Deep Cover

Prologue

Harkness Holdings had just posted another astounding quarterly earnings statement that left Wall Street analysts breathless with excitement. The chattering financial commentators were agog. Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal were all touting the quarter-by-quarter meteoric rise of Beauregard “Beau” Chadsworth, Harkness’ CEO, and his team who’d taken the moribund company and pushed it to the heights of Wall Street stardom. Harkness’ share prices reflected the unbounded confidence of investors big and small. From the get-rich-quick types to the most cautious investors, Harness was what they all wanted.

“Beau,” for Beauregard, Chadsworth was the darling of the talk show hosts who outdid one another in their fawning praise. In the post-Enron scandal era, Harkness was basking in its squeaky clean image. And Chadsworth, for his part was all becoming modesty. He was quick to point to the success and support of his team, Jack Levin the COO and Bridget O’Leary the CFO and their subordinates. Then there was the Chadsworth Foundation, already being talked about in the same breath as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so recently bolstered by the largess of Warren Buffett.

All was golden in the second and third quarters of 2006. Or so it seemed.

Chapter I

To the casual observer, the scene was ordinary, six friends enjoying a wine and cheese picnic on the white sands of one of those idyllic hamlets along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. They were all dressed for it, too. The women in bright, stylish cover-ups, the men either bare-chested or like Bob Wynant pulling a seersucker hoodie on to ward off the late summer evening’s oncoming chill. The three couples looked to all the world as if they were enjoying a well earned vacation respite from their busy lives.

It was all a sham. Camouflage, really. Tony Jackson, that’s Anthony Hope-Jackson to be precise, was the reason for the charade. You see, Tony was the one person who knew what really went on at Harkness Holdings. He wasn’t exactly a whistle blower, well, at least not yet. Let’s just say the slightly greying, but otherwise fit and trim forty-year old had discovered, that Harkness’ books weren’t exactly “cooked,” but, as he liked to say, “microwaved.” On a doubly encrypted laptop, he had documented schemes within schemes at Harkness to hide massive losses, to shield assets from the prying eyes of Harkness’ accountants, the IRS and the SEC. In a word, a corporate shell game of such breathtaking proportions, that third-world, and even first-world economies would be shaken if it were to be revealed.

What to do. Enter the Fraud Units from the New York State Attorney General’s Office, their counterparts from the State of Delaware, technically the “home” of Harkness and the otherwise somnolent Washington bureaucracies of the FBI and the SEC. Tony Jackson’s problem was how to play the extraordinary hand he had been dealt. If too much of what he knew were to be revealed, all fingers would point to him. Who else knew so much? The various investigators knew that even though Jackson had left Harkness only a few months before, and on the friendliest of terms, the tangled web that was Harkness was becoming more labyrinthine by the moment. The fine line between sharp business practice and outright criminality had been crossed long ago. Tony Jackson was one of the very few people outside Harkness’ inner circle who knew the full extent of the frauds that were being perpetrated.

Tony Jackson, himself beginning to feel the chill, buttoned his faded Hawaiian shirt before leaning back on his elbows, his gaze fixed firmly on the horizon. His “date,” in reality attorney Barbara Morrison, Bob Wynanat and his “wife,” FBI agent Ruth Rabinowitz, were joined by Tara and Bill McKay, of the Delaware AG’s office. Six friends enjoying the fading light of dusk to the accompaniment of the soft splash of the outgoing tide. They faced the water for another reason as well: microphones. Chadsworth had feted Tony on his “retirement” from Harkness to be sure, but Harkness’ high-stakes game made that inner cohort so suspicious that they were not above sending teams to make sure their “friends” were not straying from the fold.

“Tony,” Wynant began, almost in a monotone, “it can work, it should work, it must work. Your family and Chadsworth’s go way back. You yourself told me that at one time he dated your cousin, Amanda. He’s never allowed any woman in his life to get as close to him as she got, not his former wife, not any of his girlfriends. It’s also no secret that you and she look more like twins than cousins. You’ve said so yourself. She’s fine with the idea. You’re the last remaining hurdle.”

As far as Tony was concerned, what Bob Wynant was suggesting was patently absurd. The fact that everybody else on that beach blanket wasn’t contradicting Wynant made him that much more uneasy. “What you’re saying, Bob, is I should just throw on a dress and go marching into Harkness’ headquarters and demand a job?”

“Not really, Tony,” Bob added, soothingly. “What we want you to do is spend some time with Amanda. Up until a couple of years ago, you used to vacation together, for heaven’s sake. Nothing unusual in that. Take a cruise. Rent a villa in Tuscany for a month. Whatever. And at the end of it, you reemerge as Amanda and Tony — Amanda in male drag — goes trekking in the Himalayas for a while,...something like that. You, as Amanda, email — or better yet, write — Beau Chadsworth and accept his standing offer of a job at Harkness. You know how he is about her.”

What Bob Wynant left out, or perhaps was too considerate to mention, was that Tony and his Cousin Amanda Hope-Jackson were not just similar but uncannily alike. Their similarity had been the butt of jokes in the family for years. There was that one incident when they were in high school, he at Milton Academy and she at The Porter School. After the Thanksgiving break each returned to the other’s school — in drag. The masquerade was good enough to fool the respective headmaster and headmistress; good enough, that is, until a vindictive roommate spilled the beans on the eve of the Christmas vacation.

