Noble Chase: A Novel Read online

  Noble Chase is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Michael Rudolph

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  ISBN 9781101884379

  eBook ISBN 9781101884386

  randomhousebooks.com

  Title-page images: copyright © iStock.com / © DigiClicks

  Book design by Victoria Wong, adapted for eBook

  Cover design: Phil Rose/Art Parts Studio

  Cover image: Artur Debat/Getty Images

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The airwaves crackled with static, so he adjusted the squelch on the VHF radio. Then his scalp started to itch, so he lifted up the back of his hairpiece to scratch the offending spot. She was irritated by the gesture but stood by silently. Finally, he picked up the microphone and sent out the first distress call. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Satin Lady,” he went on, panic building in his voice, and then he repeated, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” Channel l6 went instantly quiet. It was an unnatural silence.

  The Coast Guard constantly monitored channel 16 and was the first to respond. “Satin Lady, Satin Lady,” he heard the radio operator say, “this is the United States Coast Guard station on St. Thomas. Give us your position and the nature of your emergency. Over.”

  He did not reply.

  “Satin Lady…this is the United States Coast Guard. I repeat. Do you copy? Over.”

  He put the mike to his mouth again. “Yes, Coast Guard. We’ve hit a reef that’s put a big hole in us. We’re sinking. We need help!” This time he released the transmit button.

  “Okay, Satin Lady. We copy. Give us your position. Over.”

  “I don’t know our current position….Water is filling the cabin.” His transmission was becoming fragmented.

  The anonymous radio operator heard the panic and tried to be reassuring. “Satin Lady, stay calm now. Can you give us the time and place of your last known location and your speed since then?”

  “We left Fajardo yesterday. Our original heading was 315 degrees northwest. Last night we were seventy or seventy-five miles north of San Juan. We’re in a fifty-two-foot sportfisherman with a big tuna tower and a dark blue hull.” He kept depressing and then releasing the transmit button on the microphone, sometimes right in the middle of a sentence.

  “That’s good information, Satin Lady, but your voice keeps breaking up. We’ll get help to you soon. Is anyone injured? Over.”

  “I have a woman with me. She hurt herself when we bounced off that reef. She’s bleeding badly from the head. The life raft is floating away. It must have come untied. I think we’re going down. Help us.”

  “Do you have an EPIRB on board? It’ll help us get a radio fix on you.” The young Coast Guard radio operator pronounced the familiar acronym with a thick Spanish accent that made it barely intelligible.

  “Do I have a what? I don’t understand you.”

  “An EPIRB. Do you have an emergency position indicator? It looks like a small handheld radio. Over.”

  “I don’t know where it is. We only chartered this boat a few days ago.”

  “Okay, then, Satin Lady. Don’t stop to look for it now. First give us a long count to ten. We’re trying to locate your position.”

  “One, two, three…” Then silence before it was completed.

  “Hang in there, Satin Lady, we’re on our way. Stand by the radio if you can.” The Coast Guard operator looked over at the watch officer, a petty officer second class who had been monitoring the entire transmission, got his permission, and immediately notified Base San Juan. They initiated a general alert.

  There was no further communication from Satin Lady.

  Base San Juan immediately dispatched its closest patrol boat to the scene. The night was clear, the moon full, and visibility good, but nothing was sighted.

  The next morning, a sailboat cruising to St. Thomas located a patch of debris floating well outside the search area. They retrieved a partially inflated life raft with the name Satin Lady stenciled in blue letters, some bloodstained clothing, and a fouled mess of nylon fishing line still attached to a splintered fiberglass fishing rod. When they docked at Charlotte Amalie later that afternoon, they turned the articles over to the Coast Guard.

  The couple walked toward their table, following the circuitous path taken by the maître d’. The dinner crowd at Le Bernardin was its typical group of affluent regulars, yet their cumulative attention was drawn magnetically to the newcomers. Beth looked straight ahead, enjoying the attention. She couldn’t tell if C.K. noticed the stares, but if he did, he ignored them.

  Beth accentuated her height with a strong athletic stride equally comfortable in a courtroom or on the playing fields of Central Park. On a shelf back in her office, she prominently displayed a coveted Golden Glove Award won in the Metropolitan Lawyers Softball League.

  She had inherited blond hair and pale blue eyes from her northern Italian father, intellect and persistence from her Hungarian mother. Her taupe woolen suit was a conservative statement she reserved for clients.

