It would take lots of planning, and money, and that meant a trip back east, to his American headquarters in New Jersey — the Owl’s Nest — to meet with his senior staff to plan the operations. But more importantly, he needed to know if his dreams of destroying America from within were possible. Again, the answer was in the east, in Newburgh, New York. Only one person could advise him on how to proceed, and he needed to see her as soon as possible.
Cazaux remained in his Mexican stronghold in Nogales long enough to disguise himself, effortlessly aging thirty years with simple makeup and posture techniques, then used his forged American passport and boarded a flight from Nogales to Albuquerque. Security was loose and there was no sign of pursuit, and booking a flight to Chicago and beyond was easy. No one gave the bent, alcoholic, emaciated-looking old man more than a passing glance as he boarded the next plane.
PART 2
New York City
August 1995
When his executive assistant found Harold G. Lake, the first thought he had was, My God, he's going to jump.
The sealed high-rise windows designed to keep the heat and the odor and the noises of Manhattan out were triple-paned tempered glass, so, of course, it wasn’t possible for Lake to jump (from here at least) unless he had a sledgehammer hidden in his closet. But it was the way Lake looked that worried Ted Fell, Harold Lake’s attorney, executive assistant, and — if anyone could properly be so categorized — friend and confidant. Harold Lake. He was a brooder even on his best days, and he could be depressing most days. Today, the tall, dark, slim entrepreneur, investor, and Wall Street trader looked like a dog left out in the rain all night.
“Got those letters of intent ready for your signature,” Fell reported. “I see no problems at all with the debt restructuring. The next few weeks should be okay. We’re in the clear.” Fell set a small pile of papers on Lake’s desk, the only item on the expansive and empty marble and mahogany desk that looked out of place. Lake continued to stare out the huge picture window of his downtown Park Avenue office into the gray steamy overcast. It was already 80 degrees in the city, and threatening to hit 90-plus with 90-plus-percent humidity — one might actually be cool and comfortable standing out on a forty-first-story ledge right now, Fell thought wryly. “You got my notes there on top, but I got a few minutes to talk about the deal if you—”
“Who did the deal?” Lake asked. When Fell hesitated that extra moment, Lake replied for him: “Universal. Shit. What’d you get?” His voice was uncharacteristically uneven, with a trace of his native New Jersey accent mixed in, even after years of trying to excuse it.
“Universal Equity offered us ten-point-one percent,” Fell said quickly.
Lake irritably rubbed his eyes, moved toward the papers as if to confirm what Fell said was true, then sat back in his high-backed black leather chair and continued to stare out the window.
The president and founder of Universal Equity Sendees, Limited, based in Glasgow, Scotland, was Brennan McSor- ley, one of the world’s richest men, owner of the largest nonpublic investment group in the world. McSorley had his fingers in hundreds of different pies all over the world, everything from oil and gas to banking to shipping to computers. He and Lake, McSorley’s one-time disciple, had done business many times in the past, although their version of “business” nowadays was akin to calling the U.S. Civil War a “disagreement.” McSorley was like a giant stallion to Lake’s horsefly — Lake could irritate the hell out of McSorley and his investors, maybe even cause him to stumble or lose control, but Lake was small potatoes next to Brennan McSorley.
“If I say no to him now, I’m screwed and he knows it.” Lake looked at Fell with an accusing glare. “You agreed to his terms?”
“You have final authority, boss, so you can say no to the deal,” Fell responded, “but it’s what you wanted, right? A done deal, in time to pay the account and retain your shares.”
“You fucking agreed to pay Brennan McSorley ten- point-one percent, Ted?”
“No one else gave you the time of day, Harold. You needed eighteen million dollars by close of business today. If I had even three days, I could get that for you at eight- point-five. McSorley said yes right away, and I had to move.”
“Maybe you moved a bit too fast.”
“You may not like McSorley, boss, but he went to the mat for you this time,” Fell said. “The money is in escrow, ready to go. McSorley personally guaranteed the loan, boss, he showed up at the bank himself to sign the papers.”
“He’d like nothing better than to see me default, the prick,” Lake said gloomily. “He’d take great pleasure in seeing me file for bankruptcy or selling my assets. He’d be first in line to screw me in bankruptcy court. He probably showed up at the bank to conduct a news conference, to announce to the whole world what a loser I am.”
Fell elected to stay silent, but he reminded himself that Harold G. Lake knew a lot about screwing someone, whether it was in court, in the market, or just about any imaginable business or social setting. Along with many other talents, Lake was one of the world’s premier options traders. His business was enticing other investors to write option deals to buy or sell their stock. Lake had many ways to sniff out stocks that might come into play — lack of publicity, no returned phone calls, lots of unusual stock trading activity by company officers, even when, where, and how the officers went on vacation. Like a general planning an invasion, Lake was a master at setting an objective and then designing a vast, convoluted, sweeping series of trades to accomplish his ultimate objective — what he called the “perpetual motion machine.” Create a series of deals, contracts, and companies whose income and assets always exceeded the expenses and liabilities. Create a network, an empire, that was totally self-sufficient, that made contracts with itself, earned money off itself, paid expenses to itself, owed money to itself. It was a true “money tree,” the modern-day answer to Midas’s touch of gold.
Lake was a master at this kind of deal-making. After getting an undergraduate degree from Rutgers and an MBA from Harvard, Lake had spent his early career in middle management with a variety of companies and brokerage firms specializing in “creative” financing, long-term corporate debt (junk bonds), and market speculation. In 1980 he joined Universal Equity Services, where he handled all the real estate acquisitions. Then, in 1985, Lake engineered an insider trading scheme in which the price was artificially jacked up in a bidding war between Universal Equity and a company secretly funded by Lake. Lake was fired, but his illegal activities were never confirmed by Universal. Since leaving Universal, Lake worked in a variety of financial and stock trading positions before finally striking out on his own.
“We’re still in business, and we’ve got plenty to keep us afloat for months,” Fell said finally, standing up to Lake’s glare. “Let’s maintain the proper perspective here. Who the hell knew some nutcase in San Francisco was going to wipe out half of an international airport terminal and kill five hundred people? Plenty of investors lost big on this one, boss, including McSorley. It’s a glitch in the market, that’s all. Everyone in that investment consortium that bailed out on you this morning will be back in a few weeks, looking for fresh meat. They’ll know they looked bad when they punched, but they’ll come back because you made it happen. We can soak them when they come back, too, because they lost face by bailing out on you.”