“Don’t worry about it, Gabe. You’ll pay me back one day, I’m sure.”

Yes, sir, I will. On my father’s grave, I’ll pay you back ten times what I owe you. One day.

Marshall Gresham was inside for fraud.

“So, how much money did you steal, then?”

It was the sort of question Marshall would only have tolerated from Gabe McGregor. The two men had become fast friends.

“I didn’t steal any money, Gabriel. That’s why I’m appealing my conviction. I rearranged quite a bit.”

“How much?”

Marshall allowed himself a small smile of pride.

“Two hundred and sixty million.”

Gabe was silent for a full minute.

“What business are you in, Marshall?”

“Property.”

Another minute’s silence.

“Marshall?”

“Hmm?”

“I think I’d like to learn the property business. Will you teach me?

“Why, Gabriel!” Marshall Gresham’s twinkly blue eyes sparkled even more brightly than usual. “I’d be delighted.”

Suddenly thirty-six months felt like thirty-six minutes.

There was so much to learn, and so little time. Indeces, interest rates, prices per square foot, building costs, planning law. It went on and on and on and for Gabe it was like learning not only a new language, but a whole new way of thinking.

Marshall Gresham told him: “A lot of things have changed in the markets these past few years. All this new Internet money.” He shook his head disgustedly. “People have lost their ’eads. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that the fundamental market forces are any different than what they’ve always been.”

Gabe nodded silently, drinking in Marshall’s advice. It was his new drug. He couldn’t get enough of listening to the older man’s voice. Every word from Marshall Gresham’s lips sounded like money, like hope. Gabe’s future made flesh.

“Location. That’s the key. If I were going into this game fresh, from scratch, I’d stay out of London.”

Gabe was silent, but his face said why?

“Overinflated. Too many bleeding Poles. And Russians. Too many barriers to entry. To be honest, I’d forget the U.K. altogether. And America. You want a market that’s still up-and-coming. Get in on the ground floor, like I did.”

Get in on the ground floor.

Yeah, sure. But where? And with what?

Marshall Gresham made it sound so easy.

Marshall was right about the Wormwood Scrubs library. Look past its linoleum floors and filthy, chipped Formica tables; past the well-thumbed Dick Francis novels and fashion-model autobiographies-My Life: The Untold Story, by Misty Holland. Who on earth read that crap?-and a world of infinite possibilities was there for the taking.

A lot of cons took Marshall Gresham’s route and went straight for the law books. Some had even done open-university degrees while inside. Others lost themselves in fiction, an escape of sorts from the grim reality of prison life. For Gabe, whenever he wasn’t wading through books on real estate and business, it was history he turned to. Specifically the history of his famous forebear, Jamie McGregor.

It was amazing how much had been written about Gabe’s great-great-uncle and the illustrious company he founded. In America, Gabe discovered, there were professors who’d devoted their entire lives to the study of Kruger-Brent, Ltd. As if it were a country or a war, a great king or a pandemic disease.

No wonder my father and grandfather were so obsessed. Apparently they weren’t the only ones.

Gabe had always known that Jamie McGregor died a wealthy man and that his direct descendants-the Blackwell family-had become even wealthier. But the sums of money he read about now were so large, simply thinking about them made his head ache. It was like trying to imagine the distance to the moon in inches, or the number of grains of sand there were on a beach.

But it wasn’t the money that fired Gabe’s interest. Nor was it the company whose interests spanned the globe and now even reached into space, thanks to a 1980s acquisition of a Finnish satellite business. It was the man, Jamie McGregor himself, who fascinated Gabe.

Gabe read about Scotland in the 1860s, the life of crushing poverty from which Jamie had escaped. It made his own childhood seem positively luxurious. He learned about the treacherous sea crossing from London to Cape Town. Thousands had perished on the journey from hunger, exhaustion or disease, chasing their own dreams of striking it rich in the Namib diamond fields. Not one in a million had done it. But Jamie McGregor had been that one, triumphing over inconceivable odds.

Years later, just months before the stroke that incapacitated him for the last years of his life, Jamie McGregor was asked by a South African newspaper reporter what he considered to be the secret of his success.

“Perseverance,” he’d answered. “And courage. I went into places that most people considered far too dangerous. Trust no one but yourself.”

Gabe thought about this. I trust Marshall Gresham. And my mother. And Claire. And Angus Frazer. Maybe if I follow rules one and three, I’ll be two-thirds as rich as Jamie McGregor was.

Then out of the blue, another thought struck him.

What had Marshall said? Find a market that’s still up-and-coming. Get in on the ground floor.

And Jamie McGregor? I went into places that most people considered far too dangerous.

Suddenly the answer was obvious.

A little bit of research confirmed Gabe’s excitement. The South African rand had all but collapsed against the U.S. dollar since the fall of apartheid. Property in Cape Town was going for a song as white families fled, fearing a new explosion of black violence. Fearing revolution.

If the revolution comes, I’ll lose everything. But if it doesn’t…

At last, Gabe McGregor had a plan. He would go to Africa to seek his fortune.

Just like Jamie McGregor had done before him.

By 7:30 A.M., Gabe was on a subway into central London.

By nine, he was waiting outside the glass doors of the exclusive Coutts Private Banking offices at number 100 The Strand.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The security guard gave Gabe a look that made it perfectly clear that the last thing he wanted to do was help him. Gabe didn’t blame the guy. He’d shaved and smartened himself up as best he could, but in his thin gray jacket and ancient, rain-soaked jeans, he did not look like a typical Coutts customer.

I’ve left you a little something at Coutts. Just to get you started.

It was typical of Marshall Gresham’s generosity. He’d already done so much, kick-starting Gabe’s appeal, teaching him the real-estate business. Billy and the prison doctor might have gotten Gabe clean, but it was Marshall Gresham who’d kept him that way. Marshall had given Gabe hope, something to live for other than heroin. He hadn’t so much saved his life as given him a whole new one.

And now he wants to make sure I have money for a bed and a meal tonight.

It was both touching and much needed. Gabe had walked out of Wormwood Scrubs with only five pounds to his name, and that had gone on his subway fare and a bacon sandwich at Kings Cross. This afternoon he’d start looking for construction work. Friends inside had given him a few contacts. But it was nice to know he wouldn’t have to sleep rough on day one.

“I’m here to see Robin Hampton-Gore.” Gabe spoke softly but with confidence. “I believe Marshall Gresham informed him I’d be coming.”

The guard’s look now said, And I believe you’re a chancer come to try your luck with a sob story. Well, if you are, good luck to you, mate. You won’t get far with Mr. H.-G.

Out loud he said: “Wait here, please, sir.”

Gabe waited there. Five minutes later, as much to his own surprise as the guard’s, he found himself being escorted into a corner office by a genial man in a pin-striped Savile Row suit and the shiniest pair of wingtips Gabe had ever seen.