Andrew Gross - The Dark Tide

Her husband’s mentor told her softly, “You don’t even have to say it, Karen.”

HE DIDN’T HAVE the heart to tell her now. Or the will.

Lennick replaced the house phone in its cradle in the Old World lobby of the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel in Munich.

A week ago his contact from the Royal Bank of Scotland had called, one of the lenders he had arranged for Charlie, who advanced his firm funds. It sounded perfunctory. The banker had a tone of slight concern.

A random check of an oil tanker by a customs official in Jakarta had reached their attention.

Lennick’s heart had come to a stop. He wheeled around back to his desk. “Why?”

“Some kind of discrepancy,” the banker explained, “in the stated contents of the cargo.” Which was declared to have been 1.4 million barrels of oil.

The tanker was found to be empty, the bank official declared.

Lennick had turned ashen.

“I’m sure there’s simply been some kind of mistake,” the Scottish banker said to him. It seemed that 1.4 million barrels at sixty-six dollars per had been previously pledged by Charles Friedman as collateral against their loan.

The banker cleared his throat. “Is there any cause for alarm?”

Lennick felt a shiver of concern race down his spine. He’d look into it, he told the man, and that was enough to make the banker feel appeased. But as soon as he put down the phone, Lennick closed his eyes.

He thought of Charlie’s recent losses, the pressure he’d been under. The pressure they’d all been under. How heavily he’d leveraged up on his funds.

You stupid son of a bitch, Charlie. Lennick sighed. He reached for the phone and started to dial a number. How could you be so desperate, you fool, so careless? Don’t you have any idea who these people are?

People who didn’t like to be looked into. Or have their affairs examined. Now everything had to be reconstructed. Everything, Charlie.

Even now, weeks later, in the Vier Jahreszeiten’s lobby, the banker’s all-too-delicate question made Lennick’s mouth go dry.

Is there any cause for alarm?

It was the second day of field-hockey practice, near the end of February. Sam Friedman tossed her stick into the bottom of her locker.

She played right forward for the girls’ team. They’d lost a couple of their best attackers from last year, so this season it was going to be tough. Sam grabbed her parka off the hook and scanned over a few books. She had an English quiz tomorrow on a story by Tobias Wolfe, a chapter to skim on Vietnam. Since she’d gotten into Tufts, Early Decision 2 in January, she’d pretty much been coasting. Tonight a bunch of them were meeting in town at Thataways for wings and maybe sneak a beer.

Senior slump was in full throttle.

Outside, Sam ran over to her blue Acura SUV, which she’d parked in the west lot after lunch. She jumped in and tossed her bag onto the seat, and started up the engine. Then she plugged her iPod into the port and scrolled to her favorite tune.

“And I am telling you I’m not going…,” she sang, belting it out as closely as she could to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls. She went to slip the Acura into drive.

That’s when the hand wrapped around her mouth and jerked her head back to the headrest.

Samantha’s eyes peeled back and she tried to let out a muffled scream.

“Don’t make a sound, Samantha,” a voice from behind her said.

Oh my God! That scared her even more, that the person knew her name. She felt a bolt of fear race down her spine, her eyes darting around, straining to glance at him in the rearview mirror.

“Uh-uh, Samantha.” The assailant redirected her face forward. “Don’t try to look at me. It’ll be better for you that way.”

How did he know her name?

This was bad. She ratcheted through a million things she had always heard in case something like this occurred. Don’t fight back. Let him do what he wants. Give him your money, jewelry, even if it’s something important. Let him have his way.

Anything.

“You’re scared, Samantha, aren’t you?” the man asked in a subdued voice. He had his hand wrapped tightly over her mouth, her eyes stretched wide.

She nodded.

“I don’t blame you. I’d be scared, too.”

She glanced outside, praying someone might come by. But it was late, and dark. The lot was empty. She felt his breath, hot on the back of her neck. She closed her eyes. Oh, God, he’s going to rape me. Or worse…

“But it’s your lucky day. I’m not going to hurt you, Samantha. I just want you to deliver a message to someone. Will you do that for me?”

Yes, Samantha nodded, yes. Stay together, stay together, she begged herself. He’s going to let you go.

“To your mom.”

My mom… What did her mom have to do with this?

“I want you to tell her, Sam, that the investigation is going to start very soon. And that it’s going to get very personal. She’ll understand. And that we’re not the types to wait around patiently-forever. I think you can see that, can’t you? Do you understand that, Sam?”

She shut her eyes. Shaking. Nodded.

“Good. Be sure and tell her that the clock’s ticking. And she doesn’t want it to run out, I can promise that. Do you hear me, Sam?” He loosened his hand just slightly from her mouth.

“Yes,” Sam whispered, her voice quaking.

“Now, don’t look around,” he said. “I’m going to slip out the back.” The man had a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his face. “Trust me, the less you see, the better for you.”

Samantha sat rigid. Her head moved up and down. “I understand.”

“Good.” The door opened. The man slipped out. She didn’t look. Or turn to follow. She just sat there staring. Exactly as she was told.

“You are your father’s little girl, aren’t you, Sam?”

Her eyes shot wide.

“Remember about the sum. Two hundred and fifty million dollars. You tell your mom we won’t wait long.”

Karen clung to her daughter on the living-room couch. Samantha was sobbing, her head buried against her mother’s shoulder, barely able to speak. She’d called Karen after the man had left, then driven home in a panic. Karen immediately called the police. Outside, the quiet street was ablaze in flashing lights.

Karen went through it with the first officers who’d arrived. “How could there be no protection at the school? How could they just let anyone in there?” Then to Sam, in total frustration, “Baby, how could you not have locked the car?”

“I don’t know, Mom.”

But inside she knew-her daughter’s fingers tight and trembling, her face smeared with tears-that this wasn’t about Samantha. Or more protection at school. Or locking the car door.

It was about Charlie.

This was about something he had done. Something she was growing more and more afraid that he had withheld from her.

They would have found Samantha at the mall, or at someone’s house, or at the club where she worked. But they weren’t trying to get to Samantha, she knew.

They were trying to get to her.

And the scariest part was, Karen had no idea what these people wanted from her.

When she spotted Lieutenant Hauck come through the front door, her body almost gave out all at once. She leaped up and ran over to him. She had to hold herself back from hugging him.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is she all right?”

“Yes.” Karen nodded in relief. “I think so.”

“I know she’s already been through it a couple of times, but I need to talk with her, too.”

Karen took him over to her daughter. “Okay.”

Hauck sat down on the coffee table directly across from Samantha. “Sam, my name’s Lieutenant Hauck. I’m the head of detectives with the Greenwich police here in town. I know your mom a little from when your dad died. I want you to tell me exactly what took place.”