I soon found out that he liked to have lunch at a food court at the student union on campus, so I rendezvoused with him there. Got in line just behind him, followed him with my tray and sat down right beside him. He had thinning hair and a scraggly goatee. What was left of his hair was held together with a rubber band in a pony-tail. “Hope you don’t mind,” I mumbled.
He looked down his nose at me as if I were a Republican. I put my hand on his arm. “Don’t get up, and don’t look around. I’m taking a desperate chance talking to you like this, so don’t give me away, for Christ’s sake.”
His eyes bulged. He ran his eyes right and left as far as he could without turning his head.
“It’s that big black man with all the hair standing against the wall. Is he looking at us?”
“Yes,” Professor Justin whispered. “He’s staring.”
“Don’t look at him. Eat your meal.” The guy had some kind of kale and quinoa salad in a disposable dish. It looked awful. “Use your fork,” I directed. “We’re just talking normally. Ignore that black man.”
Justin took a bite as directed. As he chewed kale he asked, “Who is he?”
“He’s a hired killer. The Democrats know what you’ve been up to; they’ve hired this guy to pop you. You’ve made some serious enemies in Sacramento and Washington.”
He stared at me. “Who are you? How do you know all this?”
“I’m a friend. They tried to hire me, but I refused.” I shrugged and attacked my salad, which was green spinach with bacon bits, onions, some boiled egg crumbles, and two kinds of peppers. “It’s not that I have any qualms about killing, you understand—sometimes it is necessary—but I refuse to terminate people I agree with politically.”
The asshole’s head bobbed when he heard this. Yeah, man, never do the seekers of wisdom and truth.
I shot Armanti a glance. He was planted right against that wall, glowering at us.
“Professor, you and I both know how the Democrats have enslaved people of color, kept them in poverty and on drugs, just so they could capture their votes on election day. They’re evil.” I made eye contact and looked deep into his brown ones. “Evil,” I whispered.
I sighed and forked some salad. It was actually pretty good, but I had to cut off my interview and get out of there before Justin and I became new best friends.
“They want you dead,” I told him just loud enough for him to hear. “Take precautions. Watch who is around you. Always leave yourself an escape route. Don’t trust anyone.” I patted him on the arm.
“Keep up the good work, and stay alive.”
I rose and walked out, leaving the bulk of my salad on the table. Since I gave him a life-saving tip, maybe Justin Alschwede would bus my lunch when he finished his.
When Jake Grafton’s cell rang, he checked the caller ID. The phone didn’t recognize the caller, but it was a Washington area code, so he answered it.
“Mr. Grafton, this is the president.”
“Yes, sir. I recognize your voice.”
“What have you learned from that Russian, Korjev?”
“Sir, this is an unsecure line. Perhaps I should—”
“Goddamn it, I am tired of sitting in the dark like a damned mushroom waiting for people to feed me shit. What have you learned?”
Grafton was in the safe house boiling two eggs for breakfast, so he turned the stove off and went outside where there would be no curious ears. As he brought the president up to speed on the questioning of Yegan Korjev, he watched the sun peep over the La Sal mountains. The sky was absolutely clear. The day was going to be fantastic.
“Mr. President, I have been using the secure satellite phone to talk to Reem Kiddus, to keep him informed. Hasn’t he been briefing you?”
“He has, but I want it firsthand. And I want to ask the sixty-four dollar question: What do you think?”
“I think the possibilities of political paralysis in America looked irresistible to the boys in the Kremlin. They could see a lot of upside and not much downside.”
“How in hell are we going to save America?”
“We need to get these people who distributed the money talking. I don’t care a fig about prosecutions, or about all the warnings the FBI and cops have to give. We can’t wait two or three years while the wheels of justice grind along. We’re going to get it in their own words, one way or another.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Washington is going critical, becoming a self-sustaining chain reaction,” Vaughn Conyers said. “If this goes on for any length of time, in my judgment, the United States Constitution is going to be torn up. We’re heading for a collapse of representative government. The choice will ultimately boil down to a dictatorship of the right or the left.”
Jake prayed no one was recording this conversation.
“That’s after the civil war,” Conyers continued. “The whole concept of the ‘loyal opposition’ is going up the flue. Both sides hate each other. They are working their way up to wanting the other side dead.”
Jake Grafton made a noise.
Conyers continued, almost thinking aloud. “This morning some columnist said maybe it’s time to tear America down and start all over again. That’s terrible thinking. What he’s really saying is that the Constitution is inadequate. I reject that. The Constitution is a political compromise, and ripping it up isn’t going to fill in the political divide between conservatives and liberals. I didn’t sign up to be the last president of the United States.”
Jake realized that Vaughn Conyers needed someone to talk to. The president continued, “When a nationally syndicated columnist who usually has good sense writes something like that, that will be read all over the United States, Jake, we have big troubles. Now I know how Lincoln felt when the southern states seceded from the union. We’re on the edge of the abyss and no one can see the bottom, but a bunch of people are working themselves up to jumping.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to keep me informed. Call me at any hour of the day or night at this number. Your phone captured it.”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
“If I can’t answer, leave a message. I’ll call you back when I can.” The president hung up.
