The Capitol Game

by Brian Haig

  “Depends,” said Bellweather.

  “On what, Daniel?”

  “The buy-in’s five hundred million.”

  “What a coincidence. All your up-front and production costs.”

  “Yes, and that’s not the least bit unreasonable. All the risks were up-front. It’s in the bag now.”

  “And suppose we are interested—I’m not saying we are—what’s our percentage?”

  Bellweather paused for a moment. “Well, we’re structuring it differently this time, Ali. It’s unique. We’re not offering a stake in equity.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This is a high-profile project. It’s likely to generate a lot of attention. Having foreigners out front might create a bit of a problem. The money will be carried on the books as dummy accounts. It has to be invisible.”

  Left unsaid though certainly understood was that the Saudis could not funnel money to Sunni insurgents in Iraq with one hand and be seen reaping financial benefits from the American war effort with the other. They couldn’t simultaneously fund bombers and their bombs, and reap profits from protecting against those explosives—at least not publicly.

  “So what do we get?” Ali asked, glossing over the obvious conflict of interest.

  “A guaranteed return, and that’s more than enough,” Bellweather insisted. “Double your money in one year, with no risks. Think of it like a short-term loan with a spectacular return. It’ll make your father very happy, Ali. Five hundred million into one billion, almost overnight.”

  “I don’t like it.” Ali threw down the hookah pipe and drew back into a sullen slump. “Ownership is important to us. You know this, Daniel. A piece of the pie, something long-term.”

  “Too bad for you,” Bellweather snarled. He pushed off his hands and started to get up. “You’re about to make our Taiwanese friends very happy. They want in, and they’re not placing any stupid, picky conditions.”

  “Wait.”

  Bellweather collapsed back on his ass. No effort, this time, to contort himself into a sitting pretzel. His left knee was killing him.

  Ali sat for a moment puffing away, contemplating the deal. After a moment he suggested, “It would only be possible if a Saudi was present as adviser. Five hundred million is a great deal of money, Daniel.” He shared a quiet look with Bellweather his watchdog wasn’t meant to catch.

  A moment passed before Bellweather figured out the nature of this odd request. “You know what?” he said. “That would be helpful. But it would have to be someone seasoned, someone Washington-savvy.”

  Ali’s face wrinkled with disappointment. He sighed as though a terrible burden was being placed on his shoulders. “And I suppose this adviser would be forced to spend a great deal of time here, in Washington?”

  “I’m afraid that’s absolutely necessary.”

  “It would require constant trips back and forth.”

  “Nearly continuous,” Bellweather said, scowling. “And long stays.”

  “He would need an apartment,” Ali announced.

  In addition to providing the imam watchdog for company, Ali’s father was keeping an iron fist on his wallet. Sin, particularly in America, was expensive.

  “Perhaps he would agree to use our luxury condominium. Large and sumptuous, three bedrooms, an indoor sauna, great view of the Potomac.”

  “Your hospitality is overwhelming.”

  “We’ll do our best to make his stays as comfortable as possible.”

  Ali tried his best to hide the boisterous smile as they shook.

  17

  On December 2 the House of Representatives met to vote on HR 3708, a discretionary appropriations bill to authorize two years of payments for CG’s amazing polymer. It had been sent to Congress off-cycle, which was not unusual in the crush of war. The originating request had come out of the Pentagon. It was a short, direct plea for a fast-track, noncompetitive authorization, another common feature of a chaotic war. The needs and safety of the troops did not adhere to inconvenient schedules.

  The floor debate was brief and uneventful. A few lonely voices tried to raise a squawk, but the tally was decisive: 415 in favor, 20 against.

  The measure had popped out of the House Armed Services Committee only a few days before, and after Earl rubbed a few elbows in the Speaker’s office, it sped to the larger body for a floor vote.

  Representative Drew Teller of Michigan, reeling under intense pressure from General Techtonics, made a spirited attempt at opposition. The committee vote to push back the GT 400 had caught him completely flat-footed, and put him miserably behind in the race to capture all those Pentagon dollars. Obviously it had been an ambush. And just as obviously, it was a creation orchestrated and skillfully executed by Earl Belzer. In the days afterward, the executives of General Techtonics and representatives from the many loudmouthed lobbying firms in its employ flooded Teller’s office with calls and visits to get to the bottom of this.

  Money and favors were leaking out of Earl’s office like lava from a volcano, their sources informed them. Big money. The kind of dough that could only mean big corporate backing, but by who? Where was Earl getting the juice from? And why?

  The answers to those questions became crystal clear when the legislation authorizing the Capitol Group’s polymer sprinted through Earl’s committee, got greased on a fast track through the Speaker’s office, and in almost record time ended up on the floor for a full vote.

  It was a classic rush job: notice of the House vote came with less than twenty-four hours’ warning. Poor Teller did his best to rally the troops. He called in every favor. He made more promises than he could begin to meet. He called and begged and cried to everyone in reach trying to muster opposition. It was Drew’s finest hour. He worked tirelessly throughout the night, working the phones, leaving no stone unturned, fighting this measure like an all-out war. The result was as pathetic as it was predictable.

