Blood Brothers (33 page)

“Yes.”

“Would it also be fair to say that you know more about Bjornsen Norge’s accounting records than anyone else?”

“Yes, that would also be fair.”

“And yet this massive fraud occurred under your nose and you knew nothing about it until Gunnar Bjornsen asked you to review the company’s records?”

“Well, the company has hundreds of customer accounts and thousands of expense accounts. I am not personally familiar with all of them. Furthermore, many entries are generated from transactions in America, such as when Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals signs a supply contract that covers both it and Bjornsen Norge. We cannot check the accuracy of those entries.”

Siwell paused and raised his eyebrows. “That was a yes-or-no question. It sounds to me like you can’t say no, but you don’t want to say yes. Is that a fair statement?”

Henrik opened his mouth and then shut it. He smiled. “Yes, it is. I am perhaps defensive on this point. I trusted the people I work with, and clearly there is at least one person I should not have trusted. That lapse in judgment cost my company over six million dollars, and it nearly cost my son his life.”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twitched.
Nothing like asking one question too many, is there, Bert?
Siwell shuffled through his notes in search of a question that could resurrect what had looked like a promising cross-examination. After thirty seconds of silence, he looked up and asked, “Are you a certified accountant?”

“No. In Norway, very few accountants are certified. When I first entered the field, virtually none were.”

“Did you ever bother taking the certifying exam?”

“No. I was able to get a job without it.”

“No further questions.”

“Do you have any redirect, Mr. Corbin?” asked the judge.

Ben half rose in his seat. “No, Your Honor.”

Judge Reilly nodded to Henrik. “You are excused, Mr. Haugeland.”

Henrik nodded back to the judge. “Thank you, Your Honor.” He stood and nodded to the jury. Each of the jurors nodded back to him.

Kim walked into Hammerhead’s Club and looked for David and his friends. It was two o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, but the bar was crowded. A number of UCLA students had headed straight for their favorite watering holes once they finished their morning exams. “Born to Be Bad” blared from a giant neon-lit jukebox against one wall, and crowds of students and the occasional disreputable professor stood in groups holding plastic cups of beer and shouting to each other.

David had just finished the second of two big tests and didn’t have any classes until Friday afternoon, so he had asked Kim to come out and celebrate with him and some friends. After pushing her way through the crowd for five minutes, she managed to track him down. He was in a semicircular booth near one end of the bar with a group of six other young Asian men. He was near the middle of the booth, so when he saw her he hopped up onto the table, walked across it—nimbly avoiding his friends’ beers in the process—and jumped down on the floor. He bounded over and enveloped her in a passionate and beery embrace. “How’s the love of my life?”

“Great. So, how did the exam go?”

“Awesome! Totally awesome! I knew every single question.” He led her over to the table. “Hey, guys, this is my girlfriend, Kim Young. Kim, this is David C., Jason, Eric with a
c
, Colin, Erik with a
k
, and David Z. We got started about half an hour ago.”

“Your David is drinking to celebrate,” David C. informed Kim. “The rest of us are drowning our sorrows.”

“A couple more beers and yours’ll be embalmed,” said Colin.

“Lighten up, guys,” said her David, putting his arm around Kim’s shoulder. “It wasn’t that hard. I’m sure we all did fine.”

“Sorry, Dave,” returned Colin, “not all of us remembered to take our genius pills this morning like you.”

Kim felt David’s body stiffen. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

Colin made some response, but Kim didn’t hear it. She felt sick to her stomach and her head started spinning. She turned and ran blindly, her eyes filling with tears. She stumbled toward the exit as fast as she could, ignoring David’s calls and the exclamations of the people she pushed past.

She collided with a wall of muscle and nearly fell down. A large arm steadied her, and a vaguely familiar voice said, “Whoa! Hey, watch where you’re goin’ . . . Kim? Whatsa matter?”

She looked up and found herself staring into the wide blue eyes of Bedford Lavelle, a defensive tackle for the UCLA Bruins. Kim’s sorority had volunteered to help tutor the football players when she was a sophomore, and she had helped Bedford with the basic calculus class he was taking. He was an enormous, slow-speaking man from Sallis, Mississippi. He had asked her out halfway through the semester and had been surprised when she turned him down; girls from her sorority apparently didn’t do that to football players often. He wasn’t bad-looking and she would have said yes, except that she had just started dating David. Also, Bedford had a reputation as a forceful drunk—not necessarily violent, but difficult to refuse.

Before Kim could say anything, David came running up. “What are you doing?” he asked as he reached for her arm. “Come on back. I’ll buy you a drink and you’ll feel better.”

She shrank away from him, unconsciously moving farther into the crook of Bedford’s arm. “No, David! Stay away from me! You’re taking it again!”

“That was just Colin talking out of his butt,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“But I do! I know all about your ‘genius pills.’ I know! And I can tell you’re taking them again!”

“Look, I just—” he began, taking a step toward her and reaching out for her again. Bedford’s left arm curled around her protectively and his right reached out and pushed David squarely in the chest. “She said to stay away from her,” he said firmly.

David stumbled backward and tripped over someone’s foot. He fell, knocking over a small table. A pitcher of beer landed on his head and balanced there for an instant like a comical crown. Bedford laughed, as did several other bar patrons. “David!” Kim cried as she tried unsuccessfully to disentangle herself from Bedford’s arm.

