The Capitol Game

by Brian Haig

  Eventually his oldest son was located, in Pennington, New Jersey, where he lived with his wife and three children. Yep, Dad’s been gone for months, he confirmed—right after the company was sold, he and Mom flew south, leased a nice yacht with a small crew, and vowed not to set foot back on American soil until they walked every lovely beach on every neglected island in the Caribbean Sea. Last time they called, they were in Saint Martin, inching their way south toward Trinidad and Tobago. Dad was fine, Mom slightly sunburned but having a blast; his father hinted that this was likely his last call for a long while.

  Oh, yes, he could definitely see how his father’s long jaunt seemed a little peculiar, Perry’s son offered, very agreeably. Then again, Dad had the company he spent forty-five years building stolen under his feet by some big greedy corporation in D.C. If he wanted to vanish for a while, to put it all behind him, who could blame him? Plus, after forty-five years of unrelenting work and crushing responsibilities, why not steal away for a prolonged, sun-soaked hiatus where the most pressing issue was which rum to try next?

  Do you happen to know the name of the boat? the head of DCIS asked with a grave edge. Nope, they never mentioned it. Where did they rent the boat from? You know what, they never mentioned that either.

  As they spoke, the son silently congratulated his father on whatever it was he had pulled off. Three Pentagon bigwigs were on the phone line, peppering him with questions. Perry’s son wasn’t naïve. Their voices crackled with apprehension and accusation.

  A scam of some sort, and whatever it was, it had to be huge.

  Run, Dad, run, he thought to himself.

  The call came at the worst possible moment. After two prolonged days of nearly constant drinking and occasional golf under the baking Bermudan sun, Mitch Walters’s back was killing him. He had valiantly teed off that morning, but after the fourth hole he gave up and limped off the course, kneading his lumbar, heading straight to the hotel’s massage parlor. A large black masseuse with fingers like power drills was just working his way down the lower vertebrae. Two other CEO types were getting the kinks worked out on nearby tables. To his right was Paul Merrill, the thirty-two-year-old, hyper-brilliant founder of a software firm, now on the Forbes list as one of America’s ten richest men. On his left, Carl Jorgenson, a hedge fund guru, also worth billions, just not as many as Merrill, was groaning quietly.

  Briefly wondering who might be calling, he positioned the phone to his left ear and grunted, “Mitch Walters” into the receiver.

  “This is Thomas Windal.” Very abrupt—no hello, no warm greetings.

  It took a moment before Walters registered that this was the Pentagon’s undersecretary of procurement. “Uh, hi, Tom. How’s everything up there?”

  “Bad. Awful, Mr. Walters. This call represents your official notification.”

  Mr. Walters, not Mitch, he noted.

  Walters slapped away the hand of the masseuse and sat up. “About what?”

  “As of this moment, the polymer contract is suspended. We now enter a thirty-day period. That’s how much time you have to show that the polymer is effective or the suspension becomes permanent.”

  Windal’s tone was flat, distant, cold, and officious. In part this was because he was getting his distance from what looked like an impending disaster, and from its author. In larger part, the head of the DCIS and two stone-faced senior agents were standing three feet from Windal’s desk, ensuring the legal niceties were strictly adhered to.

  Walters felt like somebody had just driven a nine-iron into his groin. “Jesus, Tom, what’s this about?” he roared into the phone.

  “A courier will drop off the official notification before close of business, Mr. Walters. The details will be noted in the notification. We’ll talk through our lawyers from now on,” Windal coldly announced before he hung up.

  Walters’s chubby legs now were swinging off the side of the massage table. His mouth hung open; he couldn’t seem to close it. He couldn’t seem to put down the cell phone either. The sound of twenty billion dollars slipping away left him too lightheaded to do anything but gawk. Half a minute later, it was still parked at his ear as if Windal was chatting away on the other end.

  For some reason, the only thing he could think about was the lobster bisque he had eaten for lunch. Two oversize bowls of the stuff, delicious going down, now threatening to be harsh and bitter on the way back up.

