Vengeance

8 BUTNER, NORTH CAROLINA

It was midafternoon, under a clear blue sky, when a silver Mercedes-Benz SL Roadster, the top down, pulled into a visitor’s parking lot inside Federal Correctional Complex, Butner. Brenda Verbeck stepped from the vehicle, headed toward one of four prisons within the FCC — Butner Low, a low-security facility considered by many to be the crown jewel of the federal prison system, where white-collar criminals vied for placement.

After Brenda presented her ID to the Front Entrance Officer, who verified she was on the approved visitor list, she was escorted to the visiting room, where she sat at a table awaiting her brother’s arrival. Although Dan Snyder had been handed an extraordinarily harsh sentence as far as Brenda was concerned, he had hit the inmate lottery by being assigned to Butner’s low-security lockup. With a look and feel of a college campus instead of a prison, Butner Low was a popular request by nonviolent criminals such as Bernie Madoff, convicted for perpetrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

While she waited for her brother, she examined the Spartan room, filled only with several metal tables and chairs, plus a few snack and drink vending machines. Dan finally arrived, presenting an uncharacteristic image. Instead of a fifty-thousand-dollar bespoke Desmond Merrion suit, he wore institutional-issued clothing: khaki pants and shirt with matching black belt and boots. After a long hug, Brenda and her brother sat opposite each other at a table.

Their initial conversation covered the expected topics of how Dan was handling his incarceration and what his daily routine comprised: up at 6 a.m., followed by eight hours of work each day at various tasks that included groundskeeper, food service employee, and commissary worker. The revelation that Dan was actually paid for his work — fifty cents an hour — generated a shared laugh between Brenda and her billionaire brother.

The conversation eventually turned from personal to professional matters.

“How are you and the company doing?” Dan asked.

Following his conviction, Brenda had taken over as CEO of Snyder Industries.

“I’m getting the hang of things, and we’re doing well. Surprisingly, orders and profits are up. It seems the adage of There’s no such thing as bad publicity holds true.”

Dan smiled sadly and lowered his eyes to the table.

Brenda reached across and placed her hand on his.

“You didn’t deserve this. The president could have intervened, but he threw both of us under the bus. Now that he’s president, he no longer needs us. There’s no loyalty these days. It’s all about what can you do for me now?”

Dan nodded glumly, then looked back up. There must have been something in her eyes or tone of voice, because Dan picked up on it.

“What are you planning?”

She leaned toward him. “Revenge.”

“How so?”

“The man you contracted to ship the centrifuges to Iran — what’s your assessment? Competent or not?”

“Quite competent. That the centrifuges didn’t reach their destination wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

One of Dan’s communications with his Iranian contact had been intercepted by American electronic surveillance in the Persian Gulf, which had culminated in the U.S. Navy sinking the merchant ship carrying the centrifuges as it approached the Iranian port.

“Do you recall the contact information for this man?”

Dan nodded.

Brenda pulled a pen and notepad from her purse and pushed it across the table.

Her brother hesitated a moment, then scribbled the requested information.

After Brenda slipped the pen and pad back into her purse, she smiled.

“The president will pay for what he’s done to us.”