by Rick Pullen
“Shit. Your husband? Running for vice president? Do you have to do this?”
“Right now, I have no choice.” “Can Patten do that?”
“It’s already been done. It will be announced tomorrow. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Beck felt sick to his stomach. “It will only be a few weeks, right?” “Depends. If he wins, I will be surrounded by Secret Service indefinitely.”
“What happens to us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how long this will go on. I need your understanding right now. Please. I have no control over this.”
Beck groaned. It was the only sound he could make. It was like being kicked in the stomach. He was struggling to catch his breath.
“So this weekend was?”
“To say good-bye. Yes.”
“You’ve got to do something. What do we mean to each other?”
“I’m sorry, Beck. I can’t walk away from Harv right now. It would be too awkward and too public. He needs me right now.”
“What about me?” Beck tried to look her in the eye, but she glanced away.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t. I need you. I . . . want you.”
“I can’t right now. Maybe at some point later on we can get together.” “Maybe? At some point later on?”
“Look. This is just as difficult for me as it is for you. I was hoping for some understanding.” She looked away.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” Beck could not hide the anger in his voice, and he could tell Geneva was agitated too, but he didn’t care. She’d just ended their relationship, and it hurt like hell.
A few hours later as they left the cabin, fog began to envelop the mountain. The weather darkened, and they rode back to Washington in silence. Beck kept his foot pressed firmly on the gas, trying to stay ahead of an oncoming storm.
AT TEN O’CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, Ford Patten stepped up to the podium on a small stage in the packed ballroom of the National Press Club to introduce his old friend, Senator Michael Harvey, as his choice for the next vice president of the United States. Beck watched it live on one of the newsroom monitors. Geneva stood by Harvey’s side during the announcement wearing a dark suit and gold necklace. Beck thought she looked fabulous. He thought about their weekend together and how perfect it was until the very end. He got that sick feeling in his stomach again.
After the announcement, Beck listened to the television commentators say Patten had made a brilliant choice in choosing Harvey for his vice president. At age sixty-six Harvey would never run for the presidency, and it was questionable if he would run for reelection for vice president in four years. Patten had avoided giving anyone in the party a clear advantage in the fight for a future party leadership role. It was a great strategy to keep peace in the party, they said.
Beck groaned as he listened. That meant if Patten won, which at the moment appeared likely, he’d have to wait at least four years for Geneva. The odds of them getting back together, he realized, were now very slim.
The next day, Beck scanned stories in the Post-Examiner and the News-Times profiling Harvey’s career and talking about his twenty-year marriage to a woman nearly twenty-five years his junior. The Post-Examiner said Geneva would bring sex appeal to an otherwise colorless
Republican administration. She was described as a vivacious, daring, and handsome woman. The paper included photos of her in low-cut evening gowns at social events and descriptions of Harvey and Geneva as one of Washington’s glamour couples.
The stories made Beck long for her even more. He told himself to stop and move on, but he couldn’t.
Kerry Rabidan’s story in the News-Times not only said Geneva gave sex to the city, but it outlined her career on Capitol Hill and as a lobbyist for Serodynne. Rabidan mentioned nothing about Geneva’s latest Pentagon contract.
My god, thought Beck. Kerry Rabidan is covering everything these days. Maybe she’s shifted to the political beat. He should call her and congratulate her.
But first he needed a distraction from his tattered love life. He would get back on his Jackson Oliver story. With the court case and his weekend with Geneva, he had left it alone for too long. He wondered if Rabidan was working on something, especially since she was among the media mob grilling Curtiss after his court case. She was too good to let that one go. He needed to get busy before she beat him to his own story.
BACK IN THEIR PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE penthouse, Geneva privately told Harv she would stay with him through the election and its aftermath, but then she was leaving. Out of sight of the rest of the world, she and Harv would begin to make arrangements for a divorce as soon as the election was over—win or lose. She told him she would not campaign and she would not move into the vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue if he won, but would stay in their condominium, guarded twenty-four hours a day by the Secret Service until their divorce was final and she could move out.
After she left Beck on Sunday, she immediately called Keith to warn him of what was coming. Keith nearly freaked out over the phone, worried about the public scrutiny. But she explained she would be out of this mess at the latest sometime shortly after the inauguration. He was
to continue to cash in their options and move the money to make it disappear.
“Take your time. We can’t see each other for a while, and it may be difficult for me to call you. And whatever you do, don’t call me,” she warned. “I can’t chance us slipping up in front of the Secret Service.”
Keith agreed, and her words seemed to calm him. But Geneva felt uncomfortable. She now had no choice but to put her complete trust and her financial future in Keith’s hands. So far, he had done a good job, but only because she held a tight leash on him and their money. Now he would be on his own, and she worried if he would follow through without her constant prodding and stroking. She imagined the presidential campaign completely destroying her future. She just couldn’t let that happen.
57
“What have you done for me lately?”
