“You can’t blame her husband’s actions on Sidney.”
Gamble took the cigar out of his mouth and deliberately removed a bit of
fuzz from his suit coat. “What are the Triton billings up to per year
now, Henry? Twenty million? Forty million? I can get the exact number
when I get back to the office. It’s in that ballpark, wouldn’t you
say?” Gamble stood up. “Now, you and I go back a few years. You know
my style. Somebody thinks they got the best of me, they’re wrong. It
may take me some time, but the knife comes back at you and cuts twice as
deep as the hit I took.” Gamble put the cigar on Wharton’s desk, placed
his hands palm down on the leather surface and leaned forward so that he
was barely a foot from Wharton’s face. “If I lose CyberCom because my
own people sold me out, when I come back at the persons responsible
it’ll be like the big old Mississippi flooding its banks. A whole lot
of potential victims out there, most of them entirely blameless, only
I’m not going to take the time to sort them out. Do you understand me?”
Gamble’s tone was low and calm and yet it slammed into Wharton like a
giant fist.
Wharton swallowed hard as he stared into the intense brown eyes of the
Triton chief. “I believe I do, yes.”
Gamble put on his overcoat and picked up his cigar stub. “Have a good
day, Henry. When you talk to Sidney, tell her I said hello.”
It was one o’clock in the afternoon when Sidney pulled the Ford out of
the parking lot of the Boar’s Head and quickly made her way back toward
Route 29. She drove past the old Memorial Gymnasium where she had once
grunted and sweated and hit tennis balls in between the rigors of law
school. She pulled her car into a parking garage at the Corner, a
favorite hangout of the college crowd, with its numerous bookstores,
restaurants and bars.
She slipped into one of the cafes and purchased a cup of coffee and a
copy of the day’s Washington Post. She sat down at one of the small
wooden tables and looked over the paper’s headlines. She almost fell
our of her chair.
The type was bold, thick and marched across the page with the urgency
its contents deserved. FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD CHAIRMAN
ARTHUR Lieberman KILLED IN AIRPLANE CRASH. Next to the headline was a
photo of Lieberman. Sidney was struck by the man’s penetrating eyes.
Sidney quickly read the story. Lieberman had been a passenger on Flight
3223. He took regular monthly trips to Los Angeles to meet with the San
Francisco Federal Reserve Bank president, Charles Tiedman, and the
in-fated Western Airlines flight had been one of those regular
excursions. Sixty-two years old, and divorced, Lieberman had headed the
Federal Reserve for the last four years. The article devoted a great
deal of space to Lieberman’s illustrious financial career and the
respect he commanded across the globe. Indeed, the official news of his
death had not been reported until now, because the government was doing
its best to prevent a panic in the financial community. Despite those
efforts, the financial markets all over the world had begun to suffer.
The story ended with a notice of a memorial service for Lieberman the
following Sunday in Washing ton.
There was an additional story about the plane accident farther back in
the front section. There were no new developments, only that the NTSB
was still investigating. It could be over a year before the world knew
why Flight 3223 had ended up in a farmer’s plowed-under cornfield
instead of on the tarmac at LAX. Weather, mechanical failure, sabotage
and everything in between was being considered, but for now it was all
just speculation.
Sidney finished her coffee, discarded the newspaper and pulled her
portable phone out of her bag. She dialed her parents’ house and spoke
for some time to her daughter, coaxing a few words out of Amy; her
daughter was still shy on the phone. Then Sidney spent a few minutes
talking with her mother and father. She next called her answering