But that was more than twenty years ago. There was a lot of water under the bridge. But there was something else. Tony couldn’t believe that he was giving this ridiculous idea even a moment’s thought. The only reason was Chadsworth. The charming Beau Chadsworth. The gentle, church-going Beau Chadsworth. The philanthropic Beau Chadsworth. For all Tony knew, the criminal mastermind Beau Chadsworth. His childhood chum and sometime college roommate had been bilking Harkness’ investors and the Government out of millions. God only knew how much Chadsworth had salted away in Swiss banks or Hong Kong and Bermuda holding companies. Singapore’s banking system was still shuddering from one of his earlier escapades. In all of this Chadsworth was the current White Knight of corporate America. Some in the Republican Party were already bruiting his name about for public office, very high public office.

What Tony had uncovered about Chadsworth’s dealings had appalled him. Mutual Funds from all the big houses were deeply into Harkness and Tony had felt a mounting ethical dilemma: could he stand idly by and let this all happen? Were those ethics classes at Harvard Business School nothing more than window dressing? The feeling had been growing for more than a year that Tony’s own conscience wouldn’t let him continue with Harkness. It was his greater sense of responsibility that gnawed at him, that made him take Bob Wynant’s idea seriously.

There was something else. Something that few people outside the Harkness inner circle knew, but Tony knew it. Beau Chadsworth was ruthless: he would stop at nothing to keep Harkness and his nefarious schemes going. He had to be stopped. Tony knew that he was the one to do it. Because Chadsworth was so unprincipled, he would pay people to make sure that Tony didn’t talk to the “wrong” people, he would make sure that Tony would never talk to them, never reveal what truly went on at Harkness. He would have Tony killed if he even thought that the secrets might be betrayed.

The risk of exposure, even death was a constant, unwelcome guest in Tony’s thinking. Tony had even seen men he suspected were Chadsworth’s goons down here in North Carolina. The ill-fitting suits and dark glasses were laughably out of place. But Tony also knew that Beau Chadsworth was smarter than that. How about the guy sitting in his car in front of the bait shop in the village. The faded t-shirt and cutoffs were a pretty decent disguise; it’s just that you don’t sit in your car down here for any longer than you have to when it’s 98 degrees in the shade.

It made him nervous this all too casual seaside picnic. Their three cars, all rentals, had North Carolina plates and all of them had been seen on the beach the last couple of days. Their cover seemed plausible enough. He was nervous just the same.

There was a companionable silence that fell over the six people sipping their pinot grigio and merlot. The camambert and the brie were long finished before Tony spoke. “Bob, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I won’t lie to you; I’m scared s***less. If for one moment I thought there was another way to nail these guys, I’d grab for it in a heartbeat. As it is, the trade off is a lot worse. With what I’ve shown you, we could scare them, really scare them, but I know them. They would just come up with another bit of brilliant chicanery and we’d be back at square one. If I’m exposed then I’m deader than dead meat; I’d be fricasseed six ways to Sunday. But if I can get in there, and I’m saying ‘if,’ then we might just be able to put them away for good and blow Harkness and its frauds sky high. God help me, I’ll put on a dress and do what has to be done.”
If Tony had thought that everybody would stand up and cheer, he was wrong. His declaration was greeted by a few nods. Everybody was waiting for Bob Wynant. In the fading light they could see the tension manifest in the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching. Wynant knew the risks were enormous. He’d been over this territory in his mind, too: a thousand times. Was he sending Tony into the lion’s den to be ground up and spat back out? If Tony were exposed and worse, killed, could he live with himself? There weren’t any easy answers.

“O.K., Tony, you know that you’ll have everybody’s full support. There will be no paper trail for them to follow, except of course for my eyes-only memo to the Director for POTUS.” It made even Wynant nervous to realize how high the stakes were although he tried to maintain his outward composure. Not for nothing Chadsworth had been one of the very largest contributors to the current President’s reelection campaign. He had friends in high places; he made sure they remembered who their friends were. Chadsworth made sure that he and Harkness Holdings were well nigh invulnerable, well, almost.

It wasn’t their invulnerability that Tony was determined to test no matter what the cost to himself. Or to put it another way, it wasn’t knowing where the bodies were buried, but rather knowing who those people had been and what caused Chadsworth and his cronies to bury them in the first place. It was for them, the ones who’d already lost so much in unscrupulous mergers, investors — and employees who’d seen their hopes for a secure retirement melt away, the people who had helped Chadsworth in his climb to the top. These were the ones Chadsworth had systematically destroyed and in at least in two cases Tony suspected had killed. It was for these people that Tony decided to do it. Oh, maybe there were some thoughts of revenge, but he’d had to admit that he wasn’t the one who’d suffered. Oddly, on one level Tony still considered Beau Chadsworth something of a friend. Tony knew any analyst worth his or her salt would have a field day with that.

