept looking at the girl across from him. She kept texting, as if she didn’t even notice him.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Like shooting a tin can off a fence in a dusty field.

The train slowed, approaching his destination. “Greenwich,” the conductor announced over the loudspeaker. “Greenwich. Old Greenwich will be next.”

O’Toole stood up. He took one last look at the texting girl, who, he decided, didn’t look like Desiree at all. He stood in the line of passengers waiting to disembark.

The door opened.

O’Toole crossed onto the platform. The exiting passengers funneled down into the station. O’Toole continued along the track.

The man he was looking for was reading a magazine, hair smoothed back, wearing wire-rim glasses, waiting on a bench on the northbound side.

O’Toole took a seat next to him. He glanced at his watch. “Right on time.”

“If you can’t trust Metro-North, who can you trust?” the man replied.

“Always a good question. I ask myself that a lot.”

“Well, in your case,” the man said, “I’m afraid you have to trust me.” He closed what he was reading, the Economist, and removed an eight-by-eleven manila envelope from the pages. He slid it along the concrete bench to O’Toole.

“We have another job for you.” O’Toole opened the envelope. “I want him to become disinterested in our affairs.”

There was a series of photos inside. On top, a man he might characterize as rugged, handsome, opening the door to an office building. The next was a not-so-bad-looking chick with short, dark hair getting out of a Prius.

The third was a kid in an oversize hockey jersey. O’Toole noticed he clearly had something wrong with him.

Retard, he thought. What did they call them? Down syndrome or something.

He flipped back to the first photo. Hauck. An ex-cop. “You want him dead?”

“What I want is for him to be no longer engaged in our affairs.” His contact took off his glasses and started to clean them. “What you do is your business. I always trust the judgment of my people on the ground.”