Final Target

CHAPTER 5

L et’s start with Edward Granger,” Assistant U.S. Attorney William Peterson said, beginning Stuart Matson’s afternoon session. “We’ll do Jack Burch next.”

Lyle Zink, the FBI agent seated to Peterson’s left, slid an enlargement of a driver’s license photograph toward Matson. It showed a white male, mid-sixties, brown eyes, long in the face, and self-possessed enough to smile at the Department of Motor Vehicles camera.

“Is that Granger?” Peterson asked Matson, who stared at the photo for a moment, then nodded.

Zink flipped it over and laid a pen on top.

“Sign the back,” Peterson said.

Matson glanced at his attorney, who gave him a slightly off-center nod. Matson signed. Zink then added his own name, the case number, and the date.

Peterson fixed his eyes on Matson. “Tell me about how you first got hooked up with Granger.”

Matson looked around the table and thought back to his first job after college. Burdened with student loans, he’d grabbed the first one that was offered, knowing that he wouldn’t stay long. I got thirty-plus years in the car business, the sales manager at the GM dealership told him the day he started. Trust me, kid, nobody likes buying from a victim. Be a man. At that moment, Matson grasped that he knew more by instinct than his boss had learned in a generation. Five minutes later, he weaseled an old guy into the driver’s seat of a new Cadillac he didn’t want, then slipped into the passenger seat, hung his head, and lied about his wife dying of leukemia. It was the first of three cars he sold that day.

Showtime.

“Looking back,” Matson said, “I guess you could say I was sort of a sitting duck.”

Matson paused, then leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table.

“You’ve got to understand what kind of a guy Ed Granger is. When he was with Westbrae Ventures in New York, he was huge. Huge. Then all of a sudden he shows up in California and comes walking into our country club. A member named Herb Wilson had invited him. They’d been in the Harvard MBA program together years ago. Herb’s wife tells my wife that the Wall Street Journal article about Granger retiring was just a puff piece. That he’d actually been forced out. Real hush, hush, and nobody at Westbrae was talking.

“I asked Herb to introduce me, and it was weird. Granger seemed to know who I was and even knew about a turnaround I’d done at Premier Switches.”

Matson noticed a smirk on Peterson’s face.

“Look, a turnaround is a turnaround whether you make a better product, or find a way to sue your competition into oblivion.” He thumped a forefinger on the table. “I chose Plan B and it worked.”

Hackett reached over and grabbed Matson’s forearm. “Take it easy, Scoob. Premier isn’t the issue.”

Matson took in a breath, then nodded.

“I knew from the moment that Granger shook my hand that he was on the prowl, and decided right then that I was going to wine him and dine him and three-putt and double-bogey thirty-six straight holes if that’s what it took to get his blessing. I’d spent twenty years waiting for a break, and I wasn’t going to miss this one.

“When I met him at the country club two days later, I came ready to pitch the hell out of SatTek, but he was already a step ahead of me.

“Granger was sitting at the bar when I walked in. We started with a little small talk. Golf handicaps, that kind of thing, until my drink arrived. Then he eased into the subject, casual-like, and told me that he’d done a little research on SatTek’s financials.

“I froze up. Panicked because he might’ve figured out that SatTek was just treading water. The Grangers of the world don’t invest in swimming holes. They want to ride the raging river. They’re chasing new technology, not the old, even if it’s the best in its market.

“I gave him the pitch anyway because that was all I had. I ran through the whole product line: everything from how our acoustic detectors can pick up a terrorist sneaking across the desert ten miles away, to how our video amplifiers can drop an air-to-ground missile into a coffee cup. I really pounded it. It was the best presentation I ever made.

“After I’m done, Granger smiled at me and gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder, and said, ‘You don’t need to sell me, I’m already sold.’

“I felt like an idiot. Granger is a guy with a reputation for knowing everything, and I just pointed at the sun and told him it was daylight.

“I got flustered. I think I even turned red. But he ignored it and said, ‘Have you thought about bypassing the venture capital route altogether, and taking SatTek public?’

“For a second, I thought maybe he got dumped from Westbrae for senility. What the hell do you think guys like me daydream about? I’ll tell you what. It’s standing on the podium at the New York Stock Exchange, ringing the bell, and then watching your share price explode through the roof.

“But I had no reason to think that would ever happen with SatTek and I admitted it. I told him that there was too much pink on our balance sheet and that the SEC would just laugh at us.

“Granger stared down at his bourbon for a while, took a sip, and then looked back at me and said, ‘I guess we’ll just have to wipe the smiles off their faces.’

“Man, what a rush. At the time, it felt like he was putting his arm around me, including me in something. But looking back now, I realize it was just him setting the hook.

“Then he swiveled his stool toward me. I remember his exact words:

“‘What you’ve got to understand, Scoob, is that success in business has very little to do with whether you’re in the red or in the black. It’s about how aggressive you’re willing to be.’ He paused and stared me right in the eyes, then he said, ‘You know what that means, right? Aggressive.’

“I really wasn’t sure what he meant, but I nodded anyway and asked him what he had in mind. But he didn’t tell me. Not right then, anyway. He just pointed at my chest and said, ‘Whatever it is, Scoob, don’t waste my time. You’re either going to be in or you’re going to be out.’

“The fact is, I was in even before I walked through the door.”