Delicate Chaos (2 page)

2

DC Trust was a small bank if you measured it against Chase Manhattan, but it had carved out its niche and was aggressive in
finding and keeping clients. Corporate clients. No savings accounts for kids or tellers waiting for clients to walk through
the front door. Only corporations with healthy balance statements and an insatiable need for more investment capital. The
bank’s bottom line was well into the black, the shareholders were happy and the staff was well paid.

Head office was in a twelve story brick building on F Street, about three blocks northwest of the White House. DC Trust occupied
the top two floors, with the worker bees on eleven and management on twelve. The two floors were totally different worlds.
Eleven was cubicle city, a maze of dividers and desks under the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting. Photocopiers buzzed and
phones rang. Executive assistants drafted documents and moved papers from one desk to another, always with some degree of
urgency. Quitting time was five, but anyone leaving on the stroke of the hour was given a sideways glance. DC Trust believed
in maximizing everything they touched.

Leona Hewitt, Director of Corporate Acquisitions and Accounts, had earned a coveted corner office on eleven. Close to playing
with the big boys but not quite there. The fluorescent lights in her office were turned off—she hated them. Natural sunlight
filtered in through the two banks of windows during the day, and at night she flipped on a desk lamp and worked in relative
darkness. Her work space was busy but tidy, most of the files out of sight in the cabinets. Her desk had a few piles of carefully
stacked paper, a computer monitor and six framed five-by-seven photos. Two were of Kubala Kantu with the elephants and the
other three were of her with some of the African kids in their village. She lived and worked in Washington, DC, but her heart
was in the pictures. Leona glanced up from her desk as a man entered.

“Good morning, Leona,” he said, a slight trace of southern drawl mixing with his deep baritone. His suit was muted Armani,
his hair glowing silver and his face well tanned. At sixty-three years of age and one-eighty carried on a six-foot frame,
he wasn’t a physically imposing man. His name was Anthony Halladay, and what intimidated people was his position as president
and CEO of DC Trust. “Do you have a minute?”

“Of course,” she said, motioning to a chair opposite her desk. She waited until he was seated, then said, “What brings you
down to the trenches?”

He smiled, teeth white against the dark skin. “Is that what the staff calls it? The trenches?”

She returned the smile. “Sometimes. On good days. You don’t want to know what we call it on bad days.”

Halladay sat in the offered chair and smoothed the creases in his suit pants. Leona knew he liked it when the staff treated
him like one of the boys. Few of them were comfortable enough to do it, but she had no problem trading lighthearted banter
with him.

“I’m here on business,” he said, his voice taking on a serious tone. “I’ve got an offer for you.”

Leona twisted and leaned forward in her chair, a habit she had picked up early in her working life. She tilted her head slightly
to the right. “Go ahead,” she said, more than a little intrigued.

“You’ve been with us for six years. Six very good years. I’m quite pleased with your performance.”

“Thank you,” she said when he paused for a moment.

“But in your current position as a director, any further movement up in your department is impossible.”

“There’s always your job.”

Halladay grinned again. “Or a vice presidency,” he said.

The room went silent for the better part of fifteen seconds. Finally, Leona said, “Are you offering me a position as a vice
president?”

Halladay nodded. “I am. You’re the kind of person we’re looking for on our management team, Leona. Tell you something can’t
be done and you’ll find a way to do it. I like that. The board of directors likes that. In fact, I’ve already decided which
file for you to cut your teeth on if you accept our offer.”

“What is it?” Leona said, her pulse quicker and her breath coming in short spurts. Despite trying to keep an even keel, she
was shaking. She pushed her hands down on the desk and the trembling transferred to her shoulders. Less noticeable.

He shifted in the chair and ran his hand through his thick silver hair. “The firm is Coal-Balt Inc.”

“I see documents on them all the time,” Leona said. “They generate electric power from coal-burning plants. Coal-Balt is one
of our largest clients.”

Halladay nodded again. “And most profitable. Currently they’re a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. They
follow normal accounting procedures, nothing out of the ordinary. But they’ve proposed a change to that structure.”

