Shadow Account (9 page)

It hadn’t been long. Not even twenty-four hours. Lucas and Bennett were back in the limousine, this time somewhere in northern Virginia.

“All right,” Bennett said, his tone grave. “This is it. We’re going live.”

A wave of emotion rushed through Lucas. Going live. Just the sound of it made his pulse pop.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

Bennett nodded. “Yes, I’m confident you are, Lucas. Which is why I’m putting you in charge of this thing.” He hesitated. “You can spend tonight in your apartment and take care of any final arrangements. But tomorrow you’ll move to Georgetown. I don’t want you coming home tomorrow either. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“When all this is over, after the election, your office on the second floor will be waiting. Got it?”

“Absolutely.” It was strange. Suddenly he wasn’t nervous at all. The jitters of only a few moments ago were gone. He was calm, completely confident.

“We need to move quickly,” Bennett continued.

“Of course.”

“Things have happened.”

“What things?”

“Things,” Bennett snapped.

“Yes, sir.” Bennett was clearly on edge. Lucas had never seen him like this.

“One more thing. The man we spoke about yesterday will be coming to see you in Georgetown tomorrow afternoon. Expect him a little after three.”

“You mean Cheetah.”

“Yes.” Bennett glanced out the limousine’s window. “Now, there are some things I need to tell you about the monetary arrangements. Things that involve a man named Sam Macarthur.”

8

Jackie Rivera had grown up in a Bronx housing project, the daughter of a white mother and a Dominican father. Shortly after Jackie turned seventeen, both of her parents were killed in a car crash on the FDR. And she was left to raise her three younger siblings on her own.

It was a huge responsibility for a teenager, but she’d met the challenge head-on. The way she always did. Her brothers and sisters had all graduated from high school on time, and none of them were ever in trouble with the law. Not for so much as jaywalking.

Despite the demands on her time, Jackie attended City College, graduating with honors in business. After college, she accepted an entry-level audit position in the Manhattan offices of a national accounting firm, earning $18,000 a year. Seven years later she made partner. And, three years after that, resigned from the big firm to found her own consulting practice. Aware that she’d reached a ceiling as strong as steel and clear as glass. She’d come a long way for a woman from the Bronx who didn’t have an Ivy League background, but she’d come as far as she could. She wasn’t bitter about it, just pragmatic. The way she always was.

“Hello, Conner.” She met him at the door of her understated fifth-floor office in the Empire State Building. Now thirty-five, she’d quietly accumulated a million-dollar net worth with twelve-hour workdays and savvy stock market investing. She could have had the big showroom office downtown with a panoramic view of the harbor, but she didn’t see the need. More important, she believed that kind of opulence would turn off clients who wouldn’t want to pay a high hourly rate just so she could watch ships sail beneath the Verrazano Bridge. “Nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you, too, Jo.”

“Come in,” Jackie said, motioning as she moved back to her desk. “Close the door.”

He grinned, watching her walk away in that confident stride of hers. Quick steps, shoulders back, chin pushed out defiantly. A small woman—just five two and not much over a hundred pounds—Jackie had dark brown eyes, a thin face with high cheekbones, full lips, shoulder-length straight black hair, and a trim figure, highlighted by her chalk-stripe pantsuit.

“Do you ever wear dresses or skirts?” he asked. It occurred to him that he’d never seen her in anything but a jacket and pants.

She stood behind her platform desk, stacks of papers neatly arranged in a line across it. “Rarely,” she answered in her Spanish accent. She was a vivacious woman who gestured constantly with her hands when she spoke. “If I did, how would men see my best asset?” she asked, turning and patting one hip provocatively.

Conner chuckled as they sat down. “You’re a tease, Jo.” It was a forward thing to say, but they were close friends.

“Excuse me?”

“You lure men into your web with that body, then drop them cold once they’re caught.” She rarely dated a man for more than a few weeks. When they got together for dinner or drinks, Conner always got an update on her love life. “Once you get bored, you cut them loose,” he said, imitating a pair of scissors with his fingers.

“I cut them loose because they’re losers. Like the last one.” She grimaced. “Why do I have such bad luck with men, Conner?”

“What was so terrible about the last one?”

“He was a serial liar. Get this, he tells me he’s a lawyer at a big Wall Street firm. Then I find out he’s a clerk at the department of motor vehicles. Which would have been fine,” she added quickly. “I don’t care what a man does for a living. I just can’t handle being lied to.”

“What you can’t
handle
is commitment.”

“Can, too.”

“I bet you don’t even want to get married.”

“Wrong.”

Conner smiled. “Then marry me, Jo.”

“Ay Dios mío!”
She brought her hands to her face. “Oh, no.”

