Conspiracy

by Allan Topol

  She desperately wanted to be helpful to this young man. He was decent and kind. But there was no way she could do that.

  "I'll do what I can," she replied in a noncommittal way.

  "Remember—nine on Monday," Cady said as he walked to the door.

  If this approach didn't work, he would have to use FBI agents in the area to find Harvey Gladstone one way or another. Meantime, he had to hustle if he was going to make it to Santa Rosa in time to get the last plane to Los Angeles.

  * * *

  A hundred miles away, north of Mendocino, Harvey Gladstone stood knee-deep in a cold mountain stream in his fishing boots with his line extended in the water. He should have had his eye focused on that line, looking for a nibble, but he couldn't concentrate on fishing. He hadn't come up to this desolate spot in northern California for the fishing, which was so extraordinary that he had already caught six trout today, stashed in a cooler on the bank. No, he had come to escape from him, the tough-sounding man who had called from what Gladstone, with caller ID, later learned was a Washington, D.C., pay phone. The man had tried to persuade Gladstone to call a prosecutor by the name of C. J. Cady and explain that the sale price for Mill Valley had been fifty million and that he had received a commission of six hundred thousand, which was six percent of ten million, and another hundred thousand for keeping his mouth shut. On the phone, the man's promise to arrange a new heart for Carl had been enough to convince Gladstone to agree to his request. Instinct told him to wait, though, until Carl received the new heart before making the call to Cady. Well, that was three days ago. The man hadn't arranged a new heart for Carl, but he had repeatedly called with threats.

  After the third one, Gladstone decided to take off. He didn't know whose battle this was, but he didn't want to get involved. Besides, the man frightened him. He was convinced that no good would come of it. He had urged his wife, Louise, to leave and fly to Los Angeles, but she couldn't stand the idea of what seemed like a hopeless death vigil for Carl. He didn't think the man would bother her. She didn't know anything about the sale of Mill Valley.

  Gladstone's eyes scanned the hills that ran up from both sides of the stream. Nothing was moving in the heavy green foliage. Suddenly he heard twigs snap on the hill to the west.

  Startled, he dropped his fishing rod and looked that way. It was only a deer. He grabbed the rod from the water and breathed a large sigh of relief. You 're being stupid, he told himself. Nobody could possibly find you here unless Louise told them, which she would never do.

  He planned to stay for a few days, maybe a week or longer, until he was satisfied from the radio he listened to that it was all over, whatever was going on with Senator Boyd. If need be, he'd stay until after the election.

  You 're safe, he told himself. Forget about it. Relax and fish.

  * * *

  High on the hill to the west of the stream, Terasawa crouched in a cluster of berry bushes, ten yards above the point at which the frightened deer had spotted him and burst through the brush. As he watched Gladstone through powerful binoculars, he doubted that the fisherman had any idea he was here. When the deer had moved, Gladstone's face had tensed. Now he was back to fishing.

  He was a sneaky bastard, trying to run away like this. All it had taken was a mild threat on the life of the sick grandson for the man's wife to cough up her husband's location. She had said that she couldn't warn him that Terasawa was coming because he didn't have a phone in the cabin and his cell phone didn't work so deep in the mountains. She must have been telling the truth. Otherwise Gladstone would have been long gone.

  Wanting to maximize the element of surprise, Terasawa kept low, crouching down among the trees and bushes, treading softly in his waterproof hiking boots, clutching a sharp knife. He was wearing a green camouflage uniform, which he had purchased at a military surplus store, a uniform left over from the Vietnam War, when American soldiers had hidden in the highland jungles, watching a foe the way he was doing now. Terasawa didn't want to think of himself in those terms. Rather, as a Japanese soldier in the hills of Okinawa, Japanese territory, resisting the American invaders, who had arrived in the water below.

  Ten yards above the stream, Terasawa stamped his feet, gave a bloodcurdling scream, "Ai!," and hurtled himself down the hill.

