“OK.”
They pull the hood from his head. His hands in pure reflex try to come up to shade his eyes, but the waist chain won’t allow it. Betz squints, closes his eyes, and tries to look down toward the ground.
The guard puts the baseball cap on Betz’s head and pulls the visor down low on his forehead to shade his eyes. “You OK?”
“Good. I’m fine. Thanks for the hat,” he says.
“It’s OK.” The guard looks at me. “He’s all yours. Do yourself a favor. Don’t wander too far. Guards up in the towers.” He gestures toward one of them with his head. “They will use deadly force if you get anywhere near the fence.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
The guards leave us.
I reach into my pocket, take out the white noise generator, and turn it on. It emits a low audible hum.
“What is that?” says Betz.
I explain it to him. He looks at the device, then back at me. I’m not sure he believes me.
“Sorry we had to meet out here under these circumstances. But I needed to get you away from the buildings where we could talk in private. You are Rubin Betz?”
“Last time I looked,” he says. “Course that was a while ago.” His face is gaunt, pale, lines etched under his eyes. For a man who is supposed to be forty-six, Betz could pass for sixty.
“My name is Paul Madriani. I’m a lawyer. I was sent here to represent you. Did anyone tell you I was coming?”
“Yeah, they told me. Who hired you?” he says.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure myself. I’m not going to lie to you. For all I know, it may be the same people who put you in this place.”
“Then why should I trust you?” he says.
“You don’t have to. Just hear me out. I think I know what’s happening. You’ve been in here now for what, almost two years?”
He nods.
“Things have happened that you may not know about. Do you ever get any visitors?”
He shakes his head. His eyes never leave me.
“So in that time you’ve had no visitors at all?”
“My lawyer,” he says. “But he’s dead. They told me he died in an accident. That was right after they put me in here. You tend to lose track of time.”
“Then Olinda Serna never came to visit you?”
He looks at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Did you know she was dead?”
By the expression on his face, the look in his eyes, I can tell that he didn’t. “According to the police report it was an accident. But it wasn’t. She was murdered.”
“I need to sit down,” he says.
Whatever little energy he had seems to abandon him with this news. There’re a couple of benches out near the edge of the track. We move toward one of them and sit.
“How did she die?”
“Automobile collision and fire. It was all very carefully staged.”
“When?”
“About two months ago, not too far from San Diego, in California.”
He starts to cough, turns his head away from me, and for a moment seems to collect himself. When he looks back at me he has teared up.
“I take it you knew her pretty well?”
“We were lovers. We had been living together for quite a while. We kept it quiet, mostly for her career.”
“Why didn’t she come to visit you here?”
“She couldn’t.”
“Because of her career?”
“That and the fact that it was dangerous. Though staying away didn’t save her, as you can see. She wanted to come visit. I told her not to. I’m sure people around her thought she was nothing but a flaming ball of ambition. That she just used people and moved on. But she didn’t. She wasn’t that way at all. She had a chip on her shoulder—Olinda against the world. She had a hard outer veneer, but once you cracked through it there was a big-hearted, generous person inside. To those in need. The kind of person who would take in stray dogs and cats, if you know what I mean. I know because I was one of them. When I got bounced from a job all my friends dropped me like I had leprosy. But not Olinda. She kept me going. Used her connections to give me a new start. You never know who your real friends are until you’re down, when you need them. We had some good times,” he says. “Is that what you came here to tell me? That she’s dead?”
“No. I came here to try and get you out, if I can.”
He shoots me a look as if trying to read my mind. “Why would you do that?”
I turn to look at him. “Do you want to stay here?”
“What, do you think I’m crazy? I don’t have a choice. I leave here and the same people who got to her are gonna kill me. Who are you anyway?”
“I told you. My name is Paul Madriani. I’m a law—”
“No. I mean how did you get involved?”
“A long story.” I tell him about the case, Alex and the collision in the desert. The fact that Ives was unconscious, an intended victim who escaped. I explain about the Washington Gravesite, the story they were working on, the PEPs, the politically exposed deposit holders at Gruber Bank. Then the name of the old Swiss banker, Simon Korff, and the fact that he was killed as well.
“Korff saw you, Serna, and Senator Maya Grimes at Gruber Bank. He told me that you and Serna acted as financial go-betweens for some powerful people in Washington. He told me there were boatloads of cash. Now the people who killed Serna and the banker are tidying up the remaining loose ends. Because of what I know, I am on their clean-up list along with a few of my close friends and associates with whom I’ve shared the news.”
“I can’t help you.” He starts to get up from the bench.
“We can help each other.”
“You’re wondering how I stayed alive all this time,” he says.
“You’re holding something they want,” I tell him.
“If you think I’m gonna tell you where it is, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t want to know where it is.”
