Falling Star (13 page)

The perennial SystemGraphon deal was in trouble, again, and he had endured too many late night negotiating sessions, trying to put it back on track.  The SystemGraphon, a "career deal," seemed never to go away; it just wouldn't close.

Aloysius Xavier Kang Sheng Liu, his thinning gray hair combed back over his head, was in charge of Project Finance.  Aloysius.  He had been given that cumbersome moniker by his diplomat father upon their arrival in the United States in 1950.  Someone called him "Mike" on his first day in grade school and that nickname had stuck throughout the years.

His rise at Smedleys had been spectacular, marred only by the often-unquiet jealousy of Ivy Leaguers who could not understand how an outsider could attain such position.  To them an "outsider" was anyone who could not claim to have grown up rich in Connecticut or Western New Jersey.  To have been born into the right circles and to have received the proper education at Exeter or Choate, finished off with a sojourn at Harvard or Yale or, in the exceptional charity case, Wharton -- in short: white and rich.  Certainly, an outsider could never achieve high stature at Smedleys; that was only reserved for them.  As one of a bare handful of Chinese-American investment bankers on Wall Street, Mike was not considered one of the "chosen" by his colleagues at Smedleys.

There were some senior members of the firm at Smedleys who believed that Mike was a Buddhist, despite his affiliation with the Lutheran church.  Mike did nothing to disabuse them of this notion.

The abstract angst of his youth had been long buried in his investment banker facade.  Mike had come a long way from the child dropped into this alien society so many years ago.

There was a knock on Mike's door.  An associate at Smedleys, Selby Eastwood, III, opened the door with his usual intensity and serious demeanor.  "Mr. Liu, can I speak to you for a minute?"

Seated in a brown leather bound chair behind a large uncluttered dark mahogany desk, the ever-careful Mike put down his copy of
The Wall Street Journal
.  With bold slashes of his felt-tipped pen, he had made anguished marks in red ink next to the right-hand column article titled, "SDI in Jeopardy, Congress Debates Rage Over Star Wars Budget."

Annoyed at the interruption, Mike looked sternly up at the young face with the supercilious smile.  Eastwood was carrying piles of computer paper.  Of all the asinine associates I have to deal with, Mike thought.

Peering at the interloper over his half-lens reading glasses, Mike said, "Sure, come in, Eastwood."

Eastwood, a second year associate in the investment banking division of Smedleys, normally worked with one of Mike's colleagues.  He wore rimless glasses, an affectation calculated to add maturity to his youthful demeanor.  The glasses were a stark note of severity on an otherwise young face.  As if to accentuate the severe look, Eastwood's full head of brown hair was meticulously combed in place, shiny from the Brylcreem ointment he carefully applied each morning.

Eastwood's manager was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, attending investor meetings on the gasification project for three weeks.  Consequently, Mike was stuck with the task of giving guidance to the young members of the staff, a loathsome task given the shallow superciliousness of the eager Ivy League business school graduate.  Mike was happier leaving such details to others.

Taking off his reading glasses, Mike said without a trace of a smile, "Have a seat, Eastwood.  What seems to be the problem?"

With a flourish, imitating what he thought was a grand gesture; Eastwood pulled up one of the heavy mahogany side chairs and placed a huge pile of papers and computer printouts of cash flows on Mike's desk.  Eastwood had once read that you could commandeer any situation by encroaching on the other person's space.  As a result, Eastwood's pile of papers was now precariously perched on the corner of Mike's desk.  Mike looked with obvious disgust at this puny attempt at power politics.

"I've been working on the Fairington project; it's a co-generation gas turbine plant with a district heating system as a steam host.  The project would sell electricity to Phoenix Utilities.  I've been working on the preliminary cash flows for the project.  There is a dispute with some of the project participants over the construction period interest rate we should use.  The financial adviser for General Steam wants to use a very conservative figure -- an unrealistically conservative one.  As you may be aware, Mr. Liu, the use of a conservative figure could put the project in jeopardy."

