Blood Brothers (34 page)

“Why am I only hearing this now?” Ben broke in. “You knew someone had tried to kill my wife and unborn son. You must have known that I was getting ready for trial against the guy who would look like the prime suspect to my client and me. And you wait until
now
to tell me this?”

“I’m sorry we kept you in the dark, but we had to. Here’s the most confidential thing I’m going to tell you: This guy’s customers and suppliers don’t know he’s been arrested. They think someone tried to kill him and that he went into hiding. He ran virtually all of his operations through e-mail and websites, so we’ve been able to pretend to be him. We’re gathering an incredible amount of intelligence right now. If we can keep this going for a few more weeks, we’ll be able to take down dozens of major players. We’ll be able to make a major dent in Internet drug crime.

“We haven’t said anything to you because we need to keep this entire operation secret. If word leaked out prematurely, targets would vanish, start destroying records, and so on. We had to keep information about it on a strictly need-to-know basis. You might have
wanted
to know—and frankly, I wanted to tell you—but you didn’t
need
to know.”

“Actually, I did,” Ben said angrily. “You knew I was getting ready for this trial, right? Didn’t it occur to you that it might come up that two people got shot while they were working on the case, and that a building full of damaging records got burned down?”

“We thought the case was about trade-secret theft and accounting fraud,” replied Grunwald defensively. “We thought you might file a separate battery case against Karl, or seek evidence-spoliation sanctions for the fire, but no, it didn’t occur to us that in the middle of your trial you would suddenly put on a witness who accused Karl of arson and attempted murder.”

“Well, it should have occurred to you!” Ben shot back.

“Well, it didn’t. Look, I’m sorry, Ben. We were prepared to have this call as soon as you raised the issue, but you caught us by surprise. I finished reading the rough transcript of Henrik Haugeland’s testimony ten minutes before I called you.”

“You got the transcript from Bert Siwell, right?”

“Yeah. He called me this afternoon after your trial recessed for the day and told me what happened. He also said that he plans to have Karl testify about what happened, and tell his whole story, unless I can get you to agree to the stipulation I mentioned.”

“Can . . . can he do that?” asked Ben.

“Ordinarily, no. Our agreement with Karl only allows him to disclose what he knows if he is required to do so during a legal proceeding. But because Bert represents the company, he could subpoena Karl and technically require him to testify.”

Ben leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could feel the sandbag crashing down on his head. “So he set us both up.”

Grunwald paused. “Could be.”

“Oh, he did. Brilliant piece of work, too.” Ben sighed. “Okay. Let me see if I have this right. My options are either to agree to a stipulation that will be read to the jury, saying that Karl wasn’t responsible for the Oslo attack, or to have Bert put him on the stand to tell the whole story—in which case your ongoing sting operation probably becomes public.”

“You got it.”

“Not much of a choice, is it?” He grimaced and shook his head. “I’ll talk to Gunnar about it. I understand where you’re coming from, but the ultimate decision is up to my client, of course.”

“Of course. Thanks, Ben.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

C
LOSINGS

David Lee’s parents sat by themselves in the waiting room outside a surgery theater at the UCLA Medical Center. Kim Young had been there, but she was now in another room being interviewed—for a third time—by the police.

The waiting room had a collection of Bibles, Korans, Vedas, and other religious books in a plywood bookshelf, together with a random assortment of former bestsellers donated by charities, former patients, and their families. Cheung and Meiying Lee were not reading, however. Mr. Lee stared stoically out the window at the darkening parking lot outside, his back erect and his hands on his knees. Kim had offered to hang up the coat of his dark navy suit when he and Mrs. Lee arrived three hours ago, but he had declined and still wore it.

Mrs. Lee sat beside him, wearing a dress with a cheery floral print that contrasted jarringly with her pale, slack face. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she held a damp handkerchief in her hands. Her purse was still over her shoulder—a habit developed during her youth in one of Hong Kong’s poorer areas, where putting a purse on a bench when one sat down was an invitation to quick-fingered thieves.

The waiting-room door opened, and a doctor in blue surgical scrubs entered. He looked tired and said nothing as he walked over and sat down in a chair facing the Lees. “I’m very sorry,” he began. Mrs. Lee bent her head and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. “We tried everything we could think of to save David, but we just weren’t able to. You can see him now if you would like.”

Mr. Lee nodded. “I want to see my son,” he said quietly.

“All right, but I want to warn you that there is a large cranial incision. We cut away part of his skull in an emergency operation to relieve pressure on the brain, and . . . the sight may be disturbing.”

