Page 38 of Gamma
Yelena is a tough little girl. She stays near me, always mindful of my wounded side. Her serious dark eyes watch my every move, watch my face. She knows I’m in pain, and I think she knows I’m playing tough for her sake. And so she, in turn, plays tough for me. She no longer cries. She also doesn’t cower under the bench when the guard brings us meals, such as they are—triangles of flatbread and cups of brackish water. Sometimes there are a few small slivers of what I believe to be goat meat.
Assuming three feedings constitutes a day, we are left largely alone for another day and a half.
Before our third feeding on that day, we hear the telltale clicking of Spaulding’s boots, and Yelena whimpers, shrinks against me. Instead of hiding under the bench, however, she merely wraps her arms around my waist, buries her face in my side, and shakes like a leaf.
The door opens.
“What a darling sight this is—the prisoners have bonded.” Spaulding’s voice is bright, chipper. “The first of your services in payment to me are due, Mr. Karahalios.”
He leans in the open doorway in a baby blue suit, wearing different snakeskin boots, carrying a walking stick with a cobra head topper—a fashion accessory, obviously.
“Dimitriou.”
“Whatever. Call yourself Ronald McDonald for all I care.” The chipper tone vanishes for a moment. “Don’t fuck with me.” He strikes out with the stick, the heavy metal cobra head smashing into my wounded arm.
I cry out against my will, turning away and hunching over.
“I changed it legally,” I growl.
“Again, I don’t care what you call yourself.” He pushes off the doorframe and saunters out. “Follow me.”
I have no choice but to follow, and Yelena immediately beelines behind me, grabbing my good hand and putting me between her and the guard; the guard snarls something, gesturing at the child with his rifle.
When Yelena refuses to leave my side, the guard grabs her by the arm and hauls her away from me—causing Yelena to scream and screech and growl like a feral animal, struggling to get back to me.
Spaulding pauses, walking stick on his shoulder, and glances back. “Oh, let the child come. Just keep her quiet or I’ll put a bullet in her skull myself.”
The guard relinquishes his grip, and she sprints for me, slamming into my side.
I squeeze her hand. “Just keep quiet, okay?” I murmur to her. “It’s okay.”
She nods against my hipbone.
We wind through the halls, staying underground, ascending and descending a level here and a level there, turning this way and that until I’m thoroughly lost. Then, finally, we come to a room at the end of a hallway devoid of other doors. There’s a small window, here, opening to show that we’re high above the sea, in a cliff-face. The distant susurrus of the waves sounds like a mother shushing her child. There’s a small table under the window, on it a laptop and a small satellite dish pointed out the window, a folding chair pushed up to the table.
The guard takes up position outside the doorway, Spaulding just inside, leaning against the rear wall with insouciant languor.
When I look at him askance, he gestures at the table. “Sit.”
I gesture for Yelena to sit on the floor nearby; instead, she sits under the table, clinging to one of my legs like a koala to a tree. I tap the space bar of the open laptop, and the screen brightens to reveal the login screen for a commercial business banking portal. I notice, as well, that there is a secure messaging portal open as well; it’s frustrating, doing all this one-handed; I move much more slowly, take a lot more time. Behind me, I feel Spaulding’s impatience.
“There is an offer in your messages box to purchase one of your subsidiary corporations—Patmos Commercial Realty. It is a comical, insulting offer. A pittance compared to what it is worth. You will accept it. It is a cash offer, and all necessary paperwork has been drawn up. Upon your acceptance and digital signature, I will become the new owner, but you will remain on file as CEO.”
I frown at him. “What good does that do you?”
He ignores my question. “In your portfolio of real estate, through Patmos, you, and thus soon, I, own several large, valuable properties. I’ve flagged the ones I’m interested in.”
I see his scheme as I scroll through the properties he’s marked. “You could have just told me you want to launder money through my real estate.”
Once again, he ignores me. “In the messages, you will have instructions for the real estate properties—who they go to and for how much. Get to it. I’ll be back.”
I spend the next few hours, bizarrely, doing the all-too-familiar work of real estate transactions. It’s simple, and easy, and no one suspects a thing. I do this all the time—only, legally, not to launder money. It’s a complicated shell game he’s having me play, moving large sums of money around the world via commercial properties he’ll then be able to leverage equity out of. If he, via several layers of financial shadow, owns PCR, but I remain CEO, he’s able to essentially sell himself the properties he needs without having to do any of the work to acquire them in the first place—I’ve already done that. Plus, he can acquire the properties he needs for exactly the amount he needs, since he’s selling to himself, just via subsidiaries no one would ever connect.
Of course, these maneuvers are going to raise flags all over the world, but by the time they’re onto what’s going on, he’ll have sold everything off and moved on, with me as the patsy for the whole scheme.
It’s craftier than merely forcing me to wire him money, I’ll give him that.
I anticipate more of such shenanigans, but in the meantime, I’m perfectly happy to play moneyman for him, as long as it means he leaves Yelena alone.