John Grisham Page 8

  Lake had no time for stumping or walking neighborhoods or eating catfish or standing in the rain outside busy factories. He couldn’t hike for the cameras or stage town meetings or stand amid rubble in ghettos and decry failed policies. There wasn’t enough time to do all the things candidates were expected to do. He was entering late, with no groundwork in place, no grass roots, no local support of any kind. Lake had a handsome face, a pleasant voice, nice suits, an urgent message, and lots of cash.

  If buying TV could buy an election, Aaron Lake was about to get himself a new job.

  He called Washington, talked to his moneyman, and was given the news about the $5 million announcement. He’d never heard of Hummand. “Is it a public company?” he asked. No, came the answer. Very private. Just under a billion in annual sales. An innovator in radar jamming. Could make billions if the right man took charge of the military and started spending again.

  Nineteen million dollars was now in hand, a record, of course. And they were revising their projections. The Lake campaign would collect thirty million in its first two weeks.

  There was no way to spend money that fast.

  He folded the cell phone, handed it back to Floyd, who appeared to be lost in traffic. “From now on we use helicopters,” Lake announced over his shoulder to the secretary, who actually wrote down the directive: Find helicopters.

  Lake hid behind his sunglasses and tried to analyze thirty million bucks. The transition from a fiscal conservative to a free-wheeling candidate was awkward, but the money had to be spent. It wasn’t squeezed from the taxpayers; rather, it was freely given. He could rationalize. Once elected, he’d continue his fight for the workingman.

  He thought again about Teddy Maynard, sitting in some dark room deep inside Langley, legs wrapped in a quilt, face squinting from pain, pulling strings only he could pull, making money fall from trees. Lake would never know the things Teddy was doing on his behalf, nor did he want to.

  THE DIRECTOR of Middle East Operations was named Lufkin, a twenty-year man Teddy trusted implicitly. Fourteen hours earlier he’d been in Tel Aviv. Now he was in Teddy’s war room, somehow looking fresh and alert. His message had to be delivered in person, mouth to mouth, no wires or signals or satellites. And what was said between them would never be repeated. It had been that way for many years.

  “An attack on our embassy in Cairo is now imminent,” Lufkin said. No reaction from Teddy; no frown, no surprise, no cutting of the eyes, nothing. He’d gotten such news many times before.

  “Yidal?”

  “Yes. His top lieutenant was seen in Cairo last week.”

  “Seen by whom?”

  “The Israelis. They’ve also followed two truckloads of explosives from Tripoli. Everything seems to be in place.”

  “When?”

  “Imminent.”

  “How imminent?”

  “Within a week, I’d guess.”

  Teddy pulled an earlobe and closed his eyes. Lufkin tried not to stare, and he knew better than to ask questions. He would leave soon, and return to the Middle East. And he would wait. The attack on the embassy might proceed with no warning. Dozens would be killed and maimed. A crater in the city would smolder for days, and in Washington fingers would point and accusations would fly. The CIA would be blamed again.

  None of it would faze Teddy Maynard. As Lufkin had learned, sometimes Teddy needed the terror to accomplish what he wanted.

  Or maybe the embassy would be spared, the attack thwarted by Egyptian commandos working with the United States. The CIA would be praised for its excellent intelligence. That wouldn’t faze Teddy either.

  “And you’re certain?” he asked.

  “Yes, as certain as one can be in these situations.”

  Lufkin, of course, had no clue that the Director was now plotting to elect a President. Lufkin had barely heard of Aaron Lake. Frankly, he didn’t care who won the election. He’d been in the Middle East long enough to know it didn’t really matter who set American policy there.

  He’d leave in three hours, on the Concorde to Paris, where he’d spend a day before going to Jerusalem.

  “Go to Cairo,” Teddy said without opening his eyes.

  “Sure. And do what?”

  “Wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Wait for the ground to shake. Stay away from the embassy.”

  YORK’S INITIAL REACTION was one of horror. “You can’t run this damned ad, Teddy,” he said. “It’s R-rated. I’ve never seen so much blood.”

