by Steven Gore
“Please. Whatever you are having.”
Matson looked down the bar and spotted tall glasses of Guinness before a young couple sitting at the end, and ordered two pints.
“I’m Alla,” she said. “I saw you here earlier.”
Matson blushed, then glanced away as if checking the bartender’s progress on their order. “I’m Stuart, and I saw you, too.”
“I was so relieved when you walked up.” She smiled. “I thought you were about to tackle that man.”
“Tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what I would do. We have an expression in the States. It’s called playing it-”
“-by ear.”
He drew back and looked over at her. “You know that one?”
“I love language, especially American expressions. Out in left field. The wrong side of the tracks. Between a rock and a hard place.” She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “Let me see…how about, Hey bud, what line are you in?”
Matson didn’t respond.
Alla grinned. “That was a real question.”
“Oh.” He blushed again. “I’m the president of a company in California. London is the base of our international operations.”
The bartender set two pints on cardboard Guinness coasters.
Matson wasn’t sure what to say next, so he escaped into watching the bubbles rise to form a soft, rich head.
Alla pointed at the glass. “Sometimes the bubbles go down.”
Matson shook his head. “They can’t. It’s air.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem. Watch closely.”
She leaned down toward the glass, eyes focused on the body of the beer. Matson’s head followed as if magnetized. He found himself lost in the swirling of her perfume.
“Pick a bubble. A little one.”
Matson focused on one caught on the glass. It broke free and swept downward.
“Son of a gun.” He leaned back and looked at her. “How’d you know?”
“I studied engineering in college in Ukraine. In Dnepropetrovsk.”
“In what?”
“Ne-pro-pe-trovsk. Just say Neper. I’m from a village nearby.”
“You mean a village, village?”
“Yes.” Alla laughed, her eyes twinkling in the candle flame. “A village, village. Thatched roofs, cow in the backyard, chickens trying to sneak into the house.”
“And from there to a college where they let you study beer?”
“It was sort of political.”
“Come on…” Matson said, unable to suppress his incredulity.
“It’s true. Students had so much hope after the collapse of the Soviet Union, only to see gangster capitalism take its place. We all found ways to express the horror we felt. My way was fluid mechanics. The outside world only saw the large bubbles rising in the center. The elites. But that created a vortex that forced nearly all of the small bubbles downward. The middle class became impoverished and the lower class became destitute. And when their standard of living rose, it was paid for with the suppression of the freedom they had earned. My experiment was a metaphor.”
Matson studied her face. “And what kind of bubble are you?”
“One that escaped.”
He raised his glass. She clinked hers lightly against his, then each took a sip.
“Why here?” he asked.
“For Americans, London is merely a charming place to visit. For me, for all Central Europeans, it’s…I don’t know how to capture it in English…I guess you could say that London is our Ellis Island.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how can a village girl afford to live here? This is an expensive town.”
“I saved a little money and I live simply.” She shrugged, and the light went out of her eyes. “Eventually I’ll have to go back to Ukraine. I dread it. It’s suffocating. It’s what we call peregruzhennost. I don’t think there is an English word…Maybe you would say…overburdening. That’s it. Overburdening. Eventually it will break me.”
CHAPTER 14
H ey, Graham. There’s a rumor going around that the attorney general is looking for a new poster boy for corporate crime.” The voice, high-pitched against the low chatter of a busy pressroom, belonged to Kenny Leals, a New York Times reporter, and the only journalist who had Gage’s cell phone number. “The Enrons and Global Crossings and Arthur Andersens just ain’t cutting it anymore. The way I hear it, they’ve decided that it’s time for lawyers to take a hit-and they’re hard on the prowl for a guy to take the first swing at.”
Gage sat forward in his desk chair, but kept his tone casual. “Have they put a name on it?”
“Not yet, but I was shooting the breeze about SatTek with an old-timer at the Chronicle and she said you and Jack Burch were pals, so I figured I’d give you a buzz. Rumor is that he’s somehow connected to the company. But I can’t confirm it.”
Leal let the words linger, as if anticipating an easy confirmation, but Gage wasn’t about to become a second source.
“What do you have so far?” Gage asked.
“For one thing, a memo that went out to the local U.S. Attorney’s Offices a few months ago.” Leals chuckled. “It reads like one of those sales incentive deals. You know, the guy who sells the most refrigerators wins a cruise on the Love Boat. And there’s a lot of buzz in the Justice Department about the SatTek collapse.”
“There are lots of fraud cases around-”
“But this one has resonance, maybe because it’s a defense contractor. In any case, it’s the kind that gets stronger and stronger as the clock ticks down. And trust me, you can hear the tick, tick, tick all around Washington.” Leals hesitated, then said, “How about a call if Burch is the fridge that wins somebody the vacation? I promise the Times will give him a fair shake. I’ve never let you down before.”
“You’ve got to give me something,” Gage demanded of the man on the other end of the line a minute later. “You run the division. You know what’s going on.”
“No can do.” The voice was gravelly from too many cigars over too many years. “I can’t even tell you the name of the Assistant U.S. Attorney who’s handling it. They don’t want any bits of the investigation dribbling out. They want an explosion heard around the world.”
