Oppo

by Tom Rosenstiel

  “Let me make a phone call,” Garner said at last. “But I’m not admitting that I know anything about what you claim happened. I’m just going to find out a couple things.”

  Brooks looked at McGrath, who was having trouble sitting still, and said into the phone, “Don’t take too much time, Jack. I’m not sure how long we can hold Senator Upton back from going to war. But I doubt you have the rest of the day.”

  Forty-Five

  David Traynor’s midnight-blue Gulfstream 650 was waiting for Rena at the private aviation terminal at Reagan National.

  Rena had called Traynor that morning and asked the billionaire candidate to loan him the plane. “We’re trying to clear the way for Wendy Upton to consider your offer,” Rena had said. “To do that, I need an airplane for the day.”

  “You wouldn’t work for me, but you’ll work for her?” Traynor said.

  A year earlier, Traynor had asked Rena and Brooks to scrub his history so that the Democrat might know what would come at him in this campaign. Rena had declined.

  “I just wanted to know what it was like to fly on one of these Gulfstreams,” Rena answered. “I heard yours was really nice. So can I borrow it?”

  He heard Traynor laugh. “Hell, I can’t use it to campaign. The damn thing isn’t big enough. I have to charter—goddamn press in the back, same speech four times a day, everyone pecking at you, trying to pick fights. What a way to choose the leader of the free world. I envy you flying alone today.”

  “Thank you,” Rena said.

  THE FLIGHT TO EAST HAMPTON took forty minutes. The seven-mile drive from there to Wilson Gerard’s estate in Sag Harbor took another fifteen. Rena had called Rebecca Schultz, Gerard’s political adviser, and said she should meet him at the billionaire’s home in two hours. She hadn’t fully agreed until Jack Garner of the Scott campaign called her, too, telling her to hear Rena out. That was part of the deal that McGrath and Brooks had made with the Scott campaign.

  “Simple flanking tactics,” Rena had told Brooks. “Learned the first month at West Point. Distract them from the front by attacking them from the side.”

  Confronting Gerard at his home was attacking his front. Putting pressure on Jeff Scott through his campaign manager was his flank.

  When he had called Schultz this morning, she had protested and demanded answers. Rena had said she would get them all later that day. If she met him at Gerard’s.

  If she refused, his next call would be to the FBI, and he was confident, given his contacts in the Nash administration, that Gerard could expect to be contacted by special agents that afternoon. Schultz claimed she had no idea what Rena was implying. “Then meet me in a couple hours at your boss’s place.”

  The house was hidden down a long, forested road behind a stone wall with electrification lining the top. Rena had no love for the Hamptons, but Sag Harbor, the older part at least, was different, less a beach town and more a bay community, and the narcissistic excess that had consumed Southampton, Bridgehampton, and East Hampton had not set in in quite the same way. But great wealth still made Rena edgy.

  Rebecca Schultz had messaged Rena he’d be admitted at the gate. She met him in the circular gravel drive.

  Wilson Gerard was an eager-to-learn student of many things, among them ornithology. Each of his homes—this one on Long Island, the apartment in Manhattan, the estate in Portola Valley in the hills above Silicon Valley—was named for a different bird. The Long Island estate was called Red Tail, for the hawks that thrived in the marshes lining Long Island Sound.

  The house was circular and massive, a showplace, fifteen thousand square feet, according to Wiley’s quickly assembled file, which Rena had read on the plane. It was backed by marshland, which offered seclusion before you reached the private dock, located between two bays, Little Peconic and Gardiners.

  “Explain yourself to me, Mr. Rena,” Schultz demanded when they met in the driveway.

  Rena and Rebecca Schultz had met only once or twice, but Rena had heard the political strategist had grown haughty over the years as she had become more affluent and powerful. With each new expensive suit, she also had become progressively more blond. Schultz had started as a congressional aide a couple of decades ago and then moved into campaign work, raising money for Republican PACs and later running them. She was a master of attack politics, and her “third-party” ads and documentaries were famous for turning rumors into dark conspiracies so sinister, audiences assumed something terrible must be going on, even if the stories were only half true.

