The Power Broker (31 page)

Christian’s cell phone beeped, indicating another call. He pulled it away from his ear and gazed at the number as it flashed, wondering whether or not to answer. It was Allison. According to Quentin, the odds were now a hundred percent that somebody inside the Wallace clan had alerted the SEC to the fraud at CST. Which meant that—

“You gonna answer that?” Quentin asked.

“No.” But the phone started beeping a second time right away. Allison again. He made a snap decision. “I’ll call you right back.” Christian switched lines. “Yeah?”

“Christian! My God, I’m so glad I got you! Where are you?”

Allison was upset, at least she was acting like it, but he wasn’t going to tell her anything at this point. “Why have you been asking Nigel about CST so much lately?” he demanded.

“Is that what Nigel told you? That I was asking about CST?”

“Yup.”

“Figures.”

“What do you mean, ‘figures’?”

“I
never
talked to Nigel about CST. Listen, I know there’s trouble at the company. I know about the accounting issues, and I know you and Nigel were on it. But I didn’t find out from Nigel.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Because I know that Gordon Meade is the one who put the SEC onto CST. I don’t know why Gordon did it, but I know he did.”

Not what Christian had expected to hear. “How did you find out?” he yelled over the whine of the Jeep’s engine.

“A young guy at our family office found something Gordon had faxed over to a man named Samuel Hewitt at U.S. Oil and asked me what to do with it,” Allison explained quickly. “I was talking to the kid on the phone a couple of weeks ago, I guess Gordon had gone home for the night already. Anyway, Hewitt’s the CEO of U.S. Oil. Why the hell Gordon sent something to Hewitt, I don’t know. Apparently, he must have sent it over himself and somehow hit the ‘copy’ button on the fax machine. I’m sure Gordon doesn’t fax too many things himself, so he probably didn’t realize what he’d done. Anyway, I had the kid at our office scan it into his computer and e-mail it to me. Told him I was working on the deal with Gordon when he asked. The note Gordon sent to Hewitt was handwritten and it mentioned somebody named Bob Galloway at CST who was working with them. Given that you’re chairman of CST, I’m sure you know that Galloway’s the CFO. I wasn’t very familiar with CST, I just knew that we’d taken them public last winter, so I went through our internal files and found Galloway’s name.

“The fax Gordon sent also mentioned someone named Vivian Davis at the SEC,” Allison continued. “I know a lawyer at the SEC, so I called him. He told me Davis was taking a real hard look at CST because they thought there were accounting irregularities. That it was a big deal, that there was heavy pressure coming down from the top for her to press on it, and that he could get fired for talking to me, maybe worse. He told me that the person who had put them onto CST was Gordon Meade.” Allison paused. “My friend also told me that you and Nigel had already met with this Davis woman.”

Christian thought about why Meade would use the fax machine to communicate. E-mails could be tracked so easily in so many different places, and phones could be bugged. Not that faxes couldn’t be intercepted, too, but people would be so much less likely to think of that these days. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

“Because you didn’t tell me, and because I wasn’t sure until just this minute. My friend from the SEC just called me back. He was calling from a pay phone, too. It’s wild stuff. He was scared. He said he couldn’t talk to me again.”

“I don’t blame him,” Christian said quietly, almost to himself.

“There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“The fax said that CST needed more cash. That Black Brothers was going to have to make one more deposit.”

Christian’s mind was racing. At least he had a place to start now. “I’m going to Chicago, Ally. I need you to meet me there, okay?”

“Fine, but tell me what’s—”

“Just do it!” he shouted, thinking about why Nigel had tried so hard to make Allison seem suspicious lately. He shook his head. It was so hard to think that Nigel might be a traitor. “Okay?” he repeated. “At O’Hare, at that place we met a couple of months ago when I came out. Don’t tell anyone you’re going to Chicago and don’t take the Everest jet. Fly commercial, back of the bus. I’ll call you as soon as I know when I’m going to be there.”

23

“MY GOD.
It’s incestuous.”

“What do you mean?”

