Power Blind (28 page)

Chapter 75

I
nstead of walking directly to the redbrick St. Francis Yacht Club, Gage grabbed his binoculars from his glove compartment and found a spot along a stepped sea wall with an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate. It took only seconds to spot the purple sail on the sixteen-foot Australian Mosquito catamaran, then a slight turn of the focus to capture international lawyer Jack Burch, feet locked on the rail, stretched out against the harness, back brushing the whitecaps as he shot under the bridge. They hadn't spoken in detail since Gage telephoned him in Moscow.

Gage tracked Burch until he arrived near the spit of land on which the club stood and that formed the boat harbor, then he began the long walk across the parking lot to meet Burch near the dock entrance. Burch looked like a wet St. Bernard wrapped in yellow Gore-Tex as he came through the gate and reached out his hand. He pulled it back and inspected it.

“Maybe I better dry off.”

Fifteen minutes later Burch emerged from the locker room and directed Gage into the restaurant and then to a table by the wall of windows facing the harbor. It was set for five: Burch, Gage, their wives, and Alex Z, whom Gage had invited to Burch's birthday lunch so he could talk to the lawyer about using his offshore connections to investigate the ownership of the banks Anston was using.

Gage nodded toward the marina after they sat down. Nearly all the slips were occupied. “How come the members aren't out on the bay?”

“Big awards banquet this evening for those who didn't drown themselves during the Hawaii race.”

The waiter appeared and took their drink orders.

“Thanks for coming in early,” Gage said, as he walked away. “I need to run a couple of things by you.”

Gage reached for his wallet, took out a dollar, and handed it to Burch.

“Your fee to make this a privileged conversation.”

Burch accepted it and held it up to the light.

“Looks legal. Maybe I'll frame it.” Burch glanced around the restaurant in mock furtiveness, then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “I shouldn't be seen taking money in this place. What would the other members think?”

“I don't recall that being a guiding consideration in your life.”

Burch spread his hands. “What does a man have, if not his reputation?”

“His integrity.”

“Yeah, I forgot about that part.”

“No, you didn't.”

Gage leaned forward, resting his folded hands on the edge of the table. Burch followed suit.

“Excellent,” Burch said, “a conspiracy.”

“You remember when I called you about a company called Pegasus in the Caymans?”

“I was bloody jet-lagged in Moscow, not comatose. Sure. Captive insurance.”

“It looks like it began as a straight-up tax fraud, then as a cover for bribery, and finally a way to launder illegal corporate campaign contributions.”

“Who set it up?”

“Marc Anston, and maybe Brandon Meyer.”

“After he was appointed?”

“Before. More than fourteen years ago.”

“Was the political money for his brother?”

“At first I thought it was. Now it seems it was also used to push legislation through by secretly contributing to senatorial and congressional campaigns.”

“How did they do it?”

“Loans.”

“I thought loans had to be reported.”

“They do. But nobody really examines them. I did some research. One senator loaned himself over a million dollars in an early campaign, but nobody paid attention until eleven years later when the Federal Election Commission noticed something hinky about how he paid himself back—”

“By taking out another loan?”

“From a different bank. And now I think Brandon and Anston are in a race against time because Landon needs to get his nominations through before anyone—”

Burch smiled. “Meaning you—”

“Maybe . . . figures it out.”

“Because . . .”

“The two new justices will join with Sunseri, Thompson, Robins, and Ardino to roll campaign disclosure law back to the eighteenth century and open the gates on corporate contributions directly to political candidates.”

“And then Pegasus pays off all the loans in secret?”

Gage nodded. “I read Sunseri's dissent in the
Massachusetts Environmental Action
case. He comes right out and says it. Limiting corporate contributions is the suppression of political speech, and forcing the disclosure of the contributors' identities is a violation of privacy. Once you start with the idea that a corporation is a person, and not just an artificial creation, you're forced to the conclusion that it has First Amendment rights.”

“And poof.” Burch made an exploding motion with his fingers. “The public will never again be able to figure out who's controlling the electoral process.”

“I'd never realized Landon was that cynical. He constantly wraps himself in grand ideas.” Gage leaned back in his chair. “You know what Brandon told me when I went to see him after Charlie died? He said Landon took St. Augustine and Thomas Hobbes to read on a flight to Beijing a few months ago.”

Burch raised a hand like he was seeking his teacher's attention in class.

“I know one. From Hobbes. ‘There is always war of everyone against everyone, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'.”

Burch glanced around the elegant, bright-lit dining room, and at the San Francisco elite now collecting at the bar.

“Not so poor here, of course.” Burch looked back at Gage. “I tried to read the
Leviathan
at Oxford, a long, boring book written in an archaic kind of English. I never finished it.”

“Landon didn't either. I don't think he struggled his way as far as the chapter where Hobbes says corporations are ‘like worms in the entrails of natural man.' ”

“Maybe he just skipped that part while rushing to read the celebration of the all-knowing, all-powerful sovereign.”

They ceased speaking as the waiter delivered their drinks. Scotch for Burch. Beer for Gage.

Gage raised his glass, “Happy birthday.”

Burch raised his in turn. “Thanks, old man.” He took a sip and set the glass down. “Who else knows about what's been going on besides you?”

“It's hard to tell.”

“Landon?”

“I'm not sure he's ready to accept the reality.” Gage said. “The question is whether there's any way the scheme could be legal?”

“From a tax perspective or campaign finance perspective?”

“Both.”

Burch took a sip of his Scotch.

“Are they still doing it?”

“It looks like the tax gimmick ended four years ago, possibly because one of their clients got investigated by the IRS.”