“What sort of change?”

“They want to convert to an income trust.”

Leona leaned back in her chair, the slight trembles gone, replaced by a calm, but thoughtful expression. “An income trust,”
she said quietly. “What’s their logic behind that?”

“Shareholder value. By converting to an income trust, they can raise the value of their shareholders’ stakes by almost forty
percent overnight.”

“I’m not sure I get their line of thinking. Income trusts aren’t that desirable anymore. Not a lot of tax advantages.”

Halladay smiled. “The guys at Coal-Balt found a way around the tax laws. Nothing illegal, simply good business.”

“What are they proposing?” she asked, her interest piqued.

“There are three separate vehicles Coal-Balt can use—Enhanced Income Securities, Income Participating Securities and Income
Deposit Securities—to tie together a share of stock and a high-yield debt. The junk debt and shares, stapled together, replace
the trust in its truest sense.”

“Interesting approach. Will it work?”

Halladay shrugged. “They’ve run the figures, Leona, and I’ve seen the breakdown. It does work. The restructuring is a stroke
of brilliance.”

“What about regulatory approval?”

“The regulatory guys at the stock exchange have given the transition a green light. They need some more paperwork, but approval
is pending. That paperwork needs to come from us.”

“Why do they need us onside?” Leona asked.

“We hold two hundred and eighty million in demand loans. Our agreement to the conversion is one of the caveats the exchange
requires to okay the deal.”

Leona asked, “Who do you have in mind for my team?”

“You pick the people you need. This is your deal.”

“Okay.”

“It goes without saying how important Coal-Balt is to us,” Halladay said. “I don’t foresee any problems with this conversion.
I hope you don’t either.”

Leona glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes past twelve. “I have an appointment for lunch,” she said. “It’s too late to
cancel.”

“No, that’s fine, you go ahead.” Halladay rose from the chair. “When will you be moving upstairs?”

Leona couldn’t stifle the smile. “Whenever you’re ready for me.”

“Then I’ll see you Monday morning. Your personal effects and computer will be moved up after work tonight.”

Leona nodded and Anthony Halladay turned and left her office. She liked and trusted the CEO and having the position of vice
president dropped in her lap was more than a nice touch. But she didn’t like offers that came with strings attached. Never
had. And the Coal-Balt file felt like a major string.
I don’t foresee any problems with this conversion. I hope
you don’t either.
That didn’t sit right with her. Like Halladay was telling her the outcome of her team’s findings before they began. It was
out of character for the man.

Leona switched off her reading lamp and hurried to the elevator. Her lunch date was waiting. But she wasn’t too worried. If
the restaurant served beer, which they did, he would wait.

3

Mike Anderson sipped on his bottle of Budweiser and watched the lunch crowd. People-watching was one of his favorite pastimes,
and there were few places better than downtown DC. Washington was all about power; if you had it you flaunted it. If you didn’t,
you either faked it or played the attentive pup listening to the master. The percentage per capita of sycophants in DC had
to be the highest in the country. In the world, perhaps.

He glanced around Kinkeads, knowing he was the square peg in the round hole. The luncheon crowd in the upscale seafood eatery
was mostly suit and tie or dark pantsuit, gender dependant. He was jeans and a white T-shirt. Ex–New York cop, now mixed in
with politicians and lobbyists. Gasoline and a match if he drank enough. It wasn’t a stretch to recognize Anderson as ex-cop—he
looked the part. He was dead-on six feet, 210 pounds, most of it still muscle and bone. His waistline had finally settled
in at thirty-eight, no belly hanging over his belt. No wrinkles creased his face, except for tiny crow’s-feet that stretched
back from the corners of his eyes. He had a full head of dark hair, a strong jawline and quick brown eyes. Anderson finished
his beer and waved at the waiter for a refill. He’d be good today, he was meeting Leona and she didn’t like it when he drank
enough to get belligerent. He ran his hand over his chin, feeling the stubble. It was only one day but he already looked like
he’d been on a six-day bender. It was common knowledge that that sort of thing happened when you hit fifty. For him, forty-five
had happened a month ago. This meant he was five years ahead of his time—at looking old. Great.

