69

IN SOME WAYS, CONNOR’S LIFE HAD GONE BACK TO NORMAL IN THE WEEKS since a nurse wheeled him out of the hospital. Reporters no longer called every hour. The CIA and FBI had questioned him to their hearts’ content. He was back at work, and he even had a new false claims case that Max liked.

But there were big differences too. The biggest was that he now worked for the Law Offices of Connor Norman. After a wave of positive press coverage turned him back into an asset, Doyle & Brown’s ExComm had dispatched Tom Concannon to try to lure Connor back to the firm. Did he want a corner office? An increased share of firm profits? How about a written guarantee that he would never be asked to take a case that made him uncomfortable?

Connor had turned Tom down as diplomatically as possible. He had no desire to burn a bridge with a powerful firm like D&B but also no desire to walk back over it. A few months ago, he couldn’t have imagined leaving the firm. Now he couldn’t imagine going back, no matter what they offered him. The easy alliance between profit and principle that had characterized his career at the firm could never be rebuilt—at least not at Doyle & Brown. As he told Bill Fisher and Tom at Slanted Door, he had made a choice. And he did not regret it.

Not all the changes were positive. Connor’s left leg was still in a walking cast that wouldn’t come off for weeks. Worse, the White Knight was still on the bottom of the San Francisco Bay and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair once it was raised. But those were both temporary problems, and he couldn’t let them distract him from the task at hand.

He focused himself on the meeting that had just started. He sat in his usual chair in conference room 11436 at DOJ, his foot resting on an empty chair. Max Volusca sat beside him with a tall stack of documents, questioning a hapless executive.

Today’s lucky CEO was Sanford “Sandy” Allen of Blue Sea Technology. At Connor’s suggestion, Allen had received a letter—not a subpoena—from Max inviting him to meet with DOJ about “irregularities in the bidding for the Golden Gate turbine project.” Blue Sea’s general counsel had written back that “Mr. Allen would be happy to discuss what he knows about Deep Seven Maritime Engineering.”

The general counsel was a former tugboat captain named Alex McDonnell who picked up a law degree in night school. Connor suspected he knew more about practical admiralty law than he did about responding to government investigations, but he had been perceptive enough to look uncomfortable when he discovered Connor, a court reporter, and a videographer waiting in the conference room. And he had looked downright disturbed when Max put Allen under oath. Allen, however, seemed not to notice that anything was amiss.

The DAG wasted no time. “Thanks for coming in today, Mr. Allen. I’ll get right to the point. As you know, we’re investigating allegations of fraud in the Golden Gate turbine project.”

“Good, good. I’m glad to hear it.” Allen shook his snowy head with concern. “It’s terrible what happened.”

“What exactly happened, to your knowledge?”

Allen cocked his head to the side, as if he didn’t quite understand the question. “Why, it was all over the news. It came out that Deep Seven was killing people and working with terrorists.”

Max frowned. “Let me try again. What exactly happened, to your knowledge? How did the investigation of Deep Seven start? Did you or your company play a role in that?”

Allen smiled like a modest grandfather whose grandchild has just been praised. “We may have played some small role. I’ve heard that one of our former temporary employees helped uncover Deep Seven’s crimes. As for me personally, I encouraged her to look around if she ever took a job at Deep Seven.”

Max leaned back and folded his tree-trunk arms atop his massive stomach. “Did you give that advice to all your temps?”

Allen’s smile faltered. “Ah, no.”

“So why did you say that to this temp?”

“I… I’m not sure exactly why. She seemed curious.”

“She wasn’t the only one, was she?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were curious about her, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Max snorted. “Yes, you do!”

Blue Sea’s general counsel gave Max a stern look. “Counsel, please don’t badger the witness.”

Max ignored him. “Is it Blue Sea’s practice to have a private investigator do a report on every temp they hire?”

Allen sat frozen. “A report?”

Max plucked a document out of the pile in front of him and slid it across the table. “A report like this one. Is that standard practice at Blue Sea?” He handed a copy to the court reporter. “Exhibit one.”

Allen went pale. “Where did you get this?”

Max’s face darkened. “Answer my question!”

Allen looked to his lawyer. “I thought we were here to talk about Deep Seven.”

McDonnell nodded. “That’s right. We’re here voluntarily. You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to.” He looked at Max and thrust out his chin. He was a big man. Not as big as Max, but he looked like he’d been in more bar fights.

Connor turned to Max, waiting for the inevitable explosion—but Max didn’t explode. Instead he lifted another document off his stack of paper and flipped it across the table into Allen’s lap. “All right, you’ve just been served with a subpoena. Answer my question or go to jail.”

Max was taking a calculated risk. In reality, refusing to answer his questions—even if asked pursuant to a subpoena—wouldn’t result in jail time unless Max got a court order enforcing the subpoena, Allen ignored the court order, and the court held Allen in contempt. But there was a good chance that McDonnell didn’t know how the process worked.

McDonnell took the subpoena from his client and looked at it for a moment. Then he glared at Max. “This is dirty pool.”

Now Max exploded. “You want to know what’s really dirty pool?” he boomed. “Blackmailing temps to plant false evidence at a competing bidder to get their bid disqualified!”

Allen and McDonnell both jumped to their feet. “That’s a lie!” shouted Allen. “We never did anything like that!”

Max stood and shoved a finger in Allen’s face. “Be careful, buddy!” he bellowed in a voice that made Connor’s teeth rattle. “Perjury is a felony, and you’re under oath!” He dialed it back a few decibels. “But I’m a nice guy, so I’ll give you another chance: did you or anyone else at Blue Sea blackmail Allison Whitman in order to get her to plant evidence at Deep Seven so that their bid would be disqualified?”

Allen looked at the stack of paper in front of the DAG, as if wondering what else might be in there. “Don’t I have the right to remain silent?”

Max sat down and leaned back, making his chair groan. “Only if your answer might implicate you in a crime.”

Allen’s eyes stayed on the pile of documents. “I think I’ll remain silent.”

Connor wanted to let out a whoop of triumph. Exercising the right to remain silent couldn’t be used against Allen in a criminal case, but in a civil case (such as a false claims case) it was fair game. Allen had just done the next best thing to admitting guilt. All that was left to talk about was money.

Max flipped through his notes. “All right. Well, if you’re going to invoke the Fifth Amendment rights, I guess we’re done for today.”

Allen and McDonnell walked out as the court reporter and videographer began to pack up. They left a few minutes later.

Once they were alone, Connor stuck out his hand. “Nicely played, Max. They’re dead men walking after Allen’s performance today.”

Max shook the proffered hand. “Thanks. Looks like Allie brought us another winner.” He paused and looked Connor in the eye. “Might be the last one for a while, huh?”

Connor let out a sigh. “Yeah. The DA in Kansas is taking a really hard line. He wants her to testify against her ex-boyfriend next week and do at least a year in prison.”

Max shoved his stack of paper—most of which was blank sheets intended to make the pile look bigger—into a box. “Can’t say I’m surprised. DAs get elected for being tough on crime, especially crimes that get kids killed.”

“I know. I thought they might be more reasonable because she came forward voluntarily and she’s a hero for what she did out here.”

Max scratched his jowls. “That earned her a get-out-of-jail-free card with our office, but we were only looking at stuff like perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Not murder or manslaughter.”

Connor nodded. “Yeah, I see the difference. So does she. But a felony guilty plea, a year in jail, and a lifetime as an ex-con? There’s got to be another way.” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “A year is a long time though.”