by Bryan Devore
“Yeah, I saw it. What the hell kind of message was that, anyway?”
“Did you do what I asked?”
There was a pause. “Yeah. Despite having no viable evidence, I pulled some strings. Put my career on the line, too, I’d like to remind you.”
“Good.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
Michael had worked with his case officer long enough to know that it was best to answer in short, clear sentences without a lot of hemming and hawing. “The twins tried to kill me when I went skiing with them on Friday. Lucas and I fell over a cliff. He broke his neck during the fall. It wasn’t murder. I managed to ski away from Lance and then drove to Aspen to find Don Seaton.”
“And that’s why you asked me to have Treasury contact the Secret Service—so they could work with domestic banks and Interpol to freeze Lance’s assets?”
Michael had been so distracted by the frantic work he was doing for Seaton, he had hardly had time to think about anything else, but he more than anyone knew the importance of tracking down Lance as soon as possible. “I think he’s on the run. When he and his brother couldn’t kill me, he must have figured the conspiracy would unravel. The only problem is, we don’t know a complete list of his bank accounts. Even though you probably froze everything that’s on record, he may still have some offshore accounts he can access.”
“We’re doing what we can. I have some people running a trace through his financial transactions with the banks we know of, in hopes of finding a trail to any offshore accounts.” Glazier paused. “Why did you visit Don Seaton?”
Michael sensed the tension in his case officer’s voice. Even before he told him the truth, he could tell that Glazier didn’t approve of his taking the initiative to involve others outside the Treasury.
“We were wrong about Don Seaton—he’s not part of the conspiracy. He’s as much a victim in all this as anyone.”
“Christ, Michael! It’s not our job to prioritize the victims. We’re supposed to just turn our findings over to the SEC. We don’t get involved with the resolutions, for good reasons. That’s up to other agencies. And we sure as hell don’t confront the founder of the corporation under investigation.”
Michael tensed for the argument he had been anticipating for days. “Glazier, we can still save this company!”
“Save it for what!” Glazier shot back. “For Seaton and his billions? For the software engineers and accountants that were happily nestled into their cubicles for so many years and will find new jobs within months? For the rich stockholders who gamble with their riches and cry foul anytime they actually lose money? We work for the federal government, Michael; we’re here to safeguard the system, and when the system fails, then those failures need to die a very painful and public death. It’s a deterrent for future failures. It’s what keeps the machine of capitalism well oiled. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way things can change. Don’t you know anything about history?”
“I know enough history to know that governments can fail the system and the people!”
“So you want to overthrow the government now, is that it? Think you’re working for the wrong side? What good will it do to save a failing company that eventually resorted to fraud? What good will it do?”
Michael raised his palm to push back against the pressure in his forehead. “You remember how it all fell apart for Enron?” he said in a quiet, weary voice. “Ken Lay authorized the draw on the remaining amount of Enron’s line of credit while still pretending there was nothing wrong with their financial position. Their credit rating was soon downgraded, Dynegy backed out of the merger talks, and a month later Enron filed for bankruptcy, making the stock virtually worthless. You always hear the stories of the people that lost their entire life savings because of the fall of Enron. The top executives ran the fraud. The workers of Enron had nothing to do with it, yet many of them lost everything. And when that happens it can affect families and sometimes even entire communities. You talk about protecting the system, but the system failed them. If anyone needs to be protected, it’s X-Tronic. Don’t kill it just to make an example. Destroy the conspirators, not the corporation.”
“Michael, we’ve done all we can. You’ve uncovered the fraud. We know that Kurt was murdered by the twins. And we’re putting an end to the conspiracy at X-Tronic, which is going to save tens of thousands of people hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. Could you imagine how many more people would have lost their asses if news of the fraud had come out after the merger with Cygnus? Jesus, do you even realize how much you’ve saved the financial world by what you’ve uncovered?”
Michael understood the good that they had done, but they could do more. And at this moment, he didn’t especially care what Glazier thought. He had done the right thing by breaking from his case officer to contact Seaton. But now Glazier could help Seaton and him do what was right.
“We can still save X-Tronic,” Michael repeated, ignoring Glazier’s comments. “Please, just hear me out. I’ve worked everything out. Don Seaton has billions of dollars he’s willing to risk to keep X-Tronic alive. He’s tried discussing it with Arnold Pym of the SEC, but Pym isn’t going along with our plan. I need your help. You’ve got influence within the department. I need you to convince Shevalin to back Seaton’s proposal. Shevalin could convince Pym to freeze trading on X-Tronic in order to give us a chance to thoroughly explain things at the shareholders’ meeting. It could give people time to consider the information, give securities analysts time to digest the impact—anything to avoid a mass panic in the marketplace.”
“Shevalin? You want me to sell this idea to the secretary of the treasury? You really want this to go all the way to the White House cabinet?”
The question startled Michael. He had been so focused on the local effects of the accounting fraud, it never occurred to him that the White House would want to have a look at his work. But that was now the level the game had to be played at. “Glazier, please,” he said. “This is the right thing to do for the employees and other stakeholders of X-Tronic. We owe it to them to do everything we can to salvage the situation.”
