The black-suited man who had been driving the limo now stood in front of him, his thick lips inches from Andretti’s face as he spoke, his accent also heavy and Eastern European.

“Mr. Andretti, I must insist that you listen very carefully to what I have to say. If you do what we say, you may well live to see your grandsons. If you cross us, you will never have any grandsons to see. Do you understand?”

The CTO nodded meekly. There was no doubt at all that the man meant what he was saying.

“Good. We suspected you would see it our way. Now, what we want from you is very simple. You and your partners will quit screwing with the SEC on your OptiMarx system. You will have the system launched and running by the end of the week as the Exchange has contracted for you to do. There will be no more tricks, no funny business whatsoever. And nothing more that might arouse the suspicion of your SEC. Should anything happen to delay the launch, you will cease to live. You can tell Mr. Smythe that what is left of him will be buried in the hole next to you.”

The two men who had been holding his arms now shoved him forward, forcing him to kneel facing the murky water, amid the piles of putrid garbage.

Andretti was certain now that they were going to execute him, that he was to die right here in this cold, stinking place. He started to blubber, begging for mercy, but someone kicked him hard in his right side and all the breath left him. As he recoiled, another toe caught him flush in the ribs on his left side and he sprawled in the mud, gasping for air.

He heard the car doors shut and the engine roar to life. The limo’s tires spat gravel and mud at him as it raced backward, out onto the road, and then swung around to disappear around the turn, lost from his sight behind the weeds and piles of refuse.

Carl Andretti managed to pull himself painfully to his feet.

“Goddamn you, Stern!” he screeched, and a pair of gulls flapped away from the rubbish pile they had been rummaging through.

The son of a bitch venture capitalist hadn’t needed to go through all this gangster bullshit. There was no reason to have those dime-store goons rough him up as if they were all playing parts in some low-budget gangster movie. He and Smythe were playing ball now. Everything was on track now that the Goldman woman had been pulled off the project.

As soon as he could breathe normally again, Carl Andretti found the distant Manhattan skyline over the tops of the reeds. He got his bearings and staggered down the desolate, muddy road.

He cursed Mark Stern with every painful, raspy breath.

Chapter 23