Nancy startled Beck from his thoughts. Seated at his desk with his feet propped up on three banker’s boxes filled with files on the Bayard story, he’d been thinking about Geneva when he heard his editor’s familiar refrain.
He turned to her and sipped his cold coffee. “I thought I’d give you the joy of my absence and take a little time off.”
“Baker told me the exterminator checked out your condo again, and you’re still bug free. Kinda nice the newspaper offers free extermination services.”
“I was going to check and see if Cunningham offered free interior design to go with it. Like a package deal, you know. My place could use a facelift.”
“And maybe a low-cost mortgage as well.”
“Hadn’t thought of that one. I’ll ask personnel if they can set it up.” “If your condo’s anything like your work space here, you’ll need a bulldozer to redecorate.”
“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have any use for that mortgage.” “You can’t have it all.” “I keep trying.”
“Try to make your way to the newsroom by Election Day. We need your services. You’re responsible for this mess, you know.”
Beck smiled. He wanted so much to gloat, but it wasn’t good form, especially after Baker’s speech to the newsroom. “I couldn’t have done it without Senator Bayard’s help.”
“I’d say he was essential.” Nancy paused with her hands on her hips. “Seriously. Be back here on election eve. They want you to make the rounds of the news channels and promote the paper.”
Beck realized he was some kind of company prop, and he didn’t like it. “You’re not kidding.”
“Not about that.”
“Since when did I become the poster boy?”
“Since you ousted a vice presidential candidate. You’re big shit right now.”
“Then you should treat me like it.”
“Like shit? I already do.” Nancy surveyed
his desk. “Jeez, how do you function in such chaos?”
Beck caught her glance and looked at his work space. “Okay. Okay. I’ll find a twenty-gallon trash can and a shovel somewhere.”
His desk was like a layered wedding cake. Files in manila folders balanced precariously atop several days’ newspapers, atop month-old magazines, atop photocopies of who-knows-what. All of this teetered on a base of three hardback books Beck thought he remembered checking out from the newspaper morgue. Was it a year ago? Maybe she was right. It may be time for some spring cleaning in the middle of fall.
“And would you mind taking your feet off your boxes and out of the aisle? Some reporters actually work around here and use that aisle to walk to their editor’s desk, unlike a certain reporter I know who forces his editor to make house calls.”
Beck tried to hold back a grin. “Anything for you, boss.”
Nancy shook her head and headed back to her desk at the far side of the newsroom. Beck looked at the mess again, wondering where he would begin, and then, thankfully, his phone rang, interrupting the thought.
“I pitched your publisher this morning to feel him out,” his agent Judith Cover said. “We had a long discussion. You interested in doing a book about Bayard? I got assurances of a six-figure advance if you can write up a proposal this weekend. What say you?”
Beck perked up. “What say me? Me say you good agent. Me say yes.”
“I thought you might. Told him I’d have it to him Monday by close of business.”
“Of course me agent presumes a great deal.”
“Your agent assumes you write more smoothly than you speak. Your agent assured your publisher of such.”
Hot damn, thought Beck. Another big payday. And he could use his poster boy status on election night to promote his next book. Beck sat up in his chair and dropped his legs from the file boxes blocking the aisle. He saw Nancy on the other side of the newsroom nodding in approval, thinking he improved his posture on her account. He knew exactly what he needed to do—haul all this crap home and get it organized. He had a book proposal to write. And hell, he’d make his editor happy too.
“Monday morning. Just for you, Judith.”
He hung up and checked the boxes. He also grabbed a pile off his desk and dumped it in the nearest half-filled box. In all, there were four boxes jammed with position papers, legal documents, land records, pages of campaign disclosures and financial records, and old clippings of stories that had never been scanned into the newspaper’s computer system. The Post-Examiner could do without them for the weekend.
Besides, it probably would have taken him months to return them to their proper owner. Beck checked his desk drawer and tossed in a couple of reporters’ notebooks. He would sort it all out at home, with Red’s help, and be ready for battle.
AFTER LUGGING THE HEAVY BOXES to his car and telling Nancy he was checking out for the day, Beck went home. He stacked the boxes on the floor and on his coffee table, then plopped his body on the couch. He took a few breaths. He was in worse shape than he thought. He hadn’t gone running for weeks—ever since this entire affair began.
He made a note. Tomorrow, jog a couple of miles. Get your wind back.
Beck reached in the first box and grabbed some file folders. In disarray, they spilled out onto the table and floor.
He tried to shove the coffee table aside with his knee, but it wouldn’t budge. It was one of those heavy models with sturdy oak legs. He bought it because he liked sitting on his couch and propping his feet up, frequently forgetting to take off his shoes. The only thing he told the salesman who sold it to him was he needed something sturdy.
Beck knew he’d have to stand up to shove it aside. Instead, he got down on his knees and found documents strewn on his oriental rug under the coffee table. Shit, he thought, I’ve got a mess here. It would take him forever to organize this stuff.
