by Steven Gore
Blanchard stood up and began to pace.
“I can tell you this right off. The technology for these products is hugely expensive to develop. First, because it uses embedded software, burned into the hardware, that allows a device to respond on its own to stimuli in the environment. Very, very sophisticated. And second, because it has to interface with large, complicated systems, and device failures can reverberate throughout with catastrophic results. So there’s no room for error.”
Blanchard realized that he’d begun lecturing and sat down, substituting gesticulating for pacing.
“The applications range far beyond what SatTek was doing. From cell phones to nuclear power plants-”
“And Dr. Blanchard’s garage opening system?”
“Exactly. It may take a couple of days but I can help you out. I suspect that some of the design work was at least partially done by former students of mine. It’s not rocket science.” Blanchard smiled. “Well, actually, it is. In any case, it’ll be fun, and an excellent excuse to avoid the microwave.”
Blanchard led Gage back through the house and down the garden walkway to his car.
“Scary, isn’t it,” Blanchard said.
“What? SatTek?”
“No, the garden. Versailles is the Australian Outback compared to this place. Trust me, I’ve seen both. My wife trims the hedges with a nail clipper.” Blanchard fingered a precisely angled leaf of a Fuji hedge. “At least it keeps her off my back, dear person that she is.”
Gage pointed back at The Fort. “You want to meet up back here after you’ve had a chance to look at everything?”
“No. At my old lab at Cal. The disadvantage of having emeritus after your name is that colleagues treat you like their senile grandfather. The advantage is that they still give you free rein of the place-as long as you don’t run with sharp objects.”
“How soon can you get to it?”
“I’ll start tonight after everyone has gone home.”
CHAPTER 52
I ’m sorry I sounded so panicky on the phone,” Milsberg said, sitting across from Gage at the small table in the Jade Garden Restaurant. “Thanks for coming down. I know you’re under a lot of pressure, but Franklin Braunegg coming by my house last night scared the hell out of me.”
“He’s threatening humiliation so you’ll give up whatever money you have without a fight.”
“It’s not money he wants from me. It’s testimony. In order to really stick it to Burch, he needs someone to corroborate a story that Matson told. Braunegg tried to get me to say that I saw him and Burch huddled together at SatTek a few months into the scam. But I never did. Never saw Burch over there. And that’s what I told him, and that’s when the son of a bitch threatened to bring my kid into it.” Milsberg’s face flushed. “We named our son after me because we thought he’d be proud to carry my name, and now he’s going to have to change it.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Robert. I don’t want you freezing up on me. There are things I need to understand about SatTek and you’re the only one who can explain them.”
Milsberg took in a long breath and exhaled. “Like what?”
“Warrants. That’s the reason I called you. In searching through the backup tapes we found a list of people and companies that received warrants to buy stock.”
“That was another of Matson’s slick little maneuvers. He used to hand out stock options and warrants like candy, but the warrants were the real prize. They gave a select few the right to buy shares at the issue price anytime they wanted, regardless of how high the stock went. That’s how insiders were still able to get it at two bucks a share from SatTek long after it hit five on the public market.”
“Did you get any?”
“Unfortunately.”
“How many?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Did you ever exercise them?”
“Yes. And that’s what I’m most worried about now. Sure as hell makes me look guilty.”
“You are guilty.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s that, too.”
The waitress delivered a plate of pot stickers. Gage slid a couple onto Milsberg’s plate and onto his own.
“Thanks,” Milsberg said. “And thanks for hooking me up with that lawyer. She’s tough.”
Milsberg reached over to a neighboring table and grabbed a small bottle of hot chili oil. He poured a tablespoon on each pot sticker, followed by an equal amount of rice vinegar.
“Cheap thrill?” Gage asked.
“You got that right.”
Gage poured a lesser amount of each on his.
“You told me that Matson claimed he lost a million dollars when the stock collapsed,” Gage said. “But the shareholder list on the backup tape doesn’t show him owning that much stock.”
