Viking Bay Read Online Free Page A

suit that Kay suspected came from some outfit like the Men’s Wearhouse—and not from the part of the store where they kept the high-end clothes. He had bright blue eyes and a heavy, pale face. Unlike Mercer, he smiled at her and seemed friendly. He reminded Kay of a well-known actor who had died the year before of a drug overdose, but Kay couldn’t recall the actor’s name.
    There was a conventional wooden desk in the office instead of an elegant table like Mercer had, and the desk bore marks of repeated abuse. Kay could see what looked like cigarette burns on one edge of the desk and rings where hot drinks had been placed without using a coaster. Like Mercer, he had a laptop and an encrypted phone, but his desk, instead of being neat and organized like Mercer’s, was covered by small mountains of paper. A greasy McDonald’s bag sat on the keyboard of the laptop, and Kay could smell not only French fries but also cigarette smoke. But that couldn’t be, she thought; no one smoked inside office buildings anymore.
    Instead of individual visitor’s chairs, there was a brown leather couch in front of Callahan’s desk. (Kay later learned that Callahan often ended up sleeping on the couch—and sometimes passed out on the couch.) Today’s editions of the
Washington Post,
the
Wall Street Journal,
and the
New York Times
were spread out all over the couch.
    â€œHey, sit down,” Callahan said. “Push that shit onto the floor.”
    Kay gathered up the papers, made an attempt to fold them neatly, and then, when she couldn’t figure out where to put them, dropped them on the floor near one end of the couch. She and Mercer sat down.
    Callahan didn’t say anything for a moment as his blue eyes took her in. “Wow,” he said. “You’re a knockout.”
    Mercer turned to Kay and said, “Fortunately—for Callahan, that is—the nondisclosure agreement you just signed prevents you from suing him for sexual harassment.”
    The name of the actor suddenly popped into Kay’s head. Philip Seymour Hoffman—that’s who Callahan reminded her of.
    Ignoring Mercer’s jab, Callahan said, “Okay. I’m Thomas Callahan and I have the controlling interest in a limited partnership known as the Callahan Group. All my partners are silent; in fact, I don’t really have any partners. If you were to go online, you’d find our website, www.Callahan.Group.com, and it would tell you we specialize in helping U.S. companies do business abroad. The website says we know how to deal with such things as taxes on income earned overseas—meaning we tell companies how to avoid paying Uncle Sugar his fair share. It says we have special relationships with the right people in foreign governments—which means we know who to bribe if you want to operate in Dubai. If you want to set up a factory in Thailand and spew god-awful shit into the river that flows through downtown Bangkok, we know how to bend the environmental rules. And there actually are a few people who work for me who do that sort of stuff, and we always have about a dozen legitimate clients. If you were able to getyour hands on the Callahan Group’s tax returns, you’d see that we are an enormously successful company for a business our size.”
    â€œSo what do you really do?” Kay asked. “I’m pretty sure you’re not hiring me to be a tax consultant.”
    Callahan smiled. “When George W. Bush was president, I worked for his national security advisor and I’m sitting in my office late one night, this shitty little shoe box over in the EOB. I remember I was eating a pizza that was left over from the day before and a guy whose name I can’t tell you comes in, closes the door, and explains to me that the president wants me to set up a special type of organization.
    â€œYou see, Bush decided after he invaded Iraq that he wanted an option. He wanted