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The 14th... And Forever

Page 17

by Merline Lovelace


  “Yes.”

  “I woke up this morning thinking about it.”

  That certainly put a dent in her ego, Angela thought. Jack had awakened with his mind on tax incentives. She had zinged right to lust and love and a fervent wish that she could stay burrowed under the covers with him for the rest of the day.

  “I decided to test the language in the clause with some actual numbers,” Jack continued.

  She hunched forward and peered at the rows and columns on the screen. “Where did you get the numbers?”

  “The computer has a built-in modem. I just dialed up EDGAR.”

  “Edgar Who?”

  “The FTC’s Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval System.”

  “No kidding? You broke into the Federal Trade Commission’s files?”

  “It’s on the Internet. You just have to know how to get to it.”

  “Right.”

  “Using that information, I constructed a chart showing the reported revenue for six highly diversified, well-established companies.”

  He hit the tab key several times. The cursor moved across the spreadsheet on the screen, highlighting a series of numbers as it marched from left to right.

  “Then I did a pro forma analysis to calculate what their revenue would have been if the tax incentives in this bill had been in place last year.”

  Angela shook her head helplessly. “You’ve already lost me.”

  “Sorry. Here, look.” He moved the cursor to a cell at the bottom of the spreadsheet. “This is HealthMark’s reported revenue from all sources.”

  Angela gulped at the staggering number of zeros in the highlighted number.

  “Got that?” Jack asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Now I’ll show you what their income would have been had the tax incentives proposed in this bill been in effect last year.”

  He put the cursor on a long, complex formula in the entry bar and changed a couple of numbers. Angela gaped as the sum in the total-revenue cell jumped from staggering to mind-boggling.

  “Good grief!”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “But...but...”

  She struggled to understand how anyone could have let a provision like this slip through. With all the lawyers on the Hill, surely one of them should have caught it. Jack put his own interpretation on its inclusion.

  “The language in this provision isn’t loose or careless. It guarantees a specific benefit to a limited number of companies, HealthMark among them. Whoever inserted this paragraph knew exactly what he was doing. I’m guessing he was paid for it, too. Handsomely.”

  Angela swung around on her chair. “I thought we settled the question of whether or not HealthMark bought off the senator!”

  “It’s settled in my mind. The question I want answered now is who else could have slipped this language into the bill.”

  His even reply took the heat from Angela’s instant, ready defense of her boss. She dredged her memory, trying to remember who or when or how that small paragraph had come into being.

  “I don’t think that wording was in the original draft. The bill’s gone through so many revisions, though, I’m not sure.”

  “Can we do an audit trail? Track the revisions and find out who authored that particular paragraph?”

  “Sure. Marc Green keeps a history file of every piece of legislation, and a working file of all bills the senator sponsors. In fact, he’s the one who—”

  Her breath caught.

  “The one who what?”

  “Who has to incorporate the changes that are hammered out in committee or in conference into the final draft,” she finished, her heart thumping painfully.

  A cool gray filter seemed to settle over Jack’s eyes. “Tell me about Marc Green. Manny ran a routine check on him before I came up here, but we didn’t find anything to snag our interest.”

  Angela jumped up and began to pace. “Of course you wouldn’t find anything! Marc is a...a...”

  “A what?”

  She flung out her hands. “He’s a staffer! The ultimate staffer! He doesn’t have a life other than the Hill, not one that any of the rest of us know about, anyway. He’s in the office when we come in, and there long after we all go home. He’s only taken one vacation in all the time I’ve worked for the senator.”

  Jack’s expression remained shuttered behind the steel of his eyes.

  “Marc’s at the pinnacle of power,” Angela argued. “Or as close to it as he can come without being elected to office. He wouldn’t risk his career or his position by...by playing into HealthMark’s hands.”

  “Reflected power can corrupt as easily as the real thing.”

  Jack was right, of course. Angela was a student of politics, as well as a firsthand observer. She knew how easily power could and did corrupt. But Marc...?

  She wasn’t sure why she was defending him so vigorously. She didn’t really like him, any more than he liked her. They’d worked together for almost three years, though, and she couldn’t bring herself to believe he would betray their boss or...or try to harm her.

  Shivers raced down her arms. Once again, she heard the blast that had split the night. Once more, she saw the Chrysler engulfed in flames.

  As it had the night of the bombing, Jack’s voice penetrated the swirling vortex of her thoughts. Steady. Calm. Precise.

  “Let’s take this one step at a time. When we met in his office, Green said that he’d tried to discourage the senator from inviting me to testify. Why?”

  Angela wrapped both arms around her middle and drew in a deep breath. Forcing herself to put aside her instinctive defense of a man she’d always respected, if not always liked, she thought back to the days before Jack’s summons to Washington.

  “Marc cited the same reasons you gave the senator for not wanting to appear before the committee. Your data was too raw. The implications were too far-reaching to disclose without extensive analysis. And, as Marc pointed out, we didn’t know what you might say. We still don’t,” she added pointedly.

  Jack ignored her aside. “All right. If we assume Green had other, more personal reasons for not wanting me to testify, we can assume he had something to do with that incident on the bridge. He knew what flight I was coming in on.”