Mike didn't rise to this obvious put-down by the insolent pup.  Of all the generally non-likable associates who worked at Smedleys, Mike particularly disliked Eastwood, a Choate/Harvard/Yale School of Management clone with his perfectly coiffured hair and brilliantly white-capped teeth.  Mike didn't need to understand his visceral dislike of Eastwood.  He just knew he disliked him, which was reinforced each time he heard Eastwood's whiny voice trying to sound superior.

"Who's the financial adviser?"

"Terry Walters of Collins Burns."

"That asshole hasn't had an original thought in twenty years.  I thought Collins canned him after he fucked up the Alaskan telephone system privatization.  How did we get hooked up with him?" said Mike with furrowed brow and a frown, but thinking to himself that this whelp couldn't possibly recognize true quality even if he were hit on the head with it.  Eastwood probably admired Walters because, after all, Walters was Harvard, ex-Groton.

Mike's temper was legend on Wall Street and Eastwood felt ill at ease, despite his disdain of this interloper.  Whether or not he believed, as did many of the young investment bankers at Smedleys that Mike did not deserve to be a managing director, Eastwood knew that Mike held the power to hire and fire.  That balance of power in Eastwood's mind offset his natural instinct to put the usurper in his place.

Biting his tongue, Eastwood quietly said, "He came with the deal, Mr. Liu."

"Yeah, I guess you have to take them as you get them.  Too bad, the project would go a lot faster without his idiotic posturing.  Okay, what do you have?"

Mike put on his reading glasses and started to look over the cash flows and other papers.  He was about to comment when the telephone rang.  Ignoring the ring, Mike quizzed the sullen young associate about the Fairington project structure and how the team had picked the appropriate interest rate to use -- the normal questions, routine questions that Eastwood should have known to have asked.

A knock on the door, Mike's long-time secretary stuck her head in.

"Mr. Liu, there is someone on the phone and he insists on speaking to you."

Mike looked up.  He couldn't understand why his secretary was forever barging in when she knew he was in a meeting.  She didn't seem to be able to screen calls like other secretaries he knew.

"Can you take a message and tell him I'll call him in a few minutes?  Can't you see that I'm busy?"

"Sorry.  He says it's urgent and he needs to talk to you now."

"What?  Can't you ever..."  Mike shook his head, annoyed.

"He's pretty insistent, Mr. Liu.  I really did try."

Mike sighed. "Okay, put him on."  He picked up the phone.  "Hello, Mike Liu here."

"Mr. Liu, this is Lieutenant Albert Twoomey, United States Navy.  Sir, the star has fallen."

The message struck deeply.  Mike's head jerked uncontrollably and perceptibly back at the words.  His practiced calm demeanor was shaken.

His face tightened -- instinctively, his hand clenched the handset, knuckles whitening.  His field of vision narrowed into a long, dark tunnel.  He felt his world starting to cave in.  His feelings of anger at being interrupted abruptly changed to dark and foreboding worry.  Mike had hoped never to hear those words, but knew someday he would.  This was his worst dream, the recurring one that had never gone away.

Thoughts, emotions, theories, questions, memories, hopes, and morbid fears all jumbled together.  God, he hoped it wasn't catastrophic.  His thoughts went back twenty years.

In reality, it was almost twenty-six years.  Time had passed so quickly.  Even though Mike left the agency in the seventies, he had occasionally been called upon for special projects, but this was different.  This was what had started it all.

I wonder what Bob McHugh is thinking, thought Mike.  Robert McHugh was Mike's commanding officer during those initial years and had remained Mike's friend and mentor ever since.  McHugh had risen in the hierarchy of CSAC and, as a Rear Admiral, was currently Chief of Operations, stationed in Newport News, Virginia.

Whatever happened had to have been big, perhaps monstrous.  The nature of the words spoken by the caller meant nothing less.  The code phrase, "the star has fallen," meant that something had happened at one or more of the observation sites and that Mike was being activated immediately.  CSAC agents simply disappeared when activated.  If all went well, life could be re-entered, often with elaborate cover fabrications as to the events of the intervening months or, in some cases, years.  Sometimes, there was no return and loved ones were given no explanation.  McHugh had the power to activate any CSAC agent, retired or not, and he had just activated Mike.

