The Power Broker

by Stephen Frey

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just can.”

  “What about the doomsday scenario?” Dahl spoke up.

  “You mean Wood winning the election in November?” Hewitt asked. Hard to tell for certain, but he thought he’d noticed Kohler and McDonnell exchange a quick glance.

  “Yes.”

  “Right,” said Massey. “What are we going to do about that?”

  “Nothing,” Hewitt replied calmly.

  “Nothing?”

  “That’s what I said.” Hewitt let the words fall from his mouth smoothly, as if he felt like the topic was trivial and they were wasting time talking about it. “Nothing. Wood doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the election. There’s no reason for us to do anything at all at this point, no reason to take the risk.”

  Kohler scoffed. “At the last meeting you were sure Wood was going to win. What’s going on here, Mr. Hewitt?”

  Hewitt took his time answering the question. When he did, he spoke in a low, unwavering voice, glaring fiercely down the table. “Mr. Kohler, you’re a man who wants all the facts, who doesn’t take anything for granted, and I respect that. But I have more people in my hip pocket than you’ll meet in the next ten years. People who tell me things, Mr. Kohler, people who trust me. I know it pains you to do so, but on this one, you’ll have to be one of those people. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  A CHILLY RAIN fell as Christian waited in the darkness where the field and the trees met. He’d taken every precaution he could think of. Surgical gloves so there were no prints on the money or the bag, a roundabout route to get here, switching cars at a diner in the next town over to make certain he wasn’t being followed. And he’d made the guy demanding the money tell him the location and time of the rendezvous early this morning. Then made the guy call this afternoon supposedly just to confirm everything, and changed the location and the time completely.

  The guy had screamed bloody murder, but Christian had paid no attention. Then he’d called back an hour later and changed the location and time again. He wasn’t worried about being killed. He was wearing a wire so he could yell for help if he needed it, and Quentin was close. More to the point, it didn’t make sense for the guy to kill him. What would he gain by doing that? What Christian was worried about was being photographed or taped handing money over to a made man. Of being blackmailed.

  He pulled the brim of his Dodger cap further down over his eyes. In the limousine in Vegas the guy had been very specific about him being the one to bring the money. That demand had made him think there was another motive behind this whole thing. But, if he didn’t do this, he wasn’t going to get his casino—a flagship investment of over a billion dollars would be flushed. There’d been a surprise plumbing inspection yesterday. The Dice had failed it miserably. He couldn’t have the Dice go down. Full stop.

  According to the project manager everything was perfect, installed exactly to spec, and Christian believed him. He was the best plumbing contractor in Las Vegas, but it didn’t matter what he said. The only opinion that mattered was the inspector’s, and clearly the guy Christian was meeting with and his cronies had gotten to the inspector. If he wanted his casino, Christian was going to have to play ball. Even Quentin had finally admitted that.

  Quentin had found Carmine Torino swinging from the rafters of his hideout in a canyon outside Vegas, dead of what looked like a suicide at first. But there were rope marks on his wrists, like he’d been tied up. Quentin was sure it hadn’t been a suicide and that Torino hadn’t been killed by anyone inside the Mafia. Torino was feeding them money. Why would they kill him? The whole thing made no sense.

  Christian glanced down at the brown canvas bag lying at his feet, stuffed full with a million dollars in cash. His personal cash. If everything went haywire, at least he’d be able to prove he hadn’t used investor money to make the payoff. Of course, if everything went haywire, being able to prove that he hadn’t defrauded anyone might be the least of his worries.

  He looked up into the gloomy canopy of wet leaves and let out a long breath. If Vivian Davis could only see him now.

  Through the mist, Christian spied a figure moving purposefully along the edge of the field—alone, as promised. He picked up the bag and headed back into the woods, more protected back here from a camera with a night lens. As the figure came close, Christian called out softly.

  The figure stopped and peered into the gloom.

