by Stephen Frey
If there was a bad apple in the bunch, it was probably Milton Brand, Lucas thought to himself. Clearly the guy had been briefed about what was going on in the trading unit of the utility.Once a thief always a thief, as Lucas’s grandfather often said. But then there was Sheldon Gray. He was the kind of prick who wouldn’t have thought twice about screwing shareholders to line his own pockets. He had that arrogant air of entitlement about him. A bigE tatooed on his forehead. Of course, Alan Bryson had run one of the most prominent investment banking firms on Wall Street. He would have known about every major deal going on in the worldbefore it was announced to the public. Talk about temptation.
Which was what made this so difficult. It could be any of them, more than one of them, or none of them.
The doorbell rang and Lucas glanced at his watch. Right on time. “Who is it?” he asked into the intercom beside the door.
“Roger Maris.”
“How many home runs did you hit the season you broke the record?”
“Seventy-one,” came the response from outside. Giving Lucas the password he and Bennett had agreed on yesterday. The wrong answer as far as history went, but a number an impostor wouldn’t guess.
Lucas pressed the button on the intercom panel and waited for the knock. Two raps, a beat, three more raps, another beat, and finally two more raps. The way the World Series and the league championships were played if they went the full seven games. Two games in one city, an off day, three games in the opposing team’s city, another off day, then two more games in the original city. Lucas opened the heavy door.
The man on the other side wasn’t what Lucas expected. He was an inch or two shy of six feet, red-haired, and pudgy. The extra pounds obvious beneath his loose, untucked rugby shirt. Lucas had been anticipating a physical specimen. One of those lean, hungry-wolf types who constantly swirled around the president.
“Come in.”
The man breezed past Lucas and sat down on the couch, snatching the television remote off the coffee table and flipping on ESPN.
“Make yourself at home,” Lucas muttered.
“Don’t fall in love with baseball,” the other man advised, ignoring Lucas’s comment. “Or anything else, for that matter.”
“What are you talking about?” Lucas demanded, sitting down in a chair beside the couch.
“I’m talking about Roger Maris and that two-three-two crap. Never show a pattern. People will pick up on that in a heartbeat, kid.”
This guy didn’t look that much older than him. Not old enough to be calling himkid anyway. “Look, I—”
“Where are you from?” the other man asked, racing through channels asSports Center went to commercial. “The West Wing or State? Bennett works with people from State, too. The Bureau and the Company, too, but I say you’re from State.”
“It doesn’t matter where I’m from.”
“Don’t sweat it, kid. No need to be hush-hush. I’ll forget ten times what you’ll ever know about classified work. I may be in the private sector now, but I used to be where you are. I’ve already partnered on a couple of things with Bennett on the profit side, and let me tell you a little secret. He isn’t as tough as he thinks he is.” The other man’s eyes flashed from the television to Lucas. “But he’s still pretty damn tough.” He chuckled as he landed on aCheers rerun. “You ever see this one?” he asked, gesturing at the screen. “It’s the one where the therapist hooks Cliffy up to an electric shock device with a remote clicker. I love it.”
“Hey, I—”
“Call me Cheetah,” the man interrupted. “That’s what I go by. Nothing else, just Cheetah.”
“I know, but I don’t care if—”
“Which means I’m either fast as hell or a con man from Brooklyn,” Cheetah interrupted again, smiling smugly.
“Listen to me,” Lucas said forcefully. “Bennett gave me full authority to run this operation any way I want. I’m in total control of this thing, and right now I’m not seeing you in the picture.”
“No need to threaten me, kid,” Cheetah answered smoothly. “I’m—”
“Which is too bad for you.” It was Lucas’s turn to interrupt. “My budget for this operation is a million bucks. Two hundred fifty thousand of which I’ve reserved for you.” Franklin Bennett had dictated to Lucas what the amount for Cheetah was to be, but Lucas wanted Cheetah to think he was the decision maker.