Burch nodded. “I remember that time very well. Everybody who'd been using captive insurance to move money offshore and then back in again tax free, was bailing out. The real crime wasn't making premium payments to an offshore insurer, it was that the money was returned right away to officers of the companies.”

“But what if the money was returned to the U.S. and put in someone else's pocket,” Gage said. “Maybe sent from an offshore finance company and into a U.S. bank, and then invested in CDs or time deposits and held there until they needed it.”

Burch stirred the ice cubes in his drink with his fingertip.

“It wouldn't be a good idea from an investment perspective,” Burch said. “They could make a lot more money elsewhere.” He paused in thought, then said, “This reminds me of a group in Chicago. They sent about two hundred million offshore as insurance payments, then invested the money in mutual and hedge funds operating out of the Caribbean and made a killing, tax free. An illegal kind of 401(k).”

“Except Brandon and Anston's aim wasn't to make money,” Gage said, “just to move it into political campaigns.”

“But that's pretty risky from a bank regulator's point of view. Campaigns are notoriously bad at making good on loans.”

“But there's no risk if the loans to the campaigns are secured by the deposits Anston and his people made.”

“So, basically, you think it's a money laundering scheme.”

Gage nodded. “Say the bank pays them three percent interest on their deposits and they pay the bank five percent interest on the loans. Or even two percent and four percent. The two percent spread between what the bank pays them and what they pay the bank is the bank's fee for laundering the money.”

“Brilliant. The bank takes no risk at all.”

“And there's something more,” Gage said. “I think they've put a lot more money into the banks they're using than they've taken out. I'll bet they have a couple of hundred million waiting to be tapped.”

Burch stared down into his glass, shaking his head.

“Seems to me they found a huge loophole,” Burch finally said. “Big enough to drive a trainload of money through.” He looked over at Gage. “The question is whether it's sleazy enough for you to act on.”

“That's sort of what Landon said to me.”

“My guess is they're trying to turn your strength into a weakness.”

“Which strength is that?”

“Your sense of fair play. Isn't that why Landon has called you every single time somebody has tried to sabotage his campaigns? It wasn't as if you were ever a button-wearing supporter.”

Gage shrugged.

“And now you're on the other side, they know you won't do anything unless you're certain this campaign finance scheme is illegal and Landon was in on it.”

“Certainty may not be an option.”

Burch fell silent for a few seconds, then cocked his head and raised his eyebrows.

“You've got me wondering what they've been up to for the last four years, since they closed down the insurance end.”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe they had enough money. By that point as much as four hundred million had passed through Pegasus, maybe even more.”

Gage sensed motion by the restaurant entrance. He spotted Burch's wife, Faith, and Alex Z walking toward them. Happy birthday smiles on their faces.

G
age took Alex Z aside after lunch as they made their way across the parking lot to their cars. One of Alex Z's bodyguards trailed behind.

“It's not long before the nominations come to a vote,” Gage said, “and Pegasus is still a black box.”

“What do you need, boss?”

“I need to know everything about who is really behind Mann Trust. If you need more help from Jack, just ask for it, but keep his name out of whatever you do.”

“Sounds like you've got an idea how to shine some light inside.”

Gage shook his head. “It's more like following all the trails to see where they lead. We're still years behind these guys.”

“What are you going to be working on?”

“Porzolkiewski. There are some things I still need to look into.”

“How is he?”

“Suicidal.”

Chapter 76

B
oots Marnin's cell phone rang as he sat beating on the steering wheel of his Econovan parked on the frontage road near the San Francisco Airport.

“I lost the fucker.”

“What fucker?”

“The rocker. Gage's database guy. He's got a bodyguard who's the best countersurveillance driver I've ever seen.”

“You still don't know where Gage hid him?”

Boots looked up at a Virgin Airlines flight rising into the sky, then down at the airport. “I know lots of places he isn't.”

“Don't let me down on this one. We need to know where everybody is just in case, and we already have over two hundred grand invested in you.”

“I've got Gage nailed down and I've got Palmer's wife nailed down and I'm sure the Muslim kid is staying with the rocker.”

“How'd you get onto the rocker's tail this time?”

“A birthday party for Gage's pal Jack Burch at the St. Francis Yacht Club.”

“Why didn't you stick a GPS under his car?”

“You think I'm an idiot? His security guy never left . . . son of a . . .”

“What ‘son of a . . .'?”

“Nothing. I'll call you later.”

Boots disconnected, tossed his phone into the console, then reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. He jumped down from the van and flattened himself on the ground in one motion. He worked the beam on the underside as he scooted farther and farther under. He finally caught sight of a black two-inch-by-two-inch tracking device duct-taped to the undercarriage.

“Son of a bitch.”

He reached into his jeans pocket for his pocket knife, then stopped.

Wait a second. A rope can pull in two directions
.

He slid out from the under the van, climbed back in, and headed toward the San Francisco Mariner Hotel.

R
osa M. was slipping on her bra at nine-thirty the next morning when Boots reached over to pick up his ringing cell phone from the nightstand. Rosa's cleaning cart was parked near the door. Now that he got what he wanted, as far as he was concerned she was human wallpaper.

Boots recognized the caller's number.

“I was just heading out,” Boots said.

“Don't bother,” the familiar voice said. “Our guys down at Evergreen Security found the rocker.”

Boots sat up. “How?”

“There were a bunch of Internet and commercial database searches about Mann Trust early this morning. Our people traced them to a DSL line going into a loft on the Oakland waterfront. We backtracked and found that the same computer had been researching Pegasus over the last few days.”

Boots's eyes settled on his alligator-skin Tony Lamas on the floor of the open closet, once more feeling like a dinosaur.

“Do you have a place lined up just in case?” the caller asked.

“Yeah, it's perfect.”