by Steven Gore
Peterson glanced at Zink, who clenched his teeth. “I’m still working on it.”
Gage hit his punch line hard. “Fitzhugh was Granger’s guy, not Burch’s.”
Peterson sat forward “You got it wrong.” He nodded at Zink. “Show him.”
Zink lifted a briefcase from the floor. He pulled out a file and slid it toward Peterson.
“These are Burch’s phone records from two months before Matson went to see him for the first time,” Peterson said. “There are six calls from Burch to Fitzhugh. Every wheel has a hub and Burch was it. Fitzhugh was Burch’s guy.”
Peterson was on a roll. He couldn’t wait to show the rest of his.
“Burch put Fitzhugh in the middle of the fake product sales to Asia, then put him in the middle of the offshore stock sales-and there’s more on the domestic side.”
Gage threw up his hands. “You’re not claiming he brought in Kovalenko?”
Peterson slapped the desk. “Bingo.” He then flicked his head toward Zink, who slid over another file while smirking at Gage. Peterson withdrew the top page.
“These are the State of Nevada records for Kovalenko’s companies. Chuck Verona is the registered agent. Kovalenko even has his name on a couple.”
Peterson withdrew another sheet.
“These are all the companies Verona is the agent for. A bunch of them were set up by Burch. Like the one that owns Kovalenko’s car.” Peterson grinned. “For that one, Kovalenko is the president, secretary, and water boy. If that’s not enough, look at Burch’s phone records for September, last year. Right in the middle of the pump and dump. There’s a call from Burch’s inside line to Kovalenko’s inside line at Northstead Securities.”
Peterson reached in again.
“This is Burch’s brokerage account statement. He bought a hundred thousand shares of SatTek at two bucks, then dumped it like all the other insiders at five. He cleared a cool, crooked three hundred grand-on top of his enormous legal fee.”
“Then how do you explain the hits on Burch and Fitzhugh?”
“Burch wasn’t a hit. It was road rage. While you were wasting your time in London, another jogger was shot in the Mission District. Same MO. As for Fitzhugh and his wife? The London police say they did a little work for Russian organized crime. Zink looked through Fitzhugh’s files. There was nothing to connect SatTek to any of Fitzhugh’s Russian clients.”
Gage started to reach for his folder to show Peterson the photos he took of the Russians Matson met with in London, then hesitated. He hadn’t heard the punch line yet.
“And Matson can tie the whole thing together. Trust me. He’s given us everything he’s got and he’s been going out and gathering up more every day.”
Gage thought back on Matson’s route. London. Guernsey. Lugano. Maybe he was putting the financial pieces together for Peterson. Maybe he was still trying to snare Granger. In the end it didn’t make any difference. Matson was Peterson’s boy, and Peterson believed Matson’s every word.
“One thing you don’t have is motive-”
Peterson flashed a palm at Gage. “We don’t need motive. The facts speak for themselves.”
“You may not,” Gage said, “but juries want to hear it-and Burch didn’t need the money.”
“Needing and wanting are two different things.”
“He gives away three times your salary to charity every year. He handles the money for a dozen international relief organizations-never a hint that he skimmed a dime.”
“Big fucking deal. What he does for charity is a sentencing issue. Maybe it’ll buy him a downward departure. Get him down to twenty-eight years instead of thirty.” Peterson jabbed a forefinger at Gage. “We both know why these do-gooders want to use him. It’s because he knows how to move money so corrupt governments can’t get ahold of it. We call it money laundering for a good cause. That’s why we look the other way.” Peterson smirked. “You think we don’t suspect what you two did in Afghanistan? Is there a federal crime you guys didn’t commit setting that up?”
A nightmare came to life in Gage’s mind: Burch being arrested in the critical care unit and Spike’s uniformed cop being replaced by a U.S. Marshal. Peterson had everything he needed: a paper trail, a money trail, and Matson to tell the story-and Gage hadn’t seen it coming. He didn’t look over, but he felt Zink grinning like a teenage punk who didn’t have a clue what was friendship, or grief, or tragedy. He clenched his jaws and kept his face expressionless. He wasn’t going to give Peterson the satisfaction.
“When will you indict him?”
“As soon as we can roll him into court. From what I hear he’s making good progress.” Peterson paused. Gage saw in his eyes that, at least for a moment, he grasped what this meant to Gage. But the moment passed. “Sorry, man, you can’t win ’em all.”
Gage returned to his office after escorting Peterson and Zink to the lobby, each step accompanied by the anguish that Faith had been right: Burch’s rage against Courtney’s cancer had indeed expressed itself as greed.
But then two poem fragments spoke to him as he settled into his chair and gazed out toward the bay: I was much too far out all my life…not waving but drowning. And he wondered whether that had been Jack Burch from the beginning. Maybe that was why the memory of their first meeting came to him in the emergency room hallway the morning Burch was shot.
Maybe it wasn’t greed after all, but simply self-destructive recklessness.
Gage took in a breath, feeling the same unease that had troubled him along the Smith River twenty-five years earlier. He remembered watching a young fisherman walk past him into a cliffside cafe overlooking the river, his gait and earnest face announcing that his mind was too much on the water, his arms and back already feeling the tension of the fly line tight in the guides of a bowed rod.