“Look,” Glazier said, “I don’t like this idea at all. It’s not for us to play wizard with the marketplace. Sound economic theory bets on X-Tronic to collapse. That’s the free market; that’s how corporate evolution is supposed to work. But I have some people here, so I’ll run the idea by them. If we decide it’s something we’re willing to back, then I’ll propose it to Shevalin’s office. But no promises.”
“Just remember what’s at stake,” Michael said.
“I am. Are you?”
Michael sensed the tension in Glazier’s voice, and he knew better than to push him any further. “Let me know what you decide. I have to get back to my work.”
“What are you working on?”
“I’m preparing the presentation Don Seaton’s giving to the shareholders in three days.”
“Christ, Michael, you’re already working for the Treasury Department and Cooley and White! Now you’re working for Don Seaton, too?”
“I don’t have a choice,” he replied, ending the call. He turned back to the stacks of files strewn across the fine carpeting of the penthouse’s main room. His last thought, as he began walking through the loose ends of missing contracts, was that all his efforts might come to nothing.
65
MICHAEL NEEDED TO do something to get his mind off the building storm. Grabbing the hotel phone from the white marble countertop, he dialed the one person who could distract him from all his cares. He needed a break, even if it was nothing more than a short phone conversation.
“Hello,” Alaska answered.
“Darling, I’ve fallen, and I need you to pick me up,” he said playfully.
“Michael . . . ?”
“Yes. Chapman, too, in case you’ve forgotten.” He was already feeling better.
“Oh, God, Michael. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you right now.”
“What? Why’s that?”
“I just . . . can’t.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I just don’t want to talk right now, okay?”
“Hey, wait. Come on, what is this?”
“Michael, look—oh, fuck!—I need a break, all right? I just don’t want to see you anymore. I just don’t care anymore. Okay? Things are happening in my life—things I need to get control of. I don’t know what you think we had together, but I shouldn’t have led you on.” She paused, waiting for his response. “I’m really sorry.”
“Something tells me this isn’t a joke,” he said, shaken.
“Good-bye, Michael.” The phone went dead.
He felt as if a door had been slammed in his face. Her words hadn’t made any sense. It was as if he had just now spoken to a different woman from the one he had met at the nightclub. What had happened to that sweet girl he took snowmobiling? A thought entered his mind that made him gulp. A resource he could use. He printed a document from his computer and cut and pasted a name before scanning it into his electronic files. A number he could dial to obtain answers . . . He grabbed the phone again and dialed the number he had committed to memory long ago, after graduating from the academy in Alabama.
“Agency operator,” a voice answered. “Authorization code, please?”
“Special Agent Michael Chapman—authorization code US748AUG7 Alpha Sigma.”
“Confirmed,” the voice replied. “Direction?”
“Network records processing. Telephone. Civilian.”
“Restricted! Court authorization?”
“Signed warrant—the Honorable Susanna Clarke—U.S. Tenth District Court. Fax number?” Michael spoke the lie with confidence. After penning the number the operator gave him, he slid over to the fax and sent through the forged warrant. Taking advantage of a system that relied too heavily on integrity, trusting pieces of paper with illegible scribbles of ink signatures as a basis for important decisions, it had not taken him long to turn a copy of the warrant for Lance Seaton’s phone records into a federal document that offered him immediate access to Alaska’s phone records.
Waiting while the operator worked on the other end of the line, he held the cordless phone to his ear and paced around the room. It wasn’t the first time he had taken advantage of the agency for personal reasons. Besides, after the success of the X-Tronic case, his career in the Treasury Department would be untouchable. He was on the verge of exposing one of the most complicated corporate fraud scandals in the history of the United States, but at this moment all he wanted was to know if Alaska was seeing another man. He wanted to see if she had called anyone after their last conversation.
“Sir? Right, I’ve accessed the files through Telenet’s system for the number you’ve indicated. How would you like me to transcribe them for you?”
“I don’t need a transcription this evening. I need to know of all incoming and outgoing calls after five o’clock Mountain Time.”
“This evening, sir?” He detected the trace of uncertainty in the operator’s tone.
“Quickly, please.”
He could hear the soft click of computer keys in the background.
“Only two calls, sir: one incoming at 19:04 local time, one outgoing at 19:14.”
“What can you tell me about the outgoing call?”
“303-641-8932. Hold on, please.” More typing. “No listing in our directory. Cell phone. The number has been canceled recently, so the call was relayed to an auto response message. Hold on.” More typing. “No, no luck, sir. Can’t find a user name. Business phone—corporate account, used for pooling. Generic contact name on the account, no way to trace to individual.”
“The number was disconnected? Who did it belong to? It has to be traced to someone.”
“Not this type of account. Addressed to some sort of corporate sales department. No specific person attached.”
“Name of the company?” he asked, grasping for any clue about the person Alaska had tried to call.