“Why not?”

“Talk about a tease. I’ve seen the way you flirt with women.”

“Oh, you’re just—”

“And the way they flirt back,” she continued. “I couldn’t take all that. No, no. I like our relationship the way it is. Friendly.”

Last February—shortly before he met Amy Richards—Conner and Jackie had had dinner at a place on the West Side near her apartment. Promising each other as they sat down that it would be a quick meal because both of them had commitments early the next morning. Three hours and two bottles of wine later he walked her home. Halfway to her apartment he’d caught her fingers in his. And, at her door, as they murmured good night, they almost kissed. Slowly leaning closer until Jackie turned away at the last moment.

They’d never talked about what had happened that night, but it was still there. Hanging between them every time they saw each other. Conner had caught her gazing at him several times since then in a way he’d seen other women look at him. The same way she’d caught him looking at her.

“All right, all right,” he mumbled, trying to sound hurt. “I can take a hint.”

“It’s no hint,” Jackie said firmly. “You stay away from me.” She made a cross with her fingers. “You hear me?”

Conner laughed loudly. “I hear you already.”

She smiled and stuck her tongue out. “Wipe that pout off your face. It’s all an act with you anyway. You’d never marry me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You like blondes with big bosoms,” she said pushing her chest out. “Not little brunettes like me who barely fill a B cup.”

“How do you know what I like?”

“You told me once.”

“I did not.”

“You just don’t remember.”

“Maybe I was trying to make you jealous, Jo.”

“Don’t do this to me, Conner,” she pleaded, waving her hands. “I can’t take it.”

“Okay, okay.” He paused. “So what’s the thought of the day?”

Jackie put a finger to her lips and looked at the ceiling. “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”

He’d heard that one before, but he liked it. “Good one.”

“Would you expect anything less?” She gazed at him intently for a few moments, then looked down. “So, why did you need to see me?” she asked quietly. “What questions do you have?”

Conner rubbed his eyes. He’d spent last night at Gavin’s sprawling Upper East Side apartment. He felt safe there, but didn’t sleep well because of the images still haunting him. The intruder falling, arms and legs flailing. The blonde in the dark blue baseball cap. Art Meeks, notepad in hand. And the most vivid of all—Liz’s neck and chest covered with blood.

And he was haunted by what the intruder had said. That Liz was just a pawn, and all those words implied. And that he was a federal agent.

Conner hadn’t said anything to Gavin about what had happened—nothing about his second encounter with the intruder—and he felt guilty. He was even more of a target now. And so was everyone around him.

He finally fell asleep around three thirty, but Gavin’s sharp knock on the bedroom door woke him an hour later. They had to be in New Jersey at eight for the Pharmaco presentation, and Gavin wanted to run through the deck one more time before they climbed in the limousine and headed into the Lincoln Tunnel. Gavin never read anything in a car. It made him sick.

The presentation to Pharmaco’s board of directors had lasted three hours, and Gavin had been magnificent. Leading the CEO and the board members through a maze of possible outcomes of the European conglomerate’s offer. And the effects and intricacies of each. The likelihood of shareholder suits if the board accepted the offer immediately without at least
attempting
to negotiate a higher price. The difficulty of identifying a white knight on short notice should the European firm launch a hostile tender offer if they were rebuffed. The possibility that other domestic drug companies would appear on the scene. The need for the board to entrench senior management by quickly approving bailout packages—golden parachutes and massive retirement benefits—because acquirers usually cut costs at a newly acquired company by firing highly paid executives if packages hadn’t been adopted. Gavin’s willingness to contact a close friend and partner at one of Wall Street’s most prominent leveraged buyout firms to determine if a going-private transaction could be arranged.

Gavin’s advice was delivered free of charge because fledgling investment banking firms like Phenix, even ones with Gavin Smith as their founding partner, still had to give away services to hook big clients. When the presentation ended, the CEO politely thanked Gavin for the information, but gave no indication that Phenix would be selected over Harper Manning to advise the company. Gavin hadn’t said a word during the ride back into New York. He’d simply stared out the window, watching the rural scenery turn urban.

“I need you to explain how a public company can manipulate its earnings,” Conner explained. Jackie could smell fraud a mile away, and dissect financial statements like a surgeon. Her contact list was broad and deep, too: investment bankers, commercial bankers, lawyers, other accountants, corporate executives, and regulatory people at both the federal and state level. She was the perfect person to ask about all this. “How it can make the financial statements look better than they are without raising any suspicions, at least not in the short term.”

