The Dark Tide
Andrew Gross
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
As the morning sun canted sharply through the bedroom window,…
Chapter Two
By eight-thirty Karen was at yoga.
Chapter Three
Karen hurried through the glass door and squeezed in front…
Chapter Four
Ty Hauck was on his way to work.
Chapter Five
Karen didn’t flip out at first. That wasn’t her way.
Chapter Six
Her thoughts flashed to Samantha and Alex. Karen realized she…
Chapter Seven
When the call came in, Hauck was on the phone…
Chapter Eight
Hauck took the guy in the sport jacket, Freddy the…
Chapter Nine
I never heard from my husband again. I never knew…
Chapter Ten
A few days later—Friday, Saturday, Karen had lost track—a police…
Chapter Eleven
The huge gray tanker emerged from the mist and cut…
Chapter Twelve
A month later—a few days after they’d finally held a…
Chapter Thirteen
Down the street a man hunched in a darkened car,…
Chapter Fourteen
One of the things Karen had to deal with in…
Chapter Fifteen
It was September, the kids were back in school when…
Chapter Sixteen
It took him by surprise that night, Hauck decided as…
Chapter Seventeen
Their lives had just begun to get back on some…
Chapter Eighteen
It took just minutes, frantic ones, for Karen to get…
Chapter Nineteen
It was the second day of field-hockey practice, near the…
Chapter Twenty
Karen clung to her daughter on the living-room couch. Samantha…
Chapter Twenty-One
The call came in at eleven-thirty that night. The limo…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Archer and Bey turned out to be phony.
Chapter Twenty-Three
That night Hauck couldn’t sleep. It was a little after…
Chapter Twenty-Four
And then it was a year.
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Five
The morning was clear and bright, the suburban New Jersey…
Chapter Twenty-Six
Over the next few days, Karen must have watched that…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took everything Karen had to do it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Karen held back the urge to retch.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saul Lennick’s office was close by, on the forty-second floor…
Chapter Thirty
Karen was frantic. The next few days, she barely dragged…
Chapter Thirty-One
Hauck headed back upstairs to his office from the holding…
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Who have you told?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
He’d said yes. Hauck went over the scene again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The doorbell rang. Barking, Tobey scampered to the door. Alex…
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gregory Khodoshevsky gunned the engine on his three-wheeled, seventy-thousand-dollar T-Rex…
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Mr. Raymond?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Pappy Raymond was holding back. Why else would he push…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Karen went back through all of Charlie’s things as Hauck…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The address was 3135 Mountain View Drive, a hilly residential…
Chapter Forty
Dock 39 was a dingy, nautical-style bar in the harbor,…
Chapter Forty-One
“Mom?”
Chapter Forty-Two
Saul Lennick waited on the Charles Bridge in Prague overlooking…
Chapter Forty-Three
By morning the welt on Hauck’s face had gone down…
Chapter Forty-Four
Vito Collucci could find anything, if the matter was about…
Chapter Forty-Five
The man broke through the surface of the glistening turquoise…
Part Three
Chapter Forty-Six
Twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, Ronald Torbor generally took…
Chapter Forty-Seven
Karen rushed to drop Alex off at the Arch Street…
Chapter Forty-Eight
On the way home, Hauck rang up Freddy Muñoz.
Chapter Forty-Nine
There was a knock on the door the following afternoon,…
Chapter Fifty
He had slipped up. Hauck read over his testimony once,…
Chapter Fifty-One
Something strange crept through Karen’s thoughts that night. After she…
Chapter Fifty-Two
The interstate that ran barely a mile from where Hauck…
Chapter Fifty-Three
He watched the house all night. No lights ever went…
Chapter Fifty-Four
Hauck’s blood became ice. He went over to the window…
Chapter Fifty-Five
His side was on fire.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It was the car.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
One Police Plaza was the home of the NYPD’s administrative…
Chapter Fifty-Eight
After his meeting with Velko, Hauck went to the office…
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Michel Issa squinted through the lens over the glittering stone.
