Free Due Diligence: A Thriller by Jonathan Rush

that’s going to come out when this deal goes public? Pete, no matter how big this deal is, Dyson Whitney can’t afford to be involved in anything like that. If we get into litigation … Look, we’re not that strong. We’re just keeping it together. You know that. If we get into litigation, the deal flow will dry up completely and it’ll be the end of us. I’m not exaggerating.”
    “Bob,” said Stanzy seriously, “this is a great, robust American company that’s taken its business model and exported it to a dozen countries around the world. Let’s get this straight. Louisiana Light is a success story. It’s a growth story. And Mike Wilson is a great leader. A visionary leader. Now he’s about to make this company even bigger and stronger by making an acquisition that creates an awesome growth platform and may well change the dynamics of the entire industry on a global level. That sounds like a pretty good story to me.”
    “And me,” said John Golansky.
    “Exactly,” said Stanzy. “This is the kind of deal Dyson Whitney should want to be involved in. In fact, I’d say more than that. Given where we are today, from our own perspective, it’s the kind of deal Dyson Whitney can’t afford not to be involved in.”
    Stanzy stopped himself from saying anything else. First rule of making a pitch, he knew, was never to oversell. And this was as much of a naked pitch as anything he had ever said at an investor roadshow.
    The Captain frowned. At heart, he was a deal maker. A play like this got him tingling down to the end of every last fiber. And there was no way the bank could turn away a fee like this. It was inconceivable.
    He looked around the table, giving the others a last chance to speak up. No one did. Bruce Rubinstein hesitated for a moment, then looked away. He was on thin ice with the Captain. There were only so many times he could challenge him.
    “All right,” said the Captain. “Looks like we’re agreed.” The frown disappeared and he broke into a grin. “Well done, Pete. Go out there and make it happen.”
    *   *   *
    At about the time that the mandate committee was breaking up in the Dyson Whitney boardroom, a limousine delivered a slim, dark-haired man in his late thirties to the American Airlines terminal at JFK. He had one small carry-on bag and a briefcase. He checked in at a business-class counter and went to the executive lounge to wait for his flight to be called.
    From time to time, as he waited, he looked around with a slightly furtive air, as if to see whether anyone had noticed him.
    At last he heard his flight number and got up to board.
    Seven hours later, eight A.M. local time in London, he disembarked at Heathrow Airport. A driver was waiting with a sign saying MR TOM BROWN . The driver took him through the morning traffic to a hotel in Kensington, overlooking Hyde Park, where a room was booked for him under the same name.
    His name wasn’t Tom Brown. It was Lyall Gelb, chief financial officer of Louisiana Light.

 
    10
    Donato’s was an old-style neighborhood Italian place with red-and-white–checkered cloths and wax-encrusted Chianti bottles on the tables. Real wax-encrusted Chianti bottles, from years of candles burning down, not the kind someone’s made by purposely melting candles to give the place a homely look. Ercole, who was about sixty, took the orders, opened the wines, and generally ran the place. His wife, Teresa, did the cooking, with help from a Mexican guy called Esteban, who did the chopping, the cleaning, and the washing. Teresa wouldn’t let him near the pots. They had a waiter called Ricky. He was an old guy, silver-haired, but everyone called him Ricky, as if he were a kid. And that was it. Ercole and Teresa closed in August, and everyone took a month’s vacation. First of September, the doors opened again.
    Rob and Greg discovered the place when they were at law school together at Columbia. They hadn’t been friends at first. Greg’s