The final charge of the day was for $225 at a restaurant in Oyster Bay. Astor appeared to have laid low all Saturday, making only one credit card purchase: a round-trip air ticket to Washington, D.C., departing the following morning.
Grillo called his contact at the credit card company and requested that he drill down on Astor’s Friday charges and supply the exact times the card had been used. He put down his phone and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. He had a feeling about the phone registered to Melsen Inc. The short duration of the call combined with the use of the UPS dropbox and his inability to find the number’s previous owner appealed to his instinct for larceny. He called his contact at the phone company.
“One more thing,” he said.
“Isn’t it always?”
Grillo read off the number and requested all relevant information about the owner, the mode of payment, the date of first service, and, most important, a list of all calls made to and from the number in the past three months.
“That’s going to cost extra.”
“I already doubled the price. This one’s on the house.”
“No, babe, it isn’t.”
Grillo caught a note of anxiety in the woman’s voice. “Something you want to tell me?”
Her answer was a whisper. “You’re not the only one interested in this number. Some of the big boys were snooping around before you.”
“The Bureau?”
“Bigger. The NSA put a priority warrant on this number a year ago.”
Jeb Washburn had mentioned that Palantir had worked with the National Security Agency. It was standard practice for the agency to monitor calls made by contractors and employees. A priority warrant was something else, reserved for a select list of high-value targets.
“You win,” he said. “Two grand do the trick?”
“Only because I like you.”
“I need it in an hour.”
“Already on the way, babe. And Mike,” she added, “don’t call back.”
Grillo hung up the phone. A minute later the message was in his secure e-mail and he was perusing a long list of phone numbers, names, and addresses.
He drank the rest of his coffee and breathed a sigh of relief.
Now they were getting somewhere.
55
“What the hell happened to you?”
As always, Marv Shank seemed to intuit the exact moment of Astor’s arrival. He stood by reception and flanked Astor as he walked down the corridor.
“Don’t ask.”
Shank grabbed his arm to stop his progress. “I’m asking.”
Astor wrenched himself free. “I saw the close. What have we got?”
Shank clenched his jaw, his eyes looking this way and that, anger oozing from every sweaty inch of him. “Lawyers in conference room one,” he managed after a painful second. “Brad Zarek’s in conference room two and he’s about to have a coronary.”
“Did he bring his mitt?”
“What mitt?”
“Forget it. What about Reventlow?”
“In your office.”
“And?”
“He’s smiling like the cat who swallowed the canary.”
Astor stopped short of the end of the corridor and stepped into the CFO’s office. “Give me the lowdown.”
Comstock’s chief financial officer was a blond, whippet-thin woman named Mandy Price who had forsaken a husband and family for a career and running marathons. A chart on her wall showed that so far she’d run eight races that year, and it was still July. “Total exposure is six hundred million.”
“Cash on hand?”
“Fifty.”
“So we’re five-fifty short.”
“That’s correct. There’s three billion left in the fund—all long equities—but most positions are negative or treading water. If you sell, you’ll take a hit.”
“How bad?”
“On top of the two billion you lost on the yuan contracts and the five-fifty to meet the margin requirements? Does it matter?”
Astor did the math in his head. He’d be down to two billion and change out of five in the space of one afternoon. A loss of over 50 percent. He smiled. “Thanks for the news. You had me worried for a second.”
Astor left the office and crossed the trading floor. He made a point not to look at anyone. From the corner of his eye, he noted Goodchild and Longfellow flying out of their chairs, already mouthing explanations. He raised a hand in their direction. His expression said the rest. Don’t even think of getting any closer. The two Brits wisely retreated to the safety of the trading desk.
Astor slowed before entering his office. After leaving Cherry Hill, he’d stopped first at his physician’s office. The knife had missed all major veins but had taken a chunk out of his bone and possibly damaged the muscle. The doctor wanted him to check into a hospital for surgery then and there. Astor settled for twenty stitches, a shot of Demerol, and a promise to reconsider if the pain became too severe. Afterward he’d passed by his home for a shower and a fresh set of clothes. He did not once consider visiting Janet McVeigh. If Alex felt it was so important, she could tell her herself.