The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

Augustus, even I, who have a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, found some of the things you were doing to those girls repulsive. The one in the last picture barely made it out alive. I would imagine that if my video collection ever saw the light of day, they would lock you up and throw away the key.”
      “What do you want?” said Augustus, failing to disguise the tremor in his voice.
      “Beirsdorf Klein is currently finalizing a large corporate finance project in Poland, close to Katowice in the south of the country. The parent company is Hungarian, a textile company, one of the largest private companies in Eastern Europe.”
      “Vass Textile Holdings. They’re building one of the most extensive textile production facilities in Europe. We’re leading a syndicate to provide a loan of just over two hundred million euros,” Augustus said. “What of it?”
      “I want you to pull the financing deal. I want them knocked out cold,” the man said.
      “Should we choose to walk away at this stage, no other finance house will touch them. They’ll become tainted goods overnight. Vass will have to file for bankruptcy as they’ve been financing the project through a temporary loan facility until the syndication was complete. The factory’s half finished. Their suppliers will tear them to pieces!”
      For the first time during the meeting, Augustus observed what appeared to be a genuine smile flicker across the other man’s face.
      “We’ll get sued,” was Augustus’s closing comment.
      “That’s your problem,” said the man, “but what you need to decide is do you want to piss off a client and fend off a lawsuit that will cost you personally very little, or would you rather spend the rest of your pitiful life in the pedophile wing of a maximum security prison. Wondering when you’ll find powdered glass in your Cornflakes, or a razor blade embedded in your soap?”
      The man, Augustus subsequently found out, was Jay Rivello, and when he’d put it like that, Augustus knew that he didn’t really have much choice.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 9
     
      Today was undoubtedly the most important in Elisabeth Kennedy’s life. She applied a thin line of lipstick. A dab of blusher on each cheek and she was all set. The driver opened the door. She lifted her black, leather briefcase from the seat beside her and climbed from the limousine.
      “Thank you, Joe. You’ll be here when I return?”
      “Sure, Mrs. Kennedy, I ain’t going nowhere,” he replied.
      Elisabeth was fifty-seven years old. For a woman, she was tall at five-ten. An athletic build, not thin, but certainly not overweight. Bright blue piercing eyes were framed by attractive, although sometimes severe looking features that were amplified by the positioning of her long, fair hair in a tight bun. In Elisabeth’s position, it did not do to appear to be too feminine. The navy blue trouser suit and black Ballet court shoes completed the no-nonsense look that she had perfected over her thirty-five-year career.
      Stepping through the rear entrance of the White House was significantly less glamorous than strolling along the gradual sweeping path through the gardens on the other side of the building. As the security detail handed back her ID and Elisabeth emerged from the body scanner, the only thought passing through her mind was what she could possibly say to President Ian Gilmore.
      “Mrs. Kennedy, a great pleasure to see you again,” Juan Gonzalez, special assistant to the president, greeted her warmly, firmly shaking her hand. This time she did not flinch as she noted the rounded stump of his missing index finger. Juan and Elisabeth had met previously at an interdepartmental conference and his souvenir from Iraq had taken her by surprise.
      “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Juan. Please feel free to lead the way,” Elisabeth stated, inwardly nervous at the meeting that lie ahead. Just because people believe you