by Steven Gore
Jeffrey tilted his head upward and scrunched up his face. “Let me think.” After a moment, he looked back at Gage. “Nothing except a messenger delivery from a pharmacy.”
“What was that?”
“Oxycontin tablets I gave him.”
“I didn’t see the bottle.”
“I . . . I . . . went into his bedroom and pocketed it after they took him away. He wasn’t gonna need it anymore and I figured I could make a little money on the side.”
Gage had the urge to jam his elbow in Jeffrey’s shoulder again. He now knew how Palmer had ingested the poison and imagined a couple dozen dead drug users scattered around San Francisco.
“You mean you sold them,” Gage said.
“No. I didn’t. Botas called me the night Palmer died. Somehow he guessed I took them. He told me to flush the pills and destroy the bottle.”
“Did you?”
“Flush money down the drain? No way. I just told him I would.”
“Where are they now?”
“I have a little stash of things where I used to stay. A guy down the hall let me use his storage locker in the basement until I find a new place.”
“Did you give any to Palmer?”
Jeffrey’s head snapped toward Gage. “Wait a second . . . you’re not saying I killed him?”
“No. I think poison in the tablets did.”
“Hey man, I didn’t sign up for that.” Jeffrey looked again at the door. “Shit. Then who’s trying to kill me, Palmer’s people or Botas?”
They were one and the same, but it wasn’t something Jeffrey needed to know.
“Botas. You seem to be a link in a chain that needs to be broken.”
Jeffrey leaned away from Gage as if he was afraid of being caught in a crossfire. “I’m starting to think maybe you’re one, too.”
Chapter 81
You’re in the crosshairs.” FBI senior special agent Joe Casey’s voice blasted through the phone at Gage the following morning. Gage imagined him stomping around his Federal Building office. “Because of what happened yesterday.”
“How’d you find out so fast?” Gage was sitting at his desk searching online news reports to see how the shooting at MetroTowers had been reported. He and Jeffrey had been convincing. It had been reported as random shots, just an aggravated malicious mischief, and neither of their names had been mentioned.
“What do you mean, how did I find out so fast?” Casey said. “I was there.”
“Then why’d didn’t you do something?”
“They don’t let me talk in court.”
“In court?”
“Yeah, in court.”
Gage laughed. “I think we’re talking about different crosshairs.”
“Don’t laugh man, Brandon Meyer painted a bull’s-eye on your face yesterday afternoon. Mine, too.”
Gage sat up. “What?”
“OptiCom is claiming you threatened Oscar Mogasci into implicating their executives and you tampered with the recording you made of the call between Mogasci and the OptiCom president. They’ve even got a declaration from the little punk. He says you held him hostage in Zurich until he said the right words.”
“Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“Orders. The head of my office and the chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office ordered me not to talk to you until they debriefed me. And it didn’t end until past midnight.”
“How is OptiCom going to get around the fact that they bought stolen designs?”
“They’re claiming they came up with their own simultaneously with FiberLink.”
“That’s a crock. The material you seized during the search shows it’s not true.”
“That’s the other thing. Meyer’s making sounds like he’s going to suppress the evidence.”
“Let me guess. Based on false statements in the affidavit?”
“Yeah. And get this, that the search warrant was too broad.”
“But he signed the thing.”
“So what. His argument is that once you delete from the affidavit what the defense is claiming is false, what’s left doesn’t justify what he’s now calling a fishing expedition.”
Gage heard Skeeter Hall’s voice in his head: Asshole.
“He’s claiming you lied to him in the affidavit?”
“Not yet,” Casey said. “But he will. And that you lied to him through me.”
“Who’s representing OptiCom?”
“Two lawyers from Kemper Stewart and one from Anston’s firm to give them some extra leverage. Word is Meyer mentored him when he was a new associate twenty years ago and they stayed close after he became a judge.”
“I should’ve guessed. This isn’t about OptiCom.”
“You bet your ass it isn’t. It’s about attacking your credibility in case you want to go to the media about TIMCO. Didn’t anybody from the press call you after the hearing?”
“There were calls from the Chronicle and the New York Times and Bloomberg and a few others. I assumed they just wanted some background on OptiCom. I wasn’t going to call them back anyway.”
Gage heard Casey drop into his chair, then the sound of tapping keys.
“What are you searching for?” Gage asked.
“OptiCom’s share price.” The sound of Casey’s fist slamming his desk reverberated though the phone line. “Son of a bitch. It’s five points higher than where it was the day before we kicked in their door. The value of the OptiCom president’s stock options just went through the roof. It isn’t the wages of sin, it’s the rewards of sin. I’ll bet he made millions.”
“What about FiberLink’s claims?”
“Rumor is that OptiCom is going to buy them out and shut them up—I thought you said those women were straight shooters?”
“They probably had no choice. The cost of civil litigation would’ve wiped them out.”
Gage leaned back in his chair. He imagined OptiCom’s stock chart.
“What are you thinking?” Casey asked.
“Somebody who bought OptiCom stock the day after your search and after it dropped fifty percent, and then sold it this morning would’ve made an astronomical amount of money.”