  Chun Keun Leung was Taiwan Chinese and wealthy. He was only slightly taller than Beth and had straight black hair with a touch of gray at the temples. He wore a navy chalk-stripe suit and walked with the confidence of one in authority. He was accustomed to being the center of attention.

  Some of the diners glanced skeptically at their own dinner dates and knew with prurient certainty what the attractive woman was doing to satisfy the Asian gentleman. It was all malicious conjecture, of course. The truth was less satisfying than their imagination. The couple was there on business. An attorney out with her client. In fact, they had just met.

  The maître d’ presented them with the evening’s elaborate menu before leaving their table. Their first real conversation of the evening was a discussion of what t
o order. Beth smiled and nodded to mask her difficulty in understanding her client’s accented English.

  Minutes later, the waiter approached the table, took their orders, and left. He was followed shortly by the wine steward, who listened to Leung’s order and then complimented him on his expert selection. Leung ignored the compliment.

  To Beth, everything about the meal was the embodiment of the image she had of life as a lawyer: Supreme Court victories and dinners in four-star restaurants to celebrate them. The perks of winning a $105 million judgment were infinitely better than the exhaustion of losing one. Losers invent excuses. Winners get bonuses. Her initial reluctance to meet Leung for the first time at a dinner instead of in her office disappeared with the weight of his praise and a glass of Taittinger Comtes.

  After the flurry of waiters descended and left, C.K. raised his glass for a toast. “A fine champagne is the only drink appropriate for the acknowledgment of a fine achievement.” Beth smiled as he continued. “And so, to the distinguished attorney who obtained that remarkable eight-figure judgment against Jasco for us. Here’s to a job well done.” He drank and put down his glass.

  “That’s very kind of you. I appreciate it.” Beth smiled broadly and took a sip from her bugle-stemmed glass. She had listened to the toast with only half an ear, yet something in it struck a discordant note. She replayed the toast in her mind, then attributed it to her difficulty with his accent. She took another sip of the champagne and the concern disappeared.

  “Oh, before I forget,” C.K. said, “could you arrange to have the Jasco files shipped to us in Taiwan?”

  “Of course. They take up most of two file cabinets.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Are you sure you want it all? We can scan it for you instead.”

  “No, send the actual files. We make a habit of retaining closed files in our home office.”

  “Not a problem. We can always use the storage space. I’ll have my assistant take care of it.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Do you have any other Paramount files in your office?”

  “Not as far as I know,” she responded. “Jasco was the only one we were handling.”

  “Would you check just to be certain?” The absence of any inflection in his voice made it more of an order than a question.

  “Of course. I’ll circulate a memo to all the other attorneys.” It was easier for her to do it than explain to him why it wasn’t necessary.

  “I would appreciate that. If anything else should turn up, have your assistant call my office.”

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?” Her receptors had been dulled by the adulation and blurred by his accented English.

  “No, not at all, but my conservative father is fanatical about the preservation of paper records. He feels that no matter how old it is, you’ll need it desperately the day after you discard it.” He dismissed her question with the knowing shrug of children sharing the foibles of their parents.

  “I understand,” she acknowledged. “I’ll have my assistant call one way or the other.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know, it was quite a surprise when you called from Taiwan last week to set up this date. We all thought Leonard Sloane owned Paramount Equities.”

  “We create that impression on purpose. My brothers and I let our local people run their operations with as little interference as possible from Taiwan.”

  “What’s the advantage of that?”

  “It’s cheaper. More efficient. But I suppose we really do it to avoid paying too high a price for regional prejudice. There’s always one price for foreigners and one for the locals.”

  “How do you maintain control, then?”

  “We control the checkbook. Every business of ours employs a family member who signs every check, and we always use a branch of Fidelity Bank.”

  “How come?”

  “Because they’re headquartered in Taiwan and I sit on their board of directors.” He smiled and lifted his wineglass as he spoke, in an effortless gesture that exposed a magnificent sapphire-and-diamond cuff link and a solid gold Rolex watch encrusted with diamonds.

  “Where else do you have operations?” she asked, thinking how nice it would be to get a big chunk of that business into the law firm. She made no effort to break off the eye contact he had encouraged.

  “We’re pretty much worldwide now, mostly real estate. We own and operate properties in Asia and Europe, of course, the United States, the Middle East, not so much in Africa.”

  “It must keep you running around.”

