by Fritz Galt
The co-anchor straightened in her seat, presenting a new perspective on her plunging neckline. “The president has managed to dodge questions up to this point, but it will only be a matter of time before the independent prosecutor and the public will learn about this mysterious, and potentially illegal, transfer of funds.”
She looked at her anchor to take over.
“Whether the culprit is President Bernard White or Sean Cooper, or the two were complicit in a crime, the truth is bound to come out shortly. And Mr. Cooper, if you are out there listening, now is the time to make your voice heard.”
“Perhaps this is just another tempest in a teapot?” his female co-anchor extemporized.
“Try a tempest in my teapot,” Sean murmured. No matter where he tried to hide, the Chinagate affair was hounding him.
A low-pitched female voice sounded behind him. “Are you talking to yourself again?”
He spun around. It was Sandi DiMartino, the refreshing young lawyer with whom he had flirted the evening away. Many glasses of champagne and a short night’s sleep in her own room hadn’t changed the beguiling smile on her full lips.
But the whole world had changed for him in the past hour. And he looked at her as if she were a character out of a novel he had long since put aside.
He tried to return her smile—to let her down gently. But as he began to speak, he felt himself falling into the cool depths of her large blue eyes. The previous evening’s frivolity and the similarity of their professions had made him share some confidences that he suddenly regretted.
He gripped the note tighter. He was still a married man, goddamnit. Maybe he had even sensed that Kate was still alive whenever the ladies circled closer, and god, there were many such opportunities in China. The gaping wound caused by his family’s death from SARS the previous spring had never truly healed. He had hoped that someday another woman might eventually fill the enormous void left in his heart. But given how awkwardly he had flirted with Sandi the previous evening, he was destined never to love another woman.
“Do you remember what I told you last night?” he asked, hoping that their conversation had been lost in the noise of firecrackers or forgotten with the passage of time.
“You bet I remember,” she came back. “And you’ve thought about my offer for legal services?”
It had been convenient to meet a lawyer at that critical point in his life. And the offer was tempting. He watched the president’s ruddy face on the television screen. He looked so paternal, so knowing. What a crock. With one word to Sandi, he could identify himself as Sean Cooper and sink the bastard.
But he was already impatient with the whole Chinagate scandal. He wasn’t the least bit guilty, and that was all that mattered to him. Let the others chase each other around the lawyers’ tables.
He knew that he could testify convincingly against the president, and it might make him feel good. But he had lives to save. His family.
Sandi’s lean figure, soft and flowing blonde hair, healthy complexion, and row of gleaming white teeth were trying to beckon him to his doom.
“It must have been the champagne talking last night. I was getting a little carried away,” he said. How much had he told her? Now he couldn’t remember. “I’m sorry. I slept on it and I think I’ll stick with the status quo.”
She gave him a crooked smile that looked partially disappointed and partially understanding. “It’s your decision.”
She was damned right it was his decision.
He eased away from her. He should never have talked so frankly with her. What had he been thinking? If he had divulged his identity, that might open the door for the Chinagate bloodhounds.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked, looking at his shoulder bag.
He tossed her a lame, apologetic smile and headed for the reception desk. Love ’em and leave ’em. That was his motto.
Heading home. That felt much better.
He checked that the bellhop had lined up his twin Louis Vuitton suitcases at the taxi queue. He would be in Beijing by noon. There, he would hit the hospitals at once, tackling each one in turn until he found someone who recalled his wife and children and could point him in their direction.
“Checking out, sir?” the efficient Chinese staff woman purred.
“Yeah. I’m in a hurry.”
He handed over his electronic room keycard and drummed his fingertips on the counter while she brought up his account. Just charge him ten grand and let him get on his way to Beijing! A printer spilled out two weeks’ worth of charges: room, minibar, gift shop, restaurant bills, and tabs from the pool and beach bars.
He didn’t bother to read it.
“How would you like to pay today, sir?”
He already had his wallet open. He pulled out his VISA card and slapped it on the counter. He had placed Sandi’s business card behind the VISA. He looked around for a wastepaper basket in which to toss it.
“Sir, your credit card isn’t working today.”
“Huh? Try it again.”
The receptionist swiped it through the machine once more and waited. She shook her head.
“Is there a hold on it?” he asked.
“They won’t give me the reason for declining it.”
He felt the blood drain from his face. The interconnected world of the Internet and financial institutions had finally caught up with him. The Chinese and the White House might have been following every move he made, tracking down every place he traveled, recording every drink he ordered.
If they were onto him, he’d never see his family again. And if they got to his money, he’d have no way to get to Beijing.
He’d have to call the bank and clear up the misunderstanding. But what if it was worse than a hold on his account? They might have wiped out his entire fortune, the money he intended to live on for the rest of his life!
It was supposed to be a hidden bank account, untraceable, his exclusive means of accessing his nest egg in the Caymans. But clearly, the Cayman Islands’ vaunted reputation for secrecy and discretion was bunk. How many other unfortunate sops had lost their fortune because of that illusory cloak of anonymity offered by the Cayman Islands? This was not supposed to happen!