Cheetah clicked off the television and replaced the remote on the table.“Two hundred and fifty?”
Lucas nodded, spotting the frayed cuffs of the other man’s shirt. A spook’s way of being inconspicuous, or a symptom of a paycheck-to-paycheck life? “Yeah. With the ability to give you more if it makes sense. So let’s be damn clear on who’s in charge here.”
Cheetah nodded. “We’re clear.”
“Good.” It was the first time in his life Lucas had ever been curt with someone he’d just met. The first time he’d ever really been confrontational. A moment he’d been dreading his entire life, and now he had no idea why. It felt great.
“Where’s the money coming from?” Cheetah wanted to know.
“For the next six months, you’ll be an employee of Macarthur and Company.”
Macarthur & Company was a large management consulting firm based in New York. Its CEO and sole owner, Sam Macarthur, was a staunch party loyalist. A man the president had considered bringing into his cabinet. However, the party had turned down that request because Macarthur was more valuable where he was. Able to fund “special projects” through his privately held company without any risk of a link to the West Wing. “Transparent financing” as Bennett had termed it. Macarthur was paying the rent on this apartment.
Cheetah whistled. “This must be some serious shit. I’ve never been paid by Macarthur before. Sam’s one of the party big dogs, you know. Lots of money there.” Cheetah grinned broadly. “Enough to pay me two hundred and fifty grand. That’s all I care about.”
A quarter of a million dollars, Lucas thought to himself disgustedly. For ninety days’ work. And here he was earning $53,000 to take a lot more risk than Cheetah. If some reporter broke the story, Cheetah would slip into the palm tree shadows of a distant Pacific island with his money. Lucas, on the other hand, would face the Washington music: Congressional hearings and a criminal jury, probably doing time for obstruction. The party would try to minimize the sentence from behind the scenes, but there could be no assurances that they could help. Lucas had asked Bennett why the amount for Cheetah was so much, but Bennett wouldn’t say.
“I’ll only need you until early November,” Lucas explained. “But, as I mentioned, you’ll actually be paid out over six months. I don’t want your W-2 matching up exactly with your engagement in case somebody starts nosing around.” This was another of Bennett’s directives.
Cheetah’s eyes narrowed. “So what you’re saying is that you really only need me through the election.”
Lucas could see the wheels turning in the other man’s head. “Let’s talk about the operation,” he suggested.
“Okay.”
“We will be focused on five men,” Lucas began. “The vice president and the secretaries of treasury, state, defense, and energy. From now on, we’ll refer to them as the jewels. Got it?”
Cheetah smiled. “The Beltway Boys.”
“No, thejewels .”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I’ll be scrubbing their pasts looking for anything bad,” Lucas continued. “Anything they might have done that could embarrass the president.”
“White collar crime stuff.”
“Exactly.”
“Ah. Now it all makes sense.”
“What does?”
“Why I’m involved.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my specialties is forensic accounting,” Cheetah explained. “Among other things.”
Now it made sense to Lucas, too. Cheetah wasn’t muscle, he was brains. What Lucas and Bennett needed was right up Cheetah’
s alley.
“Why now?” Cheetah asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why the intense focus on these guys—”
“Thejewels ,” Lucas interrupted.
“Right, right. Thejewels . Why the emphasis now?”
Lucas hesitated. He didn’t want to give away too much, but Cheetah needed to know at least the basics. “In the next few weeks the president will announce a series of initiatives aimed at bringing much stricter regulation and oversight to corporate America and Wall Street. We need to make certain the jewels aren’t carrying around any baggage themselves. Understand?”
“Of course. Because if they are, they undermine the president. So exactly what kind of reforms is the president going to announce? What’s he gonna do to the blue bloods?”
“I can’t tell you at this time.”
“Because if you did, you’d have to kill me, right?” Cheetah snickered.
“Right,” Lucas said, stone-faced. Truth was, Lucas didn’t know what the specifics were. But he didn’t want Cheetah knowing that.