The gentle breeze smelled of early summer. Jake Grafton took one good whiff and went back into the house. He had to get back to Washington. He got the fire going under the eggs and made several telephone calls to arrange transportation.
When Mac Kelley came in, Grafton said, “I’m leaving. Korjev will be going with me. The Marines will stay.”
They discussed logistics for a moment, then Grafton ate his eggs and went to pack his duffel. Two hours later, Alvie Johnson gave them a ride to the helicopter landing site.
“If you see that Tommy guy again, tell him I said hi.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’m sorry he killed that pilot,” the cowboy said, “but if Tommy hadn’t shot the airplane down he would have burned up the house and everyone in it.”
“That’s true.”
“He’s not going to be in trouble for killing that guy, is he?”
“No. He’s just got to live with it. Anytime you make a life or death judgment, you must live with it. Goes with the territory.”
Alvie just nodded. He, Jake Grafton, and Yegan Korjev sat in the cab of the pickup talking about nothing much until the helicopter came. Alvie carried Grafton’s bag over and shoved it through the door. Korjev carried the stuff he had been given in a pillowcase. After Korjev was aboard, Grafton shook Alvie’s hand and climbed into the thing. The helicopter still had the engines running and the rotor turning.
When the helicopter had disappeared to the northwest in the direction of Capitol Reef, Alvie got his can of Skoal from his hip pocket, put a pinch in his mouth, then got into the pickup and headed back to the barn. He wondered who the other guy was, but he hadn’t asked. He finally understood that it was possible to know too much. He had shit
to shovel, and he was happy with that.
Abraham Goldman was a banker. He had an office on the twenty-first floor of his bank building in downtown San Francisco, on top of one of the hills. Armanti and I were wearing ties with our sports coats when we presented our fake credentials to the receptionist and asked to speak to Mr. Goldman, the CEO and chairman of the board.
I heard her whisper into the phone, “Federal officers, Mr. Goldman.”
We were directed to an elevator that took us straight to the top. A receptionist was waiting to meet us, not sitting behind a desk doing her nails, but standing there waiting when we came strolling out of the elevator door. She showed us in to a corner office with lots of windows and closed the door behind us.
“Took you long enough,” the man behind the desk said. He was in his seventies, with his coat and tie off and his sleeves rolled up. Little guy, wispy white hair. He had three televisions in his office, and they were all on different networks. This guy was a news junkie.
“I called you three days ago,” he said. “What is your problem?”
I glanced at Armanti and found he was looking at me with his eyebrows up.
I took a chair in front of the desk and Armanti sank into the one beside it. I suspected that Goldman thought we were really important people, like FBI agents or bank examiners, maybe IRS agents, someone with some stroke.
“We came as soon as we could, Mr. Goldman,” I said apologetically.
Goldman gestured toward the televisions. “Goddamn country is coming apart. Some senator just advocated tearing up the United States Constitution. On a nationwide television show. Can you believe it?”
“Some people can’t contain their enthusiasm,” I remarked.
“I know that I am partially responsible for this crisis,” Abraham Goldman said, “and I want to take full responsibility for my part in it. I want to confess. I want this off my conscience. I bitterly regret agreeing to have anything to do with this.”
I noticed that Armanti had two of the bugs out and stabbed them into the chairs. He also had his cellphone in his hand, and I thought he was recording the conversation. He held the phone in his lap, below Goldman’s level of vision.
“Who first approached you, Mr. Goldman?”
It took him a moment to collect himself. He licked his lips and began: “Michael Hunt, Anton’s son. About three years or so ago. I don’t remember the exact date. We were at a conference in Jackson Hole.”
“What did he want you to do?”
“Help spread some fake Russian money around to embarrass California politicians. He was quite upfront about it.” And away Mr. Goldman went, telling us everything about the operation.
He talked on and on, getting this mess off his chest, with only a few prompts from me. I hoped Bill Leitz in the van was getting all this on the bugs. Armanti was checking his phone every few minutes. I had no idea how big the memory in that phone was, how much of this he could record.
Goldman was obviously near a nervous breakdown. His hands shook, his lips quivered, he had trouble speaking in complete sentences.
I had my little notebook out and was jotting down some of the more important points. About how Goldman spread hundreds of millions of dollars to every contractor and politician involved with Caltrans, the ill-starred commuter train that was grossly over-budget. He had a list of people and companies he had passed money to, most of them having no idea where the money came from or what it was for. He offered the list and I took it. The total was $463 million. He had even signed the thing. I studied it, folded it, and put it inside my jacket pocket.
His distress was painful to watch. Finally I had had enough.
“Mr. Goldman, let’s take a break here. We are indeed federal officers, but I doubt if we are from the agency you were expecting. Who did you think we work for?”
He stared. Finally he got it out. “FBI.”
“Actually we are from the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. My name is Tommy Carmellini and my colleague is Armanti Hall. We are here because Russian money was involved. We had good reason to believe you helped spread it around, which is why we called on you today.”
He hid his face behind one hand. I watched for a moment, then realized Abraham Goldman was probably weeping.
