“Couldn’t we be a little more direct about all this?” Shepherd asked. The air-conditioning was on high and he felt cold, dressed as he was.
“Pierre Belac’s an arms dealer operating out of Brussels,” Hoover disclosed. “Very big. Gets things they shouldn’t have for people and countries who shouldn’t have them. Sneaky as hell: false passports, stuff like that. We’ve been trying to pin him for years. Come close but never close enough.”
“What’s this got to do with me?” He was clear, Shepherd thought hopefully. There was nothing in his books or records connected with anyone called Pierre Belac.
“You make the VAX 11/78?” Morrison said. “Your biggest defense contract at the moment, in fact?”
“You know I do.”
“What would you say if I told you that Pierre Belac, a leading illegal arms dealer, was buying a VAX 11/78 from your corporation to supply a communist regime?” Morrison demanded.
Shepherd actually started up from his chair but was scarcely conscious of doing so, eyes bulging with anger. “Bullshit!” he said vehemently. “I keep a handle on everything that goes on in my company—” He broke off, stabbing his own chest with his forefinger. “Me! Personally! And particularly defense contracts. I don’t deal with companies I don’t know, and I don’t deal with mysterious intermediaries. Your contract buyers know that, for Christ’s sake! That’s why I
Both men stared, unmoved by the outrage. Hoover said, “You familiar with a Swedish company called Epetric?”
“Yes,” he said. He was dry-throated and the confirmation came out badly, as if he had something to hide. Slowly he sat back in his chair.
Hoover stood up, however, coming over to him with a briefcase Shepherd had not noticed until that moment. From it the Customs investigator took a duplicate order sheet. Shepherd looked, although it was not necessary.
“A confirmed and acknowledged order for a VAX 11/78, from Epetric, Inc. of Stockholm,” Hoover said, even more unnecessarily. “That is your signature, isn’t it, Mr. Shepherd?”
“Epetric is a bona fide company, incorporated in Sweden,” Shepherd said, with pedantic formality. “There is no legal restriction against my doing business with such a company: Sweden, incidentally, is not one of the countries that are signatory to the agreement observed by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. My contract is with Epetric, not with anyone named Pierre Belac.”
A silence developed in the room as chilling as the air-conditioning, and Shepherd wondered if they expected him to say more. He couldn’t, because there was nothing more to say. How deeply had they already investigated him? He’d tried to calculate how many deals he’d taken to the very edge, and perhaps sometimes over it. Enough, he knew. More than enough to be struck off the Pentagon list. But at the moment he was still ahead. Which is where he had to stay.
“We know that Pierre Belac placed that Epetric order through a shell company in Switzerland,” Hoover said.
“Your advantage, not mine,” Shepherd said. “My dealings thus far are absolutely and completely legitimate. This evidence? You could make it available to me?”
“You want proof?”
The resolution would be very simple, Shepherd realized, the relief flooding through him. He said. “My lawyers will, because inevitably there will be a breach-of-contract suit.”
Hoover frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow here.”
Shepherd said, “I don’t really see that we have a problem. No problem at all. The Epetric order is less than a third filled. I’ll throw it back at them tomorrow, and that will be the end of it.”
“The kids are in the pool,” Morrison said. “Is it heated?”
Shepherd glanced through the window, then hack at the Bureau agent, frowning. “Of course it’s heated.”
“Great house,” Morrison said, echoing his initial admiration.
“What the hell’s going on!” Shepherd demanded. Easy! he warned himself. Take it easv!
“We’ve taken legal advice on what we’ve got,” Hoover said. “If we presented the evidence before a grand jury, we’d get an indictment against you and your company for conspiring to evade the requirements of the Export Administration Act, as amended.”
“Wait a minute!” said Shepherd. “Now just wait a goddamned minute! That’s bullshit and you know it. You’d never get a conviction in any court, not in a million years. And I’d fight you every inch of the way.”
“But that’s not how it works, is it, Mr. Shepherd?” said Morrison, with that infuriating mildness. “A grand jury isn’t a court. It’s an examination of evidence to see if there’s a case to answer, leading to an indictment. Which, as I say, our legal people feel confident we’d get. Only then do we actually get to court. Where, probably, you’d be acquitted.”
Shepherd felt numb from trying to comprehend the riddles this bastard was weaving. “I don’t understand,” he confessed desperately.
“You’d have been named in the indictment,” Hoover pointed out. “There’d be a loss of confidence, among suppliers, customers … customers like the Pentagon …” The man smiled invitingly. “Can’t take any chances with our national security, can we?”
“Guilt by association, even if I’m ultimately found innocent of every accusation and charge.” Shepherd grasped the argument at last. A steady guaranteed flow of Pentagon orders bringing in a steady, guaranteed flow of profits, he thought, profits that provided Maria and bought the Rolls and the Mercedes and the Porsche and the pool with its Jacuzzi—the pool in which he could see Janie and the kids playing, right now—and an uninterrupted view of Monterey Bay.
“Ever hear the expression ‘shit sticks,’ Mr. Shepherd?” asked Morrison.
“Yes,” Shepherd said. “I’ve heard it.”
“Fact of life. Unfair fact of life.”
“I think you’d better tell me what you want,” Shepherd said. Were they trying to shake him down? He’d have to be careful. Maybe it was an entrapment. He’d demand time to consider or to raise the money and talk it through with his lawyer. What if it wasn’t an entrapment, just a simple case of bribery? Of course he’d pay. Whatever they wanted would be cheap, to avoid losing everything he had. It was easy to see now why there had been all that crap about the house and the pool. No point in fucking around. He said, “So okay, let’s get down to the bottom line. How—”
“We want Belac,” Morrison said.
Shepherd had just—only just—pulled back from the lip of the precipice, but felt as if he might still be in danger of toppling over. “Want Belac?” he managed, with difficulty.
“Here, in the United States of America,” Hoover said. “Where we can arrest him and arraign him on grand- jury indictments we’ve already got. Belac’s a wanted man.”
Shepherd strove to keep up, seeing the tightrope stretched in front of him. the tightrope he had to balance on, cooperating with these guys but keeping them very firmly away from anything they shouldn’t see. “What do you want me to do?”
The two men exchanged glances. Morrison said, “Bring him to us.”
“How can I possibly do that!”
“Don’t actually refuse to complete the VAX order—although you won’t send anything more, of course,” Morrison said. “Tell Epetric you’re not satisfied with the End-User Certificate or the bills of lading for ultimate destination. Whatever.”
“And they’ll send their own man,” Shepherd argued. “Or deal with it by letter.”
“No, they won’t.” Hoover smiled. “The Swedish authorities have had just the sort of conversation we’re having here with all the directors of Epetric. They’re willing to cooperate, just like you.”
They were assholes, both of them, thought Shepherd. He said, “This man, Belac, he’ll never fall for it.”
“He’s got an important customer to supply; we know it’s a big order,” Morrison said. “We think it’s worth a shot.”
Time for him to bargain. Shepherd decided. “So what if I get him here? What about all that”—he almost said crap but decided against it at the last minute—“talk of a grand jury?” He had to avoid that at any cost.
“We were just setting out all the possibilities,” Morrison said easily. “If we get Belac, then publicly you’ll be
