The Enemy Inside

FIFTY-ONE

I am guessing that he has kept this secret, the fact that he is dying, to himself for so long that when he is finally able to share it with someone, the dam cracks, and he can’t stop talking.

He tells me that his doctor diagnosed cancer in his pancreas just before sentencing, a short time before he arrived here. There was little they could do to treat it because it had already spread. They told him he had perhaps twelve to eighteen months. He is past that now. Betz has been living in hell. He couldn’t tell authorities for fear that they would make his dying days even more miserable trying to extract the information from him, find out where the banking records were. He refused to give it up because he was bitter and angry. Perhaps that’s the only thing keeping him alive.

“They cheated me out of the money,” he says. “And now they’re getting desperate. I wanted it for my daughter.”

“What money? I don’t understand.”

“The Whistleblower Fund,” he says. “I die in here, my daughter will never see a dime. It’s what the lawyer offered me when she told me you were coming. But they’re lying. I know they are. The minute they get what they want, they’ll leave me here to rot.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“A hundred and ten million dollars. They owe it to me.”

As he says it I nearly fall off the bench.

“You’re telling me that’s what she offered you?”

He nods. “I turned state’s evidence against the Swiss bank I used to work for. The information I gave them resulted in almost five thousand offshore numbered accounts being identified. It’s why they put me in here. They knew if they put me anywhere else where I couldn’t be protected, I’d be labeled as a snitch. I’d be dead in twenty-four hours. The taxes and penalties on the hidden accounts were substantial.”

The Internal Revenue Service pays a reward for information based on a percentage of what they recover in revenue. This is embedded in federal law.

“But that’s only part of it,” says Betz. “The bulk of it is owing from the fines against the bank itself. The bank agreed to pay more than eight hundred million dollars in fines to the US Treasury in order to keep their executives out of prison on charges they conspired with the taxpayers to commit tax evasion. They owe me ten percent of what they recovered.”

By the time he finishes my head is swimming-eighty million dollars from the bank alone.

“It’s not the money. They don’t care about the money. What they want are the records. If I hadn’t told them about the PEPs, the politicians, they would have never charged me. It was my mistake,” says Betz. “I thought they would be pleased. But they weren’t. It was right after that someone tried to kill me. I realized then I had to do something to protect myself. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is my daughter. With her mother dead she’ll be alone.”

“What happened to her mother?”

He looks at me as if he’s surprised I should ask the question. “You told me she was murdered.”

“You mean Serna?”

“Olinda was her mother,” he says.

I sit there with my jaw on the bench. The circle is now complete.

“No one knew,” he says. “She told no one at the firm. She had the child before she went to work there. Years ago. But I figured you knew, since you knew everything else.”

“How old is she?”

“Fourteen,” he says. “And beautiful. She sure was the last time I saw her.”

“Where is she now?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he says. “If they found out where she was and they got to her. .”

“I understand. You don’t have to say another word.”

“Tell them I will turn everything over to them if they pay the money,” says Betz. “If they release me now, immediately,” he continues. “I just want to have some time to be with my daughter. I’ll have to take my chances.”

“No!” I think for a moment. “I don’t think you’ll have to do that.”

“Why? What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t tell anyone else about your condition. If they find out you’re sick you’ll never get out of here.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t tell anyone else what we talked about. Is that clear?”

“Who the hell would I talk to in here?” he says.

“Don’t even talk in your sleep. This is what we’re going to do. . ”

By the time I laid the small noise generator back down on the table in the conference room, the two government lawyers were already sitting across the table. They were waiting anxiously to hear what I had to say.

Grimes had made a fundamental mistake bringing me into the case. The problem for her was that I already knew too much. I knew that Betz was holding a hammer over their heads, and I knew its size and weight as well as the damage it would inflict if he dropped it. I didn’t need to know where he was hiding it to be able to use its leverage. All that was required was the government’s ignorance as to what Betz and I had discussed, the fact that I actually had no access to Thor’s hammer. If the little white noise maker has worked, they won’t know this.

Parish advises me that Dan Wells has decided to wait for me out in front in the reception area. He probably got tired of being slapped around by her.

“I understand you talked with my client before I had an opportunity to confer with him,” I tell her.

She leans forward, begins to open her mouth.

“But we’ll let that slide for the moment. The issue here is very clear. It appears that the government has overcharged Mr. Betz on successive criminal counts. .”

“He was convicted by a jury,” she says.

“On charges that would never have been brought by your department against a cooperating witness turning state’s evidence in thousands of cases involving tax evasion, including evidence against his own employer, a foreign bank from which you extracted more than eight hundred million dollars in fines.”

“The fact remains he was convicted.”

“And why didn’t you extend to him the courtesy, the consideration you would have extended to any other cooperating witness in a similar case? I’ll tell you why. .”

“Because he refused to fully cooperate,” she says. “He has records. .”

“I know what he has. And he offered them to you. But when you found out what they were, the political dynamite that was in them, you weren’t interested.”

“You mean he told you what was in them?” Parish has just told me what I needed to know. White noise still works.

“And I’ll tell you why you weren’t interested. Because you intended to bury them. When someone tried to kill him, Betz was forced to take precautions. He hid them.”

“Do you know where they are?” she says.

