Puzzle by Nora Phoenix

6

Ryder didn’t know why, but Seth and Coulson intimidated him. Nice as they both were, they radiated a self-confidence he could only dream of and that he was envious of. They seemed to have it all: the career, the relationship, and both were insanely sexy. Hell, Ryder had been tongue-tied the first time he’d met them, especially with Seth. No man should be that good looking. Totally unfair to others. If they hadn’t been so genuinely kind and professional, it might’ve been easy to dislike them or even resent them, but seeing as they were, that was impossible.

Disliking Branson was much easier. He certainly qualified as hot too, as Ryder’s dick had made clear more than once, stirring when Branson was close. But compared to Seth and Coulson, Branson was annoying as fuck, which helped Ryder dissuade himself from getting too attracted.

“I wanted to update you all in person,” Corey said as they settled into a conference room in the FBI building. “I’ve discovered some things that Coulson felt should be held close to our chests for now because this could have wide repercussions.”

Coulson nodded. “The floor is yours.”

Ryder leaned forward, and to his right, Branson mirrored his move. What had Corey uncovered?

The forensic accountant took a deep breath as he linked his laptop to the screen on the wall. A spreadsheet popped up, and Ryder scanned it, his breath catching. Oh god. This was big indeed.

“Based on the information Henley Platt got from Bill Clampton, I did a thorough analysis of the finances of Governor Winkelmann’s presidential campaign when he ran against Markinson. As Clampton suspected, something fishy was going on. Not only were the donations significantly higher than in any campaign in history…”

He clicked, and the screen showed a graph, visualizing a comparison between Winkelmann’s campaign and previous high-budget campaigns. Winkelmann had raised a whopping 823 million dollars—well over 200 million dollars more than any other campaign and almost twice as much as Markinson’s 470 million.

Branson whistled between his teeth. “That’s a big difference.”

“It is…and yet he still lost,” Corey said.

“Ouch…” Branson grimaced.

“But take a look at this.” Corey showed a new graph. “This shows the percentage of types of donations, categorized as under 50 dollars, between 50 and 200 dollars, 200 to 1000, and above.”

Ryder had already interpreted the numbers and had to resist the urge to rub his hands. This was fucking gold. Over 400 million had been raised in donations under 200 dollars, making it almost fifty percent, which was insane compared to Markinson’s much more standard twenty percent. And of those 400 million, almost half had been raised in donations of under 50 dollars.

“400 million in small donations?” Seth asked. “With roughly 330 million people in the US, that means everyone over eighteen would’ve donated twice.”

Corey nodded. “Yes, which we all know isn’t likely. Now the problem with those donations under 50 dollars is that they can be reported to the Federal Election Committee, the FEC, without identifying the donors, providing they were done at campaign events. And that’s what Winkelmann’s campaign claimed, that they had raised this money at events. They supplied a list of events, and the keen observer will notice multiple events on the same day.”

“That can’t be uncommon,” Branson commented. “If they’re being organized by state or local organizers, they can coincide with events in other states.”

“Yes, but if an event held in Bangor, Maine, is reported on the same day and time as an event in Miami, Florida, and both claim that Governor Winkelmann attended, there’s an issue. That’s a flight of at least a few hours, so no way could he have attended both on the same evening. And that’s just one example of inconsistency. My team found many such issues, but also events that were reported but never took place, expenses for hotel rooms and town halls that were claimed but never spent, and more. The deeper we dug, the more irregularities we uncovered.”

“That money had to come from somewhere else if it wasn’t from actual donors, so the obvious question was who would have the motive to hide a massive donation to a political campaign,” Coulson said.

Kingmakers. Ryder was certain of it.

“In the six months before the elections, Kingmakers sold several properties at a loss, or so they claimed,” Corey said. “In reality, they got much more for these sales than they reported to the IRS. They also sold vehicles, guns, and other assets, took out loans, downsized, and let people go, and they cashed in on various IOUs. Both Basil King and Kurt Barrow took a substantial pay cut, as did several of their management-rank employees. I don’t have the complete picture yet, but so far, it adds up to almost 200 million dollars.”

200 million? That was a significant sum…but not even close to the 400 million they were looking for. “If normal small donations would have been around 80 million dollars and Kingmakers donated 200 million, where’s the other 120 million to get to 400 total?” Ryder asked.

“That’s the big question now,” Coulson said. “We’re almost certain that the fraud Kingmakers committed in their tax returns was to cover up massive donations to the Winkelmann campaign, but it’s not the whole amount. Someone else donated as well, and we need to find out who.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Branson said. “Someone also paid Hamza Bashir because regardless of who he is, he didn’t execute two attacks for free. Where did that money come from?”

Silence filled the room.

“Damn.” Coulson leaned forward in his chair. “You’re right. What’s the price tag for a presidential assassination?”