“How about a heads-up if Jack’s a target?”
“And find mine on the block? No way, Graham. No fucking way. If there are any leaks in this case, the attorney general will start dusting off polygraph machines.”
Gage glanced toward a refrigerator-sized safe anchored to the concrete floor in the far corner of his office and filled with documents that could end careers.
“Seems to me you’ve got a short memory,” Gage said. “It wasn’t that long ago that you were riding a log toward a political buzz saw-”
“I know. I still owe you, but this isn’t the time. All the decisions in this case are coming from the top-they’re bypassing the Criminal Division altogether. It’s in the hands of this new Corporate Fraud Task Force. That means the attorney general and the FBI director. I’ve got no say about whether Burch gets indicted.”
The man paused. Gage imagined him gazing out of his Justice Department office window toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
“It’s a new world,” the man finally said. “The public is sick of lawyers skating in these fraud cases, and the White House is listening. Somebody like Burch-I’m not saying Burch-but somebody like him is the perfect guy to hang a noose around. He’s at the top, he’s made a bundle, and he’s an immigrant-the politically correct guy to take the fall for the crooked lawyers behind all of the other scams. He’s the ideal target.” The man chuckled. “Sort of a sacrificial kangaroo.”
“You’re leaving me no choice but to-”
“You helping Burch is like a surgeon operating on his own brother. Not a smart move. Good intentions in the wrong place gets people into trouble. It’s already gonna be a huge indictment and I’d hate to see your name add to it, charged with obstruction. If I was you, I’d fold my
hands in my lap, sit quietly, and wait for the show to start.”
“Look, he’s had a tough-”
“And I feel bad for him, and his wife. But this happened long before he was shot. If he was part of it, he was part of it. If he wasn’t, he wasn’t. You start tearing into this thing yourself, Graham, and you’re the one who’s going to get torn apart.”
CHAPTER 15
W as Fitzhugh a competent guy?” Zink asked Matson as he bent a pizza box and stuffed it into a trash can in the windowless, timeless debriefing room. Zink had learned over the years that pizza to a snitch was like a warm bottle to a baby.
“When I first met him,” Matson said, “I thought he was just a pipsqueak. But I found out real fast that he sure knew his business. Like perfection in motion. A guy like that could make a fortune in the States. Not like Burch, but still a lot of money. Say you want to set up a corporation in California. You know what you have to go through? How much you got to spend on lawyers and accountants? Sure, you could buy one of those do-it-yourself kits. But you know you’re gonna get sued. Everybody gets sued. You think the one-size-fits-all is gonna protect you?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Damn right. So you gotta start with a slick lawyer like Burch. A guy that creates the strategy. And he’s gonna charge a bundle. You know what his hourly rate is? You got any idea? Eight hundred and seventy-five dollars an hour. You know what that is a minute?”
“No.”
“I figured it out. Fourteen dollars and fifty-eight cents. One minute. But you’re not paying for a couple of minutes. You’re paying for hours and hours and hours. Burch’s like a quarterback who calls his own plays and can throw the long bomb. The guy you pay to see. Fitzhugh? He’s more like a small running back that eats up the field, two, three yards at a time. Bang, bang, bang.”
Matson took a last bite of pizza, then leaned back in his chair. His eyes glazed over for a few moments, then he shook his head and blinked hard. “The whole thing was such an adrenaline rush, I sometimes wonder if I really got into it for the money in the first place.
“We flew on a turbo-prop to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The whole thing was right out of a movie. Pin-striped suits and black briefcases; even the women. As we circled over the English Channel to land you could see the coast of France. Like a knife edge.
“The island’s outlying areas were as open and green as fairways, but St. Peter Port was all granite buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. Little wind tunnels. Right in the middle and sitting high up like a fortress was the Old Government House Hotel where we stayed.
“After we checked in, Fitzhugh took me to a firm of solicitors and introduced me to a partner, Charles LaFleur. Looked like Fitzhugh’s twin, but twenty years older.
“LaFleur had three binders lying on his desk. The incorporation papers for companies he’d already set up. Azul Limited in Panama, Blau Anstalt in Liechtenstein, and Cobalt Partners in Guernsey. They were just empty shells waiting to be filled.
“Each one was already staffed with fake directors. They call them nominees. For Cobalt Partners, they were bartenders on Sark, another one of the islands. The nominees don’t make any decisions, they just sign papers that LaFleur puts in front of them. No questions asked. Open bank accounts. Transfer money. They don’t know why they’re signing or who the real owners are.
“It’s all a game of just pretend. But if you don’t play it, you can’t operate out there.
“LaFleur said that for extra insulation-that’s exactly what he called it, insulation-he wanted to put Fitzhugh down as the real owner.
“Right away my antennae went up and locked on. Fitzhugh had said that the offshore world was about trust, and I didn’t know these guys from Adam.
“I realized right then that I needed to control at least part of it myself. I knew it was a risk to have my name on anything, but I told them I wanted Cobalt Partners for my own.
“Fitzhugh jerked back and looked at me like I just put a gun to my head. But we both knew he had no choice but to go along. After all, he’s the one who said I was the pope.