Another long silence fell over the six of them. Finally, Bob Wynant spoke again. “What I want you to do is take that vacation. The villa in Tuscany is ideal. (He knew that Tony was a pushover for Italy and all things Italian.) Take the rental for a month, six weeks. We’ll have Vanessa Richards of our staff and someone from the agency (Tony thought CIA or one of the lesser known intelligence units.) Join you after a day or two. You’ll get in touch with Amanda and the four of you can spend some time getting better acquainted.” Wynant spoke with a kind of finality in his voice that indicated to everybody that they’d accomplished everything they’d set out to do.

They went back to one of the beachfront houses and grilled some kebabs on the deck and returned to their respective cottages — all on hurricane stilts, of course; the Outer Banks was battered by the big storms year after year. The following morning they all went their separate ways. Tony’s e-ticket and passport and a single suitcase were his only companions as he drove up to Dulles Airport for the flight to Italy later that same evening.

Chapter II

The little villa was on a gentle hill a couple of kilometers from Siena, practically within sight of the graceful spire of the Mangia Tower. In the first few days of his settling in, Tony would bicycle into Siena itself to wander through the Piazza del Campo, browse the art treasures of the Buonsignori Palace or sip one of the magnificent local chiantis. His Italian was rudimentary, but the Sienese were tolerant of him. As much as Tony knew that this little idyll couldn’t last forever, he was determined to enjoy as much of it as he could. Siena may have been a medieval city, but this was still the 21st Century. Cell phones and laptops were everywhere.

Amanda Littleton was the next to arrive. If anyone had thought for a moment that women age less gracefully than men, they clearly had never seen Amanda. Yes, there were more than a few strands of silver among those rich auburn tresses; they just added to the sheen. The tiny crows feet and laugh lines only gentled her alabaster complexion. After their initial embrace Amanda held him by the shoulders. They stood eye to eye. Their adolescent masquerade had depended on it. “Tony, you are a sight for sore eyes. It has been too long, sweetheart. There’s so much we have to talk about.”

“Oh God, Amanda, I’m so happy to see you,” Tony’s eyes glistened as he spoke. He took her hand in his and together they toured their little vacation hideaway. Climbing the narrow stair to the second floor, Tony blurted “Oh Amanda, the minute I see you I realize how much I’ve missed you. It’s like the times when it was just the three of us: you, Cathy and I.” His voice trailed off. Amanda paused, “I know, Sweetie, I know.” She impulsively took her cousin in her arms and held him for a few moments wordlessly. She knew he had not gotten over the death three years ago of his wife, his lover, his best friend, his alter ego, Kathy. There was still no satisfactory explanation of how an otherwise healthy woman, pregnant for the first time at thirty three, could contract preeclampsia and then pass so rapidly into eclampsia. Nor would Tony or Amanda understand how Cathy and the baby would be dead within a matter of days.

The two stood there in Italy and wept, as they had so many times before. Therapy helped, yes, medicines, too. Tony knew and Amanda did too that there would be these times when the cold weight of grief would be too impossible to bear. It just had to be let go. After a few minutes the grief would subside and the tears would stop. Tissues all around. Then the tour could continue. So many people each of them had met in their lives who didn’t understand their closeness, who thought it must be sexual. Cathy’s life first and then her death had made them even closer. George, the remarkable George, Amanda’s husband somehow, miraculously understood. Whatever his reasons, Amanda and Tony were grateful to him. It was George’s great heart that made it possible for Amanda to be with Tony in Italy. Tony’s amazing “predicament,” made it necessary.

They ate their salads on the little patio sitting on the rickety iron chairs that threatened to give way at any moment. “So, Tony, do you want to get started?” Amanda offered as she refreshed her lipstick, gazing into a tiny compact. “Sure, why not,” Tony answered playfully. Impulsively she reached over and covered his lips with color. Instinctively he stiffened. “Tony,” she admonished. “I know it’s been years, but you have done this before and it is a great color on you.” He relaxed. Blotted and sat back. “One small step,...” he quoted. Not satisfied, Amanda pulled off Tony’s shirt and exchanged it for her own. “There. That’s better, AMANDA,” she said prolonging the name for emphasis. Tony laughed good-naturedly.
They’d both had instructions to wait at the villa until Vanessa Richards would join them at the weekend and so they decided to get the transformation process going. The two cousins easily dressed in the other’s clothes and both pretended that this was something of a lark. Just beneath the surface, however, lurked a reality with a far more sinister cast. For a variety of reasons they decided to wait for Vanessa’s arrival before delving too deeply into their individual relationships — one ostensibly romantic and the other strictly business with Beau Chadsworth. Each of them bore more than a little resentment towards Chadsworth, but they realized that the last thing each one wanted to do was to influence their elaborate masquerade with too many bits of old baggage. For now they were content to perform a little “wardrobe realignment” as they called it.

That Friday night they bicycled into Siena each in the other’s clothes to see if they could pass their mutual first test. Tony remembered something from his days studying American history. In the period after World War II, just as the Cold War was beginning, a number of spies from each country infiltrated the other’s borders. The most successful of these weren’t the glamorous defectors who he’d read about on the front page, but rather the quiet, unassuming people who blended in, blended in sometimes to enormous effect. What Tony/Amanda and Amanda/Tony were doing was something like that. Basically trying not to call attention to themselves. They both knew that people saw what they wanted to see. If Tony — the new Amanda — were quiet and unpretentious, and if Amanda — the new Tony — were equally unremarkable, then they passed unnoticed. The very unremarkable stroll that they took in the evening twilight in the Piazza del Campo gave each of them a boost of confidence. Neither of these two had realized just how much it was needed. If Amanda (that is the old Tony) was a bit too direct or if Tony (the old Amanda) was a little reticent, both were well within the bounds of customary behavior. Besides, they obviously were tourists and the locals were long past ignoring a little unusual behavior on the part of their visitors.

