Astor was not one for deep thought. He did not hold with Frost and the “life unexamined” nonsense. Or was it Socrates? Another fault of his truncated education. He preferred to read military histories and biographies of generals and decorated soldiers. He knew that a good general leads from the front. He liked to think that he lived from the front, with his eyes locked on the horizon. Yet if there was ever a time to stop the tanks, to take a long look back and ask how he had gotten here, this was it.
It seemed like yesterday that he was turning the keys in the door of his first office, at 21st and Madison, in some leftover space he leased from First Boston, and taking his first step up the ladder. He had no lofty goals, either monetary or social. He never once said, “I want to make a million dollars a year” or “ten million,” or “I want to be worth one hundred million by the time I’m forty.” He simply went to work each day at the appointed hour and dedicated himself to his job, which meant analyzing annual reports, watching the market, and picking stocks better than the next guy. The secret came in the repetition of this cycle, day in, day out, year in and year out, without fail. Was he ever the best at picking stocks? Of course not. But on some days he was better than average, and when you added those days together they were enough to enable him to rise to the top of his profession.
It had been so much simpler in the beginning. No possessions. No family. No money. There was just the job. But as the years passed, all that changed. He married. He had a child. He hired employees. He earned money. He hired more employees. He earned more money. He bought a home. His name appeared in the paper. He began to have status and he enjoyed it.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Until voilà! One day, here he was. He was the same Bobby Astor who’d started his business on a wing and a prayer and the fifty grand he’d made at poker tables around the city. Yet there was no denying he’d grown into someone different. Someone bigger. Someone more substantial. It was as if success, responsibility, fatherhood, and philanthropy had fused to create a new Bobby Astor, and that Bobby Astor demanded a larger physical portion of the world. He’d started out a gecko and grown into Godzilla. And goddammit, he liked it. He liked it a lot. No apology necessary.
And then came the descent.
The estrangement from his father.
The separation from Alex, and then the divorce.
And now the bet on the yuan.
From the heights of Olympus to the edge of the abyss. What had taken twenty years to create, he stood to lose within twenty-four hours.
Astor looked in the mirror. Fighting eyes glared back.
58
Astor spotted Grillo seated at the end of the bar.
“This public enough?” asked the investigator.
It was six, and the Oak Bar in the Plaza Hotel was packed. Tourists with red faces and sweat-moistened shirts mingled with executives in pressed suits and polished shoes. Drawn blinds shaded the dark, wood-paneled room in permanent air-conditioned gloom. It was a place for making deals and plotting takeovers and planning divorces.
“It should do,” said Astor, though he was by no means certain.
Grillo smiled his gambler’s smile, then took a sip of his drink. Astor looked at the rivulets of water sliding down the highball glass. He could smell the sour-mash whiskey, the happy hint of sweet vermouth. A manhattan, then.
“Drink?”
Astor could feel the cooled blend coating the inside of his mouth, soothing his throat, soothing his life. “Sure.”
Grillo signaled the bartender.
Astor swallowed, waiting, deciding. The bartender arrived.
“Pellegrino with lime. Highball glass. Big lime.” He saw Grillo give him the look. He waited for the drink, and when it came he drank half of it straightaway.
“I talked to him,” said Astor.
“Who?”
“Palantir.”
Grillo lost the smile. “How’s that?”
“Skype. At my dad’s place in Oyster Bay. My father was in touch with him online. Palantir was helping with the investigation. In fact, he said he was the one who had contacted my father in the first place.”
“About?”
“He didn’t get that far.”
“Slow down.”
“All I know is that they’re listening. That’s why I had Sully call you on the pay phone.”
“Not to me, they’re not. I take precautions.” Grillo had taken his Zippo lighter from his pocket and was flipping the cover open and closed with his thumb. “Give it to me slow. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out. I’m a good listener.”
Astor relayed the events of the past thirty-six hours just as he had to Alex, beginning with his visit to Penelope Evans’s house in Greenwich and continuing through the trip to Cherry Hill. Grillo didn’t ask why he hadn’t been more forthcoming when they’d met the day before. Astor knew he’d been right not to tell. He pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and revealed the bandage. “The guy stuck me and took off,” he said in conclusion. “So here we are.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” asked Grillo.
“He was as close to me as you are.”
“A description might help. Tell me after. Once more about the companies.”
Astor went back over the annual reports he’d found at Evans’s house and his belief that the key could be found in the companies’ common tie to private equity firms.
“But different sponsors invested in each,” said Grillo.
“Five of them. Two sponsors invested in more than one of the companies.”
“And the companies themselves aren’t in any way related.”
“No, but still…” Astor’s argument slipped away like sand through his fingers.
“Tell me more about the company your father visited.”
“Might have visited.” Astor handed him the article he’d found and pointed out the mention of Britium. “Mean anything?”
“Not to me, but I’ll ask around.” Grillo slid his lighter back into his pocket. “One last thing. Did you get the web address of the man who said he was Palantir?”
“Cassandra99.donetsk.ru.”
“Russia. Figures.”
“Can you find him?”
“With a Skype handle? Not likely. But it’ll help. Every little bit gets us a little closer.”
“And you?” asked Astor. “Find anything?”
“Palantir’s the real thing. I can tell you that. Did some work for the Pentagon. Very hush-hush stuff. Didn’t earn many friends along the way. We can assume that’s why he didn’t want to bring in the FBI on this.”
“Did his work have anything to do with Britium or something that tied in with the companies my father was looking into?”
“Wouldn’t know.” Grillo leaned closer, so Astor could smell his cologne and see how his wrinkles carved canyons around his eyes. “All I can say is that whatever it was he and your father were investigating, some very powerful people don’t want them-or anyone else-to find out.”
“The man who tried to kill me was Asian, but he had these strange blue eyes.”
“Asian, eh?”
Astor provided a detailed description of his dress.
“Speak English?”
“We didn’t get a chance to talk.”
Grillo entered Palantir’s Skype address into his smartphone, then stood. “Do you need protection?”
“I have Sully.”
“Don’t go home. Stay where people can see you. You still got that apartment in your office? That might be okay.” Grillo squinted and shook his head. “Actually, scratch that. Go to a friend’s. Maybe a hotel.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Good. You never know where these guys are going to turn up.”
59
The operations center was as busy as Grand Central during morning rush. Forming the Joint Terrorism Task Force, over thirty law enforcement agencies kept representatives in the FBI’s New York counterterrorism office. Normally their varied duties combined to keep nearly all of them out of the office at any one time. Not today. As Barry Mintz hurried across the room, he counted off agents from police, fire, DEA, ATF, Port Authority, parks and wildlife, nuclear regulatory, and everything in between.