A Delicate Touch

by Stuart Woods

  Jamie passed him on the way out. “Gotta run to work,” she said. “I’m taking the tunnel.” She vanished.

  Stone went downstairs to his office.

  “Did you see Dino on TV?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “He was great, wasn’t he?”

  “He won’t have thought of it,” Stone said, “but I’ll bet no other candidate for head of the FBI will have made a two-hundred-thousand-dollar campaign contribution.”

  The phone rang, and Joan picked it up. “Oh, hi, there! Congratulations on your announcement. He’s right here.” She handed the phone to Stone. “Holly.”

  Stone took it. “Good morning.”

  “And to you. This is an official campaign call,” she said. “I want to thank you for your wonderful contribution.”

  “It couldn’t go to a better cause,” Stone said. “I understand Sam did very well last night.”

  “Didn’t he, though? Oh, I saw Dino on TV this morning—he was great.”

  “I’m sure he thought so, too.”

  “You know, he would make a terrific choice for FBI director. Do you think he’d do it?”

  “Not a chance,” Stone said. “Dino is a New Yorker all the way through, and he could not tolerate Washington. However, he’d love to be asked, then he can spend the rest of his life telling people that he turned down the job.”

  “I’ll be sure and ask him,” Holly said.

  “I’ll tell you what would be good for him, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Appoint him to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. After all, he already runs the largest intelligence operation outside the federal government.”

  “That’s ideal!”

  “Well, I expect you have twenty other calls to make,” Stone said, “so I won’t keep you.”

  “Thank you for understanding. Bye.” She hung up.

  * * *

  • • •

  DOWNTOWN, HANK THOMAS sat with his father and grandfather. “So, she’s already got over a hundred million dollars in her campaign war chest,” he said, dejectedly. “Do you think we could do something similar?”

  The old man laughed. “I don’t know twenty people with that much money who don’t already hate us.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” his father said. “You will not lack for funding.”

  “And where will the money come from?” Hank asked.

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Are we going to report it?”

  “Of course, and appropriately dressed up. It wouldn’t be fruitful to spend the money to get you elected, only to have you impeached because of a campaign funding scandal.”

  “I’ll leave it to you and Granddad, then.”

  The middle Thomas started making some calls.

  “Good morning, Harvey,” he said to a giant of industry.

  “Morning, Jack. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Next week you’re going to be appointed to the board of Hank’s presidential campaign.”

  “Yeah? How much is that going to cost me? Business hasn’t been so good, you know.”

  “Not a dime, Harvey, but you’ll be on a published list of people who donated ten million dollars to the campaign.”

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear . . .”

  “No, Harvey, you just didn’t listen clear. You don’t have to make the donation, just take public credit for it.”

  “Oh? How does that work?”

  “Perfectly legally, Harvey. And the next time you need financing for another takeover, H. Thomas will smile on you—as long as this is completely under your hat.”

  “That seems fair,” Harvey said. “Who else is being so blessed?”

  “Nineteen others. You’ll know when the list is published, but not until then. And you’ll be acquainted with a lot of the others, who will have made the same deal you have, so don’t discuss it with any of them.”

  “When will this be announced?”

  “Right after Hank’s speech from the Capitol rotunda, right under the dome.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Oh, one other thing, Harvey.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hank is going to announce as an independent candidate. Staying affiliated with the party would be a millstone around his neck.”

  “That’s a ballsy move, Jack. You think he can get away with it?”

  “Let me put it this way: I think he has a much better chance of being elected as an independent.”

  “Then good luck to him. I’m sick to death of those party sons of bitches.”

  “Expect some calls from the press for comment.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have something pithy for them.”

  Jack hung up and went to the next name on his list.

  39

  The executive editor of the New York Times looked up from his desk to find his publisher standing in the doorway.

  “Good morning, Scott,” Jeremy said.

  “Good morning, Jeremy. Come in and have a seat.” Jeremy went in and sat down on the leather sofa on one side of his editor’s office, and Scott took the facing chair. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s not a question I expect my editor to ask me,” Jeremy said. “It should be the other way around.”

  “Well, given that you don’t spend much time in this office, I deduce that you know something I don’t.”

  “No, not really. I’m just here to ask a question you don’t seem to be asking.”

  “What is your question?”

  “My question is: What the hell is going on with this Stone Barrington character?”

  “In what respect?” Scott asked calmly. He had found it best to be super calm when his publisher was asking questions like that.

  “Why, after all his promises, did he shut down our operation?”

  “I don’t recall him making any promises,” Scott said. “What he did was show us the Tommassini files, then he helped us try to find out what they mean.”

  “Oh, all right, but how did this latest thing happen?”

