by Steven Gore
“Money is money.”
“Thanks.” Gage set down the stone. “But I’ll pass.”
“Gage, you always too straight for your own good. But that’s why I trust you…except that once. So what you want to talk about?”
“I need to see if you can identify some guys I saw in London.”
Slava narrowed his eyes at Gage. “How come?”
“A friend of mine is in a little trouble.”
“Good friend?”
“Best. Jack Burch.”
“Burch?” Slava glanced toward his bodyguard, then toward the entrance. He leaned forward, clenching his fists on the table, his face turning crimson.
Gage realized too late that he introduced the subject in the wrong way. While natural gas was off his radar, it was still blinking in the center of Slava’s.
Slava’s voice was as insistent as a diesel rock crusher. “I not have anything to do with that. If that’s why you-”
Gage flattened his palms against the bottom of the table, ready to flip it over on them if Ivan or Slava made a move. “That’s not-”
“Nobody in gas deal touch Burch. Nobody. Not Russia. Not Ukraine. My people look. Turn everything upside down.”
Gage shook his head. “It was something else. A stock fraud. A company called SatTek.”
Slava hesitated, then relaxed his fists and leaned back. A self-conscious smile appeared on his face and he shook his head and exhaled. “I think I need vacation. Get too tense, too fast. Maybe I go to Montreux after Sveta leave.”
Gage lowered his hands to his lap. “The place not big enough for the two of you?”
“Few places big enough for one of me.” Slava grinned, then took a gulp of wine and set the glass down. “Okay. Business. What kind trouble your friend?”
“He set up some companies that were used in a fraud.”
“In States?” Slava shrugged. “I know nothing about States.”
“The stock was issued in the U.S., but the companies that bought it were in all the usual offshore tax havens.”
Gage pulled out prints of the photos he took outside the Ax Man Pub.
Slava pushed his plate away and laid them out. He picked up each in turn, inspected it, then laid it down. He took a sip of wine, then gazed out of the side window toward the landmark Jet d’Eau fountain. He then focused on photo number three, showing a blockish, square-headed, flat-faced, forty-year-old man with thin lips surrounded by ruddy skin. To Gage it gave the impression of a face that led its body up the hard way and was fated to live on for another generation in photo lineups and grainy covert videos.
“Gravilov,” Slava said. “ Vory-v-zakone from Moscow. He protect Ukraine president son. Like umbrella. You know, krysha, roof. Son in dirty stuff. Needs one of us to protect interests. Big man needs a big krysha. Gravilov is biggest in Eastern Ukraine since I left for Moscow.”
“As in the Russian Gravilov Group?”
“ Da. Does lots of paper scams. Got people in States.”
Slava examined the others. “Number six, I not know. Eleven is Velichko, Boris Vasilievich. Russian, too. Independent. Biznessman.” He turned sixteen toward Ivan Ivanovich, who grunted his professional opinion.
“Molotok,” Slava said. “Hammer. Work for Gravilov. Can’t tie own shoes.”
“Why does Gravilov keep him around?”
Slava smirked. “To stop bullet. What else?”
“And the little guy in the Rover?”
“Chechen. His name is Britva. I see him in Kiev once. Ugly.” Slava pointed toward Quai General Guisan, the tree-lined boulevard bordering Lake Geneva. “I think one time of putting contract on him to celebrate day where everybody clean streets.”
“International Earth Day.”
“ Da. International Earth Day.”
“What’s Britva mean?”
“Razor. He like cutting people. Maybe revenge for disgusting appearance. Face all twisted.”
Gage pointed at the photos. “What would bring Gravilov and Velichko together?”
“Big money. Maybe even your stock fraud. Velichko is launderer. Offshore. Otherwise I not know. I ask my people. More Russians or Ukrainians in this?”
“A stockbroker named Kovalenko in California. He handled the domestic sale of SatTek stock.”
Slava squinted into the distance for a moment. “I knew a Kovalenko once. In Belarus. Old, old man. No sons.”
