Steven Gore - Power Blind

“You’ve got four more years. Voters have short memories.”

Landon shook his head again. “Not this time.” He reached toward the automatic coffeemaker sitting on a tray on top of the dresser. “Want some?”

Gage nodded. Landon poured two cups, then directed Gage to a cloth-covered chair at a table next to the window. Landon sat down across from him.

“What were you going to say yesterday after ‘I think you need to know what Brandon has been up to’?”

“You really think your cell phone is being tapped?”

“Politics is brutal these days and the technology can be bought on the Internet. That’ll change if I become president, but there’s nothing I can do about it now except be careful.”

“Especially about Brandon.”

“Only because he walks a fine line-”

“Between the legal and illegal?”

“No. Between his role as a judge and his role as my closest political adviser.” Landon raised his palm toward Gage. “Don’t give me that look. Abe Fortas was practically part of Lyndon Johnson’s Cabinet. Roosevelt didn’t make a move without checking with Justice Frankfurter. Scalia used to chat up Cheney during their hunting trips.”

“At this point I’m more concerned about Brandon’s role as an attorney.”

“That’s ancient history.”

“Only as ancient as John Porzolkiewski.”

Landon leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe you better tell me how the sentence you began on the phone was going to end.”

“How about I’ll start over with the punch line.”

“Shoot.”

“Marc Anston hired an investigator named Charlie Palmer to pay off the OSHA inspector and a welder at TIMCO to cover up the cause of the explosion.”

“Was Brandon involved?”

“I think so, but I can’t prove it.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked by anything Anston did. He believes in winning, only in winning. But I don’t think he would involve Brandon. He needed Brandon’s coattails to build the firm. Owed him too much.”

“It always struck me that their relationship was upside down,” Gage said. “The younger man bringing business to the older. But I was looking at it from the outside.”

“It was a difference in background and career path and temperament. Anston went from Skull and Bones at Yale to law school and then into the CIA for twenty years. He needed Brandon because he never developed the personality to become a rainmaker on his own.” Landon chuckled. “You know where the Book of Genesis talks about ‘every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’? That’s Anston, the creepiest. But he had a talent for offshore finance. That’s part of what he did in the Agency, setting up surreptitious ways to fund covert actions.”

Landon leaned forward in his chair. “Did you follow the Iran-Contra hearings?”

“Some.”

“You know who set up the Cayman Island account used to funnel private contributions to the Contras?” Landon didn’t wait for an answer. “Anston. By using 501(c)(3) organizations.”

“As though they were charities like the Red Cross?”

Landon smiled. “Fund a war, get a tax break.”

“What about the money from the Iranian arms sales?”

“He did those through Switzerland.” Landon settled back in his chair again. “See? Anston was the perfect guy to set up the offshore TIMCO payoffs. There was absolutely no reason to involve my brother in anything.”

“I think he may have involved Brandon at least in this one. The payoff money for the OSHA inspector and welder came from a Cayman account somehow connected to Brandon.”

“Is that true?”

“Are you asking whether it’s true or whether anyone can prove it?”

“Both.”

“I don’t know,” Gage said. “There’s no way to force the Cayman lawyer who runs the company to disclose anything. But I’m at least sure Charlie Palmer managed it.”

“For Brandon or Anston?”

“I don’t know that either. Probably both. And I do know that TIMCO wired money to that company. It’s called Pegasus.”

Landon shrugged.

“About a million and a half went in and out of Pegasus to take care of the TIMCO witnesses,” Gage said.

“That looks bad. I received money from TIMCO executives in my first senatorial campaign, but it was-”

“Before the explosion. I checked.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you check? You don’t think I was somehow mixed up with what they were doing?”

“It crossed my mind.”

Landon shook off the implication.

“So TIMCO is the reason for the mugging?”

“It wasn’t a mugging.”

“But Brandon said-”

“I’m pretty sure Brandon got into a scuffle with Porzolkiewski and the wallet just fell out of his pocket.”

Landon narrowed his eyes toward Gage.

“So there really is a connection between Brandon and Porzolkiewski? Why did Brandon lie to me about what happened?”

“My guess is there was something in the wallet that would give away the scheme.”

“Do you know what was in there?”

“I’ve seen it all,” Gage said, “but I don’t know what it all means. Some of it’s a little bizarre.”

“Like what?”

“A list of star names and dates that seem to match Cayman Exchange Bank transactions in Palmer’s account.”

“So Brandon has some connection to whatever Anston is doing.”

Gage could hear Landon’s breathing start to accelerate.

“I may have to get ahead of this one. If it’s true Brandon was involved in hiding witnesses and suborning perjury in TIMCO, I’ll probably have to go to the press first and he’ll have to take his chances.”

“Not probably. You’ll have no choice. It’s all going to come out in Porzolkiewski’s trial and it’ll slop over onto you.”

“I know that. But I can survive it. Robert Kennedy survived Ted Kennedy leaving that poor woman in the Chappaquiddick River. George W. Bush survived his brother’s involvement in the savings and loan scandal, Bill Clinton survived Roger’s cocaine conviction, Jimmy Carter survived his brother becoming a lobbyist for Libya.”

“I see you’ve thought about this.”

“With a brother like Brandon, you have to think about every possibility.” Landon paused for a moment, then asked, “How much of this is in the search warrant affidavit?”

“You mean how much is going to come out before trial?”

“To be specific, between now and when the Supreme Court nominations go to the full Senate.”

“Not as much was in the affidavit as I know now.”

“But what you think you know is only what Porzolkiewski believes.”

“I know a lot more than he does. And part of that is in the affidavit, but it’s still sealed.”

Landon rose and interlaced his fingers on the back his neck and paced back and forth between the bed and dresser. He finally stopped and lowered his hands to his waist.

“So that’s how it started.”

“How what started?”

Landon squinted up toward the ceiling. “Who said it?”

“Said what?”

“ ‘Every empire was founded on a great crime.’ ”

“Is that what your presidency is supposed to be, some kind of empire?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’ll tell you what I do understand-”

“TIMCO would have done that whether or not they’d contributed to my campaign. They didn’t do it for me.”

“But you were the beneficiary and I’m sure it was in Brandon’s mind when he set it up.”

Landon flared. “You keep saying Brandon, but your evidence says Anston.”

“Do you really think anything went on in the firm that they didn’t discuss during their lunches at Tadich Grill? My guess is that most of the strategy was hashed out over those crisp white tablecloths.”