Gardener: The Roots Of Ancient Evil (9 page)

              Tommy had gone home and changed out of his suit and into a pair of jeans. He took off his tie, but left on his white button-down, rolling up the sleeves. He then decided to take his time, go get something to eat somewhere, and do some work on his laptop before coming home. He’d only traded a couple of grunts with his father who’d already settled in the middle of the sofa, drink in one hand and remote in the other.

Tommy was just finishing a large Cobb salad, only remembering halfway through eating it that it was what Viviana had ordered on her visit to his restaurant. He had his laptop open and was scanning through various news blogs, not paying much attention. When he finished eating, he pushed the empty plate aside and got ready for some work. He glanced down in the corner; six thirty. Figured he didn’t want to get home before nine.

First thing he did was check on Dominic Shea. Found the same information he’d discovered before. Privately owned, it didn’t disclose whether or not the shareholders were all family members or not. Didn’t make any commercially available products. Gave money routinely to a wide variety of charities, but Tommy looked up a few of the big ones and didn’t see any members of the Shea family on any of the boards. It was common for very old and wealthy families to ostensibly create charitable foundations, but in reality they were simply finding another way to exert their private influence on public policy. One of his professors had been fond of saying that the only thing one could know about a tax-exempt non-profitable entity was that they didn’t pay taxes. He’d meticulously shown how several of these non-profits were only established that way so they could keep their operations secret from the public. For-profit companies had certain reporting requirements, but non-profit corporations did not. Tommy had been amazed to find out that some of the board members of these non-profit organizations pulled larger salaries than CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

But as Tommy searched through all the names of the five biggest charities that Shea Industries donated to, he couldn’t find any obvious connections. It appeared that they gave money without receiving any obvious benefits.

The next thing he looked up was Prieto and Cutting Edge Capital, his venture capital company. This had plenty of information. They’d been around for over a decade. They were also privately owned, so their holdings, both the companies they invested in and their financial size, were not disclosed. However, there was plenty of information on their principal founders, of which Prieto was one. The company had started in the mid 2000s, before the housing bubble had crashed. Prieto seemed to have seen it coming, and had made a substantial amount in a short amount of time. Before that he’d been a venture capitalist for several other organizations. Graduated with an MBA from Stanford in 1988, which made him just a few years over fifty.

Tommy found several articles about Prieto in various financial magazines. He was reportedly worth several billion. Definitely had a skill of turning money into more money. Tommy decided he was legitimate. There were few articles with a negative bias, other than those that had the same negative bias regarding any other ultra-rich individual who kept getting richer while everybody else was getting poorer.

Tommy decided to take a chance. He reached over and grabbed his phone, and made a call.

              “Marco Winston,” his friend answered, surprising Tommy with his professional demeanor. He must not have checked the number.

              “Yes, I hear you’re making loans? I’d like to borrow a couple grand to buy some hookers and blow, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pay it back,” Tommy said as seriously as he could.

              “Of course, sir, let me look up some information here,” Marco said, playing right along. “Yes, it appears that we do have a special plan for hookers and blow, but the interest rates are fifty percent per week, and non-payment does come with a death penalty,” Marco said.

Tommy laughed out loud, despite the ill timing and nature the humor. “Hmm, I think I’ll pass,” he said.

              “What’s up, man, you having second thoughts? We’re already getting some interested investors, I mean serious people,” Marco said.

              “Actually, I got a real job, working for a mega-rich real estate family. I was actually calling you to see if you wanted to do some work for me, as I have a sizeable budget,” Tommy explained.

              “What, you want me to wash dishes for you at the restaurant? What are you offering, five bucks an hour?” Marco joked.

              “No, man, this is legit.”

              “Serious?”

              “Yeah, you got a couple minutes to talk?” Tommy asked.

              “Yes sir, I do, what do you got?” Marco asked.

              “Well, this guy I’m working for owns a bunch of land. And he wants me to help him buy some more land.”

              “OK.”

              “And another guy, a Nelson Prieto of Cutting Edge Capital, has put out some, how shall we say, under-the-table feelers. He says if I can swing a deal between my employer and Cutting Edge Capital, I get a percent,” Tommy explained.

              “As in one percent?” Marco asked.

              “Yep.”

              “Jesus. What do you want me to do?”

              “Well, for now, it’s probably best that I don’t hire you just yet, as that would maybe be a conflict of interest, but if I were to subcontract you, on my own, to look into both Dominic Shea and Nelson Prieto, not to contact them, mind you—”             

              “Of course not.”             

              “But to find out anything you possibly can between the two of them, particularly Mr. Shea, who is a bit mysterious,” Tommy explained. “Like old family from Europe mysterious,” he added.

              “So let me get this straight,” Marco started, “you want me to dig up any information on Dominic Shea that you can use to pitch him a deal with Prieto,” he asked.

              “That is correct. And if there is an eventual deal, I’ll split it with you,” Tommy finished.

              “I’ll look into it,” Marco said.

              “And if you’re interested,” Tommy started, “I may need an assistant to help me out on city contracts, commercial real estate, private real estate, hundred-year leases, et cetera.”

              “So you want me to work for you both officially and unofficially?” Marco asked.

              “Exactly. That be OK with you?”