“The VISA office doesn’t open for another half hour,” the receptionist said, handing him back his card. “You may use our telephone at that time if you’d like.”
“Okay, sure,” he said, easing away from the counter. “I’ll come back.”
But he had no clue what to do next. No local VISA office would know about his secret bank account.
He turned toward the lobby’s open panorama. He faced the grounds studded with palm trees and at the surf that broke just beyond. The serenity of the scene didn’t bring him the slightest relief.
His head pounded, but his heart beat even harder against the wall of his chest. He felt an urgent need to get on the road immediately. But how could he, without a penny to his name?
He took another look at the three words written so forcefully on the scrap of paper. “Your family lives.”
The power of the words gave him his only comfort and strength.
He tucked the message safely into his shirt pocket. In that note, he could hear his family calling out for help. He didn’t want to imagine what conditions they might be living under. He wouldn’t let them down. He had to find them. But how?
His thoughts seemingly frozen, he let his feet carry him out of the lobby, away from civilization, down the steps and out toward the sparkling sea.
Hiram Klug was determined to make his upcoming escape from his butcher’s shop to the tropics memorable. It would be like no other vacation he and his wife had ever experienced. But he was running late.
He slipped his blood-smeared apron off his wide girth and checked the Timex his wife had given him as an engagement present twenty years before. It was five-thirty and he had fifteen minutes to get to the Garden State Mall in Paramus to pick her up and leave for the airport.
He slid th
e row of pork chop packages onto a cart and wheeled them off to his freezer locker for long-term storage.
Customers waited patiently with snow melting off their overshoes and numbered tickets in hand. The ticket machine had been a lifesaver for Hiram. It kept a civil tone in his tiny New Jersey butcher shop among patrons who could be some of the most demanding in the world.
Ham smoked over hickory chips. Free range goose liver. You name it, they demanded it. So he jacked up the prices, sold the finer cuts of beef and everybody was happy.
Except when business took over his life and he let his marital duties lapse.
But this trip would change all that.
“You’re doing a good job, Bustah. Keep it up.”
Buster Klug, his nephew and protégé, nodded, but couldn’t respond verbally as he was deeply engaged in counting out change for a hundred.
“I gotta go now. You take care of ya.”
Buster looked up. “You gonna miss da Oscahs, Hiram.”
Hiram snorted. He hadn’t been to a movie theater in years. Not that his sweetie didn’t deserve it. In fact, she deserved far better than an evening sitting in some public theater seat that had been occupied by a different person every two hours non-stop for the past ten years. No, he was thinking bigger, like season’s tickets to the Paper Mill Playhouse. If he could only get Buster to take over the business and give him some free time.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to sit all evening in front of his television set watching some young turk he didn’t recognize claim a trophy for some movie he would never see.
He had far bigger plans.
“Your plane’s waiting there,” Buster reminded him, shooing him out the door. “Now go.”
He took one last proprietary look around his shop, gave a wistful twist to his large lips and lumbered out into the blizzard that had laid a white blanket of snow on his shop’s parking lot.
He was tempted to grab a snow shovel to scrape it off, but sanity quickly restored itself.
“Oh, screw it.”
He’d be gone a mere three weeks. The place wouldn’t fall apart in that short span of time.
His boots crunched in the soft powder as he plodded through the dark evening toward his Ford Escort. The bucket seat was as hard as a block of ice. And the engine protested after having been left out in the cold for over twelve hours.
Chug, chug, wheeze.
“C’mon, baby,” he urged, his thick fingers delicately twisting the key in the ignition. “Don’t fail me now.”
Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.
He turned it over a final time, using the last ounce of juice in the battery.
Wheeze, chug, kaboom!
The good Lord was on his side.
The tiny Escort roared to life. He felt like he was controlling a mighty chariot as he pulled forward into traffic on the slick road.
He didn’t have time to say goodbye to his shop, as he had to make an immediate left at the light.
He slid sideways through the intersection and aimed straight for the mall.
California Governor Hunter Bradley, who also served as the co-chair of his political party’s national committee, was called away from a raucous gathering of boozing millionaires to take a phone call. As he walked across the spacious, crowded hall, his eyes caught the large-screen television where a woman in a particularly revealing gown was handing out an Oscar statuette followed by a sensual kiss.
The roomful of men erupted with approval.
Hunter hadn’t planned to attend Hollywood’s biggest bash, the Academy Awards. However, he did intend to watch every second on television from his home, the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento.
There wasn’t a movie star or producer in the state that he didn’t want supporting his man in the upcoming presidential race.
He had invited many of the party’s biggest contributors to his special soirée, in which they could place a friendly, tax-deductible bet on the awards results and thereby donate money and hobnob with the party elite while sipping cold duck and watching the glitzy event unfold on TV.