This gets his attention. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to stay alive. In order to do that I’ve gotta get you out of here.”
“How’s that gonna help you?”
“You have information. They don’t know where it is. That’s why you’re still alive. If I can get you out of here, tuck you away where you’re safe and comfortable,” I tell him, “and I’m the only one who knows where, then I’ll have a piece of your protection. Unless you think you’re better off here?”
He studies me for a moment, a hard direct stare, then says, “Why is it all of a sudden everybody wants me out?”
“Who else?”
“Two days ago they came to me with an offer.”
“Who?”
“A lawyer from the Justice Department. Woman by the name of Parish.”
“Go on.”
“She’s the one told me you were coming. She told me you were going to represent me—that is, if I agreed. She turned off the mic on my side of the glass, told me not to say anything, just listen. She said they were prepared to pay me a lot of money, and let me go.”
“Who was prepared to pay?”
“The government. I’m just telling you what she told me. All they wanted in return was what I’m holding.”
“Bank records?”
He looks at me and winks.
“If you do that and they release you, you’ll be dead in a week,” I tell him.
“Well, at least we agree on that.”
“You don’t have to say anything, but I’m assuming that whatever you have has some kind of a hair trigger on it. Anything happens to you, it goes public?”
“WikiLeaks on steroids,” says Betz. “Their knowledge of that is what keeps me alive. But I’m running out of time.”
“What do you mean?”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. But then who else do you have? Is there another lawyer you’d like me to contact?”
He shakes his head. �
�I’m tired and I don’t have much time. I’m gonna have to trust somebody.” Resignation written all over his face. “May as well be you. Besides, what more can they do to me? The fact is,” he says, “I’m dying. They don’t know it yet, but I’m living on borrowed time.”
FIFTY-ONE
I am guessing that he has kept this secret, the fact that he is dying, to himself for so long that when he is finally able to share it with someone, the dam cracks, and he can’t stop talking.
He tells me that his doctor diagnosed cancer in his pancreas just before sentencing, a short time before he arrived here. There was little they could do to treat it because it had already spread. They told him he had perhaps twelve to eighteen months. He is past that now. Betz has been living in hell. He couldn’t tell authorities for fear that they would make his dying days even more miserable trying to extract the information from him, find out where the banking records were. He refused to give it up because he was bitter and angry. Perhaps that’s the only thing keeping him alive.
“They cheated me out of the money,” he says. “And now they’re getting desperate. I wanted it for my daughter.”
“What money? I don’t understand.”
“The Whistleblower Fund,” he says. “I die in here, my daughter will never see a dime. It’s what the lawyer offered me when she told me you were coming. But they’re lying. I know they are. The minute they get what they want, they’ll leave me here to rot.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“A hundred and ten million dollars. They owe it to me.”
As he says it I nearly fall off the bench.
“You’re telling me that’s what she offered you?”
He nods. “I turned state’s evidence against the Swiss bank I used to work for. The information I gave them resulted in almost five thousand offshore numbered accounts being identified. It’s why they put me in here. They knew if they put me anywhere else where I couldn’t be protected, I’d be labeled as a snitch. I’d be dead in twenty-four hours. The taxes and penalties on the hidden accounts were substantial.”
The Internal Revenue Service pays a reward for information based on a percentage of what they recover in revenue. This is embedded in federal law.
“But that’s only part of it,” says Betz. “The bulk of it is owing from the fines against the bank itself. The bank agreed to pay more than eight hundred million dollars in fines to the US Treasury in order to keep their executives out of prison on charges they conspired with the taxpayers to commit tax evasion. They owe me ten percent of what they recovered.”
By the time he finishes my head is swimming—eighty million dollars from the bank alone.
“It’s not the money. They don’t care about the money. What they want are the records. If I hadn’t told them about the PEPs, the politicians, they would have never charged me. It was my mistake,” says Betz. “I thought they would be pleased. But they weren’t. It was right after that someone tried to kill me. I realized then I had to do something to protect myself. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is my daughter. With her mother dead she’ll be alone.”
“What happened to her mother?”
He looks at me as if he’s surprised I should ask the question. “You told me she was murdered.”
“You mean Serna?”
“Olinda was her mother,” he says.
I sit there with my jaw on the bench. The circle is now complete.
“No one knew,” he says. “She told no one at the firm. She had the child before she went to work there. Years ago. But I figured you knew, since you knew everything else.”
“How old is she?”
“Fourteen,” he says. “And beautiful. She sure was the last time I saw her.”
“Where is she now?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he says. “If they found out where she was and they got to her . . .”
“I understand. You don’t have to say another word.”
“Tell them I will turn everything over to them if they pay the money,” says Betz. “If they release me now, immediately,” he continues. “I just want to have some time to be with my daughter. I’ll have to take my chances.”
