“Elsa?”
“I don’t know her last name. Or can’t remember. She handles most of QT’s deliveries for Quantum.”
“Did she deliver to him directly, in his office?”
“Most of the time she’d just drop off the order with me. He came out or called her in sometimes, just to ask how she was doing, but mostly she’d drop off with me.”
“Okay. What car service did he use?”
“All Trans. I always requested Herbert as his driver.”
“Did he use All Trans this morning?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I can check.”
“I’ll do that. Can you tell me who generally made deliveries, which messenger or delivery company?”
“Quantum uses Global Express. For incoming, it depends on what that company uses.”
“Thanks, this is helpful.”
“Sissle. Sorry, I just remembered Elsa’s name. Elsa Sissle.”
“Even more helpful. Get some rest, Rudy.”
Pacing, Eve contacted QT, was told Elsa was out on a delivery. As she started to contact Global, Roarke came in.
“Peabody said you’d likely be here.” As he walked to her, he scanned the board. “A hard day’s work, Lieutenant.” And skimmed a hand down her back.
“I’d rather have a hard day’s work than a permanent day off, like the twelve on the board.”
“The twelve includes Paul Rogan, I see.”
“Dead’s dead.”
“And dead makes him yours as well.”
“Being a victim made him mine.”
“How is he a victim?”
“Let’s take it into my office where there’s real coffee.”
“Did you follow up your rodent soup with any actual food?” he asked as they started out.
“I was going to, but the goddamn Candy Thief found my stash.”
“Only in your world does candy qualify as actual food.”
“You eat it. It tastes good.”
They passed through the bullpen and into her office, where Roarke went to her AutoChef programmed two coffees, and a cup of chicken soup.
“When did chicken soup get in there?”
“When someone who loves his cop decided she might eat actual food if it was handy. You might check your own AC menu occasionally.”
“I programmed the candy as an alfalfa smoothie, but it didn’t work.”
“No one who knows you would fall for an alfalfa smoothie.”
He had her there, so she dropped into her desk chair, ate the soup while she gave him the high and low points of the investigation.
“So he killed himself and eleven others to save his family. How did they know he would?”
Good question, Eve thought, but she expected no less from Roarke. “I want to talk to Mira, but I believe they’d taken the time to target him specifically. There had to be other contenders, almost had to be. Then they took the time to torment him and his family, to keep giving him the choice, to keep asking the question: What would he do to save his wife and child? They broke him.”
“I’d like to go over the security system, particularly as it’s one of mine. And the same with Callendar’s analysis. From what you’ve told me, neither of them had the skills, or the access to someone with the skills to circumvent the security without considerable time and effort, but they got through nonetheless.”
“Over two months of eroding it,” Eve pointed out. “So they focused on Rogan back in December, or before. I have the beneficiaries, but from what I can tell, the merger would be a good thing, financially, from their standpoint.”
“It should be, yes.”
“Why didn’t you go after a merger with Econo?”
He took a seat, carefully, in Eve’s ass-biting visitors’ chair. “I already have an arm that competes with Econo. Buying them outright, might have been interesting, but it would also have, almost certainly, tangled us up in regulations against monopolies.”
“Were they for sale?”
“Not currently.” With a shrug, he sipped at his coffee. “Down the road a bit, that might have changed. They’ve had some cash flow issues the last year or so, possibly due to their COO retiring and a few other factors. The merger would have shored those up, I’d think.”
“So the merger is/was more beneficial for Econo than Quantum?”
“Initially, but Quantum would expand into areas where Econo’s very solid and they’re not.” Again, carefully, Roarke settled back. “Quantum’s exclusivity is part of its appeal to those who want and can afford to have five-star transportation. It’s also their weakness, as the average person may want but can’t afford.”
“Who benefits from it all going south?”
“Well now, I will—in the short term at least. And other competitors.”
“Why ‘short term’?”
“Because despite today’s tragedy, the merger will almost certainly go through. It’s a deal nearly a year in the making.”
“How do you know?”
He gave her a mild look. “It’s my business to know. There have been murmurs about it since last winter, and paperwork dealing with the regulations of such things were filed several months ago as bureaucracy takes its time, and everyone else’s.”
“Did you know it was going down this morning? The merger?”
“I did, yes.”
“How—and don’t say it’s your business to know.”
“It is, and there’s been chatter on it. Pearson’s son runs the London offices—and a bit of chatter came from there. His daughter left for Rome last week, another of Quantum’s HQs. All the BOD who aren’t based in New York traveled to New York last week. And the word has been the deal would be formalized today. With some window dressing first with a reveal of the marketing campaign this morning.”
“So, okay, your average Joe wouldn’t know, or at least couldn’t know the ins and outs, but somebody in the same business or someone within the two companies would.”
“Certainly. They’ve leaked enough to the media in the last few weeks so today’s formality was expected. But they held back details so they could do the splash. If Karson lives, and I hope she does—or if she dies—the deal should still go through. Unless her and Pearson’s heirs are idiots, all the reasons to merge remain in place. The negotiations are done, the deal is done but for the formal signing.”
“So why the hell blow it up? It doesn’t make sense to do all of this just to kill Rogan, or Pearson, when a shiv in the throat in a dark alley’s quicker and easier.”
“I agree. And if your conclusion is this wasn’t about killing any individual, I agree.”
“What’s the point then?” she demanded. “What’s the goal if blowing up the meeting doesn’t stop the merger anyway?”
“To disrupt,” he told her. “And in a big way, a media-frenzy way, a business way. What do people think of, instantly, when a suicide vest and bombs are employed?”
“Terrorism.”
“And what happens when terrorism is involved?”
“Panic.”
“Exactly. Not only people panic, the markets panic. And in this case, Quantum Air and EconoLift are at the front and center of the attack. Due to that, the stocks of both companies took a deep dive this morning in trading.”
“So they’re worth less than they were yesterday.”
“Considerably less than they were before nine this morning, as panic drives people to sell, and once the stocks inch down, that rolls on with a kind of groupthink, and more sell. And those who play on the margins will find their shares sold out if they fall too far over the next couple of days.”
She’d followed him, more or less, but now held up a hand. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means those who use loans for part of the buy, hoping to maximize profit while risking more loss. Simply, they buy ten dollars’ worth of stock, but borrow five, only having five of their own to invest. If the stock goes up to fifteen, they see a hundred percent profit. If it tanks, you’ll likely have a margin call, lose your investment, what you borrowed, and the interest and fees attached to the loan.”
“It seems like a stupid way to do business.”
“Playing in the margins is a gamble,” he acknowledged. “But can lead to profit. And you can use margins to create leverage.”
“Like an advantage?”