  “Over here,” Christian called again, recognizing the man as he got close. It was the guy from the transfer station in Vegas. Same face, same smirk.

  “Hello, Mr. Gillette. Got what I want?”

  Christian kicked at the bag lying at his feet. “Right there.” The man bent down to pick it up, but Christian stepped in front of him. “How do I know this is it? How do I know I won’t get another call for another million or more?”

  “You don’t. But if I don’t get the money, you’ll definitely know this: The Dice Casino will never open.” He smiled. “Now, let me have it.”

  Christian stepped aside.

  The man bent down and snatched the straps of the bag. “You’ll get your casino now, Mr. Gillette,” he said, rising again, the heavy bag dangling by his side. “Nice doing business with—”

  A twig snapped no more than twenty feet away, and Christian’s eyes flashed to the right, toward the sound.

  The man holding the bag sprinted away instantly, out into the field and back in the direction he’d come.

  For a moment Christian was paralyzed. He could hear whoever was in the woods crashing away over the dead leaves and still see the guy with the bag tearing across the field. He could catch the guy lugging the bag, no problem. He was fast and the guy was weighed down by the money. But so what? What was that guy going to tell him? Then again, why was he running?

  Christian bolted in the direction the sound had come from, deeper into the woods, straining to hear whoever he was chasing, yelling into the wire for Quentin’s help, trying to give him directions. He lost the sound of footsteps crashing over leaves for a moment and stopped short, holding his breath, almost certain he’d heard someone else’s shallow breathing not far away. Then there were far-off footsteps, faint thuds definitely growing louder. Quentin. Had to be.

  Suddenly, a figure took off from behind a tree only a few feet away, startling Christian. But he recovered quickly, yelling into the wire that they were closing in on whoever had been watching him give up the money. He caught glimpses of the figure through the trees, just flashes of someone dodging the trunks and ducking limbs, changing directions wildly.

  Then another figure darted out from nowhere, knocking his quarry to the ground. Christian was on them in a heartbeat, but Quentin already had the guy under control.

  They pulled him to his feet together and jacked him up against a tree.

  Christian searched the guy quickly and found the camera, then a night lens. He patted Quentin on the back, impressed at his friend’s ability to track in total darkness. “I’ll tell you something. I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  THE MAN slung the bag full of money into the backseat of a car he’d parked in a grove of pine trees a half mile from where he’d met Christian, then slipped behind the steering wheel. He glanced over at his accomplice in the passenger seat as he turned the key and gunned the engine. “You get the pics?”

  “Got ’em, Frank,” the other man confirmed, holding up the camera.

  Tires spun on the wet leaves and the car fishtailed along the muddy lane as Frank jammed the accelerator to the floor. “He did exactly what he was supposed to do.”

  “Right,” the other man agreed. “He went after Carl. It was perfect, I saw everything through my night lens. Soon as you had the bag, Carl made a little noise and, boom, Gillette went right after him. It was beautiful.”

  “It was beautiful,” Frank agreed.

  “What do you think’ll happen to Carl?”

  “What can Gillette do?”
Frank scoffed. “Haul Carl’s ass to the cops and tell them he was taking pictures of a bribe?”

  The other man chuckled. “Ah, no.”

  “Nope, Gillette got Carl’s camera, took the film, let Carl go, and that was that. He’ll go to sleep happy tonight, just like we want him to. He’ll think he’s got his casino license and that there aren’t any pictures of him giving me the million bucks.”

  “He’ll be right about the license.” The other man held up his camera again. “But wrong about no pictures.”

  KOHLER AND MCDONNELL stood at one corner of the lodge in the darkness. Hewitt had called for a ten-minute break in the meeting.

  “I don’t believe Hewitt for a second,” Kohler said quietly, glancing around to see if anybody had come out onto the porch.

  “What about?” McDonnell asked.