  Her stomach lurched. “He also knew the exact moment we left National Airport. I called in to the office, remember?”

  “I remember,” he said grimly. “I also remember that Green was present when the senator sent us off to dinner in his personal vehicle. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to track the Chrysler to your cousin’s lot.”

  She dropped back into the chair, feeling sick.

  Jack yanked up the phone receiver. “I’m going to get hold of Manny.”

  It took some minutes to track the special agent down at the Justice Department, where, he informed Jack in a huff, he was up to his ass in indictments.

  “Let the lawyers work the paper, Manny. I want you to pull out all the stops and find out everything you can on the senator’s legislative director. Yeah, that’s right. Marc Green.”

  As she listened to the exchange, Angela felt the first stirring of wrath. Bit by bit, her anger edged out the sick feeling in her stomach. By the time Jack had finished with Manny and put in another, shorter call to Ed Winters, she’d worked up a healthy head of steam.

  “That bastard!” she hissed. “That...suspender-wearing bastard!”

  “We don’t know for sure he’s behind any of this,” Jack reminded her.

  “No, we don’t. But I’ll tell you this. If he is, he’s going to be one sorry staffer.”

  She jumped up and marched across the room. Snatching up the faithful football jacket, she shoved her arms into the sleeves and jabbed at the front snaps.

  “Let’s go get something to eat. Then, Dr. Merritt, I’m going to call my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Right. My mother.” Eyes glinting with determination, she headed for the front door. �
�You’re not the only one who can bait a trap.”

  By ten o’clock that morning, she was ready to set the bait. Swiping her damp palms down the sides of her black skirt, Angela reached for the phone. Jack’s hand closed over hers, pinning it to the receiver.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll call him, Angela.”

  Her mouth set. “No. It should come from me.”

  Slowly, Jack lifted his hand. He didn’t like this. He’d told her so repeatedly during breakfast and after. But Manny Ramirez’s excited call a few minutes ago had convinced him.

  The special agent had confirmed what Angela had told Jack earlier. Marc Green had taken only one vacation in years, a two-week cruise to the Galapagos Islands. Since this constituted such a departure from his established routine, they’d contacted the cruise line and discovered that Green had shared a cabin with a woman by the name of Katherine Palmer.

  Ms. Palmer, Manny reported gleefully, was a striking thirty-four-year-old redhead...who just happened to work for HealthMark, Incorporated, as a midlevel PR executive.

  The bastard, Angela thought again. Lifting the receiver, she dialed Marc’s private number at the office.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Marc? This is Angela.” .

  Her eyes locked with Jack’s.

  “Yes, he’s still planning to testify. But he wants to talk to the senator first. If the traffic’s not too bad on I-95 south once we hit the Beltway, I’ll get him there by two.”

  Her fingers tightened.

  “No, I’m driving Tony’s Corvette. You know how fast that baby can move. Right.”

  Angela replaced the receiver and stood staring at it for long, silent seconds.

  “I wonder how long it will take before the garbageman gets another anonymous call?” she asked softly.

  It didn’t take long.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Ed Winters reported that their quarry had taken the bait.

  The sweating hit man, still shaken from his recent encounter with the trash can and surrounded by a team of agents and detectives, had received a call traced to a pay phone in St. Augustine, Florida. Angela wasn’t surprised at the location. Jack had warned her that Marc would undoubtedly use a middleman for his arrangements. Still, Ed Winters’s terse report left her shaken.

  This time, he told her and Jack, the hit man’s task was to take out the passenger in a restored red ‘68 Corvette that would be traveling south on I-95 into the District sometime before two o’clock this afternoon.

  His eyes hard and cold, Jack tossed her the football jacket. “Come on. We’re going for that walk we talked about earlier.”

  “Now?”

  “Now! We’ve still got a couple hours. We’re going to let the cold air clear our heads...and I’m going to do my damnedest to convince you to stay here this afternoon.”

  “You’re wasting your breath, Merritt.”

  He tried. She had to give him that. He certainly tried. Jack could be darned convincing when he wanted to, she discovered. But he wasn’t anywhere near as convincing as she was stubborn. The wind off the Chesapeake whipped her hair around her face as she matched him stride for stride and argument for argument.

  “You’re not going in alone,” she insisted after a long, heated debate. “Not unless you knock me unconscious, or leave me here bound and gagged.”

  “I’m considering both options,” he replied, his jaw tight.

  Shocked, she stopped in her tracks. “You wouldn’t!”

  When he turned to face her, Angela saw that he would. Incensed, she planted both fists on her hips.

  “Now, you listen to me, Jack Merritt. We’re in this together. We have been since the first shot was fired across the bridge.”

  “That doesn’t mean we have to be together when the last shot is fired. I don’t want you hurt, Angela.”

  “I don’t want either of us hurt. That’s why we’re going to leave this cabin at precisely one o’clock. Together. We’re going to drive into the city. Together. We’re going to confront Marc Green. Together. Then you’re going to testify before the senator’s subcommittee, after which we’re driving to Baltimore. Together.”

