The Enemy Inside (42 page)

By the time he finishes my head is swimming—eighty million dollars from the bank alone.

“It’s not the money. They don’t care about the money. What they want are the records. If I hadn’t told them about the PEPs, the politicians, they would have never charged me. It was my mistake,” says Betz. “I thought they would be pleased. But they weren’t. It was right after that someone tried to kill me. I realized then I had to do something to protect myself. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is my daughter. With her mother dead she’ll be alone.”

“What happened to her mother?”

He looks at me as if he’s surprised I should ask the question. “You told me she was murdered.”

“You mean Serna?”

“Olinda was her mother,” he says.

I sit there with my jaw on the bench. The circle is now complete.

“No one knew,” he says. “She told no one at the firm. She had the child before she went to work there. Years ago. But I figured you knew, since you knew everything else.”

“How old is she?”

“Fourteen,” he says. “And beautiful. She sure was the last time I saw her.”

“Where is she now?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he says. “If they found out where she was and they got to her . . .”

“I understand. You don’t have to say another word.”

“Tell them I will turn everything over to them if they pay the money,” says Betz. “If they release me now, immediately,” he continues. “I just want to have some time to be with my daughter. I’ll have to take my chances.”

“No!” I think for a moment. “I don’t think you’ll have to do that.”

“Why? What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t tell anyone else about your condition. If they find out you’re sick you’ll never get out of here.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t tell anyone else what we talked about. Is that clear?”

“Who the hell would I talk to in here?” he says.

“Don’t even talk in your sleep. This is what we’re going to do. . . .”

By the time I laid the small noise generator back down on the table in the conference room, the two government lawyers were already sitting across the table. They were waiting anxiously to hear what I had to say.

Grimes had made a fundamental mistake bringing me into the case. The problem for her was that I already knew too much. I knew that Betz was holding a hammer over their heads, and I knew its size and weight as well as the damage it would inflict if he dropped it. I didn’t need to know where he was hiding it to be able to use its leverage. All that was required was the government’s ignorance as to what Betz and I had discussed, the fact that I actually had no access to Thor’s hammer. If the little white noise maker has worked, they won’t know this.

Parish advises me that Dan Wells has decided to wait for me out in front in the reception area. He probably got tired of being slapped around by her.

“I understand you talked with my client before I had an opportunity to confer with him,” I tell her.

She leans forward, begins to open her mouth.

“But we’ll let that slide for the moment. The issue here is very clear. It appears that the government has overcharged Mr. Betz on successive criminal counts . . .”

“He was convicted by a jury,” she says.

“On charges that would never have been brought by your department against a cooperating witness turning state’s evidence in thousands of cases involving tax evasion, including evidence against his own employer, a foreign bank from which you extracted more than eight hundred million dollars in fines.”

“The fact remains he was convicted.”

“And why didn’t you extend to him the courtesy, the consideration you would have extended to any other cooperating witness in a similar case? I’ll tell you why . . .”

“Because he refused to fully cooperate,” she says. “He has records . . .”

“I know what he has. And he offered them to you. But when you found out what they were, the political dynamite that was in them, you weren’t interested.”

“You mean he told you what was in them?” Parish has just told me what I needed to know. White noise still works.

“And I’ll tell you why you weren’t interested. Because you intended to bury them. When someone tried to kill him, Betz was forced to take precautions. He hid them.”

“Do you know where they are?” she says.

“Why don’t you just go and shoot him,” I tell her. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, because if you do, your world will come crashing down around your ears. You couldn’t be sure whether the man who was trying to cooperate with you might have another copy, or whether after you buried the case, Mr. Betz would keep his mouth shut. So in order to coerce him you drummed up a case and tossed him in here.”

“How many times do I have to say it? He was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

“Say it as many times as you like,” I tell her, “it doesn’t change the facts of what you did.”

“We offered him a fair deal,” she says.

“Did you? Did you really?”