“I never checked. He must’ve owned and sold a lot over time. He was living way beyond his salary. I assumed it was from selling stock. And his wife was worse than him. She could put anybody into the poorhouse.”
Milsberg popped a pot sticker into his mouth. His eyes teared as he chewed. “Poor guy.”
“You crying for Matson?” Gage asked, smiling.
“No way,” Milsberg gasped, then sipped his tea and wiped his eyes. “Whew! That was a killer.”
Milsberg paused, then took another sip.
“Interesting thing,” Milsberg said, setting down his cup. “I was in Matson’s office one day and I noticed a deed of trust on his house from a foreign lender. Cobalt Partners. But it was never recorded. A million dollars on what I’ve heard is a two-million-dollar house.”
“It’s a money laundering gimmick. He used Cobalt to sell stock offshore and needed to get the profits back into the U.S. He just loaned money to himself.”
Milsberg shook his head. “Man, I sure underestimated that guy.”
“I think everybody did.”
Gage got through a pot sticker without tearing up.
“Can you think of any domestic lenders Matson had dealings with?” Gage asked.
“Just one. He was looking for somebody to buy the SatTek facility and lease it back. It was a short-term gimmick to pump a lot of money into the company. In the end, Goldstake Bank in San Francisco bought it.” Milsberg laughed and set down his chopsticks. “It was crazy. Goldstake Bank had a partner company, Goldstake Securities, that traded a lot of SatTek stock. A whole lot. The difference between the two was a fiction. No…it was a joke. The address was the same, the officers were the same. One day we’d get a call from a guy saying he was with Goldstake Bank and the next day from the same guy calling from Goldstake Securities.”
“But selling the building would require board of directors’ approval. How did Matson get them to go along?”
“Easy.” Milsberg smiled as if he was about to take a bow. “Warrants. He’d been feeding them warrants. They did anything Matson and Granger told them to do because they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing nothing but calling their brokers and saying, ‘Sell.’”
Gage called Courtney as he was driving away.
“How’s Jack doing?”
“Wonderful. Being home made all the difference. His color is good and his cough is almost gone.”
“Would you ask him if he knows anything about Goldstake Bank?”
“Sure. Hold on.”
Gage heard a thunk as Courtney set the phone down, then her receding steps. She picked up the phone a minute later.
“Jack thinks it would be better if you came by.”
Burch was napping in a recliner in the slate-floored sun-room of his house when Gage walked in. He opened his eyes at the sound of Gage introducing himself to the bodyguard sitting by the stone fireplace in the living room, then raised his hand in a low wave.
Gage walked over, pulled an armchair to face him, then sat down. “How’s it feel to be home?”
Burch spread his hands as if to encompass the house. “It’s either a prison…” He cleared his throat while pressing his hands against his chest. �
�Or a fortress. I’m not sure yet.”
On the drive over, Gage had considered asking a few questions, then leaving and thereby postponing Burch’s confrontation with the case Peterson and Braunegg were building around him. But Burch took the decision out of his hands.
“I heard Courtney arguing with someone outside of my door at the hospital,” Burch said. “I finally convinced her to tell me why.” He reached over and picked up a glass of water from a low table, then took a sip. “How’d you get them to withdraw the subpoena?”
Gage shrugged. “Let’s say I appealed to their good consciences.”
Burch offered a weak smile. “Assumes facts not in evidence.” He coughed lightly, then continued. “But it’s time I learned what the facts are.”
Burch’s earnest expression told Gage he was ready to do more than simply answer questions. He wanted to know where he stood.
Gage watched Burch’s mood rise and fall, his eyes widen and narrow, as he listened to Gage describe what he’d done and what he’d learned since the shooting. He told Burch everything except what happened to Mickey. That was something for him to feel responsible for, not Burch.