“X-Tronic, sir,” the operator spoke dully. “Like the software company.”
Dumbstruck, he stepped back from the fax machine, his mind racing to catch up with the operator’s words. How could Alaska be tied to X-Tronic? He had met her at the nightclub around the same time he had been placed on the engagement. She had come on to him so strong, practically seducing him. And she was also from Aspen—had she known the twins growing up? She had been at their party. Had she been involved with them the entire time?
“Sir?” the operator said, interrupting Michael’s thoughts. “I just noticed something strange . . .” A brief pause. “Are you aware that the 19:04 incoming call was from the same number that you’re currently using? Did you call the suspect listed in the warrant?”
“Thank you,” Michael replied, hanging up.
He leaned against the table, feeling as if the ground had moved from under him. The night had been too long. After a moment he opened his eyes and promised himself he would not shed a single tear—not for her. Then he went to the closet, grabbed his jacket, and—against his better judgment—left the Presidential Suite.
Michael had the cabbie stop a block from Alaska’s apartment building. He got out, the rim of his baby blue Nuggets cap tipped over his eyes, the collar of his leather jacket upturned against the cold wind. Alaska’s building was in the middle of the block. As he approached it, the glass door in front swung open, and there she stood.
Alaska stepped out into the night, her black scarf waving behind her in the breeze. She was twenty yards from him. Veering off the sidewalk, he slipped into the tall shadows along the building and watched as she moved toward him.
“Alaska,” he said just as she walked past.
She spun her head around so quickly, her long, black hair swung up and wrapped around her face. Pulling the hair aside with one hand, she fixed her dark eyes on his faint outline in the shadows. Her eyes widened as he stepped out into the light with the rim of his cap still hiding the top half of his face.
“Michael?” she asked, still uncertain who it was.
“Alaska,” he repeated.
“Michael . . . Jesus! I said it was over. Just leave me alone. It was good for a while. Please! Let’s just leave it at—”
“X-Tronic?” he said, silencing her with a single word. His arms hung low, with open palms toward her, as if pleading for an explanation.
She stepped back suddenly, frightened as if the mere word had the power to harm her. She looked up at him with a guarded mysteriousness just as she had at the Church that night when they first met. “Michael, you don’t understand. My father—”
“Don’t,” he said, trying to hold back his rage. “I don’t want to know why. I just want to know when they first got to you.”
She was silent for a few seconds, as if looking back in time for the answer. “Before we ever met,” she replied.
“You had me marked in the club that night. You already knew I was on the X-Tronic audit. Lance and Lucas hired you to spy on my personal activities. You helped them make sure I wasn’t discovering too many of X-Tronic’s little secrets.”
“I don’t know anything about the company. They just wanted me to inform them about your personal life at first.”
“So we never had a single real moment together,” he said, anger burning in his eyes, just behind the tears.
“I don’t know, Michael,” she said, her head still lowered, unable to look at him. “It felt real.”
“Where’s Lance?”
She shook her head. “He only gave me a number to call if you contacted me. It’s not even a phone he’s using anymore. He must have disconnected it without telling me anything.”
“No, he wouldn’t have told you,” he said, trying to register her answer. “Lance would be smart enough to know not to trust you.” And he turned and walked away without giving her a chance to reply.
As he moved along the cold street, only fifteen blocks away from his own ap
artment building in Capitol Hill, he realized that Denver was too small a city for him ever to forget about her. He could barely control his anger. With any luck, he would never see Alaska again.
66
ON THURSDAY MORNING, valets at the Downtown Hilton jockeyed the cars of business journalists, securities analysts, and X-Tronic shareholders. The lobby was full of overnight guests mingling loudly with new arrivals. As they introduced themselves to one another, debates quickly sparked up over the possibilities of the new X-Tronic-Cygnus Corporation. The excitement over the merger vote had caught enough interest from Wall Street that seven of the largest brokerage houses had sent small teams of analysts to monitor the shareholders’ meeting.
As nine o’clock approached, the lobby crowd thinned, migrating up the elevators to the Mount Evans Ballroom on the fiftieth floor. The walls of windows stretching from floor to ceiling, with their panoramic view of downtown and the mountains beyond, gave one the sensation of floating above the city.
Set apart from the ranks of chairs, well-spaced microphones, and digital feed systems for the securities analysts, a long table for the board of directors sat on the elevated stage at the front of the room. At the center of the table, Don Seaton sat masked in a false smile, waiting uncomfortably for the meeting to begin. Tensions were already mounting in the room, as shareholders learned that the SEC had just halted all trading of X-Tronic shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Most assumed it was a hedge against immediate volatility during the merger vote, but some interpreted it as a sure sign of danger.
Michael stood hidden from the guests in the wings behind the stage. He watched Don Seaton waiting to begin the meeting. Then he turned his eyes to the fifth row, where John Falcon and Jerry Diamond sat together. He had never seen these two conspirators in one place before. Lance Seaton would have made it a full house, but he was still nowhere to be found.