“Or are you afraid to shoot?” Sandifer took a step toward him.
“Shoot him, Zach, do it.” In a split-second glance at her he saw the eruption of nine months of suppressed rage. “Remember what he did.”
“You sold out for money,” Zach said.
“It isn’t about the fucking money.” He seemed passionate about the point.
“Why is Julian doing this? He has everything…everything he could ever need or want.”
“Except his son.”
“This is about Matthew?”
“It’s always about the children,” Sandifer said with a touch of sadness. The boat continued to rock, lapping waves punctuating the vast silence.
“Your daughter, in the home in New Jersey, this is all about—”
“My new cause,” he said quietly.
“Zach, the rifle!” Sarah cried.
Distracted, he’d let the nose slip a few inches. Raising it to chest level, he said, “Sarah, you have to steer the boat to Saint Thomas.”
“Not with him on board. He’s dangerous. I don’t trust him.”
“She’s right, Zach, don’t trust me.” The cold voice was back. Sandifer took a step toward him, arms still on his hips.
Zach raised the rifle a few inches. “Stop there.”
Sandifer took another step, then another. He seemed confident that Zach wouldn’t shoot—or perhaps he didn’t care.
“Shoot him, Zach!”
When Sandifer was within a few feet he reached for the end of the rifle with his right hand.
“Shoot—”
Sarah lunged at the rifle, perhaps intending to pull the trigger herself. Zach felt the weapon being yanked away from him—Sandifer had wrapped his right hand around the barrel and was beginning, cautiously, to tug at it.
He fired. The discharge flung him against the captain’s chair, and it was a second or two before he could assess what he’d done. Sandifer was gripping his left shoulder with his right hand, blood oozing around it, and staggering back toward the ship’s stern. His eyes never left Zach; in fact, he didn’t appear to be blinking. Something in the gaze—hatred combined with chilling disinterest—caused Zach to raise the rifle and fire again. But the bullet missed him by at least a foot. He aimed again. Sandifer, still registering no emotion of any kind, casually stepped onto the back ledge and jumped—or, rather, fell—into the water.
“Don’t let him get away, Zach!”
Zach moved to the stern. The current was drawing Sandifer quickly away from the boat, back toward Saint Sebastian. He didn’t appear to be making any effort to swim.
“He has nowhere to go,” Zach said. But even as he said it he wondered why he didn’t fire. Because the man’s only motivation was the desire to provide for his daughter? Was it sympathy? Or was he a coward? “We’ll call the police when we get to Saint Thomas.”
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21
Chapter 49
“I have an important story for you.”
Julian observed, with some satisfaction, Simon Avery’s face darken. They were in the European painting galleries on the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum.
“Why so glum, Simon? The last story I gave you bumped your news ratings by 15 percent.”
“The drug charges against Delsiner have still not been substantiated, and we’ve had a team of journalists on the story. But that didn’t help him. He’s through.”
“Yes, well that’s politics. It’s not the truth that matters, it’s the perception of truth. What people believe, not reality. What do you think of her?” He pointed to the Ghirlandaio portrait of an unknown fifteenth-century woman, one of his favorite paintings in the Met.
“It’s very nice,” Avery said warily, as if the anonymous figure might be the subject of the important story.
They considered the Ghirlandaio for a few moments, like an awkward couple on a first date, seeking distraction. Julian had summoned Avery to the Met because he missed the Ghirlandaio, her golden, ringletted hair, eggshell skin, inscrutably dark eyes, above all her laudable imperviousness to the parade of visitors who ignored her as they hurried to this or that blockbuster exhibit. She seemed more timeless than the emaciated Madonnas and tortured saints that surrounded her in the always deserted gallery, more worthy of worship. He wanted her, wanted to own her, but she was forever beyond his grasp, or so he had long thought. He’d offered, through contacts on the Met’s board, which he’d been invited to join many times, to buy any number of pictures that had come up for auction and donate them to the Met in return for the Ghirlandaio, a deal that would have cost him tens of millions of dollars. But such a transaction went against the museum’s policy. Perhaps if things worked out with Harry Lightstone such a policy might be loosened just once. The promise of National Endowment funds for an upcoming exhibition, invitations to a state dinner or two for a Met trustee, perhaps an overnight in the Lincoln bedroom—even the Met’s august and wealthy board members had their price.
Then, too, dragging Simon Avery up to the Met sent a very clear message about who was in control, not that Avery needed a reminder that Masters Broadcasting was controlled by Mellow Partners. It was just that journalists, even broadcast journalists—even executives of broadcast companies—could be tedious about ethics.
“You are aware that I control Searchlight Investments?” Julian said, still staring at Ghirlandaio’s anonymous muse.
“Is there anything you don’t control?” Avery said with more sorrow than sarcasm.
“Searchlight handles the investments for many prominent people, including Evan Smith.” He heard Avery groan at the mention of the vice president’s name. “I have in my possession an email message from the chief investment officer of Searchlight, Victor Carron, concerning the vice president. The email directs a subordinate to move all of the vice president’s assets out of Searchlight’s oil and gas fund and into its media fund at the vice president’s request.”