  Drew was no competition for Earl Belzer. He could not begin to match Earl in tenure or legislative acumen; nor, try as he might, in sleaziness. He was a pretty-boy second-termer from a small, insignificant Michigan district that was choking to death on closed factories. His lone claim to fame was his marriage to the daughter of a former governor, a rather homely girl with few prospects. In return for taking the ugly cow off his hands, the governor fixed his election.

  On his own, in fact, Teller was only able to collect serious commitments for a paltry two votes against. One was a scoundrel facing a certain indictment for graft, who wanted to go out with his middle finger waving in the air. The other was a boisterous, ponytailed radical from San Francisco who, as a matter of firm liberal principle, opposed any defense spending.

  Aside from this pair of notorious oddballs, nobody wanted to be seen voting against a measure to protect the troops, much less one that had been the object of so much favorable press in recent days.

  Earl, in a particularly nasty tactic, arranged for the vote to occur at midday, then persuaded his friends in C-SPAN to air it repetitively into the night. He bused in a small army of military wives and parents. They arrived at dawn and stood on the steps of the Capitol building, handing out a slick brochure filled with before-and-after shots of soldiers wounded and killed by IEDs and terrorists’ bombs. The brochure was bluntly titled Let’s See Who Cares About the Troops, and closed with a dire warning that America was watching.

  At the last moment, though, Earl had second thoughts. A total shellacking might raise suspicions of a fix, so he ordered seventeen of his friends to vote against. Not an impressive amount of opposition, but a respectable showing. All were either in safe districts or doomed to certain defeat in the upcoming election. Their votes were meaningless and harmless.

  Afterward, Teller sent him a short note of thanks for absolving him from a total humiliation.

  That same afternoon, members of the House and Senate met in conference and compared bills, the usual procedure when considering a massive splurge of taxpayer money. The
meeting was cordial and went smoothly. Oddly enough, their committee bills regarding the polymer were almost identically worded, as if they’d been written by the same hand.

  By late evening, via a hasty voice vote, the authorization for two years of spending on the polymer was approved by both the House and the Senate.

  Jack was seated in Walters’s big office, along with Bellweather, Haggar, and a ragtag gaggle of the boys from the LBO section, waiting for the call to come. They had gathered together at five, after receiving the welcome news about the House vote. Now they were awaiting confirmation by both the House and Senate. Though the outcome was nearly certain at this point, the tension in the room was thick as grease. A few were smoking. The head of LBO couldn’t stop pacing from wall to wall. Bellweather repeatedly mumbled dire warnings about nothing being certain in love or politics; on both counts, he should know. Every five minutes, Walters speed-dialed somebody on the Hill and demanded an update.

  Jack leaned against a wall, arms crossed, and said little. Though he had brought them this breakthrough product, he was obviously an outsider, and even more obviously, he was now seen as the guest who had stayed at the party long past his welcome.

  The call didn’t come until seven. Though Jack couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, he was sure it was Earl himself calling to take credit.

  Walters held the receiver to his ear. Very gradually, acquiring velocity with each word he heard, he broke into a huge grin. “Uh, okay,” he muttered. Another pause, then, “Listen, we can’t thank you enough.”

  Another brief pause to listen, then, “No, that doesn’t mean we intend to offer you a bonus.”

  He closed his eyes and, without looking, hung up. A table was positioned in the corner of his office. Six ice buckets sat there holding enough chilled bottles of Dom Perignon to inebriate a herd of horses. All eyes were on his face.

  Finally, ever so slowly, the eyes cracked open and Walters whispered, “Break out the champagne.”

  The loud cheer was followed by a mad dash to the corner table. The sound of corks being popped occupied the next thirty seconds. After fifteen minutes of loudly toasting and congratulating one another, the meeting began to break up. The LBO boys needed to rush back downstairs. Time to get back to their unending hunt for more targets, more takeovers, more ways to increase the ballooning wealth of the behemoth known as the Capitol Group.

  Jack and Bellweather ended up alone with Walters. Mitch had his feet up on the desk, guzzling champagne straight from the bottle, like it came out of a firehose. His shirtfront was drenched, he was gulping it down so fast. Walters pulled the bottle away from his lips just long enough to ask Bellweather, “Ever seen a deal come together so beautifully?”

  “Never, not once. From concept to legislation in two months. I’m sure it’s a record. How much did Earl say they authorized?” he asked.

  “You’re gonna love this.”

  “Spill it.”

  “We asked for sixteen billion spread over two years.”

  “I know. I did the asking.”

  “On his own, Earl added another four billion.”

  “Twenty billion,” Bellweather said, almost unable to believe it himself. Twenty! CG had produced some sweet deals in its run, but nothing remotely comparable to this.

  Jack was still sipping from his first glass of bubbly and he broke up their mutual congratulations, saying in a tone of clear admiration, “I have to admit I never imagined this could happen so fast.”

  “You came to the right place,” Walters boasted. “Didn’t we tell you that at the beginning?”

  “I never doubted you for a minute. I just thought…” Jack shrugged and let that thought trail off.