“Amanda, dear, (the old Amanda now Tony) said, with more than a touch of amusement, “aren’t you going to freshen your lipstick after that dish of gelato?” Only someone at the next table would have noticed the fleeting murderous glare this comment elicited. “Why, thank you dear, for noticing. You are so observant — for a man ” They both laughed easing any tension. “I’m about ready if you are?” Amanda offered. They mounted their bikes for the short ride back to their villa among the vineyards and olive groves. The evening was turning chilly and Amanda shivered at the unexpected chill on her legs beneath her fluttering skirt.

Upon returning they were too tired to do anything but kiss each other good night. Tony — the old Tony, that is — was glad that their cross dressing experiment was over for the evening. One part of him knew that the full emersion technique was the best way to get into his new role, but he thought it would be best to wait for Vanessa’s arrival the following morning to continue it. If this were to be his last night in boxers and a t-shirt, so be it.

Tony was up early. Maybe it was the good country air, maybe his unspoken anxiety. Puttering around the kitchen, he located the coffee apparatus — more complicated than he was used to — and the aroma of the brewing coffee filled the kitchen and drew his attention away from his bare feet on the cold stone floor. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he greeted Amanda. “Night life too much for you?” She smiled indulgently. “Where’s my breakfast, Signor Buongiorno?” She countered. They bantered back and forth a bit, finding eggs, fruit and cheese to make a good country morning feast. They were just in the clearing stages when they heard a car on the gravel of the driveway. “Vanessa,” they both said in unison.

If either one had a mental picture of Vanessa Richards, it surely did not conform to the image of the person they saw getting out of her late model Fiat Punto. Vanessa wasn’t beautiful by any conventional standard. But you could tell by looking at her that the way she carried herself, her sense of personal style — flair, almost — very nearly made you forget everything else. Simply, Vanessa was a force of nature and there were no two ways about it. She swept into the house and it was all Tony and Amanda could do to keep up with her. She found her way into the kitchen and was pouring herself a cup of coffee before either of her “hosts” had said a word.

“Tony, Amanda, it’s good to meet you,” she began with a smile that was genuine enough, but one that left the clear impression that she was not one to dwell on pleasantries. Her accent was not quite English, perhaps from South Africa or New Zealand. Whatever it had been, its rough edges had been smoothed by travel and god-knows-what-else. “Tony and I wanted to welcome you here, but we’re guests ourselves so perhaps it’s best if we dispense with the formalities,” Amanda offered. “Thanks for that, Amanda,” Vanessa answered, “I think in the interests of time we should get on with the business at hand.” She smiled that same “all-business” smile and turned her attention to Tony. “What they told me was true, Tony, you and Amanda are quite alike. This might not be so difficult as I thought. I’ve read through your biographies that they sent me, but I’m left with a few questions, more than a few questions, really.”

Thus began a conversation that would be spread over the next three weeks. Quite simply, Vanessa wanted to know everything. In those first few minutes, Tony was not quite sure how she did it, but Vanessa dived right into the middle of Amanda’s life. Her utter frankness and brusque kind of charm were a disarming combination. Initially, Amanda was taken aback, but any reticence on her part was speedily dispensed with. This was as clinical as a doctor taking a medical history. Implicit in all Vanessa’s questions was the notion that both Tony and Amanda would have to memorize hundreds of details about each other’s life. Everything from Tony’s first sexual experience in high school to the nature and frequency of Amanda’s periods. The time for squeamishness was long passed. The conversations that first day were mentally exhausting, but it was clear that in order to masquerade as the other, no detail was too small to overlook.

The following Monday the quartet was complete. Tish Miller was a colleague of Vanessa’s from that unnamed Agency. Tish was almost invisible. Perhaps it was the contrast with Vanessa, but Tish seemed to be perpetually in the shadows, even when there weren’t any. As Tony and Amanda were to learn, that was Tish’s particular skill. There was one way in which she resembled Vanessa. For her part Tish was a demanding taskmaster. She was part drill sergeant, part make-up expert and hair stylist. But the thing that Tony came almost to dread was what she anachronistically referred to as “deportment.” It reminded Tony of stories he’d heard as a child about the headmistress of the lower school at Milton Academy: deportment had been her watchword.
What Tish Miller meant by the word was everything that Tony did: from the way he walked to the way he sat. No detail was too small for Tish to notice. Tony was also reminded of his piano teacher, Mrs. Levy. He remembered coming to many a lesson with his piece of the moment not quite mastered; his disobedient fingers would bobble a phrase and he would pray that Mrs. Levy hadn’t heard the tiny error. No such luck. “Mr. Hope-Jackson,” she would begin, all formalities observed, even addressing a recalcitrant seven-year-old, , “please begin with the second measure on page 3. I am not teaching you improvisation today.” It was just like that with Tish. If he got up from the table too suddenly, she would have him sit down again; if his stride were too loose-limbed, she would stop him with a sharply pronounced, “Amanda ” The worst was her invocation of the “real” Amanda. “Now, dear,” Tish would say, “SHE would never do something like that ” More than once Tony was nearly in tears at such reprimands, especially when he’d been trying so hard.