“Impossible. Smith’s assets are in a blind trust.”
“Exactly. Which is why this email is so potentially important.”
“How did you get it?” Avery asked.
“Unimportant.”
“Not to me. We must know our sources before we run a story. I’m assuming you want us to run a story on this.”
“The email was sent six weeks ago. Three things have happened since then. The White House proposed tapping the strategic oil reserve, which immediately drove down the price of oil, which substantially drove down the stocks of oil companies, many of which are held by Searchlight. The White House also proposed further loosening the restriction on cross-ownership of media properties, which drove up the stocks of media companies, many of which are owned by Searchlight. And Searchlight moved the vice president’s assets, some twenty-three million dollars, from Searchlight’s oil stocks to its media stocks, netting a very impressive profit. This was all done at the specific request of Smith.”
“Do you know what you’re suggesting?”
“It’s an important story, and a coup for Masters Broadcasting.”
“I assume you have proof beyond the email message.”
“The email is from Victor Carron to one of his subordinates, indicating that the assets were transferred at the request of the vice president.”
“Internal email messages don’t constitute proof, Julian. I think you know that.”
“And we are not arguing this case in court, Simon. I also have an email acknowledgment from Friend to the vice president’s chief of staff that the transfers were made.”
“But no evidence that the vice president or his staff ever received the email. This entire thing could be a fabrication. Where is the email from the veep’s office requesting this reallocation?”
“It was done by phone, apparently.”
Simon sighed heavily. “Will Marvin Friend support this story? Will he admit that he moved assets at the request of the vice president?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then there is no story
.”
Julian turned back to Ghirlandaio’s serene and patient woman. As always happened with great portraits, she appeared to have changed since he’d consulted her few minutes earlier. Had the right edge of her lips always curled up ever so slightly, as if she knew what Julian was up to, and approved? Could she guess the magic that Grace Carr had worked, backdating emails and cleverly secreting them in the fathomless depths of Mellow Partners’ servers? Had she any idea of the cost of college tuition, or what a midlevel executive with an unemployed husband might do to pay it?
“Certain facts will be uncontested. In addition to threatening to open up the oil reserves, the administration, at the urging of the vice president, expanded domestic drilling rights for oil companies, thereby driving down the price of a barrel of oil 10 percent, give or take. Another fact: the vice president has been at the forefront of the movement to further relax the rules that govern ownership of local television and radio outlets, which recently resulted in legislation that did just that. Another fact: Searchlight Investments, just prior to both policy changes, moved all of the vice president’s oil and gas assets into media stocks.”
“But that could have been coincidence. No, that could have been strategy. I’m no expert in investments, but plenty of people were anticipating both the drilling legislation and the new media ownership rules. I’m sure many investment advisers reallocated their funds to capitalize on these events.”
“But if you knew in advance that the legislation was going to be proposed, and had a good chance of passing…” Julian stopped himself. He would not be drawn into an argument with Simon Avery. Instead, he handed him a manila envelope. “Here are the email messages and additional background information.”
Avery hesitated before taking the envelope, which he regarded as if it might burn his fingers.
“I’ll have my news director look this over and—”
“I want the story to run tonight, on every Masters outlet.”
“I can’t do that.”
“The very same new media rules we’ve been talking about make this a very propitious time for taking Masters public. In fact, this week my staff is working with bankers at Goldman on the deal. One of our biggest tasks will be allocating ownership stakes to Masters executives. If the deal moves forward as we anticipate, several of them will be immensely wealthy the day the company goes public.”
“Are you suggesting that—”
“But if anyone should leave before the IPO, well, obviously they will miss out on an extraordinary opportunity. You might want to spread the word, Simon, that leaving Masters at this point in time would be very unfortunate from a personal financial perspective. That would include being fired.”
He turned away from Avery and gave the Ghirlandaio a final glance. She looked vaguely disappointed, as if this were just one more illustration of greed and betrayal that she’d had to witness for over six centuries. Nothing had changed since the 1400s, she seemed to be thinking. Today it was about oil and gas and broadcast media, all unknown half a millennium ago. But the motivations, the threats, the compromises, the vanity—these were as timeless as the portrait itself.
“Goodbye, Simon,” he said, and walked quickly from the gallery. As soon as he reached the top of the main staircase his cell picked up a signal and vibrated. The LED screen showed his secretary’s name.
“I’ve been trying you for almost twenty minutes,” Stacy said when he answered. “Mr. Franklin called.”
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22
Chapter 50
Zach rented a car at the Lambert–Saint Louis Airport and drove out to Ladue, a suburb. He’d managed to sleep for an hour on the flight from Miami, the only rest he’d gotten over the past day or so, and it hadn’t done much to relieve either his fatigue or sense of unreality. Had he really been shot at on Saint Sebastian? Had he really ever lived there? Had he and Sarah really witnessed the execution of his “brother,” Melvin, and then stolen his boat? But the most surreal moment of the entire day had been in the police station on Saint Thomas, where he and Sarah had gone after docking Melvin’s boat at the nearby Crown Bay Marina. While waiting to tell their story they heard two police officers discussing a bulletin that had just come in from Saint Sebastian. An employee of the governor had been gunned down on the governor’s dock. Two Americans were suspected, a young couple who lived next door and who had conveniently vanished with the governor’s boat.
