Power Blind (14 page)

Chapter 34

G
age telephoned San Francisco corporate lawyer Jack Burch as he drove from Socorro Palmer's house. He'd skirted around downtown and the financial district and was working his way toward the Embarcadero. The light rain had heavied and fog wisped along the pavement and grayed the storefronts.

Burch's chewing couldn't disguise his Australian accent.

“Early lunch?” Gage asked.

“Late dinner.”

“Where are you?”

“Moscow. It's nine-thirty.”

“Why didn't you tell me you were going?”

“It was last minute. Got here yesterday.” Burch paused, then laughed. “Maybe it was this morning. It's hard to tell. I'll have to check my calendar.”

“What's—”

“Bloody bullshit is what's up. Why an American microchip manufacturer wants to do a joint venture with a Russian company instead of just thumping them out of existence is beyond me. But that's what they want and that's what I'll give them.”

Burch was the point man for dozens of the Fortune Global 500 not only because he was a brilliant legal strategist, but because he had the personal authority that allowed him to land in the midst of negotiations with enough force to flatten out the kinks even in the most complicated international deals.

“You think you can FedEx me some Alka-Seltzer?”

“Sure. How much?”

“Ten pounds—but enough of my whining like a stuck donkey. You need something?”

“Have you ever heard of a company called Pegasus Limited in the Caymans?”

“Pegasus . . . Pegasus . . . I don't think so. Let me call you back in a couple of minutes.”

Gage's cell phone rang as he drove along the pier-bordered waterfront toward his office.

“I called a colleague who works the corporate governance end of things on Grand Cayman,” Burch said. “Pegasus Limited is a part of the Pegasus Group and handles insurance.”

“Captive?”

“Exactly. Offshore self-insurance, but only for U.S. corporations. Big ones who need coverage beyond the losses allowed by their domestic carriers.”

“Do they have an office there?”

Burch laughed. “According to him, only inside a mailbox. He has no idea who operates it or from where, or even if they're still in business. He said the name hasn't come up for a few years. He'll send someone over to the Company Registry to find out if they're still active.”

Gage disconnected and called Alex Z in the Oakland loft.

“Would you run the name Pegasus Limited in Charlie's accounting records?”

“No problem, boss.”

Gage heard Alex Z's keystrokes in the background.

“Are you sure it's called Pegasus?” Alex Z asked.

“Socorro showed me a Pegasus Limited insurance policy.”

“Sorry. He didn't pay anything to a company called Pegasus Limited. Ever.”

“How about search just on the name Pegasus?”

A few clicks later, Alex Z had the answer.

“Nada.”

Chapter 35

B
oots Marnin was sick of sitting in his Mariner Hotel room in downtown San Francisco. The room service food was lousy. The view toward the cubicled offices in the building across the street was depressing. He'd seen every porn movie on the adult channel a half-dozen times. The highlight of his day was when the Filipina maid came to clean. She was a little chubby, but beggars can't be choosers, and for forty bucks he didn't figure he could expect much.

Walking along Market Street turned his stomach. Dykes, wimpy pale-faced computer nerds, paunchy lawyers, and loonies peeing in the doorways or passed out on bus benches.

The only good news was he got paid for doing nothing, now that he didn't have to try to follow Gage around anymore. He could've told his keepers it was useless, but they had to figure it out on their own, like everything else.

He'd never wanted to get back to Houston so much in his life. He salivated at the thought of sitting in one of those woodsy surf-and-turf restaurants along Galveston Bay, drinking beer and eating oysters, then cruising the bars for a little overnight entertainment.

But that was going to have to wait.

Boots checked the bedside clock. In six hours, he'd posse up with his buddy and drive south through the Central Valley to LA. And about time, too. He didn't believe for a minute the NSA guys down at Evergreen would be able to break into Charlie Palmer's files. He knew all along it would have to be done another way.

Dinosaur, my ass.

B
oots pulled down the ski mask just before the student opened the door to her West Hollywood apartment. Her eyes glazed with sleep. Black hair ruffled and twisted. Hands clasping her robe lapels together over her chest. He clamped his hands over her mouth and against the back of her head before she could scream. He kicked the door closed after his partner raced past him to search the apartment. One bedroom. No roommates.

Boots jammed her down into a kitchen chair as his partner put a gun to her temple. Boots leaned in toward her, her black hair framing a vaguely Hispanic face.

“Don't scream if you want to be alive when we leave.”

She nodded against the pressure of his grip.

He started to remove his hands, then clamped them tight again.

“You understand?”

She nodded again.

He still didn't remove his hands.

