“It’s nothing.” Matson wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Just a company Fitzhugh set up. Burch was supposed to do it, but he was busy or something. TAMS owns a flat in London. Alla lives there. I wasn’t hiding it. We haven’t even gotten to the stockbrokers yet. They came long before TAMS. You got to have money before you can buy anything. Even though Granger had gotten the SEC to let us issue the shares, we still had to find somebody to sell them for us. That’s how we hooked up with Northstead Securities.”
Matson took in a breath and exhaled, then leaned forward on the couch.
“The guy we dealt with was named Yuri Kovalenko. You should’ve seen this monster. Granger and I walked into his office in San Diego and sitting behind the desk was a guy with a huge, shaved head and hands like a meatpacker.
“Kovalenko had a spreadsheet all ready. It showed that SatTek was supposed to issue Northstead some shares at two dollars each, and that they would keep whatever they could sell it for above that. The stock goes up to five, they get three; goes up to six, they get four. It pissed me off. They could be making twice as much as SatTek.
“I wanted to get up and walk out right then, but it hit me real hard what kind of guy I’m talking to, and I’m not sure who to be more frightened of, the SEC Enforcement Division or him. But I figure I need to say something, so I tell him that the SEC will only let us pay a commission. A few percent. Kovalenko looks at me like I’m a fool and points this sausagelike finger at me, but Granger cuts in and says how much of a risk Northstead is taking in the deal and blah, blah, blah.”
Matson emitted a nervous laugh. “The only one who was at risk right then was me.”
Zink smirked. “Don’t tell me you’re claiming you got coerced into doing this by Kovalenko?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I was still thinking that if we did things just right, and brought in enough money, even at two bucks a share, we could grow SatTek into a big company. Five million shares meant ten million dollars for SatTek. That and a little leverage and we could buy up some of our competition.”
Matson rose to his feet and started pacing.
“Kovalenko took us into a big trading floor, about forty guys working the phones, and then across the hall to meet an old man they called the Maestro. A droopy-jowled guy with the worst rosacea I’ve ever seen. I never learned his real name. His job was to push the stock. Plant stories in the press. Spam out stock tips.
“Granger was pissed at me when we left because I had challenged Kovalenko and I was pissed at him because he was always treating me like a child, and I was sick of it. But we needed to get cash coming in, so the next morning I did what he told me. I called the stock transfer agent and had him issue five million shares to Northstead and then two million each to Cobalt Partners, Azul Limited, and Blau Anstalt.”
Matson paused, and his eyes went vacant for a moment.
“Right after I hung up the phone, I got a real sick feeling in my stomach.” He looked down at Zink. “You ever go to a magic show in Vegas?”
Zink shook his head.
“The magician asks somebody to come up on the stage, then he does a little razzle-dazzle, and suddenly he’s holding the guy’s wallet and everybody in the audience is laughing at him. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I called the guy back and had an extra two million shares issued to Cobalt Partners. Then I told the lawyer in Guernsey to have the nominee directors sell them as soon as the stock hit five dollars a share and send the profit to my Barclays account in London.”
“And that’s the first money that went into TAMS?”
Matson nodded.
“Did you tell Granger and Fitzhugh about the additional shares?”
“Fuck no.”
CHAPTER 21
W hen Gage arrived at his office after a futile morning meeting with Courtney and Burch’s doctors at SF Medical, he found that Alex Z had converted it into a war room. Conference tables. Easels. An additional computer workstation. Redbrick walls now bare, waiting for poster boards bearing flowcharts and chronologies.
“SatTek was self-underwriting,” Alex Z reported as he sat down across the desk from Gage. “They sold a lot of the stock themselves. The rest through a brokerage firm called Northstead Securities.”
Gage sat poised behind his desk, chin propped on his folded hands.
“It’s owned by Albert William Ward, a broker hanging on to his license by a thread.” Alex Z pointed toward the floors below. “I asked all of our ex-FBI people to use their contacts at the SEC. It turns out that he’s been on their radar for a long time.” He slid a Securities and Exchange Commission Litigation Release across the desk. “The Enforcement Division slapped his wrist a few years ago. He laid low for a while, then came back as Northstead.”
Gage picked it up and read it over. “Is he still in Colorado?”
“No. San Diego. Off Highway 5 close to downtown, right near the Hyatt Regency.” Alex Z grinned. “I mean real, real close by.”
Gage drew back, brows furrowed. “What does the Hyatt Regency have to do with Northstead?”
“I made you a reservation for tonight. Late check-in.”
Gage shook his head and smiled. “I think we’ve been working together too long.”
“Your flight is at 7 P. M. out of SFO.”
“I’ll be on it.”
“Pretty soon after SatTek went public, they used some stock to buy an engineering software firm in Ireland. No cash changed hands. A shares-for-equity deal. Three million shares worth about fifteen million dollars.”
“And the shareholders put up with that?”
“Some didn’t like it but it went through anyway. They thought SatTek was straying from its business plan with no justification.”
“Still, that’s quite a chunk.”
“SatTek did everything in chunks. There were eleven big shareholders. The biggest were Blau Anstalt, Azul Limited, and Cobalt Partners.”
“Blue companies.”
Alex Z’s face washed with puzzlement as if he’d gone colorblind. “Blue companies?”
“ Blau is ‘blue’ in German. Azul is ‘blue’ in Spanish. Cobalt is blue as the deep blue sea.”
“You think they’re linked some way?”
Gage nodded. “It’s not likely to be a coincidence. Any blue ones on the domestic side?”
“Nope, but there’s a large shareholder in Nevada. The registered agent is named Chuck Verona.”
“Send someone out there to find out who he is and what else he’s into.” Gage pointed at an easel bearing a fresh pad of poster board. There was already too much to keep track of in his head. “Then chart all of this out.”
“I’ll do it tonight.”
“You don’t have to spend-”
Alex Z shook his head. “I know I’m just a computer guy but something smells real bad about what happened to Mr. Burch. So I’ll be living here until you figure it out.”
Gage reached for the phone to make a call as Alex Z headed back downstairs to his office.
“Tiptoe?”
“Yeah?”
“This is Graham Gage.”
Gage heard Tiptoe chewing. He was always chewing. Gum. Tobacco. Beef jerky. He said it kept the rest of his body steady, especially his hands. His life-spent performing black-bag jobs for the good guys-sometimes depended on it.
“What’s cookin’?”
Gage heard his lips smack.
“I’ve got a little situation. You doing anything tonight?”
“Depends on what’s on the Playboy Channel and how much you wanna spend.”
“A thousand.”
“I think my cable just went out.”
“How long would it take you to get to San Diego?”
“That also depends…”
Tiptoe’s jaws fell silent.
“Fifteen hundred.”
“Two hours.”
“The place is called Northstead Securities.”
Alex Z had a rental van reserved for Gage when he arrived at the San Diego International Airport. American. Gray. Anonymous. Tinted windows.