out of the Singapore office,” the head of trading said. “Roger, I don’t even know how this got set up. I know I once signed some letter of authorization that he could trade the Pac markets out of there…But a lot of this is just murky. Papered over. I still don’t understand—he’s been shifting funds between accounts, all over the globe, covering his trades…”
Now a tremor of panic ran through Cantwell. This was all they needed. He put his fingers to his temples. “Are there more?”
Sweat had come out on Biondi’s brow and he hesitated, glancing at Brenda.
“Don’t screw with me, Stan!” Cantwell’s glare bored right through him. “Are there more?”
“One,” Biondi said, swallowing. He brought up a last screen.
The recap read $2.8 billion. Two-point-eight billion. Dizzily, Cantwell started doing the math, but Brenda Pearlstein beat him to it. “It’s over eleven billion dollars, Roger.”
Eleven billion dollars. Cantwell felt his legs buckle. He sank back down. Biondi could be fired for this.
He could be fired.
“How long has this been going on?”
“A while.” Biondi fell into the leather chair across from him. “Look, you know the numbers, Roger. We needed earnings. Marc’s always been driving them. I just let it go on. But, Roger, listen, there’s—”
Cantwell leaned forward and clicked back to the three recap pages again. Most of the positions were in green. Gains. Each account showed Glassman well ahead. Up almost 7 percent. Close to eight hundred million. Thank God. An exhalation of relief poured out of him.
“At least the little prick knew what the hell he was doing.” Cantwell blew out his cheeks, feeling a second wind, sitting back down. The bastard had done it again! This might actually help them.
“Tell him,” Brenda said, her eyes trained on Biondi.
The head of trading nodded, gulping.
“Tell him,” Brenda said again, “or I will.”
“Tell me what?” The iciness of her expression didn’t suggest she was buying Cantwell’s image of a happy ending. “Tell me fucking what, Stan,” he turned back to Biondi, “before I throw you off the forty-eighth floor!”
“It’s a disaster,” the trading manager said, spitting it all out. “Worse than a disaster, Roger. All these gains…” He pointed to the screen, the columns of green. “Here, and here…They’re merely paper trades. Made up. To cover his losses. They never took place, Roger.” Biondi’s face was white. “They’re all completely false.”
“False…”
Cantwell’s jaws parted as he stared at the screen, the full enormity of what Biondi was telling him slowly, impossibly, settling in. Their reserves were already shredded. The market would drop six hundred points tomorrow on the news. Their stock would open up at two.
This could sink the firm.
“How much are we in for?” Cantwell uttered.
One word fell off the head of trading’s lips. “Billions.”
Over the next days, Hauck began digging into the background of Dani Thibault.
Merrill had given him some things to work with, Thibault’s Dutch passport number and the name of two businesses he supposedly owned: Christiana Capital Partners, of which his business card listed him as managing director and founder, and Trois Croix Investments, Limited, out of Luxembourg (which Merrill suggested was supposedly named after the street in Brussels where Thibault had been born). She also indicated he had served in the Dutch army. “Dani said he was in Kosovo. Part of the peacekeeping forces there.” That was one of the things that initially had set off her doubts. Her lawyer had been unable to find a record of any military service.
That first visit, after Tom Foley had walked her to the door, he came back to Hauck’s office. “Impressive woman, huh, Ty?”
“What’s going on?” Hauck asked him. “I thought we don’t normally handle this kind of thing. It’s pretty routine PI work.”
“Normally we don’t.” His boss stepped over to the door. “But this time we do. You may have had a chance to look over the client list here, Ty.” Of course Hauck had. Talon had a worldwide contract with Reynolds Reid, Merrill Simons’s ex-husband’s firm. “Keep me up to date,” he said, patting Hauck on the back, telling him what a great job he was doing, backing down the hall.
So Hauck started in. He began with the same steps Merrill Simons’s own attorneys had taken. Thibault was a Dutch citizen. But his background was supposedly Belgian. He purported to have ties to the royal family there, the source of his network of contacts and income. He also claimed to have a degree from the London School of Economics.
Hauck began with a criminal history. He put in for it in the U.S. and internationally with Interpol too. He Googled Thibault. A trail of gossip references popped up. Linked with Merrill in the society pages. Galas they had attended. Charitable foundation dinners. Prior to that he was seen in the presence of a couple of Bollywood actresses and a British female race car driver. The article was headlined 2007’S GLAMOUR COUPLES.
Thibault played in the big leagues.
There was also a series of references and articles in business publications. Thibault’s firm Trois Croix had been negotiating for a small Caribbean resort chain along with a large Spanish retailer. Trois Croix was described as an investment firm based out of Luxembourg and Thibault as a “well-connected Dutch financier.” One article mentioned a series of companies Hauck had never heard of that were part of his holdings: I-Mrkt; Havesham Property Holdings in London; a boutique hotel on Mustique. He was said to have been a board member of several large firms and a former investment manager at Bank AGRO in the Netherlands. Apache Partners, a prominent New York private equity firm, was mentioned as a financial adviser on the acquisition.
An article dated four months later, in something called Caribbean Business News, described how the hotel-chain purchase had not gone through and that the company was now seeking another option.
At the end of Merrill Simons’s visit, as she stood up to leave, Hauck had said discreetly, “I don’t mean to trouble you, Ms. Simons, but it would help if I could have one or two additional things.”
She took out her car keys from her purse. “I’m listening…”
“I could use a current cell phone number for Mr. Thibault. And his e-mail account, if you’re okay with that. Banking information…”
“I don’t know…,” Merrill said, appearing a bit concerned.
“It would make things easier,” Hauck said. “I promise, he won’t know.”
“I’m sure you know how hard this is for me,” she