Mike was lost in thought.  The worried look on the Mike's face surprised even Eastwood, despite his barely disguised contempt for Mike.  Can't show emotion right now, thought Mike, as he struggled to control to control his emotions.  His face quickly regained its Asian passiveness.

Cupping the speaker of the phone with the palm of his hand, Mike focused his attention coldly on Eastwood.  "We'll have to cut this discussion short, something has come up.  Why don't you talk it over with the guys in private placement?  I'm sure that they can give you some good arguments to use in this situation, seems pretty straightforward."

The abrupt manner of the dismissal caught Eastwood off guard.  Like him or not, Mike was smooth and this abrupt change of character was unsettling.  Eastwood rose from his chair, quickly gathered the papers from Mike's desk, and backed out toward the door.  "Thank you, Mr. Liu.  Shall I close the door?"

"Please."

Mike quietly watched as Eastwood exited and the door to his office latched with a soft click.

Mike whispered into the telephone, "Lieutenant, when did it happen?"

"Sir, I'm not permitted to discuss that.  Your car is downstairs."

"Of course.  Thank you, Lieutenant."

Placing the telephone handset on its cradle, Mike allowed himself a moment's reflection before putting on his suit jacket and took one last look out his window.  His now dry lips pursed and relaxed repeatedly as he continued to struggle with the enormity of the call.  The Lieutenant had done the right thing, of course.  The unsecured line was hardly the place to discuss matters of such urgency.  Mike's years away from active duty with the agency had made him soft.  For a moment he was lost in thought as he stared out of his window.

Mike's office, located on the fiftieth floor of the glass encased tower on the tip of Manhattan, had a sweeping view of upper New York harbor. From his vantage point, Mike could see Governor's Island, headquarters of the United States Coast Guard's Atlantic Fleet, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  Mike wondered to himself if he would ever see this view again.  Mike had worked hard for this office, but the attainments of power were only temporal.  What Mike was about to do was different -- the difference measured not only in appearances but in the very existence of Earth itself.

Walking over to the coat rack, Mike put on his suit jacket, taking care to secure only the top button.

Mike picked up his telephone, punched the intercom button, and told his secretary that he would be out of town for several days.  His secretary never questioned Mike's need for secrecy, believing that Mike's projects needed the utmost confidentiality.

After one last look at his opulently furnished office, Mike sighed audibly and walked quickly out.  He went down through the dark, wood-paneled halls, and then through the reception area.  After taking an elevator to the Sky Lobby on the 38th Floor, he walked across the hall to another bank of elevators.  The tall, stainless steel elevators took less than one minute to cover the remaining distance to street level.

Mike stepped off the elevator at ground level, turned left and walked through the revolving doors into the oppressively hot and humid world of New York in June.  In doing so, he left the coolness of the wealth and power of Franklin Smedley Associates for the sweltering milieu of the busiest city in the world.

The streets smelled of a New York summer.  The gagging fumes from gasoline and diesel fuels, the putrid smell of rotting garbage thrown on the street, and the sharp charcoal fumes from street vendors pushing various delicacies intermingled with the dank, humid smell of a wet New York summer morning.

Pushing his way through the harried office workers and hordes of tourists gaping at the glistening reflections of the glass tower, Mike finally reached the curb.  He marveled at the degree to which people could find wonderment in such man-made structures.  The irony of where he was headed as he approached the sedan parked at the curb.  He wondered what chaos would result if these gapers knew that the star had fallen.  The thought seemed obscene.

Parked at curbside was an unmarked, dark metallic gray Lincoln Town Car with smoked gray windows.  Mike opened the door and slid onto the air conditioned comfort of the back seat.  As the door closed, the brassy, hustling sounds faded into the background, as did the pungent, intermingled smells of New York.  In their place were the quiet serenity of the luxury sedan and the luxurious smell of leather seats, enhanced by a trace of Chanel No. 5.

"Commander, it's good to see you again."

The soft voice came from the attractive blonde seated in the rear of the sedan wearing the summer tan uniform of a Master Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy.  A leather briefcase sat on her neatly trimmed, uniformed lap.  Margaret Marston still retained her youthful beauty despite the passage of years.  Mike hadn't seen Margaret in at least five years, the last time that McHugh had called on him.