Since he’d left Harkness almost nine months before, Tony hadn’t had his hair cut. Yes, yes, it had been something that he’d been meaning to do, but Jimmy Chen, who used to cut his hair — had cut his hair for years, actually — had gone back to Hong Kong. For once, it seemed, he’d done something Tish liked. “Amanda, dear, your hair is getting lovelier by the day.” Tish trimmed it a few times during their stay in the villa and brought out the natural wave. It really was quite like the “real” Amanda’s hair. For her part Amanda was given a far more mannish cut. To my surprise, Tish and Vanessa had obtained CD’s of me at various conferences and meetings and had studied my repertoire of gestures and mannerisms. I must say that it was very disconcerting to see Amanda, looking more and more like my image every day, walking, speaking and gesturing like me. Then came the meltdown.

It was at the end of the second week, and it caught me totally unawares. It was another beautiful day, the Indian Summer air was still warm and I was enjoying a cup of coffee on the little piazza outside the kitchen. Tish joined me after a few minutes, I turned to her. I forget what I was going to say, but she stopped me with that “look” I’d come to dread. That was all it took. I put my head in my hands and sobbed for all I was worth. She came over to me and gently stroked my back, but that just made things worse and I sobbed all the more. I don’t know when Amanda and Vanessa joined us, but I was crying so hard that I got the hiccups and the next thing I knew hands were gently guiding me inside and up to my room. They eased me down on the bed and took off my shoes; loosening my clothes they covered me with a comforter and quietly tip-toed out.

It must have been late in the afternoon that Amanda looked in on me. The shutters were closed to soften the brilliance of the late afternoon sunlight. I’d lain there for sometime watching the bands of light creeping up the flowered wallpaper. “Sweetie? It’s me,” Amanda began. “How are you feeling?” She seemed content to sit on the edge of the bed for a minute before I answered. “Oh, Amanda, uh Tony, I don’t know what happened out there.” “You don’t have to say anything, Sweetie,” she said, trying to calm me. “No, no, it’s o.k. now. Whatever it was, it has passed. It just caught me off guard and I was about to argue with Tish and the next thing I knew I was in tears and I couldn’t stop. It’s the strangest thing. I just didn’t se it coming, you know?” “Oh, do I ever ” Amanda replied, ruefully. “This playing each other is doing serious things with the inside of my head. You would not believe the dreams I have been having. I just hope that you can get to Beau Chadsworth and at the very least take him down a peg or two.” By this time I was sitting up in bed, my arms clasped around my knees. “Tony,” I said for emphasis, brushing a stray hair out of my eyes, “we’ll do a lot more than take him down a peg. Our old friend — and I use that term loosely — has been raping a pillaging Harkess and everything else he could get his hands on for years. That would be bad enough, but he’s been so sanctimonious about it. If I see his picture at one more charity banquet, I think I’ll go nuts.” Tony laughed relieving the tension that we both still felt from my morning outburst. “Now I know that all this practice is taking hold. “George is constantly teasing me about the latest thing that will cause me “to go nuts.” Apparently, it’s a favorite expression of mine. I didn’t think I said it that often.” Now we both laughed.

“Well, Tony,” I continued, “Beau does make me think that I will go nuts, but it’s even more than that. While you’ll be having the trip of a lifetime in the Himalayas, I’ll be insinuating myself into his inner circle. I may feel a little guilty about the masquerade, but I don’t feel the least guilty about trying to stop him before he steals anything more.” The new Tony nodded in agreement, “You know, Amanda, I remember Beau with a combination of affection and bitterness. There had been a time when we almost got married, as you know. I was the one who got cold feet. I wish I could tell you that it was because I sensed what a crook he was or what a crook he would become, but it wasn’t that. Any woman would be attracted to his combination of powerful man and little-boy vulnerability, to say nothing of those chiseled good looks. What soured me on him — and I’ve only told George and you about this, you understand — was that there was no ‘there there,’ to paraphrase good old Gertrude Stein. There’s this sense of inner emptiness about him. The center isn’t there. We could remain friends, but once I realized that, I couldn’t kid myself: it was the death of anything romantic between us.”

“But it doesn’t look like you ever regretted your decision,” I answered.

“Oh, no I didn’t, even though I didn’t meet George for more than two years after I had stopped seeing Beau. He kept saying that he still wanted us to be friends, but even that had become very difficult for me. We stayed cordial because of our families, his and ours. There would be too many times that we would have to see each other. I knew that Mama and Beau’s parents stayed close for years after that; an open rift between us would have broken their hearts. In fact that it was when we were back home one Christmas... I forget where you were, oh yes, one of those years you worked in Hong Kong and couldn’t get back until the New Year. Well, it was that Christmas and Beau had come down with Christine, that’s right it was the year before they were married. You know the marriage that lasted fifteen months: irreconcilable differences, I think that’s what they said. Well, anyway, Mama and I were talking with Christine, you know, trying to make her feel welcome and Beau came over to us — he was practically bragging to Christine, no wonder she divorced him — “You know, Chrissie, honey (God, he can turn on the southern charm when he wants to) Amanda and I used to be very close, if you know what I mean. Well, I’ve told her this before, but Amanda, anytime you want to bring that fine legal mind of yours up to New York, you call me, I want you in my general counsel’s office. You say yes, and I’ll have you there in a heartbeat.”

