Andrew Gross - Reckless

Reckless

Andrew Gross

To the memory of Eleanor Zormana devoted fan,
but an even better mother-in-law

Contents

Beep, beep! Beep, beep!

They entered the house through the sliding glass doors in

Remind me again, Annie Fletcher asked, wiggling out of her

The gleaming white Dassault Falcon touched down gracefully at Westchester

They didnt talk about it much. Over their coffee. The

About two miles down, Hauck hung a right at Cat

The bedroom had a few techs and detectives Hauck knew

The Talon Group, Haucks new employer, was a worldwide security

Roger Cantwell stared at his Bloomberg screen in dismay.

Over the next days, Hauck began digging into the background

At the same time, Hauck did his best to keep

Within days, the first responses on Thibault began to arrive.

Wednesday and Saturday nights Hauck coached a team of twelve

In the stylish dining room of her Normandy on Dublin

Later, after everyone had left, Merrill took off her earrings

It was after eleven, that same night, when Kevin Mitman

It wasnt them.

Roger Cantwell stared out at the dark Manhattan sky. The

Once one of Wall Streets most historic companies, Wertheimer Grant

In her cluttered, windowless office, in the basement of a

Monday afternoon, Hauck sat in his car across the street

It took some time for the picture of Dani Thibault

It was two in the morning and James Donovan was

Thanks for coming in, Ty.

The idea that Talon might use him as a kind

His daughter Jessie came up for the weekend. Now that

At 6:40 that Monday morning, Naomi came in from her

The second investment manager to die under suspicious circumstances quickly

On the way home, Hauck took a chance and stopped

Hauck finally made it home at close to ten. He

The cheers from the crowd and the thwack of the

The connection hed found between Dani Thibault and both dead

What Snell had found coursed through Hauck. Thibault had claimed

Outside the garage, Hauck pulled the Beemer into the first

The chiefs office had been relocated to the newly completed

My name is Naomi Blum, Mr. Hauck, the petite agent

There might have been a time, years back, Jack Red

The man in the Burberry raincoat turned up his collar

Thomas Keaton, secretary of the treasury, to whom the Office

That Saturday night, at the Hamill rink in Greenwich, the

Red OToole pulled the van into the crowded lot a

Jared! Hauck shouted toward the locker room and waited for

The Greenwich police arrived a few minutes later. The first

You have to learn to relax more, Ty. April grinned

The phone that they removed from Sonny Merceds body led

Hauck came around his desk. I wasnt expecting you today.

News of the impending collapse of the American banking system

Over the past few days Hauck had done his best

Their food arrived, but neither of them felt particularly hungry.

The easy part was grabbing a few days from the

The international airport at Belgrade in Serbia looked like any

The next day Hauck was having breakfast around seven in

They decided the best approach was to stake out the

A woman whom Naomi pegged as around seventy, in a

Maria Radisovics blue Opel pulled out of the small alleyway

Inside the farmhouse, Dani Thibault was going crazy.

They watched Thibault for another day from the same hillside

Look!

Naomi wound her way down to the farmhouse. She waited

The lights were from a car coming up to the

Hauck turned away from Thibault, glancing at the overhead TV

The two men approaching from down the alley stepped closer.

Hauck raced back through town to Thibaults farmhouse to pick

They drove on past Thibaults car in silence. Naomi was

The young girl trembled a bit, clearly scared.

They arrived at Heathrow midday Saturday.

The al-Bashirs walked a couple of blocks toward Park

All at once, the defiance in Marty al-Bashirs face

Behind the closed doors of their study, Sheera looked at

Annie Fletcher picked out the set of spare keys to

The car that came to take al-Bashir and his

That wasnt them! That wasnt them!

Empty, dejected, Hauck found his way back to Naomi, who

By the time they made it back to al-Bashirs

Naomi motioned Hauck inside with a concealed wave, closing the

Hassan ibn Hassani passed through customs at JFK and found

Hauck flew back to New York on Sunday. Eight A.M.

Naomi flew back to Washington that Monday afternoon and went

That first night back, Annie came over. Mondays, Hauck generally

The e-mail flashed on Naomis laptop when she logged

He was getting ready to leave when his cell rang.

She did jog on it.

Peter Simons was skimming the Wall Street Journal in the

Naomi was at Reagan International, waiting for the government jet

Red OToole leaned against the car and stared out at

Two large black Suburbans pulled up in front of the

Peter Simons was pleased.

They took the Amtrak Metroliner back to DC.

Haucks body went rigid with determination.

Hauck froze, focused on Naomi, as OToole made his getaway.

Only moments before, Thomas Keaton had stood behind the president

The resignations of Thomas Keaton and his chief counsel sent

He sat in the BMW looking out at the pleasant

Agent BlumMr. Hauck

London.

B eep, beep! Beep, beep!

Amir, Marty al-Bashirs six-year-old son, raced his motorized Formula One model around the dining room table, almost crashing it into Anna, the Lebanese housemaid, as she brought out their Sunday lunch of flatbread and spiced lamb.

Amir, watch out! his mom, Sheera, yelled. Youll run Anna over. Marty, is it not possible for you to tell your son to stop?

Amir, listen to your mother, Marty called from the den, distracted. He and his older son, Ghassanthey called him Garywere crouched in front of the wide-screen TV in the midst of a crucial football match. Manchester United versus Chelsea. The match was scoreless with only seconds remaining in the first half, and Man U was his sons favorite teamthey had just acquired Antonio Valencia, his favorite winger and the hottest foot in the game.

Oh, no, look! Gary shouted as Marty focused back on the screen. A Chelsea attacker had curled a thirty-meter beauty just inside the left post, an inch beyond the Manchester goalies outstretched dive.

Damn, now look what youve made me miss, Sheera, Marty groaned, deflated, a goal!

A goal, big deal. Your son is driving that thing around the house like Jenson Button. Amir, listen Sheeras voice grew firm. If you dont stop this instant, you can forget about going to Universal Studios when we are in L.A. Do you hear?

As if on autopilot, the model race car came to a stop. From the floor, Amir caught his fathers amused gaze and grinned sheepishly. Yes, I hear, Mama.

Come on, boys, your moms gone to a lot of trouble for us. Lets eat. Marty rose and the family drew chairs around the sleek van der Rohe table in the stylishly decorated town house.

Outside, the view from the wide third-floor window of their fashionable Mayfair Georgian was over Hyde Park, among the most desirable views in town. The home cost close to six million pounds, but as the chief investment officer of the Royal Saudi Partnership, a sovereign fund of Martys native Saudi Arabia, it was hardly more than a rounding error on the daily tallies of one of the largest troves of investment capital in the world.

Marty, which al-Bashir had been called for years, was simply an Americanized form of Mashhur, his birth name, given to him in his undergraduate days when he had studied under Whiting and McComb at the University of Chicago and followed up with stints in portfolio strategy at Goldman and Reynolds Reid, and in private equity at Blackstone in New York.