The King of Fear by Drew Chapman Page B

you. You quit.”
    Garrett shrugged. “Repeated patterns of selling. Selling stuff that’s on the margins of the financial system. Derivatives, swaps, low-volume equities. Stuff that you would buy if you wanted to make sure no one was really paying that much attention to what you owned. Or what you did.”
    â€œOkay. This fund. You know what it’s doing?”
    â€œThere is a correlation coefficient of plus one.”
    â€œIt moves in perfect lockstep?”
    â€œYes. A sale and then a real-world event.”
    â€œAnd the real world event is?”
    â€œAttacks on corporations and banks. And now the killing of a Federal Reserve president. They’re ratcheting up. Getting bigger.”
    Alexis heard another crash, thunder for sure. A summer storm, far away, over the western suburbs, but closing fast.
    â€œYou’re saying there’s a fund out there—an invisible fund—that paid for Phillip Steinkamp to be shot? That this was a planned assassination? Do you realize the implications of what you’re saying? The level of conspiracy?”
    â€œIt’s bigger than just killing someone. The fund is dedicated to creating a systemic volatility event.”
    Alexis titled her head slightly to one side. “In English, please.”
    â€œTaking down the US economy.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Alexis checked each hallway and stairwell in her building before Garrett followed her, clearly terrified that another resident would see him with her. Garrett wanted to laugh at this, but he couldn’t exactly blame her: he was a wanted man. That gave him the slightest of thrills; now he really was dangerous. Of course, he didn’t feel dangerous. He felt hunted.
    When Garrett stepped inside Alexis’s condo apartment, he was flooded with memories. He had been here once before, a year ago, and he and Alexis had spent the night making love. That had been their only night together, but he remembered it perfectly: the sheets, her skin, the orange sunlight streaming in through the windows the next morning. He sat on the far corner of a couch in the living room, and contentment washed over him. He realized he’d wanted to get back here for the last year; not to have sex with Alexis again, but just to sit quietly, in her apartment, alone with her. To talk. To be near her.
    He cursed himself silently for being a sentimental fool. Alexis Truffant had used him for his abilities, then tossed him aside when their relationship no longer mattered. He had to force himself to remember this, to imprint it on his consciousness: Alexis had screwed him over and would again if the circumstances demanded it. He had to keep his distance.
    Garrett watched as Alexis called Kline’s office and told his secretary that she was having car trouble, and that she would be in the office in an hour or so. Then she brewed more coffee and poured Garrett a cup, offering him food as well—breakfast cereal and eggs—which he declined.
    â€œWhere’s Mitty now?”
    â€œA few blocks away. She’s fine. She knows to wait.”
    Alexis sat across from him in a padded, brown chair, sipping her coffee, hereyes seeming to note everything about him. Garrett realized his fingers were twitching, so he gripped the sofa armrest hard to make them stop. His head ached, and the blood in his veins felt thick, as if it were dry and clotted, as if his heart might explode at any moment from the exertion of pumping. He knew this was withdrawal, a hallucination, but it was powerful, and growing. He had his bag of meds in his back pocket, but he needed to stay off them, at least for the moment. He breathed deep to ease his rising panic.
    Alexis seemed to sense this. “Garrett, listen, I don’t want you to take this wrong, but are you still taking prescription medications?”
    Garrett blinked in surprise. “Fuck you for looking at my medical records.” Christ, he thought to himself, is