  The hard line of his jaw eased. “Baltimore, huh?”

  “Baltimore.”

  She threw back her head, her eyes snapping with promise of things to come.

  “I’m not facing my mother alone. You’re going with me, even if I have to knock you unconscious and throw you in the back seat, bound and gagged.”

  “You think you could?”

  “I know it.” She rocked back on her heels. “I told you that Tony taught me a few tricks to handle the Browsers of the world. What I didn’t tell you was that he almost lost the capacity to father children while he was teaching me. I’m a fast learner, Jack. Very fast.”

  The glint of laughter in his eyes told her she’d won. This time.

  At precisely one o’clock, she unlocked the Chevy.

  Dressed once more in the tailored tunic and skirt that served as her uniform, Angela waited beside the car while Jack tossed the little notebook computer on the back seat. It joined the paper sacks holding the meager possessions they’d accumulated during their stay in the cabin.

  He slammed the rear door and took a last look around the clearing. The wind ruffled his black hair and put blades of color in his cheeks. He’d changed into his charcoal-gray suit and a blue shirt he’d purchased during their quick shopping expedition, but she knew him too well now to be taken in by that conservative executive image. Under that pale blue shirt and tailored suit beat the heart of a predator.

  It was time to bag their prey.

  Angela slid into the driver’s seat, buckled her safety belt and inserted the key into the ignition. While Jack strapped himself in beside her, she checked her watch a final time.

  “If Mother’s communication net is working—and it hasn’t been known to fail yet—the entire Paretti clan will start their engines in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  She twisted the key and flashed Jack another grin. “Hang on. This is going to be a ride you won’t ever forget.”

  He believed her. He could remember being in some pretty tight situations before this one. He’d jumped out of a couple of planes he hadn’t really wanted to leave, and swum ashore in a few countries he never wanted to return to. But he couldn’t remember his hair actually standing on end before Angela hit the gas and spun the Chevy in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn to test its responsiveness.

  Their prearranged police escort fell in as soon as the Chevy turned onto the state road. Belatedly Jack realized that providing Angela Paretti with a police escort was like giving a thief a license to steal. Once they gained the controlled-access six-lane highway leading into the city, the speedometer rarely dropped below eighty.

  Just outside the Washington, D.C., Beltway, Jack noticed that they’d picked up additional protection. An entire fleet of silver stretch limousines and dark green trucks emblazoned with Giancarlo’s Fine Italian Pastries on the side panels had taken up strategic positions on overpasses and exit ramps. No one was going to take any potshots or drop rocks on their windshield as they passed, Angela informed Jack cheerfully.

  The Paretti family was taking care of its own.

  Chapter 14

  Once inside the Beltway, the motorcade avoided D.C.’s main thoroughfares and whipped through back streets. Tires whined in fast, tight turns, and more than one passerby turned to stare at the fast-moving parade of police cars and limos and bakery trucks.

  At a quarter to two, Angela pulled up at the security checkpoint that guarded the underground parking lot of the Capitol. Moments later, the Chevy whizzed into the senator’s assigned slot, where Manny Ramirez and Ed Winters stood waiting.

  “No trouble?” the special agent asked, his face tight.

  “None,” Jack replied, raking a hand through hair he suspected was still standing straigh
t up. “How about at your end?”

  Manny patted his pocket. “The U.S. magistrate signed warrants for search and seizure of any and all documents related to the HealthMark investigation and for the arrest of one Marc Green.”

  “Good!”

  “Looks like our case is about to bust wide open,” the agent said, relief and regret coloring his voice. “Federal marshals in six states will be knocking on a whole bunch of doors in less than an hour.”

  Jack held out his hand. “You’ve done a hell of a job, Ramirez.”

  Their hard, tight handshake came as close as anything could have to expressing the bond forged by their months of intensive labor and increasing tension.

  “Yeah, well, I’d say we make a pretty good team.”

  Jack’s brief smile included Angela and Ed Winters. “I’d say we all do.”

  Winters hitched up his belt. “I’ll feel more like I’ve contributed to this team after we confront Green. I don’t know about your big medical fraud investigation, but the mayor’s chomping at the bit to announce a break in the bridge shooting. It’s made our citizens just a little nervous, you understand?”

  The detective’s teeth showed white in the dim light. “Of course, the fact that Senator Claiborne’s senior aide might be a prime suspect has only added to the mayor’s impatience.”

  “If your boss thinks he’s going to score some political points off this,” Angela retorted, stabbing at the elevator button, “he doesn’t know the senator.”

  “If Marc Green blinks, or even breathes the wrong way,” Jack said softly, “there might not be enough left of him for anyone to score points off, political or otherwise. Let’s go.”

  Angela led the way. Avoiding the echoing rotunda crowded with the usual groups of tourists, she took the three men into the Senate chamber, then up the private staircase that led directly to Henry Claiborne’s office. A cautious peek showed that the senator was alone, and that the solid oak door between his inner sanctum and the outer offices was firmly shut.

  He rose at their entrance. His eyes glinting like chips of pale blue ice, he nodded to Angela and the two investigators, then fixed his gaze on Jack’s face.

 

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