The waiter approached with Gage’s meal. Slava covered the photos.
“How this scam work?” Slava asked. “Maybe I learn something.”
While they ate Gage described the SatTek false invoices, the offshore companies, the bank accounts, and the pump and dump. He also described the shooting of Burch and the murders of the Fitzhughs.
“I think Matson is trying to cut a deal with the U.S. Attorney to lay the whole thing off on Burch,” Gage concluded. “And somebody is trying to contain the case by killing off the potential defendants.”
“Strange,” Slava said, expressionless as a shark. “Usually we just kill witness.”
“I didn’t need to hear that.”
“You heard worse.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard worse.” Gage thought for a moment. “There’s one more. A woman Matson is involved with in London. Alla Tarasova.”
Slava drew back. “Tarasova?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her patronymic?”
“Petrovna. Alla Petrovna Tarasova.”
Slava looked at Ivan Ivanovich, then clucked.
“Petrov Tarasov. Got to be father. Budapest. Business there. Sell Ukraine steel. But real money in protection racket and money laundering.” Slava raised his eyebrows. “Maybe even SatTek money. You know skhodka?”
“Sure, the vory-v-zakone internal court.”
“One in Budapest last year. Tarasov was head. I sat. Maybe he use daughter to stay close to guy in scam.” Slava propped his forearms on the table and cupped his hands together. “Maybe Tarasov even make syndicate to do deal. How much money?”
“At least fifty million shares were sold, maybe more. It started at two dollars but topped out at over six.”
“So maybe two-fifty, three hundred million dollars?”
“At least.”
Slava shook his head. “Matson better watch back. When Alla Petrovna tell Poppa time for Matson to go, he go. And that happen right after Gravilov and Tarasov grab Matson money.” He grinned. “Matson think they launder for him, but they take him to cleaners.”
After leaving Slava to finish the menu, Gage walked along Lake Geneva. He needed to get himself oriented in a new SatTek world, one that now contained two gangsters nearly at Slava’s level and linked to Matson, either of whom could’ve reached across the Atlantic and ordered the hit on Jack Burch.
He called Faith. She was driving to UC Berkeley to teach an early morning anthro class.
“Jack opened his eyes,” Faith told him, her voice giddy. “He’s out of the coma. I just got the call.” Gage’s legs wobbled as if a weight was lifted from his shoulders and he wasn’t ready. He stopped, then leaned against a tree. “Graham?”
“I’m still here. I just…”
“I know. He still needs the breathing tube. But he’s responding, so they hope there’s no brain damage. Where are you?”
“Geneva.”
“I can’t wait until you get home.”
“Me too. Tell Jack…”
“I will.”
Gage started walking toward Rue du Leman to find a taxi, wishing he was flying back to San Francisco, then called Spike Pacheco at SFPD Homicide.
“Sorry, man,” Spike said. “I’m no closer to finding the shooter.”
“I don’t think it was road rage. It has to be SatTek and it somehow involves Russians and Ukrainians. I don’t know how it all fits together but they’re everywhere I turn.”
“I’ll throw it in the mix and see if it fizzes,” Spike said. “Anything else new?”
“Yeah. Jack’s back.”
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CHAPTER 32
T hey only had eyes for each other,” Mickey told Gage when he slid into the Volvo outside Heathrow Airport after his Swiss Air flight from Geneva. “Two could’ve followed them right into their Guernsey hotel room and they wouldn’t have seen her.”
“How’d they spend the day?”
“They got themselves a room at the Old Government House Hotel in St. Peter Port,” Mickey said, “then met with a lawyer at LaFleur amp; Sedgwick. They finished the day with a late dinner on the waterfront. Two said the owner greeted Matson like a regular and kissed the lovely Alla like she was his own daughter.”
“Trust me. He doesn’t want a daughter like her.”
“Oh no.” Mickey’s head swung toward Gage. “Don’t ruin an old man’s fantasy.”
“Her pop is a crime boss working out of Budapest. She may have fingered my friend and the Fitzhughs.”
