“We’re by the fountain. Call me when you get close and we’ll figure out a plan.”
H ow long did he hang around our house after Faith and I got home?” Gage asked Viz in a late night call.
“Couple of minutes, then he followed the ridge and took Snake Road down to the freeway. I think he’s been to your house a few times, he drove those winding streets like a local.”
“And after that?”
“He was all over the place. I couldn’t tell whether he was doing countersurveillance or what. He hit about eight different restaurants and warehouses in San Francisco. Inside for fifteen or twenty minutes, then on to another one.”
“Did he make you?”
“Me?” Viz’s voice rose. “Make me?”
Gage laughed. “Sorry I asked.”
Chapter 70
A message was waiting on Gage’s voice mail when his plane touched down in Denver on the way to Des Moines to meet Landon Meyer.
“Boss. I listened to the recording Viz made of Brandon Meyer outside of the Tadich Grill and then did what you said. It looks like money from Landon’s Silicon Valley group just showed up in the Ohio and Massachusetts senators’ campaigns. Each got a million-dollar loan from a San Jose bank called Mann Trust. Three members of the Silicon Valley group are on the board. I’ll e-mail you a list of all of the money I’ve traced.”
Gage stared out his window as the other passengers deplaned, still stunned by the cynical opportunism of Landon Meyer, whose campaign he’d saved from internal sabotage just two years earlier. Gage tasted the bitterness of Brandon’s snide comment about him believing in the purity of the process.
Since candidates couldn’t accept contributions directly from corporations, Landon had deposited the Silicon Valley Group money into Mann Trust, and then the bank used it to secure the loans to the candidates.
Nothing more or less than political money laundering.
T hanks for flying out,” Landon said. “It’s not exactly a short hop from San Francisco to Des Moines, but I didn’t want to talk on the telephone.”
Gage walked across the thin blue carpet in the Super 8 Motel toward the east-facing window with a view of Interstate 35. The afternoon sun gave an orange glow to the aluminum-sided semis grinding their way along the highway.
“I figured you for the Savery Hotel downtown,” Gage said. “Georgian Revival in the prairie.” He turned and scanned the child-sized desk, the winter scene print nailed to the wall, the stain-disguising green, blue, and yellow kaleidoscopic bedspread, and the television bolted to the dresser. He then took in a breath infused with an overdose of air freshener. “A tenth floor suite, not a second floor walkup.”
“This is Iowa. Folks here keep an eye on how you spend the money when you’ve got your hand out.” Landon spread his arms to encompass the room. “Sixty-three dollars a night, including breakfast.”
“Folks?”
Landon smiled.
“Of course. And I even eat at the Flying J Truck Stop.”
“Country fried steak and mashed potatoes?”
“What else?”
“Sounds like the Heartland Inn across the street would have been a better choice.”
“They were booked up. It’s the start of pumpkin season, and everybody in Washington, D.C., who has even the faintest hope of becoming president is out here kissing babies and thumping squash.”
“Just be careful you don’t do it backward.”
“Sometimes I’m so tired I can’t tell the difference.”
Gage glanced back toward the hallway. “Aren’t there supposed to be a bunch of underlings from Washington scurrying in and out of here?”
Landon shook his head. “I’ve got one guy next door, but otherwise I use local people. They’re not as efficient, but they help get the message across.”
“Which is?”
“That I was never a Washington insider who got cash from Jack Abramoff and from the K Street gang leaning on people.”
Gage resisted the urge to reveal what he had just learned from Alex Z. It wasn’t the right moment to talk about money.
“How many times have you flown solo on the Iowa circuit?” Gage asked.
“Altogether? Ten in the last two years. I’m a helluva lot more popular here than I am in California.”
“Especially after the Supreme Court nominations.”
“I better win the presidency.” Landon pointed west. “I don’t think the people of the Golden State are going to elect me again.”
“You’ve got four more years. Voters have short memories.”
Landon shook his head again. “Not this time.” He reached toward the automatic coffeemaker sitting on a tray on top of the dresser. “Want some?”
Gage nodded. Landon poured two cups, then directed Gage to a cloth-covered chair at a table next to the window. Landon sat down across from him.
“What were you going to say yesterday after ‘I think you need to know what Brandon has been up to’?”
“You really think your cell phone is being tapped?”
“Politics is brutal these days and the technology can be bought on the Internet. That’ll change if I become president, but there’s nothing I can do about it now except be careful.”
“Especially about Brandon.”
“Only because he walks a fine line-”
“Between the legal and illegal?”
“No. Between his role as a judge and his role as my closest political adviser.” Landon raised his palm toward Gage. “Don’t give me that look. Abe Fortas was practically part of Lyndon Johnson’s Cabinet. Roosevelt didn’t make a move without checking with Justice Frankfurter. Scalia used to chat up Cheney during their hunting trips.”
“At this point I’m more concerned about Brandon’s role as an attorney.”
“That’s ancient history.”
“Only as ancient as John Porzolkiewski.”
Landon leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe you better tell me how the sentence you began on the phone was going to end.”
“How about I’ll start over with the punch line.”
“Shoot.”
“Marc Anston hired an investigator named Charlie Palmer to pay off the OSHA inspector and a welder at TIMCO to cover up the cause of the explosion.”
“Was Brandon involved?”
“I think so, but I can’t prove it.”
“I wouldn’t be shocked by anything Anston did. He believes in winning, only in winning. But I don’t think he would involve Brandon. He needed Brandon’s coattails to build the firm. Owed him too much.”
“It always struck me that their relationship was upside down,” Gage said. “The younger man bringing business to the older. But I was looking at it from the outside.”
“It was a difference in background and career path and temperament. Anston went from Skull and Bones at Yale to law school and then into the CIA for twenty years. He needed Brandon because he never developed the personality to become a rainmaker on his own.” Landon chuckled. “You know where the Book of Genesis talks about ‘every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’? That’s Anston, the creepiest. But he had a talent for offshore finance. That’s part of what he did in the Agency, setting up surreptitious ways to fund covert actions.”
Landon leaned forward in his chair. “Did you follow the Iran-Contra hearings?”
