by Rick Pullen
“Sure. The public thinks you’re clear of all conflicts of interest by putting your assets in a blind trust because someone else controls your investments—” Jones was wheezing and laughing at the same time. “When—when—in fact we’re just hiding your conflicts of interest from the public in a blind trust.”
They both broke into laughter.
“Dougie, you’re killing me.”
Fahy clicked the file closed and swiveled in his desk chair to face the tall man seated across from him.
“This is the break I’ve been looking for,” Fahy said. “I’ve been trying to nail this bastard for years.”
6
“There’s more,” McCauley said. “I called around. I talked to a friend of a friend who knows a real estate agent. Bayard leases his property on Grand Cayman to a commercial enterprise.” McCauley eased back in his chair. He looked relaxed with his legs crossed. “Then my friend of a friend dug up copies of Bayard’s incorporation papers. That’s where it gets interesting.”
“Friend of a friend?” Fahy cracked a slight smile at what the FBI special agent had just said. “Friend of a friend.”
“So I struggle to get approval to prosecute cases and you can move forward finding friends in the Caymans?”
“Strictly unofficial, I assure you. We have ways.” McCauley nodded. “Granted, we will need our own sandals on the ground to verify anything.”
“And you volunteered, of course.”
McCauley grinned for the first time. “I think we have an opening.”
“Remind me the next time I need a parking ticket fixed,” said Fahy.
“Parking tickets? Maybe not. But this Bayard case . . .”
Fahy sat back and studied McCauley, a well-maintained man like himself. Today, however, Fahy, felt weary, a bit rumpled in his shirtsleeves and rep tie while eyeing the younger McCauley in his tailored suit and still sporting the athletic build of a college basketball player.
Fahy had been pursuing Bayard for what seemed like forever, and now, upon hearing McCauley had new information, he wondered if he had done the right thing by calling the reporter. Was he short-circuiting McCauley’s efforts? He trusted McCauley, if not the rest of the FBI. Was he in too much of a hurry to press his case before the fall election? Maybe he just wouldn’t show up tomorrow for breakfast.
But if he relied on the plodding, methodical efforts of the FBI, an indictment would come long after the presidential election. Once in power, presidents had inexhaustible resources to fight or delay a Justice probe. Fahy realized he couldn’t afford that. Bayard could destroy his party for decades to come.
Fahy knew making an end run around the FBI was always dangerous. It could backfire. It could destroy his career. And it could wreck his case against Bayard. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like his odds.
But he had fought terrible odds his entire career, and most of the time he came out on top—except with Bayard. He resented politicians who took advantage of the public purse, making themselves rich off public service. It was one reason he thought he was so good at his job. He had seen the same behavior in numerous federal and local officials, and he knew where to look for skeletons. Eventually, they all slipped up. Fahy had been biding his time, patiently waiting for Bayard. Now, finally, he saw an opening.
McCauley pulled a notebook from his blue suit jacket and flipped the pages on his knee. “Cayman is one of those offshore tax havens,” he said. “Our senator from New Jersey funnels the lease payments on his waterfront property from a company called Sunrise Meridian through his own corporation, Jersey Shore Ltd.”
“Cute.”
“Yeah. I thought you’d like that one. And he appears to be reporting only a fraction of his earnings as income.”
“Oh?”
“I picked up a copy of his old tax returns from the IRS. Bayard and his wife are the sole owners of Jersey Shore. Now take a look at this con-tract—the lines I circled in red.”
McCauley reached his long arm across Fahy’s massive mahogany desk and handed him a half-dozen folded sheets of paper, his tanned wrist extending far beyond the limits of the white fabric of his cuff-linked sleeve. “Look at the lease price.”
Fahy fumbled for his reading glasses and thumbed through the pages until he came across the highlighted number. “Twenty-five thousand dollars? A month?”
“Precisely.”
“That’s three hundred thousand dollars a year.” Fahy shook his head in disbelief. This was bigger than he thought. Bayard was more corrupt than even he had imagined. Fahy felt acid percolate in his stomach. He needed to find his pills. What a son of a bitch, he thought.