“Watch out for the Oregon Hole,” Gage had warned him and pointed at three off-kilter crosses jammed into lava rocks atop the canyon wall. “Those rapids will beat you to death.”
Burch had glanced back over his shoulder, grinned, and answered without breaking stride, “Thanks, mate. I’ll take care.”
At midday, another moment of unease. Gage looking down from the cliff, catching sight of a slight shifting of Burch’s shoulders and hips as he dug his wading boots into the sandy river bottom. Then again, at sunset, with long shadows falling across the river. Gage slowing as he drove across the suspension bridge and glanced down into the gorge, wondering where was the fisherman whose mind had been too much on the river-and catching sight of flailing arms and a fly rod whipping the air.
Maybe that was it all along, Gage thought, turning away from the window and sitting up in his chair. Maybe that had always been Burch: not waving, but drowning.
Gage folded his hands on his desk, his duty-to Jack, to Courtney, and to himself-now framed both by memory and by the fear that instead of asking what and who and how, he should’ve been asking why.
CHAPTER 35
T he middle-aged foreperson seated at a semicircular raised judge’s bench looked over her reading glasses at a phalanx of occupied student-style Formica desks filling the grand jury room. A clerk sat to her left and the court reporter sat one level below her. The witness box to her right was empty. The foreperson first directed the secretary to take the roll, then invited Assistant United States Attorney William Peterson to address the grand jurors.
Peterson rose from his seat at the prosecutor’s table front and center in the grand jury room, picked up his SatTek notes, and then stepped to the podium.
“Today, the government will begin presenting testimonial evidence that it expects to show conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and money laundering by SatTek Incorporated of San Jose and by its officers, agents, lawyers, and consultants.”
Peterson looked down the far left row of jurors and counted to six. From others in the office he knew that Grand Juror Number Six, a wild-haired, middle-aged former middle manager, was a runaway. Number Si
x thought he had a mind of his own. Even worse, he thought the grand jury was supposed to possess a collective mind of its own. He was big trouble.
Number Six didn’t take an interest in every case, just a few, and he telegraphed his move by taking notes right from day one. No one in the office knew how he chose a case to go rabid on. He just did and wasted an enormous amount of time asking questions ad nauseam in a nasally whine that made everyone in the room cringe and their palms sweat. One prosecutor had told Peterson that after one of these episodes, the foreperson had whispered to him in the hallway that because of Number Six, the eighteen-month grand jury term felt like a life sentence.
Everyone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office figured that someday they’d spot Number Six on a park bench or in the public library with the other loonies scribbling stream-of-consciousness notes in a weathered spiral notebook. But the scuttlebutt was that you could beat him down if you worked at it and he’d vote with the rest of the sheep when the time came-it was just that nobody in the office liked playing sheepdog.
“You’ll recall that a month ago the grand jury approved the issuance of subpoenas for stock and bank records relating to SatTek. At that time I outlined our suspicions and also described the roles of the SatTek officers, advisers such as Edward Granger, attorneys such as Jack Burch, and offshore agents such as Morely Alden Fitzhugh. Beginning today you will see the fruits of the subpoenas and learn the details of our investigative labors.”
Peterson checked off the first item on his outline.
“I should point out at this juncture that Mr. Fitzhugh, who I mentioned to you a few weeks ago, is no longer a target, as he’s deceased.” Peterson quickly pushed on, not wanting to answer questions about the circumstances of Fitzhugh’s murder. “My summary witness will be FBI Special Agent Lyle Zink. Beginning tomorrow he’ll outline the structure of the conspiracy, the coconspirators, the bank accounts, and the offshore companies.”
Peterson checked off two more items.
“Stuart Matson has become a cooperating defendant and we expect there will be others. He signed a plea agreement that requires him to disgorge his profits but makes no promises regarding sentencing. Assuming that Mr. Matson is entirely truthful, pursuant to 5K of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will move the district court to grant a downward departure from the mandatory minimum in this matter which is approximately twenty years. He could receive a sentence as low as probation, depending on his performance.
“There will be additional witnesses, including employees of SatTek, bank officers, representatives of the SEC, and others. I expect that presenting all of this testimony will require that we meet about twice a week for the next few weeks.”
Peterson set aside his outline, rested his hands on the top edges of the podium, then paused. He let his eyes scan the grand jurors just a moment longer than any of them found comfortable.
“In accordance with rule six of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, I must remind each and every one of the grand jurors that the proceedings of the grand jury are secret. Secrecy protects you from intimidation, it prevents the escape of grand jury targets, and it prevents the tampering with or the intimidation of witnesses. Please bear this in mind.”
Peterson reached for a binder labeled “SatTek Syllabus” lying on a table next to him.
“Now, let me outline the elements of the crimes of conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering.”
Peterson looked up at Grand Juror Number Six. He was already taking notes. Damn.
