CHAPTER 2
“Lions” —Skillet
“Good to see you again, Derrick,” the counselor said, shaking Derrick’s hand as they were dropped off at his office by a secretary. “Long time.”
Counselor Wilder Perrin Kennedy was six foot one and probably about 160 pounds, with soft brown eyes and flaming red hair. He was dressed in a striped dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up and there was a nice suitcoat hanging on a rack.
The offices of Adams, Walker, Brauer, Bergman and Bhatt were tucked away in a late 1800s six-story stone commercial building off Remsen Street in Brooklyn. It was flanked on either side by much larger, taller, and newer business buildings. Wilder’s fairly small office had a charming view of the building across Remsen Street, another older commercial building that was being renovated.
“And you must be the putative heir,” Wilder said. “Call me Wilder. Grab a chair.”
Mike gauged there was a good deal of nervous energy hidden behind Wilder’s casual demeanor. That was easily explained by the crazy stupid amount of money involved as well as the forces arrayed against them. In the end, Mike had to give the counselor credit for maintaining a relaxed, confident façade.
“Can I get you anything?” a bright-eyed, boy-faced assistant asked. “Water, coffee, anything?”
Both Mike and Derrick shook their heads, and Wilder politely waved him off. Using Sight, however, Mike knew the assistant took up a position a few feet outside the door, no doubt to rush in if anyone suddenly needed anything.
“So,” he continued when the three of them were situated. “Based on what you sent me, Derrick, this should be an open-and-shut case. We’ve got a positive evidentiary DNA match, your statement as an officer of the court that Annabelle Follett was the only woman with whom you had sexual relations during that time frame, your proven DNA familial relationship to the plaintiff, which has already been accepted by the State of New York for paternity, and a photo of you with Annabelle Follett, taken by a professional military photographer during the time frame that Mike would have been conceived.
“The only argument is that there is too much weight of evidence,” Wilder said. “So, it should be open and shut. Should.”
“Should,” Mike said. The Society was guaranteed to use every dirty trick conceived by man to eliminate that “should.” Mike was well aware of the difficulties they’d face in wrangling his inheritance from the large and powerful claws of the Society, but he was curious to hear the counselor’s thoughts on the legal aspects.
“After you contacted me about this, I did some research,” Wilder said, “including speaking to one of the name partners about it. All I said was that I had a potential client who was looking at suing the Follett Trust. For privilege reasons couldn’t get into why. I will say that Mr. Brauer was enthusiastic about a suit. He’s tied in much more tightly than I am with the general ebb and flow of the complex power dynamics in this town. He referred to the Follett Trust in scatological terms I will not repeat.”
Wilder pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes, and looked to the side in a moment of contemplation.
“Then there’s the matter of the missing remains,” Wilder said, drily. “And I’m not sure if you’ve kept up with this, but the chief of security of the Trust was found in the East River not too long back.”
“I was here when that happened,” Mike said. “I do recall, yes.”
I do recall helping to beat the rapist, murdering son of a whore to death.
“All in all, we’re dealing with some very squirrelly individuals,” Counselor Kennedy said. “Which shouldn’t matter in court, but it may. The Trust is tightly connected to New York politics and has been for quite some time, so I’m expecting headwinds on this one.”
“I’m expecting the roof to fall in and the towers to crumble,” Mike said. “These guys are beyond squirrelly. From the point that we file, there is no such thing as privilege. There is no such thing as private. Expect every dirty trick that you’ve ever heard of and then some. They’ll try to bug your home. They’ll try to bug these offices. They’ll be trying to pay off your staff for inside intel. Don’t be surprised if they come at you or your family. They’ll try to buy me off with a settlement of some sort. A harassment payout. Not going to happen.”
He didn’t mention that he’d already tried to hack the law firm’s servers and found them remarkably well defended. Not so defended he couldn’t get through, but the Society’s hackers weren’t as good as Gondola trained. Gondola, led by the mysterious “Faerie Queen,” was the secretive network of hackers who ran counter to the Society’s sinister global plotting. The Faerie Queen had recruited Mike at age eight after he’d semi-accidentally accessed one of their minor servers.
Mike did a quick scan through the building’s goings-on in Sight, trying to gauge the overall culture and professionalism of the office through any available indicators. Outside of the assistant outside hitting on a female clerk across the way, there wasn’t any of the outright sex or drug use as he could generally find in abundance in just about every single building in New York. So that was a plus.