  “I like that,” Teddy said, pushing a button on the remote. “An R-rated campaign ad. It’s never been done before.”

  They watched it again. It began with the sound of a bomb, then footage of the Marine barracks in Beirut; smoke, rubble, chaos, Marines being pulled from debris, mangled bodies, Marines lying dead in a neat row. President Reagan addressing the press and vowing revenge. But the threat sounded hollow. Then the photo of an American soldier standing between two masked gunmen. A heavy, ominous voiceover said, “Since 1980, hundreds of Americans have been murdered by terrorists around the world.” Another bomb scene, more bloody and dazed survivors, more smoke and chaos. “We always vow revenge. We always threaten to find and punish those responsible.” Quick clips of President Bush on two separate occasions angrily promising retaliation—another attack, more bodies. Then footage of a terrorist standing in the door of a jetliner, dragging off the body of an American soldier. President Clinton, near tears, his voice ready to crack, saying, “We will not rest until we find those responsible.” Next the handsome but serious face of Aaron Lake, looking sincerely at the camera, coming into our homes, saying, “The fact is, we don’t retaliate. We react with words, we swagger and threaten, but in reality we bury our dead, then forget about them. The terrorists are winning the war because we have lacked the guts to fight back. When I’m your President, we will use our new military to fight terrorism wherever we find it. No American death will go unanswered. I promise. We will not be humiliated by ragtag little armies hiding in mountains. We will destroy them.”

  The ad ran for exactly sixty seconds, cost very little to make because Teddy already had the footage, and would start running during prime time in forty-eight hours.

  “I don’t know, Teddy,” York said. “It’s gruesome.”

  “It’s a gruesome world.”

  Teddy liked the ad and that’s all that mattered. Lake had objected to the blood, but came around quickly. His name recognition was up to 30 percent, but his ads were still disliked.

  Just wait, Teddy kept telling himself. Wait until there are more bodies.

  EIGHT

  TREVOR WAS SIPPING a carry-out double latte from Beach Java and debating whether to add a generous shot or two of Amaretto to help soothe away the morning’s cobwebs when the call came. His cramped suite had no intercom system; one was not needed. Jan could simply yell any message down the hall, and he could yell back if he wanted. For eight years he and this particular secretary had been barking at each other.

  “It’s some bank in the Bahamas!” she announced. He almost spilled the coffee as he lunged for the phone.

  It was a Brit whose accent had been softened by the islands. A substantial wire had been received, from a bank in Iowa.

  How substantial, he wanted to know, covering his mouth so Jan couldn’t hear.

  A hundred thousand dollars.

  Trevor hung up and added the Amaretto, three shots of it, and sipped the delightful brew while smiling goofily at the wall. In his career he’d never come close to a fee of $33,000. He’d settled a car wreck once for $25,000, taken a fee of $7,500, and within two months had spent all of it.

  Jan knew nothing about the offshore account and the scam that diverted money to it, so he was forced to wait an hour, make a bunch of useless phone calls, and try to look busy before announcing he had to take care of some crucial business in downtown Jacksonville, then he was needed at Trumble. She didn’t care. He disappeared all the time and she
had some reading to keep her occupied.

  He raced to the airport, almost missed his shuttle, and drank two beers during the thirty-minute flight to Fort Lauderdale, then two more on the way to Nassau. On the ground, he fell into the back of a cab, a 1974 Cadillac painted gold, without air-conditioning and with a driver who’d also been drinking. The air was hot and wet, the traffic slow, and Trevor’s shirt was sticking to his back by the time they stopped downtown near the Geneva Trust Bank Building.

  Inside, Mr. Brayshears came forward eventually and led Trevor to his small office. He presented a sheet of paper which gave the bare details: a $100,000 wire originating from the First Iowa Bank in Des Moines, remitter being a faceless entity named CMT Investments. The payee was another generic entity named Boomer Realty, Ltd. Boomer was the name of Joe Roy Spicer’s favorite bird dog.

