by Steven Gore
“Boss. I listened to the recording Viz made of Brandon Meyer outside of the Tadich Grill and then did what you said. It looks like money from Landon’s Silicon Valley group just showed up in the Ohio and Massachusetts senators’ campaigns. Each got a million-dollar loan from a San Jose bank called Mann Trust. Three members of the Silicon Valley group are on the board. I’ll e-mail you a list of all of the money I’ve traced.”
Gage stared out his window as the other passengers deplaned, still stunned by the cynical opportunism of Landon Meyer, whose campaign he’d saved from internal sabotage just two years earlier. Gage tasted the bitterness of Brandon’s snide comment about him believing in the purity of the process.
Since candidates couldn’t accept contributions directly from corporations, Landon had deposited the Silicon Valley Group money into Mann Trust, and then the bank used it to secure the loans to the candidates.
Nothing more or less than political money laundering.
Thanks for flying out,” Landon said. “It’s not exactly a short hop from San Francisco to Des Moines, but I didn’t want to talk on the telephone.”
Gage walked across the thin blue carpet in the Super 8 Motel toward the east-facing window with a view of Interstate 35. The afternoon sun gave an orange glow to the aluminum-sided semis grinding their way along the highway.
“I figured you for the Savery Hotel downtown,” Gage said. “Georgian Revival in the prairie.” He turned and scanned the child-sized desk, the winter scene print nailed to the wall, the stain-disguising green, blue, and yellow kaleidoscopic bedspread, and the television bolted to the dresser. He then took in a breath infused with an overdose of air freshener. “A tenth floor suite, not a second floor walkup.”
“This is Iowa. Folks here keep an eye on how you spend the money when you’ve got your hand out.” Landon spread his arms to encompass the room. “Sixty-three dollars a night, including breakfast.”
“Folks?”
Landon smiled.
“Of course. And I even eat at the Flying J Truck Stop.”
“Country fried steak and mashed potatoes?”
“What else?”
“Sounds like the Heartland Inn across the street would have been a better choice.”
“They were booked up. It’s the start of pumpkin season, and everybody in Washington, D.C., who has even the faintest hope of becoming president is out here kissing babies and thumping squash.”
“Just be careful you don’t do it backward.”
“Sometimes I’m so tired I can’t tell the difference.”
Gage glanced back toward the hallway. “Aren’t there supposed to be a bunch of underlings from Washington scurrying in and out of here?”
Landon shook his head. “I’ve got one guy next door, but otherwise I use local people. They’re not as efficient, but they help get the message across.”
“Which is?”
“That I was never a Washington insider who got cash from Jack Abramoff and from the K Street gang leaning on people.”
Gage resisted the urge to reveal what he had just learned from Alex Z. It wasn’t the right moment to talk about money.
“How many times have you flown solo on the Iowa circuit?” Gage asked.
“Altogether? Ten in the last two years. I’m a helluva lot more popular here than I am in California.”
“Especially after the Supreme Court nominations.”
“I better win the presidency.” Landon pointed west. “I don’t think the people of the Golden State are going to elect me again.”
“You’ve got four more years. Voters have short memories.”
Landon shook his head again. “Not this time.” He reached toward the automatic coffeemaker sitting on a tray on top of the dresser. “Want some?”
Gage nodded. Landon poured two cups, then directed Gage to a cloth-covered chair at a table next to the window. Landon sat down across from him.
“What were you going to say yesterday after ‘I think you need to know what Brandon has been up to’?”
“You really think your cell phone is being tapped?”
“Politics is brutal these days and the technology can be bought on the Internet. That’ll change if I become president, but there’s nothing I can do about it now except be careful.”
“Especially about Brandon.”
“Only because he walks a fine line—”
“Between the legal and illegal?”