“Knowing he is dead is disturbing!” Mr. Lee said with sudden vigor. He stood up, and Mrs. Lee stood with him. “Take me to him.”

The doctor nodded and rose. He led them out of the waiting room and down a long, tiled hallway. The doctor stopped outside the door and said, “I’ll let you be alone with him.”

Mr. Lee turned to him. “Will there be an autopsy?”

“I’m afraid it will be necessary, given the circumstances of his death.”

Mr. Lee nodded mechanically. “Good. I want to know what killed David.” The Lees opened the door and walked in to see what had once been their son.

It was a warm night, and the Corbins sat on their deck eating Indian takeout. Ben had been in a deep funk ever since he got off the phone with Curt Grunwald, so Noelle had decided to cheer him up by getting food from Ben’s favorite restaurant and opening a bottle of a sauvignon blanc he liked. He was still in a dark mood—alternately blaming himself for not having seen Siwell’s trap, and wondering how he was going to salvage his case—but he appreciated what his wife had done and did his best to show it. He tried to push the case out of his mind and talk about their plans for the still-unfinished nursery and dream about what Eric might be when he grew up. Eric, meanwhile, lay in a bassinet beside the table, covered by an anti-insect net. He slept soundly, which of course he did only when his parents were awake. A Beethoven piano concerto played softly from speakers on a chair next to the bassinet. Brutus was busy running around the yard, hunting June bugs.

The epiphany came to Ben as he chewed a bite of tandoori chicken. “They have an agreement,” he announced.

Noelle looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Karl has an agreement with the US Attorney’s Office. If he were just a witness and a good citizen who had helped arrest a criminal, he wouldn’t need an agreement. People only make agreements when each side is getting something.”

“So what do you think Karl is getting?”

“Immunity,” he replied, taking a sip of his wine. “He must be getting immunity for something.”

“The embezzlement, bribery, and so on, right?”

He nodded. “That’s my guess. Whatever it was, he would have had to make a full confession to the USAO as part of the deal. They won’t give immunity unless they know exactly what they’re immunizing. And if it turns out that the facts are worse than the person getting immunity lets on, then the deal is off.”

“So he would have had to be pretty open with them.” Her eyes lit up. “Do you think you can get a copy of the immunity agreement?”

Ben pulled out his cell phone. “No, but I may be able to get something out of Curt Grunwald. I think I’ve still got his cell number from when we were working out a deal for Dr. Ivanovsky.” He paused as he scrolled through the numbers in the phone’s address book. “Yep, here it is.” He pushed the “Call” button.

Grunwald answered on the third ring. “Hello.”

“Hi, Curt. It’s Ben Corbin. Sorry to bother you at home.”

“That’s fine. Do you have an answer from your client yet?”

“I’m still working on that. I’ve got a few follow-up questions for you.”

“Fire away.”

“Okay, you said that the government and Karl have an agreement. Does that agreement give Karl or Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals immunity for anything?”

Grunwald didn’t answer immediately. “We normally don’t disclose the details of witness agreements, particularly when they relate to an ongoing confidential investigation.”

“But witnesses normally don’t use loopholes in those agreements to force you to do favors for them in civil lawsuits, do they?” Ben countered.

“No, they don’t,” agreed Grunwald. “I’ll tell you what; if your client is willing to agree to the stip you and I talked about, I’ll tell you whether we gave Karl immunity for anything.”

“And what he got immunity for?”

“All right, fine. I’ll also tell you in broad strokes what the immunity covers—assuming any immunity grant exists.”

“Deal. I’ll talk to Gunnar and call you back.”

Gunnar agreed readily, and fifteen minutes later Ben was on the phone with Curt Grunwald again.

“All right,” Grunwald said, “I’m going to trust that you’ll be reasonable when we negotiate the stip language with Bert Siwell. You’re right in guessing that Karl is receiving immunity for his cooperation. So is Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals. Specifically, they’re getting immunity for any crimes arising out of the sale of controlled substances to a certain dealer in illegal drugs, the failure to report income from those sales on their tax returns, embezzlement of the sale proceeds, and use of the sale proceeds for bribery.”

Ben whistled. “That’s quite a list. I hadn’t thought of the tax-evasion angle, and I didn’t know about the drug dealing, but the rest of it is pretty much what I expected. It sounds like he’d need immunity from more people than just the feds. Are the state and the Norwegians part of the deal?”

“I can confirm that this is a multijurisdiction agreement.”

“And can you confirm that the ‘certain dealer’ you mentioned is named Cleverlad?”

Grunwald was silent for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

“Because there were some odd accounting entries about them in Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals’ books. I crossed Karl about them at the preliminary-injunction hearing.”