  “Stone told Jamie that nothing was going to happen for a while, but something would later on. He advised her, for the meantime, to stop spending your money on further research. Why would you object to that?”

  Jeremy got up and began to pace. “He’s shut us out,” he said, waving an arm for emphasis.

  “No, he’s just advised us to take a breather while he awaits further developments.”

  “I don’t like being out of the action,” Jeremy said.

  “Have you calculated how much it was costing us every week to have the core of our investigative team working at his house in secret?”

  “It’s just salaries,” Jeremy said, “and Barrington wasn’t charging us rent for the space.”

  “I’ve never heard you employ the phrase, ‘just salaries,’ Jeremy, when discussing budgetary matters.”

  “Do you have any idea, or does Jamie, what Barrington expects to learn that will be so tremendous?”

  “I do not, and he refused to tell Jamie, as well.”

  “God, I hope it’s good!” Jeremy replied.

  “Hoping is okay, Jeremy, but I think we have to accept that it’s out of our hands for the moment.”

  “There’s still the story of what’s in those files,” Jeremy said. “We could do a hell of a series on that.”

  “Jamie believes, as do I, that having the whole story would be much better. Publishing now would just put the Thomases in defensive mode, and we’d have to fight them before we’re ready.”

  “Speaking of the Thomases,” Jeremy said, “a friend phoned me this morning and told me something hair-raising.”

 
; “What was that?” Scott asked.

  “You know this thing that Sam Meriwether did for Holly Barker, collecting more than a hundred million dollars in one go?”

  “Yes. Senator Meriwether did the same thing for Kate Lee when she announced, only back then it was a million a head, instead of five million.”

  “Well, my friend told me that he and a bunch of other movers and shakers are going to contribute ten million each to Hank Thomas’s PAC when he announces next week.”

  “Well, that’s a story we can run now and beat the world!”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my friend made me promise not to—not just yet, anyway.”

  “Swell,” Scott said, then muttered something under his breath.

  “What was that you said?”

  “I was just thinking out loud, wishing you wouldn’t make promises like that—ones I have to keep.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t know about it, if I hadn’t promised.”

  “Then, we can start on the story, so that when they announce, we’ll be on top of it. Did your friend mention who the other contributors are?”

  “No, but I can guess half a dozen.”

  “We can’t print guesses,” Scott said.

  “Here’s a list of my guesses,” Jeremy said, shoving a piece of paper at him. “Why don’t you have a reporter call each of them and ask if he’s making a ten-million-dollar contribution?”

  “Then we could print the denials?” Scott asked. “I can see the lead: ‘Six zillionaires deny making ten-million-dollar contributions to Hank Thomas’s campaign.’ Does that sound like all the news that’s fit to print?”

  “Oh, all right. It was just a thought.”

  “Why don’t you buy your friend lunch, get him outside a couple of scotches, and press him for the other names.”

  “What would motivate him to tell me?”

  “What motivated him before? Tell him you’ve heard that another paper has the story, and they’re going to go ahead with it without knowing everything. You’re giving him the opportunity to let the horse’s mouth speak.”

  “You want me to lie to him, Scott? The Times doesn’t lie.”

  “All right. I’ve heard a rumor that New York Magazine has the list, and it’s going to be next week’s cover story.”

  “Is that true, Scott?”

  “Probably. But I can promise you that it’s true that Hank Thomas hates that magazine, since they published a story about him screwing a secretary at H. Thomas. The mention of the magazine’s name ought to get you the list of contributors.”

  “All right, I’ll discuss it with my friend over lunch. But I’m not going to lie to him.”

  “Jeremy, I wouldn’t want you to bust your cherry this late in life. Let me know what he says.”

  * * *

  • • •

  JEREMY GREEN MET Bobby Tarnower for lunch at the Metropolitan Club, a beautifully preserved relic of the gilded age, on Fifth Avenue. Bobby ran a rapacious hedge fund that was on a buying spree, snapping up tech start-ups and the like, in the hope of hitting the jackpot two or three times during the next five years.

  They started with a drink in the bar, and that time was taken up by Tarnower bragging about what he had bought and how cheaply. Jeremy waited until they were seated in the dining room before changing the subject.

  “Bobby, I’ve heard a rumor that New York Magazine is going to do a cover story on you and your colleagues who are donating all that money to Hank Thomas’s campaign.”

  “Oh, horseshit, Jeremy,” Tarnower said. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to him. “There, that’s the list. Twenty men who are contributing ten million dollars each.”

  Jeremy read the list and smiled. “And I can publish this?”

  “Yeah, you can, and you didn’t have to make up that ridiculous lie to get it.”

  “I didn’t make it up,” Jeremy replied, omitting that his executive editor had.

  40

  Stone opened his New York Times and read it at his desk, with his second cup of coffee.

