Steven Gore - Final Target

Peterson waved him off. “Save it for your closing argument.”

“You don’t really have anything. At least anything solid. I know it and you know it.”

“Sid, Sid, Sid. I’m not giving you a peek at my case unless your guy wants to do a Queen for Day about what he knows.”

Lavender set his cup down on Peterson’s desk, then leaned forward, reaching out his hands, palms up.

“Hypothetically speaking-get that? Hy-po-thetically. Who’s left for him to give? You got Matson. Granger never even sat down with Burch.” Lavender drew back. “What? He’s supposed to roll down on a bookkeeper at SatTek? What’ll that earn him? Two days off a ten-year sentence? Four days off twenty?”

“I think you better have a heart-to-heart with your client,” Peterson said, tapping his middle finger on a file folder bearing Granger’s name. “This isn’t the first time he’s come up on the radar. As soon as he stops lying to himself, you’ll be knocking on my door. If he doesn’t come in, it’s dasvedanya, baby. I hear Lompoc in the fall is just lovely.”

“That’s the last word?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?” Sid grinned. “Lovely or dasvedanya?”

“You’re enjoying this too much, Sid.” Peterson slid aside the file “Anyone else on the agenda for today?”

“Nope.” Sid rose to leave. “But put on your trial suit. Granger won’t come crawling in. I think he’ll roll the dice in front of a jury.”

“It’ll be fun,” Peterson said. “We always have fun in trial. Just don’t use that peel-the-onion metaphor again to describe my case-it’s getting old and smelly.”

Sid spread his arms like a farmer showing off his crop. “But for jurors it conveys the aroma of spring planting. And don’t forget, it takes a little manure to grow something really tasty.”

Peterson smiled and shook his head, “Sid, Sid, Sid.”

Zink was sitting in Peterson’s office when he returned from escorting Lavender to the exit.

“Is Granger coming in?” Zink asked.

“Nope.” Peterson dropped into his chair. “At least not right away.”

“I’ve traced a few million dollars of Matson’s and Granger’s money to Liechtenstein. It all went through Blau Anstalt. The authorities froze the accounts but Granger’s nominee directors are fighting our bank record demands in court. They can tie it up for years. All it would take is for Granger to tell his people to back off and we could give it all back to the shareholders.”

Peterson had fought with Liechtenstein before, but never won-and didn’t expect to this time. He knew that their economy depended on keeping exactly the kind of financial secrets the U.S. Justice Department had an interest in exposing.

“How do you know that Granger is behind Blau Anstalt?” Peterson asked.

Zink shrugged. “That’s what Matson says.”

Peterson thought for a moment. “Granger just may be one of those guys we need to indict first, unless you’ve got something new to spook him with.”

“Nothing more than what Matson’s given us. I’ve leaned on him every which way I can, but all he’s come up with is that Granger was the connection to the guys pushing the stock at Northstead. I feel like I’ve been digging well after well, but coming up dry.”

“Sticking it to brokers isn’t going to get us anywhere. We need Granger to roll up, not down.”

Peterson saw in Zink’s expression that he’d had enough of this particular little snitch. Peterson made a college-try fist, then said, “Let’s give it one more shot. But this time, go heavy on him. Push him hard. Maybe Granger bragged about some deal or somebody he knows. We just need a little leverage.”

Zink nodded.

Peterson’s eyes narrowed. “Granger is what? Late sixties?”

“About.”

Peterson looked at his wall calendar. “We just need to get him doing the numbers. Say he goes to trial in sixteen months. Ninety days until he’s convicted, and gets sentenced ninety days after that. Say he gets twenty years. They let him out when he’s what? Almost ninety?”

“Yeah, if he lives that long.”

Peterson nodded slowly. “With a little push, he’ll run the numbers and come in. He’ll have no choice.”

“You know how Fitzhugh and Granger hooked up, don’t you?” Matson asked Zink, as he balled up a potato chip bag and dropped it into a wastebasket next to Zink’s desk.

They were meeting in a temporary office Zink had set up a few blocks from the Federal Building.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Through Burch.” Matson pointed at Zink’s uneaten sandwich. “You want that?”

Zink shook his head, then got up and walked to the easel. He drew an arrow from the box containing the name Burch to one containing the name Fitzhugh.

“I thought it was obvious,” Matson said, tearing off the plastic wrapper. “Granger and I didn’t know anybody in London who could run the holding company or handle the money we were running through China and Vietnam. I thought you understood that.”

This guy’s a dunce, Matson said to himself. How did he get into the FBI?

“That’s what led to the Irish software deal. Burch hooked us up. I figured you didn’t ask me about that because you already had it covered.”

“There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle. I hadn’t gotten to that one yet.” He turned back toward Matson. “You have any proof?”

Matson nodded. “Sure. I’ve got paperwork in a box of junk in London. Let me have my passport back and I’ll go get it. And there are guys over there who worked with Granger before. I can see if they’ll let something slip.”

Zink’s step was lighter as he walked back to the Federal Building to get Peterson’s approval. He’d gotten what the prosecutor wanted: an angle on Granger. He smiled when he realized that the source of Matson’s enthusiasm wasn’t the possibility of success, but something else: The weasel probably hasn’t gotten laid since that last time he saw his Ukrainian love bunny.

It didn’t make any difference to Zink what else Matson did over there as long as he brought back the leverage Peterson needed.

Anyway, Zink thought, there’s nothing-absolutely nothing-he can do that I won’t find out about in the end.

V iz was just finishing a large pepperoni and anchovy pizza when Gage climbed into the passenger seat of his blue-green Yukon half a block away from SatTek.

“How can you eat that stuff?” Gage asked. “You’ll be burping anchovies for the rest of the day.”

“I have a high tolerance for discomfort.”

“What about my discomfort?”

“You should’ve called ahead. I’d have picked up tofu and saltines.”

“I’ll do that next time.”

Viz pointed at a monitor propped on the truck console. It showed a magnified entrance to SatTek, an image captured by a video camera concealed in a gym bag resting on the dashboard. SatTek was housed in a half-block-sized, nearly windowless white concrete block with bold red letters spelling the company name along the front. To the right was the entrance. To the left, a long dock and four metal roll-up doors.

Gage surveyed the wide strips of manicured grass surrounding each building in the industrial complex. A coed group was playing volleyball farther down the block, and across the street from them three young men tossed a Frisbee.

Viz pointed toward SatTek. “See that guy with the brown sports jacket? He’s the controller.”

Gage focused on the man fifty yards away.

“His name is Robert ‘Don’t-Call-Me-Bob’ Milsberg. Accounting degree from SF State in the early nineties.”

Gage watched Milsberg climb into a ten-year-old Nissan station wagon. “What’s he been up to?”