“Do you have some information about the Trust I might not have?” Wilder said, curiously.
Mike looked over at Derrick and sighed. His father, for the most part, remained as still as a statue during the discussion outside of his cold, calculating eyes taking everything in.
“I growed up on the street,” Mike said, his accent changing slightly. “Talked to a fella one time about a life of crime. I’d planned on being a career professional thief at one point. Wanted to know the dos and don’ts.
“He told me first thing was, you get popped don’t tell the poh-leese shit,” Mike said, smiling. “Fifth Amendment the one right nobody can take away. All it takes is keep your mouth shut ’til you can get advice of counsel.”
“Good advice,” Wilder said.
“Second thing he told me,” Mike said. “You get in with your attorney, you tell him absolutely everything. Don’t hold nothin’ back. And be honest—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“Also good advice,” Wilder said, though he narrowed a calculating eye as he waited for the “but.”
“In this case, let’s say that I’m reading the same tea leaves you are,” Mike said. “Anything I know other than what is publicly available . . . we’ll just set to the side ’cause why would a kid know more?
“But I’ll warn you, definitively,” Mike said, “this is not going to be easy. It’s a billion dollars. That right there says it’s not going to be easy. But it’s going to be worse than that. Expect the judge to be biased. Might as well say bought. Expect them to throw every high-priced lawyer in New York at it. They’ll be investigating us. They’ll be investigating you. They’ll be investigating this firm. They’ll try to find some way to buy you. Suborn you. Blackmail if you’ve got anything they can blackmail you with. They’ll go to disbarment if they can find an edge. They’re going to try like hell to bury you and bury this suit. Guaranteed.”
Mike gestured at the surroundings and frowned slightly. One thing he had determined about the building was that it really was as old as it was purported to be. While the foundation was still surprisingly robust and there had definitely been more than a few remodels, there were some sections of stone here and there that were going to cause problems within the next decade.
“I do not want this to come across as an insult, sir . . .” Mike said, cautiously.
Wilder grinned.
“I know what you’re going to say,” the attorney said, smiling. “Are we a firm that can handle this? Don’t judge on the basis of the building. This firm has been in business for a very long time. The reason we’re in this building was the firm built it in 1886. The firm has been in business since 1860 and its lineage traces back further. We’re one of those very quiet, very powerful firms here in the City.
“As to the blackmail and disbarment,” Wilder said, shrugging and looking around. “I’m one of those straight-arrow lawyers. I honestly cannot figure out any way that someone could do that to me.”
“Then stay that way,” Mike said. “If we’re in the middle of this and some pretty lady starts chatting you up somewhere, don’t think it’s due to your rugged good looks.”
“I doubt they’re going to go that far,” Wilder said, smiling.
“Don’t doubt it,” Derrick said. “I agree with everything Mike said. Expect honey traps. That goes for anyone in your firm. Expect attacks from odd angles. Expect blackmail and even direct action. This is not going to be easy. But when it’s over, you’ll have a new billion-dollar client.”
“Which would be nice,” Wilder said, nodding. “Okay, I’ll keep that firmly in mind. I will,” he added, nodding at Derrick. “You chose not to use the law firm that is handling the sexual harassment suit?”
“They’re too close to Fieldstone Holdings, which is, in turn, too close to the Trust,” Mike said. “Also, they’re dragging the negotiations intentionally. The Corps has more or less accepted fault. Not legally. They’ll never do that. But they’ve accepted they’re going to have to pay out. The question is how much.”
On the other side of the door, the assistant slumped and moved back to the door. At a guess, he’d run out of clever things to say and thought he’d struck out. However, the woman’s open posture with a tilted head and shoulders back (“tits out”) actually indicated she was still interested.
“That firm took it on a light contingency,” Mike continued. “Ten percent of whatever we get plus they’re going for usual and customary fees against the government. The longer they draw it out, the more meetings they have, the more motions they file, the more usual and customary they get at the end.
“I know that’s a tactic and that it’s considered a legitimate one by most law firms. But it pisses me off a bit. As long as that suit is ongoing, I’m in an ambiguous position with the Corps. And I’d rather be in a friendly position for long-term reasons. I’m the primary named plaintiff. I haven’t even hinted that I’m annoyed, but I’m annoyed. That’s another reason.