  “That he really thinks Wood has no chance of winning the election in November. He doesn’t know any more about that than the rest of us.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Look, he’s connected, sure, but even he doesn’t have a crystal ball. The reason he knows Jesse Wood won’t win in November is because he’s going to have Wood assassinated.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “No, I’m not,” Kohler snapped. “Hewitt’ll kill Wood. It’s not like Hewitt to sit around and do nothing when it comes to something like this. He’s a man of action, a fucking control freak.”

  “But at least he’ll wait until after the general election in November,” McDonnell said quietly, taking a long drag on a cigarette. “Don’t you think? I mean, from Hewitt’s perspective, there’s no reason to kill Wood until he’s sure the guy’s going to the White House, right? If he wins in November, Hewitt still has a few months until Wood’s inaugurated.”

  Kohler watched McDonnell take another puff of his cigarette. He’d always found it ironic that McDonnell smoked. McDonnell was the only member of the Order that did, but he was the CEO of one of the biggest life sciences companies in the world. He ought to know the risks better than any of them.

  “You’re wrong,” Kohler said, checking the porch again. He thought he’d heard a noise. “If Wood wins the election, the security around him will be incredible. Hell, if he wins the Democratic nomination he gets Secret Service. Even Hewitt might not be able to get to him at that point.”

  “What are you proposing?”

  Kohler thought for a moment, then looked directly into McDonnell’s eyes. “We take the fight to him.”

  McDonnell shook his head. “I can’t have my tapes get out.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Damn it, Mace,” McDonnell hissed, “what are you going to do?”

  Suddenly Kohler was resolved. He’d been thinking about this for a while, but now he was fully committed. “I’ll tell you when we get back to Greenwich,” he whispered, turning to go back inside.

  “Hey.” McDonnell caught Kohler by the shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Have you noticed that Patty Roth hasn’t been around? Just Don.”

  Kohler hesitated. He hadn’t noticed, but now that McDonnell mentioned it…He shook his head. God help the woman if she’d pissed off the wrong person on this island.

  “COME IN, COME IN, ” Nigel beckoned, closing his apartment door as Christian moved past him into the living room. It was late, almost one in the morning. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

  Christian had picked up Nigel’s message on his cell phone after he and Quentin made it out of the woods and back to the car. They’d spoken for a few minutes then, but Christian hadn’t wanted to go into the details about what Nigel had found out while they were talking on a cell phone. But he didn’t want to wait long to hear about it either. So after dropping off Quentin, he’d driven straight to Nigel’s Manhattan apartment, not bothering to go back to his place and change first. His clothes were still wet and muddy.

  “I was…um…hell, it doesn’t matter,” Christian said curtly. He was too tired to make up an excuse. “What’s up?”

  Nigel gave Christian another quick up and down. “I did what you wanted. Like I told you, I did that quick trip to Chicago and I got close to one of the assistant controllers at CST,” he explained. “She’s done some digging.” Nigel’s voice dropped. “The news isn’t great.”

  “Tell me.” You couldn’t put your head in the sand. He’d learned that long ago.

  “It’s like the woman at the SEC said. CST’s been overstating revenues. And therefore, income,” Nigel added quietly. “The earnings-per-share figures they’ve been releasing to the public are too high. Way too high.”

  Christian felt his chest cinch. This was it, the nightmare scenario. He tried to stay calm, but it was tough.

  “I’m sorry,” Nigel said, catching Christian’s anger—and disappointment.

  “How did she find out so fast?”

  “She got into the general ledger software somehow, went into her boss’s office late one night and snooped around until she found a couple of passwords or something. Anyway, they worked when she tried them and she saw a subsidiary on the list she’d never heard of before, did some more digging, and figured out it was a total sham. There’s nothing to the sub except about three hundred million dollars a year in completely bogus revenues with no associated expenses. Maybe more; she’s still checking.”

  “So basically income’s overstated by three hundred million.”

  Nigel nodded. “Basically.”