Yet he felt giddy, knowing he finally was making progress on the case. He wondered again if he should talk to the reporter. He looked up at McCauley.
“So far the income doesn’t show up on his tax returns,” McCauley said. “But those are two years old. He got an extension this year and has yet to file, so we won’t know anything until October—if it shows up at all.”
“The law states pretty clearly that he must report all overseas income. If he doesn’t report it, he’s guilty of a crime,” Fahy said.
“Can he hide it in the corporation?” McCauley asked.
“He could. It’s offshore. How would we know? Anyone can disguise income. Where does the money come from? That’s the real question. And who are these Sunrise Meridian people who are leasing his property? No matter how he disguises it from the IRS, if the money comes from a government contractor his Senate committee oversees, it could very well be a Hobbs Act violation.”
“And Homeland Security’s recording just now tied it directly to Lamurr Technologies,” McCauley said.
Fahy stood up slowly and walked to the window. His small office was discreetly housed on the top floor of an aging, nondescript office building several blocks from the Justice Department’s stately stone temple, ascending majestically above Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues. He looked down on the bumper-to-bumper traffic waiting impatiently, trapped on the steaming asphalt on Fourteenth Street. Rush hour was in full swing, cars backed up in both directions on the sweltering asphalt. The perception that the city shut down in August was a political myth. Congress may be out of session, and the president may be relaxing at Martha’s Vineyard, but Fahy was still here in Washington, and the corroded gears of government kept ceaselessly grinding on.
“I’m not ready to talk to Bayard or his staff yet.” Fahy spoke directly to the window, as if McCauley wasn’t there. “I don’t want to spook them. This is too politically charged. The Republican convention is days away. We need to dig deeper, and we need to be very discreet. This Jersey Shore company must be the key. If we can tie that to Lamurr, it would be a crime—a clear case of bribery.”
“And with Bayard’s fingerprints all over the Pentagon contract, it wouldn’t be hard to show intent. The contract language is written so tightly that only Lamurr and its competitor, Serodynne Corporation, are even bidding on it. And who knows what type of pressure Bayard is putting on the Pentagon brass to award the contract to a friend?”
“If Lamurr is a friend,” cautioned Fahy. “We need to do our homework and confirm our suspicions are correct. There could be some explanation to explain away a bribe. If he’s guilty, I want a solid case. I want to nail the bastard. I don’t want him to wheedle out this time.”
“On the surface, both Lamurr and Serodynne seem clean,” McCauley said. “I’m meeting with a Serodynne official tomorrow to see if they are part of this. So far, I’ve found nothing.”
“Is that wise? You meeting with Serodynne? You could be tipping off the competition. There’s a hell of a lot of money at stake here. Billions.”
Fahy worried. What if the financial ties spread to Serodynne? Would McCauley’s poking around blow their case?
“We need to ascertain just how widespread or isolated this scheme is. Bayard could be on the take from both companies,” McCauley said.
“It’s bett
er questioning the competition than showing our hand to Bayard or to the Lamurr people right now.”
McCauley joined Fahy at the window and towered over him. Fahy wondered if the agent’s size intimidated people or if it was a disadvantage in his line of work since he always stood out in a crowd.
They looked down at the street and not at each other.
McCauley spoke again. “The bureau doesn’t want to waste its time if Justice won’t prosecute. It’s a politically hypersensitive case. My bosses get that.”
“All of our cases are, aren’t they?” Fahy looked up at his colleague.
“Yeah, but this one is about as big as they get. The only thing bigger would be going after a sitting president.”
Yes, thought Fahy. And if this is done the FBI way, that could be a real possibility.
A year from now that could turn into a constitutional nightmare. It could be the Watergate scandal all over again. But most likely it would just result in a lot of Justice Department officials getting fired, including himself.
“You were an actor in college, weren’t you? You’ve done undercover work. Can’t you use some of that ability to persuade your bosses this is worth pursuing?”
