The First Billion: A Novel - Hardcover

Reich, Christopher

 
9780385333672: The First Billion: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0385333676 ISBN 13: 9780385333672
Verlag: Delacorte Pr, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

When Jett Gavallon, a former military pilot turned corporate tycoon, head of Black Jet Securities, becomes involved in an ambitious deal to bring a Russian high-tech company to the U.S. Stock Exchange, he uncovers information that the company may not be what it seems and that its chairman is one of the Russian mob's most dangerous and ruthless bosses.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christopher Reich was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1961. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Texas at Austin, he worked in Switzerland before returning to the United States to pursue a career as a novelist. He lives in California with his wife and children.

Aus dem Klappentext

Christopher Reich electrified readers with Numbered Account and The Runner, his first two international thrillers. Now the New York Times bestselling author whose work has been called gripping (Chicago Tribune), chilling (The Denver Post), wonderful (The New York Times Book Review), ratchets up the stakes in an ingeniously plotted story of nerve-jangling intrigue and hot-wired suspense. Using today s cutthroat global economy as a backdrop, The First Billion explodes into a breakneck tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption...

John Jett Gavallan is a former fighter pilot, now the high-flying CEO of Black Jet Securities, an investment firm that earned its first billion before the techno dream crashed and burned. Poised for an offering crucial to his company s survival, Gavallan is banking on the riskiest gamble of his dazzling career. In exactly six days, he will take Mercury Broadband, Russia s leading media company, public on the New York Stock Exchange. But rumors of fraud have suddenly surfaced that could send the deal south. Gavallan makes a preemptive strike by dispatching his number-two man--fellow Desert Storm fighter pilot Grafton Byrnes--to Moscow to penetrate the shadowy Russian multinational. When Byrnes fails to return, Gavallan fears the worst. But
the truth is even more diabolical than he can imagine.

Plunging into a desperate search for his best friend, the renegade top gun is suddenly fighting a different kind of war, where there is no safe harbor and no one he can trust. Not Konstantin Kirov, the elusive head of Mercury Broadband who may not be what he seems. Not the bankers and traders Gavallan does business with every day. Not the exotic beauty who has told him all her deepest secrets--except one. Suddenly Jett finds himself trapped in a conspiracy that could shatter the delicate balance between nations--and plunge the global economy into chaos. Hunted by the F.B.I. and a band of elite killers, Jett races from Palm Beach to Zurich to Moscow in a desperate search for answers. But for this brave ex-commando haunted by visions of war, the truth comes at a terrible price. With Mercury rising and the hours ticking down, he is moving closer to a place where murder and revenge are the currency of choice...and where the first billion is the ultimate insider secret--and the deadliest obsession of all.

With breakneck plotting, stunning realism, and a sense of danger that keeps the heart racing, The First Billion is a knockout of a novel that will linger long after the final shocking twist is revealed.

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Chapter 1

“You are millionaire?” she asked.

“Me?” Grafton Byrnes pointed a finger at his chest. “No. I’m afraid not.”

“Yes,” she insisted, adding a coy smile. “You are millionaire. I can tell. You have nice suit. Beautiful tie. You are confident. It is clear. You are millionaire.”

Byrnes unglued his eyes from the leggy blond who’d taken a seat at the bar next to him and looked around the room. The place was called Metelitsa, and it was a restaurant, nightclub, and casino rolled into one, located on the Novy Arbat in the center of Moscow. Red curtains blocked out the summer evening’s glare. White tablecloths, smoked mirrors, and croupiers in black ties lent the room a touch of class. But one sniff told Byrnes different: the smoke, the perfume, the heady mix of expensive liquor and easy morals. He could recognize a cathouse by scent alone.

“I’m successful,” he said, curtly. “Nothing special.”

“You are very successful, I think. Yes, a millionaire.” She pronounced the word, mee-lone-air, and her Slavic accent and grave delivery lent the word a patina of its foregone luster. “You would like to buy me drink?”

“Sure,” he said, before he could ask himself what he was getting himself into. “What’ll you have?”

“Vodka. On rocks with twist of orange.”

“Coming right up.”

Byrnes was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes off the woman next to him. To call her gorgeous would have been an injustice. She was no more than twenty-one, with white blond hair, satin blue eyes, and the kind of pouty lips that his ex-wife called “bee-stung” and that no amount of collagen injections could reproduce. Her dress was black, short, and tight; her nails were lacquered a rich maroon. But it was her bearing that Byrnes found irresistible: the inquisitive tilt of the head, the brazen posture, the adventurous twinkle to the eyes that seemed to say, “Dare me, I’ll try anything.” In short, she was every middle-aged divorcees idea of a fitting companion.

