Thomas Prescott Superpack (72 page)

She looked at the magazine in her lap. Did she dare?

She took a deep breath, tore the top off a pack of Gushers and poured half the pack into her mouth. She bit down, squishing out the Wild Berry syrup. Delicious.

The headline of the magazine read, “Guy Likes Guys.” It was a picture of Guy Richie holding hands with a young man. Rikki laughed. Madonna turns another one. Rikki flipped through the pages. Dirt, dirt, and more dirt. Keira Knightley’s latest love interest, Kate Beckinsale’s divorce, Hugh Grant’s drunken outburst, Colin Farrell’s new look, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s new baby. Prince Harry’s latest binge.

Rikki turned to page 32 and stopped. There was a picture of a man with white curly hair, blue tinted glasses, and an orange scarf. The headline read, “Track Bowe Turns 60.” There was a photo of a bunch of people on a gigantic yacht.

Rikki read the blurb beside the photo:

Travis “Track” Bowe celebrated his 60
th
birthday in style. The Alidi Indy team owner and famed economist partied with friends aboard his yacht, the 72-foot Track III. Among his 100- person guest list were Sir Michael Caine, Elton John, Dame Judi Dench, Ben Kingsly, Bono, Josiah Wedgewood, Rod Stewart, and Ringo Star. The lavish party lasted until sunrise and was said to cost a staggering $800,000. A trifling amount for the 11
th
richest man in the world.

Rikki closed one eye, held up two fingers, and squished Travis “Track” Bowe’s face between her fingers.

Alidi
Indy team owner.

Squish.

Famed economist.

Squish.

11
th
richest man on the planet.

Squish.

Her father.

Squish.

LONDON

9:32
a.m.

Track Bowe gazed down 96 stories at the London streets below. He liked the view from the top floor of the
Alidi
building. The tiny people and cars moving down the thin streets. Almost as if he was God looking down on His kingdom. He laughed. Sometimes he was appalled at his narcissism. Whenever this happened, whenever he was feeling invincible—which was often—he would look at the photograph on his desk. It was a picture of the number thirteen car in shambles. Track had been in second place coming into the final lap when it’d happened. His inside rear tire blew out, sending him into the wall at 212 mph. Six long seconds and nineteen flips later, his car—or what was left of his car—came to rest.

Three cracked vertebrae, two skull fractures, a broken leg, a broken arm, seven broken ribs, massive internal bleeding. As he was airlifted away in a helicopter, it was said one of the technicians working on him started crying. Nicknamed “Track” in his early teens for his precocious driving skills, he was worshipped by thousands. Millions. The most beloved Indy car driver in three decades. And on May 24
th
, 1986, his driving career and most likely his life, would be over.

But miraculously, he held on. He recovered and rehabbed. Even tried his hands at a few races. But he was never the same. His best finish, tied for 21
st
. But over the years he had stockpiled millions upon millions in winnings, made some sound investments, and endorsed everything from Gillette to Old Spice to window washing fluid. By the age of 39, Track was a millionaire several times over and decided to make the move to owner. Team
Alidi
wasn’t an overnight success, but by the late 1990’s they had a stranglehold on the competition. In the last twelve years, one of Track Bowe’s drivers had won the circuit all but twice.

But racing had become secondary. Track had slowly found his niche in the stock market and before his 50
th
birthday, he was worth over four and a half billion dollars. He was the largest holder of stock in all the UK, his buys and sales sending the market into frenzies. By 55, he was the 30
th
richest person in the world. By 58, the 23
rd
. And as of two months ago, he’d been named the 11
th
richest person in the world, with a net value of 22 billion dollars. He had his eye on Buffet. Gates even.

The phone on his large cherry desk buzzed and Track set the framed picture down. He pushed the intercom and his secretary Judith said, “You have a call. A man. Says it’s about one of your kids.”

Track leaned back. Which one was it this time? Emily? John? Sam? Eleanor? Daisy? Quinn? Roger? How many was that? There were nine in all. Did they overdose? Were they in jail? How much was one of his monsters going to cost him this time?

Track let out an exasperating sigh and said, “Have Jonathan deal with it. Tell him to call me if it’s a lot.”

A lot
, meaning money. If the price was under a quarter million, his lawyer, Jonathan Strom, would deal with it. Usually, they could pay somebody to keep it out of the papers. Track didn’t much care what his kids did, as long as it didn’t affect his stocks. And it always did. Somebody—someone on his payroll—did a study that each time his name showed up in the tabloids at the expense of one of his stupid kids, his net holdings would drop a quarter of a percent. It had become so predictable there were said to be thousands of people who bought and sold stocks based directly on his children’s antics.

The last one had come at the hands of Adrian, his second youngest. Pictures of her with another woman, both blowing coke, both nude as the day they were born. Track had tried to pay to keep the photos out of the press, but three million dollars? He couldn’t bear to do it. But in hindsight, the photos had cost him 500 million when his holdings plummeted more than a percentage point. That had been nearly seven months ago. And his holdings still hadn’t recovered from the blow.

Judith answered in her predictable, “Will do.”

After a half minute, the door to his immense office opened and Judith strolled in. She had once been a stunner and in her mid-40s she still turned heads. She was the one woman who had never let Track sleep with her, which was probably the reason she was still around, and why she was the only person Track trusted.

She walked towards him, her knee length tan skirt swishing, and said, “I gave the guy Jonathan’s number. He didn’t seem to care for that much.”

“Who was he?”

“Didn’t say. He sounded foreign. Anyhow, he said he was going to call back in ten minutes.”