  Trevor signed the forms to transfer $25,000 to his own, separate account with Geneva Trust, money he kept hidden from his secretary and from the IRS. The remaining $8,000 was handed to him in a thick envelope, cash. He stuffed it deep into his khaki pants pocket, shook Brayshears’ soft little hand, and raced out of the building. He was tempted to stay a couple of days, find a room on the beach, get a chair by the pool, and drink rum until they stopped bringing it to him. The temptation grew to the point that he almost bolted from the gate at the airport and raced to get another cab. But he reached deep, determined not to squander his money this time.

  Two hours later he was in the Jacksonville airport, drinking strong coffee, without liquor, and making his plans. He drove to Trumble, arriving at four-thirty, and he waited for Spicer for almost half an hour.

  “A pleasant surprise,” Spicer said dryly as he stepped into the attorney-conference room. Trevor had no briefcase to inspect, so the guard patted his pockets and stepped outside. His cash was hidden under the floor mat of his Beetle.

  “We received a hundred thousand dollars from Iowa,” Trevor said, glancing at the door.

  Spicer was suddenly happy to see his lawyer. He resented the “we” in Trevor’s announcement, and he resented the healthy cut he raked off the top. But the scam wouldn’t work without help from the outside, and, as usual, the lawyer was a necessary evil. So far, Trevor could be trusted.

  “It’s in the Bahamas?”

  “Yes. I just left there. The money’s tucked away, all sixty-seven thousand of it.”

  Spicer breathed deeply and savored the victory. A third of the loot gave him $22,000 and change. It was time to write some more letters!

  He reached into the pocket of his olive prison shirt and removed a folded newspaper clipping. He stretched his arms, studied it for a second, then said, “Duke’s at Tech tonight. The line is eleven. Put five thousand bucks on Tech.”

  “Five thousand?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ve never put five thousand on a game before.”

  “What kinda bookie you got?”

  “Small time.”

  “Look, if he’s a bookie, he can handle the numbers. Call him as soon as you can. He may have to make a few calls, but he can do it.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “Can you come back tomorrow?”

  “Probably.”

  “How many other clients have ever paid you thirty-three thousand bucks?”

  “None.”

  “Right, so be here at four tomorrow. I’ll have some mail for you.”

  Spicer left him and walked quickly from the administration building with only a nod at a guard in a window. He walked with a purpose across the finely manicured lawn, the Florida sun heating the sidewalk even in February. His colleagues were deep in their unhurried labors in their little library, alone as always, so Spicer did not hesitate to announce: “We got the hundred thousand from ole Quince in Iowa!”

  Beech’s hands froze on his keyboard. He peered over his reading glasses, his jaw dropping, and managed to say, “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Just talked to Trevor. The money was wired in exactly as instructed, arrived in the Bahamas this morning. Quincy baby came through.”

  “Let’s hit him again,” Yarber said, before the others could think of it.

  “Quince?”

  “Sure. The first hundred was easy, let’s squeeze him one more time. What could we lose?”

  “Not a damned thing,” Spicer said with a smile. He wished he’d said it first.

  “How much?” asked Beech.

  “Let’s try fifty,” Yarber said, pulling numbers from the air as if anything was possible.

  The other two nodded and pondered the next fifty thousand, then Spicer took charge and said, “Look, let’s evaluate where we are now. I think Curtis in Dallas is ripe. We’ll hit Quince again. This thing is working, and I think we should shift gears, get more aggressive, know what I mean? Let’s take each pen pal, analyze them one by one, and step up the pressure.”

  Beech turned off his computer and reached for a file. Yarber cleared his small desk. Their little Angola scam had just received a fresh infusion of capital, and the smell of ill-gotten cash was intoxicating.

  They began reading all the old letters, and drafting new ones. More victims were needed, they quickly decided. More ads would be placed in the back pages of those magazines.

  TREVOR MADE IT as far as Pete’s Bar and Grill, arriving there just in time for happy hour, which at Pete’s began at 5 P.M. and ran until the first fistfight. He found Prep, a thirty-two-year-old sophomore at North Florida, shooting nine-ball for twenty bucks a game. Prep’s dwindling trust fund required the family lawyer to pay him $2,000 a month as long as he was enrolled as a full-time student. He’d been a sophomore for eleven years.