Christian had met Allison at O’Hare just before nine o’clock. He’d caught a couple of hours of sleep on the plane from Dallas to Chicago, then gotten a few more at a motel near the airport so he was ready to go. They’d needed to wait until later to get into the Wallace Family office anyway, couldn’t risk going in until everyone had gone home.

Christian pointed at a diagram he’d mapped out on a piece of paper based on the information they’d uncovered in Gordon Meade’s office. Based on faxes from Meade to Hewitt, and from Meade to Trenton Fleming, and from those men back to Meade. All of them catalogued with cover sheets neatly arranged in a locked drawer of Meade’s desk. Fortunately, they hadn’t been forced to break into anything. Allison had the keys to every lock in the place.

“I think Meade is working directly with Samuel Hewitt to frame me for the accounting fraud at CST.”

“Can you prove it?”

Christian pulled out the copy of Bob Galloway’s suicide note from his pocket and handed it to her. “I found this at Hewitt’s ranch,” he explained, watching her scan the page.

She winced as she reached the incriminating words. “Jesus.”

“And Meade’s working with Trenton Fleming at Black Brothers to secretly put money into CST to keep it going until they bankrupt the company and lay the blame for that on my doorstep, too.” He shook his head. “And I hired Black Brothers to sell Laurel Energy and now Hewitt’s going to buy Laurel.”

Fleming and Hewitt had played that game neatly, Christian realized. Committing to buy Laurel, then backing off, then committing again, then backing off again. They’d left him thinking he had no choice but Black Brothers.

“Hewitt’ll probably get a kickback from Fleming on the fee for selling Laurel.” He shook his head again, harder. He’d been set up from the get-go. “No wonder Hewitt’s willing to pay five billion for Laurel. The more he pays, the bigger Black Brothers’ fee is, the more he gets kicked back. It isn’t good for his U.S. Oil shareholders for him to pay that much, but I bet it works out great for him personally. And Black Brothers more than makes up for the money they’ll lose in the CST bankruptcy with the fee they charge on the Laurel Energy sale. According to what we’ve found here,” he said, pointing at the paper, “Black Brothers has put a hundred million into CST. But a five-billion-dollar price tag for Laurel will shag them a three-hundred-million fee.”

He’d always heard rumors about a Wall Street inside crew, a tight cartel of moneymen and their blue-blood families who had controlled the flow of funds for hundreds of years. But he’d passed the rumors off as hearsay, as nothing but one of those wild conspiracy theories concocted by people who had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe the theory wasn’t so wild after all. “And they’ve done it all with Nigel Faraday’s help,” Christian observed quietly. Nigel’s name was all over the faxes. Nigel had given Meade and Hewitt a ton of highly confidential information on CST, the casino, the football team, Laurel Energy. He glanced at Allison. “I’m sorry I ever even—” He didn’t finish. “It’s just that I could never imagine Nigel turning on me. He’s been a friend for a long time. I guess you never really know.”

“And you told him you were thinking about naming me chairman, too,” she pointed out.

Christian nodded at the paper. “Yeah, but that was just fuel for the fire, just confirmation for him that he was doing the right thing. Nigel’s been working with these guys for a while, but you’re probably right. Me telling him I was thinking about you as chairman probably got him to go to Faith.” That thought had just struck him.

Allison pulled Christian’s diagram in front of her and gazed at it. “But why did they do all this? Just to make money on Laurel? I can’t believe that,” she said quickly. “There has to be something else.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s got something to do with me being Jesse Wood’s vice president.” He pointed at the page. “Them framing me for CST or them having the pictures of me paying off the Mob to get the casino license could force me out of the race. I don’t know.”

“But it wasn’t that long ago that Jesse asked you to be his running mate,” she argued, “and this thing with CST has been going on for a while. How could they have known?”

Suddenly nothing about these men could surprise Christian. They seemed to know everything, to be able to get to anyone. “Jesse told me the other day when we were going over his platform that his camp had decided a while ago that I was the person they wanted.” Probably since that whole episode when he’d been in the news, when he’d figured out that a couple of senior feds were trying to profit off the nanotechnology breakthrough they’d developed. “Hewitt’s probably had somebody inside Jesse’s camp for a long time.”