“I didn’t mean any insult questioning the firm,” Mike said, looking around again and furrowing his brow quizzically. “We didn’t come here just because my father knew you. Your firm came highly recommended.”
“Good to hear,” Wilder said, nodding. “We’re better than we look. That’s in part deliberate; we are very quiet. And if it makes you feel any better, the only reason I took you on as a client was I knew your father and Mr. Brauer supported it. I had to unload some work to take it on.
“But I’m looking forward to this suit and I’m looking forward to having you as a client long term. But we do need to discuss the matter of fees.”
“I got a million dollars for El Cannibale,” Mike said. “Half of that had to go into an escrow account. Gary Coleman law. The other half is for support here in New York and the suit. And I’ve got the suit with the Corps. I’m the superior named plaintiff. I can accept where the Corps is at any time if I need more.”
“True,” Wilder said. “That’s a good thing. Because despite the look of the building, we are not cheap . . .”
“So, our newest hopefully billionaire client,” Brauer said, looking Mike over carefully.
Ahuvit Brauer was small, barely five foot five, and wiry with olive skin, blue eyes, and curly black hair gone almost entirely white. His office on the top floor of the building wasn’t much nicer than Wilder’s, though the leather furniture was nicer. The suit coat hanging in the corner was, if anything, a tad shabby. Certainly old and worn.
“You’re an interesting character,” Brauer added.
Brauer, Wilder, and Mike sat around a coffee table rather than Brauer’s shiny mahogany desk. Mike had his suspicions as to why one of the senior partners wanted to meet him without his father present, but he kept those to himself. The senior partner was laid back and relaxed into his dark brown leather chesterfield chair. Meanwhile, Wilder was a little more wide-eyed and deferential than he’d been downstairs, and keeping a respectful upright posture.
“So are you,” Mike said. He’d been examining him under Sight and the elderly lawyer’s bones were worn in the same patterns as his father’s. He’d jumped out of more than one airplane. And in the faint trace of earth in the soft tissues, Ahuvit looked to have nearly as many scars.
“God is building an army,” the lawyer said.
Mike got a buzz on his phone at that moment.
“Pardon me,” Mike said, pulling it out.
Ahuvit held up his hand to forestall Wilder as Mike checked his phone.
ta: B is Level One ally. Cleared for almost everything. Knows about Eisenberg. Was backup attorney if you got caught. W is cleared for general Society and Omega. Not cleared Eisenberg.
Mike put his phone away and nodded. Butch Eisenberg had been the owner of the Gotham Herald until he’d died of “natural causes.” He’d also been a Dark Hand of the Society and high up on Gondola’s list for elimination. Thus, when a need developed to distract the public from the Electrobolt sexual assault court case, they’d sent Mike in to deliver some “natural causes.” The papers spent weeks mourning the death of such a “truly great man,” and all but the most militant of trans protesters immediately forgot about the Electrobolt case.
As to Omega, it was the slightly more public name for Gondola. Contacts, for example, would interact with “Omega,” while members knew they worked for “Gondola.”
“God has an army,” Mike said. “Israeli para. Shin Bet?”
“Mossad,” Brauer said, nodding. “Good guess.”
“One or the other,” Mike said.
“How are our servers?” Brauer asked.
“Could be better,” Mike said. “But my professional estimation is that the Society cannot penetrate them. Your guy is good. It would take one of the major nation-states or, well, us.”
“Did you use the network’s systems?” Brauer asked.
“No,” Mike said. “My own. But it would take Omega training to penetrate. Or very high-level other. Every time the Society gets someone that good and they come to our attention, we just direct them to the Society’s dirt files and they go ‘Oh. I’m on the wrong side!’ and flip. They’ve never kept anyone very good past that point.”
“Interesting way to flip people,” Brauer said.
“The Society sorts very carefully for people to be read in at high level,” Mike said, “if for no other reason than people get sickened at what they see. Yes, you can get paralegals and attorneys and general staff, but even then they have to be very careful. I have no clue how many people like that have gotten the choppy-chop simply because they saw something above their level.
“If you show someone who is working for them the truth, and they are in a position to see enough information to know it’s the truth, they generally flip in an instant.”