“I have no clue, but if it was done purely for the money, I don’t think it would’ve been less than ten million dollars. Times two, though I suspect the Pride Bombing had an even higher cost,” Branson said.

Ryder did the math. If Kingmakers had paid 20 million to Hamza Bashir, they were 140 million short for the presidential donations, not 120. Granted, 20 million might not seem like a lot when talking about such high numbers, but it was an amount large enough to make it hard to hide. So how had they done it?

“Where do we search for this money?” Seth said.

Ryder closed his eyes, letting the numbers run through his head. Few individuals were capable of coughing up large amounts like that, so it would have to be an organization or a company. A PAC or a super PAC? Those were checked by the Federal Election Committee, though, and with that much money, someone would have double-checked and investigated. No, it had to be a company. Or money from outside the US, like a rich extremist who backed Al Saalihin. Someone who knew Hamza Bashir, perhaps?

But if that were the case, how would they have gotten that much money into the country? Smaller sums were much easier, especially if one kept it well under the limit of ten thousand dollars—the rather arbitrary number where it had to be reported by banks and financial institutes—but transferring 140 million dollars in transactions that small? That would mean roughly 14,000 transactions. No way would that have gone unnoticed, not unless they’d been spread out over at least a hundred different accounts, which seemed unlikely.

No, part of that money had to have come from within the US. Which domestic company had the funds and the motive to contribute that much to a presidential campaign? They would’ve had to have had much to lose if Markinson won, which he did anyway. And most likely, they had a shared interest with Kingmakers.

Something tickled the back of his brain. He’d read an article a few years ago that had talked about some companies suffering big losses after Markinson had won the elections. Where had he seen it? He pinched his eyes shut, closing himself off from everything and everyone else. Kingmakers hadn’t been mentioned in that article, or he would’ve recognized the name when he’d first heard it. What other companies would have gotten into trouble when Markinson became president? Had he made any drastic economic changes? Plans that would affect certain types of companies…like Kingmakers?

Lightning hit. Oh, god. That was it. It had to be.

When he opened his eyes, everyone was looking at him. “Did I talk out loud?” he asked, confused for a second.

“You were mumbling, but we could all see your brain at work.” Branson sounded more intrigued than anything else.

“Give me one minute,” Ryder said, then turned to Corey. “Can I borrow your laptop?”

Within seconds, he typed in the website address for the Wall Street Journal archive. He knew exactly where to go, and he didn’t even care he was still linked to the big screen. He picked the month, January 2017, then scanned the list of articles that popped up. There.

He pulled it up. Military Contractors Report Staggering Losses. “In January 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that four military contractors that supply the US military reported big losses compared to previous years,” he said, unable to contain the excitement in his voice. “It stood out because their losses were not in line with the rest of the market.”

He opened a second window, then did a quick search on the four companies named in the article. “KADS, Technitron, Powers Aeronautics, and the Sytronics Group all reported losses that deviated sharply from the rest of the market…and all get over eighty percent of their revenue from their defense contracts.”

Coulson’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking it’s interesting that four companies who had most to lose from a new president who would scale back military spending reported a loss before said president was elected. Their losses cannot have been from Markinson’s new policies because he wasn’t elected yet until November of that year and not in office until months later. And the rest of the defense industry reported nothing even remotely similar. We need the financial records of these four companies because if my hunch is correct, their losses were reported to cover for illegal campaign contributions to Governor Winkelmann’s campaign.”

Coulson reeled back, his mouth dropping open. “Holy shit, that’s totally plausible. Do we subpoena these records? Or do we want to go for an indirect route and do an IRS audit again?”

Ryder hesitated. “From a financial point of view, a subpoena would be better because we could look at previous years, but I don’t know how it would play out for the investigation if they know something is going on.”

“They would know anyway,” Seth said. “I can’t imagine that if they were indeed in cahoots with Kingmakers, they wouldn’t inform them if they got audited by the IRS, at which point Kingmakers would know what was up as well.”

“Good point,” Coulson said. “Can you two find out anything without a subpoena? Because this alone isn’t enough evidence to get their financial records. We need the proverbial smoking gun.”

Ryder and Corey looked at each other. “We’ll get on that,” Corey said. “I’m sure that between the two of us, we can find the evidence we require to convince a judge.”

“If we go that route, may I suggest subpoenaing Kingmakers’ records as well?” Ryder said. “If they hear about the others, they might try to destroy evidence. We’d still get them, but it would cost us a lot more time and effort.”

“I agree,” Coulson said. “And I think it’s time we go full frontal in our attack. Let’s get as much evidence as possible so we can build an irrefutable case for a judge to get a subpoena. I want one for Kingmakers, for those four companies, for the personal records of both Basil King and Kurt Barrow, and for the presidential campaign of Governor Winkelmann. We’ll dig as deep as needed until we’ve uncovered it all. Let them know we’re onto them. They might start making mistakes when faced with prosecution…”