“But why would Hewitt care so much?”

Christian’s expression turned grim. “I think he’s worried that if Jesse’s elected president, it’s the beginning of the end for his way of life.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I think he really believes that.” Christian gazed at Allison for a few moments, then touched her chin gently. “Thanks for your help.”

She nodded wearily.

“I never should have—Jesus!” He snapped his fingers.

“What?”

The thought had flashed to him. “Didn’t you say there was a book that detailed your family tree?”

She nodded. “Yes, it’s out at the estate.”

“I want to see it. Now.”

ROTH LED HARRISON
down the steps of the lodge’s basement, toward the freezer where he’d stored the old man’s body after carrying it back from the woods for the group’s leader. For the man he and Patty had nicknamed Stetson for the black cowboy hat he always wore.

“What are we doing?” Harrison asked, smelling mildew.

“I want to check something,” Roth said curtly. He moved to a small bureau near the freezer door, opened one of the drawers, and pulled out a pearl-handled Colt revolver.

“Jesus.” Harrison stopped in his tracks and held up his hands. “Hey, I—”

“Shut up.” Roth opened the gun and spun the chamber. Then he froze.

“What is it?” Harrison asked, edging closer.

Roth gazed at the gun. “The old guy? The one who sat down at the bar that night and started telling you the story of Champagne Island?”

“What about him?”

Roth flipped the chamber of the Colt back into place. “This was his gun.” He’d already told Harrison that the old guy had committed suicide on the island, that he’d carried the body back to the lodge. “The one he was supposed to have shot himself with, the gun I found in his hand when the guy who runs this place—the one I told you wears the black Stetson all the time—came to me and told me there’d been an accident.”

“So?”

“So I picked up the body, and Stetson picked up the gun. I saw him stick it in that bureau when he thought I wasn’t looking.”

“So what?”

Roth took a deep breath. “It’s fully loaded. Six bullets.”

Harrison took the gun from Roth and checked it himself. “The old man didn’t kill himself.” He glanced around the basement, sniffing. The smell of mildew was strong. “What’s in that room on the third floor?” he asked. “The one that was locked the day I came out here to look around.”

“I don’t know, just boxes.”

“Damn it, Don, you’ve got to open up to me. We’re both screwed if we don’t help each other.”

“Another door, made of steel, but I don’t know what’s behind it. It’s padlocked and Stetson told me never to try to open it, told me I’d regret it if I did. I don’t have keys to it.”

“We’ll bust the locks. You got a sledgehammer?”

“They’ll know what we did. We don’t want that, believe me.”

“Maybe we can take what we find behind the door to the cops. They’ll give us protection.”

“No.” Roth shook his head. “Too big a risk.”

Harrison let out a frustrated breath. “Where’s your wife, Don?”

Roth stared back at Harrison for a few moments, then his eyes fell to the cement floor.

CHRISTIAN FOLLOWED ALLISON
into a large second-floor room in one of the five mansions on the Wallace estate. He watched her move to a far wall and pull a large painting back—it was on hinges. Behind the painting was a wall safe.

“Thank God Aunt Sadie always loved me,” Allison murmured.

Christian had stayed in the car listening to the radio while Allison disappeared into another of the mansions before they’d come here. She’d come back twenty minutes later clutching a piece of paper—the safe’s combination written on it.

Allison laughed as she spun the lock left, then right, then left again. “Sadie was so happy I was finally taking an interest in the family history she couldn’t wait to give me the combination.” She stepped back and reached for the small handle. “Here goes nothing.” She turned it and it clicked. “Bingo.”

Christian’s heart began to pound. He watched Allison reach inside and pull out a huge book that she carried to a table in the middle of the room.

“Here you go,” she said triumphantly, putting it down. “Have fun.”

For the next few minutes Christian studied the book, page by page, tracing the family’s history from the beginning.

