When he sat in a secluded corner of the private terminal to make phone calls to the jet leasing company and others, the vibration of his voice might attract a venomous snake.
And he knew who the venomous snakes were, at least some of them.
The Butorins and their criminal mafia were right at the top of the damn list, of course. Getting arrested had probably slowed them down some, and Sergey had most likely dropped a couple of notches in the organization for screwing up so badly and failing to deliver.
Sergey, or whatever his real name was, though Tristan didn’t care, was probably no longer a threat. He had to figure out whether the rest of the Butorin organization was still hunting them, though.
Mary Varvara Bell was another threat.
Tristan needed to talk to Bell, because as the sun swelled over the jagged horizon and warmed his face, it was Monday, and he owed her a buttload of depreciated stock by the end of business on Wednesday, just two days away.
Except for that double-cross-kidnapping plot of hers. That had voided their contract.
He should inform her of that.
She probably would disagree, and her opinion was the one that mattered.
Maybe he should call her from New Jersey. Calling Bell before five in the morning seemed like a bad idea.
But he would have to produce the worthless stock by Wednesday.
Or else they were probably going to kill him.
Tristan needed to get Jian, Anjali, and Colleen the hell away from him. When Bell sent someone to cross him off, he wanted those three on another continent.
And he needed them to leave soon. He’d never even told Colleen that Bell had shortened the deadline for the GameShack stock from a month and a half to Friday.
Which was why he’d spent all that time writing the Anonymity Plus program to wipe Colleen off the internet, so the Butorins and Bell wouldn’t be able to find her when he missed the deadline, as he invariably would.
There was no way to procure that stock in six weeks, let alone the shortened deadline of Friday, let alone the insane deadline of Wednesday. He’d known it. It had been more effective to save Colleen than to flail around trying to obtain the stock and ultimately fail.
At least Tristan would meet a bullet knowing that Colleen was safe.
He hoped it was a bullet. He hoped it wasn’t a knife or a garrote or a tub of water.
Yeah, Tristan hoped it was a couple of nice, clean, high-caliber bullets, preferably one to the brain stem.
Mary Varvara Bell wanted that GameShack stock with the single-minded ferocity of a mother shark that smelled blood in the water.
Now, that was interesting. If that was the case, whose blood was Mary Varvara Bell sniffing?
Because it had to be something like that. That had to be the reason she was trying to destroy GameShack. Nobody woke up one morning and thought, I think I’ll make someone’s life absolute hell, call in an exceedingly valuable favor potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars for no reason, and get nothing out of it except a decimated company in ruins.
It all came back to why.
Tristan had checked the company’s SEC filings again. There were no market makers for GameShack. No one person or organization held enough stock to launch a hostile takeover, and no hedge fund held enough to be ruined if the stock price fell to zero.
So, what did GameShack have that Mary Varvara Bell wanted?
A chain of unprofitable stores?
Unlikely.
She didn’t seem like the gaming type.
Tristan sat in a leather chair in a corner of the terminal in front of the vast expanse of windows overlooking the runway whilst private jets accelerated on the tarmac and floated into the air with the dawn.
Farther away on Sky Harbor airport’s runway for commercial jets, a Monumental Airlines 747 lumbered down the longer stretch, struggling to lift its nose and hoist itself into the air.
Of all the things Tristan invested in, he did not invest in commercial airlines. Not only were the stocks too susceptible to the whims of the economy and the political and natural world, crashing at the slightest whiff of a downturn in air travel, but airline corporations often lost money for no discernible reason. Commercial aviation was just a perilous industry and perpetually on the brink of collapse. Tristan didn’t see how they were still in business.
Kind of like GameShack.
Huh.
Back at the airplane, Jian was taking a nap, though he half-woke when Tristan walked in. Anjali and Colleen were sitting at one of the tables and talking.
Tristan updated them on their imminent departure and met the two pilots who’d been sent over by the jet leasing company.
The older woman grinned at him. “GetJets pulled us off a flight for one of those spoiled-brat Hollywood types who wanted to go to Thailand ‘for the weather.’ The last time someone took him to Thailand, he tried to convince the pilots that the five kilos of white powder he was trying to sneak back into the United States was sand from the white sand beaches. So thank you for getting us out of that.”
Tristan sat down next to Colleen and entwined his fingers with hers under the table. “I’m surprised you’re not taking a nap, too, Anjali.”
“Adrenaline,” Anjali said, tapping her fingers on the table. “We were sleeping when the kidnappers broke in. I can sleep when the plane gets up in the air. I noticed that there is perhaps a shower back there?”
“Yeah. There’s a shower and dressing room opposite the bathroom.” Anjali’s credit cards were scattered on the wood tabletop. Tristan asked, “What’s going on with these?”
“I am not sure where we’re going. I also just want to leave Phoenix and the United States.” Anjali held up her cell phone. “I am checking my frequent flyer miles on my airline credit cards to see if I can get a free flight to India yet. I am thinking about going home to India for a few months until fall semester.”
He nodded. “India might be a good place to lay low. You should take Colleen and Jian with you.”
Anjali glanced down at her long fingers. “If I take Jian with me, my family will insist we get married immediately. I am not sure how they will feel about Jian. I wouldn’t want to subject him to them yet.”
Tristan chuckled. “Oh. Well, in that case, maybe you two could hide out with his family in Malaysia.”
“They would definitely insist we get married, too, if we are traveling together and bring someone home to the family.”
Two strikes. “Or maybe you three could go to Paris. But wherever you go, you don’t need to use your frequent flyer miles. I got you into this problem, so I’ll be more than happy to buy you and Jian first-class tickets anywhere you want, separately or together, and make sure you’re set up for a couple of months. You might want to stay with your family in India. You should definitely take Colleen.” He turned. “Colleen, wouldn’t you like to go meet Anjali’s family in India?”
Colleen was watching him carefully, a scrutiny that felt like sunburn. “Yeah. I’d love to.”
Anjali frowned. “I would not like to go without Jian. And you do not have to buy tickets for us.” She tapped her Monumental Airlines credit card. “I have enough frequent flyer miles for two tickets to India. Plus, if I book it on the credit card, we each can check two bags free instead of paying sixty dollars for each bag. Their luggage fees are ridiculous.”
“You know, it’s funny how airlines operate,” Colleen said, her voice melodic like she was remembering something funny. “Their primary business isn’t actually flying people around.”