“I'm just gonna ask you some questions. Silly questions. They have to do with your dear departed dad. And you're going answer them.”

She nodded again.

“You don't need to know why. Don't even think about why. Just answer them.”

Boots loosened his grip. She took in a breath, eyes locked on the man with the gun.

“You can put it away,” Boots told his partner. “We have an understanding.”

Boots sat down while the other man leaned against the refrigerator. Boots dialed his cell phone, put it on speaker, and set it on the table. A male voice answered on the second ring:

“Go ahead.”

“First,” Boots said, “What is your dog's name?”

“My . . . my . . .”

The young woman choked on the words.

“Relax. I told you they were silly questions. Just answer them and we'll get out of here.”

“You're not going to hurt—”

“Nobody's getting hurt, you or your dog, as long as you answer the questions.”

“Buddy. His name is Buddy.”

The sound of typing emerged from the cell phone speaker, then the male voice said, “Not it.”

“What was your previous dog's name?”

“Pancho.”

More typing. The voice again. “Not it.”

“Where are your mother's parents from?”

“Guadalajara.”

More typing.

“Nope.”

“Your father's parents?”

“Pittsburgh.”

More typing.

“That's not it.”

“And before that . . .”

A
n hour later Boots was still asking questions, running out of ideas. He glanced into the living room. A photo on the bookshelf. The scene was familiar. Emerald Bay.

“Your folks own a cabin at Lake Tahoe?”

“Yes.”

More typing, and then the voice said:

“It's not Tahoe.”

“What's the address?”

“I think it's 10110 Martis Valley Road in Truckee.”

Typing in short bursts.

“Nope. Not on any of them.”

“No, wait. It's 11010 Martis Valley Road.”

More typing: “We got it. We're in.”

Boots disconnected the phone and put it in his pocket. His partner walked to the door. Boots stayed seated.

“Let me tell you what's going to happen. You're going back to bed and pretend this was just a dream. You're not going to tell anyone—ever. You say one damn word and we'll feed your mother and brother to the sharks. Got it?”

The young woman nodded, mouth open.

“The only reason you're still alive—the only reason—is because it's less of a risk than killing you.”

Boots smiled when he noticed a micro economics text on the coffee table.

“Let's just call it a business decision.”

His smile died as he pointed his trigger finger at her forehead.

“Don't make me wish I'd added up the numbers a different way.”

Chapter 36

O
f all the TIMCO corporate jets, Senator Landon Meyer most enjoyed the Gulfstream 550. It wasn't the largest. It wasn't the newest. He just liked the layout. The couches for taking a nap. The facing leather seats for reading or conversing. The hardwood mahogany tables, a bathroom better appointed than the one in his Senate office, and a galley better stocked than his liquor cabinet at home.

Staring out the window as the plane flew west from Washington, D.C., toward Silicon Valley, Landon didn't feel at all guilty about the corporate largesse. He reimbursed TIMCO for the expense, or at least what the Federal Election Commission would accept as the expense. More importantly, he didn't conspire with TIMCO or any other contributor to draft and enact favorable legislation, they simply shared a commonality of worldview that he molded into federal law.

Landon let his gaze travel around the Western-themed cabin interior with photos of the Texas oil fields in the 1920s, horse-drawn wagons, cattle in the distance. Suede fringed throw pillows. Bucking bronco painted dinner plates.

Did he like the TIMCO officers? No, not really. He never liked oilmen and their good-old-boy pretense. But that wasn't a consideration. That he didn't entirely trust TIMCO weighed on him, and for good cause, like the refinery explosion during his first senatorial campaign.

As far as unions and environmental activists were concerned, there was no such thing as an accident. There were only conspiracies.

Even now, Landon still felt sadness, even grief, for the victims and their families—and outrage. Not because of their desire for compensation—how else can a capitalist society measure loss—but because of the class action lawyers and the greedy clients they'd recruited from the neighborhoods surrounding the Richmond refinery. He still couldn't see what the big deal was about residents sheltering in place for a few hours while the smoke cleared. Small sacrifice for the money TIMCO brought into their community. Despite that, they demanded millions of dollars, two thousand dollars a household.

Landon glanced down at the Government Accounting Office analysis of a revision of the federal workers' compensation law to set limits on payouts. It reminded him that the only useful thing that came out of the tragedy was an example and an argument for tort reform.

But what had damaged him was the TIMCO executives' sixty thousand dollars in personal contributions paired in his opponent's commercial with photos of the burning refinery and with demands for better regulation. And it cost him six hundred thousand dollars in television time to buy back the voters' goodwill.