“You didn’t come to arrest me.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
“We have no powers of arrest. We are trying to determine who the Russians used to pump over two hundred billion in fake money into the American economy and how those people spread it around.” I certainly didn’t know that that much moola had come to America, but I wasn’t ready to split hairs. I gestured toward the televisions on the wall. “You see that the money is causing a crisis that is threatening America.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing who we really are, do you wish to continue your statement?”
“Yes. I want you to record it and get someone to type it up, and I want to sign it. I want this off my chest. America is a great country—oh, hell, it has its problems, but that is called life. My father fought on Guadalcanal and my brother was killed in Vietnam. I wonder what they would have thought if they knew what I did. I’ll take whatever punishment the government feels appropriate.”
“We can do a video,” I said, “with your permission, and go through it from end to end. Would you be agreeable to that?”
“Yes.”
“I can make some phone calls and set it up. Now. But I want you to think this through, Mr. Goldman. You may want to discuss this with your attorney before you do it. From what you’ve told me, it seems that you are open to lawsuits from some of these people or companies you sent money to. I am sure Hunt intended that your name would never come out. Now you are talking about putting it out there for the world to hear.”
“No damned lawyers. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’ll take what’s coming.”
“Before I make the telephone call, Mr. Goldman, I’d like to shake your hand if you are willing.”
I rose and went around the desk and he shook my hand. He had tears glistening on his cheeks. Armanti Hall was right behind me.
I reached Jake Grafton in a plane on his way to Washington. “I thought you were supposed to have your cell phone off on those things.”
“Yeah. What is it, Tommy?”
I told him about Mr. Goldman and my videotape idea. “He’s willing. He wants to confess and liked my idea.”
“I’ll make some arrangements and call you back. Where are you exactly?”
I told him the name of the bank and the address.
“ ’Bye.” And he was gone.
I turned to Mr. Goldman. “That was my boss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jacob L. Grafton.”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“He liked the videotape idea, if you are willing. Maybe we can undo some of the damage that money has caused.”
Grafton called back fifteen minutes later and asked to talk to Mr. Goldman. I could only hear Goldman’s end of it. They were still on the telephone a half hour later when the receptionist knocked, then entered.
“There is a cameraman and reporter here, Mr. Goldman.” He held the phone away from his head and said, “Send them in.”
The banker finished his talk with Grafton while the television people set up lights and a camera. Finally he handed my cellphone back. Grafton was still on the thing.
“Let the TV people do the interview, Tommy, but you can ask questions from off camera. Get the whole story out. They’ll run the thing tonight. Let’s see if we can kill some snakes with the truth.”
“Yes, sir.”
So we did it. I never did get to ask Grafton who he knew at WSFC, and he never mentioned it, but his circle of acquaintances and old shipmates all over the country never ceased to amaze me.
Mr. Goldman went to the little restroom beside his office before we began. When he came out I could see he had washed his face. Then he put on his tie and jacket and seated himself behind his desk. When t
he camera started rolling he started talking.
Every now and then I asked a pointed question from off camera. I made damn sure that Michael Hunt’s name was mentioned three times. Two hours passed before the reporter looked at me with raised eyebrows. Goldman was visibly wilting. I nodded, and the cameraman turned off his equipment and killed the lights.
“Seven o’clock tonight,” the reporter said as she was leaving. She made it a point to shake hands with Mr. Goldman.
I looked at the battery level in my cellphone. A little left. I called Jake Grafton again. He was back in Washington, probably Langley.
“Seven o’clock Pacific on WSFC,” I said. “Two hours’ worth.”
“Good job, Tommy.”
“What do you want me and Armanti to do? We can’t just leave Mr. Goldman. The shit is going to hit the fan when this thing airs.”
“Check out of your hotel and take him to his home. Stay with him. Keep him safe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have some people relieve you tomorrow. Until then, he doesn’t talk to anyone but his immediate family. No FBI, no calls from New York, none of his colleagues at the bank, no reporters, no one.”
“Got it.”
“After it airs, call me and tell me how Mr. Goldman is doing.”
“Wilco.”
“Until then.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jake Grafton came back from Utah to a CIA headquarters in ferment. Monitoring the cell phones and listening devices that Carmellini had planted took dozens of people and large rooms full of equipment. Sarah Houston was in charge of that effort, which looked like organized chaos. They had talked three or four times a day while he was in Utah, but still, there was no substitute for actually seeing what was happening where the rubber met the road.
Grafton had a problem: Someone had leaked the fact that Yegan Korjev was in Utah. The assassination attempt had followed almost as soon as it could be arranged, so the leak had happened early, within hours of the decision being made that the Russian would be interrogated in Utah.
The real question, he thought, was how far the information had spread. Was it a whisper that one of the conspirators had taken for action, or had it been disseminated widely among the people in the know? He suspected he would soon find out. The people in the conspiracy to spread the fake money far and wide obviously intended to rock the American system of government, not just the existing government, but the system, to its foundations. Vladimir Putin had plenty of help. But Putin was in Russia and they were here, with everything staked on the outcome. The conspirators would be ruined if their roles became public. It would soon become war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt, if it wasn’t already.
The Russia Account Page 21