He glanced at the pages, trying to put them in some semblance of order and realized the scattered pages were the busy work he had given Geneva while in the courthouse in Grand Cayman. He’d told her to make copies of any building lot sales in Bayard’s island development, and apparently she’d found some.
Two words—Sunrise Meridian—jumped off the first page of one of the deeds of trust she had copied. That’s odd, he thought. What was Sunrise Meridian doing financing the sale of one of Bayard’s lots to someone else? He read a couple of sentences. Then a few more. His antenna went up.
According to the document in his hand, Sunrise Meridian had financed the sale of Bayard’s building lots to other buyers. But why? One thing Grand Cayman had was plenty of banks and financial services companies.
“Red.” He turned to his chair. “Why would Lamurr’s subsidiary finance Senator Bayard’s land sales in his development when any bank or mortgage company on the island would be more than willing? That makes no sense. There’s nothing to hide here. Unless . . .”
He read on.
Decker Development. The name appeared not on one deed, but two. Geneva had neatly stapled them together.
The first document showed Decker Development, a Grand Cayman corporation, purchasing lot fifty-one in Bayard’s development last November. The next document showed it selling the same lot the following March. It must have made a hell of a profit to unload so soon, Beck thought.
He thumbed through the pages farther. “Red, there’s something wrong here. This Cayman company sold the lot for the same price it purchased it for four months earlier. With closing costs and real estate taxes, the company actually lost money on the entire transaction. What gives?”
He picked up another stapled set of deeds. Graver Partnership purchased a lot in June and sold it the following January. Again, for the same price. He kept reading. There were more than two dozen deals Geneva had copied and he had filed away. And funny, not a single lot was purchased by an individual. Instead, they were all partnerships and corporations—legal entities.
He began to understand what was right in front of him and grew excited.
“Guess what, Red. Our old friend Roger Kindred did all of the paperwork. I think we’ve got a pattern here. Kindred draws up the documents, and Sunrise Meridian finances the sales. I bet if I go back to Cayman, I’ll find that Kindred created each of the buyers that bought a building lot. I’ll bet they’re shell companies.”
He leaned forward over his coffee table. “Red, I think I’ve stumbled onto something. I was wrong. Bayard still has something to hide.”
Beck felt the familiar surge of adrenaline. He had a spark of an idea, a clue to another story—possibly bigger than his first.
“Red, I told you Jen was special. I give her busy work, and she was so diligent, she found the key to this whole mess. Bayard is just a player, or maybe he’s just a pawn on a much bigger stage.” Beck paused, staring at the paperwork in front of him. It started to make sense. “I think I may have played right into their hands. But whose, exactly? If this is what I think it is, then we are heading down a whole different path.”
The book proposal would have to wait. He needed to return to Grand Cayman immediately. He got on the phone. “Judith, I just need another week. I’ve come across something that is so big it could become the basis of my book instead of Bayard.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I think Bayard may be the tip of the iceberg. I think the land deals are more than just payoffs for Bayard. I believe the senator or someone else used phony corporations to cover up a slew of fraudulent transactions.”
“Slow down, Beck. You’re making no sense. Now start at the beginning.”
Beck didn’t realize he was talking so fast. “They are laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars.” “Who is ‘they’?”
“That’s what I have to find out. I also need to find out where the money’s going.”
“I need more than that to go to your publisher. I’m still confused. You don’t know where the money’s coming from, and you don’t know where it’s
going. How can I persuade your publisher to hold off on that tiny bit of information?”
“You’ve got to figure that one out.”
“I need more, Beck. Your publisher’s set us a tight schedule. He wants the book out in the spring. That’s why he needs the book proposal by Monday.”
Beck thought a minute. He had to have more time. He also had grown paranoid about talking over the phone in his condo. But Nancy had just assured his place was clean. “Judith, what if I can prove that millions in illegal drug cartel money was being laundered into US banks through fraudulent land deals to fund American political campaigns?”
“I’d say I’d have a bidding war among several publishers for that book. But can you prove it?”
“It’s only speculation right now. I’ve got to go back to Grand Cayman to prove it.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
Beck hung up and immediately called Nancy and told her he was heading back to the Caribbean.
“What do you mean Bayard is out of the picture?” she asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I think this is much bigger than Bayard. And if I’m right, I need to move now before the election.”
“The election is only a few weeks away. Why do you do this to me? I was perfectly content with Bayard’s meltdown. Now you want to blow up the rest of Washington.”
Beck could hear both frustration and excitement in Nancy’s voice. “Do you ever give up?” she asked. “The best thing about you is you always make me sweat a story right down to the wire. The worst thing about you . . . well . . . you get my point. You haven’t got much time. Get moving— and keep me in the loop.”
58
The Cash Cow’s pilot was pissed. He didn’t know his passenger’s name, and he didn’t know why he was out here in the middle of the ocean in a fishing boat, a good five miles off the coast of Grand Cayman. He knew his passenger as only the gardener—a wanton killer who he’d watched back at the jungle airport viciously swing a machete to clear not only brush, but also some poor sucker’s mind.