by David Pepper
Kazarov, looking at a later page, added, “And he is looking for a piece of evidence that shows that Stanton did not just know of the plan, but took part in it. . . . led it. He is eager to make the connection. He clearly does not like the congressman.”
“He also is still unsure of Ariens’ role, although he suspects Ariens was part of the plot because of his connection to both Marcellus and Stanton,” Andersson said.
Andersson paused for a few seconds, and then added, “He has little to say about Marcellus.”
Kazarov jumped in.
“True, but . . .” and he reached over and scrolled a couple slides down, “here are his notes following his visit with Mason. As I predicted, he does not believe that Mason is capable of running Marcellus, which will only lead him to dig deeper into our operation. While he was simply fishing at first, that meeting has raised his suspicion that we may be involved.”
They turned to Kondrakov, and Kazarov asked him a few questions.
“Did the photographs in his phone tell us anything?”
“Only that he cares a lot for his son. There was one photo of the Suburban’s license plate, but we already knew about that one.”
“And his phone calls?”
“He mainly talks to his son and a few times with the professor. He has talked several times with Kelly’s wife. He had a conversation with a congressional staff member who we don’t know, but are now looking into. May have known the girl. And he called the Stanton private cell phone number—and it looks like he did so during their meeting.”
Kazarov smiled.
“I like this man from Ohio.”
Of course, he had liked Ariens too.
Chapter 48
GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE: 159 days after election
The pain was largely gone by 10:00 a.m. the next morning, so I tried to put the finishing touches on my Abacus follow-up story. But I couldn’t focus. My mind kept wandering back to the fact that a Russian-speaking goon squad was on my tail. Who would hire them, and why?
Plus, Scott only was tailed after my Titusville meeting. Could it be that the brains behind Marcellus was the one keeping an eye on my every move? And stepped it up after the Mason meeting to include Scott?
It was a hunch worth pursuing.
I had installed an internet connection four years ago, knowing that my parents would view this as sacrilege. The cabin didn’t even have electricity twenty years ago. But I had modernized for times like this.
I googled the words: Russian, energy, oil, gas.
Numerous entries appeared for Gazprom and Lukoil, the 2 largest oil and gas enterprises in Russia. Not useful. These were enormous, incredibly bureaucratic organizations, far more like Shell than Marcellus.
The search was too broad, so I added a single word: “fracking.” After two seconds, a new set of results appeared.
The first four entries referred to a large shale formation in western Siberia. The site where horizontal fracking first succeeded in extracting mass amounts of oil and natural gas. Good.
I dug deeper. Who initiated fracking there?
The company was called Siberneft.
The new enterprise conducted the first horizontal fracking tests there about ten years ago, and the technology worked even better than the engineers had expected. Wisely, Siberneft kept this initial success to itself while acquiring huge tracts of land and before anyone knew it, the young company drew gobs of oil and gas from beneath old oil fields long ago abandoned as dry.
Sounded a lot like how Marcellus got its start in Ohio.
And who was behind Siberneft? Searched further.
One name came up. Again and again.
Oleg Kazarov.
I printed out everything I could find in English about this murky billionaire and then spent the next two hours reading three inches of materials.
Like many of Russia’s richest men, the young engineer had been the perfect age at the perfect time in Russia’s history. Amid the lawless privatization frenzy of the mid-1990s, his first move was to wrest control of a gas company after swindling peasants out of their valuable auction vouchers to get his foot in the door, and then outwitting his partner, an old party boss, to seize control. He then initiated a number of start-ups, along with a series of acquisitions, across Russia, other former Soviet satellites, and ultimately Europe. In each location, he used the same pattern—keep a low profile, perfect the science and engineering required to succeed, and share the riches generously with local communities. And the formula worked every time, as his various companies raked in billions while winning over the locals who helped make it happen. He now lived in London, and despite keeping an intensely low profile, had earned the respect of Western financiers along the way.
Looking at all the facts, it didn’t take long to conclude, with absolute certainty, that this was the man behind Marcellus. Well disguised, too—despite all my looking into Marcellus itself, the name Kazarov never once appeared. But the parallels gave it away.
After placing all these materials in a file folder, I pulled my running stuff back on. Before heading home, I wanted to complete the full jog from the day before. Fired up, I hit the turnaround point at 23:14 and brought it home in 23:40. My best pace in years.
* * *
“What the hell happened to your head?” Andres asked the next morning.
“Is it that noticeable?”
“That bump is enormous. You should have someone look at it.”
“Just part of my commitment to journalism, and this newspaper. But I guess I should have had my head examined a long time ago.”
I laughed at my own joke but then explained what happened.
“Jesus. I’m not surprised you’ve pissed some people off, you basically said last year’s entire election was a fraud,” Andres said. “But being followed and then knocked out? That’s scary stuff.”