  That hurt. The stock price would dive at least seventy-five percent, maybe more. Maybe to nothing. “How long has the sub been around?”

  “Three years, just like the woman at the SEC said.”

  “How could the accountants miss that?” Christian asked, his blood starting to boil. CST paid their independent auditors almost five million a year. This was ridiculous.

  “She’s looking into that. Apparently, there’s some way she can figure out which one of the accountants’ teams was responsible for what. She’s going to get back to me in the next couple of days.” Nigel hesitated. “Her guess is that this thing involves just a few people. A couple at the company and a couple at the accounting firm.” Nigel patted Christian on the shoulder. “It’ll be clear that you weren’t involved, Chris.”

  Christian glanced past Nigel, out the glass doors leading to his balcony and the lights of Manhattan beyond. This couldn’t be coming at a worse time. More and more he wanted to say yes to Jesse Wood.

  HEWITT STOOD in the office of the lighthouse, two men on either side of him—Wayne and one of Wayne’s deputies. They’d been the ones who’d flown Jim Benson’s body to Naples and made his death look like a mugging turned murder.

  Don Roth sat in a wooden chair in front of them, staring at the ground. The men had taken care of Patty Roth, too, when they’d found her in the upstairs room with the Order’s door open.

  “What happened to Patty?” Roth asked, his voice hoarse, his hands clenched.

  “She’s gone,” Hewitt said simply. He watched Roth’s face fall into his hands. “I warned you, Don, but she wouldn’t stop. She kept trying.”

  Roth sobbed quietly.

  “I told you if it ever happened again…” Hewitt tried another tack. “Look, I’m sorry, I—”

  “Fuck you,” Roth whispered.

  So much for kindness. “I won’t hesitate using what I have, Don,” Hewitt said firmly, quickly out of patience with Roth’s grief. “Everything that happened in Miami.” They knew Roth had secretly worked with one of the most violent drug gangs operating in South Florida. Had proof that Roth provided the gang with warnings about police raids and other forms of protection in return for some serious money. “I won’t hesitate to contact the authorities in South Florida,” Hewitt continued, “and tell them what I know.”

  Roth’s head sank lower.

  “And, Don, if you get to the point where you think you don’t care anymore and you decide you’ll go to somebody and tell them about Champag
ne Island, the police will find out that Patty’s dead. They’ll find her body, and they’ll suspect you right away. And, believe me, they’ll never think for a second that any of us were involved. You can’t fight us, Don. Understand that.”

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me,” Roth said, his voice shaking. “I met with that reporter to find out what he had. I chased his friend up the coast. I keep people here when you want to hide them.”

  “And you better keep doing those things, Don. You understand?”

  Roth hesitated, then nodded, tears streaming down his face. “I’ll never tell anyone what happened to Patty,” he whispered. “I promise.”

  KOHLER’S HEART was in his throat as he moved out of the room on the third floor and into the darkened hallway. He headed quickly for the stairs. Hewitt hadn’t been around, and Kohler was going to take advantage of the opportunity. Still, you never knew who was watching.

  “Hey!”

  Kohler spun around. He’d almost made it to the top of the stairs. He swallowed hard. Samuel Hewitt was moving down the hallway toward him.

  Hewitt stopped a few feet away. “What were you doing in there, Mace?”

  Kohler remained silent, aware that his hands were shaking badly.

  “You better tell me now.”

  “There’s nothing to tell you,” Kohler said, turning and heading for the stairs. “Nothing.”

  14

  “HELLO, CHRISTIAN.”

  “Hello, Jesse.” Their initial greeting was informal, not at all as Christian had expected, but he liked it. He hated pomp and circumstance when it wasn’t necessary. Sometimes even when it was. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  Jesse Wood was taller than he looked on television, almost Christian’s height, and fitter than Christian had imagined. But he recognized that signature smile right away, wide and sincere, full of bright white teeth.