“No. Between his role as a judge and his role as my closest political adviser.” Landon raised his palm toward Gage. “Don’t give me that look. Abe Fortas was practically part of Lyndon Johnson’s Cabinet. Roosevelt didn’t make a move without checking with Justice Frankfurter. Scalia used to chat up Cheney during their hunting trips.”
“At this point I’m more concerned about Brandon’s role as an attorney.”
“That’s ancient history.”
“Only as ancient as John Porzolkiewski.”
Landon leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe you better tell me how the sentence you began on the phone was going to end.”
“How about I’ll start over with the punch line.”
“Shoot.”
“Marc Anston hired an investigator named Charlie Palmer to pay off the OSHA inspector and a welder at TIMCO to cover up the cause of the explosion.”
“Was Brandon involved?”
“I think so, but I can’t prove it.”
“I wouldn’t be shocked by anything Anston did. He believes in winning, only in winning. But I don’t think he would involve Brandon. He needed Brandon’s coattails to build the firm. Owed him too much.”
“It always struck me that their relationship was upside down,” Gage said. “The younger man bringing business to the older. But I was looking at it from the outside.”
“It was a difference in background and career path and temperament. Anston went from Skull and Bones at Yale to law school and then into the CIA for twenty years. He needed Brandon because he never developed the personality to become a rainmaker on his own.” Landon chuckled. “You know where the Book of Genesis talks about ‘every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’? That’s Anston, the creepiest. But he had a talent for offshore finance. That’s part of what he did in the Agency, setting up surreptitious ways to fund covert actions.”
Landon leaned forward in his chair. “Did you follow the Iran-Contra hearings?”
“Some.”
“You know who set up the Cayman Island account used to funnel private contributions to the Contras?” Landon didn’t wait for an answer. “Anston. By using 501(c)(3) organizations.”
“As though they were charities like the Red Cross?”
Landon smiled. “Fund a war, get a tax break.”
“What about the money from the Iranian arms sales?”
“He did those through Switzerland.” Landon settled back in his chair again. “See? Anston was the perfect guy to set up the offshore TIMCO payoffs. There was absolutely no reason to involve my brother in anything.”
“I think he may have involved Brandon at least in this one. The payoff money for the OSHA inspector and welder came from a Cayman account somehow connected to Brandon.”
“Is that true?”
“Are you asking whether it’s true or whether anyone can prove it?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “There’s no way to force the Cayman lawyer who runs the company to disclose anything. But I’m at least sure Charlie Palmer managed it.”
“For Brandon or Anston?”
“I don’t know that either. Probably both. And I do know that TIMCO wired money to that company. It’s called Pegasus.”
Landon shrugged.
“About a million and a half went in and out of Pegasus to take care of the TIMCO witnesses,” Gage said.
“That looks bad. I received money from TIMCO executives in my first senatorial campaign, but it was—”
“Before th
e explosion. I checked.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you check? You don’t think I was somehow mixed up with what they were doing?”
“It crossed my mind.”
Landon shook off the implication.
“So TIMCO is the reason for the mugging?”
“It wasn’t a mugging.”
“But Brandon said—”
“I’m pretty sure Brandon got into a scuffle with Porzolkiewski and the wallet just fell out of his pocket.”
Landon narrowed his eyes toward Gage.
“So there really is a connection between Brandon and Porzolkiewski? Why did Brandon lie to me about what happened?”
“My guess is there was something in the wallet that would give away the scheme.”
“Do you know what was in there?”
“I’ve seen it all,” Gage said, “but I don’t know what it all means. Some of it’s a little bizarre.”
“Like what?”
“A list of star names and dates that seem to match Cayman Exchange Bank transactions in Palmer’s account.”
“So Brandon has some connection to whatever Anston is doing.”
Gage could hear Landon’s breathing start to accelerate.
“I may have to get ahead of this one. If it’s true Brandon was involved in hiding witnesses and suborning perjury in TIMCO, I’ll probably have to go to the press first and he’ll have to take his chances.”