Track grimaced. The nerve of some of these people. He said, “Well, when he calls back, give him Jonathan’s number again. Or tell him to go to hell. I don’t care.”

And he didn’t. His kids had caused him more agony, and by agony, he of course meant money, than he dared to think about.

“Who is Ricky anyhow?” asked Judith. “You’ve never mentioned him.”

Track thought for a moment. Ricky? Did he have a Ricky?

Judith took her boss’s deep thinking for a cue to leave and turned around. It hit Track, almost like the wall had thirty years earlier. Not Ricky.
Rikki.

He cleared his throat and said calmly, “When this man calls back, why don’t you send the call back here. I’ll take care of it.”

Judith nodded, then left.

Track Bowe paced his large office for the first time. He hadn’t paced when he’d been awaiting word on a six-billion dollar merger of two of his companies. He paced now. Last he’d heard, Rikki was in South America. He had a private agency he paid handsomely to keep tabs on his only bastard child. He often thought about the hypocrisy in that the only child he cared for he’d never met—well officially—nor had he married her mother.

He had nine kids by five different wives. His latest, Olive, a 26-year old dance instructor. She spent seven hours a day in the gym and it showed in her long, tone muscles. He’d had his tubes tied after his fourth marriage flopped. Olive and he had a three-year-old, Abram. Track had tried to sue the doctor who had performed his vasectomy. The judge had laughed at the case and told him to go buy two baseball gloves.

Abram was already a hellion and Track had the premonition he was going to cost more than the other eight combined. But Rikki, she was different. She’d had a job when she was 14. Waiting tables at a restaurant in Scotland. He’d stopped in once for lunch. He’d watched as Rikki moved about the small room with a wide grin and a graceful step. Once, she passed his table and he’d asked her for some butter, which he didn’t really need. Rikki had smiled, brought back the butter, and patted his back on her departure. Those two soft pats had filled him with something he’d never felt before. He’d put a million dollars in her bank account the next day. He’d gone back to the restaurant later that month, but she was gone.

The phone buzzed.

Judith said, “He’s on the line. Want me to patch him through?”

“Please.”

The phone rang and Track picked it from the receiver with a sweaty palm. He said, “Hello.”

“Is this Travis Bowe?” The English was slightly accented, but crisp.

“This is.”

“Is Rikki Drough your daughter?”

He had never told a single person about Rikki. Not even his beloved Judith. He took a deep breath and said, “Yes, she is my daughter.”

He could feel the next words, “Your daughter is dead.” He just knew. He could feel it in the man’s voice. Something horrible had happened to her.

Track couldn’t hold it in. “Is she dead?”

“Not yet.”

Not yet?

The man said, “I have your daughter.”

Have
her?

“Do you have a cell phone?”

His mind was reeling. “Yes.”

“Give me the number.”

He gave him the number. Meanwhile, he was trying to grasp what this man was telling him. This man had Rikki. Track’s cell phone chirped. He picked it off his desk. He had a photo message. He brought up the picture. It was a photo of a blue card.
Oceanic Afrikaans
ID. Rikki Drough. Rikki’s face—blond hair and green eyes, timid smile—took up the left half.

Rikki was on a cruise?

“This photo was taken seven days ago,” said the voice, then added, “Write this number down.”

Track instinctively wrote down the numbers the man recited.

“The first is an account number, the second a routing number. You will transfer two billion dollars to this account by end of business tomorrow or Rikki will die.”

Track stared at the phone. Unable to speak. Did he say two
billion
dollars?

The man added, “And she will not die painlessly.”

The phone went dead.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

12:11 p.m.

S
outh African Airways flight 218 taxied down the runway of OR Tambo International Airport—formally Johannesburg International Airport and renamed after former President of the African National Congress Oliver Tambo—coming to a halt at gate 20b.

“After you.”

Gina looked up. An old African gentleman with white hair and a white goatee was staring down at her. She was confused for a moment, then it registered he was holding up the line so she could step out and get off the plane. She nodded politely, pulled her backpack over her shoulder and walked down the airplane aisle.

She walked through the gate and stopped by the check-in desk. There was a well-coiffed black woman behind the computer and Gina said, “There’s supposed to be a package waiting for me.”

After taking a quick look at Gina’s passport, the woman nodded and said, “Oh, yes.”

She bent down, then stood, and handed over a small brown package. Gina thanked her and then walked over and plopped down in a chair. Inside the package were a phone, four spare phone batteries, and an envelope filled with crisp one hundred dollar bills. Gina looked down at the phone in her hand. It’d been seven years since she’d had a cell phone, her last one a bulky
Nokia. She tried a few different buttons, but she was unable to get the phone to turn on. There was a Starbucks kiosk across the corridor and after sticking the money and extra batteries in her backpack, she made her way over to the green Starbucks parapet.

There was a line of five in front of her and directly in front was a young girl, around fourteen. Gina tapped her on the shoulder. She smiled and said, “I’ll buy your Starbucks if you give me a crash course in Blackberry real quick.”

The girl was American, with a thick southern accent. She said, “I have an iPhone but my buddy Billy has a Blackberry. It’s super easy, ma’am.”

Ma’am?
That was a first.

She mentally sighed and said, “How do I turn it on?”

The girl looked at her warily, took the phone, and said, “You hold down this button.” The girl held down a red button and two seconds later, the phone was showing signs of life.

“Can you show me how to check my e-mail?”

The little girl showed her the simplicity of the operation and said, “You really need to know this kind of stuff, ma’am.”