She nodded. “You want to know how a company like Enron, with billions of dollars in revenues, can be worth eighty bucks a share one day and declare bankruptcy a few weeks later. How nobody—Wall Street’s best equity analysts, the country’s most prominent bankers, the rating agencies, a major accounting firm—nobody saw it coming. Right?”

Conner relaxed into his chair and chuckled. “I adore you, Jo.”

“But why?” she asked quietly.

He’d said it almost without thinking. “Because . . . because you’re such a wonderful person.” He winked. “With a nice figure and a—”

“No, no. Why do you want to know how a company could manipulate its earnings?”

“Oh. Oh, right. Well, I’m just doing some research.”

Jackie picked up a wrist exerciser from her desk and squeezed the handles. She’d broken her arm last fall skydiving and her doctor had recommended the exercise. “How’s Phenix Capital doing?” she asked.

“Fine. Why do you ask?”

“Starting an investment bank is tough. Even for a man like Gavin Smith.”

“So?”

“I’ve been a CPA for thirteen years, and I’m not surprised by much anymore. But one thing that still amazes me is how crazy people act when they get squeezed financially. Especially people who’ve never been in that situation.”

“What are you saying?” Conner asked evenly.

“I’m just asking a question.”

“Spin it out for me.”

Jackie hesitated, as if she wanted to say more. “No, let’s get started.”

“Come on.”

She shook her head.

“All right,” he agreed. He’d pulled on the door hard enough. He’d try pushing later.

“What you have to remember about accountants is that they’re just people,” Jackie began. “They aren’t computers.”

“Jo, I don’t need to hear a defense-of-the-profession speech. I’m not here to make a value judgment about—”

“They’re corruptible,” Jackie interrupted, folding her hands tightly in front of her. “Corruptible as any politician, banker, lawyer, or cop. And that’s the problem. That’s how a company can be worth billions one day and nothing the next. There has to be complicity.” She sighed. “Everyone gets those beautiful, glossy annual reports in the mail and never questions what’s between the covers. They get all warm and fuzzy when they see that color picture of the board of directors in the back. You know, the socially responsible country club ad. The one with the woman in a conservative dress and the respectable-looking black guy, all surrounded by twelve silver-haired Saxons.”

Conner held back a smile.

“And the board members all have sterling résumés. They’re CEOs of other
Fortune
500 companies, professors emeritus of top business schools and ex-politicos. They’re so credible, investors can’t wait to snap up company shares. Those steely expressions tell us they’re tough and sophisticated and nothing bad is going to happen while they’re around.” Jackie flexed the wrist exerciser. “Problem is, most of them can’t balance their own checkbooks.

“And at the front of the annual report,” she continued, “there’s this letter from a big CPA firm because big companies can’t hire anything but big CPA firms. It wouldn’t look good if they didn’t. As if the big firms are so much better than little ones like mine. Anyway, the letter from the big firm brags about how they’ve burned the midnight oil to make certain the company’s numbers are fairly presented, and the name of the accounting firm is signed at the bottom. Not the name of the lead partner who’s responsible for the audit, mind you, but the name of the firm itself. Like we’re supposed to believe Mr. Arthur or Mr. Andersen actually got finger blisters themselves punching the old adding machines.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Jo,” Conner spoke up. “But I’m looking for specifics. I need to know—”

“I’ll get to all that, Conner. But it’s so important that you
really
understand what I’m saying here. Most people don’t. It’s the key to everything bad that’s going on in the business world right now—the lack of confidence in company numbers, the suspicions people have about corporate executives and Wall Street investment bankers and public accountants. Most investors think accounting is black-and-white. But there’s a lot of room for interpretation when it comes to keeping company books. Anytime there’s room for interpretation, there’s room for fraud. Like I said before, accountants can be bribed, manipulated, and intimidated just like anyone else.”

“Give me an example.”

Jackie drummed her fingers on the desk, thinking. “Accounting Firm X’s young storm troopers complete their annual audit of
Fortune
500 Company Y, and one of them determines that Company Y’s internal accountants have been booking something incorrectly during the year. Nothing that’s going to start a major SEC investigation if it’s uncovered, mind you. Just something that doesn’t quite conform to generally accepted accounting principles. The young person at Accounting Firm X who finds the—” Jackie paused. “—
inconsistency,
as we’ll call it.” She smiled grimly, as though recalling this from personal experience. “The young person who finds the inconsistency brings it to the attention of the accounting firm’s lead partner, the individual who is ultimately responsible for approving the audit. The lead partner then meets privately with Company Y’s CFO at corporate headquarters and explains the problem. Lets the CFO know that when the glossy annual report with the picture of the woman, the black guy, and the twelve Saxons is released to the public, the earnings per share figure isn’t going to be quite as good as he told Wall Street it would be.