“Bartender!” As Byrnes shifted on his seat to get the barkeep’s attention, he inadvertently nudged the man next to him. “Izvinitye,” he said, offering a smile. Excuse me.

The man looked Byrnes up and down, then rose from his stool. He was six four, about two twenty, with a Marine’s crew cut and a neck the size of a fire hydrant. He had a buddy next to him who looked like he’d fallen out of the same tree. Byrnes had been warned about guys like this. “Flat tops,” they were called. Enforcers for the Russian mafiya, or more politely, point men for the Russian business elite.

Be careful, Byrnes’s best friend had told him. Moscow isn’t Paris or Zurich or Rome. It may look like a European city, but it’s not. You’re in Russia. The whole country is in the shithouse. Two percent of the people are making a fortune and the rest don’t have a pot to piss in. It’s dangerous over there.

“Excuse me,” the Russian replied, in decent English. “I hope I not disturb you and pretty lady.”

“No,” said Byrnes. “My fault. Again, I’m sorry. Let me buy you a drink. We’ll call it even.”

“No need,” said the Russian, with grating politeness. “Have nice evening.” He made a show of adjusting his blazer and retook his place. Only a blind man would have missed the nickel-plated revolver nestled beneath his arm, a .357 Colt Python with a pearl handle, if Byrnes wasn’t mistaken.

Turning back to the girl, Byrnes found a round of drinks on the counter. Okay, he said to himself, let’s start over again. And raising his glass, “Na Strovye.”

“Na Strovye.” She took a sip, then leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek. “My name is Svetlana.”

“I’m Graf,” he said, knocking back the entire drink. “Good to know you.”

“You speak Russian. Why you not tell me so before?”

“Nemnogo,” he said. Just a little. The Air Force would be proud of him for having remembered as much as he did. He also knew how to say, “I am an officer,” “My serial number is . . . ,” and a few choice obscenities.

“I no like Russian men,” Svetlana confided in his ear. “So arrogant.”

“Me neither,” he complained. “So big.”

She laughed. “Tell me, Graf, why you are in Moscow?”

“Business,” he answered.

“Beez-ness? What do you do?”

Byrnes shrugged, looking away. “Nothing interesting. Just some routine stuff.”

His response couldn’t have been further from the truth. He’d arrived earlier that afternoon on an emergency visit. All very hush-hush. Forty-eight hours in country to check out the operating equipment of Mercury Broadband, a multinational Internet service and content provider his company was set to bring public in a week’s time. Questions had surfaced regarding the firm’s Moscow network operations center, namely, whether it owned all the physical assets it claimed to: routers, switches, servers, and the like. He was to find the facility, verify that it contained equipment necessary to provide broadband services to its publicized customer base of two hundred thousand people, and report back.

The IPO, or initial public offering, of shares in the company was valued at two billion dollars, and nothing less than his firm’s continued existence depended on what he discovered. A green light meant seventy million dollars in fees, a guarantee of fee-related business from Mercury down the road, and a rescue from impending insolvency.

Shelving the offering meant death, defined either as massive layoffs, the sale of the firm to a larger house, or in the worst case, shuttering up the shop and putting a “Gone Fishing” sign in the window. Permanently.

“And what you do for business?” she asked.

“Investment banking. Stocks. Bonds. Like Wall Street, you know?”

“So, I am right,” she announced proudly, dropping a hand onto his leg and allowing it to linger there. “You are millionaire.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Anyway, it’s not polite to talk about money.”

“I think you are wrong. Money is sexy,” she said, winking. “Aphrodisiac, I think.”

He ordered another drink, and when it came he took a greedy sip. He was getting that warm, fuzzy feeling, and liking it. From his perch at the bar, he overlooked a parquet dance floor and a small casino with slot machines and a half dozen gaming tables. A few flat tops had staked out positions at the craps pit. They were dressed to a man in snazzy black suits, open collars, and gold chains. Crisp American greenbacks were exchanged for stacks of blue and silver chips. No one was playing with less than five thousand dollars. Dice tumbled across the green baize tables. Raucous voices lofted across the room, spirited, cajoling, violent. The staccato shouts had a serrated edge and lent the place an aggressive buzz. At five past nine on a Tuesday night, the joint was beginning to jump.

“And why, Graf, you come to Metelitsa?” Svetlana’s hand had moved higher on his leg. A single finger danced along the crease of his trousers. “To see me, maybe? See Svetlana?”

She was staring at him, the magnetic blue eyes commanding him nearer. Her lips...

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Verlag
Delacorte Pr
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385333676
ISBN 13 
9780385333672
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
438
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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