              “Sure thing, boss!” Marco answered.

              Max sat in his office, one of many that he’d rented over the years. He was paid discreetly by one of the many shell corporations Mr. Shea operated. This particular company, with a total of one employee, would withstand the most in-depth scrutiny by any government or private agency. Max controlled a budget of one million dollars a year. His base salary was three hundred thousand dollars a year, but his bonuses more than doubled that. He had several cars and access to several international numbered bank accounts.

Mr. Shea had spent a lot of time researching Maxwell Emerson before finally reaching out. They’d negotiated for several months before Shea had given Max his first few tasks. Max, of course, had done as much research on Mr. Shea as Shea had done on him. The lack of information only meant that Shea was somebody who wanted to stay as private as possible. This meant that so long as Max was careful, and did precisely as Mr. Shea asked, he too would be kept protected.

Max had once been young and idealistic, but two tours in Special Forces and ten years working for a private military contractor after that had purged him of all his idealism. The powerful had money, and unless you worked for the powerful, you were on your own. One thing Max knew about himself was that he simply did not have the temperament to operate on his own. He was not an empire builder. He was a soldier. And as long as he was going to use his specialized skills, he was going to get paid as much as he could. He and Mr. Shea had come to that agreement eight years ago, and Max had never regretted the decision.

He was reviewing the information in front of him in preparation for a meeting with Mr. Shea later this afternoon. Max was curious whether or not he would earn another bonus for his previous work. After a quick glance at the clock, he decided to drive to Mr. Shea’s new office, carefully hidden from public view. Only he and Shea knew of its location. Well, Hailee Maher knew, but she was gone. Max didn’t know where, only that she would never see the office or Shea again.

              “Yes, Max, please come in,” Shea said as soon as Max knocked on the door and poked his head into his office. “What news do you have for me?”

              “I’ve got a preliminary cutout organization set up through which you can invest in GenSpan. Have you decided how much you’d like?” Max asked, sitting down before Mr. Shea.

              “Let’s wait until a few more venture capitalists throw their hats in the ring. Once they’ve got upwards of a hundred million in backing, I’d like to give five, maybe ten percent more than the largest backer; do you think that will cause any issues?” Shea asked.

              “I doubt it, sir. From what I’ve discovered so far, that’s pretty standard for large VC firms to funnel their funding through various back channels. It’s all legal, since it’s all private, and they seem paranoid about tipping their hand to one another,” Max explained. “If you don’t mind me asking, is there any interest in this besides keeping an eye on Miss Berg?” he asked. “The reason I’m asking is if you do have genuine interest in the company, I can hire some researchers and perhaps even get some agents inside the company,” Max suggested.

Shea pursed his lips in thought. “What do you know about genetic research, Max?” he asked.

              “Not much, but my opinion is that this is just another trend, more flash than science from what I’ve read, not that I understand all of it completely, but they are a long ways away from rewriting the genome to stop the aging process,” Max said carefully.

              “I tend to agree, but is it not true that they also might discover other genetic therapies? I agree that anti-aging is more of a quick-money health scam, but if they are fairly close to other disease cures, GenSpan may be worth something,” Shea said, thinking out loud. “Tell you what, Max, move forward on the VC angle, meaning invest whatever millions you need to be their largest backer, and see about getting somebody inside there. If they do stumble onto a cure for cancer, it would be nice to file for the patent before they do. Curing cancer may be very profitable,” Shea said in a tone Max understood meant to take the ball and run with it.

              “Yes sir, I’ll put something together. And on the other issue?” Max asked, slightly grinning.

              “Excellent as always, Mr. Emerson, you always do such good work. She was indeed a virgin. Your bonus should be deposited into your account by the end of this week.”

              “Will you be needing any future, uh, acquisitions?” Max asked.

              “Yes, yes, I believe we will. I think one per month will be sufficient for now, however, we will be needing to ramp up inventory in the coming months, once Mr. Ricker starts to get our real estate expansion underway,” Shea said.

              “One per month will require some additional logistical support,” Max stated.

              “How so?”

              “Well, after a couple of months, if young sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls in the area keep disappearing, the responses to the various advertisements might start to decrease, especially if there is any recognized link between the two and any subsequent awareness campaigns are initiated,” Max explained.

              “Yes, I see what you mean. What do you recommend?” Shea asked.

              “Well, I don’t see a problem if we can expand our search for young models nationwide. If we could do that, then we could potentially expand the recruitment, to one per week if need be.”

              “Potentially?” Shea asked. “What would be required? One per week would be excellent.”

              “The only sticking point is air travel. Some states require parental consent for minors to travel,” Max explained.

              “What about private carriers?”

              “Theoretically that could work. Getting them on the plane would be easy, as boarding restrictions are essentially nonexistent for private jets,” Max said.

              “So long as you don’t see any potential issues with missing girls being statistically connected with private flights,” Shea said, leaning forward.

              “I don’t think that will be a problem. We have several different shell companies set up through which to lease the private jets, I doubt anybody would make a connection,” Max said.

              “Excellent work. Why don’t you get that started and see how quickly you can increase the recruitment to one per week,” Shea said, smiling.

              “Same demographic?”

              “Yes. Caucasian girls, fourteen to seventeen, preferably virgins.”