The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [93]
“Market cap?”
“Around four hundred million krone.”
Roughly fifty million dollars at the former exchange rate, making them a bit player in the industry.
“Mergers or acquisitions?”
“Bought a condensate splitter in Rotterdam in 2002 and were acquired by Norsk Hydro in 2006 for thirty-three krone per share.” She looked up with a curious expression. “What’s a condensate splitter?”
“Low-tech distillation tower. Heats up superlight oil recovered from natural-gas fields and separates out naphtha and kerosene. The naphtha gets used as a feedstock for plastic, and the kerosene becomes jet fuel. What about Solheim?”
She pecked away for another minute.
“On the advisory board of the Norwegian School of Economics and a director of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. Daughter got married a couple of years ago. Nothing else that jumps out.”
I glanced at Claire, who nodded in confirmation. I vaguely remembered Solheim. Scandinavian businessmen tend to come in two flavors—intellectual Euro prissy and bluff Viking conqueror. The former are easier to sell to international capital markets, but the latter are more likely to hit the ball out of the park—or to pitch the herring in the barrel, or whatever the equivalent Scandi saying is. Solheim had been the prissy type.
“Mark down Axion and Solheim as unlikelies,” I said. “What next?”
“Umaru Kutigi,” Claire read, struggling with the pronunciation. “A call at nine-fifteen.”
“Hard g,” I said, heading toward the K table. “Kutigi’s a Nigerian. Used to work for one of the industry rags.”
The disposable cell phone I’d bought rang as I was pulling his folder. I checked the display and saw my office number. I’d asked Amy to pass along messages before she went home.
“Give me a couple of seconds here.” I tucked the file under my arm and put the phone to my ear. “Amy?”
“Hi. Everything okay?”
Amy sounded forlorn. She’d been keen to help out at the warehouse, but I’d insisted she not get involved in anything that might make her a target.
“Fine, thanks. And you?”
“Busy. You got a lot of calls today. Everyone wants to know how you are, and why Walter’s angry at you, and what really happened with Rashid. There are a lot of crazy rumors flying around.”
I didn’t give a damn about rumors.
“What else?”
“Narimanov phoned. He’d like you to get back to him whenever you feel up to it. And Susan stopped by.”
“Let me guess,” I said, interpreting Amy’s tone. “Walter’s not feeling any friendlier toward me.”
“No. Walter wants you to know that you’re not welcome at Alex’s funeral on Wednesday, or at the chapel beforehand. I’m sorry.”
I sighed. Not just because I wanted to say good-bye to Alex—I’d hoped hearing the news about Kyle might soften Walter toward me. I was anxious to know whether he’d discovered anything about Senator Simpson’s link to the Saudi data, and—by extension—to Theresa Roxas.
“Susan tell you anything else?” I ventured.
“Like what?”
“Like what Walter’s been up to the last couple of days.”
Amy didn’t respond. The good and bad news about her as an assistant was that she almost never gossiped. Good, because I could count on her to be discreet, and bad, because she rarely passed along tidbits from the secretarial grapevine.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“He was in Washington over the weekend,” she confided reluctantly.
“Did Susan tell you who he saw?”
“She doesn’t know. He made all his own arrangements, which is unusual. She only found out he went because his driver complained to her about having to wait around at Teterboro late last night to pick him up.”
I racked my brain, trying to think of anyone else who might be able to shed light on Walter’s movements. There was a chance he’d tapped some of his senior NASCAR associates for government contacts, but I strongly doubted any of them would tell me if he had. And I hated to ask Amy to snoop