“Didn’t he tell you? His freedom, immediately,” she says, “plus one hundred and ten million dollars. All he has to do is tell us where those records are and sign a confidentiality agreement. As soon as we’ve secured them he can walk out of here a free man. If you want, you can wait and take him with you.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re offering him ten percent of the revenues recovered in this case, a case you would not have made without the evidence that he supplied.”

“That’s correct. And it’s a lot of money,” she says.

“The fact is, it’s light. Perhaps you’d like to get the code and the regulations out and check it. Anything over two million dollars in revenue recovered is entitled to a whistleblower’s award of between fifteen and thirty percent of the revenues recovered. I know because I had a case earlier this year. What was the total amount recovered here?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’d have to check.” She looks at Yasuda, who is sitting next to her. He shrugs a shoulder. “We’d have to look,” he says. “But I’m sure that if a mistake has been made, we’ll be happy to correct it.”

“Maybe someone can find a way to give him the two years of his life back while you’re at it. Tell you what, we’ll come back to that later, after our accountants have had a chance to sharpen their pencils. Let’s get to the nub. After talking to Mr. Betz, this is what we’ve decided to do. Copies of the bank records. Those from Gruber Bank, S.A., in Lucerne. I think that’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” says Parish.

“Copies will be prepared. A copy will be delivered overnight to your offices in Washington, at the same time that we dispatch copies to the wire services, the networks, the cable stations, the
New York Times,
the
LA Times,
the
Wall Street Journal
. . .”

“You can’t do that,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Those are confidential tax records.”

“No, they’re not. They’re records of a foreign bank. In fact, they’re not even that. They’re personal accountings made by Mr. Betz in the ordinary course of his employment. But I’m sure when people start checking, they’ll find out pretty fast that the account numbers and the names on those accounts—some pretty prominent people, I might add—match up very neatly with the amounts on deposit at Gruber Bank. Some of them are whoppers,” I tell her.

“You’re bluffing,” she says. “You don’t have anything.”

“Want to try me?”

Yasuda puts his hand out and lays it on her forearm. “Hannah.”

She looks at him, retracts her fangs, and settles back into her chair.

“What is it exactly that you want, Mr. Madriani?” says Yasuda.

“First, I want my client released into my custody and I want it done before I leave here today. Apparently from what Hannah just said you’ve already cut the paperwork on this. Second, I will prepare the final written settlement agreement as regards the sum owing to Mr. Betz under the IRS Whistleblower Act. Your accountants can talk with our accountants as to the precise amount owed.”

“What about the records?” says Yasuda.

“What assurance do we have that your office will pursue them? Investigate and prosecute?” I ask.

“None,” he says. “That’s a matter of prosecutorial discretion.”

“In which case you already have my terms on that issue. We’re prepared to release them to you simultaneously with a release to the media.”

“That’s unacceptable,” says Yasuda.

“Fine. Then we can sort out the claim on the Whistleblower Fund by filing suit in the tax court. We will lodge an appeal in the Ninth Circuit regarding the manner in which you charged and thereafter incarcerated my client. I’m sure the court will be very interested in learning why you charged him in the manner you did, particularly given the evidence at trial regarding his extraordinary efforts of cooperation that you spurned. But before I do any of this, I will gather up the records of Mr. Betz, make a sufficient number of copies, and send them to every media outlet I can find.”

“That would be highly irresponsible,” says Yasuda. “Give us a moment.”

“Take all the time you need.”

He and Parish turn their backs and huddle at the table. I’m wondering if I should turn on the white noise for them.

Finally they turn around. “Let me lay it all on the table for you,” he says. “If we release Mr. Betz, what assurances can you give us that he’ll be safe? You know the risks.”

“I do.”

“Why don’t you let us put him in witness protection?” says Yasuda.

“Of course, the final decision on that belongs to Mr. Betz. But I suspect he’s had about enough protection from the federal government for the time being. If you’re asking if I can give a guarantee as to his safety, the answer’s no. But perhaps with a little assistance on your part we can afford him a reasonable amount of security until we can make other arrangements.”