“You mean if he was certain the case was going to go away?”
“Exactly. Buy low and wait for it to go high—and who’d be in the best position to know that?”
How’d you know it was going to happen, boss?” Alex Z hadn’t bothered knocking. He stood breathless in front the desk holding a file folder. “Mann Trust just gave out another three point three million dollars in loans.”
Gage pointed at a chair. Alex Z dropped into it, then scratched his head.
“There’s just one problem. I’m not sure where the money came from. Just like you thought, the investment arm of Mann Trust bought a couple of million shares of OptiCom the day after the search, right when it hit bottom, but as far as I can tell, they never sold them. The three point two must’ve originated somewhere else.”
The financial flowchart Gage had drawn in his mind fractured.
“That means our theory is wrong and there’s no way to link it to Meyer.”
“Looks that way.” Alex Z withdrew a sheet from his folder, and reached it out toward Gage. “And you’ve got nothing to fight this. It just hit the Internet. It’ll be on all the cable channels in a few minutes.”
Gage took it and read the Reuters headline:
“FBI Agent Under Investigation for Perjury, Relationship with PI Under Scrutiny”
Chapter 82
Tansy Amaro was weeping when she appeared at Gage’s office door, shoulders shuddering, face buried in her hands. He walked around his desk and put his arm around her.
“Is it Moki?” he asked.
She shook her head and pointed at the television next to the corner safe. He walked over to his desk, picked up the remote, and punched the on button. It was already tuned to CNN.
News anchor Warren Jennings stared into the camera.
The screen-in-screen showed a satellite image of Mount Shasta in Northern California.
“As you just heard, Oregon senator Edward Lightfoot’s twin engine Cessna crashed into California’s Mount Shasta at about ten-fifteen this morning, just forty minutes ago.”
The satellite image was replaced by a close-up of the snow-covered crash scene. The word “Live” was pasted across the top of the screen in red letters.
“Mount Shasta is part of the Cascade Range and rises 14,162 feet above sea level. It’s a dormant volcano, having last erupted two hundred years ago.” Jennings pointed at the image. “The specific area of the crash is called Avalanche Gulch at about 8,000 feet—we’re now receiving a feed from a KORE television helicopter above the crash scene. Let’s listen in.”
Gage returned to stand next to Tansy as an urgent female voice emerged from the stuttering roar of the helicopter.
“There’s no way anyone could’ve survived.”
The camera scanned the mountainside.
“Debris is scattered for a half a mile.”
The camera drew back. Antlike figures dressed in yellow and orange parkas picked their way across the snowfield toward the broken fuselage.
“A search and rescue team has just been lowered to the crash site.”
Jennings spoke again.
“On the telephone from Klamath Falls, Oregon, is Republican Congressman Doyle Ludlow. Thank you for speaking to us at this difficult time.”
Jennings didn’t wait for a response.
“Do you know what Senator Lightfoot was doing in Northern California?”
“I can only tell you that during congressional recesses he would return to Oregon and fly major financial supporters around. One of his favorite trips was to follow the Hells Corner Gorge down into California and circle Mount Shasta. It’s a spectacular sight. Sometimes—”
“Sorry to cut you off, Congressman. If you’ll stand by a moment.”
Jennings pressed his fingers to his earbud.
“We’ve just learned from the FAA that Senator Lightfoot filed a flight plan in Klamath Falls for exactly that.”
Jennings looked into the camera as a photograph of the congressman appeared on the screen behind him.
“You were saying, Congressman?”
“Even though Senator Lightfoot’s parents moved from the Klamath Indian Reservation before he was born, he’d often fly into local airports and pick up Native American kids and follow the same route.”
“Do you know whether any children were on this flight?”
“I have no way of knowing. But I do know Senator Lightfoot was a hero to them.”
“For our audience who don’t know Senator Lightfoot’s background, could you give us a thumbnail?”
“He played football at the University of Washington, got an MBA, and then went into real estate. He was elected to the Klamath Falls City Council, then the state assembly and later to the congressional seat I now occupy. He was the first and last Democrat to hold the seat since 1940. He actually encouraged me to run to take his place when he decided to try for the Senate.”
“But you’re a Republican.”
“Edward Lightfoot didn’t believe public service should only be performed by Democrats. After the election, and even though he fought tooth and nail for my opponent, he let me stay with him in his D.C. townhouse until I found a place of my own.”
Ludlow paused, then chuckled.
“Not many people outside of Oregon know this, but the senator’s nickname in the late 1960s was El Camino.”
“El Camino? Like the car?”
“For two years he traveled the country living in the back of his Chevy trying to unite the various Indian tribes into what later developed into the American Indian Movement. He started in the Northwest with the Klamath and Modoc and worked his way south to the Apache and Yaqui, then headed east. When I was a little kid, everybody, even the Indians, wanted to be cowboys when we played cowboys and Indians. By the time he was done, all the kids wanted to be the Indians.” Ludlow chuckled again. “It became damn hard to find a willing cowboy . . . People . . . people who—”
Ludlow’s voice cracked. He caught his breath.
“Sorry . . .”