“Not probably. You’ll have no choice. It’s all going to come out in Porzolkiewski’s trial and it’ll slop over onto you.”
“I know that. But I can survive it. Robert Kennedy survived Ted Kennedy leaving that poor woman in the Chappaquiddick River. George W. Bush survived his brother’s involvement in the savings and loan scandal, Bill Clinton survived Roger’s cocaine conviction, Jimmy Carter survived his brother becoming a lobbyist for Libya.”
“I see you’ve thought about this.”
“With a brother like Brandon, you have to think about every possibility.” Landon paused for a moment, then asked, “How much of this is in the search warrant affidavit?”
“You mean how much is going to come out before trial?”
“To be specific, between now and when the Supreme Court nominations go to the full Senate.”
“Not as much was in the affidavit as I know now.”
“But what you think you know is only what Porzolkiewski believes.”
“I know a lot more than he does. And part of that is in the affidavit, but it’s still sealed.”
Landon rose and interlaced his fingers on the back his neck and paced back and forth between the bed and dresser. He finally stopped and lowered his hands to his waist.
“So that’s how it started.”
“How what started?”
Landon squinted up toward the ceiling. “Who said it?”
“Said what?”
“ ‘Every empire was founded on a great crime.’ ”
“Is that what your presidency is supposed to be, some kind of empire?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’ll tell you what I do understand—”
“TIMCO would have done that whether or not they’d contributed to my campaign. They didn’t do it for me.”
“But you were the beneficiary and I’m sure it was in Brandon’s mind when he set it up.”
Landon flared. “You keep saying Brandon, but your evidence says Anston.”
“Do you really think anything went on in the firm that they didn’t discuss during their lunches at Tadich Grill? My guess is that most of the strategy was hashed out over those crisp white tablecloths.”
“But you can’t prove it.”
“No. I can’t prove it.”
Gage heard a cash register ring in his head. Every empire was founded on a great crime. He remembered Landon’s shrug and silence when he’d mentioned the name of the offshore company.
He stared into Landon’s eyes, and said, “You’ve heard of Pegasus.”
Landon looked away, then back.
“It’s called capitalism. The logical political conclusion in a capitalist society.”
“No, Landon. It’s called fraud.”
Landon glared down at Gage. “You just don’t get it.”
Gage felt a shudder through his body. Landon was wrong. He got it. He got every bit of it and he said it aloud:
“All the money you’re putting into these campaigns is from fake insurance premiums corporations paid into Pegasus.”
“Why do you think they’re fake?”
“None of those companies needed the extra insurance, and Brandon and Anston sure as hell never paid out any claims.”
Landon drew himself up and squared his shoulders.
“First, it’s not Brandon, and second, companies buy insurance year by year, whatever isn’t paid out in claims is profit.”
“Well, has Pegasus ever paid out on an insurance claim?”
“It’s not insurance. It’s international reinsurance. It only pays out once a company exceeds its domestic insurance limits.”
“That’s not an answer. The question was whether Pegasus ever paid anything out.”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s not my company.”
Gage then began to see Pegasus though Anston’s lens: Pegasus was simply a political replica of the CIA front companies Anston set up in the 1970s to fund covert actions—
Except this time it wasn’t the leadership of a foreign country that was at stake. It was all three branches of the U.S. government.
Then more came to him.
“And the millions you put into those campaigns to get the last two votes for the Supreme Court nominees came from Pegasus.”
Landon shrugged. “Sort of.”
“I had thought the money came from the Silicon Valley Group.”
“How did you get that idea?”
“Somebody overheard Brandon talking.”
“They got it wrong. That was just bundling individual hard-money contributions. I put all of it into my political action committee. I’ve got copies of the checks to prove it.”
“But you’ve still got a foreign company at least indirectly contributing to a U.S. election campaign. That’s a violation not only of election laws but the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
“Think again. They weren’t contributions. They were loans that came through Mann Trust.”