“Not without some department reassurance from you,” McCauley said. “They’ll never go for it.”
“Then we have a problem. I went to Oliver yesterday, and he refuses to move the case forward without more evidence.”
“Oliver?”
“Yeah.”
Fahy had taken over the public integrity section seven years ago when Jackson Oliver moved to the White House to become assistant special counsel to newly elected President William Croom. Oliver returned to Justice six years later to head Justice’s Criminal Division, overseeing Fahy’s unit as well as others.
“But isn’t this your decision?” McCauley stepped back. Fahy could see concern in McCauley’s narrowing expression.
“It is, and it isn’t. Technically, yes. Politically, no. It almost takes an act of God just to get a wiretap on an elected official these days. You thought going after Bayard would be easy? If Bayard weren’t running for president, I would still have a tough time getting the green light to escalate this to the next level. Imagine what it’s like now, with him inches away from the White House. Oliver gives a guy in Bayard’s position a wide berth.”
Fahy moved slowly back to his desk. His sciatica was giving him fits from too many sit-ups. After his youngest went off to college a year ago, his wife had left him for a girlfriend she had been playing tennis with for four years. That’s when he began spending his early mornings at the gym.
“If Bayard wins the presidency, do you realize what he could do to this department? He names some toady as attorney general, and the guy sweeps in here and fires everybody who isn’t a Bayard loyalist. Any investigation we start now could easily be shut down immediately after the inauguration. It happens all the time during a transition. We must be very careful and politically sensitive.”
Fahy knew that wasn’t the whole truth. But he couldn’t tell McCauley everything. Truth was, he didn’t completely trust the FBI. It was just as political as the rest of the Justice Department. And there was no way Oliver would allow the investigation to go forward; he said he did not want to put the department at risk.
More like Oliver didn’t want to put his own political career at risk, thought Fahy.
But he couldn’t tell McCauley that. He needed him now to continue pursuing the investigation.
McCauley flipped to another page on his pad, walking back toward his chair as he read his notes. “The attorney who incorporated both Sunrise Meridian and Bayard’s Jersey Shore is a Roger Kindred.”
“So?”
“You don’t think it’s a bit strange that the landlord and the tenant he’s leasing his property to for twenty-five thousand a month are incorporated by the same attorney?”
“Well, yes and no. It’s a small island. And remember, lawyers will work for either side of a transaction, and sometimes both. We’re whores to the corporate wallet. But yes, it certainly ties them closer together and makes you wonder.”
“Well, it gets even better than that. It gets personal.”
“Oh?” Fahy leaned forward, positioning his elbows on his desk, looking directly into McCauley’s eyes.
“Your boss. Jackson Oliver. Kindred is his half brother.”
“Holy shit.”
7
A perfect spot for anyone to meet unseen, thought Beck, as he pulled into a crumbling parking lot next to an old strip shopping center on US Route 1. The highway was once the main east coast route from Maine to Key West, but it had grown seedy after I-95 opened in the early 1960s. He parked next to a drywall contractor’s battered white crew cab, “Fairfax Dry Wall” painted in faded red lettering on the door. Beck stepped out of his classic Volvo C70 convertible onto loose pavement eaten away by leaking engine oil. He stood in the middle of the low-profile immigrant community inhaling a whiff of diesel fuel. Beck looked around the parking lot at a desolate moonscape of potholes and faded, nearly invisible line markings of old parking spaces. He locked his doors.
The restaurant wore its age on its sleeve. At least the peeling paint had been scraped from the cinder-block walls, leaving a patina of speckled blue and white. The lit red Plexiglas restaurant sign had seen better days. It read “Rant.” Beck grinned and wondered if that was appropriate. He figured he would soon find out.
The wooden front door could use a coat of paint, thought Beck.
It opened with a whining hinge and closed with a clanging bell. Scratchy, upbeat Latin music blared from a small black plastic AM radio high on the wall behind the lunch counter, fighting for shelf space with brown packages of spare white paper napkins. A bare silver wire served as a makeshift antenna and stretched tightly from the radio to a thumbtack on the top shelf.
