The Body of David Hayes (36 page)

“Foreman doesn’t know me. I’ll just be a waitress who sneaked out for a smoke and got locked out.” She added, “Hopefully the caterer goes along with that.”

The women reached out and grabbed each other’s forearm at the same time. It seemed an awkward gesture to Liz, somewhere between a handshake and a hug, but she
was grateful for the contact. “Five minutes, tops,” Liz reminded.

“Got it.” Gaynes bounded up the stairs effortlessly.

Liz turned and hurried down to twenty-four, believing she still had a chance to accomplish the transfer on time. Floor twenty-four lacked the security of the data department immediately above. Liz passed into a darkened corridor, switching on the lights and running through the maze of hallways. Inside, the pounding of her heart counted the passing seconds; the lighting of the cake and the darkening of the room were only minutes away.

When Boldt sawthe first set of lights appear in the windows on the twenty-fourth floor, his first thought was housecleaning. But then another string, and a third string illuminated, and the short time between them suggested someone in a hurry, and his blood rushed to his face. It looked as if security were chasing someone. He thought of Gaynes and Liz.

At that same moment, the police-band radio sang with exchanges between the command van and Special Ops officers who had failed to locate Liz inside the theater, frustrated and limited in their effort by the darkness and the audience’s penchant for jumping to its feet in spontaneous song. Judging by the growing agitation in Riz’s voice, he sensed he’d lost his mark and feared his surveillance had failed, which in turn reflected directly on him and his ability to lead. Riz was a smart, capable cop. Soon he’d be checking with his people already in the bank, those assigned
to watch the security monitors. How much longer until Liz was spotted, and what would the repercussions be?

The string of lights now stretched entirely across the twenty-fourth floor. Boldt craned his neck and put his face to the windshield to see.

Unable to tolerate another minute of this, and understanding the need for someone to distract Riz’s people from seeing Liz on a security camera, Boldt left his Crown Vic and marched through a light drizzle toward WestCorp Center, well aware that as he did so, he became a target of his own surveillance.

Liz reached the elevator bank on twenty-four and called an elevator, the wait excruciating. She knew that by now Foreman would be frantically searching for her, probably dressed as a waiter and moving through the guests, tray in hand.

Use of the elevator meant risking identification by the security guard operating the car. Her hope, that the car might arrive filled with smokers or late arrivals, that she might meld into the mix, proved too optimistic. The doors opened and she boarded an otherwise empty car—she and the guard. He stared at her, well briefed.

“Yes, it’s me,” she said, once the doors had closed. The one floor ride would be over quickly.

“I thought so,” he said.

“They probably didn’t tell you about this part,” she said.

He said nothing.

“Don’t blow it by saying something,” she said, just as
the doors came open. She walked out, glancing directly at him once more to show him the strength of her conviction.

As the doors shut behind her, she had no idea if her ruse had worked, but she didn’t have the luxury of worrying about it. By the time the guard reported her and the announcement went up the chain, she needed to be sitting in front of the AS/400 making the transfer.

Liz moved through the main door, Charlotte at the table to her right, looking for a tall, African American waiter, so she could steer clear of him.

“Elizabeth Boldt?” a heavily accented voice asked from her left.

She turned to see a big man with a beard and dark, piercing eyes. She lowered her sight to the name tag stuck to his lapel, his name written in a casual cursive, not the calligraphy that her staff had arranged and paid for.

“Yasmani Svengrad,” the man introduced himself, extending his hand.

She found herself rooted, frozen in place. She did not offer to shake his hand, and a moment later he lowered his own.

“S&G Imports. We’re a private banking customer,” he said, naming WestCorp’s elite customer program that required seven-figure net worth. Phillip’s staff, not hers, had handled the invitations to the private banking customers. “Eight ounces,” he said. “Excuse me?”

“We donated some caviar to tonight’s event. Very lastminute. Eight ounces of Beluga. Another eight of Osetra.”

This explained his receiving an invitation.

This man who had watched her children, who had threatened to expose the videotape, said, “We have interests
in common, you and I.” He had yet to take his eyes off her, holding her with that steady stare.

She felt weak, almost faint. Whatever Lou, Foreman, and Riz had thought, none had prepared for this moment. Rather than show her weakness, she fought against the urge to step back, stepping forward instead, nearly touching him. “I share
nothing
in common with you,” she said while looking him squarely in the eye.

A grin parted the graying beard and mustache. Svengrad was amused by her, nothing more. “A few minutes of your time is all, Elizabeth.” He lowered his head to where she
felt
his voice as it warmed her neck. “I love how you look in satin,” he said. Standing erect again, he regained that confident smile. He raised his voice. “Yes, I’d love a tour. Please, lead the way.”

Liz caught a signal from Charlotte, who was no longer at the reception desk but standing in the doorway that led back to the hallway where she’d just been with Foreman and the caterer. Charlotte moved her fingers to signal she was about to kill the lights, and Liz nodded, holding up a single finger—one minute—knowing her moment had come.