His personal assistant, Lawrence, handed him the phone in the gubernatorial office. “It’s Captain Brett Fulham,” the young man whispered. “The head of security at the Academy Awards.”
Hunter nodded curtly. He knew who Captain Brett Fulham was. As governor, Hunter provided the annual Hollywood event with the best security that money could buy: state troopers, counter-terrorism experts, Los Angeles helicopter and SWAT teams, and security guards from the state payroll.
“Yeah, Brett?” he said, recognizing the heavy breathing of the state’s main security honcho, a man he had personally selected to head the Security detail at the Academy Awards for the past three years.
“I’m standing here looking at a press truck belonging to al-Jazeera TV,” Brett said. “Am I supposed to give it access to the premises?”
“Do the reporters have press credentials?”
“Yeah, their badges and passes check out.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Jesus, this is al-Jazeera we’re talking about,” Brett said, sounding incredulous. “They’re the ones who interviewed bin Laden, who filmed the Taliban and the Iraqis. Are you sure we even want them on American soil?”
“Sure we do. And, we have already given them prior clearance to document and telecast the ceremony from a journalistic standpoint. You know, interview people, use the live feed.”
“Isn’t that a bit risky? This is being broadcast live.”
“Risky? Hell no,” the governor said. “The world should see democracy in action. Here we even vote for the films and actors we like.” Not to mention betting on them.
“I’m just confused, sir. Who gave them the security clearances?”
“The governor’s office.”
“Your office,” Brett reiterated for clarity.
“That’s right.”
“Okay then,” Captain Brett Fulham said reluctantly. “We’ll let them enter.”
Hunter hung up the phone, took a deep breath, then picked it up and punched in the number of his mansion’s operator. “Get me the White House.”
A minute later he was speaking with his colleague, William Ford, the party chairman who was engaging in a party fundraising event of his own.
“I’m just calling to say that the bird has flown into the cage,” Hunter said. “Are your televisions turned on?”
“As they are across the nation. Thanks for your good work. How soon before we can expect the bird to lay an egg?”
“Within the hour.”
The White House phone clicked off.
Chapter 3
The resort’s lawn ended abruptly at a wide beach that stretched a mile in each direction. Sean Cooper couldn’t afford to let his business shoes fill with sand or saturate his pants in the sea. He wasn’t ready to abandon all decorum and take to his heels.
In order to get to his family, he needed to solve his financial crisis. And he needed to do that fast, before the authorities swooped in and plucked him off the street.
He scanned the beach chairs set up under thatched umbrellas for any early sun seekers. Someone might have left a handbag or wallet unprotected. He wasn’t beyond petty larceny.
There were few people in sight that early in the morning. Maybe there were some early risers further down the beach.
He leaned over and removed his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers halfway up his sinuous calves. Then, he stuffed his socks into his shoes, collected a shoe in each hand and began to walk down the beach.
With each stride, his toes explored the cold, silky sand. He tried to fight off the feeling that he was resorting to criminal behavior.
What was he thinking? He was escaping the criminals. He was an innocent man without a penny to his name and he needed the Feds off his back.
But his concern about losing his nest egg or the White House dumping him in some lockup for life paled in comparison with his anxiety about never seeing hi
s family again. He was sure they were alive, and they needed him. He picked up his pace. He would find a way out of his straits and get to Beijing.
The resort’s daily beach walk had yet to assemble that early in the morning. Spent firecrackers littered the shore, brutal remnants of the previous night’s party. Seashells clanked as they rolled ashore and poisonous jellyfish lay like innocuous plastic bags half-buried in the wet sand. He was vaguely aware of the purr of a motorboat in the distance.
There was no easy money lying around to steal. This wasn’t going to be easy.
C’mon, he was a financial officer. He could figure out what had happened to his money. Maybe the account was simply on hold. If that were the case, he only needed to call the VISA office and confirm his sudden increase in expenditures. His feet skimmed quickly over the sand.
But what if it was more than the credit card company simply double-checking on a red flag sent up by its computers? What if a hidden hand had intervened? If so, he would have to move quickly and transfer the money to another bank account. Could he remember the routing numbers of other secret accounts? Damnit, he had destroyed all that information.
Then a handsome, tanned face came to mind. That diplomat from the State Department who had provided him with his current account. Sean could depend on—what was his name, oh, yes, Merle Stevens—to access the money.
He reduced his blistering pace. First, he would call the VISA office, clear up the misunderstanding and reactivate his account. Then he would settle the bill with the hotel. When the U.S. Consulate opened in Shanghai, he would contact Merle Stevens and ask him to transfer his funds to a different, more secure account. Then he could get on the road to Beijing.
He hated to lose time. And there were many steps to get back on the road to financial health. Fortunately, he was a methodical man, not prone to rash decisions.
After all, he wouldn’t want his children to see him in such straits. Not only was the government threatening him, the potential financial disaster was deeply humiliating to a man who had spent his entire adult life keeping track of money.