While Mike was in the private meeting, he could tell Derrick was wandering through the building under the guise of looking for a restroom while actually gauging the building’s physical security. Mike had done the same under Sight and judged it to be decent enough, but he had to grant that his former Delta father would probably pick up on a lot more deficiencies than he had.
“But unquestionably they’re going to be going after your staff,” Mike said. “You need to be careful about that. They need the Trust to stay in operation as is.”
“Details?” Brauer asked. “If you’re cleared to discuss. Wilder, this is above normal privilege if so.”
“Yes, sir,” Wilder said.
“Bit confused?” Brauer asked.
“Yes, sir.” Mike could tell his anxiety level had also spiked, though he was doing a good job of settling himself.
“Stay that way. Is there a specific reason they want to keep the Trust in operation? Other than the obvious greed.”
Mike thought about where to start and what to leave in and what to leave out.
“The Society mostly pays for buying elections and officials through black funds,” Mike said. “Various other carrots. Notably the selection of the Trustees is an example. They’re all connected to politicians.”
“Right,” Brauer said.
“But the straightforward illegal cash comes from their black accounts,” Mike said. “They can only divert so much from white accounts into that. There are investors and audits, and embezzling enough to matter is tough. Most of the money comes from profits on their international child-trafficking arm.”
“Right,” Brauer said.
“Wait, wait . . .” Wilder said, a little exasperated. “Child what?”
Brauer and Mike both looked at him and he subsided.
“The Trust is a nice little piggy bank,” Mike said. “There’s no one except authorities they control to audit it. There’s no beneficiary. And while their holdings of Fieldstone are public knowledge, there have been dividend payments going on for years with no increase in purchase of any public stock. Fieldstone, that’s it, and they haven’t bought any of that in five years. It’s more than is necessary to support three houses even in New York. That’s about five million a year, maximum, and there’s been far more than that returned in dividends.”
Someone had sent Wilder’s assistant to track down Derrick, who was now entertaining himself by avoiding said young man and continuing his unescorted tour of the building. Mike had to fight to suppress a grin as it would be horribly out of place in the current discussion.
“There’s two million one hundred and twenty-eight thousand shares of Fieldstone,” Mike said. “Two hundred and twenty-three million, more or less in dividends. Eight years at five million per year for the properties including upkeep and taxes is forty million dollars. There’s no indication that money has been reinvested. Where’d the other approximately one hundred and eighty million go?”
“Into the black accounts?” Brauer said.
“Bingo,” Mike replied. “That, it turns out, is where most of it is going. That and into the pockets of the senior trustees.
“A few years ago, we had a head-to-head clash with the Society,” Mike said. “Wasn’t just a bump or a rub or a needle. We banged horns hard. Three years as of last Christmas. They stole a bunch of our money, then put it in their black accounts. We traced it and stole it all. Ours and theirs. It was a lot of money, and it was their black money that they use for buying politicians and elections.
“We’ve also been cutting into their child trafficking through rescues, which has reduced their margins.”
Wilder’s anxiety visibly transitioned to anger. One hand clenched into a fist, and he straightened as his muscles tensed.
“They’ll need at least fifty-five billion dollars to buy the next Presidential election,” Mike said. “Twenty-twenty’s was fifty-two. With inflation it’s probably going to be at least sixty. And all their candidates suck. It could go well into the sixties. They desperately need every dime they can scrounge up. Thus, they cannot afford to lose the money from the Trust.
“Then there’s the fact that the Trust is so closely tied to that black money,” Mike said. “They are not good at laundering, lemme tell ya. Not as good as they think. Once it becomes obvious the Trust has been robbed, good forensic accountants are going to be following it. At some point the FBI will probably take over, just to keep me from searching. But they can only sustain a cover-up investigation so long. At some point, I’ll be hunting my money again.
“That could potentially lead right to the door of some of their skullduggery. Especially since Omega is going to be out on point feeding back what they’ve found. We generally stay out of sight and don’t come into the light any more than the Society. But if I’ve got a suit and discovery going that’s turning over rocks, hey, that’s just some kid trying to regain his inheritance! And it will all be right out there in a court of law. And, at first glance, I’d prefer to not file suit here in New York. Too much Society influence. I’d like to wait until I’m unquestionably a resident of some less Society state with less influence on the federal courts.”