“There were more than a few reasons why I turned Beau down about working for him at Harkness. There’s no question, however, that the big one was Beau himself. I think it hurt him more than he said that I didn’t want to work there. And especially after the marriage went south and George and I got together, Beau let it be known that as much as he brushed it off in public there was still some lingering resentment there. Yes, it was some of Beau’s enormous ego — ‘I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to work for me — but that was not all of it. Some part of him knew, or had known, that when we broke up he lost something. All this business of ‘a girl in every port’ and ‘women are falling all over themselves to be with me’ just didn’t wash. That’s why he would want to have me work for Harkness because I know him so well. I can anticipate the way he thinks, finish his ideas for him, if you know what I mean.” She finished speaking, her voice almost in a whisper.

Hearing her talk this way was, in a funny way, terribly comforting for the former Tony. Later, much later, he would look back at this conversation and realize that this was something of a watershed. He didn’t know it at the time, but a subtle shift took place. In the course of the conversation the old Tony became the new Amanda, and vice versa. Neither one of them would be able to pinpoint the minute when the change took place, but it was real nonetheless. It was as if the memories of one person exchanged places with the memories of the other. Those conversations that had taken place at family Christmases went from being reported to being remembered. It was very much like the sensation that adult children sometimes have: having heard stories told so many times within a family, they are no longer sure whether they remember the event itself or the reporting of it.

The remaining few days the four friends, for by now they were friends, were able to enjoy their Tuscan holiday. The olive trees and the vineyards were ripe with fruit and the crush of the summer tourists had left the villages less choked with traffic. They all knew that their little idyll was coming to an end. Amanda and Tony knew that their paths would be crossing in the not too distant future, but the same could not be said for Vanessa and Tish. Both of these women were thoroughly professional and had been long accustomed to keep their private and public lives in separate spheres. That being said, however, the final hugs and goodbyes carried with them more than a tinge of regret.

Chapter III

Amanda Littleton’s Alitalia flight landed without event at Dulles Airport one crisp autumn afternoon. The clarity of the air brought the landscape of Northern Virginia into sharp focus. The haze that frequently obscured the gentle serrations of the Blue Ridge Mountains was nowhere in evidence. George Littleton met Amanda at the exit of the International Arrivals. Maybe one of Amanda’s closest friends might have noticed that the embrace and kiss they exchanged was a tad perfunctory, but it anyone else might have put it down to the natural diffidence of a private moment in a public place.

Neither Amanda nor George was under any illusion that the long reach of Beau Chadsworth and Harkness Holdings would have ensured an observer or two at the airport and perhaps even a bug under the dashboard of their Lexus. They kept the conversation general and this allowed George to fill in a lot of details about what had transpired in their suburban lives in her absence.

Their house in Great Falls was a bit of an anomaly. In a landscape dominated by mansions of two sizes, large and enormous, their modest converted farm house was spacious enough for them, but was dwarfed by its neighbors. Amanda certainly did appreciate the newly planted chrysanthemums that lined the drive and created splashes of russet, yellow and cream across the green expanse of lawn. George helped her with her things, Amanda having to remind herself to accept his help rather than be the first to reach for her luggage. Such gestures were more natural to her by the day. They kept their conversations brief and as innocuous as possible. Both had been warned that their house was probably filled with microphones that had been placed by Chadsworth and his minions. George poured them both a glass of chianti classico. As he handed Amanda her glass, he couldn’t help noticing that she got quiet and thoughtful at his little show of remembrance. George and Amanda had spent a memorable holiday in Tuscany and the Abruzzi a few years ago and had both fallen in love with the chiantis. Amanda was touched by his thoughtfulness.

Within a few days their lives fell into a routine. Amanda returned to “her” office at Williams Wesley; her portfolio of clients was in the capable hands of another partner and a team of associates. The long conversations over the past few weeks had proved invaluable in identifying her coworkers and the firm’s clients. This made Amanda’s “review conversations” with her colleagues immensely easier. Williams Wesley had a generous policy of rewarding their partners with ample time to pursue other interests, chiefly charitable work in the areas of debt relief and environmental policy. It was no surprise when, therefore, when Amanda announced her intention to take a longer leave of absence from the firm. She was surprised how easily she fell into the routines of her cousin’s life, even as she knew that it was essential that she do so. There were rafts of emails and phone calls to return and within a week it seemed that the holiday in Tuscany was fading as a distant memory.

Another month went by before Amanda put the next part of their elaborate plan into place. It was only natural to worry that such a plan with so many crucial parts stood little chance of success, but so much depended on her and seeing that the net that she and her law enforcement comrades was poised and ready to ensnare a prey as elusive as Beau Chadsworth. Anyone in the investment world knew how long it had taken to prosecute the scoundrels at Enron. Amanda knew that it would take at least as long to get Beau Chadsworth. Patience, that most difficult of virtues, was to be their watchword.