“It is. But I’m onto something big. And they know it. Following Scott is pure intimidation. They could tell I had stopped caring.”
“Well, we’ll chat at 1:00. Be ready for some tough questions from the top.”
“I’ll show my bump as Exhibit A.”
I walked back to my desk, shaking my head. Not from the pain, but frustration. The bad guys are so concerned about my story they are assaulting me, but my own paper makes me jump through hoops to prove myself.
A large yellow envelope greeted me at my desk. Again, from Bethesda, the package looked like the prior ones, so I eagerly grabbed at it. It was solid, unbendable. Like the first package.
More photographs.
I opened the envelope and pulled out five large 8.5” x 11” color prints. A little grainy, like something you’d see on a security camera. Again, time-stamped. Between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., almost two years ago.
The same man appeared in all five pictures. Jet-black hair. Tall. Thin. Well-dressed. I recognized him in an instant: Tom Stanton.
Walking into a lobby entrance.
Sitting in a meeting room, talking with someone whose face was blurred.
Walking through another hallway.
Standing in a much larger space, the size of a gym. A warehouse of some sort. I could see a large loading dock in the back corner, and boxes stacked up, ready for shipping.
And the last one? A photo of Stanton examining a machine of some sort.
I paused longer at that one. Looked closely at the machine. And then simply yelled out, “Yes!”
The congressman, now majority leader of the House, was eyeing the same type of machine I had observed in the Monroe County Board of Elections. An Abacus voting machine.
I jogged down the hallway to the photo room, grabbed the small magnifying glass they used to crop photos, and rushed back to my desk to take an even closer look.
Under the lens, the Abacus logo was plainly visible on a screen in the meeting r
oom. And it appeared on the dozens of boxes awaiting shipment near the loading dock.
Back to the first photo, I didn’t even need the magnifying class to see that the wall behind the lobby’s reception desk displayed an Abacus logo. I had been so focused on Stanton I didn’t notice it the first time.
Unbelievable. The guy had toured Abacus months before he even got the fucking memo. He had reviewed the whole operation himself, first-hand.
Finally, proof that Stanton was not simply aware of the Abacus plan thanks to an eager staffer, but participated in the plot himself.
And it explained everything that followed. The killing of Simpson once she unwittingly revealed that she had figured out what her boss already knew. The killing of Kelly once he did the same. Stanton was in on it from the beginning, had everything to lose, and responded accordingly.
I re-opened the story on my laptop and added this critical new piece of data.
* * *
With the newly added wrinkle, the draft I turned into my editors Monday afternoon packed a punch.
YOUNGSTOWN
Few politicians campaigned harder in last November’s election than Congressman Thomas Stanton, and few benefitted more from the surprising result. The new House majority leader is now among the three most powerful people in Washington, and he appears on every pundit’s short list of viable Presidential contenders.
In his fall campaign whirlwind, Stanton campaigned heavily in almost every one of the districts in which the Abacus company altered the results in last November’s elections. And a Vindicator investigation has found that this wasn’t a mere coincidence—Stanton, as House minority whip, knew more than a year in advance virtually every district where Abacus had located its game-changing machines. And that’s exactly where he campaigned.
Photographs obtained by the Vindicator show that Stanton himself reviewed the operation of Abacus, in person, nineteen months before the election. From examining the vote-counting machines close-up to looking at the shipping operation as the company distributed them nationwide, it appears that Stanton was directly involved in overseeing the Abacus operation . . .
The story still didn’t mention the Marcellus connection—that remained only speculation, nothing I could prove. But it did walk through the deaths of Kelly and Simpson after each had discovered the Abacus plot, and described each victim’s connection to Stanton.
Andres and the publisher, 70-year-old Dennis Davis, said nothing for fifteen minutes as they read my draft. But their headshakes, wide eyes, and grunts telegraphed their strong reaction to the substance of the story. I fiddled with my phone, which rested in my right pocket, as they assessed my work.
Finally, Davis looked up. An old, silver-haired newsman who’d seen it all, his face looked uncharacteristically alarmed. While his gray mustache hid his mouth, his wide eyes alone communicated his startled reaction.
“My God, is all this true?”
“Actually, there’s a lot more than this. Those are just the facts I am 100 percent certain of, with strong sourcing. I’m chasing down some more details. And there are also some sources I hope will now agree to go on the record with additional insights.”
“Stanton must’ve been working with someone, right?” Andres asked.
“Sure. I’m looking into that as we speak. Have some good leads, as you’ll see from that stack of papers on my desk.”
“We definitely need that answered to move forward,” Andres said.
