The Successor (30 page)

“This veal tastes so good,” Beth said, sliding her hand to Christian’s. “I love this place. It’s like
our
place.” She looked around at the decorations, mementos from the town in Italy where the owner had been born. “We should come here all the time.”

He realized she was staring longingly into his eyes and he glanced away. His intention tonight had been to explain to her all about Nikki, about how Beth reminded him of his dead sister, and how he wanted to keep seeing her and helping her. But that it wasn’t going to be a romantic thing for him. Which would be hard to do now. He groaned softly to himself. He wished all this romance stuff came to him as naturally as the deal business did.

Beth leaned close to him and ran her hand up his arm. “Chris, I want to make love to you tonight.”

PADILLA HAD GONE
to his car after the meeting of the Secret Six had broken up, gotten in, and driven three miles. When he was certain none of the other five would see him, he’d turned around and headed back to the beach.

“How did it go?” General Delgado asked.

“Fine.”

“Everyone at the meeting?”

“Yes.”

“The attorney?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Good.” Delgado took a satisfied puff off his cigar and smiled.

As if he’d been here before, Padilla thought to himself. Not the physical place but the psychological place. As if he understood Padilla’s conflicted state of mind exactly because he’d experienced it many times. “Why are you smiling?” Padilla asked, irritated that Delgado could be so cool at a time like this.

“It will be all right, Doctor,” the general said soothingly, “it will be all right.”

Padilla swallowed hard. Delgado understood exactly the terror he was feeling. “How do you know, General? How do you
know
it will be all right?”

Delgado removed the cigar from his mouth and handed it to Padilla. “You’re a religious man, aren’t you, Doctor? You have faith, don’t you?”

Padilla took a long drag off the cigar, noticing that this was a different brand of Dominican than the one the general usually lit up. He held the smoke in for a few seconds, then let it out with a long, smooth exhale. Only one puff, but he was already starting to feel the effects, already starting to feel light-headed. Perhaps that was why the general was smoking this brand. It was stronger. Perhaps, despite the man-of-steel exterior, the general was feeling his own anxieties. “I am, but how would you—”

“An educated guess, Doctor. Don’t overthink things at this point, my friend.”

Padilla handed the cigar back to the general. “What does being religious have to do with anything?”

“With religion, you must put your faith in God. Whichever god you pray to. With the Incursion, you must put your faith in me.”

Delgado was amazing. It almost made Padilla cry to be in the presence of such greatness. As a doctor he could save lives, but Delgado had the power to reshape them. Delgado was about to change the course of Cuba’s history on the strength of his own personality, on his own inner strength, making many lives so much better. If the Incursion was successful, Delgado would be a god in Cuba.

Of course, if it failed, he’d be nothing but a footnote, another execution, the subject of another website put together by someone in Miami.

The things that made Delgado amazing were his willingness to take the ultimate risk—and his supreme self-confidence. That he believed so strongly in himself he was willing to bet his life on being able to influence
forty thousand
men. If he was wrong and couldn’t, unlike the Secret Six he’d have no chance to escape. He’d be taken into custody immediately.

“Did you find out anything about the attorney?” Padilla asked.

“I did.” Delgado reached into his pocket. “And tomorrow the name of your secret group will be wrong because there will be only five of you.”

Padilla nodded dejectedly. It was almost as if the attorney had known he was a dead man. Padilla could see it in his eyes tonight.

The general took one of Padilla’s soft, small hands in his large, leathery one. “Here.” He pressed the cow’s ID tag into the doctor’s palm. The cow Padilla had hit that night in front of Gustavo Cruz’s ranch. “Give this to Christian Gillette when you meet with him. If Mr. Gillette gives it back to me when I meet him here, I will know we have support from the United States.” The general smiled. “Enjoy yourself in Naples. You’re doing a great thing.”

Padilla glanced down at the small piece of metal with the number etched into it, then up into Delgado’s eyes as he thought about what he’d just heard. “Naples?”