The waiter dropped another beer on the table and gave the untouched glass a sideways look that said,
trailer trash
. Anderson shook his head, wondering how even waiters in DC could be such sanctimonious pricks. A few seconds later Leona
entered the restaurant and he caught her attention by waving. He watched as she picked her way through the throng of tables.
When she walked, her body was a dichotomy, different parts moving in different directions. The result was sultry. Her breasts
swayed slightly, but not too much. Her hips moved with a wavelike motion and he could see the heads turning as she made her
way through the tables. From the first moment he had met her, he’d thought she was sexy—her body and her smile. He liked working
for her charity. It meant he got to see her and talk to her, one-on-one. She settled into the chair opposite him.

“Sorry I’m late,” Leona said, flashing him one of her natural, disarming smiles. Fact was, she was almost always late, despite
setting her watch ten minutes early. It was a minor character flaw—one she felt could be overlooked. “Unexpected business
at the office.”

“I’m happy. I ask for a beer, waiter brings one.”

Leona glanced at the bottle. “How are you, Mike? You okay with the booze?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sticking to beer these days. No hard stuff.”

“How are things with Susan?” Leona asked.

Anderson shrugged. “She’s an ex-wife I still love. And she’s living with another guy. How do you think things are?”

“You have to let her go.” Leona slid her hand across the table and rested it on his thick forearm. “Life goes on.”

He didn’t respond other than to take another sip of beer with his free hand. The waiter approached and asked Leona what she
wanted to drink. His tone was nicer now, civil even. Leona was business class—she belonged. Christ, he hated the whole DC
hierarchy thing. Maybe because he was on the outside looking in. The fat kid with pimples sitting by himself in the school
cafeteria.

“How’s Kubala?” Leona asked, concern creeping into her voice.

“Not good. The poachers are still pissed at him over what happened when you were there three months ago. Every day is dangerous
right now.”

Mike Anderson was Leona’s point man for her nonprofit foundation. Save Them was dead in the water without him, and she knew
it. Once the accountants finished totaling the donations from the fundraisers, Anderson took the money and made sure it got
to the right people in Nairobi. Distributing cash from a nonprofit in the US was easy and safe, but in Africa it took on a
whole new dimension. Arriving in Nairobi with a suitcase full of bearer bonds was an invitation to a permanent home in a small
pine box. The first few times were scenes out of a bad movie. The corrupt immigration guards at the border, the dark cars
that tailed them to the bank. Invitations, at gunpoint, to meet some of Nairobi’s most important, and dangerous, people. Those
who could ensure the foundation’s money filtered down to those who needed it to protect the elephants. For a fee, of course.

By his fifth trip to the Kenya capital, he had established the pipeline. Thirty-eight percent of Leona’s hard-earned donations
went to three distinct groups who provided protection for the remaining sixty-two percent. The most difficult part of deciding
who to pay was figuring out who was the most despicable. No sense paying someone in Nairobi who was subservient to somebody
else, or you ended up paying two people. Find the most corrupt, most despicable, most loathsome guy on the block and deal
with him. It was the approach Mike had taken, and it had worked well.

The poachers were another story. Since the incident back in April, they had been stalking Kubala and his team, taking potshots
at them from the bush. Two of his men had been wounded, one in the arm, the other in the leg. Nothing fatal, but almost enough
to scare them into submission. Almost, but not quite. Kubala Kantu was not a man who was cowed by adversity. Not even when
the adversity came in the form of bullets and machetes.

“When are you heading back to Africa?” Leona asked.

Mike shrugged. “You’ve got a fundraiser tonight. I’ll wait for the accountants to release whatever you raise at your function
before I go. Probably a week or so.”

“Should be a good one tonight,” she said. “We’ve got a few new faces in the crowd. It’s nice when donor fatigue isn’t an issue.”

“Donor fatigue?”

“You know, when the room is always full of the same people. After a while they get tired of giving. New donors get their checkbooks
out a little quicker.”

