Dark Money

by Larry D. Thompson

  “I’m going to make this as brief as possible. You killed Edward Hale, seriously wounded Governor Lardner and grazed this man here, Kevin O’Connell on that night?”

  Van Zandt looked down at her shoes and slowly raised her head to face the jury. “I did, sir. I admit it.”

  “Were you paid?”

  “$100,000.”

  “Who paid you?”

  The jurors moved to the edge of their seats. They were disappointed.

  “I don’t know, sir. Someone wired some money to my dad and he wired that $100,000 to my bank account. I heard him mention someone named Cross at one time, but I don’t know who he was or who he worked for.”

  “Were you given specific instructions about that night?”

  The witness gazed off into space and didn’t respond.

  “Miss Van Zandt, were you given specific instructions?”

  “I was told to wound the governor, kill Edward Hale and shoot O’Connell in the arm.”

  That answer caused another stir in the audience with several jurors whispering to one another until the judge banged her gavel and called for order.

  “How did you get in the party?”

  “Climbed the back wall. There was a guard on the patio that I had to eliminate. Someone on the inside was supposed to have left a key in a flower pot. It wasn’t there. I went around to the back came in through the delivery entrance.”

  “How did you identify them?”

  “Knew they would be on the stage. Had photos of everyone on the stage. Knew the governor would be the Lone Ranger and O’Connell would be in a clown outfit. I knew where Edward Hale would be sitting. I also knew what kind of costume he would be in.” Pause. “I forget now his costume.”

  Jack moved to the end of the jury rail, across from the last juror and leaned against it so that the witness would be looking at the jury as she answered the remainder of his questions. “Were you a good enough marksman that you could carry out those instructions?”

  A slight smile crossed the witness’s face. “Before this happened I used to put up four targets and empty my weapon, firing at them randomly. All my rounds were in the bullseye. What I was asked to do was easy.”

  Jack looked at the jury. One last question. “Did you have any reservations about killing?”

  Van Zandt pursed her lips and lowered her eyes. “I suppose my answer should be that I did. But, I’m under oath. Truth is the Alamo Defenders were soldiers. We knew the government was coming for us. I did it because we needed more weapons and to recruit more defenders. So, I did what I had to do. It was war.”

  Silence now enveloped the courtroom.

  “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

  Jack glanced at Christiansen who was quietly staring at the witness, obviously contemplating whether she had really done any material damage and what he might gain by cross examination. Sitting behind him was O’Connell, who was folding and unfolding his arms, blinking furiously, sweat showing on his forehead, and breathing rapidly, almost like he was about to have a heart attack. Finally deciding that he could really do nothing to damage this witness--after all, she had admitted to being a murderer--he told the judge that he had no questions.

  After lunch, Jack announced, “The defense re-calls Kevin O’Connell.”

  O’Connell looked at his lawyer who motioned for him to take the stand. He moved around the table and stood in front of the bench, raising his right hand to take the oath. “That won’t be necessary,” Judge Jamison said. “You have already sworn to tell the truth and are still under that same oath. Please be seated.”

  Colby was watching carefully when O’Connell walked to the bench and raised his right hand. While Jack started his questioning, Colby scribbled something on a yellow stickie and slipped it to J.D. He read it, opened his laptop and started scrolling through pictures.

  “Mr. O’Connell, let’s establish a couple of preliminaries. First, people contribute to political campaigns because they want something.”

  O’Connell saw it as a throwaway question. “Yes, of course.”

  “A person, or these days a big corporation or a labor union may want to push for or against some issue, say national defense or women’s rights or government spending or a dozen others, correct?”

  “I agree.”

  “Second, they may want to obtain access to a Congressman or a Senator or, maybe, the President and the more they give, the greater the potential access.”

  O’Connell was now feeling more comfortable. He could handle these questions. “Not always true, Mr. Bryant, but no doubt that big money does talk in Washington.”

  “Now, the way you set up Stepper and SOS, SOS doesn’t have to disclose its contributors, at least not until this trial, and Stepper can just file a report, saying that it received, say a hundred million, from SOS and the buck stops there.”

  “Provided you don’t succeed in changing the law. I might add that we have filed an emergency appeal to try to stop your disclosure of the SOS contributors.”

  “I’m not surprised, but I suppose I best hurry if we want to get this information in front of the jury and the public before some appellate clerk walks in the back door with an order. Let’s start now. Your Honor, am I now permitted to go into what was produced on Friday?”

  Judge Jamison looked puzzled. “I understood from the media that your RV and its contents were destroyed. Are you saying that you have that information?”

  “I do, Judge.”

  O’Connell twisted in his chair as he glanced from the jury to Christiansen, to the bailiff and to the door and windows. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then used it to dry his hands.

  “You may use what you have been provided, assuming, of course, that I don’t get a call from the court of appeals.”

  “We’ve reviewed all of your spreadsheets of contributors, their contact information and amounts. Without going into detail, you would agree that you have several hundred contributors in SOS with about $500,000,000 raised or pledged so far.”