  Walters was uncorking another bottle with his big hands. “You thought what?”

  “I thought there’d be more testing, for one thing.”

  “Already done.” The cork popped out and a big gusher flowed over the sides of the bottle into Walters’s lap. “Remember? You gave us the results.”

  “Yeah, but those were done by private contractors, not Defense people.”

  “So what?” Walters bent forward and splashed champagne into his goblet. Half of it spilled onto his desk. Between the victory and the bubbly he was giddy. “The tests were done in Iraq, in real-life, authentic conditions. We’re in a war and time is a definite consideration. The Pentagon chief of research, development, testing, and evaluation was also at that big demonstration we threw out at Belvoir. He saw the results firsthand.”

  “And that was enough?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “What about production and quality control reviews?”

  “What about ’em?”

  “Look, I’m no expert in defense contracting,” Jack said, almost apologetically. “I read some of the regulations, though. There are a lot of hoops, multiple stages, a regular maze. An evaluation stage, cost analysis, production control restraints, establishing oversight systems.”

  “We are experts in defense contracting, Jack.”

  “I know you are. I’m just asking how it works.”

  “They were willing to cut a few corners for us, okay? Why not? We’re a certified contractor with a long record. Besides, we’re leapfrogging this program on our contract for uparmoring Humvees. It’s a long-established program, already in country. The same crews and facilities will be used to apply the polymer.”

  “I want to be sure you’re not getting me into any trouble. Tell me you’re not.”

  Walters just stared back. After learning about Jack and the dirty games he had played at Primo, the decision had been made to cut him out of the loop as much as possible. For starters, they now had a few serious trust issues; Jack, after all, might be a killer, a swindler, and a blackmailer.

  For another, as soon as TFAC came back with the goods, Jack was history. The partnership contract was going into the trash. His ass was going to be out on the street.

  At this point, the less he knew, the better.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Walters snapped, as though Jack were an ingrate. They’d just turned him into a potential billionaire, after all, and here he was, yapping about the details. “Just be damned glad this happened so fast.”

  “I’m so happy I can barely express myself. But as your partner, I thought I had a right to know.” Jack leaned on his desk and looked him in the eye. “I am still your partner, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, sure.” Walters and Bellweather locked eyes in a way that Jack wasn’t meant to catch. “We always honor our contracts,” Bellweather said very solemnly.

  “Glad to hear it.” Jack put down his champagne flute and backed off.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Walters lied. “We’ll definitely take care of you,” he promised with a rubbery smile.

  Andrew Morgan had begun to feel he was chasing ghosts. He easily got his hands on a complete personnel roster for Primo Investments, circa 1998, the year Jack departed the firm for calmer waters.

  The CEO that year was one Terrence Kyle II, graduate of Yale and the highly esteemed Wharton School of Business. His CFO was Gordon Sullivan, Harvard undergrad, Harvard Business. They were the two who caught Jack, the same two who tried to enlist him in another scheme, and then, eventually, the two who cooked up the questionable deal to pay him a million bucks to go away.

  A quick search through Nexis revealed that Terrence and Gordon died in a tragic plane crash less than a year later. A little more digging revealed the circumstances.

  In December of that year, six months after they parted ways with Jack, they rented a small private jet and flew to a glitzy investors’ conference in Vail. After three days of mingling with their fellow financial pirates, of partying and boozing and hitting the slopes, they took off in a snowstorm and promptly flew into a mountainside. The jet was instantly obliterated. All aboard were lost. The bodies were atomized by the collision and/or the ensuing fire. The National Transportation Safety Board conducted the investigation.

&n
bsp; The private jet had been leased from a small firm that catered to the rich and famous. That firm had an excellent safety record. The pilot and copilot were both former military—both in good health, both had extensive flying careers, both had flawless records. The controllers in the tower testified that the storm had let up enough to allow a safe takeoff, and in their view weather wasn’t a factor. The cause of the crash was listed as pilot error, a conclusion based on nothing particularly definitive. It was the catchall phrase the NTSB often used when no specific cause could be found.

  Nothing strange about this. An aviation expert Morgan tracked down informed him that NTSB investigations involving private aircraft sometimes weren’t all that thorough or extensive. In a typical year, the NTSB investigated several hundred accidents. It was a small agency, overworked, bouncing from one disaster to another. Unless an accident involved a commercial airline, a high-profile celebrity death, an excessive death toll, or there was cause for unusual suspicion, the investigators tended not to probe too deeply.

  But factored in with Charles’s tale about Edith Warbinger, Morgan couldn’t avoid feeling that the timely deaths of Kyle and Sullivan were terribly convenient for Jack. A mysterious airplane crash that wiped out the two men who knew the most about Jack and Edith—was it too convenient?

  When further research revealed that three board members from those years also were dead, under interesting circumstances, Morgan had a strong sense he was on to something. Were they all part of a cabal to get Edith’s money? He had to consider the possibility that Jack might have been clearing up the loose ends, eliminating any witnesses he left behind. If he could kill an old lady in cold blood, after all, what was the harm in killing a few more? Jack might be much naughtier than they thought.