  Gladstone whirled around. "What the hell...?" Then he saw the upraised knife and the man with the scar on his cheek. Gladstone nearly jumped out of his boots. Frozen to the spot, he watched with horror as Terasawa stopped next to the cooler, grabbed one of the fish, and gutted it with a single stroke. Gladstone dropped his rod and took off, trudging awkwardly downstream in his high boots.

  Terasawa tossed the fish and knife on the ground and raced into the water, chasing him.

  In a few seconds Gladstone heard splashing on his heels. Trying to escape was futile. He decided to stop and fight. He wheeled around to confront the man. Before Gladstone could raise his arms, Terasawa grabbed him around the waist and picked him up. He held Gladstone over his head, the way he held barbells that weighed far more than the fisherman. Terasawa spun Gladstone around several times, then tossed him carelessly into the water.

  Gladstone's whole body went under. When his head came up, he was choking and spitting ice-cold water. Terasawa grabbed Gladstone's head and held it under. When he finally let him up, Gladstone was gagging, and his eyes were bulging. Terasawa pushed him back under again. Then repeated the process for a third time. As he pulled him up at last, Gladstone's face was blue.

  "N-no more," he mumbled in a barely audible voice.

  "Then you listen up, you old fool, and you listen carefully."

  He nodded.

  "You do what you promised the man who called you. Do you understand?"

  He nodded again.

  Terasawa slapped him hard on the back. Water gurgled out of his mouth. "Say yes," he shouted.

  "Yes... yes."

  "And if you don't, I'll take that knife and gut you, your wife, and your grandson, just as I did that fish."

  * * *

  "It's showtime," Cady said to Bruce Gorman, the head of the FBI's office in Los Angeles. The two of them were having breakfast at an all-night coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard on the strip. The only other patrons at seven on this Sunday morning were three working girls who looked like they'd had a tough night, and their pimp.

  Gorman finished a piece of toast and said, "I'm ready. Call."

  Cady whipped out his cell phone, then reached into his wallet and extracted the piece of paper with Abdul Azziz's telephone number. The phone rang five times before a woman's sleepy voice answered.

  "I want to talk to Abdul Azziz," Cady said.

  "Mr. Azziz, he sleeping."

  "Then wake him up."

  "Maybe you call later."

  "Maybe you wake him now." That brought silence at the other end. Cady pressed on. "You can tell him that it's the police and the FBI. Now go wake him."

  "I go wake him."

  "Fast."

  He had to wait awhile until he heard, "This is Abdul Azziz. Who's calling?"

  The voice wasn't nervous and trembling. It had a defiant edge.

  "My name's C. J. Cady. I'm from the Department of Justice in Washington. Right now I'm in Los Angeles."

  "And you can't call during normal hours? You have to wake people up early Sunday morning?"

  "I'm being charitable, Mr. Azziz. If you'll look out your front window, you'll see two black cars on Sunset. Each one has four FBI agents. All I have to do is to give the order, and they'll arrest you."

  There was a pause while, Cady guessed, Azziz looked out the window. The cars were in place. Cady had been in telephone contact with them.

  "You're a very generous man," Azziz said sarcastically. "But I didn't violate any law."

  "We could let the judge decide that."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I want to talk to you."

  "About what?"

  "Mill Valley Winery and your purchase of it
ten years ago."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You're not an American citizen. An alien can't own a wine business, and that's not all that was illegal about your purchase."

  "I didn't purchase anything."

  "Good. You can tell that to the judge in Houston who sentenced you for the SEC violation. For a second offense you're certain to go to jail. Prisons in Texas are wonderful places. You'll enjoy yourself, and some of the other prisoners will enjoy you, too."

  This time Azziz didn't have a sarcastic comeback. Intimidation usually worked sooner or later, Cady had found over the years.

  "I want to talk to my lawyer first."

  "I'll give you two hours. I'll be there at nine-fifteen. And don't plan on leaving the house. They have it surrounded, and they will arrest you."

  Cady hung up and winked at Gorman. Round one had worked according to plan.