  O’Connell could no longer hide his nervousness. His voice cracked. “If, if that’s what it shows, I don’t disagree.”

  “So, SOS has collected much more than what you said just a couple of days ago, including tens of millions from the costume fundraiser.”

  “Like I say, you have the numbers. I could have been off on my math. I have a staff to keep up with that.”

  “There’s one contributor I want to focus on for a moment. It’s called Mosaic Council of Americans and Eurasians. You’re familiar with that council, are you not?”

  “Not particularly. I don’t keep up with all of them. That’s what I have a staff for.”

  “Wait a minute. This Mosaic Council contributed a hundred million to SOS and you don’t know who they are? Don’t you have an obligation to check into contributors, particularly large ones like this?”

  “My staff in Washington will eventually get around to that.”

  “Mr. O’Connell, J.D. did some checking over the weekend and found that this Mosaic Council is a front for the Chechnya government. He had to backtrack through several dummy corporations, but he finally figured it out.”

  Christiansen rose. “Objection, Judge. Whatever the younger Mr. Bryant figured out is not in evidence.”

  Jack decided to bluff. He picked up a folder from his table. “Judge, I have all of the documents right here. I can put J.D. on the stand later if necessary.” In fact, the folder contained various pleadings that had long ago been filed in the case.

  “With the understanding that you’ll tie it up, I’ll let you go forward, Mr. Bryant, subject to being stricken if you don’t.”

  Jack nodded his understanding. “Mr. O’Connell, you know that it’s a violation of federal law for a foreign government to contribute to our elections, don’t you?”

  The witness looked to his lawyer for guidance, now beginning to regret that he had ever decided to file the lawsuit.

&nb
sp; “Don’t be looking at your lawyer. He can’t help you now. Fact of the matter is that if the judge hadn’t ordered you to turn over these records, the Chechens would have a hundred million dollars’ worth of access to the White House if your candidate won. That might even get them a couple of nights in the Lincoln bedroom.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative.”

  “Sustained. Move on, Mr. Bryant.”

  “Very well, Judge. At this time we offer as Defendant’s Exhibit 44 the cell phone records that Mr. Nichols subpoenaed from Mr. O’Connell’s cell phone company.”

  “No objection, Judge. They were listed as a potential exhibit before trial. We just didn’t see them until last week.”

  “Then, Judge, we have other phone records from a gentleman named Bernard Batiste from New Orleans.”

  When he heard the name, the blood drained from O’Connell’s face.

  “Judge, we are offering these for impeachment. They have not been authenticated, but we have Mr. Batiste in the hallway to be called as our next witness.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Christiansen said as he leaped to his feet. “We’ve never seen these.”

  The judge as well as the jurors were now eager to see where this was all leading. “This is impeachment, Mr. Christiansen. Overruled. Carry on, Mr. Bryant. Again, with the admonition that I may strike some of this testimony if you don’t connect it.”

  “Understood, Judge.” Jack walked to the witness stand and handed copies of each set of cell phone records to the witness. At the same time, J.D. split the overhead screen so that he could display both. “On the right you will see your cell records with the 202 area code. That’s your phone, isn’t it?”

  O’Connell’s eyes moved up and to his right briefly before he answered. “I better explain something, In early September last year, I left my cell phone in a taxi. I reported it to the D.C. police. I thought it was gone, but it turned up in a bar about a week later. I don’t know who used it or what calls were made during that time.”

  “Then, you must know where I’m going with this. You’ve been in a club called Trombone’s in New Orleans a number of times, haven’t you?”

  “Name sounds familiar. I visit New Orleans in my job and like jazz.”

  “You heard me mention Bernard Batiste. You know him, don’t you?”

  Realizing he could not dodge the question, he said, “Name sounds familiar.”

  “In fact, if we look at your cell records, there are calls going to New Orleans during that week you claim your phone disappeared. If we look at your records, where I’ve highlighted two calls to one cell number and look at these records from Mr. Batiste’s cell phone, there’s a call from yours and he’s calling you back two days later.”

  O’Connell was now squirming in his seat. “Like I said, I lost my phone.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he ended the sentence.

  “And, if we look at two other calls, they are to and from a burner phone that Mr. Batiste will identify as that of Adam Crossmore, the middleman in the killing done by Miriam Van Zandt. Do you deny talking to Crossmore?”

  The witness didn’t respond and didn’t move a muscle. The judge was about to order him to answer when Jack continued.

  “Mr. O’Connell, can I get you to step down in front of the jury?”

  Almost in a trance, the witness did so.

  “Will you raise your right sleeve and display your Rolex to the jury?”

  O’Connell did so.

  “J.D. will you put clip 88 from the security camera exhibits on the overhead?”