Mickey sighed. “So the beauty is a beast.”
“That’s all the more reason Two has to stick with them.”
“She’s gotten the best training the British Army can provide. She’s like a chameleon. If she can’t, no one can.”
Gage spent the next morning in his hotel room reading and responding to e-mail updates from investigators in his office, all the while grateful that he’d been able to recruit men and women with the judgment both to manage their own investigations and to understand how much Gage needed to know in order to manage the firm.
When Mickey arrived for lunch, he reported that Two had followed Matson and Alla from Guernsey to Lugano.
“And get this,” Mickey said, as he held up his forkful of Mediterranean chicken in the Park Lane Brasserie. “Alla was using a Panamanian passport. Two saw it, but couldn’t see the name.”
“Which means she could evaporate any time.”
Mickey nodded, then washed the chicken down with a sip of beer. “What do you want to do this afternoon?”
“Research two UK companies. Why don’t you finish up here and I’ll get the information my office sent.”
Mickey grinned. “And the papers you stole from Fitzhugh’s house?”
Gage looked over and winked. “Those, too.”
By 4:40 P. M. the Companies House clerk was alternately glancing at the clock and at Gage. A few more minutes and she wouldn’t have to accept any more file requests, and could gather up her coat and purse in preparation for her escape from the fortresslike repository of the histories of the two million companies registered in the UK.
Preoccupied with the clock, she didn’t see Mickey sliding in just under the wire. “Thanks, darling,” he said, after she accepted the file request. He could see in her smile that she found him too cute to get annoyed at.
Mickey’s cell phone rang. He answered it, then walked over to where Gage sat before a monitor examining scanned corporate filings and financial statements. “Two has an update.”
Gage took the phone and stepped outside the building.
“I think I better break it off,” Two said. “I’ve been around them too long.”
“Where’d they go today?”
“They spent about a half hour at Banca Rober and about an hour at Barclays. Now it looks like they’re on the way to the airport. I’ll probably get burned if I follow them in. They had ‘good job, well done’ looks on their faces when they left the last meeting so they may be on their way back to London.”
At 8:30 P. M., Gage received a call from Hixon One at Gatwick. “The lovebirds have landed.”
CHAPTER 33
F aith was waiting curbside when Gage walked out of the international terminal at San Francisco Airport the next afternoon, a few hours after Matson’s flight had landed. Gage gave her a kiss, then climbed in.
“How’s Jack?” Gage asked as they drove away.
Faith’s quick smile gave him most of the answer.
“The tube is out of his throat,” she said. “He’s alert but has a hard time talking. They moved him from SF Medical to UCSF this morning. He really wants to see you. Courtney was hoping you wouldn’t be too jet-lagged.”
“It’s not too bad. Knowing Jack came out of the coma made it easier to sleep on the plane.” Gage glanced at the dashboard clock. “Let’s stop by the office on the way.”
“That reminds me. Alex Z asked me to pass on a message. He said you’d be annoyed when you got it. A U.S. Attorney named Peterson called about Jack.”
Gage felt his fists clench. Burch was barely out of a coma and Peterson was already pouncing.
“Alex Z was right.”
“Who’s Peterson?”
“The guy who wants to put Jack in jail.”
“Jack ’n Jail.” She glanced over at Gage. “Is that a new game in the U.S. Attorney’s office?”
“Apparently.”
Faith handed over the number and Gage punched it into his cell phone as she eased her way around the cars stacked up along the curbs in front of the domestic airlines.
“This is Gage.”
“Graham.” Peterson’s tone was jocular. “I heard you’ve been in London.”
Gage didn’t rise to it. “Nothing new in that.”
“How about a little sit-down?”
“Depends on how you found out.”
“From Devlin in the Serious Fraud Office.”
“If you agree not to tell Matson, then we can meet.”
“No problem. How about my office at 10 A. M. tomorrow?”
“How about mine? I don’t want anyone over there putting the same two-and-two together like I did.”
Gage disconnected.
“How come you didn’t ask him what he wanted to talk about?” Faith asked.
