The Prince of Risk

54

Michael Grillo was making progress.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon and Grillo sat at a back table in BLT Steak at 57th and Park. Finishing his coffee, he cast an eye about the room. The lighting was dim, and a few diners were seated here and there. Jeb Washburn’s words about Palantir’s being a software program that accurately forecast future events stuck with him. Predictability was out. He would return to Balthazar when the job was over and done. Until then, he would alter his routine to make it unrecognizable-and unpredictable-to him, to Palantir, and to anyone else who might be watching. Satisfied that none of the remaining patrons was paying him any mind, he returned to his work. He was safe…for the moment.

Every investigation required a premise, a hypothesis around which you marshaled your evidence and built your case. Grillo’s premise was that the person who called himself Palantir had phoned Edward Astor on Friday morning. And further, that Astor had left the Exchange to take possession of some type of evidence-either written or other-from Palantir pertaining to his investigation.

And now the evidence.

Grillo examined the agenda in reverse chronology, beginning the past Friday and going back week by week. He pinned July 8, the Monday after the Independence Day weekend, as the date their investigation had begun. Prior to that date, Edward Astor met with Penelope Evans no more than three times a week. After the eighth, the two met at least seven times a week. Something was up.

Working on his smartphone, Grillo drew up the file he had obtained from his contact at the country’s largest phone carrier, listing all calls Edward Astor had placed and received over the past ninety days. He downloaded the file into an app he had developed himself that used a simple algorithm to analyze which numbers were called most and least frequently. In this instance, he was interested in a number that appeared for the first and perhaps only time on July 5 or 6.

The app kicked out three numbers. Two were for mobile phones in the New York area and the third for a landline in Miami. Grillo was disappointed to learn that none matched the number that had called Edward Astor last Friday morning.

The Miami number was registered to a medical products corporation in Key Biscayne. The call had lasted nine minutes. Grillo checked the firm’s website, confirming that it did in fact exist, then phoned the number. He was surprised when the firm’s CEO answered. Grillo represented himself as an FBI agent and established that the executive had met Astor at a business function and had called to learn the listing requirements for his firm. Grillo struck the number from his list.

The New York numbers belonged to a private individual named Anthony Vanzetti, with an address at 910 Fifth Avenue, and an entity titled Melsen Inc., billing address at 46th Street and Ninth Avenue. Grillo placed 922 Fifth somewhere near 73rd Street, which put it among some of the most expensive real estate in the city. He noted that the call had lasted three minutes. A Google search showed that Vanzetti was a big-shot i-banker who had been appointed on July 1 to the NYSE’s board of directors. While it was possible that Vanzetti might have launched Edward Astor on his investigation, it was more likely that he had called Astor simply to get acquainted. He certainly didn’t fit Jeb Washburn’s description of Palantir as a brilliant scientist who had done work for DARPA.

Grillo graded Vanzetti “doubtful.”

The last number appeared suspect from the outset. He found no mention of Melsen Inc. on the Net. Moreover, the billing address belonged to a UPS store, indicating the use of a rented mailbox. The call had lasted only twenty seconds, so short that it might have been a wrong number. Grillo dialed the number. A woman answered.

“Hi, this is Kristy.”

“Hello, this is John Stewart from the New York Stock Exchange. I’m calling in reference to Edward Astor.”

“Who?”

“Edward Astor. The former chief executive of the Exchange.”

“I think you have the wrong number. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“I apologize, but our records indicate that someone from your company phoned Mr. Astor on July sixth of this year.”

“That’s impossible,” said the woman. “I only got this phone a week ago. Who is this again?”

“Never mind. The mistake is ours. Goodbye.”

Grillo wrote himself a memo to call his contact at the phone company and obtain more information about Melsen Inc. While carriers recycled numbers as a matter of necessity, it was common practice for them to wait at least six months before reassigning them.

Grillo slid back his chair and loosened his necktie. There were only two diners remaining, and the staff was preparing the tables for the evening rush. The room was too quiet. He needed noise to think. He preferred the constant activity and chatter that infused Balthazar with such brio.

The next order of business was to examine Astor’s credit card bills. Astor had used his Visa card most frequently. Grillo focused on the past Friday. There were charges to Yellow Cab for $10, Starbucks at Broadway and 42nd for $12, Bobby Van’s Steakhouse for $65, and Barnes and Noble on Fifth for $200. A $10 cab ride from the Stock Exchange would have taken him no more than 2 miles in any direction. The $12 at Starbucks was most likely for two people; likewise the meal at Bobby Van’s.

Grillo put together a picture of Astor leaving the Exchange at 9:30 a.m., taking a cab to meet Palantir at a Starbucks in Times Square, then returning to the Exchange to brief Penelope Evans over lunch at Bobby Van’s. It was something, but not enough.

The final charge of the day was for $225 at a restaurant in Oyster Bay. Astor appeared to have laid low all Saturday, making only one credit card purchase: a round-trip air ticket to Washington, D.C., departing the following morning.

Grillo called his contact at the credit card company and requested that he drill down on Astor’s Friday charges and supply the exact times the card had been used. He put down his phone and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. He had a feeling about the phone registered to Melsen Inc. The short duration of the call combined with the use of the UPS dropbox and his inability to find the number’s previous owner appealed to his instinct for larceny. He called his contact at the phone company.

“One more thing,” he said.

“Isn’t it always?”

Grillo read off the number and requested all relevant information about the owner, the mode of payment, the date of first service, and, most important, a list of all calls made to and from the number in the past three months.

“That’s going to cost extra.”

“I already doubled the price. This one’s on the house.”

“No, babe, it isn’t.”

Grillo caught a note of anxiety in the woman’s voice. “Something you want to tell me?”

Her answer was a whisper. “You’re not the only one interested in this number. Some of the big boys were snooping around before you.”

“The Bureau?”

“Bigger. The NSA put a priority warrant on this number a year ago.”

Jeb Washburn had mentioned that Palantir had worked with the National Security Agency. It was standard practice for the agency to monitor calls made by contractors and employees. A priority warrant was something else, reserved for a select list of high-value targets.

“You win,” he said. “Two grand do the trick?”

“Only because I like you.”

“I need it in an hour.”

“Already on the way, babe. And Mike,” she added, “don’t call back.”

Grillo hung up the phone. A minute later the message was in his secure e-mail and he was perusing a long list of phone numbers, names, and addresses.

He drank the rest of his coffee and breathed a sigh of relief.

Now they were getting somewhere.