  An image appeared. It showed a suited right hand and arm. A diamond studded Rolex was shown with a large diamond ring on the hand. The hand was reaching to switch off cameras at the mansion. The digital display was 3:38. Even if the jurors didn’t understand all of the testimony, the sight of O’Connell’s right hand in front of them with the clip on the overhead was the final nail in his coffin.

  Suddenly, O’Connell became animated. He started coughing violently and holding his chest. “I need air, right now.”

  His eyes bounced around the courtroom and settled on the door where the jury went out the back to the jury room. He turned and ran for it.

  “Ernie, you better go after him,” Jack said.

  Ernie sprinted to the door, followed by Walt and the rest of the detail with J.D. close behind. When O’Connell burst through the door, he found a hallway and headed to the jury room. Beside it was another hall which he assumed led to the outside corridor. As he rushed down it, he heard the door to the courtroom open behind him and realized there were multiple footsteps close behind. He bounded down the stairs two at a time. Jack had come from the back of the courtroom and joined in the chase, albeit at a fast limp.

  O’Connell hit the front doors of the courthouse and went down the stairs and across the street, dodging traffic as he did. When he got to his rented Lexus, he clicked open the doors as the men in pursuit were crossing the street. Instead of getting in the driver’s side, he opened the passenger door and reached in the glove box. His hand came out with a Glock in it.

  He put it to his head when the men were about to get to his car. They stopped on the other side. “Put that gun down,” Ernie said, his own gun drawn.

  With panic on his now-red face, O’Connell gasped, “Don’t you understand? I had to do it. Edward Hale had told me that he would not help in my campaign. He was going to the other side. No matter how much money I could raise, he could write a check for that much and more. He was hell bent on neutralizing all I had fought for all these years. We couldn’t afford to have a moderate or a Democrat in the White House again. It was for the good of the country.” He hesitated. “Besides, after what happened in court just now the Chechens now will kill me.”

  The gun went off with a deafening explosion and O’Connell disappeared behind his Lexus. The last Jack remembered of him was the Rolex and diamond ring on the hand holding the gun.

  EPILOGUE

  Jack, Colby, J.D. and Walt sat on the back deck, watching a majestic sunset, full of reds, blues, oranges and greens. They sipped their drinks in silence. Finally Walt spoke. “I never thought it would end this way.”

  “None of us did. It’s the law of unintended consequences,” Jack said.

  “Meaning what?” Colby asked.

  “Blame it on the Supreme Court. They have screwed up our political system in the name of the First Amendment. With so much money now in the political arena, the stakes have gotten too high. O’Connell knew what Mosaic was. He didn’t give a damn as long as he thought he could keep their involvement hidden with SOS. He knew that Edward was no longer drinking the same Kool-Aid as his brother. One carefully planned and executed murder would solve his problem. He was willing to arrange it to get rid of someone who could destroy what he was building. If it had worked, he would have been the puppeteer, quietly pulling the strings in the White House. Imagine the power.”

  J.D. downed his beer. “Yeah, Dad, and he might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t tracked down the evidence.”

  “I appreciate that. I did what you’ve heard so often. I followed the money. I couldn’t have done it without you and your computer skills, but, you know, what really put the icing on the cake was when Colby remembered that photo of the hand on the camera switches. That’s when he knew the jig was up.”

  “We’ve gotten a pile of publicity,” Colby said. “The media is finally waking up to all of this dark money in politics. I know you’re getting calls every day. You think what we did will change anything?”

  Jack popped another beer. “For once, I’m taking calls from reporters and agreeing to interviews. J.D. and I are going to New York for a round of news shows in two days. Is that going to do any good? Probably not. Like I said once before, the Supreme Court doesn’t recognize what they’ve done. The Senators and Congressmen are like pigs at the trough. They’re not about to shut off the flow of money. Still, we’re going to make our case to anyone who will listen.”<
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  Dear Reader,

  Thanks for taking the time to read Dark Money. I hope it grabbed your attention and you enjoyed it. If that’s the case, I have a favor to ask. Reviews are extremely important to an author. In the world of e-publishing, reviews can make or break a book. If you liked my story, it would be greatly appreciated if you could take a couple of minutes to go to your favorite e-book websites and write a short review to let others know they, too, would enjoy it.

  Thanks for your help and be sure to watch for my next novel.

  Larry D. Thompson

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Larry D. Thompson was first a trial lawyer. He tried more than 300 cases throughout Texas, winning in excess of 95% of them. When his youngest son graduated from college, he decided to write his first novel. Since his mother was an English teacher and his brother, Thomas Thompson, had been a best-selling author, it seemed the natural thing to do.

  Larry writes about what he knows best…lawyers, courtrooms and trials. The legal thriller is his genre. Dark Money is his fifth story and the second in the Jack Bryant series.

  Larry and his wife, Vicki, call Houston home and spend their summers on a mountain top in Vail, Colorado. He has two daughters, two sons and four grandchildren. He is a staunch believer in Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing, particularly number ten: Leave out the parts that the readers tend to skip.