“We’re Scots,” Allison explained as he gazed at the different branches. “Came over right after the Revolution. Settled in New England for a while, then moved here.” She smiled. “Actually, I heard we got kicked out—of
both
places. England
and
New England. Not sure why. Nobody talks much about that.”

Christian nodded, still tracing. Flipping pages back and forth. “There!” he shouted suddenly, pointing. “The Hewitts.”

Allison put her hands to her mouth. “My God.”

He flipped forward. “And here, the Flemings.”

She grabbed his arm. “Down there, look.”

Christian’s eyes flashed to where she was pointing. “The Meades,” he muttered. “Gordon’s actually family, not outside at all. Your grandfather and uncle didn’t bring in an outsider to run the money, they kept it in the family.” He was tracing a branch down. “Damn.”

“What?”

“The Lairds. Franklin Laird.”

“The ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve?”

“Gotta be.”

Christian eased into a chair, his mouth falling open in awe as he connected the web in his mind. “It’s unbelievable,” he whispered.

She looked at him and shook her head. “I had no idea. No one ever talks about this.”

Christian’s phone rang. He glanced up at Allison after checking the number. “It’s Nigel. He’s been calling me all day, but he hasn’t left a single message.”

ROTH HELPED
the young woman into Harrison’s boat. “Keep going that way,” he told her, nodding into the pitch dark, toward the mainland. “Keep the arrow on this mark once you get a couple of hundred yards out from the island.” He pointed at the compass. “You’ll see lights pretty soon. It’ll be Southport. Head toward them.”

“I don’t know how to drive a boat,” she whispered. “I can’t do this.”

“Would you rather stay here with me?”

She shook her head.

“When you get to town, get away from it. Don’t go to the authorities, don’t try to get help, just get out. Go somewhere, anywhere, but forget you’ve ever heard of this place and me. Don’t ever tell anyone you were here.”

“SO WHAT
do we do now?” Allison asked. She and Christian were standing outside the house, beside the car he’d rented at the airport. “Now that we know all this.”

Christian was about to answer when he spotted a figure moving up the driveway toward them through the darkness. “Come on,” he urged when the man suddenly broke into a sprint. “Get in the car.”

“What?”

But Christian realized there wasn’t time to get in the car. The man would be on them too fast. If the guy had a gun, it wouldn’t be a fair fight and now didn’t seem like the time to assume the guy was a Girl Scout’s dad working overtime to sell the most cookies. He grabbed Allison’s hand. “Come on!”

They raced across the lawn toward the woods surrounding the house.

“What’s happening?” she shrieked, trying to keep up as they sprinted into the woods.

“Just run!” he yelled.

But then she went down hard, screaming as she hit the dried leaves covering the forest floor.

“Get up, get up!” he hissed. “Come on.” Then he knelt down and covered her mouth with his hand, trying to hear anything. Listening for any sound that might—

“Christian Gillette.”

Christian stood up and whipped around. “What the—” He brought his fists up as a man moved toward him from the shadows.

“WHERE WE GOING, BOSS?
” Johnson looked at the men who were climbing on the private plane. Five of them, all big, all armed. “What is this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Forte. “Just get on the damn plane.”

Johnson swallowed hard, wondering if this was the last flight he’d ever take.

“PUT YOUR FISTS DOWN,
” the man ordered calmly, stopping a few feet away. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Who are you?” Christian asked loudly.

The man smiled thinly. “Mace Kohler,” he answered, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to Christian. “I’m going to tell you an incredible story, but I took the time to write a lot of it down, too, just in case you need help remembering the details later.”

Christian peered through the gloom as he took the envelope. Kohler looked so familiar.

“I’m a member of a group called the Order.”

Christian felt his face twist with doubt.
“The Order?”

“You’ve had some strange things going on in your life lately, haven’t you?” Kohler asked.

Christian felt the doubt drain away. “You could say that.”

“Well, you can thank the Order, specifically Samuel Hewitt.” Kohler pointed at the envelope. “It’s all in there.”

“I know who Samuel Hewitt is,” Christian said. “U.S. Oil is buying a company we own.”

“That son of a bitch,” Kohler blurted out. “Is Trenton Fleming involved?”