“I need to start monitoring your case more closely. I can’t answer your question, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tie the cooperation agreement too closely to Cleverlad.”

“I . . . Well, that may be hard. But I’ll do what I can. By the way, do you plan to tell Bert Siwell about our conversation tonight?”

“Not unless he asks,” Grunwald said drily. “He seems to like surprises.”

Ben laughed. “Yes, he does, though I’m not sure he’s as keen on getting them as he is on giving them.”

“I’ll call you first thing tomorrow morning to hammer out the wording of the stip,” Grunwald said.

“Sounds good. I’ll be in my office at eight and I’ll be heading to court at nine fifteen.” He clicked off his phone and gave Noelle his first unforced smile of the evening. Then he lifted his glass and said, “To Curt Grunwald!”

At ten fifteen in the morning, half an hour after the regular start time, the jurors filed into the jury box and sat down in their accustomed seats. Judge Reilly cleared his throat. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sorry that we kept you waiting today. This morning we have a little something to take care of before you hear from the next witness. Shortly before you came in, the lawyers informed me that they had reached an agreement on a statement that they thought should be read to you. I needed to talk to them about it for a few minutes to find out what they wanted read and why. I’ve decided that you should hear their agreed statement, which is technically called a stipulation.”

The judge picked up a sheet of paper and read, “Plaintiff and counter-defendant Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, counter-defendant Karl Bjornsen, and defendant and counter-plaintiff Gunnar Bjornsen stipulate to the following fact: Law-enforcement authorities have concluded that Karl Bjornsen and Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals were not directly or indirectly responsible for the fire that occurred at Bjornsen Norge AS on July twenty-third of this year. They also were not responsible for the shooting of Noelle Corbin and Einar Haugeland that took place on that same day. You should disregard any evidence that may have implied the contrary.” The jurors looked surprised, and Ben saw several of them scribbling in their notebooks.

The judge put down the stipulation and turned to Ben. “All right. Mr. Corbin, are you ready to call your next witness?”

Ben stood. “Yes, Your Honor. We call Karl Bjornsen.”

The bailiff swore Karl in and he took the stand. As at the preliminary-injunction hearing, he was well dressed and exuded poise and confidence. “Good morning, Mr. Bjornsen,” began Ben. “You are the president and CEO of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, correct?”

“Yes. I’m also chairman of the board of directors.”

“Thank you. That was going to be my next question. You are the ultimate decision-maker at Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, right?”

“I answer to our directors, and ultimately to our shareholders, but certainly that’s true on a day-to-day basis.”

“Would it be fair to say that no major decision is made at the company without your input?”

“That would depend on exactly what you’re calling a ‘major decision,’ but in principle that’s accurate.”

“Your Honor, could we have a sidebar conference?” asked Ben.

Judge Reilly looked surprised, but he motioned Ben and Siwell up to the bench on the side opposite the jury. He leaned over and whispered, “Okay, what is it?”

“I’m about to start on a line of questioning that Mr. Siwell may object to,” Ben replied, “so I thought I’d get an advance ruling rather than have my questions interrupted.”

“All right,” said the judge. “What do you want to ask about?”

“Mr. Bjornsen has an immunity deal with the feds and other authorities. I want to ask him about what crimes are covered by that immunity grant.”

“That is totally inappropriate!” exploded Siwell in a voice loud enough that several jurors reacted. “The whole purpose of the stipulation this morning was to prevent my client from having to talk about his cooperation with the US Attorney’s Office and other authorities.”

“I don’t plan to ask about his cooperation with the authorities,” countered Ben. “I plan to ask about
their
cooperation with
him
. In order to get him to cooperate, they had to agree to give him immunity for crimes unrelated to what happened in Norway, but directly related to this lawsuit. That’s a completely different subject and is not covered by our stipulation, Your Honor.”

“This is incredibly irresponsible of Mr. Corbin!” Siwell said through gritted teeth. “If the defendants in the government’s investigation found out about the terms of Mr. Bjornsen’s cooperation agreement, they could use that to undermine the government’s case at trial.”

Ben suppressed a smile. His gambit had clearly rattled opposing counsel, enough so that Siwell was now making a rare tactical blunder.

The judge stared at Siwell for several seconds, and then said, “Counsel, unless the law has changed drastically since my days as a prosecutor, the defendants will find out about any witness-cooperation agreements in any event. They have a constitutional right to know.” He brushed his fingers across his lips and continued, “Okay, here’s my ruling: any objection to Mr. Corbin’s proposed questioning based on the grounds described so far is overruled. Do you have any other objections you want to raise?”