Five Latinos, garbed in plaster-splattered T-shirts and jeans and wearing heavy work boots, sat on stools at the long lunch counter. They drank tiny cups of espresso and talked in bursts of Spanish, then laughed. Beck didn’t understand a word.
He spotted Fahy immediately in the back of the dining room. They were the only white guys in the place—probably the only ones speaking English. He navigated a hodgepodge of mismatched chairs and made his way to a Formica-covered table with scratched chrome trim and legs. It reminded Beck of his family’s kitchen table when he was a boy.
Fahy sat with his back to the wall. His wrinkled, blue, plaid shirt was at odds with his white hair, which stood unbending like a field of wheat stalks after it had been harvested.
They shook hands. Fahy did not stand. Fahy had the sad eyes of an overworked government bureaucrat and the soft features and lines of age, yet the taunt body of an athlete.
“How’d you find this place?” Beck asked.
Fahy motioned for him to sit. “Five years ago, I met Councilman Barry Marion here when we were investigating corruption on the DC city council.”
“Isn’t that a full-time job?”
“Just about,” Fahy replied.
“So you have the same idea today. We’re keeping a low profile.” “Something like that.”
Fahy slid a large tan envelope across the table and scanned the restaurant over Beck’s shoulder. Beck opened it. “It’s a Form 302 FBI report,” Fahy said.
Several lines were blacked out. Beck looked up, pointing at the missing words.
“Everything you need to get started is there,” Fahy said. “The redacted material is classified national security information. It’s a confidential FBI report on Senator David Bayard of New Jersey. He’s involved in some offshore financial scheme that doesn’t appear kosher. We’re not sure where it leads.”
“The senator who’s running for president?”
“The same.”
Beck looked at Fahy for a long, awkward moment saying nothing. Then a stocky, large-breasted, black-haired waitress in a too-tight blouse waddled up to the table and rescued him. Beck covered th
e papers with the envelope. Fahy looked up at her as she leaned over, her black bra edging out of her white blouse and doing its best to keep her cavernous cleavage from spilling out onto the table. She pulled a pencil from the beehive atop her head and aimed it at a small pad of paper. Beck noticed Fahy’s eyes were also leveled at her chest.
She wheezed from the exertion of crossing the room. Beck recognized her perfume. Cigarette. Menthol.
“The sausage and eggs are the best,” Fahy said. “Nothing fancy.” He ordered.
Surprised to see some Anglo food choices on the menu, Beck ordered corned beef hash.
The waitress left a pot of coffee and a plate of toast behind. The toast went untouched. The coffee was strong. They drank it black.
“Nice pencil,” Fahy said, shifting his glance to the waitress who had retreated across the room. Beck smiled, acknowledging the crude attempt to bond over the opposite sex.
Fahy told Beck of his suspicions about Senator Bayard taking bribes from Lamurr Technologies, which was bidding on a large Pentagon contract. He told him that his boss, Jackson Oliver, had effectively killed the investigation.
“But doesn’t the Pentagon contracting office have the last word on who wins a contract?” Beck asked.
“On paper, of course. But that’s not really how it works. The Pentagon brass know where their money comes from, so they do the bidding of Congress, even when it’s to their own detriment. Why do you think
Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex? And that was more than fifty years ago.”
The brass wouldn’t risk alienating Bayard, Fahy explained. It was all outlined in the investigative documents in the envelope. He kept glancing around the restaurant. The place was quickly emptying of construction workers.
Fahy’s gift came with two conditions: Beck could never reveal him as his source nor reveal that Beck actually owned or saw the memorandum now in the envelope.
Beck couldn’t believe his luck. If any of this were true, he had the beginnings of one helluva story. He didn’t see how Fahy’s terms would impede him from writing anything, so he readily agreed. Still, Beck felt uneasy. “Why are you doing this?”