Burch didn’t interrupt. Thirty years of listening to clients try to explain complex issues had taught him discipline and patience, but he appeared so drawn and drained at the end that Gage feared he’d gone too far and exposed Burch to too much all at once.
But Burch wasn’t thinking about himself. “I had no idea…I didn’t want you to devote your whole life to…”
Gage reached over and patted his forearm. “It’s okay, champ. You’d do the same for me. We both know it.”
“Still…”
Gage stopped him with a wagging forefinger, then changed the subject. “I need to know about Goldstake.”
Burch thought for a moment, as if unwilling to leave something unsaid. Gage pointed at him and smiled. “Goldstake.”
“Okay.” He smiled back, then spoke. “It’s owned by the Moscow Bank of Commerce.” Burch licked his dry lips and swallowed. “Contacted me about five years ago. A referral from the Bank of America, wanting a bank license in the States. It was funded with foreign capital.” Burch glanced toward his bodyguard in the next room, then leaned toward Gage and lowered his voice. “But there was a problem. When I was dealing with the Moscow bank, it was owned by a client who made his money in the natural gas market.” Burch cleared his throat and took another sip of water. “But things changed. When the oligarchs…and that’s what the client was…went to war, the Russian government couldn’t protect the bank so he turned to the maffiya. And I resigned.”
“Who became your client’s roof?”
Burch leaned farther toward Gage. “There were two. One was the Podolskaya Group…and since the client had investments in Ukraine-”
Gage held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. It’s Gravilov.”
Burch sat up, then flinched in pain and pressed his palms against his chest. “Does Peterson know?” Burch’s voice rose. “Is he talking about two indictments? Like I’m some kind of mob lawyer?”
Gage shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure he even knows all the ways Goldstake Bank is connected to SatTek-”
“It’s what?” The color drained from Burch’s face. “That can’t be-”
Gage nodded. “Goldstake Bank now owns the SatTek facility.”
Burch slumped. “And that means Peterson can connect me at both ends, make me look like the one who put this whole thing together. Bigger even than Granger. Just like he’s been trying to do all along.”
“Not yet, but it’s just a matter of time.” Gage looked down and thought for a moment. “Maybe…” Then back up at Burch. “We need to loop back, before SatTek. You know anybody at Granger’s old firm in New York?”
CHAPTER 53
W estbrae Ventures Executive VP Herb Smothers was wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin as he answered the front door of his Westchester County colonial outside New York City the following night. He was still dressed in his suit slacks, starched blue shirt, and red tie. His sandy hair was short and graying at the temples. His face was open and friendly, as if expecting a neighbor-until Gage identified himself and said, “Jack Burch suggested I talk to you.”
Smothers’s Ivy League face slammed shut. He clenched his teeth and locked his eyes on Gage. “And I told Jack I had nothing to say.”
Gage heard the clunk of rubber cleats on the walkway behind him, then a male voice saying, “We sure fucked up those assholes.” Then another male voice laughing and hands slapping. He glanced over his shoulder as two men in their early twenties, wearing mud-splattered blue and yellow striped rugby shirts, emerged from the darkness and into the light cast by the porch fixture. They alerted like Rottweilers to the tension on their father’s face and came to a stop behind Gage.
The larger of the two pointed at Gage’s back. “This guy giving you a problem, Pop?” The two stepped forward, bracketing Gage, their shoulders touching his and their stale beer breath wafting toward him.
Smothers looked back and forth between his sons. Uncertainty clouded his face as he grasped the absurdity of having his drunk sons come to his rescue.
Smothers fixed his eyes on Gage, but spoke to his sons, “I’ll take care of it.”
Gage turned sideways to allow them to pass, then back toward Smothers as they thunked across the marble foyer and toward the kitchen.
“Smart move,” Gage said. “Now tell me about Granger.”