“Why don’t you just go and shoot him,” I tell her. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, because if you do, your world will come crashing down around your ears. You couldn’t be sure whether the man who was trying to cooperate with you might have another copy, or whether after you buried the case, Mr. Betz would keep his mouth shut. So in order to coerce him you drummed up a case and tossed him in here.”

“How many times do I have to say it? He was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

“Say it as many times as you like,” I tell her, “it doesn’t change the facts of what you did.”

“We offered him a fair deal,” she says.

“Did you? Did you really?”

“Didn’t he tell you? His freedom, immediately,” she says, “plus one hundred and ten million dollars. All he has to do is tell us where those records are and sign a confidentiality agreement. As soon as we’ve secured them he can walk out of here a free man. If you want, you can wait and take him with you.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re offering him ten percent of the revenues recovered in this case, a case you would not have made without the evidence that he supplied.”

“That’s correct. And it’s a lot of money,” she says.

“The fact is, it’s light. Perhaps you’d like to get the code and the regulations out and check it. Anything over two million dollars in revenue recovered is entitled to a whistleblower’s award of between fifteen and thirty percent of the revenues recovered. I know because I had a case earlier this year. What was the total amount recovered here?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’d have to check.” She looks at Yasuda, who is sitting next to her. He shrugs a shoulder. “We’d have to look,” he says. “But I’m sure that if a mistake has been made, we’ll be happy to correct it.”

“Maybe someone can find a way to give him the two years of his life back while you’re at it. Tell you what, we’ll come back to that later, after our accountants have had a chance to sharpen their pencils. Let’s get to the nub. After talking to Mr. Betz, this is what we’ve decided to do. Copies of the bank records. Those from Gruber Bank, S.A., in Lucerne. I think that’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” says Parish.

“Copies will be prepared. A copy will be delivered overnight to your offices in Washington, at the same time that we dispatch copies to the wire services, the networks, the cable stations, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal. .”

“You can’t do that,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Those are confidential tax records.”

“No, they’re not. They’re records of a foreign bank. In fact, they’re not even that. They’re personal accountings made by Mr. Betz in the ordinary course of his employment. But I’m sure when people start checking, they’ll find out pretty fast that the account numbers and the names on those accounts-some pretty prominent people, I might add-match up very neatly with the amounts on deposit at Gruber Bank. Some of them are whoppers,” I tell her.

“You’re bluffing,” she says. “You don’t have anything.”

“Want to try me?”

Yasuda puts his hand out and lays it on her forearm. “Hannah.”

She looks at him, retracts her fangs, and settles back into her chair.

“What is it exactly that you want, Mr. Madriani?” says Yasuda.

“First, I want my client released into my custody and I want it done before I leave here today. Apparently from what Hannah just said you’ve already cut the paperwork on this. Second, I will prepare the final written settlement agreement as regards the sum owing to Mr. Betz under the IRS Whistleblower Act. Your accountants can talk with our accountants as to the precise amount owed.”

“What about the records?” says Yasuda.

“What assurance do we have that your office will pursue them? Investigate and prosecute?” I ask.

“None,” he says. “That’s a matter of prosecutorial discretion.”

“In which case you already have my terms on that issue. We’re prepared to release them to you simultaneously with a release to the media.”

“That’s unacceptable,” says Yasuda.

“Fine. Then we can sort out the claim on the Whistleblower Fund by filing suit in the tax court. We will lodge an appeal in the Ninth Circuit regarding the manner in which you charged and thereafter incarcerated my client. I’m sure the court will be very interested in learning why you charged him in the manner you did, particularly given the evidence at trial regarding his extraordinary efforts of cooperation that you spurned. But before I do any of this, I will gather up the records of Mr. Betz, make a sufficient number of copies, and send them to every media outlet I can find.”

“That would be highly irresponsible,” says Yasuda. “Give us a moment.”

“Take all the time you need.”

He and Parish turn their backs and huddle at the table. I’m wondering if I should turn on the white noise for them.

Finally they turn around. “Let me lay it all on the table for you,” he says. “If we release Mr. Betz, what assurances can you give us that he’ll be safe? You know the risks.”

“I do.”

“Why don’t you let us put him in witness protection?” says Yasuda.

“Of course, the final decision on that belongs to Mr. Betz. But I suspect he’s had about enough protection from the federal government for the time being. If you’re asking if I can give a guarantee as to his safety, the answer’s no. But perhaps with a little assistance on your part we can afford him a reasonable amount of security until we can make other arrangements.”

It is not Betz’s security that is their primary concern. It is the security of the documents that they want.

“Good,” says Yasuda. “Then we’re agreed as to that issue. As for the money, we have no problems. We are more than willing to negotiate a corrected amount, consistent with the code and the regulations regarding the whistleblower award.

“It’s the last item that’s the problem,” says Yasuda. “What will you do with the records if we do nothing more here today?”

“We will hold them for the time being,” I tell him. “In point of fact, you’re aware, as I am, that as long as these remain hidden with the risk that they will be delivered to the media if anything happens to Mr. Betz, they provide some added measure of security.”

“Then can we agree to discuss this at a later date?”

“It’s fine by me, but I wouldn’t wait too long.”

“Good.” Yasuda looks at the supervisor sitting at the end of the table. “Please make the arrangements for Mr. Betz’s release immediately. Get him some street clothes and some cash, a generous amount. We will treat it as an advance on the award.” He looks at me. “You and I need to discuss security arrangements.”

Yasuda doesn’t know the half of it.