She’d known her cousin’s (the “real” Amanda) handwriting from countless notes and Christmas cards: theirs was a family who still believed in the sanctity of pen and ink on stationery. Their penmanship was yet another mark of the cousins’ remarkable similarity. “Dear Beau,” her own short letter began, “I’ve taken a little leave of absence from Williams Wesley. I’m going to be in New York at the end of the month between charitable odds and ends I’m working on. Let’s get together for old times’ sake and you can tell me all about you and Harkness. It’s been too long. Love, Amanda.”

She’d dropped the letter off at the McLean Post Office on a Monday. Amanda wasn’t too surprised to get a phone call the following Thursday. “Amanda, darling,” I was so pleased to get your letter.” Beau Chadsworth was simply oozing his famous charm. “Is there any possibility that you could move up your New York visit? I’ve got a string of meetings in London and Brussels at the end of October. I so very much want to see you.” Amanda knew that she had him

Of course, she would see what she could do. “Will you be at the Pierre?” Beau, as suave and sophisticated as ever, was still an eager little boy. His inflection betrayed him. “Well, I suppose so, but it is a bit extravagant, don’t you think, Beau?” “Nothing but the best, honey. Auntie Christine (Amanda’s mother) always said ‘there’s nothing but the best for our Amanda.’” That, too, had been a standing joke left over from Amanda’s childhood. It had become something of a taunt among Amanda’s cousins. But now it served Amanda’s purpose admirably.

They arranged to meet at the Four Seasons. As usual, there was too much activity that blustery autumn afternoon at 2:00, but regular Four Seasons diners knew to expect it. As Amanda, in a role that was both familiar — first cousins with remarkable physical similarities in a large close-knit family — and yet new to her — having so completely changed places with her cousin--, began her conversation with Beau, she felt that only her old fashioned upbringing could be relied upon; everything else was shape-shifting almost before her very eyes. Beau, graciously rising to his feet to greet her, was the same person she had known, but the attention he was paying to her was nothing she had experienced before. She said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for all her preparations in Tuscany. Those few weeks seemed somehow as if they were part of a distant past; all the drilling of mannerisms and habits was almost becoming second nature.

Beau was talking in his smooth, well-oiled way about all the latest achievements of Harkness Holdings. He never spoke about it in the first person; he didn’t have to. Every listener was immediately drawn to the inevitable conclusion that it was all Beau’s doing. That was just what he wanted them to think. Amanda was pleasantly attentive, but inside that well-coifed head
Tony’s mind was going a mile a minute. Beau, happily blathering about his favorite subject — himself — was paying little attention to Amanda. To him she was what he always had to have: an appreciative audience. That was just what Amanda wanted him to think. The cups of espresso came and the two lingered as the dining room of the Four Seasons finally began to clear. The wait staff were used to power lunch couples and gave them no more than the perfunctory attention that was required.

Amanda was listening for the other shoe to drop and drop it finally did. “So Amanda,” Beau finally paused for breath, “does what we’re doing at Harkness sound interesting to you?” He was certain that she would say yes and she didn’t disappoint. “Well, then, why don’t we talk about your taking a little position in our General Counsel’s office. That way I’d have you close by so that I could have the benefit of your legal advice. It wouldn’t bother me at all that you and I would finally be working close together.”

Amanda smiled and laughed good-naturedly. “Why Beau,” she looked down at the tablecloth and looked up at him through her eyelashes. She did everything but bat them at Beau, “I never thought you’d ask. And, Beau, dear, we do need to talk about money. And there’s the little matter of my giving notice at Williams Wesley. They’ve been very good to me. What do you think about my giving them a month and I’ll start with you right after the first of the year?”
Beau made a small shrug as if to say that he supposed he could wait that long. “Well, all right, Amanda, if you insist. I guess I can wait that long. I’ve waited eight years, another month won’t kill me.” Amanda patted his hand affectionately. “And you have someone get in touch with Teddy Markowski, the General Counsel and work out the money. You can pretty much name your price, but I guess you know that.”

A few pleasantries were all that remained and they left the Four Seasons with a chaste hug at the curb as Beau put Amanda in a cab. His car had been waiting at the curb with his liveried driver. Amanda, for her part, waited till the cab turned the corner and Beau was out of sight before reaching for the special cell phone in a small compartment in her purse. It took just seconds for her to send the text message. “It’s done,” was all she wrote. She knew it was all that the prosecutors needed.

Prior to getting his MBA, Tony had taken his JD. He’d never practiced law. Somehow he’d lost the taste for it after passing the New York Bar Exam. But now he was glad that little credential was tucked away in his resume. Nobody would be able to accuse him of practicing law without a license. All this was flashing through Amanda’s mind as she rode in the cab back to the Pierre. Back in her room she placed a call to George’s cell phone. She knew that she couldn’t reach him at his office in the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, but he would get his cell phone messages. She had no doubts that her phone was tapped or at the very least her room was bugged. Everything she told George in the voicemail message had been prearranged between the two of them.