Smothers shook his head. “You wasted the trip.” Smothers’s voice was now firm, as if a businesslike tone could convince Gage to leave with his questions unanswered. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He then tried a limp my-hands-are-tied shrug. “Corporate counsel locked the whole thing down the moment Granger walked away from Westbrae. It was mutual. He doesn’t talk about us. We don’t talk about him.”
“Granger’s dead. It’s not like he can sue anybody. And somebody in Westbrae has got to start showing some courage-and it might as well be you.”
“It’s just…” Smothers’s voice weakened. He leaned forward and peered into the darkness. Fear showed in his eyes. “You don’t understand who Granger was…and the people who he…”
But Gage did understand. “You’re afraid of something worse than getting fired.”
Smothers nodded, then swallowed hard. “I can always get another job-”
“But not another life.”
Smothers flinched at the words, then spread his hands in acknowledgment and defeat. “After what happened to Jack and to Granger, I can’t…”
Gage’s mind flashed on a bouquet that had stood by Burch’s bedside in the hospital.
“I know you want to help Jack. That was the message you were really sending with the flowers.” He looked back over his shoulder and made a show of inspecting the cars parked in the shadows along the street. Then once again at Smothers. “What do you say we step inside? I’ll make my pitch and you decide whether you can help.”
Smothers thought for a moment, studying Gage as if the answer lay with Gage, not within himself.
“The grand jury is already meeting, moving like a locomotive,” Gage said. “And I’m running out of time to derail it.” Gage shrugged. “If Jack gets indicted, it’s all going to be out of my hands. His lawyers are going to hit Westbrae with subpoenas for every piece of paper and e-mail that has anything to do with Granger, and probe into every crooked thing he did and what Westbrae knew about it. They’ll lay Westbrae open like a filleted catfish.”
Gage slowly shook his head, as if in commiseration. “I won’t be able to stop it.” He then tossed Smothers a life-line. “But I don’t need everything, I only want to know about one thing…Just one thing.” Gage locked his eyes on Smothers. “And just between you and me.”
Smothers swallowed. “What’s that?”
Gage pointed into the house. “I think we better talk inside.”
Driving back to the airport an hour later, Gage had what he needed
, but was furious that with the grand jury clock ticking down, he’d consumed eighteen hours getting it.
But it finally made sense why Granger suddenly showed up in California. He had used Kovalenko and Goldstake Securities in a pump and dump with a Midwestern restaurant chain, and Westbrae had buried the crime in money before the SEC could find out about the scam.
The links in the SatTek chain snapped tight as Gage approached the rental car return at JFK. Gravilov had been running the SatTek scam from the beginning: first through Granger, then through Kovalenko, and, finally, through Alla Tarasova-and had been protecting it one dead body at a time.
Gage flashed back on the burglar’s shoulder crushing into him outside Burch’s office, then shuddered at the irony. The burglary had probably saved Burch’s life. If there was anything in the SatTek file suggesting that Burch had connected SatTek to Goldstake, Gravilov would’ve had to finish Burch off.
Gage pulled to the stop in the Hertz return line and reached toward the glove compartment for the rental agreement, but his hand froze as his heart sank. Gravilov’s people had been watching Granger the whole time. And by forcing him to run to the government to make a deal, Gage had flushed him out so they could pick him off.
He looked into his rearview mirror, now chilled by the thought that he might have led Smothers into the same trap-but then caught himself. It was a trap the coward deserved to be in. If Westbrae hadn’t concealed Granger’s crime, there never would’ve been a SatTek scam-and no need for a cover-up that left Burch bullet-ridden and Granger and the Fitzhughs dead.
But at least tonight, for whatever reason, Smothers had done the right thing.
Gage reached for his cell phone. “You have any vacation time?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for Smothers to answer. “Take it, now. And as far away as you can get.”
CHAPTER 54
C an you come to the lab?”
“When?” Gage asked, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. He smiled to himself. The excitement in Blanchard’s voice dissipated the gloom that had enveloped Gage during the sleepless night.