“But from the moment we walked out of there, and as much as I refused to think about it, I knew I was eventually going to get scalded.”
Zink rose from behind the desk and walked to a file cabinet. He returned with a stack of bank account records. He laid them out in front of Matson.
“Whose idea was it to set up the Cobalt bank account at Barclays in London?”
“Mine. I like the city and I was thinking I might want to…” Matson’s face reddened as his voice faded.
“Hook up with a woman there?”
Matson drew back. “How the devil did you know about her?”
“I asked you a yes or no question about whether you met anyone else in London”-Zink smiled-“and you answered with ‘not really.’”
“She was a helluva lot more than just a hookup. She’s the most amazing woman I ever met. I really wanted to get back there to see her again before Granger needed me in the States, but we got stuck overnight in Guernsey because LaFleur had to redo the Cobalt Partners paperwork and get the nominees to sign off.
“Fitzhugh took me to dinner at this little restaurant called The Best End, right on the bay at the northern edge of St. Peter Port.
“After two glasses of wine, I loosen up a little and I put it to Fitzhugh straight: ‘What’s your angle?’
“He just deflected the question back. ‘I assume it’s the same as yours.’
“I pushed a little harder and said, ‘But you don’t look like a guy who’s doing what you’re doing.’
“Then he sat up and took on a tone like he was on the witness stand. ‘I do nothing other than establish and manage companies and bank accounts. I’ve done my due diligence. I have no reason to believe that the underlying SatTek transactions don’t serve legitimate business purposes. And, more importantly, neither does anyone at the Southeastern Fraud Squad or Scotland Yard.’
“I sort of raised my eyebrows and asked, ‘Aren’t you supposed to wink now?’
“Then he smiled his first smile in the two days I’d been with him, and said. ‘You just missed it.’
“‘Did I miss LaFleur’s wink, too?’
“And he deadpanned back, ‘Apparently.’
“That little back-and-forth changed our whole relationship. From then on, we were like partners.
“After dinner, he led me through the center of town past international banks like Barclays, HSBC, and UBS, and past law firms like LaFleur’s that handle the offshore tax-dodging of companies like ExxonMobil and Halliburton.
“But he didn’t do it to impress me or prove to me that I was in good company. It was more like he had turned into my tutor and wanted me to understand how things really worked out there, and why they worked that way.
“He stopped at the front steps when we got back to the Old Government House, and then turned toward me. I could tell that this was what he’d been leading up to. His voice got real intense.
“‘Not a hundred million dollars,’ he said, ‘but a hundred billion dollars have collected on an island the size of a ten pence. And it’s all because people here know how not to ask one too many questions. What you call deniability in the States has been perfected into an art on Guernsey. While American students are taught the Bill of Rights and the Constitution-the fixed law-here they absorb the science of legal relativity. Illegal? Says who? By whose rules? By what right?’
“Then he smiled again. ‘And everyone learns to wink before they can even say mama.’”
CHAPTER 16
I thought your pal in Washington told you to fold your hands and sit patiently on the sidelines,” Hector “Viz” McBride spoke into his two-way outside of Matson’s forested Saratoga home just before daybreak.
Hector McBride was ready to jump on Matson’s tail. McBride was a big man. The biggest man nobody ever saw. Around Gage’s office he was simply referred to as Viz, short for the Invisible Man.
&nbs
p; “He knew that wouldn’t happen,” Gage answered from where he was parked a half mile away.
Viz laughed. “Didn’t we all.”
Alex Z was sitting in the passenger seat next to Gage. He’d come along to talk about the case in a world where, as Viz always told him with a grin, “the rubber meets the road, kid.” Alex Z never knew what he meant, but it always made him nervous.
Gage heard Viz’s engine turn over.
“Time to go to work, boss. Scooby Doo’s just pulling out. He’s in a silver BMW, four-door, 760Li. Heading southeast toward Big Basin.”
Viz reported in five minutes later. “He’s not on his way to his office. Not even toward San Jose. He just turned north on the Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, toward the 85.”
“I’ll swing around.”
Matson indeed took the 85. He drove north until he hit the 280, then the 101 along the bay toward San Francisco.
“He must be going downtown,” Viz said.
Gage and Viz traded places, then followed in silence until Matson approached the financial district.
“Looks like he’s aiming toward Van Ness Avenue,” Gage said.
Matson turned east from Van Ness just after passing the gold-domed City Hall, then swung around the Federal Building and parked in the lot across the street.
“Viz, I don’t want him seeing me yet and I want you out here snapping pictures. I’m sending in Alex Z.”
“What? Me?” Alex Z recoiled toward the passenger window. “You said I could just come along for the ride.”
The man who spent his nights performing onstage before crowds of adoring women was panicking in the wings.
Gage grinned. “It’ll be something you can tell your children about.”
Alex Z shook his head. “Did I tell you I don’t want kids?”
“Too late, hop to it.”
“What do I say if-”
“Say you got busted in an ecstasy case.”
“But I don’t use ecstasy.”
Alex Z’s eyes tracked Gage’s as he scanned his earrings, tattoos, and unkempt hair.