When George called a little after six, he was all solicitous concern. He also sounded appropriately enthusiastic at the idea of her getting a job at Harkness Holdings. She’d be back in McLean in a couple of days before getting a place in Manhattan. It would be far from ideal, but they would see each other on the weekends. If any of Beau Chadsworth’s goons noticed that her voice was a little shaky, they probably thought it was a combination of excitement and fatigue. There would be no way that they would realize that Tony Hope Johnson, now so completely disguised as Amanda Littleton, was more than a little nervous. He was going to return to Harkness Holdings and, with any luck, be part of its inner councils. By keeping his eyes and ears open, he would be able to gather enough information to put Beau Chadsworth and his cronies away for a very long time. He had left Harkness earlier in the year disgusted and revolted at the underhanded and no doubt criminal activities that had contributed mightily to the success of the firm. Now he was returning and the prospect of it made his stomach hurt.

Chapter V

Unless you have been subjected to it, it’s hard to imagine the glare of publicity that surrounds a high-profile that took place in Manhattan that Fall. Day after day the defense team filled the nightly news and the Sunday talk shows with their version of events. Rarely did Beau Chadsworth’s attorneys pass up the opportunity to vilify Tony Hope-Johnson a.k.a. Amanda Littleton. Every reference to Tony was tinged with characterizations that bordered on the libelous. Even when the Judge imposed her gag order on the defense and prosecution, these attorneys or their surrogates were out there day after day. The nightly comedy monologues and the comedy news shows all made reference to Tony aka Amanda.
Throughout it all Tony Hope-Johnson gave no interviews, made no statements, responded to no shouted questions. Amanda and George were similarly mute. It took the better part of a year before the reporters and camera people began to lose interest. So many cameras had been outside Tony’s Arlington, Virginia apartment and Amanda and George’s front door that television viewers counted the two residences as among the most recognized in America.

The trial took an inordinate amount of time. In fact the pundits were predicting that after all the pre-trail maneuvering the trial itself might seem anti-climactic. Teams of consultants had been brought in by both sides to prepare every facet. The millions of state and federal dollars spent on the trial passed new records. Throughout it all Chadsworth and his accomplices maintained their innocence. His courtroom performance endeared Chadsworth to some, but infuriated others. In the end the convictions were still stunning. The judge meted out sentences that would leave Chadsworth in a minimum security prison for nearly a quarter of a century; his accomplices fared no better. The monumental fines imposed were earmarked for a fund to compensate employees and investors who had borne the brunt of the monumental swindle Chadsworth and perpetrated.

The inevitable appeals followed, but the most amazing thing was that there was little gloating. Corporate and Financial America had awoken to a new, far chillier day. Even as some in the business world attempted to separate themselves from the excesses of Harkness, it was clear that investors had had enough. The markets slumped into a six-month’s period of “correction.” The high flyers had their wings clipped. They didn’t like it, but their was little sympathy for them. It came to be known as the Chadsworth effect. This would fascinate economists for years to come, but Tony Hope-Johnson couldn’t have cared less.

Anthony Hope-Johnson had other things to contemplate. Life had opened up in ways never imagined. That conversation with Brenda in that New York conference room had been the first quasi-public admission that the changes were deep and anything but trivial. As important as they were, however, Tony knew that the glare of publicity would follow him or her, as Tony began to think of herself. The Harkness business had to settle down completely before he thought that he would be able to stand the publicity.

What Antonia, as she now called herself, did surprised many people. Before doing it, however, she’d gone over it several times with her psychiatrist and with a publicity person her attorney had recommended. The step was unorthodox to say the least, but Antonia had been through a lot and she decided that the best way to handle her transition to living her life as a woman was to go public in a big way. The weekend before the Announcement, as she would think of it afterwards, she spoke with her mother and several close relatives, including Amanda and George Littleton. The following Monday she flew to New York.

She appeared on a comedy news program “It’s to Laugh,” on one of the slightly off-the-wall cable channels. Its host, David Litchfield, was known for his sardonic tongue in cheek approach to news stories. Litchfield attracted an audience that had more or less given up on television news. Appearing on his show was a bold move. Equally bold were her appearances on the two main late night talk shows the following nights. The hosts, led by Litchfield, were one minute serious, and laughing behind their hands the next. Antonia took them in stride. By the end of the interviews, the hosts had all showed their admiration for her courage not only in taking on the challenge of Beau Chadsworth, but of making the change to live her life publically as a woman. As nervous as she felt, she thought this approach would show that she was not ashamed of who she was and was no longer interested in hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. As her attorney had pointed out, prying reporters were determined to “out” her; it was only a matter of time. This way she beat them to the punch.

It wasn’t all a bed of roses, however. The tabloids still made up outrageous stories about her; linking her to one celebrity or another. The fact that she opened a free legal clinic for her “trans sisters,” as she called them, including sex workers, in one of the seedier sections of Los Angeles, only served to fuel their prurient imaginations. It became something of a joke when in a supermarket tabloid splashed a story on its cover identifying her only as “Toni A-J.” It made her laugh.

Her status as a minor celebrity as further enhanced by a character in one of the on-going television police dramas. Commentators noted that this was the first transsexual character on series television.

Antonia Hope-Johnson did go ahead and have her surgery, of course. And thanks to her some other transsexuals began to feel that if she could make the transition and survive and continue to contribute to society, then they could too. Of all the things that she had done, Toni was most proud of this accomplishment.