Steven Gore - Final Target

Fighting for breath, he crawled toward Anne-Marie to untape her mouth, but she shook her head as if to say, Go after him.

Gage pushed himself to his feet and reached for his cell phone.

“He’s coming down,” Gage gasped to Powers as he staggered down the hallway.

A scream sliced through the still air as Gage took the turn into the reception area. The just-arrived janitor stood flush against the wall behind the desk as Gage ran by, her face red, her eyes still wide as she pointed toward the closing elevator. Gage yelled for her to untie Anne-Marie, then pushed open the door to the stairs.

Leaping more than running, Gage grabbed the steel railings and swung himself around each turn. He imagined the burglar arriving at the first floor and running toward the entrance, bouncing off the locked doors, then searching for the stairway to the underground garage and the rear exit. Gage guessed that Powers would only have to fight the man a minute or two to give him time to catch up.

But the sound of the rear door slamming as he ran down the last flight into the garage told Gage that Powers hadn’t been up to it. When he burst through the back door into the alley, he spotted a bulldog of a man shielding himself with Powers and dragging him toward the intersection a hundred feet away. Gage ran toward them, arriving at the cross street just after the burglar pushed Powers into the path of a garbage truck and then jumped into the back of an already moving van.

Gage ran forward and reached down for Powers as thirty-five thousand pounds of steel squealed and skidded sideways into the slick intersection. He yanked hard on the front of Powers’s jacket, dived over him, and rolled with him into the next lane.

He didn’t hear the truck shudder to a stop. He felt only the heat and smelled the burned rubber of the tire next to his head. And the only sounds were his pounding heart and exploding breath, and the sobbing of Powers lying next to him on the rain-soaked blacktop.

A ssistant U.S. Attorney William Peterson opened an FBI evidence envelope and removed a packet of incorporation papers for companies in Vietnam and China.

“We ended yesterday afternoon with Granger suggesting you set up offshore,” Peterson said, sliding the documents across the conference table to Matson. “Have you ever seen these?”

Matson flipped through the pages. “These are the companies Jack Burch set up.”

“Then let’s talk about Burch-and say whatever you would’ve said before he got shot. Road rage is SFPD’s problem, not ours.”

Matson’s eyes widened. “You didn’t let on-”

“Don’t worry. We didn’t tell them you’re cooperating.”

Matson nodded and opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated, unsure what to say or how to say it. “Can I talk to Mr. Hackett for a minute?”

“Sure.” Peterson looked at his watch. “Take all the time you need. Agent Zink can show you to an empty office.”

Matson looked at Zink, his face registering for the first time. A chinless rodent. Matson imagined himself slogging through a dark, cavernous sewer, swarmed by miniature Zinks, crawling up his pant legs, nipping at his balls.

“I think Scoob and I’ll go downstairs,” Hackett told Peterson. “We’ll grab a cup of coffee. Talk down there.”

Zink escorted them out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and into the hallway by the elevators. Matson started to speak, but Hackett hushed him with a raised finger. They rode in silence down to the second floor restaurant and took a table in the far corner, away from other attorneys and their clients strategizing before court or commiserating afterward.

“Can’t we just give them Granger and maybe the accountant?” Matson whispered, eyes darting around the dining room as if he was afraid he might be recognized.

“No. The deal is for Burch. He’s the prize they want.”

Matson flared and fixed his eyes on Hackett. “And I’m gonna look like a scumbag snitching off a road-rage victim.” His voice rose. “You see what the press is saying about him?”

“Not so loud.” Hackett reached over and grabbed Matson’s arm. “Not so loud.”

Matson leaned in and lowered his voice. “They’re making him into a fucking saint. Charity-this and charity-that. His wife’s heroic battle against cancer. Immigrant success story-like fucking Australians don’t grow up speaking English.”

“Keep your eye on the ball, Scoob. You’re only worth something to the government if you can give them somebody they want. That’s the reason they’re willing to take the heat in the press for letting you walk. They think Burch was in on it and they’ve got a paper trail right to his desk. They think every lawyer who deals offshore is a crook or money launderer. So you’re just telling them what they already believe.”

Hackett pointed at Matson, his voice insistent. “And there’s something else. Peterson is aiming at SatTek because it’s a hard target that the public can comprehend, not like some squishy securitized loan scam. People can’t make sense of that shit. But SatTek they can, and they need a face to go with it. So far, that face is yours, but Peterson wants it to be Burch’s. Don’t give him time to go weak-kneed and decide it’ll look better to use Burch to roll on you. Because I’ll tell you what’ll happen: Burch’ll go in and say, ‘My wife was sick. I wasn’t thinking straight. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.’ Pretty soon everybody’s thinking he’s your victim instead of you being his. And trust me, nobody’s going to be calling him a snitch. They’re going to say he’s a fucking hero for turning you in-so you better get him before he gets you. Understand?”

Matson felt like a school kid just sent to the corner. “Yeah, I understand.”

“And, as your lawyer, I have to tell you one more thing. You need to tell the truth. One lie and this proffer evaporates. You won’t be able to get it back. DOJ policy.”

Another lawyer covering his ass, Matson thought. He’s supposed to be covering mine.

Matson and Hackett rode the elevator in silence back to the eleventh floor. The receptionist guided them through the bullet-and bomb-proof glass security doors and down the long hallway to the conference room. They found that Peterson and the agents had removed their jackets and loosened their ties. There were bottles of water and sandwiches collected on a side table. It seemed to Matson that the only thing missing was a picnic bench and a red-checkered tablecloth.

“Ready, Scoob?” Peterson asked after they returned to their seats.

“Yeah, I just needed to make sure I was on the right track. I don’t want to blow this.”

“We were talking about Jack Burch.”

Matson looked dead straight at Peterson. “Burch was in on it from the beginning. We couldn’t have done anything without him. No way. We didn’t know diddly about the offshore world. We were novices, he was the pro-as slick as they come and looking to make a killing. And I felt like a fucking rabbit in his crosshairs.

“I’ll admit that I was nervous driving up from San Jose to meet Burch. Granger wanted me to do it alone even though it was new territory for me. I’d spent my life in manufacturing and sales. You make something solid, something real, and sell it. But the meeting with Burch was something I had trouble wrapping my mind around. It was only about air and paper.

“Sure, SatTek had hired lots of lawyers. Contracts. Real estate. Intellectual property. But Burch was in a different league from them. It hit me how different when I got off the elevator on the forty-third floor. The views from up there are more than amazing. They’re unnerving. The whole financial district. The Golden Gate. Blue sky all the way to the horizon.