David sprang to his feet and lunged at Bedford, who reached out with his right arm to intercept him again. But David was too quick. He ducked under the football player’s grasp and punched him in the side. Kim, who was now pressed against Bedford’s other side, could feel the shock of the blow through his body. The big man grunted and pushed her away to free both his arms for combat.

The two men squared off in the empty circle that always forms when a bar fight starts, no matter how crowded the club is. It did not have the look of a fight that would last long: Bedford weighed roughly double David’s 160 pounds. He also carried himself in a way that made it clear he had significantly more experience in these situations. After a few seconds of feinting and circling, Bedford used a bull rush to crowd his smaller opponent into a corner by a pool table where he couldn’t escape.

Kim pushed her way through the yelling spectators just in time to see Bedford hit David with a gut punch so powerful that it lifted him several inches off his feet. She screamed, but to her surprise David did not collapse. In fact, he hardly seemed to feel the blow. He punched Bedford twice in the face, his arms moving so fast that the larger man couldn’t react.

Bedford staggered back and Kim yelled, “Run, David!” But David didn’t run. He grabbed a cue from the pool table and swung it like a baseball bat. He hit Bedford on the left side of the head and the cue shattered. Bedford fell to the floor in a disorganized heap.

David jumped on top of the football player, grabbed his shaggy blond hair with both hands, and began pounding his head against the uncarpeted concrete floor with all his might. Bedford did not resist.

Kim screamed again and ran forward, but someone held her back. She turned and saw a burly man wearing a blue Hammerhead’s shirt emblazoned with the word “Security.” A second man with a similar shirt pointed a Taser at David and yelled, “Stop! Get off him!”

David ignored the order and smashed Bedford’s head into the floor again. The bouncer pulled the Taser’s trigger and two small needles attached to thin wires shot into David. He stiffened, let out a guttural shout, and collapsed on the floor next to Bedford.

The man with the Taser walked over to the two inert forms on the floor. He gave the two men a nudge with his toe, but neither moved. He swore, kneeled down between them, and put a finger on each man’s neck. The bar was now quiet, except for the jukebox. After a few seconds, he called out, “No pulse on either of ’em! Call 9-1-1, and someone help me with CPR!”

Ben was in his office preparing Karl’s cross-examination when the call came. Susan had gone home for the day, so it rang directly through to Ben. “Hello. Corbin law offices, Ben Corbin speaking.”

“Hello, Ben, this is Curt Grunwald at the US Attorney’s Office.”

“Oh, good evening, Curt. What can I do for you?”

“We worked together pretty well on that Chechen case, and I’m hoping we can do it again. I understand that you’re representing Karl Bjornsen’s brother in a legal dispute they’re having.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you planning to put Karl on the stand tomorrow as a hostile witness?”

“I am,” Ben replied slowly. He didn’t like the fact that Grunwald was apparently on a first-name basis with Karl. “Why do you ask?”

“Karl is cooperating with us on a very sensitive investigation. We’re concerned that confidential information may come out, either during your cross of him or Bert Siwell’s direct, and that the press might publish some or all of it. That could be very damaging to our investigation.”

“All right. What are you asking me to do?”

Grunwald hesitated for an instant. “Well, we’d like you to not ask him about that shooting and fire in Norway. Also—and I know this is a lot to ask—we’d like you to agree to a stipulation that can be read to your jury that says basically that the parties agree that Karl wasn’t responsible for those crimes.”

Ben sat in openmouthed silence.

“Ben, you there?” asked Grunwald.

“I’m here. What . . . How do you know he isn’t?”

“We and the Norwegians have investigated that incident pretty thoroughly, and we’re convinced that Karl was not behind it.”

“Well, I’m not convinced,” Ben said sharply. “And with all due respect to you and your office, Curt, it will take more than your say-so to change my mind.”

Grunwald chuckled. “I thought that might not satisfy you. I have authority to share some information with you under the same terms and conditions as last time. I’ll e-mail a letter of agreement to you now. Sign it, send it back, and we can talk.”

“Fine.” Ben hung up and checked his e-mail. Nothing yet. His mind whirled as he waited for the letter to come through. Whatever Karl had done to get the USAO to intervene on his behalf, it must have been pretty dramatic. Ben could not imagine what it was, but his mind’s eye could now clearly see a huge sandbag hanging over his head.

An e-mail from Curt Grunwald appeared with the letter. Ben looked it over quickly. It prevented him from using anything he learned from the federal government in
Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals v. Bjornsen
or disclosing it to the press, but that was no surprise and was almost certainly nonnegotiable. He signed it, sent it back, and picked up the phone.

Grunwald answered on the first ring. “Okay, here’s the scoop, in general terms: There’s a guy who Main Justice, the FBI, Interpol, and a bunch of other agencies have had their eye on for the past three or four years. He’s committed all sorts of felonies related to the Internet and electronic crime, particularly when it comes to selling drugs. But we couldn’t do much because he was unextraditable.

“This guy was trying to blackmail Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals into selling him drugs illegally, so he staged the shooting and fire in Norway and threatened to make it look like Karl Bjornsen was responsible. I can’t go into details, but Karl made it possible for us to arrest this guy. He also gave us evidence, which we have since confirmed through other sources, that he—meaning Karl—had nothing to do with what happened in Oslo. We—”