  “It does. Are you the name partner in Wilcox, Swahn and Giles?”

  “No, that’s my stepfather, Max Swahn. He retired as senior partner a few years ago. Clifford Giles runs the firm now.”

  “Does your stepfather practice law anymore?”

  “He and my mother live on a sailboat down in the Caribbean, but he can’t resist getting involved. He’s working with me now on an article I’m writing about the Jasco case. The NYU Law Review wants to publish it.”

  “I’d like to read it when you’re done.”

  “I’ll be happy to send you a copy.” Leung didn’t know about her intensely competitive nature, and she wasn’t going to give him any of that insight. He didn’t know that winning was expected of her and that acknowledgment was her Achilles’ heel.

  “I’ll also forward it on to our international trade association in Taipei. I’m sure they’ll want to circulate it among the members.”

  “Terrific. The case had merit. I was just the catalyst,” she continued modestly.

  “Don’t diminish your role. We dislike paying legal fees as much as anyone, but your firm’s fifteen percent was well earned.” He leaned to one side as the waiter placed their desserts on the table.

  “Thank you,” Beth said automatically for what seemed the hundredth time during the meal. She didn’t correct Leung about their contingency fee—5 percent, not 15 percent—but her antennae were up. This was one mistake too many. “Did Leonard ever send you a copy of the court’s decision?” she asked, concern displacing complacency.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll make sure a copy is emailed to you tomorrow.”

  “It’s too bad that Leonard isn’t around to invest the Jasco money in more real estate for us. He was excellent at locating distressed properties.”

  “Hearing about his death last month was a shock,” Beth replied. “Drowning at sea is a terrifying way to die.”

  “When I get finished interviewing the candidates for his job, I’ll send my choice over to meet you. I also want you to know that your firm will continue to receive our legal work.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said.

  “There is one thing you can do for us now.”

  “What’s that?” she asked. (Anything, C.K., she thought, just make it billable.)

  “My brother Martin and I both graduated from Wesleyan University up in Connecticut. We want to set up a scholarship fund there in honor of Leonard Sloane.”

  “What a generous idea! That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “We would like your firm to handle the details.”

  “We’d be glad to.”

  “That’s the main reason I wanted to meet you at dinner, so we could discuss the endowment without being interrupted.”

  “We can do it for you. How much of an endowment are you considering?”

  “Well, the Jasco verdict was so unexpected, we thought we would take five percent of it.”

  “I’m sure Wesleyan will be thrilled.” And, she thought, so will Clifford when he hears about the flow of new business we’ll be getting from the Leungs.

  “They already are. I called them this morning, gave them your name, and told them they’d have the 1.75 million in their hands by November first. Can you handle it by then?”

  “That gives us two full weeks. Sure, no problem.” Again, she took no issue with his error. Obviously, the endowment shou
ld have matched their fee, but nothing would be gained by calling his attention to it here in the restaurant. She needed to get more information first. “If you’ll give me the name of your accountant,” she suggested, “I’ll contact him for the financial details.”

  “I’ll leave his name and phone number with your assistant first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Good,” Beth responded, feeling increasingly uneasy. “We’ll get started on it right away,” she continued, now wishing the evening would come to an end.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Even after deducting your fees and the endowment, we still end up with twenty-eight million.”

  Beth’s stomach contracted again involuntarily in reaction to his comment, and she felt the mother of all headaches begin to pound in her head. This man was her client. She had a legal obligation to say something to him, and she had to say it now to avoid misleading him by her silence.

  Her face must have betrayed some distress, because C.K. suddenly looked at her quizzically. “Were you going to say something?”

  “It was nothing. Would you excuse me for a second while I go to the ladies’ room?” She pushed the chair back from the table, knocking her napkin off her lap onto the floor. She didn’t bother to pick it up as she got up and made what she hoped was a graceful retreat. As she passed a mirror, she noticed that C.K. had gone back to his dessert.

  Beth went into the ladies’ room, wet a cotton towel that the matron handed her, and put it on the back of her neck. The matron, a kind, grandmotherly type, solicitously handed her tissues, mouthwash, and advice about overindulgence.

  “Jesus, I look awful,” she said out loud to the mirror. How could C.K. not know the size of the judgment? she asked herself as she stared at the miserable reflection. If he thinks it was only for $35 million, then what about the $70 million in punitive damages? He must know about them too, right? “Right!” she assured her unconvinced mirror image.