ALLISON STOOD
across Columbus Avenue from the restaurant, staring through the glass at Christian and the young woman. It was exactly as Sherry Demille had said—she hadn’t been lying. The girl Christian was seeing was young and so beautiful.

Allison tried to swallow, but it was hard. The lump in her throat seemed to be the size of an orange. She’d followed Christian this afternoon when he’d left the office. Followed him to Penn Station, then followed
them
here and watched them eat dinner. It was all exactly as Sherry had said. It made her want to cry.

AS HE DROVE,
Alanzo Gomez hummed along with the music drifting from the tape deck. He’d bought the deck in Paris in an odds-and-ends shop on rue de Morgan, when he was there last negotiating the huge loan from China. Brought it back with him—along with several tapes of classical music—hidden in one of his bags. Simply flashed his Central Bank identification card to the people at customs, and he was whisked through with no problems, quickly recognized as a senior member of the Party.

A
loyal
member, he thought to himself proudly as he drove along listening to
Aida.
First thing tomorrow he would approach his superior—the president of the Central Bank—and lay out for him what was going on with the Secret Six. And thereby cement his position as the next president of the bank. Cuba would stay safe. He would be a national hero, the other five would be executed.

Gomez slowed down as he came around a turn and saw the roadblock in his high beams—two FAR jeeps facing each other perpendicular to oncoming traffic and four soldiers, three of whom were armed with rifles. The fourth held up both his white-gloved hands and walked a few steps ahead. Gomez’s eyes narrowed as he dimmed his lights and came to a stop. These kinds of things weren’t unusual—but they weren’t common, either. It was probably just where he was coming from that was making him nervous, he thought to himself as he rolled down the window of the Studebaker.

“Good evening, sir,” the lieutenant said politely but firmly. “I need to see your identification.”

“Of course.” Gomez pulled out his wallet. He’d been thinking of showing the man his Central Bank ID, showing how senior he was, then thought better of it. No need to show the officer any more than he’d asked for. That might cause suspicion. “Here you are.”

The officer took the faded, folded piece of paper. “Thank you. I’ll be back. Please turn off the car.”

Gomez winced. This didn’t feel right. He watched the officer warily as the man strode stiffly back to one of the jeeps and climbed inside. “Damn it.” He peered at the jeep. The problem was, if he spilled his guts during a military interrogation, it would look as if he were trying to protect himself. It would look much more suspicious than if he walked calmly and confidently into the office of the president of the Central Bank of Cuba and laid out in a coherent fashion exactly what was going on and who was involved. He felt the sweat beginning to seep from his palms. “Shit.”

But just as the nerves were starting to get to him, the officer hopped out of the jeep and headed toward him in the same slow, stiff stride, smiling as he handed the identification back and waved to the driver on the right to back the jeep up.

“Thank you, Señor Gomez. Have a good night.”

Gomez restarted the car. “Thank
you,
Officer. And thank you for your service to Cuba.”

BETH STOOD
next to Christian on the balcony of his two-story Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, gazing up into the clear night. “I never thought you’d be able to see stars out over New York City. I thought the lights here would be too bright.”

“It is nice,” he agreed.

She leaned against him. “Have one glass of champagne with me. Please, Chris,” she begged. “One glass won’t hurt.”

“Finish that one and we’ll see.” There was no way he was having champagne. He’d brought her up here to tell her everything because he couldn’t bring himself to do it at dinner, but he was still finding it difficult. She kept looking at him in that way.

She tilted the glass, took three gulps, and the champagne was gone. “Okay, finished.”

“Yeah, well, I—”

Beth’s cell phone rang loudly from inside the apartment. “Sorry, but I’m worried about my mom,” she said, heading back through the open sliding-glass door. “I’ll be just a minute.”

“Take your time.” He watched her go, trying to figure out how to do this.

SANCHEZ CREPT QUIETLY
down the tile floor, the smell of formaldehyde heavy in the long hallway. It smelled like death to him, which was fine. He didn’t mind death. Death was why he was here. Death had been his career.