Chapter Sixty
The first thing that came back was the data from…
Chapterer Sixty-One
Karen pulled her Lexus into the driveway. She stopped at…
Chapter Sixty-Two
A day later Hauck and Karen arranged to meet. They…
Chapter Sixty-Three
The cell call came in just as Hauck was getting…
Chapter Sixty-Four
Hauck fixed on the name. Oilman. He knew without needing…
Chapter Sixty-Five
The doorbell rang, and when Karen went to answer it,…
Chapter Sixty-Six
The house was dark. Karen sat in Charlie’s office. The…
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The day finally came for the kids to leave. Karen…
Chapter Sixty-Eight
In a spot called Little Water Cay, near the islands…
Chapter Sixty-Nine
When the call found him, Saul Lennick had just climbed…
Chapter Seventy
Karen waited two days. Charles didn’t reply.
Chapter Seventy-One
Charles sat in the corner of a quiet Internet café…
Chapter Seventy-Two
Hauck had gone out for an evening run around the…
Chapter Seventy-Three
Afterward they lay on the bed, spent, Karen’s body slick…
Chapter Seventy-Four
In the morning Hauck put on coffee. He was out…
Chapter Seventy-Five
Charles was inside the South Island Bank on St. Lucia…
Chapter Seventy-Six
Another day passed while Karen waited for Charles’s instructions. This…
Chapter Seventy-Seven
“I’m going alone,” Kare
n explained to Hauck.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Rick and Paula were away. As were Karen’s kids. She…
Part Four
Chapter Seventy-Nine
The twelve-seater Island Air Cessna touched down on the remote…
Chapter Eighty
There was nothing the next day either. Karen grew increasingly…
Chapter Eighty-One
Forty miles away Phil Dietz sipped a black cactus margarita…
Chapter Eighty-Two
The morning broke hazy and warm.
Chapter Eighty-Three
She did know. Somewhere deep in her heart. It came…
Chapter Eighty-Four
Like a ghost, Charles stepped out of the thick, close…
Chapter Eighty-Five
“Save him?” A surge of anger flared up in Karen.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Anxious, Hauck decided to take a run, leaving the hotel’s…
Chapter Eighty-Seven
“Listen, Charles, this is important.” Karen reached out and touched…
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Karen didn’t arrive back at the hotel until well into…
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Charles Friedman sat alone on the Emberglow, which was now…
Chapter Ninety
“Ty, wake up! Look!” Karen stood at the side of…
Chapter Ninety-One
A launch of white-uniformed officers from the town of Amysville…
Chapter Ninety-Two
Maybe they had been, Karen finally admitted as she went…
Chapter Ninety-Three
We led them to him, Karen.
Chapter Ninety-Four
Karen brought it into the kitchen. She went through the…
Chapter Ninety-Five
Saul Lennick sat in the library of his home on…
“I was placed on disciplinary leave,” Hauck said at Arcadia,…
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Karen drove home.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Her heart crawled up her throat. She looked back, frozen,…
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Hauck headed home from the coffeehouse in Old Greenwich, about…
Chapter One Hundred
A blade of fear knifed through Karen as the blood…
Chapter One Hundred One
It took just minutes, Hauck’s Bronco speeding down Route 1…
Chapter One Hundred Two
Her face was pressed under the surface, breath tightening in…
Chapter One Hundred Three
The call came in just as Saul Lennick settled down…
Chapter One Hundred Four
Illegal search. Breaking and entering. Unauthorized use of official firearms.
Chapter One Hundred Five
Hauck drove his Bronco up to the large stone gate.
Epilogue
“Flesh becomes dust and ash. Our ashes return to the…
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from RECKLESS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
About the Author
Other Books by Andrew Gross
Copyright
About the Publisher
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
6:10 A.M.
As the morning sun canted sharply through the bedroom window, Charles Friedman dropped the baton.