CHAPTER 36
E dward Granger arrived at the driving range of his country club at sunrise. He purchased two baskets of balls, then selected the driving station farthest from the other golfers. The grass never smelled sweeter, the fall air never felt more crisp and expansive. He paused to watch the caged cart sweeping up spent balls, wondering whether prisons had grass anymore, or whether anything at all grew in them except men growing older. He also wondered how many rounds he would have time to play before he joined the other inmates wasting their days, replacing golf with chess or checkers or bridge or just unrelenting boredom.
Granger teed up a ball, addressed it with his titanium driver, then swung. The ball cracked off the club like a gunshot. He caught sight of it just as it reached its apex. He watched it until it hit the netting three hundred yards away, dropped to the grass, and came to rest. He looked over at the few other golfers at the range. Some hit the ball, then reached into their baskets for another before it stopped rolling, sometimes while it was still in flight. Not Granger. He thought of nothing while the ball was in motion, just the beauty of it. In Granger’s mind, that was the point, the whole point.
Granger paused, thinking back on his conversation with Graham Gage in the clubhouse the previous day. Gage had walked in, handed him a business card, looked him in the eye, and said, “We need to talk about Jack Burch.”
No raised voice. No explanation. Just the invisible force of a riptide. It told Granger even before they’d made the short walk from the bar to the booth, that his day planner would have a bunch of new entries by the time he stood up.
Gage’s leadoff question did it. It convinced him that the first thing he’d need to do was fire his attorney, Sid Lavender. He liked Sid. He respected Sid. But Sid wouldn’t represent a snitch. Sid said it was a matter of principle-and Granger was about to become one.
Snitch. An ugly word. Switch. Bitch. Snitch. But Granger knew he’d eventually get used to it.
“What do you know about Fitzhugh and the engineering software company in Ireland?” Gage had asked.
The question vibrated through Granger. Gage had figured it out. And so would the government. Or Gage would explain it to them.
“I don’t know anything about it.” His tone was flat, unconvincing. They both knew it.
“That’s the wrong answer,” Gage said.
“I know. But there’s nothing you can offer me that’ll give you the right one.”
Granger leaned back, smiling. It was neither aggressive nor defensive. Granger didn’t play those games. It was simply melancholy.
“At least tell me this,” Gage said. “Was Burch in on it? I don’t need you to say whether you were. You and I already know that answer.”
Granger thought back to the beginning. He smiled to himself. Some people think in cliches, I think in analogies.
“Let me put it this way,” Granger finally said. “Do you tell the lumberyard what you plan to use the plywood for?”
Granger didn’t expect Gage to answer. There was no need to. He could see by Gage’s face that he’d given Gage what he wanted to hear: Peterson couldn’t prove intent.
“What about Matson? How did he use the plywood?”
“That’s the last one you get,” Granger said, knowing that it was already one more than he’d prepared himself to answer. “You’re a smart guy. Listen carefully…Sometimes children grow up to do things you never expected in your wildest imagination. And trust me, I’ve got a wild imagination.”
“So I’ve heard. Will you tell Peterson?”
“When the time comes.”
Granger fired Sid an hour later, then let his fingers do their walking through his Rolodex to Bobby Harrington, a member of the country club and a white-collar lawyer he hoped had enough pull to cut him a deal.
“Bobby, this is Ed Granger.”
“How’s the old putter?”
“Stiff and straight. How’s yours?”
“Don’t believe what you read. It’s not the smallest club in the bag. What can I do for you?”
“You still have any connections left in the U.S. Attorney’s office?”
“Sure, I ran the place under two presidents. My picture is still on the wall somewhere, darts and all. What’s up?”
“I’ve got a little situation.”
“How little?”
Granger hesitated, knowing that once he spoke the words that had echoed in his mind as he lay in bed the
night before, there’d be no turning back, and nothing would ever be the same.
“I won’t kid you or myself,” Granger finally said. “I’ll be doing time. No way around it. But I’m willing to trade what I know for what they want. I just need a release date soon enough to get in a few rounds before I check out.”
“Sounds bad.”
“It’s SatTek.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. A lot worse than I expected. How much do you want to come into the case to cut a deal?”
“Fifty.”
“Might as well charge whatever you want, the government is going to forfeit what’s left.”
“Fifty thousand is fine. Who’s the Assistant U.S. Attorney?”
“Peterson.”
“True believer. But we can deal with him. I’m the one that hired him, right out of law school. Who’s the agent?”
“Zink.”
“An idiot. He’s been pretty much neutered because of a DUI a few years ago. I wouldn’t worry about him.”
“There’s another guy involved. He’s the reason I’ve got to make a deal.”
“Who’s that?”
“Graham Gage. He’s ready to hand my head to Peterson to keep his pal Jack Burch from being indicted. No stopping him.”
“You sized him up right,” Harrington said. “He’s the guy I’d hire if I was on the hunt. And I’d be fucking terrified if he was doing it on his own dime. You better jump on board before the train runs you over.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“You know they’ll want to put you in front of the grand jury?”
“I figured. I’ve got the feeling that they’re already meeting. A guy in the scam named Matson has been acting real squirrelly.”
“Then we’ll have to move fast. I’ll call Peterson this afternoon and tell him you want to come in. And you start putting money together for bail.”
Granger then called his banker and the next morning was among the first on the driving range.