So much for the police. They were considered armed and dangerous and were to be detained without access to counsel until federal authorities arrived from the mainland.
Zach convinced her to get out of there, arguing that they’d be locked up indefinitely, given what had happened on Saint Sebastian and, earlier, in New York. They emptied the safety deposit box with the key Sarah kept around her neck, took a cab to the airport, where Arthur and Alison Sandler bought two tickets to Miami. At Miami International Airport, he debated with Sarah what to do. She was still in favor of throwing themselves at the mercy of the police. At least they’d be safe, she’d argued. Zach argued that the police would probably lock them up for killing Melvin—Zach was still a suspect in Jessica Winter’s murder, after all, and Sarah’s sudden reappearance wouldn’t help their case—and they were hardly likely to buy his paranoid rant about a plot by a well-known pillar of the investment community to change the course of the upcoming presidential election, just ten days away.
“I need to expose him,” he told her at the airport taxi stand. After all that had happened, he was reluctant to even give voice to his nemesis’s name. “That’s the only way we’ll ever be safe.” He needed to expose Julian, stop him. He couldn’t take the chance that the police would lock him up, potentially until after the election.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” she asked in the taxi from the airport. It was the first mention of Billy Sandifer since leaving Saint Thomas. “You let him get away.”
“I shot him in the shoulder. I doubt he survived the swim back to shore.”
“Doubt? You doubt he survived? This is my life you’re talking about.” Then, in a quieter voice, “Our lives.”
He had nothing to say in his defense, so he said nothing. She had stayed behind in Miami, and he had traveled on to Saint Louis. They’d had a difficult farewell.
Stephen Delsiner lived in a center-hall colonial in the upscale Saint Louis suburb of Ladue. Zach recalled that he’d been a lawyer before entering politics, and 33 Winfield Road was the sort of unassertively prosperous home a successful attorney with political ambitions might choose. Had the drug scandal not erupted, bringing down not only Delsiner but the nominee at the top of the ticket, Gabe Rooney, there would probably have been a dark sedan parked by the curb with a pair of Secret Servicemen inside, perhaps a caravan of news vans—assuming Delsiner was home and not on the campaign trail. As he walked toward the front door across the neatly-tended lawn, raked clean of all but a thin scattering of late autumn leaves, Zach sensed something eerie about the quietness of the Delsiner home, as if it had been overlooked or forgotten or even stifled in some way. Or perhaps it was the early morning hour in a sleepy Midwestern suburb that felt strangely quiet to him, after decades in Manhattan and nine months on Saint Sebastian, serenaded by the incessant lapping of the Caribbean.
Delsiner opened the door. At first Zach didn’t recognize the former senator. He looked thinner and older, his face darkened by stubble. “Senator Delsiner?”
“Used to live here,” he said. “Not anymore.”
His voice seemed to lack the energy for irony, let alone humor.
“May I come in, senator? I’m investigating certain events surrounding the current presidential campaign and I—”
“Reporter? I thought you guys had given up on me. The lapsed ex-drug addict, disgraced former senator. Has-been. You got your story.”
“I’m not a reporter.”
“Police? Because you’re wasting your time if you are. You won’t find drugs here, or any information about drugs, or the n
ames of drug dealers, or other drug users…”
“I’m not a policeman. I’m a former employee of Julian Mellow. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Used to be one of my biggest contributors.”
Julian had never expressed a single political view in all the years Zach worked for him, but he had spread money around both major parties, hedging his bets. Nevertheless, it was unsettling, if not surprising, to think that Julian had once supported, however perfunctorily, the man he had later set out to destroy.
“I think he’s responsible for…” He hesitated, then figured that neither he nor, judging by his appearance, Delsiner, had anything to lose. “…for your downfall.”
“Julian Mellow?”
Zach nodded and waited an eternity for Delsiner to respond. Finally, he waved him inside. “Well, someone’s responsible. I might as well hear your theory.”
Delsiner led him through an elegantly appointed hallway to the kitchen, where a television was tuned to a campaign appearance by Harry Lightstone.
“I don’t know why I even pay attention anymore,” Delsiner said. “My wife had it on before she left for the office. You want coffee?”
“Desperately,” Zach said.
The ex-senator poured two cups from a coffeemaker and plunked them down on the small kitchen table. He got a carton of milk from the refrigerator and placed that on the table too. He rooted through two cabinets before finding a box of sugar. Watching him shuffle around the kitchen, dressed in a wrinkled blue work shirt and jeans, Zach considered how far Delsiner had fallen. Then again, he’d resurrected himself once; perhaps a second rebirth was possible.
“I don’t know how he does it,” he said, nodding to Lightstone’s image on the screen. “How do you keep up the energy when you know you’re going down?” His eyes drifted from the television, perhaps applying the question to his own situation.
“I wouldn’t count him out.”
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