Wilder leaned back at this in mild confusion. Ahuvit narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips but waited for Mike to continue.
“But this is where the fight is, and they’re guaranteed to get overconfident fighting on what they think is their own turf. We’ll just have to stay ahead of them.”
Derrick had finally looped fully around to the break room where he’d started. He sat at a table drinking coffee as if he’d never left when the exasperated aide popped his head in.
“So, it’s going to be all out there in the open every time there’s a hearing or a filing. If they’ve been as stupid as it looks like they have, it’s going to be hard for the authorities to ignore. And I’ll be pumping every revelation to every media who will pay attention.
“The DOJ is mostly dirty but there’s enough clean in there that at some point there potentially could be a legitimate grand jury investigation. An attempt to figure out what the hell is going on as opposed to a cover-up. The Society only succeeds by being in the dark. That would be way more sunlight than they’d like.”
Ahuvit hadn’t budged during Mike’s diatribe. Wilder kept a strong poker face and looked relatively calm on the outside, but his minute nervous fidgeting was clear as day to someone who could literally see his bones. The junior counselor was finally starting to understand the proceedings really were sure to play out well beyond the courtroom.
“So, they are going to fight tooth and nail on this suit. They need the money and if there’s a suit about the embezzlement, it could turn over way too many rocks. That’s why it’s going to get very strange.”
“Pretty much the same brief I got,” Brauer said. “I was sitting here thinking about how they could bump you off . . . Then I remembered.”
“I’m a super,” Mike said. “Pretty hard to kill. And I’m paranoid. When I eat or drink anything that isn’t sealed or I’ve prepared I always test it. I also have a filed will leaving everything to my father and if we co-decease it all goes to the various large clan. No point to lethal action. But if Wilder’s going to be in a hearing, we need to make sure his coffee isn’t spiked with LSD. This is the Society we’re talking about. MK Ultra is alive and well.”
Wilder’s fidgeting picked up another notch. His knee was twitching, and he was now grinding his teeth as well.
“True,” Brauer said, nodding. “And we’ll do everything possible to make sure Wilder is okay as well as the staff.”
“The other problem is the judge,” Mike said. “For a variety of reasons, the Society owns most of the judges on the Supreme Court of New York.”
The Supreme Court in New York was not the highest authority court. It was the New York term for what in most states was called a circuit court.
“The sole clean judge is Judge Eizenstat,” Mike said. “If we bring it directly to Judge Eizenstat, he’ll have a perfectly natural heart attack or die by self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“They’ll go that far?” Brauer said, his tone impassive rather than surprised.
“They’ll go that far,” Mike said. “Definitely. Since we don’t want to get the good judge killed over this, we’ll need to hand carry it to another judge, lest it get randomly passed to Eizenstat. The preferred judge is Mickelson.”
“I wouldn’t trust Judge Mickelson as far as I could throw this building,” Brauer said.
“Neither would I,” Mike said. “Work with me. Have Mr. Wilder take it to Judge Mickelson.”
“Can I have more than ‘work with me’?” Brauer said.
“We’ve got kompromat on all the judges,” Mike said. “But we’ve got the strongest on Mickelson. So does the Society, don’t get me wrong. But at a certain point I will end up inheriting. ‘What could I do, it was an open-and-shut case!’ Shortly after that he’ll retire. Or, possibly, suffer a fatal heart attack if they get angry enough about it. Or if they find out he threw the case. But he’ll go along.”
“I’m not hearing any of this,” Wilder said, shrugging and shaking his head. “What part of ‘I’m a straight-arrow guy’ was unclear?”
“Welcome to the bigs, kid,” Brauer said, waving his hand as if raising a glass. “When you’re working in a town this bent, sometimes the arrow has to fly around corners.”
“Going to need a good accounting firm at some point,” Mike said. “It’s going to be serious forensics.”
“I know people,” Brauer said, drily. “Israeli. Very good at that sort of thing.”
“Oh, those guys?” Mike said. “I know nothing.”
“I’ve heard you’re pretty good at finance as well,” Brauer said.
“I can hum the tune,” Mike replied.
“Well, this has been fun,” Mr. Brauer said, clapping his hands. “What’s life without challenges, eh? We need to do dinner some time. Do you golf?”
“I do,” Mike said. “But I generally let my father do my golfing for me. I’m lazy that way.”