She walked away and Svengrad followed. They passed through a few knots of conversation until Liz heard her name shouted out. She processed it as Phillip’s voice—a summons from the boss. She turned, waved, and quickly pointed toward Charlotte, then tapped her wrist indicating “time.” To her relief, this proved enough to stop the man. In her peripheral vision, she picked up Danny Foreman, an empty tray held high and carried in front of him. Without making eye contact, she hurried on, Svengrad following.
She imagined that behind her Foreman was now plowing through the cocktail party to catch up.

With thirty seconds to go, she navigated past a group of workstations, reaching the glass barrier that contained the first of the AS/400s.

She turned in time to see Foreman in his waiter’s garb, his bow tie crooked on his long neck, hurrying toward them. Liz’s left hand hesitated above the green screen of the palm reader, a book-sized device mounted by the door to the glass room, her own ID card ready in her right. She slipped the edge of the ID card into the card reader.

The lights went out. The guests cooed and turned to face the candle-bright cake that appeared in the doorway at the opposite end of the room. Liz pressed her hand to the screen and watched a small red light turn to green. She heard the
click
of the electronic latch. Svengrad was now pressed up against her, physically contacting her.

“Wait!” Foreman called, still a few steps off.

The room was all ghostly shadows and cutout silhouettes, the only light from
EXIT
signs and the distant glow of the cake visible in the reflection off the door’s security glass. A smaller image appeared behind Foreman’s tall silhouette. “Agent Foreman,” the female voice said, “Detective Gaynes, SPD. You’re interfering with a surveillance op.”

Liz used the distraction to pop open the door and slip inside, but with Svengrad immediately behind her and coming through as well. She turned quickly and bumped the man out of the way and hurried to push the door shut. A satisfying
click
rang out just as Foreman turned from Gaynes and lunged for the door. The thick glass muted whatever
Foreman said to the detective, but even in the limited light, Liz saw his fury.

Liz hurried to the door of the neighboring server room, got it open, and turned to pull Svengrad through behind her just as the overhead lights switched back on. A dull electric hum filled the room. The server was a brushed, dark gray. It looked much bigger close up than she remembered. She went to work immediately, having no idea how much fuss Danny Foreman might make, how much trouble he might cause her. She dropped the manila envelope on the floor, slipping the optical disk it contained into the server, grateful that such operations required little of the operator. The disk auto-loaded. A few small lights on the server flashed, and Liz intently watched the screen, awaiting its instruction to input the wire information.

This was her moment. Without her, the server would not permit access. Lou had been clear about how to play this moment, and she rose to what she considered the most important performance of her lifetime.

“Without me, this doesn’t happen,” she told Svengrad.

“You didn’t go to all this trouble just to change your mind.”

“The video.”

“You’ll have it.”

“Yes, I will,” she said. “And you will have your company back and your passport reauthorized when I do.”

“What’s this?”

“From my husband.
Quid pro quo
. You understand Latin, Mr. Svengrad? He said to tell you that he talked the government into releasing your product. But he also had INS make your passport invalid for travel outside the country. It all depends on the return of the tape.”

“Enter your password,” he said.

Lou had stepped her through this carefully, believing the conversation would take place over the phone. In person, she found it much more difficult to say it with conviction.

“Your company and your freedom for that tape,” she said. “Your word on it.”

“My word,” he said. She didn’t believe him.

Lou had insisted she bargain with Svengrad, despite her repeated arguments that he held all the cards. “It’s complicated,” had been Lou’s reply, who went on to say he couldn’t tell her everything that was in play.

She typed in her user ID, and then her password, which appeared as a series of asterisks.

Svengrad pushed her out of the way and sat down in the chair, and Liz did not attempt to fight him. She told him, “I was going to use whatever account information you gave me. You could have trusted that.”

Svengrad watched the screen as various commands were announced and small graphs, indicating loading time, moved like the mercury in a thermometer, marking progress. He said only, “This is better.”

One of the loading instructions caught her eye—an account number she recognized—and for the first time she understood what David had done to hide the money.
Brilliant
, she almost said aloud.

Finally the screen they had both awaited presented itself,
a preprogrammed menu offering wire transfer options. Svengrad instructed her to stand back from him. He slipped out a piece of paper, pulled the keyboard into his lap, leaning over it, and carefully input the information into the machine. She wondered if he knew about the camera looking down from above, or if his instincts were nothing more than blind luck. Either way, she thought he’d probably used Hayes’s know-how to cut off the surveillance. The entire process passed quickly. Liz marveled that all these weeks of agony had culminated in a few keystrokes and no more than a couple minutes of time.

Svengrad hit the
ENTER
key. The screen hesitated, then delivered a graphic announcing the transfer was complete. “Done,” he said, looking at Liz with a triumphant look.

Lou had fed her several lines, making her repeat them carefully, on the off chance Svengrad left the phone line open as he gave her wiring instructions. She said them now. “Yes, well…I, for one, never trust David when it comes to his programming.” Svengrad’s triumph suffered a momentary twitch of concern. “You and I saw that money get wired. For your sake, I hope it goes where you think it’s going.”

“David Hayes knows better than to cross me.”

“Yes,” Liz said. “That’s exactly what I thought.”