It was a good thing Brandon came up with enough money in the final days to pay for the media blitz vilifying his opponent for her disastrous reversal on the death penalty and for her acceptance of the jihadists' campaign contribution.

Anyway, Brandon had said the explosion really was just an accident, and Landon had no reason to doubt him. Brandon had even given him a copy of the OSHA root cause analysis, and Landon had distributed it to the press.

End of story—except for a lingering dark mood, the kind horror movie watchers carried with them as they left the theater and novel readers felt after closing a book.

And, staring at the TIMCO logo stitched into the leather seat across from him, he knew it would always linger.

B
randon was standing by a Lincoln Town Car parked on the tarmac at the San Jose Jet Center when the Gulfstream rolled to a stop.

My earnest little brother
, Landon thought as he climbed down the stairs.
Always looking so perfectly earnest.

He wondered what Brandon looked like on the bench, and was certain it couldn't be called earnest.

Brandon took two steps forward and shook Landon's hand. The chauffeur had the rear door open by the time they started for the car.

“What's first?” Landon asked as the limousine rolled toward the airport exit and the on-ramp to the freeway heading south.

“The first meeting is at two o'clock down at Conner Micro. The group is calling itself Silicon Valley Executives for Regulatory Reform.”

Landon thought for a moment, then chuckled.

Bewilderment replaced Brandon's earnestness. “What?”

“Who made up that name?”

“I did.”

“Better ask me first in the future. The acronym sounds too much like ‘sever' or even worse, ‘severe.' In either case, it'll invite sarcasm on the cable news shows.”

Brandon squinted into the distance, then asked, “How about just Executives for Regulatory Reform? Like ‘ear,' as in we listen.”

“I think that'll come out ‘err' like in ‘error.' ”

Landon noticed Brandon looking down and shaking his head. “Don't worry, little brother, we'll come up with something.”

Brandon raised his head and smiled.

“Before we descended into acronym hell,” Brandon said, “I was about to say I made reservations at Chez Nous. They'll give us a private room so we can talk a little strategy while we eat. And I'll wait there while you go lean on the contributors.”

Landon looked at his watch.

“I think I'd like to stop and see Janie,” Landon said. “It's been a while since I've been home.”

“How about next time? We'll be cutting it too close.”

“We can talk on the way.”

“But—”

Landon's uncompromising expression cut Brandon short. He punched the intercom. “New plan. 910 Oregon Avenue, San Mateo.”

The driver took the first exit, swung under the freeway, and headed north.

“How's your progress been?” Landon asked.

“Just short of ten million in pledges in the last week.”

Landon's head swung around. “Ten million? How's that possible?”

“I had a lot of chips to play.”

“What? You threaten to put people in the federal penitentiary if they didn't contribute?”

It was Brandon's turn to laugh. “Criminals rarely have any money. Despite all the talk about drug kingpins, dope dealers really don't do all that well. Turns out most of them sleep on their mother's couches.”

“So we're only talking about another five or so in the next three weeks?”

“But it'll be a lot harder. People are tapped out, or are at least having trouble reaching the bottom of their pockets.” Brandon grinned. “Makes me want to give them sort of a political wedgie and bring their pockets up a few inches.”

Landon laughed and shook his head. “People will be shocked to learn Machiavelli has a sense of humor.”

“Let's not tell them.” Brandon pointed at Landon's watch, then bit his lip. “We really don't have time to stop.”

“We'll make time.”

“T
hey've kept up the lawn nicely,” Landon said, getting out of the limousine at the curb. He then pointed along the walkway. “Wasn't there a tree here? A poplar or something?”

“I don't remember,” Brandon said.

“You mean you haven't been here since we came out together last time?”

Brandon shrugged. “You know how it is. There are only so many hours in a day.”

Landon wasn't surprised, but wondered how their parents raised sons with such different attitudes, different feelings, maybe even different loyalties, toward family.

He felt himself well up as he cut across the grass and his heart ached even before he spotted her headstone:
Jane Meyer, Born 1956—Died 1960, Now with God.

Landon stared down the marble slab, remembering the collision.

Or at least thinking he was remembering it.

He'd told the story so many times in speeches over the years, drawing so many different lessons as his political needs shifted, he wasn't sure of the truth—except that a drunk driver had killed his little sister.

Even as a child he'd understood exactly what had been taken from him, from his parents, from their grandparents. From Brandon, he wasn't so sure.

One thing Senator Landon Meyer knew with certainty, and without regret, was that he'd been the first six-year-old in human history who believed in the death penalty.

F
ive minutes later, after a brief prayer, Landon took in a long breath and said:

“Let's go get some money.”