watched Faith blush. “In any case, he knows he can’t get heavy-handed. I know too much. He tried to pursue it gently with a ‘We have our ways’ in a German accent, but ended up sounding like a cartoon character, so he had to let it go.”
“Jack’ll get a kick out of…” Faith’s voice trailed off. An image of Burch struggling for life entered both of their minds.
Gage quickly filled the silence. “We’ll tell him.”
Faith returned to her probing. “But how can you be sure those gangsters didn’t change their minds and demand a cut? Shooting Jack might buy them some time.”
“I’m not sure they’d want to raise the stakes that high. Interfering with the flow of natural gas into Western Europe right now would be seen as much as an act of terrorism as blowing up a power plant-and it would mean destroying the wall between domestic law enforcement and international intelligence they’ve always taken refuge behind.”
Faith pushed her plate away. “I don’t know, they’re unpredictable people.”
Although she was an anthropologist, she wasn’t offering a description, but a warning.
“I’ll be careful,” Gage said, reaching over and squeezing her hand. “But I’m not going to figure out who shot Jack until I figure out why. And that means retracing Jack’s steps and trying to spot whatever came out of the shadows to blindside him. If it was road rage, then the trail will end where he fell. If not…”
Gage ended the sentence with a slow shake of his head. They both knew there was no way to finish the thought, so they sat in silence, the weight of inevitability pressing down on them.
Faith picked up her wineglass again and stared into it before speaking. “In some ways I have a hard time fixing Jack in my mind anymore. He’s changed so much. Like the Afghan Medical Relief dinner last fall. Accepting an award for charity work was out of character for him. It was almost like grandstanding.”
“I asked him about it on the flight back from Moscow. Turns out he saw something Courtney wrote for her cancer support group, a phrase about invisibility being oblivion. He wanted an excuse to put her on a podium; talk about her in front of all of their friends. In retrospect, it was a very dangerous thing to do.”
“Dangerous?” Faith said, glancing over, her eyebrows raised. “The dinner was in the grand ballroom of the St. Francis Hotel, dear, not at some falafel stand in Baghdad.”
“Not that kind of dangerous. He risked drawing attention to the offshore bank accounts and front companies we used to smuggle medical supplies through Pakistan, and those are exactly the kinds of deceptions the U.S. Attorney might accuse him of using in SatTek.”
Gage flashed on an image of Burch and him sitting with a Pashtun jirga near the Afghanistan border three years earlier; Burch extending his hand holding a hundred thousand dollars of his own money, the first of a series of payoffs to tribal leaders so they’d let the material pass unmolested through their territories.
“To say nothing of currency smuggling and bribery.”
“But that wasn’t part of any fraud,” Faith said, voice rising in their defense. “Just the opposite.”
“But it was fraudulent. And we could’ve gotten twenty years in Lompoc.”
Faith flinched. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Sorry. As Jack would say, no worries. No U.S. Attorney would dare go after us for what we did over there. Anyway, SatTek may be the case that proves the rule.”
“Which one is that?”
Gage reached for Faith’s plate, set it on top of his, then looked over and winked the same exaggerated wink with which Jack Burch always preceded his punch lines. “If they ever get us, it’ll only be for something we didn’t do.”
CHAPTER 11
M r. Hackett, there’s a Mr. Peterson on line one.”
Daniel Hackett hesitated before picking up the receiver. He lived for these calls, but despised them all the same. He knew he’d get what he wanted; it was just that the whole thing made him feel like a weakling and a fraud. Peterson had the power, so he could play it and Hackett however he wanted. And the only way to keep his dignity was to sign on, join the team, ally himself with the prosecutor against his own client.
“I think we can do a deal,” Peterson said. “I’ve talked it over with the case agent. We’re convinced Matson can give us Granger and Burch, and I know you won’t let him keep talking for free.”
Hackett adopted a firm tone; his first move in a fox-trot where Peterson had already taken the lead. “You got that right. I think I’ve let him say as much as I should without something on the table.”
“But there’s too much money involved to let him walk.”
“I warned him that would be your position.”
“It’s not my position,” Peterson said. “The Corporate Fraud Task Force wants everybody in this case doing jail time.”
Hackett knew that Peterson really meant it wasn’t the task force’s position alone.
“So what’s next?” Hackett asked.
“A plea agreement. It’ll be sealed until I’ve indicted the others. And he’ll have to plead to the sheet.”
Peterson said the word “sheet” as if the indictment would be handed down like the Ten Commandments, not spit out of his own computer-but Hackett didn’t challenge him. The dance wasn’t over. “What will it be?”
“Conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to file false reports with the SEC, and money laundering.”
“Money laundering?” Hackett feigned surprise. “You’ve got to be kidding. The sentencing guidelines are ridiculous. He’d rather roll the dice.”
Peterson paused as if deciding whether to drop the money laundering count. As if. They both knew before the conversation even began that Peterson wouldn’t insist on it. The pretense of negotiation was merely a bone tossed for the sake of Hackett’s dignity and to give him leverage with his client. Now he could tell Matson that he hung tough with Peterson, made him dump the heaviest charge.
“Okay,” Peterson finally said. “No money laundering, but it’ll have to be all the rest.”
“What about time? Uncertainty is stressing the guy out. Let’s agree on something now, at least a range.”
“No can do. His sentence will depend on his performance. Heads on a platter. Can you sell him on the fraud and false reporting?”
“Probably. It’s just that I don’t think he’s clued in his wife yet. And he better be wearing riot gear when he does. She thinks he actually earned it all.”
“And I’ll bet she’s been spending like he did.”
“Her personal shopper at Neiman Marcus has been named Employee of the Month like clockwork since the day she first laid down her credit card.”
Peterson laughed. “When this is over, she’ll be doing layaways at Kmart. No way she really believed your client earned that kind of money on his own.”
Hackett leaned forward in his chair, as if Peterson was actually in the room to observe the significance of what he was about to say.
“Don’t underestimate the guy. Matson may have started out as a kind of a Silicon Valley used car salesman. And I know he looked pathetic during his Queen for a Day-all these guys look that way spilling their guts. But once Granger got him started, it didn’t take him long to learn to play the offshore game. He even got pretty good at it. That’s why he’ll be a damn good witness for you. He’s a lot lighter on his feet than you think.”
“Take it easy, Hackett, you don’t need to sell me on the guy, except for one thing. Matson seemed to get a little squirrelly when we got to talking about Burch. Is he afraid Burch will try to cut a deal and roll back on him?” Peterson didn’t wait for an answer. His voice hardened as he pushed on. “You can tell him I’m not making any deals with Burch. If he ever walks out of that hospital, he’s gonna spend the rest of his life in federal prison-whether your guy delivers him up or somebody else does.”
Hackett wanted it to be Matson, needed it to be Matson. He wasn’t about to humiliate himself losing the case in trial. “When can you send over the plea agreement?”