“It’s still foreign money.”
“U.S. banks are full of foreign money. You don’t think foreign deposits aren’t going into every bank in the U.S. that’s loaning money to political candidates? Hell, foreigners even own some of those banks.”
“What about money coming from Caribbean islands directly into campaigns?”
Landon shook his head. “It never does. Maybe into 527s and political action committees, even super-PACs, but never into any campaign accounts I’m associated with. That would be a crime. And the money is clean as long as the foreign account is controlled by U.S. citizens.” Landon smiled. “You want to talk to our lawyer?”
“Not if it’s Brandon or Anston.”
“The National Senatorial Campaign lawyer. And we have an opinion letter from Stone & Whitman.”
“I’m sure everyone on your side thinks it’s legal.”
“It’s more than legal. It’s exactly what I said. It’s what you get when you combine free market capitalism with politics.”
Gage shook his head and pointed at Landon. “Remember what happened the last time you took something to its logical conclusion?”
Landon stiffened. “I was just ahead of my time. The immigration issue wasn’t ripe.”
“And I’m not sure this one makes any more sense than that one did. Your political business model is leaving you not with profit but with debt. A whole lot of it.”
“For a while, only for a while. We just consider it an investment.”
“The way my people have added it up, your so-called inves
tment in the form of loans to candidates and 527s is around forty-five million dollars just this year.”
Landon half smiled and looked away. “A drop in the bucket.”
Chapter 71
Landon really did eat at the Flying J.
Gage found a booth while Landon glad-handed his way around the restaurant. He’d ordered for both of them by the time Landon sat down.
“Where’s the menu?”
“You don’t need one,” Gage said. “You already told me what you were having. Chicken fried steak.”
An outstretched hand attached to a plaid-covered arm injected itself into their conversation. Landon shook it, then scooted out of the booth. A skinny, five-foot-two-inch truck driver swept his John Deere cap off his head and offered Landon a toothy smile.
“Just had to shake your hand, Mr. President.”
Landon smiled back. “We’re still over a year away from the election and there’s no guarantee I’ll win. Just call me Landon.”
The driver fidgeted, flustered by the offer. “I’m not sure I can do that, Senator.” He slipped his cap back on. “Sorry I interrupted your conversation, but I just had to tell you how much I support you and them two nominees. I’m tired—” The driver jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the tables of truckers behind him. “We’re all tired of judges makin’ the laws. We elect you-all to make the laws and they’re supposed to follow them.”
“I agree with you . . .”
“Chuck.”
“I agree with you, Chuck. And I’ll do my best to get the nominees confirmed.”
“Thanks a lot, Senator.”
“Landon.”
“Okay.” The driver displayed a bashful smile. “Landon.”
Gage was still shaking his head when Landon slid to a stop on the bench seat.
“How many times do you go through that every day?” Gage asked.
“As many times as I can.”
Landon grabbed a napkin, then slid it under the table to wipe his hands.
“The funny thing is I always thought I was a solid person,” Landon said, “all of one piece. But every hand I shake is attached to someone who wants me to be something else.” He offered a weak smile. “Sometimes I feel like Frankenstein’s monster.” He glanced over at the tables of truckers. “These people don’t have a clue. Courts will always make law. There’s no such thing as strict construction or originalism, that’s why I never use the terms. The Founding Fathers never could’ve anticipated the Internet or stem cell research or nuclear weapons. The Court’s job is to maintain the national character as embodied in the Constitution, but applied to today’s problems, and sometimes that means restoring or even remaking the law when Congress or some lower court goes astray. Precedent and stare decisis can’t mean anything more than that or be any more restrictive than that. Not in the real world. That’s the only way the Court could have gotten to the Citizens United decision. It certainly wasn’t because prior justices were confused about what a person was. The world had changed since the Constitution was written and the Supreme Court—not the Founders—wanted to give corporations the same rights as persons so they could participate in the political process.”