Mike nodded as the waiter reappeared and took their food order. He surveyed the room as Leona pointed to the menu and made
sure her fish wasn’t going to be battered or deep-fried. He doubted there was a man in the room who would survive a week in
Nairobi with five hundred thousand dollars in his briefcase. Most would be dead inside twenty-four hours. Yet here they sat
in their thousand-dollar suits, ordering fifty dollar lunch entrées and drinking twelve-year-old scotch. Different skill sets.
Theirs just paid better.

“Poachers seem to have forgotten about killing the elephants,” he said as the waiter disappeared into the kitchen with their
order. “No new carcasses since April.”

“Too busy trying to kill people.” Leona sipped on her soda water. She glanced around the restaurant for the first time, drinking
in the clientele. “What’s with us? As a species, I mean. Why are we constantly trying to kill each other?”

Mike peeled the label off the beer bottle. “It’s easy to figure out why people want to kill lawyers. Determining motive for
the rest of us is a little tougher.”

“You had a good lawyer,” Leona chastised him. “You still have your house.”

“Lost my balls, though,” Anderson snapped back. She didn’t respond and he said, “Where’s the fundraiser tonight?”

“At the restaurant. Eight o’clock. You should come. Tyler’s cooking up something special.”

“It’s a surprise. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“It’s your restaurant. You own it. You’d think that if anyone could find out what’s on the menu it would be you.”

She grinned. “Doesn’t work that way. You know what chefs are like. Masters of their domain. I might own the place, but Tyler
runs it.” The grin slowly faded. “Try to make it this evening, Mike. You need to get out more. I’m worried about you.”

He finished his beer and set the bottle on the polished table. “I’ll try.” They were quiet for a minute, the background noise
in the restaurant suddenly louder. “What’s new at the office? You said something unexpected came up.”

“One of the big boys came down from twelve and dropped a file on my desk,” she said, purposely omitting the promotion to VP.
“It’s a utility company. They generate electrical power.”

“Coal or water?”

“Coal. Why?”

“Big issue these days, burning coal to produce electricity. Lots of it going on now that natural-gas prices are through the
roof.”

Leona leaned forward. Mike Anderson was well-read and intelligent. His opinion was usually worth listening to. “What’s wrong
with burning coal to produce power?”

“Depends on how it’s done and what kind of coal they’re using. You can burn coal cheap and dirty, or you can burn it clean
and expensive.”

“I don’t know the difference.” She leaned back as the waiter set their plates on the linen tablecloth. “But I can guess how
you burn it affects the bottom line.”

“Big-time,” Anderson said. “Most of the older coal-burning power stations swallow tons of the stuff every minute to generate
thousand-degree steam. The steam drives the turbines that produce the electricity.” He tasted the salmon, then a couple of
veggies. The place might be full of sycophants, but the food was good. “By-product of burning coal like that is carbon dioxide.
Lots of it. One of these big plants can dump tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day.”

“Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, isn’t it?” Leona asked. “The worst one. It traps the heat and won’t let it escape. Carbon
dioxide is the main reason we’ve got global warming.”

“I’m assuming that’s the cheap way to burn coal.”

“Yeah, the expensive way produces almost no carbon dioxide because they don’t actually burn it, they transform it to something
called syngas. I don’t understand the process, but it’s definitely better for the environment.”

Leona swallowed a mouthful of fish and said, “You mentioned what kind of coal they burn. I didn’t know there was more than
one type.”

“Well, coal is coal, but it comes with a shitload of impurities. Bitumen, sulfur, that kind of stuff. There are even trace
quantities of thorium and uranium in some coal beds. Clean coal is bad enough, but add in all this other crap and it’s plain
disgusting. Killing our planet, and not slowly.”

“Why do you always know all this stuff?” She set her napkin on the empty plate.

He smiled. “Impresses the girls.”

“Worked on me,” she said.

“So where does this company fit in? Environmentalists or pillagers? There’s not a lot of middle ground on this one.”

“I don’t know.” Leona motioned for the check. “But I’m going to find out. And soon.”