  She called her methods “spectrum messaging.” The concept was one Rena despised: if you argue the worst case, even if you are stretching well beyond what happened, audiences would assume the truth was somewhere on the spectrum of what you had alleged and was pretty bad.

  “Is he inside?” Rena said.

  “First you tell me what you’re up to.”

  She tried to sound puffed up, as if she were holding better cards than she was.

  “I did. On the phone. This is your chance not to be arrested.”

  She shifted her weight and her red-soled Louboutin heels settled in the gravel of the driveway. “If you want to go inside, you talk to me first, Mr. Rena.”

  Rena assumed Garner had already told Schultz as much as she needed to know for now.

  Plus, he didn’t like her.

  Or what she represented in politics.

  “No,” he said, and he headed toward Gerard’s front door.

  She didn’t stop him. Frankly, she couldn’t have run fast enough in those heels to catch him.

  “I can ruin you,” she called to Rena’s back.

  He stopped and turned partway to look back at her.

  “Then do it. But don’t make threats and act like a bully. It’s a sign of weakness.”

  He didn’t quite catch the curse she hurled back, but it sounded pretty nasty.

  The door was unlocked, as Rena had guessed it would be, and he walked in. A butler scuttled toward him. Schultz was running through the gravel to catch up.

  “It’s okay, Glenn,” she told the man.

  Who had butlers in the twenty-first century, was all Rena could think. This really was another world.

  “Where is Wilson?” Schultz asked the butler.

  “In the study.”

  And who the hell had butlers who said the master was waiting for them in the study? It was like a rich man’s fantasy of an old movie. The butler tried to lead Rena into the room. Rena stepped in front of him and said, “I’ll announce myself.” He had seen a few old movies, too.

  Forty-Six

  Gerard stood at an ornately carved desk.

  Rena, whose father was an Italian stone artisan, registered it in his mind without thinking. Walnut. Hand carved. From the Renaissance. The cost would be hard to imagine.

  On the walls, Monet, Picasso, van Gogh. And others Rena couldn’t identify. A room arranged to show not just affluence but unimaginable wealth. Art as power, as ego, as a shrine to self—art distorted.

  Rena moved toward Gerard. The man was pale, and his hair had lost much of its color and was thinned to the point that you could see through to the scalp. His eyes were gray and he wore an expensive suit that hid a slight bulge.

  “I’m sorry, sir. He ran ahead of me,” the butler said. Schultz was in the room now.

  “It’s fine,” Gerard said.

  His gray eyes were lively, the former chess prodigy assessing his opponent, calculating the moves ahead.

  “Let’s sit. We should be civilized,” Gerard said.

  He pointed to a sofa and chairs by a window overlooking a rugged spit of land that spread out to the bay. Rena waited for Gerard to move first, then Schultz, and then he followed. When they were seated, Gerard began.

  “What is it you think you know, young man?”

  Jack Garner had called ahead, warning Gerard and Shultz that Rena knew things and was coming. So Gerard’s question was meant to pin down how much of what Rena was about tel
l them he actually knew and how much he was guessing.

  “We know you threatened Wendy Upton to stay out of the race. We also know you hired Gray Circle to investigate her and to send an operative to get to know her and put her in a position that could be considered compromising.”

  Schultz and Gerard were silent.

  “The woman, Sara Bernier, is also a French national. She’s with my people at the moment, who are getting all the details she can provide. The hiring of foreign nationals to influence an election is a violation of federal law. Gray Circle has only a few American employees, and Bernier was supervised by another French national, François Gui, which makes the violation more clear cut.”

  Rebecca Schultz wanted to say something, but Gerard touched her arm.

  “But that’s not really the issue, is it?” Rena continued. “Along with the threat you made six days ago, you’ve engaged in a conspiracy to commit blackmail, which is a crime under statutory law in the District of Columbia. We have enough in hand to get an arrest warrant for both of you. I don’t know if you recall, but my partner and I have worked fairly closely with the attorney general of the United States and the White House counsel over the past couple of years.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Schultz said. “You might prompt an inquiry with all this. But we deny everything you’re alleging. I’ve never hired any organization called Gray Circle. Nor has Mr. Gerard.”

