Part 44 (1/2)
”When does he want to see you?”
”Today.”
”What time?”
”Two o'clock. At his house.”
Stiles shook his head. ”Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”
Gillette nodded. ”Yeah, I am.” A setup all the way.
Stiles's cell phone rang. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it off the coffee table, checked the number, and answered. ”h.e.l.lo? Hey, Pepper. What?” Stiles was silent for a few moments, listening to Billups relate what he'd found out. ”Really? Yeah. Okay, call me if there's anything else.”
”What is it?” Gillette asked when Stiles had hung up.
”That was Pepper Billups,” Stiles replied. ”The guy I sent to Canada to poke around, as you suggested.”
”Did he find anything?”
”Yeah. Apparently the guy who was in charge of the seismic shoot up there for Laurel Energy was definitely murdered.”
”Jesus.”
”The truck he was driving was tampered with,” Stiles continued, ”and the cops are pretty certain he was thrown into some lake near where the truck was found.” Stiles put the phone back down on the coffee table. ”Wasn't that the guy who was bringing the seismic tapes back for a.n.a.lysis?”
Gillette nodded. ”The tapes were recovered. There were some Laurel people a few hours behind the guy. They stopped when they saw his truck, got the tapes out of the front seat, looked around for him for a while, then reported him missing when they got to town.” He glanced out the window. Everything was falling into place. All he needed was one more piece of the puzzle.
”What is it?” Stiles asked, reading Gillette's expression.
”It's-” Gillette's cell phone rang again. ”h.e.l.lo.”
”Christian, it's Ben.”
”h.e.l.lo, Ben,” Gillette said deliberately.
”Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but these guys at Coyote Oil are really bugging me about moving forward.”
”Oh?”
”Yeah, and I think we should. I mean, they've agreed to our price.”
”Uh-huh.”
”Well?”
”Well what what?”
”Can I tell them we have a deal?”
”Yes,” Gillette agreed after a few moments.
”Great, thanks.”
”Sure.”
”You okay, Christian?” Cohen asked.
”Why?”
”You seem distracted.”
”I'm fine.”
Cohen hesitated. ”All right. Talk to you later.”
”Yeah, later.” Gillette ended the call, then dialed Heidi Franklin's number at Everest. ”Heidi? Yes, h.e.l.lo. Look, I'm sorry to make you go into Everest on a weekend, but it was very important. Right.” He hesitated, gazing intently at Stiles as the young woman told him it wasn't a problem because she only lived a few blocks from the offices. ”Did you check it out, Heidi? Were you able to find it? Oh, that's great. And how long does he have?” Gillette nodded. ”Thirty days.” That would explain why they'd had to start the Coyote Oil process so soon.
At a few minutes before one o'clock, Gillette moved out of the elevator and headed through the lobby toward a limousine waiting on Fifth Avenue to take him to Tom McGuire's house on Long Island. Halfway across the lobby, one of Stiles's men fell in beside him. Stiles was taking absolutely no chances at this point.
After hanging up with Heidi Franklin, Gillette had told Stiles his theory about what had happened in Canada. That the tapes the Laurel Energy men had recovered from the front seat of the Explorer abandoned near Lake McKenzie on their way back from the oil fields weren't authentic, that they had been put there to be found by whomever had tampered with the Explorer and murdered the man found in Lake McKenzie by the fisherman. These tapes told a very different story from the ones the men who had murdered the Explorer's driver had stolen.
Gillette believed that Laurel Energy had stumbled onto a huge huge field with the option properties-and the executives at Coyote Oil knew it. That they were behind the incident at Lake McKenzie. They and their backers. Which was why they were so hot to get the transaction moving, why they were willing to pay what U.S. Petroleum was willing to pay despite the fact that the tapes left in the Explorer showed that there wasn't much of anything in the ground up there. field with the option properties-and the executives at Coyote Oil knew it. That they were behind the incident at Lake McKenzie. They and their backers. Which was why they were so hot to get the transaction moving, why they were willing to pay what U.S. Petroleum was willing to pay despite the fact that the tapes left in the Explorer showed that there wasn't much of anything in the ground up there.
Gillette had also told Stiles he was convinced that Ben Cohen was involved. He'd told Stiles how Heidi Franklin had checked the Everest Capital operating agreement and confirmed that, upon the death of the chairman, the chief operating officer would a.s.sume control of Everest for a period of thirty days. The reason it hadn't happened after Donovan's death was because there had been no chief operating officer had been no chief operating officer at that point. Donovan had never appointed one. Thus the need for a quick chairman vote three days after Donovan's death. at that point. Donovan had never appointed one. Thus the need for a quick chairman vote three days after Donovan's death.
If Gillette was out of the way, Cohen would be in control for thirty days. But that might not be enough time to get the Laurel deal with Coyote done before his term was up and someone was elected chairman. Maybe not enough time to get all the necessary approvals. Which was why they'd started the process now, before Cohen's thirty days had begun to tick.
The burning question was, who were 'they'? Strazzi was dead. His wallet was gone but McGuire was still working. As was Isabelle. He could send Faith to McGuire to try to figure out who was pulling the strings, but that would put her in terrible danger. McGuire was sharp. He'd wonder why Faith had dropped out of sight for two days only to reappear asking lots of questions.
Before leaving his apartment to come downstairs, Gillette had called the senior partner at the engineering firm in Texas that had performed the original a.n.a.lysis of the tapes found in the Explorer. He'd directed the partner to have the seismic tests reshot, this time under intense security. To have armed guards present while it was being done, and to have the guards bring the tapes back to the engineering firm from Canada. To keep the tapes under lock and key, with one person guarding the lock and another guarding the key. To spare no expense to make certain the same thing didn't happen again. The partner promised to have the shoot redone within thirty days, and to make the circle of people involved much smaller this time.
”Good afternoon, sir.”
”Thanks.” Gillette nodded to the doorman as he headed out of the lobby. It had warmed up overnight. At one in the afternoon, there was bright suns.h.i.+ne and it was more than sixty degrees. Gillette took a deep breath of fresh air as he headed down the steps, then checked warily up and down Fifth Avenue. Stiles's man in the lobby was beside him and there were two more men by the waiting limousine.
Vince McGuire sat in the front seat of a sedan with one of his men, watching the entrance to Gillette's apartment building. They were both smoking, front windows rolled down in the warm weather.
”Hey, here he comes.” Vince nudged the driver as Gillette came through the doorway and moved down the steps. ”Don't lose his limo on the way out to Tom's house,” he warned. ”You hear me?”
”Yeah, I got it.”
As Gillette reached the bottom step, one of the two men standing by the limousine suddenly pulled a pistol from his shoulder holster, aimed it at the other guard's chest, and squeezed the trigger. Then, before the man next to Gillette could react, the shooter turned the gun on him and fired, putting him down with one shot, too.
Gillette spun and raced up the steps back toward the front door, but the a.s.sa.s.sin was too quick, squeezing off another round almost instantly, sending Gillette to the steps.
The a.s.sa.s.sin raced up the stairs to get to Gillette, hurdling the moaning guard. He pointed the gun directly at Gillette, who was still trying to crawl up the stairs, and fired again. ”That's for Paul Strazzi!” he yelled, then sprinted back down the steps to a dark car that had screeched to a halt in front of the building and jumped into the backseat. Then the car squealed away.