  Joan buzzed. “Bob Cantor is here.”

  “Send him in.”

  Cantor came in and sat in his usual chair.

  “Have you seen the Times this morning?” Stone asked.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Bob replied. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What don’t you believe?”

  “The money. It’s too much.”

  “You’re not keeping up with inflation, Bob. I just gave Holly Barker’s PAC five million. Last time, when Kate first ran, they were asking for a million.”

  “I’ve had a look at their banking practices,” Bob said.

  “You can see that on your tap into their computer system?”

  “I can, and they’re transferring large sums from bank accounts in the Cayman Islands to accounts in the United States.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty million, so far, and they’ve made deposits to equal that into the Cayman accounts.”

  “So the Thomases are giving money to people who are then giving it to Hank’s PAC?”

  “I can’t tell you that for sure,” Bob said, “but I think it’s the best explanation for what I’m seeing. I’m grateful to the Times for explaining it to me.”

  “That’s not what the Times explained.”

  “It’s close enough to what I’m seeing to fill in some blanks for me.”

  “Are they transferring from the Caymans directly to the people on the Times list of donors?”

  “That’s what I can’t tell. I suspect that there is a chain of bank accounts set up in different places that are handing off the money that comes from the Caymans. Maybe four or five times each.”

  “Is the money being deposited in the Cayman accounts coming from H. Thomas?”

  “No, they’d be crazy to do it that way. They’re taking in the money the same way they’re distributing it, through a chain of bank accounts: no names, just numbers.”

  “Hoping nobody will notice huge amounts of money being wired here and there?”

  “Exactly. It’s too complicated for ordinary hackers to penetrate. I just happen to have a line into their computer system, which gives me a big advantage.”

  “Where do you think the money originates?”

  “I think they’re stealing it, but I don’t know how or from whom yet.”

  “Maybe this is too big for us, Bob,” Stone said. “Maybe we should turn it over to the Treasury or the FBI.”

  “Then they will come and take me away,” Bob pointed out. “What I’m doing isn’t legal, you know.” He slapped his forehead. “Why am I telling a lawyer?”

  “Well, there is that.”

  “No, there is not. If I get a whiff of the feds around this, I’ll unplug and take my gear home, leaving no trace of my presence. I’ll disappear up my own ass.”

  “I could hardly blame you,” Stone said, “and they’d be coming after me shortly thereafter.”

  “You think I’d rat you out, Stone?”

  “No, Bob, I don’t. But they can bring an awful lot of pressure to bear.”

  “Then let’s not invite them in. Anyway, they’d take years to digest what I’d tell them, and by then Hank Thomas would be president and giving them their orders.”

  “That’s a depressing thought,” Stone said.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty depressed, myself.”

  “What do you want to do, Bob?”

  “I want to keep on doing what I’m doing. Every day, what I see makes a little more sense. I want to see it through. Maybe I’ll even steal some of their money for myself, if I get the chance.”

  “I’m sorry, there was a car backfiring in the street, so I didn’t hear that.”


  “Hear what? I didn’t say anything.”

  “That’s what I thought. Anything else that will depress or elate me?”

  “Next time, I’ll try to bring a little elation your way,” Bob said. “Oh, there’s another thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The scale of this thing—the size of the deposits and transfers—are the sort of stuff that people will kill for.”

  “I expect that’s so.”

  “I didn’t mean it in a general sense,” Bob said. “I was thinking of me—and, of course, you.”

  “That’s a sobering thought,” Stone replied.

  “I’m glad you think that. Bye.” Bob left.

  Stone sent Holly a text message: I need to communicate with you in a secure manner. How?

  * * *

  • • •

  A LITTLE MORE than an hour later, Joan came into his office, carrying a package. “This was hand-delivered from the New York office of the State Department,” she said. “You want me to open it?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Stone said. “There might be a bomb inside.”

  Joan set down the package gingerly and hurried back to her desk.

  Stone found a box cutter and opened the package. Inside was an iPhone with a phone number on a Post-it stuck to the screen. Stone tapped in the number.

  “Hi, there,” Holly said. “You now have a secure line to me.”

  “Can you talk now?”

  “I’ve just kicked a dozen people out of my office, so go ahead.”

  “You’ve seen the Times this morning?”

  “Yes, and I hate it when I read things like that. Hank has one-upped me—not to mention doubling what I have in the war chest.”

  “He may be doing it illegally,” Stone said.

  “I would be delighted if that were true. Tell me all about it.”

  “No, I’ll tell you as little as I can while giving you the message.”

  “Oh, all right, but that doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “Maybe later. I know someone who has some knowledge of the inner workings of Hank’s campaign.”

  “I won’t bother to ask who, because I don’t want to know.”