  Gerard watched.

  “No, Holstein Meyers signed the contract with Gray Circle,” Rena said, referring to the law firm Gerard and Schultz used for most of their PAC’s legal work. “But they’ll own up. Attorneys are forbidden under bar rules from engaging in illegal activities. There will be efforts to disbar them. To save their law licenses, they’ll be obligated to reveal who the client was. Your identity won’t be covered by attorney-client privilege. They’ll admit their guilt, blame you, and apologize. You’re not protected here.”

  Rena paused.

  “We’ve also got Gray Circle for eavesdropping on my house and my employees, and stalking me. We even have photos of Gray Circle’s thugs in the act.”

  This, Rena knew, would be a surprise. They hadn’t shared that fact with Jack Garner, Scott’s campaign man. They were holding it in case Garner didn’t budge. But the prospect of Jeff Scott being connected to setting up Wendy Upton in a honey trap and using it to keep her out of the race had seemed persuasive enough to Garner. The campaign man’s job was to protect his candidate, Scott, not some campaign contributor, Gerard.

  Gerard spoke. “I’m not admitting knowledge of any of these alleged activities, if they did occur or not. But I’m sure everything Ms. Schultz has done has complied with the law. I insist on that in all my companies and charitable work at all times.”

  Rena leaned forward and his voice became low, just above a whisper. “What is it that frightens you, Mr. Gerard? Immigrants? Whites becoming a minority in the United States? The Civil Rights Act? Was it Brown vs. Board of Education? Or is it just people of color in general? Where was it exactly you think the country began to go off course?”

  Gerard didn’t answer.

  “Or is race just a cynical card you play to scare people? Because you think if you have more money, you should have more say.”

  “That is the natural way, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just the old way.”

  Gerard smiled as if Rena were naïve.

  Rebecca Schultz said: “What are you asking for?”

  “Me?” said Rena, straightening in his chair. “If it were me, I’d have both of you walking out of here in handcuffs. The more public, the better. I’d put this all in the hands of the Justice Department. And give it to the press.”

  He turned to Gerard. “Because, you see, I want you out of politics. Your money and your ideas, which are insane. Without your money, your ideas would be laughed at.”

  Wilson’s eyes flared.

  “We deny everything,” Schultz said. “These are lies. You are lying.”

  Gerard held up a hand again. “Please, Rebecca.”

  To Rena he said: “But that’s not what you’re asking for.”

  Rena smiled. “Yes, lucky for you. I’m not calling the shots.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To tell you what we’ve learned. And tell you what’s going to happen.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Senator Upton and Governor Scott’s people have been in contact, and I believe they’ve agreed on one thing. Nothing collected by Gray Circle, or other agents working for you, should ever see the light of day. I think Governor Scott is now persuaded that any connection between his campaign and your PAC and its consulting firm Gray Circle will destroy his candidacy.”

  A smile almost crept onto Gerard’s face. “You are blackmailing me to keep silent.”

  Rena smiled back. “No, you misunderstand me, Mr. Gerard. If it were me, I’d have you prosecuted. Doing a perp walk, handcuffs in front, face uncovered. With TV cameras in your front yard. But I am not going to get my way. I just flew up here to tell you we’d caught you. That’s what I do. I find out things. And then tell the people what we found.” He paused for a breath. “So I’m not demanding anything. It’s the political people you’re in bed with who need your silence.”

  He waited to see if Gerard understood.

  “You see, Mr. Gerard, there are still lines you can’t cross. Ideas that are too extreme. We caught you and now you’re toxic. You’ve become one of those people no one wants to be next to. And your money can’t change that.”

  Gerard stared back.

  “What is it that really bothers you?” Rena added, just because he didn’t like Gerard. “Or is this just anger over your father?”

  Gerard’s eyes widened, finally, in genuine anger.

  “You’re not very good at this,” Rena said.

  Gerard hesitated only for a moment and then said ominously: “We’re still learning. We’ll get better.”

  Rena rose.

