“Your damned limb isn’t going to give way, Harold. Do you take me for an idiot?”
“Can you tell me what your information is?” Marshall persisted.
“I can, if I have to, produce testimony that MacPhearson-Paige promised Sachs a large retainer and a good deal of lucrative business after he left the NTSB if he looked out for the company’s interests while he was in Washington. Good enough?”
“Good enough, yes,” Marshall said, relief showing on his face and in his voice.
“Thank you,” Greenwood said sarcastically. “I’ve got some business to attend to.”
The line went dead.
In Youngstown, Greenwood set his phone down and glanced across his desk at Cullen Ferguson, just back from a relatively unsuccessful fence-mending trek to D.C.
“I swear to God, these Washington types would never make it in the corporate world,” Greenwood said derisively. “They’re all a bunch of fucking pansies.” He nodded toward the phone. “Did you see those two while you were there?”
“I saw Marshall several times. Davis just once, as I recall. The senator fidgets a lot, and he’s been having some attacks of dizziness. I don’t know what that’s about, maybe stress. Davis struck me as pretty solid. What were they asking about this time?”
“They want to know what evidence I have to support the allegations against Sachs.”
Ferguson cleared his throat and pushed himself straighter in his chair. “Frankly, G.T., I intended to ask you the same thing. The press release we put out this morning has my name on it, and I’m getting a lot of calls from reporters who want more information.”
“What are you telling them?”
“We’re not prepared to elaborate at this time. What else can I say?”
“Tell them this: During your final weeks with the news magazine, you were researching an article on the aerospace industry. In the course of the interviews, you were told by sources at M-P that they were counting on Sachs to look out for them in Washington and, in return, they were prepared to make him a wealthy man when he went back to his consulting firm.”
Ferguson’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped. Then his lips started moving, but no sound emerged.
“What is it?” Greenwood asked, laughing. “You look like a guppy trying to swallow something too big for its gullet.”
“That… that’s not true,” Ferguson managed to stammer.
“What’s not? That you swallowed something too big for your gullet?”
“No! I never had any information like that! Where’d you get that idea?”
“It came to me in a flash of inspiration.”
“What?” Ferguson rose, somewhat unsteadily, to his feet. “You made it up? God, I… Jesus. Why?” He put his hands on the edge of Greenwood’s desk to steady himself and leaned slightly toward the CEO. “Why would you do a thing like that?” Abruptly he turned from the desk and started pacing. “What if this goes to court? What if I’m called to testify? I can’t get up on the witness stand and say what you just said. It would be a lie!” He turned back to Greenwood. “Perjury, George. It would be perjury. They could send me to prison, for God’s sake.”
Greenwood rose slowly and moved around his desk toward his private bar. Ferguson’s eyes followed his every step.
“Sit down, Cullen,” he ordered sharply. “Have a drink. Think this over. If this went to court—and the odds are long against it because I don’t think Sachs has the stomach for a court fight—the only thing you could go to jail for would be contempt, and then only if the judge ordered you to disclose your sources and you refused. Most judges won’t get into that kind of hassle. It makes them look bad when reporters—or former reporters—sit in jail cells for heroically protecting whistle-blowers. The most you’d get is a fine, and the company would take care of it.”
He handed Ferguson a generous Cutty on the rocks, which the vice-president took, although what he wanted was to toss it in the CEO’s face like they used to do in movies.
Ferguson sank heavily back into his chair and took a long pull at the drink. “I feel sick,” he said weakly.
“You’ll get over it,” Greenwood assured him. “There will be a nice little something in your next paycheck to help calm your nerves.”
Ferguson peered at Greenwood over the rim of the crystal glass. “What if I refuse?”
“Then you’re on the streets with no way to pay your alimony and child support,” Greenwood said quickly in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he were ordering oysters for lunch. “But why would you refuse? You don’t have anything to lose.” Greenwood could see the disbelief in Ferguson’s eyes. “Okay,” he conceded, “let’s do a worst-case scenario. You have to tell this little story, we later wind up in court for whatever reason, and you have to perjure yourself. The judge insists you disclose your sources, you refuse, and you go to jail. There’s some legal limitation about how long a judge can keep a person locked up on a contempt citation, like a year or something, and after that, you’re back here and on the job like nothing ever happened. And while you’re away, the company is paying your alimony and child support, your rent and utility bills, and we’re banking your salary and bonuses for you while you’re boarding at state or federal expense. When you get out, you’ve got a nice little nest egg and a clean slate. That almost makes it worthwhile to go up for a few months, doesn’t it?” Greenwood laughed heartily.
Ferguson didn’t. “You think everything that goes wrong can be fixed with money?” he asked.
“Fixed with money? No,” said Greenwood. “But money buys the means to make the fix. You just have to be quick on your feet.”
And he laughed again.
Later in the afternoon, Greenwood called Washington again. This time he wanted to talk only to Chappy Davis.
“How is Marshall holding together, do you think?” he asked.
“He’s nervous, and why shouldn’t he be? I’m scared to death myself.”
“Are you going to crack on me?”
“Have I ever?”
“No. But you’ve never had your balls exposed this way before.”
“Mine are no more exposed than yours.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If this ship sinks, all the rats will drown together.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No. An honest assessment.”
“Is there a weak link? What about the two from Baltimore?”
“I paid ’em off and they’re history.”
“Their van?”
“Scrapped. They took it to a junkyard and had it crushed. It’s gone.”
“What if somebody made the plates?”
“What if they did? Bonaro registered it in some name he took off a tombstone. Phony address, too. With their payoff, they were going to buy a new truck and see how business is in Chicago. But I paid ’em enough that if business is slow in Chicago, they won’t feel a need to come back here for a good long time. I’ll be sending you the bill today. It’s heavy.”
“I told you that didn’t matter. You’ll get your money. You got any other concerns?”
“Only one. Parkhall.”
“How do you figure him?”
“Terrified. Sachs already had him in on the carpet once. His story is there was a bird in the engine the first time he looked at it, the night of the accident, and he never had any reason to doubt its authenticity. He says they bought it. Since he’s free, I guess they did, at least for the time being. The reporter went out to see him, too. That didn’t help.”