  Prep was also the busiest bookie at Pete’s, and when Trevor whispered that he had serious money to place on the Duke-Tech game, Prep asked, “How much?”

  “Fifteen thousand,” Trevor said, then gulped his longneck beer.

  “You serious?” Prep asked, chalking his cue stick and glancing around the smoky table. Trevor had never bet more than a hundred bucks on any game.

  “Yep.” Another long pull on the bottle. He was feeling lucky. If Spicer had the guts to lay $5,000 on the game, Trevor would double it. He’d just earned 33,000 tax-free dollars. So what if he lost ten? That much belonged to the IRS anyway.

  “I’ll have to make a call,” Prep said, pulling out a cell phone.

  “Hurry. The game starts in thirty minutes.”

  The bartender was a local who’d never left the state of Florida but had somehow developed an intense passion for Australian Rules Football. A game was on from Down Under, and it took a $20 bribe from Trevor to get the channel changed to ACC basketball.

  With $15,000 riding on Georgia Tech, there was no way Duke could miss a shot, at least not in the first half. Trevor ate french fries, drank one bottle after another, and tried to ignore Prep, who was standing near a pool table in a dark corner, watching.

  In the second half, Trevor almost bribed the bartender to switch back to the Aussie game. He was getting drunker, and with ten minutes to go was openly cursing Joe Roy Spicer to anyone who would listen. What did that redneck know about ACC basketball? Duke led by twenty with nine minutes to go, when Tech’s point guard got hot and nailed four straight three’s. Trevor had Tech and eleven.

  The game was tied with a minute to go. Trevor didn’t care who won. He’d beat the spread. He paid his tab, tipped the bartender another $100, then flashed a smart-ass salute to Prep as he walked out the door. Prep flipped him the bird.

  In the cool darkness, Trevor skipped along Atlantic Boulevard, away from the lights, past the cheap summer rentals packed tightly together, past the neat little retirement homes with their fresh paint and perfect lawns, down the old wooden steps to the sand, where he took off his shoes and strolled along the edge of the water. The temperature was in the forties, not unusual for Jacksonville in February, and before long his feet were cold and wet.

  Not that he felt much—$43,000 in one day, tax-free,
all hidden from the government. Last year after expenses he’d cleared $28,000, and that was working practically full time—haggling with clients too poor or too cheap to pay, avoiding courtrooms, dealing with penny-ante real estate agents and bankers, bickering with his secretary, cutting corners on taxes.

  Ah, the joy of quick cash. He’d been suspicious of the Brethren’s little scam, but now it seemed so brilliant. Extort from those who can’t complain. How thoroughly clever.

  And since it was working so well, he knew Spicer would turn up the heat. The mail would get heavier, the visits to Trumble more frequent. Hell, he’d be there every day if necessary, hauling letters in and out, bribing guards.

  He splashed his feet in the water as the wind picked up and the waves roared in.

  Even more clever would be to steal from the extortionists, court-certified crooks who certainly couldn’t complain. It was a nasty thought, one he was almost ashamed of, but a valid one nonetheless. All options would be kept open. Since when were thieves known for their loyalty?

  He needed a million dollars, nothing more or less. He’d done the math many times, driving to Trumble, drinking at Pete’s, sitting at his desk with the door locked. A lousy million bucks, and he could close his sad little office, surrender his law license, buy a sailboat, and spend eternity drifting with the winds around the Caribbean.

  He was closer than he would ever be.

  JUSTICE SPICER rolled over again on the bottom bunk. Sleep was a rare gift in his tiny room, on his tiny bed with a small, smelly roommate named Alvin snoring above him. Alvin had roamed North America as a hobo for decades, but late in life had grown weary and hungry. His crime had been the robbery of a rural mail carrier in Oklahoma. His apprehension had been aided mightily when Alvin walked into the FBI office in Tulsa and declared, “I did it.” The FBI scrambled for six hours to find the crime. Even the judge knew Alvin planned it all. He wanted a federal bed, certainly not one provided by the state.