“Because I already know-and because he might’ve told me, and canceled the meeting. I want to see his face when he tries to scare me off. I need to figure out whether he has Matson in his pocket, or it’s the other way around.”
Faith merged into the freeway traffic heading north toward San Francisco.
“Sounds like you and Peterson know each other.”
“We do. He’s okay, just too ambitious for his own good. Always thinking about how cases will play in the media. And this one would be big. Jack goes from road-rage victim to international crook. I can already hear the six o’clock lead: In a stunning turn of events… ”
“You think you can get Jack out of this?”
“I don’t know. I’m still at the edges. The only thing that’s clear at the moment is that all the cops and crooks in the case have an interest in making Jack look guilty.”
“Can I see some ID?” the officer on duty asked Gage an hour later as he and Faith approached Burch’s room in the critical care unit at the University of California Hospital.
Gage extended his folding ID case.
“Graham Gage?” The officer smiled. “Spike’s friend?”
Gage nodded.
“He came by a little while ago. Talked to Burch.” His smile faded. “Sorry there hasn’t been much progress in the case.”
“You’re keeping him alive, that’s good enough. Thanks.”
Courtney hugged Faith and Gage, then used the push button control to raise Burch’s bed a few degrees. A myriad of plastic tributaries spread out from Burch’s bruised arms. He held a pillow against his chest to allow him to cough without exploding his still-healing sternum. An oxygen mask covered his nose. His lips were chapped.
Despite the devastation, Gage felt his heart lift as he leaned over the bed. “How are you doing, champ?”
Burch pulled the oxygen mask away from his nose. “Been…better.”
Courtney put it back, then pointed to the oxygen level on the monitor. “When it gets to ninety-five percent, they’ll take it off.”
“Too dry,” he said, squeaking out a smile. “Like dead…dingo’s…donger.”
“Now, Jack,” Courtney said, reddening.
Gage took his hand. “It’s okay, I’m not sure we qualify as polite company.”
Burch pointed at his breas
tbone. “Maybe…someday…we can…compare…bullet…wounds.”
“I was twenty-five years younger. It bounced off.”
Burch smiled, then coughed, gripping the pillow against his chest.
Gage patted Burch’s shoulder. “I think we better let you take it easy.”
“Wait.” Burch looked at Courtney. “The photos.”
“The lieutenant came by with photographs of possible suspects,” Courtney said, “but Jack didn’t see the man who shot him. Their heads were all too round or blockish. Jack thought the men in the photos all looked Russian.”
Burch nodded, then his eyelids lowered and he drifted off to sleep.
Courtney held her forefinger to her lips, then pointed toward the door. They followed her into the hallway.
“I’m not sure Jack got a good enough look at the man,” Courtney said. Her resigned tone told Gage that she had no hope Jack would ever be able to pick the shooter out of a lineup. “He just got a glimpse of a thin face and a gun in the man’s left hand. That’s all.” She peered up into Gage’s eyes. “The man who shot him will always be out there, won’t he?”
Gage reached his arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right if Jack can’t identify him. I’m going at it from another direction.”
CHAPTER 34
P eterson and Zink arrived ten minutes early for their meeting with Gage. He met them in his first floor conference room, bringing with him photos of Gravilov and the other gangsters who had met with Matson, the files he’d taken from Fitzhugh’s cottage, and records he’d collected at the Companies House in London-ready for a little show-and-tell.
“I don’t think you can get your friend Burch out of this one,” Peterson began. “He went too far.”
“Based on what?” Gage kept his voice flat. He wanted to provoke Peterson into laying out his case, not into an argument.
Peterson grinned, then settled back in his chair. “You show me yours and maybe I’ll show you mine.”
Gage crossed his forearms on the desk and fixed his eyes on Peterson. “All Burch did was act on a referral from a big name in venture capital. I looked at records in London. Granger and Fitzhugh dummied up an appraisal for a failing company in Dublin, then flipped it to SatTek for three million shares. That was Granger’s big payoff.”