citizen by flying commercial. All I could think about was our new Boeing sitting in the hangar. Range of six thousand miles. You should see that thing.” Walters grinned. “The best fifty million dollars of shareholders’ money I ever spent.”
“What are you calling this one?”
“The TIMCO Star.”
W e’ll get campaign finance before the court by the end of November,” Anston said.
Eleven of the twelve industry lobbyists and corporate officers sitting around the oak conference table nodded.
The twelfth was staring down.
He looked up at Anston and asked, “Who’s the plaintiff going to be? It can’t be one of us.” He scanned the other faces. “It’s impossible to make hundred-billion-dollar companies seem like victims.”
Anston smiled. “We already have plaintiffs.”
“Since when?”
“Two years ago. Mid-State Machinery Incorporated v. Federal Election Commission and Americans for Americans v. Federal Election Commission. The first to extend the Citizens United decision and allow for direct contributions by corporations to political campaigns, and the second to bar any corporation with less than fifty-one percent U.S. ownership from contributing to any campaign of any kind through any means of any kind.”
“And by any corporation, you mean those owned by the Chinese.”
“Of course, just because they’re allowed to buy our bonds and our companies,” Anston said, “doesn’t mean we’re going to let them buy our politicians.” He smirked. “We have the exclusive on that.”
“Call it a corporate citizenship test.” Preston Walters laughed. “Or maybe immigration reform.”
“We had to get these cases through the district and the appeals courts to tee it up for our new guys. Oral arguments will be right after Thanksgiving.”
“When will they issue their opinion?”
“The second week in February.”
“Why then?”
“Because twenty percent of the caucuses and primaries will be over. Things will be so chaotic nobody will be able to figure out who the real beneficiary is-our side or the unions.”
“Except us.”
Anston nodded. “Except us.”
Walters looked at this watch. One fifty-five P.M. “We better get down to the conference. That foreign bitch Madeleine Albright is giving a talk on the ethics of globalization.” He shook his head in disgust. “It makes me want to gag.”
E ight hours later, Anston tossed a log onto the fire as Walters settled onto the couch.
“How did the interview on CNBC go?” Anston asked, taking a seat in one of the matching side chairs.
“Softballs. That’s all he threw. He didn’t have a clue we spend a thousand times more on advertising our good deeds than actually doing them.”
“I saw the one on Peruvian reforestation,” Anston said. “I felt like nominating you for environmentalist of the year.”
Walters chuckled. “We did an acre and played it like we did a forest.” He picked up a glass of Scotch from the side table and took a sip. “What’s your pitch to the group going to be tomorrow?”
“That we calculate each sector’s contribution based on percentage of GDP, aiming at a total of five hundred million dollars.”
“That means…”
“Energy has to come up with forty million.”
Walters laughed. “Hell, I could raise half that myself by selling TIMCO’s Gulfstream. But are you sure five hundred is enough?”
Anston smiled. “We don’t have to buy the entire election, just add it into regular campaign contributions to reach the tipping point. Two hundred million to pay off outstanding loans and three hundred in new money.”
“I don’t know. I’m still worried about Landon Meyer. I’m not sure he can play down the cultural issues long enough. He’s always chomping at the bit about abortion and gay marriage. He thinks they’re wedge issues, but they’ve become mainstream. He just sounds manic.”
Anston’s smile disappeared. “I’m worried, too.”
“And we’ve got over half a billion dollars riding on him. Unless we have him in the Oval Office to veto Congress’s attempts to circumvent the Supreme Court, it’s going to be a wasted investment.” Walters pushed himself to his feet, then pointed down at Anston. “If TIMCO still has the EPA and OSHA breathing down its neck a year from now and if we’re still blocked from Arctic drilling, and if anybody in the next administration ever uses the phrase ‘global warming,’ I’ll be pissed. All of us will be pissed. Our shareholders don’t give a damn whether the enforcement guys at the EPA and the SEC and the Federal Energy Commission are fags, we just want them politically neutered.”
Walters walked over to the window and studied Ajax Mountain, pine green and ragged gray.
“Sometimes I think Landon believes he’s a new Moses,” Walters said, “the bearer of ‘the Word,’ with a vision of a distant holy land, a new City on a Hill. But that’s not the Moses we need. We need the one who butchered his way across the Sinai to clear a path.”
Walters turned back toward Anston. “Landon understands how his trip to the White House is getting paid for, right?”
“He doesn’t fully understand how he’s getting where he’s going,” Anston said, “but he knows who he’ll owe.”
“That’s not good enough. I’m tired of renting these politicians, or leasing them for two, four, or six years from political action committees and 501s and 527s. The guys who run these organizations can pivot at any time, even the fiscal conservatives, and run headlong at values issues-gays and drug testing and stem cell research-and forget why we gave them the money. And the politicians will pivot with them and forget why we put them in office.”
Walters raised his hand and jabbed the air with his finger.
“And I’m already sick of dealing through super-PACs and the greedy bastards who run them, and I’m tired of doing the idiotic non-coordination dance. I want to own these politicians outright and I want them to know I own them. I want to be the company store. I want them sucking on our tit so long and so hard they forget there’s any other one.”
Chapter 73
' This is Norbett.”
“What’s up?” Gage glanced at his watch as he pressed his cell phone to his ear. It was near midnight in the Caymans. He hoped he was about to get something useful in exchange for the ten thousand dollars he’d wired to Norbett.
“Pegasus Insurance stopped issuing policies four years ago,” Norbett said.
Gage sat leaned forward over his desk. “That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“Maybe they just moved.”
“Nope. I checked. I spent a little of your money on calls to the places they could’ve gone: Barbados, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, and Luxembourg. Zip times five. If you’re going to run an insurance scam, those are the places you go to.”
“No companies named Pegasus at all?”
“Every constellation is represented in every jurisdiction, but not a single Pegasus is registered to sell insurance-hold on.”
Gage heard a door close in the background.
“Where are you?”
“Home. I don’t want my wife to overhear this part. She may misunderstand.”
