Steven Gore - Power Blind

H e just walked out of the building,” Brandon Meyer told Marc Anston in a telephone call a few minutes after Gage left his chambers. “I can see him crossing Golden Gate Avenue, heading toward the parking lot.”

“What happened?”

“I conceded what I couldn’t deny. The plan worked perfectly. He’ll be spending the next month trying to prove you’re paying me off through Pegasus for decisions.”

“What about the credit card?”

“He’s still hung up on it. Just like he was when he went to see Quinton.”

“And TIMCO?”

“He’s obsessed with tying it to me, and me alone. You could’ve driven Hawkins to the airport yourself and he wouldn’t care.”

“Are you sure he hasn’t started to put it all together?”

“As sure as I can be.”

The pattern is there, boss,” Alex Z told Gage as they sat with Shakir around the worktable in the Oakland loft. “I can match up fifty cases involving companies that made offshore insurance payments to Pegasus and appeared in Meyer’s court, some before and some after the money came into its CEB account.”

Alex Z pointed at the list of company names. “Nearly every company was a defendant in some kind of civil or criminal action. Toxic spills, industrial accidents, insider trading.”

“And at least some of them, like TIMCO, used Pegasus as a tax-deductible slush fund to pay off witnesses.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“But it doesn’t get us anywhere unless it leads back to Brandon himself.”

“There are a hundred other companies that bought insurance that didn’t have cases in front of Meyer,” Alex Z said. “That seems to suggest this was solely an Anston-operated scam. Tax or otherwise.”

Gage thought back on his last meeting with Brandon and realized he was no longer sure what had been the judge’s purpose, now troubled, wondering whether it was a defense or a deflection.

“Why not just narrow our focus?” Alex Z said. “Go after Anston and try to reopen TIMCO and Moki’s cases? Maybe sic the IRS on the fake insurance scam?”

“Because everything that’s happened began with the wallet. It’s a link between Charlie and Brandon and led to Charlie’s death. I’m sure of it. And Socorro won’t be safe until we figure out why.”

Gage scanned the list of Pegasus star names to which Alex Z had added the wire transfer information from Joe Casey.

“Quinton referred to what Charlie was doing as investments,” Gage said. “And Brandon said he and Charlie had a sort of investment club.”

Shakir spoke up. “Sounds like they’re trying to push you in that direction-”

Gage smiled. “Us.” He pointed at Shakir. “You’re in this, too, kid.”

Shakir smiled back. “Thanks, boss.”

“And they’re succeeding in moving us that way,” Gage said, “either because they’re clean or because it’s a dead end.”

“It seems like a dead end,” Alex Z said. “None of the acronyms match the names of any of the companies that appeared in his court or were part of the insurance scam. And we haven’t been able to match them with the cases Anston handled.”

Gage leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and interlinking his fingers. He closed his eyes, thinking.

Finally, he opened them.

“Maybe they really did have a little investment club,” Gage said, “and they’re more than happy if we spend our time investigating it. There’s nothing illegal about him and Charlie investing together.” He glanced at Alex Z, and then pointed at the star list. “Did you compare those acronyms with Charlie’s retirement account statements?”

“No match, even after we tried decoding them different ways. They’re not stock symbols.”

Gage shook his head. “We’re not seeing something. It could be something as simple as Brandon not wanting it exposed in the press that he’s using offshore money to make investments. It would remind voters that Landon is a child of privilege and not a regular guy.”

“I don’t know,” Alex Z said. “We’ve had lots of wealthy presidential candidates who swaggered around like itinerant cowboys and golly-gee-whiz farmers and voters bought the act.”

“Maybe times have changed.” Gage rose and said to Alex Z, “Run GRID and the rest through the code-breaking program again. See if any meaningful words emerge unrelated to either cases or investments.”

Gage stepped toward the door, then turned back and smiled as he pointed down at Shakir’s forearm.

“I like the tattoo,” Gage said.

Shakir grinned and held it out. “Mighty Mouse.”

" I wish I could’ve delivered a clean victory, Mr. President,” Landon Meyer told President Duncan in the Oval Office, “but it doesn’t appear possible. The vice president will have to break the tie, assuming there’s no filibuster.”

Duncan rose from his desk chair and walked the few steps toward the window facing the South Lawn. He centered himself as though the pose would be memorialized someday as part of a Smithsonian retrospective on presidential decision making.

Landon almost turned his head toward the door to see whether the White House photographer had slipped in behind him.

“I don’t see a filibuster in the works,” Duncan said. “None of the Democrats would even mention the word on the Sunday talk shows.”

“Still, all it takes is one and we’ll have a constitutional showdown. It’s one thing to filibuster a district court judge, another to filibuster a justice of the Supreme Court.”

Duncan returned to his desk. He picked up the telephone and pressed the intercom. He listened, and then said, “I need you in here.”

Stuart Sheridan, Duncan’s chief of staff, entered less than a minute later carrying a yellow legal pad, his pen already poised.

“We need some talking points,” Duncan told him. “This nuclear option threat is sounding stale. We need something that’ll turn a filibuster into a turd nobody’ll want to touch.”

Sheridan tapped the pen against the pad and closed his eyes, then he opened them and smiled. “Tyranny of the minority.”

“Brilliant,” Duncan said, grinning. “Tyranny of the minority. FOX News will go rabid on the Democrats with that one.”

Duncan laughed, and then grinned at Landon. “Did you see the head of the Democratic National Committee on FOX last night?”

Landon shook his head. “I was at a fund-raiser.”

“Hilarious. Every time they cut to a commercial, it was for Preparation H.” Duncan slapped his hands together. “Hilarious. I’ll bet Wyeth Pharmaceuticals didn’t even ask for it. A couple hundred grand of advertising and it probably didn’t cost them a dime.”

Landon didn’t smile in return.

Sheridan pushed through the awkward moment by turning the conversation back to strategy.

“After we do the tyranny of the minority,” Sheridan said, “we’ll send the vice president out to compare the Democrats to the Sunnis in Iraq under Saddam. A minority dictatorship.”

“And then…” The excitement rose again in Duncan’s voice. “And then we wait a couple of days and add something like: Why did we fight for democracy in Iraq only to lose it at home?”

Landon spoke up. “Isn’t that somewhat excessive, Mr. President? The Democrats aren’t traitors.”

“We aren’t calling them that. We’re just making it a matter of majority rule.”

“I’d be careful how far you push the analogy,” Landon said. “The other side will surely point out it’s only the vice president’s vote that gives us the majority and we’ve used the filibuster ourselves a hundred times. And look at the polls. Less than fifty percent want the nominees confirmed.”