“Lighten up with the spook talk, Lucas. I can play nice for two hundred fifty grand.” Cheetah raised both eyebrows. “Bennett must have a lot of confidence in you.”
“He does.”
“I can see why,” Cheetah said quietly.
Lucas blinked several times, taken off guard by the compliment. He was beginning to like the other man. He had a competent air about him, and he wasn’t sayingkid anymore. Plus he seemed to know his baseball, so he couldn’t be all bad. Of course, he was probably a Yankee fan, and Lucas hated Yankee fans. It was so easy to be one. Not gut-wrenching, like cheering for the Cubs.
“What’s so funny?” Lucas wanted to know, checking the television. Cheetah was chuckling to himself, but the music video didn’t seem funny.
“It just kills me,” Cheetah said, his expression slowly turning serious.
“What does?”
“That you and Bennett have to go through this. Worse, that you’re justified doing so.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, these cabinet guys go through extensive screening before they become secretary of treasury or state or whatever it is the president asks them to be. Including a lie detector test near the end of the process that would intimidate anyone. Lots of scary looking guys standing around in a dim room and a single bare bulb hanging from a cord. It’s called ‘Come to Jesus Hour,’ and it’s right out of Hollywood. But it works, and I know it works because I’ve administered those tests. Another of my specialties,” Cheetah added. “As the interrogator, you’re allowed to ask anything you want, no matter who the subject is. No holds barred. And the subject can’t have a representative present. He’s on his own. It’s the price of admission to the big time.”
“Like what?” Lucas asked, fascinated. “What do you ask?”
“Have you ever bounced a personal or company check? Ever forged an expense reimbursement? Ever traded securities based on what you suspected might have been inside information? Ever covered up materially damaging information as a board member or senior executive in exchange for any kind of consideration? Ever had a homosexual experience? Has your wife or husband ever had a homosexual experience that you know of? Have you ever had an affair? Has your wife or husband ever had an affair with your knowledge or approval? Have you ever even considered raping a woman?”
“Jesus,” Lucas murmured.
“Yeah, it’s pretty extreme. Mental X Games for business bigwigs. I’ve seen some high-profile people reduced to tears in those rooms. People whose names you’d recognize. Pillars of the community who walked into that room full of confidence, and crawled out pleading with us not to tell anyone what we found out.”
“So why are you laughing?”
“Wouldn’t you think the president could trust people who’d made it through all that?”
Lucas had heard about “Come to Jesus Hour” before from people on the Hill, though not in the detail Cheetah had just provided. But that thought had never occurred to him. “Yes,” he replied hesitantly. “I suppose.” He anticipated the other man’s next point. “Of course, if that’s true, why should Bennett go through this? Why should he need to set up this operation?”
“Exactly.”
“What’s the answer?” Lucas asked hesitantly, torn between his curiosity and not wanting Cheetah to realize how much he didn’t know.
Cheetah shrugged. “The answer is that there are some pretty crafty critters out there. People with ice water in their veins who want to be secretary of something so bad they can lie their way through it, and even the most sensitive polygraph machines won’t pick it up.”
“How do they do it?” Lucas asked.
“For that hour, they make themselves believe their own lies. They pop two aspirin, wash ’em down with a Coke and they can tell you anything with a straight face and a steady heart rate. It’s amazing. Something we try to teach our counterintelligence types at the FBI and Langley. It’s the thing the president has to worry about most right now. That his closest friends and business associates, the men he’s asked to help him run the highest levels of government, are serial liars.”
10
The interior of Gavin Smith’s sprawling Upper East Side apartment was a carbon copy of his Long Island mansion—huge rooms, tasteful furniture, expensive decor. And it was twice as big as thehouse Conner had grown up in.
Conner slipped the key Gavin had given him back into his pocket and closed the apartment door. It was eight thirty. Gavin had promised to be here no later than eight, but you never knew with Gavin. He was a “best offer” guy who often accepted what he thought was a better invitation at the last minute.