Ludlow cleared this throat.
“People who didn’t know him will never understand what a gem he was.”
His voice cracked again, now on the verge of tears.
“Man, I’m going to miss that guy . . . I . . . I need to hang up.”
Gage wondered how long it would take before Jennings felt that Lightfoot was dead long enough to talk about the impact on the Supreme Court nominations. Gage’s guess wasn’t off by much. Eleven minutes later, the screen-in-screen showed CNN’s chief Washington correspondent.
“What effect will this have on the nominations, Jane?”
“Absolutely none. You have a Democratic governor who’ll simply replace Senator Lightfoot with another Democrat, maybe even the senator’s wife. She’s very popular in Oregon.”
A tally sheet of expected votes for the nomination appeared on the screen.
Gage’s cell phone rang. It was Alex Z. “Are you watching the news?”
“Tansy just came in.”
“They’ve got it all wrong.”
“Who are they?”
“Jennings and his crew. I know. I checked the Oregon state Web site. The governor of Oregon can’t appoint anyone to fill Lightfoot’s seat.”
“You mean it has to be done by election?”
“Exactly. And there isn’t time between now and the confirmation votes.”
“So the president doesn’t need the vice president’s vote any more to break a tie.”
“And that pulls the nuclear option off the table,” Alex Z said. “The Democrats’ filibuster pitch was wholly based on a kind of separation of powers argument, that the vice president as part of the executive branch shouldn’t be playing a due role in a matter like this. Now they don’t have to—sounds to me like the Democrats should’ve made a different argument.”
“I guess they didn’t know Lightfoot’s plane was going to crash,” Gage said, then felt his hand tighten around his phone, fearing that there were those who did.
Congratulations, Landon,” President Duncan’s voice was cheerful, gloating.
Landon Meyer turned off the sound from the FOX News broadcast in his Manchester, New Hampshire, hotel room and pushed himself to his feet.
“But Mr. President, Ed Lightfoot was—”
“Serves him right. You know what he called me last week?”
“No. I’ve been campaigning.”
“A buffoon. He called me a buffoon.”
Landon felt anger surge. You are a buffoon. “He once called me a fascist on the Senate floor. It’s no reason to celebrate his death.”
Maybe what the public thinks about politicians like me is right, Landon thought.
He felt himself cringe.
Silliness.
Why did I use the word “silliness” in talking to Gage in Iowa? Four dead refinery workers and I called it silliness.
Damn, what Gage must think of me now.
“He sure as hell would’ve celebrated mine,” Duncan said.
“I don’t think so Mr. President.” You son of a bitch. “In fact, I’m sure he wouldn’t have.”
“Doesn’t make a difference. The nomination fight is over. It’s just a matter of counting down the last forty-eight hours.”
Landon sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the now silent cell phone. A wrenching, nightmarish image of Ed Lightfoot’s mangled body invaded his mind: hands that no longer reached out, a face that no longer smiled, a heart now motionless in his chest. Landon tried to fight off the image, but felt himself well up, then his whole body shook with grief, with anger, and with self-reproach.
Silliness.
What kind of devil have I become?
Chapter 83
You sure this isn’t going to make things worse?” Viz was park
ed three blocks from City Hall on the route Brandon Meyer had walked on the night of his scuffle with John Porzolkiewski. “And isn’t this going to turn you into a Charlie Palmer?”
“Charlie Palmer would’ve gone public just with the condom.”
“I don’t know boss, this is pretty close to blackmail.”
“You want to bail out?”
Viz laughed. “No way. Finding that asshole buck naked on top of some hooker will be the highlight of my career.”
Judge Brandon Meyer emerged from the north door of the Federal Building at six-fifteen, jaywalked across the street, turned right up the sidewalk, then headed into the Tenderloin. He’d changed from his suit into a knit shirt and slacks. Out of his robes and in a San Francisco Giants jacket and cap, none of the drug dealers and hookers on the street would recognize him.
“I still don’t get why he’d choose the Tenderloin.” Viz said.
“Think about it. There’s not a person on the street who’s not watching for police surveillance 24–7. They don’t always spot it, but they start yelling when they do. And he sure isn’t going to bump into a fellow member of the Opera Guild or the Yale Club up here at night.”
Gage watched Brandon glance at a middle-aged, dark-skinned woman wearing a grimy overcoat pushing a grocery cart filled with cans and bottles. Brandon turned north on Larkin and fell in behind an obese hooker, his eyes fixated on her thong-cinched butt extending below a silver miniskirt.
“Take her, take her,” Viz pleaded into his cell phone. “I want that picture.”
The cart lady stopped to search the garbage can, then continued up the street.
“What about the one with the grocery cart?” Gage asked.
Viz laughed. “I know for sure she’s not his type.”
Gage started up his truck.
“I’ll swing around and try to get a couple of blocks up the hill above him.”
He skirted Larkin until he got into position, then Viz came on:
“He just turned left on Geary.”
Brandon had disappeared by the time Gage found a place to park on the crowded street. He punched a number into his cell phone as he watched the cart lady slip into a recessed doorway. She answered on the second ring.