“I used to think so. But honestly, the House majority leader, someone who is on the short list to be the next president, masterminding a vote-rigging scandal is the story either way. Whoever he collaborated with to execute the plan is secondary. Would be like holding up the Iran-Contra scandal story because you didn’t know what shipping company they used to move the weapons.”
“That’s a fair point. Stanton is the story. But we should hunt the partner out anyway. Closes the circle.”
Easy for him to say. Still, I decided to be atypically agreeable.
“I’m on it.”
“Not sure what to say about including the two deaths,” Andres said. “That may be a little much.”
“I’ve simply reported the facts on them, which speak for themselves.”
Andres looked over at Davis. The publisher looked back and, a second later, nodded his head.
Andres turned back to me.
“This looks solid. Good work. Give us your final draft by Thursday.”
Chapter 49
LONDON: 160 days after the election
“He doesn’t appear to have told them about Marcellus,” Andersson said to Kazarov, again seated at a table with Kondrakov.
The rest of the office had already emptied out when the three listened attentively to the conversation between the reporter and his editors. Thankfully, he brought his cell phone to the meeting. The conversation was a little muffled, but they could hear most of it.
“This means he can be killed without any connection back to us,” Kondrakov added.
“Not yet,” Kazarov replied, lifting his right hand. “He remains focused on Stanton. This is even better. He knows someone else is involved, but seems content to have the story be about the politician.”
Andersson rarely disagreed with his boss in front of others. But he did so here. “Sir, it seemed like he was simply trying to convince them to let him continue working on the story. So downplaying the biggest unanswered question would help accomplish that goal.”
“Fair enough,” Kazarov replied. “We shall see. And there was nothing yesterday?”
“He worked on his own the whole day. Talked to no one, and said nothing himself. Left a message for his son as he drove back to Youngstown.”
“Okay. Keep listening. He’s back at work now and will talk more.”
* * *
YOUNGSTOWN
I strolled back to my desk beaming a wide grin. Progress.
Energized, I made two calls.
First, to Stanton’s office.
“Please connect me to Don Young. It’s Jack Sharpe.”
After a few seconds, the chief of staff picked up.
“Young, I hope you had a good weekend. Still holding back on the Simpson sex story. But I have to do an on-the-record interview with Stanton immediately.”
“It’s not going to happen, Jack.”
“It will take five minutes. It’s your choice.”
He couldn’t say no.
“I’ll be right back.”
After two minutes, a different voice hopped on the line. “What do you want now? I told you everything already.”
“Not exactly, Congressman. What are the odds that the person blamed for killing Joanie Simpson was arrested by your man, James Dennison, twenty-one times in five years? They knew each other.”
“Jim mentioned that when that’s who they identified. When it comes to hardened criminals, it’s a small world, I guess. What’s your point?”
A much calmer answer than I expected.
“It doesn’t strike you as odd? Suspicious?”
“Of course it’s odd. But when you’re in my business long enough, odd things happen all the time. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
He managed that one surprisingly well. But now came the 99-mph fastball at the head.
“Congressman, I have clear evidence that you toured the Abacus facility prior to last November’s election. In fact, long beforehand. Please tell me what in the world you were doing there.”
I wanted to scare the congressman, but didn’t want to reveal how damning the evidence was.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But his voice lacked the confidence of his prior answers.
“You don’t remember being there?”
“Being where?”
“Abacus.”
/>
“Of course not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ is your official answer.’”
“Yes, it is. Now that’s your five minutes.”
* * *
“Ariens Group.”
“Is Janet Compton there?”
“I will see. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Tell her it’s Jack Sharpe, and it’s urgent.”
Compton was a pro. Would not be easy to catch her off guard.
Three minutes later, she picked up.
“Mr. Sharpe, I’m very busy. How can I help you? And please make it fast.”
“Janet, thanks for taking a moment. Hope all is well.”
“You too.”
“You mentioned that the day before he died, Mr. Ariens traveled to and from London in a 24-hour window. Was he visiting Oleg Kazarov?”
A significant pause followed.
“Excuse me?” she finally asked.
“When he went to London, was he visiting Oleg Kazarov?”
She regained her footing.
“I told you before—I’m not at liberty to discuss our business at that level of detail.”
“But Mr. Kazarov, who runs Marcellus, is a client, right?”
“No! I’m not confirming or denying anything. I’m done with this harassment!”
She hung up.
Short call, but I’d gotten what I needed.
Given Mason’s lack of political sophistication, someone else at Marcellus worked closely with Ariens and his team on the Energy 2020 political plan. When we met in person, Compton mentioned that Ariens had traveled to London the day before he died. And Kazarov lived in London. Maybe the Russian himself directly led Energy 2020 with his lobbyists.
And this call made that appear even more likely.
Compton’s response was entirely appropriate—she should not have discussed client relations with me.