  So did Gerard.

  “May I walk you out, Mr. Rena?”

  “No, you may not.”

  Forty-Seven

  Randi Brooks had kept digging.

  While Rena was in New York, something had been gnawing at her: Rena’s suggestion that the attacks at the different campaign rallies might be connected to one another. Was it possible those incidents, which had gotten increasingly violent, might be parts of some orchestrated plan?

  The violence over the last week had hurt Bakke, Pena, Fulwood, and Traynor because the people arrested had claimed to be supporters of their campaigns. Each incident was said to be revenge for an earlier attack on their candidate.

  The only campaign that seemed ready for the violence was Jeff Scott’s. His security personnel had caught the perpetrators before they could disrupt his rally.

  A narrative had swelled in fringe media all week and was spilling into social: that the people supporting Bakke, Pena, Fulwood, and even Traynor were dangerous and crazy. And only Jeff Scott could handle them.

  Rena had said the police weren’t looking for any connection between these people or these incidents. Randi Brooks wondered not only whether there might be one. She wondered now if the connection might be Rebecca Shultz and Wilson Gerard.

  In the footnotes of the Michigan campaign finance disclosure records, Maureen Conner had found confirmation that Wilson Gerard’s PAC had hired Gray Circle. What else might they find in the Michigan financial disclosure records, the strictest in the country?

  There were three different PACs to which Gerard gave dark money that they knew about. All three used Holstein Meyers for their legal work. That was how Conner had found payments to Gray Circle from Gerard’s PAC in the first place.

  Brooks checked Jeff Scott’s last run for governor and filings for his current run for president to see what else might be there. She checked other races where Gerard’s PAC had made contributions.

  She double-checked. And cross-checked. Every campaign
she could think of. And then.

  In a filing for a Michigan Senate race not involving Scott, Brooks found something. One of the Gerard/Shultz PACs had paid money to Holstein Meyers, which in turn had hired a campaign events consulting firm. In a list of people associated with that firm Brooks saw a name she recognized: Joseph E. Filipaldi.

  That was the name of the man arrested in the first fight, at the Maria Pena rally, wearing a Bakke for President T-shirt.

  She carried her laptop into Ellen Wiley’s office. “Might have found something interesting,” she said.

  She put her laptop down on Wiley’s desk and stood over her shoulder so she could show her. She explained what she had been doing.

  “So you remember that in Michigan they ask for a lot more detail on campaign finance records than elsewhere. People have to list not just who the campaign paid, but who the subcontractors were.”

  “Right,” Wiley said. “So?”

  “So look here, under the name Campaign Events LLC, here.”

  “Who or what is Campaign Events LLC?” Wiley asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But remember the name Joseph E. Filipaldi?”

  “Not really.”

  “I remember him,” said a voice in the doorway. It was Rena’s. He had just arrived back from his visit to Sag Harbor and his confrontation with Gerard.

  “Who is Joe Filipaldi?” asked Wiley.

  “Joe Filipaldi was the guy arrested in the altercation at the Maria Pena rally this week. Wearing a Bakke for President T-shirt,” Brooks answered. “The day before the second fight, at the Omar Fulwood rally.”

  “You don’t say?” Wiley said. “So Rebecca Shultz had done business in the past with someone who is disrupting presidential campaign rallies now?”

  “What do you think the odds are that’s a coincidence?” asked Brooks.

  Rena came over to Wiley’s desk to see for himself. Brooks began to form a plan.

  “Ellen,” she said, “you and Arvid find everything you can about Joseph Filipaldi and this firm Campaign Events LLC. Everything you can.”

  It took a few hours to get a sense of it. And they would fill in more in the next few days. But the basics were clear enough. Campaign Events LLC was a firm that specialized in organizing counterprotests and other disruptive political activities. If someone wanted to infiltrate an opposing political organization, or disrupt a protest or stage a counterprotest, Campaign Events LLC would oblige. Joe Filipaldi was an officer of the company. But he appeared to be an even more aggressive character. You could hire him separately, along with another LLC he was associated with, if you wanted a counterprotest to get a little more violent.