  * * *

  Precisely at nine-fifteen, Gorman dropped Cady in front of Azziz's house. He was alone when he climbed the stone stairs and passed the statue of a woman with her privates painted pea green, just as Paul Moore had remembered. He had a beeper in his jacket pocket to call for help if someone tried to strong-arm him.

  A frightened young Latino woman in a black maid's uniform opened the door. He guessed she had answered the phone this morning. She didn't say a word. Instead she pointed to the vast living room of the mansion. A dapper, distinguished gray-haired man in a blue polo shirt, navy slacks, and a gold chain around his neck was standing in front of the window. Hearing Cady approach, he wheeled around. "What kind of shit is this?"

  "You must be Joe Hughes, Azziz's lawyer. I'm C. J. Cady, assistant U.S. attorney in Washington."

  "You ever heard of the Bill of Rights, Cady?"

  "Rest it, Hughes; your client's scum. You got him off easy once. You'll never be able to pull it off again."

  "You mind telling me what this is all about?"

  "He's an alien who bought a winery. That's illegal."

  "He never bought a winery."

  "Maison Antibes was a dummy corporation to hide his ownership. If the corporate people in your firm did the legal work, they could be in trouble as well."

  The man wasn't going to back off an inch. "You got my attention, Cady, but I also know you're not into alcohol law enforcement. Now, tell me what this is really about."

  Cady decided to go on the offensive, hit them hard first. "Your client paid fifty million dollars for a business worth ten million."

  "So he made a bad deal for himself. I didn't realize that had become a federal crime."

  Bingo, Cady thought. Hughes didn't take issue with the fifty-million-dollar figure. That made him believe the information in the file dropped in his office was right, that Boyd had received fifty million. Now all he had to do was nail it down with credible evidence. Perhaps he wasn't out here on a fool's errand, after all.

  Concealing his emotions, Cady regarded Hughes as though he were the lowest of scum. "The man he bought Mill Valley from was running for Congress at the time, and the seller needed the money for his campaign. If you require more than that, I'll draw you a picture."

  "What do you want from Abdul?"

  "Just to talk to him. That's all right now."

  "Informally like this? The three of us?"

  "Nope. Under oath and with a court reporter present."

  "He doesn't have to talk to you. You don't have a subpoena."

  "I can convene a grand jury Monday morning if I have to. You'll have your subpoena by noon today. And instead of doing this in the comfort of Mr. Azziz's living room, with you here, we can do it in the U.S. courthouse downtown without you present and with the reporters having a carnival on Temple Street." Cady shrugged his shoulders. "It's all the same to me. It's like shooting craps. I can make my point the easy way or the hard way."

  "You really want to get Senator Boyd, don't you?"

  Cady bristled. That wasn't his objective, though he realized that would be the inference people would draw. "I'm trying to do my job."

  "And I'm trying to do mine. My client will talk to you if you'll give him immunity. Total immunity from any charges growing out of the Mill Valley transaction ten years ago, including the alien ownership business."

  Cady hated making the deal Hughes was asking. It meant that to prosecute Senator Boyd, he had to let Azziz escape all charges. Realistically, though, this was where he had expected to end up when he saw Hughes. With somebody less experienced, they would have haggled for a while, and Cady would have been able to cut a better deal for the government. He could turn Hughes down and try to see if he was bluffing.

  Before responding, Cady studied Hughes's face. The hard, cold stare that locked eyes with him told him that Hughes wasn't bluffing. In the end, Cady would have to back down. That wouldn't help him in questioning Azziz. Besides, he disliked negotiating when the result was obvious.

  "If I give you the kind of immunity you want," Cady said, "then Azziz answers every question I ask. I don't want any claims of privilege or crap like that. And if he lies, the immunity's off and I go for perjury."

  "I think we can live with those terms, but I'll have to talk to my client before I can give you a final answer."

  "Understood." Cady felt as if he were on a roll. "And one other thing. I get to bring him to Washington, if I need him live before a grand jury."

  Hughes hesitated.

  "It's a deal breaker for me," Cady said.

  "I'll recommend it to my client."