It is not Betz’s security that is their primary concern. It is the security of the documents that they want.

“Good,” says Yasuda. “Then we’re agreed as to that issue. As for the money, we have no problems. We are more than willing to negotiate a corrected amount, consistent with the code and the regulations regarding the whistleblower award.

“It’s the last item that’s the problem,” says Yasuda. “What will you do with the records if we do nothing more here today?”

“We will hold them for the time being,” I tell him. “In point of fact, you’re aware, as I am, that as long as these remain hidden with the risk that they will be delivered to the media if anything happens to Mr. Betz, they provide some added measure of security.”

“Then can we agree to discuss this at a later date?”

“It’s fine by me, but I wouldn’t wait too long.”

“Good.” Yasuda looks at the supervisor sitting at the end of the table. “Please make the arrangements for Mr. Betz’s release immediately. Get him some street clothes and some cash, a generous amount. We will treat it as an advance on the award.” He looks at me. “You and I need to discuss security arrangements.”

Yasuda doesn’t know the half of it.

FIFTY-TWO

T
he day after arriving home from the ordeal at Supermax, I dispatched Harry to meet with Alex Ives’s father. At Ives’s office at the airport, the two of them made all the necessary arrangements. The small air cargo jet would return to Mexico, pick up Alex and Herman, and bring them back, at least partway.

I’ve been pushing everything else off my desk to deal with all of this, and I have a growing stack of mail and telephone messages screaming at me. One of them is from the judge’s clerk downtown as we edge toward the meeting I’m trying to avoid, and another from the guy out in Del Mar, Becket.

As soon as Harry returned to the office he gave me the details, time and date for the pickup at the dirt strip east of Ixtapa. I sent a message to Herman on the Internet bulletin board in Tampico, Mexico: “It is time to come home.”

In cryptic terms I spelled out the details. He already knew the location. I let him know that I would watch the board for any message coming the other way in the event that they couldn’t make it.

Because Alex lacks a passport we cannot fly him back the way he went out, directly across the border on the jet. Landing at a US airport, TSA, which does air cargo security, and ICE, Immigration and Customs, would nail him. They would probably see to it that the company transporting him lost their license, too. Alex would end up back in the pokey for violating the terms of his bail, and Harry and I would be sitting on a hot seat in front of some judge downtown.

With all of the stories about people walking across the southern border, the fact is, it isn’t that easy.

So the jet, loaded with a light cargo of consumer electronics, will fly south to Mexico City and drop off part of its load. It will then make a quick detour west, taking less than an hour to the dirt strip, pick up Alex and Herman, and then head north. It will land again at Tijuana to deposit the rest of its cargo. Because the connecting flights, the two cargo drops, are within the country, Mexican authorities at Tijuana are not likely to take a hard look at the plane.

Herman and Alex will be picked up by a car near the cargo terminal at Tijuana. Alex’s father has made arrangements for this. They will be driven to the fishing port at Ensenada, and from there, they will board a fast forty-two-foot sport fishing boat owned by an American buddy of Ives. He will transport them well out to sea, then north, up the coast, where they will land at Mission Bay, the boat’s home port.

On board will be three American sport fishermen with bad sunburns, along with a couple of large yellowtail tuna that the skipper will buy off the docks in Ensenada.

If all goes well, Alex and Herman should be back in San Diego within two days. The question of where to hide Alex has also been solved, at least for the time being. I will hide him with Betz. Alex has always wanted to meet the whistleblower. Here is his chance.

Before I left the Supermax facility in Colorado, I made a phone call to another acquaintance in Washington, D.C. His name is Zeb Thorpe. Harry and I call him “Jug-Head.” A former marine, Thorpe is actually the executive director for the National Security Branch of the FBI. At one time he held my life, along with Harry’s and Herman’s, in his hands. To the extent that you can trust anybody in circumstances like these, I trust Thorpe.