The October List

come in under a couple G’s.’
    Barkley grumbled, ‘That’s probably do-able.’
    ‘I’ll have IT put together a fake website for the company. I’ll make it look like it was just raided. And I’ll do a Facebook page for my cover identity. Simple stuff. But good enough to fool Reardon if he checks. Which he will.’
    Barkley grunted once more. ‘Hold up. You gotta convince me, Detective. Tell me more about Reardon.’
    ‘Don’t have a lot. I’ve datamined him. He’s rich, lives fast. Owns a Maserati, but it’s slower than his Porsche. He’s got a fancy boat in Connecticut and another one in lower Manhattan.’
    ‘Well, well,’ said Surani. ‘We’re going after a whole new class of perps. Moving up in the world.’
    ‘Or down,’ Gabby corrected, frost in her voice. ‘He kills families, remember?’
    At least Kepler wasn’t the only one she tapped with her whip.
    ‘Reardon’s single. Never married, though my CI tells me he sometimes claims he’s divorced and sometimes he’s a widower. He’s got a loft in TriBeCa worth three million and a company on Wall Street. It’s legit – he’s involved in venture capital work. The Norwalk Fund. But he only made one point two million last year, according to his taxes. His lifestyle’s five times that. So the investing’s a cover for the money washing, arms sales and other things he does.’
    ‘Maybe he just lies to the IRS about how much his legit company makes,’ Kepler suggested.
    ‘Not about his cover business. Why would he do that? Who’d do that? It’s suicide. He’s not stupid, Brad.’
    Ouch.
    Surani asked, ‘And the partners? Andrew and Sam? They’re connected to The Norwalk Fund?’
    ‘I checked out the company, of course, trying to find their full names. And, no, they’re not.’
    Of course …
    ‘So whatta you want to have happen out of this?’ Barkley asked. He was known for his love of the big picture.
    ‘I’ll get close to Reardon, then lay out some bait, give him and Andrew and Sam the chance to hook up with my CI informant in something big. I’ll be an innocent, so they’ll have to take me out.’
    ‘Nail them on criminal conspiracy,’ Barkley said.
    ‘Exactly. My CI, his name’s Joseph’ll be wired. As soon as they meet with him and mention the kill word, we can move in. And get warrants for their offices and houses. If we’re lucky we can find something linking him to the earlier hits – weapons, records, cash transfers.’
    ‘Seems like you’ve thought this through – like you always do, Detective. Tell me how you want to run it.’
    She explained, ‘My cover for the set will be Gabriela McKenzie, manager for the phony business I mentioned. I’m calling it Prescott Investments. It’ll look like my boss – Charles Prescott – has been doing some kind of illegal stock trades. And you two have been investigating him for that. It’s time for the bust, but he’s disappeared. You come up to Reardon and me on the street. You break the news about Prescott. That’ll get Reardon’s attention. Then, after you leave, my Joseph comes up too. He’ll tell me that he was doing some illegal deals with Prescott and he’s pissed he skipped town. He’ll ask me to hand over this mysterious list that’s worth millions.’
    Barkley asked. ‘What’s in the list?’
    A good question, Kepler reflected.
    ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said dismissingly.
    Or maybe not.
    ‘It’s a MacGuffin,’ Gabby continued. ‘Could be anything. But I’ve decided to make it seem to Reardon like it’s a list of underworld kingpins involved in a plot to take down the stock exchange for a day or two and clean up in a big way. I’ll drop some clues for him to figure out. Like, one of Prescott’s clients is a German terrorist/arms dealer. I’m calling him Gunther. The others are brokers or traders, mostly overseas. And I’m working on a lease that has to be signed up in the next few weeks – for that property on Bankers’ Square in Manhattan, where the stock exchange is putting in a new communications system. Reardon may figure it out from that, but to be on the safe side I’m going to hide this memo in some files that I give him to examine, like I didn’t know it was there.’
    She slapped another document on the table.
     
From: Charles Prescott
To: Investment Syndicate
Re: Updated Timetable
     
2 nd of the month: New York Stock Exchange Technology Center, on Bankers’ Square in Lower Manhattan opens.
4 th of the month: The