  "If he goes along, you've got a deal for immunity. You have my word on it."

  Hughes shook his head. "That's not good enough. I need it in writing from Sarah Van Buren, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division in Washington. I don't want to hear later that you didn't have authority."

  Cady reached into his jacket pocket and extracted the fax of a two-page letter he had received from the assistant attorney general about three hours ago. With Cady's reputation and the fact that it was Sunday morning, he'd been able to obtain the letter from Washington without having to give an explanation about the investigation. He handed the fax to Hughes, who studied it carefully.

  "I'll talk to my client," he finally said.

  Cady went over to the front window and waved. A redheaded court reporter dressed in a smart beige suit with a short skirt emerged from the back of one of the unmarked black cars. Her name was Kelly, and she was about twenty-five, Cady guessed. She was carrying Cady's briefcase in one hand and a case with a mini-word processor in the other.

  She set up in the living room on a hard-backed chair halfway between where Cady told her he would be and where he planned to put Azziz.

  "Sorry to drag you out of bed so early Sunday morning," Cady said, trying to pass the time until Hughes and Azziz appeared.

  "Ah, don't worry," Kelly replied. "It was a good excuse to stick my husband with the kids."

  They both laughed. His eyes strayed to her legs. She had great legs, and with her short skirt hiked up, there wasn't much of them that he couldn't see.

  Cady heard footsteps and voices. He stood up and looked toward the door. If Cady had two words to describe Abdul Azziz, they would be fat and ugly. The thick brown mustache didn't do much to enhance his appearance.

  "We have a deal," Hughes said. "Under the terms you outlined."

  "Good, let's get started, then. Kelly, swear the witness."

  Working from notes on a yellow pad, Cady rolled through Azziz's background. Fifteen minutes into his examination he was ready to ask about the Mill Valley transaction. "Mr. Azziz, did there come a time about ten years ago when you purchased Mill Valley Winery in Napa Valley?"

  "No, I never purchased that winery," he answered coldly.

  "Did a French company by the name of Maison Antibes purchase Mill Valley Winery?"

  "I believe so."

  "And what was your relationship to Maison Antibes?"

  Azziz looked at Hughes, who said, "You may an
swer the question."

  Azziz coughed and cleared his throat. "I owned all of the stock of Maison Antibes."

  "And who was the seller of Mill Valley in that transaction?"

  "Mr. Charles Boyd."

  "Of Rutherford, California?"

  "Yes."

  "What was Mr. Boyd's business at the time?"

  "He owned the winery."

  "What else was he doing?"

  "I don't understand."

  "Was he running for public office?"

  "Yes, he was running for a seat in Congress against Chris Broder."

  Cady picked up immediately on the venom in Azziz's voice when he mentioned Broder's name.

  "Mr. Broder was then the congressman from that district, wasn't he?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "In connection with this transaction, did you ever have occasion to meet personally with Charles Boyd?"

  "Yes, once."

  "When was that?"

  "When we agreed on the price."

  "Who else was present?"

  "No one."

  "Didn't Mr. Boyd have a real estate agent?"

  "Yes."

  "Who was he?"

  "A Jew. I don't remember his name."

  "Was it Harvey Gladstone?"

  "That's the one."

  "Was he at your meeting with Boyd when you agreed on price?"

  "No, I met with him earlier. Not at the important meeting with Boyd."

  "Coming back to that meeting, describe how your discussion went with Mr. Boyd on price."

  "He told me that he wanted ten million dollars for the winery, the business and the land. Everything."

  "What did you say?"

  "I told him that I would pay fifty million."

  "Isn't that unusual, to offer five times the asking price?"

  "I wanted him to have plenty of money for his congressional campaign."

  "Why?"

  "That son of a bitch Chris Broder was a tool of the Zionists. He was the ranking Republican on an important congressional committee, and he always agreed to give Israel everything they wanted. It was important for Broder to lose. With money, lots of money, Boyd could win."

  "Did Boyd know this was why you were paying so much money? So he could defeat Congressman Broder?"