He reached the room number he’d been given, glanced up and down the corridor, and moved inside. He cringed as the door squeaked slightly, but there was no reason to worry. No one else was in the hallway at this late hour, and the woman was fast asleep. According to his information, she was dying but she didn’t want to wait. The pain was excruciating. Victoria Graham had explained it all to him in Miami.

Sanchez moved to the bedside, making certain the woman wasn’t plugged into any monitors that would alert a nurse in a station somewhere that she was flatlining. He placed the small bag down on a table beside the bed, next to a half-finished jigsaw puzzle, opened it, and pulled out two lengths of cord. Gently securing her wrists to the retractable metal railings on either side of the bed—she never showed any signs of waking up. Maybe she was already dead, he thought to himself, pressing two fingers to one of her wrists. That would save him the trouble. But she wasn’t dead, there was still a pulse—still strong, too.

He pulled out a rag and a needle already filled with the solution from the bag and with no hesitation pried open her mouth and jammed the rag far down her throat, covering her mouth with one of his hands. Her eyes flew wide open instantly and she began to scream—but her cries for help were muffled by the rag. She fought furiously, straining against the ropes binding her wrists to the bed, kicking wildly, which Sanchez found fascinating. Supposedly she wanted to die, but the body’s natural instinct to live was so strong. At the moment of truth, what your mind wanted had nothing to do with it. At the moment of truth, it was all about millions of years of survival instinct completely taking over.

Sanchez had secured her right wrist—the one closest to him—firmly and made certain her arm was extremely extended. She could barely move it. He slid the needle into her forearm deftly with his right hand—left still pressed firmly to her mouth—and injected the solution. She fought for another thirty seconds. Then her fight subsided, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her body went limp.

He pulled the needle from her arm, untied her wrists, stowed his gear in the bag, and headed out. When the nurses made rounds, they would find that the woman had died of heart failure. There would be no evidence of murder whatsoever.

Now it was back to Miami and Mari, he thought to himself as he pushed through the door that led to the stairway he’d climbed a few minutes ago to get up here. One more night of her glorious body, then the end of her life, too. Then it would be time for Christian Gillette.

ALLISON HAD GONE BACK
to the office to print out the pictures she’d taken of Christian and the girl sitting at dinner in the restaurant. It was late, almost eleven, but she couldn’t wait.

She taken the shots with a digital camera from across Columbus Avenue. Managed to do it without Quentin’s guys noticing because they were all inside. She felt guilty about spying on Christian like that, but it was for his own good, for his own protection. She was simply carrying out Ms. Graham’s orders, as self-serving as that sounded.

Allison held up one of the prints. Taken through the glass at the front of the restaurant without even using a telephoto lens and the quality wasn’t too bad. A little grainy, but still, you could tell who they were. She shook her head. Today’s technology was truly amazing. Tomorrow’s would be out of sight.

Allison stared at the young woman in the picture for a few seconds. She was leaning in toward Christian, her hand on his. She was beautiful, Allison had to admit. And it certainly looked from the body language as if she was sincerely into him. It was just that with all Victoria Graham had told her, Allison was suspicious of everything at this point. It wasn’t that a younger woman couldn’t be attracted to Christian, she could easily see that. It was just that it had happened
now.
It seemed so coincidental.

She shut her eyes tightly, then put the print down and glanced at the file lying on the right side of her desk. She’d found it this afternoon before heading out to follow Christian. It was a file from the Dead Deal room. A room of cabinets full of folders with information about transactions Everest Capital had turned down as long as fifteen years ago. Investment opportunities the firm had looked at, but had, for whatever reason, elected not to pursue—all arranged by industry. Christian kept the files so that when someone at Everest looked at another deal in the industry, they already had a significant amount of research on hand in the file as well as the reasons they’d decided not to invest in that specific company. He was all about efficiency, she thought to herself with a smile. God, she loved that man. Even if he loved someone else.