He hadn’t had the dream in years, yet there he was, gangly, twelve years old, running the third leg of the relay in the track meet at summer camp, the battle between the Blue and the Gray squarely on the line. The sky was a brilliant blue, the crowd jumping up and down—crew-cut, red-cheeked faces he would never see again, except here. His teammate, Kyle Bregman, running the preceding leg, was bearing down on him, holding on to a slim lead, cheeks puffing with everything he had.
Reach….
Charles readied himself, set to take off at the touch of the baton. He felt his fingers twitch, awaiting the slap of the stick in his palm.
There it was! Now! He took off.
Suddenly there was a crushing groan.
Charles stopped, looked down in horror. The baton lay on the ground. The Gray Team completed the exchange, sprinting past him to an improbable victory, their supporters jumping in glee. Cheers of jubilation mixed with jeers of disappointment echoed in Charles’s ears.
That’s when he woke up. As he always did. Breathing heavily, sheets damp with sweat. Charles glanced at his hands—empty. He patted the covers as if the baton were somehow still there, after thirty years.
But it was only Tobey, their white West Highland terrier, staring wide-eyed and expectantly, straddled turkey-legged on his chest.
Charles let his head fall back with a sigh.
He glanced at the clock: 6:10 A.M. Ten minutes before the alarm. His wife, Karen, lay curled up next to him. He hadn’t slept much at all. He’d been wide awake from 3:00 to 4:00 A.M., staring at the World’s Strongest Female Championship on ESPN2 without the sound, not wanting to disturb her. Something was weighing heavily on Charles’s mind.
Maybe it was the large position he had taken in Canadian oil sands last Thursday and had kept through the weekend—highly risky with the price of oil leaking the other way. Or how he had bet up the six-month natural-gas contracts, at the same time going short against the one-years. Friday the energy index had continued to decline. He was scared to get out of bed, scared to look at the screen this morning and see what he’d find.
Or was it Sasha?
For the past ten years, Charles had run his own energy hedge fund in Manhattan, leveraged up eight to one. On the outside—his sandy brown hair, the horn-rim glasses, his bookish calm—he seemed more the estate-planner type or a tax consultant than someone whose bowels (and now his dreams as well!) attested to the fact that he was living in high-beta hell.
Charles pushed himself up in his boxers and paused, elbows on knees. Tobey leaped off the bed ahead of him, scratching feverishly at the door.
“Let him out.” Karen stirred, rolling over, yanking the covers over her head.
“You’re sure?” Charles checked out the dog, ears pinned back, tail quivering, jumping on his hind legs in anticipation, as if he could turn the knob with his teeth. “You know what’s going to happen.”
“C’mon, Charlie, it’s your turn this morning. Just let the little bastard out.”
“Famous last words…”
Charles got up and opened the door leading to their fenced-in half-acre yard, a block from the sound in Old Greenwich. In a flash Tobey bolted out onto the patio, his nose fixed to the scent of some unsuspecting rabbit or squirrel.
Immediately the dog began his high-pitched yelp.
Karen scrunched the pillow over her head and growled. “Rrrrggg…”
That’s how every day began, Charles trudging into the kitchen, turning on CNN and a pot of coffee, the dog barking outside. Then going into his study and checking the European spots online before hopping into the shower.
That morning the spots didn’t offer much cheer—$72.10. They had continued to decline. Charles did a quick calculation in his head. Three more contracts he’d be forced to sell out. Another couple of million—gone. It was a little after 6:00 A.M., and he was already underwater.
Outside, Tobey was in the middle of a nonstop three-minute barrage.
In the shower, Charles went over his day. He had to reverse his positions. He had these oil-sand contracts to clear up, then a meeting with one of his lenders. Was it time for him to come clean? He had a transfer to make into his daughter Sam’s college account; she’d be a senior at the high school in the fall.
That’s when it hit him. Shit!
He had to take in the goddamn car this morning.
The fifteen-thousand-mile service on the Merc. Karen had finally badgered him into making the appointment last week. That meant he’d have to take th
e train in. It would set him back a bit. He’d hoped to be at his desk by seven-thirty to deal with those positions. Now Karen would have to pick him up at the station later that afternoon.