“Gavin.”
No answer.
“Gavin!”
Still no answer.
Conner headed for the kitchen, humming “Don’t Be Cruel,” his favorite Elvis tune. Humming helped him process information, like all that had happened in the last forty-eight hours.
The intruder saying Liz was ajust pawn. And claiming that he was a federal agent. Truth—or lies designed to throw someone off track?
Amy Richards showing up out of nowhere twice in the last forty-eight hours, maybe three times if that had been her outside Merrill Lynch yesterday. Once might have been coincidence—not twice.
Gavin using investigators to follow Liz, and him. And not identifying Liz as being engaged.
Liz leaving Merrill Lynch two weeks ago under circumstances Ted Davenport wouldn’t discuss.
And no Ginger at all. At least not at Merrill.
But, unlike Todd, Conner was sure Ginger existed. Somewhere, anyway. He’d talked to her on the phone when she called the apartment looking for Liz. Briefly, but he’d heard the voice.
Conner pulled a Heineken from the refrigerator, then rummaged through several drawers, searching for a bottle opener. Stopping short as he was about to close the third drawer. A stack of open envelopes inside had caught his eye.
He put the beer down and removed the stack, placing it on the counter beside the bottle. Bills. He glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen doorway, then picked up the top one and pulled out the folded paper from inside. It was a monthly mortgage statement covering a property in Miami. “How many places do you own?” Conner muttered to himself. Gavin had never mentioned a Florida residence.
Conner spotted the amount. Over ten grand. Must be a big place, he thought to himself, checking the address at the top of the page. He was about to slide the invoice back into the envelope when he noticed that the amount due covered the last four months. So, that was why the amount was so large. Gavin was behind on the loan.
Conner picked up the next envelope. This bill covered the monthly lease on Phenix’s computer equipment, and, once again, Gavin was delinquent. According to the information on the invoice, the bill hadn’t been paid in five months.
It was the same with the rest of the envelopes—past due monthly invoices. In total, over fifty thousa
nd dollars’ worth.
When Conner had been through all of them, he replaced the stack carefully in the drawer, making certain the mortgage invoice for the place in Miami was on top.
He was about to close the drawer, just as a woman wearing nothing but a pinstriped suit jacket breezed into the kitchen. She was brushing at something on the lapel and didn’t see him standing there.
“Hello.”
Rebecca let out a shriek and backed up against a pantry door. As she did, the jacket fell open, giving Conner a quick glimpse. No wonder Paul Stone had been distracted lately. Conner shook his head as he thought about how he’d described Rebecca to Mandy as matronly. Maybe in some parallel universe where shimmering auburn hair and a body out ofPlayboy were things men didn’t want.
“How are you, Rebecca?”
“Conner!”
He grinned. “You know, that jacket looks good on Paul. But it looksgreat on you. You should think about wearing it at the office. Just like that.”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily, pulling the jacket tightly together.
“Listening to the sounds of the jungle. Damn, you two could have sold tickets.” Stone must have brought her back here because he felt it was safer than going to a hotel. Mandy wouldn’t have been able to get past the doorman.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were here?” she asked.
The apartment was so large, they hadn’t heard him call Gavin’s name. “What exactly did you want me to do? Stick my head in the door?”
“Oh, God.” Rebecca put one hand over her face and looked down, her cheeks burning.
“I’m only kidding.”
She looked up. “What?”
“I just walked in.”
“Why you—”
“What’s going on?” Stone snapped, appearing in the kitchen doorway. Shirttail hanging out of his pants, his feet bare.
“I was just telling Rebecca how much I liked this jacket-only look,” Conner explained.
“Go back to the bedroom,” Stone ordered quietly. “I’ll get the wine.”
“Quite a girl,” Conner spoke up when she was gone. “I don’t think I fully appreciated her until just—”