“No!” I think for a moment. “I don’t think you’ll have to do that.”
“Why? What are you gonna do?”
“Don’t tell anyone else about your condition. If they find out you’re sick you’ll never get out of here.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t tell anyone else what we talked about. Is that clear?”
“Who the hell would I talk to in here?” he says.
“Don’t even talk in your sleep. This is what we’re going to do. . . .”
By the time I laid the small noise generator back down on the table in the conference room, the two government lawyers were already sitting across the table. They were waiting anxiously to hear what I had to say.
Grimes had made a fundamental mistake bringing me into the case. The problem for her was that I already knew too much. I knew that Betz was holding a hammer over their heads, and I knew its size and weight as well as the damage it would inflict if he dropped it. I didn’t need to know where he was hiding it to be able to use its leverage. All that was required was the government’s ignorance as to what Betz and I had discussed, the fact that I actually had no access to Thor’s hammer. If the little white noise maker has worked, they won’t know this.
Parish advises me that Dan Wells has decided to wait for me out in front in the reception area. He probably got tired of being slapped around by her.
“I understand you talked with my client before I had an opportunity to confer with him,” I tell her.
She leans forward, begins to open her mouth.
“But we’ll let that slide for the moment. The issue here is very clear. It appears that the government has overcharged Mr. Betz on successive criminal counts . . .”
“He was convicted by a jury,” she says.
“On charges that would never have been brought by your department against a cooperating witness turning state’s evidence in thousands of cases involving tax evasion, including evidence against his own employer, a foreign bank from which you extracted more than eight hundred million dollars in fines.”
“The fact remains he was convicted.”
“And why didn’t you extend to him the courtesy, the consideration you would have extended to any other cooperating witness in a similar case? I’ll tell you why . . .”
“Because he refused to fully cooperate,” she says. “He has records . . .”
“I know what he has. And he offered them to you. But when you found out what they were, the political dynamite that was in them, you weren’t interested.”
“You mean he told you what was in them?” Parish has just told me what I needed to know. White noise still works.
“And I’ll tell you why you weren’t interested. Because you intended to bury them. When someone tried to kill him, Betz was forced to take precautions. He hid them.”
“Do you know where they are?” she says.
“Why don’t you just go and shoot him,” I tell her. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, because if you do, your world will come crashing down around your ears. You couldn’t be sure whether the man who was trying to cooperate with you might have another copy, or whether after you buried the case, Mr. Betz would keep his mouth shut. So in order to coerce him you drummed up a case and tossed him in here.”
“How many times do I have to say it? He was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
“Say it as many times as you like,” I tell her, “it doesn’t change the facts of what you did.”
“We offered him a fair deal,” she says.
“Did you? Did you really?”
“Didn’t he tell you? His freedom, immediately,” she says, “plus one hundred and ten million dollars. All he has to do is tell us where those records are and sign a confidentiality agreement. As soon as we’ve secured them he c
an walk out of here a free man. If you want, you can wait and take him with you.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re offering him ten percent of the revenues recovered in this case, a case you would not have made without the evidence that he supplied.”
“That’s correct. And it’s a lot of money,” she says.
“The fact is, it’s light. Perhaps you’d like to get the code and the regulations out and check it. Anything over two million dollars in revenue recovered is entitled to a whistleblower’s award of between fifteen and thirty percent of the revenues recovered. I know because I had a case earlier this year. What was the total amount recovered here?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’d have to check.” She looks at Yasuda, who is sitting next to her. He shrugs a shoulder. “We’d have to look,” he says. “But I’m sure that if a mistake has been made, we’ll be happy to correct it.”
“Maybe someone can find a way to give him the two years of his life back while you’re at it. Tell you what, we’ll come back to that later, after our accountants have had a chance to sharpen their pencils. Let’s get to the nub. After talking to Mr. Betz, this is what we’ve decided to do. Copies of the bank records. Those from Gruber Bank, S.A., in Lucerne. I think that’s correct, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” says Parish.
“Copies will be prepared. A copy will be delivered overnight to your offices in Washington, at the same time that we dispatch copies to the wire services, the networks, the cable stations, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal . . .”
“You can’t do that,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Those are confidential tax records.”
“No, they’re not. They’re records of a foreign bank. In fact, they’re not even that. They’re personal accountings made by Mr. Betz in the ordinary course of his employment. But I’m sure when people start checking, they’ll find out pretty fast that the account numbers and the names on those accounts—some pretty prominent people, I might add—match up very neatly with the amounts on deposit at Gruber Bank. Some of them are whoppers,” I tell her.
“You’re bluffing,” she says. “You don’t have anything.”
“Want to try me?”
The Enemy Inside Page 33