  Merrill and Jorgenson were peeking at him with knowing smiles. Nothing so amuses the rich and successful than the sight of a fellow titan crashing and burning. Walters thought about cursing them, or maybe slapping the infuriating smirks off their smug faces. Instead he tried to manufacture a look of deep contentment as he mumbled into the phone, “Yes, yes, and of course, thanks. For a ten billion contract we’ll try our best to please.”

  The other two weren’t fooled. They chuckled and shared snickers across the room. As a matter of form, Walters was always invited to these events. That didn’t mean they had to like him.

  He jumped off the table and scampered to the bathroom. It turned out he was right—the lobster bisque tasted hideous second time around.

  He skipped the shower and, still wearing his sweaty golf clothes, bolted for the airport, hopped on the big corporate jet, and raced back to D.C.

  Martie O’Neal treated it like an all-out crisis. By Thursday morning he had managed to produce a fairly reasonable sketch of the source of all this trouble: Mia Jenson.

  Single, born and bred in Chicago, youngest child, one older sister, three older brothers, father an insurance salesman, mother a stay-at-home type. The Jenson kids all went to college, but Mia was the undisputed star. She excelled at Dickinson but really blossomed at Harvard Law, where the accolades piled up. Nothing in her background or childhood raised any red flags.

  But also, nothing yet explained, or so much as hinted at, why she had dumped such a promising, lucrative career for a miserly paycheck in law enforcement. O’Neal’s snooping instincts were screaming that this was an important mystery that needed to be answered. Perhaps the most important question.

  She lived in a small yet elegant house in D.C., across the busy road from American University in a decent neighborhood of older, modest homes. She had paid cash. No mortgage, no debts at all; just a charge card balance she diligently disposed of at the end of every month. Total savings in the neighborhood of $700K, no doubt the result of her lucrative years in a private firm. She lived prudently and dressed frugally. With her looks, she could wear rags and stop traffic. No expensive habits, good or bad.

  Given her lifestyle, and that she had willingly dumped a $400K salary, with a virtual guarantee of doubling that in a few short years, for a paltry $36K a year, Martie doubted she could be bought off for any price.

  He decided to call an old chum in his former office in the FBI background unit and eventually was put through to the agent who had performed Mia’s check for a secret clearance. A welcome shortcut, but the agent’s best efforts proved wretchedly disappointing.

  He turned up nothing of any particular interest. She dated occasionally, but nothing serious—not now, not ever. Apparently her beauty, brains, and self-confidence scared off a lot of men. A moderate drinker, there was no evidence of drugs or other nasty addictions. She liked to jog. She was Catholic, though not overly devout. She had plenty of friends, nearly all of whom had swell things to say about her. The striking exception was a classmate from law school, a male, who claimed she was a rabid lesbian feminist, an antisocial, sexually frustrated dyke. The evidence suggested otherwise and that claim was discounted. A bruised and frustrated suitor, most likely.

  O’Neal was browsing his notes as he recounted these unhopeful facts to Bellweather and Walters. He had collected a lot more information but sifted out the useless clutter. Who cared what brand of shoe she preferred, or the name of her childhood dog? The two men across from him were grim and tense, and their mood was impatient. It was only six in the morning, still dark outside. Aside fr
om the guards trolling the hallways, they were the only ones in the building. Walters had called him at midnight and insisted he rush in with whatever he had. “So you have nothing we can use against her?” Walters prodded the second he wrapped up, looking like he just got hit by a bus.

  “No. Not really. But this is just preliminary. A little more time, I’ll find something. Always do.”

  He didn’t feel it necessary to remind them that he had finally nailed their boy Jack. Not that they had congratulated or even thanked him. Then again, in Wiley’s case, a little more time had meant four long months with millions in billings.

  “We don’t have more time,” Bellweather snapped. He rubbed his eyes and slid back his chair.

  He and Walters looked exhausted. Both were unshowered and unshaven, wearing yesterday’s wrinkled clothes—in Walters’s case a golf shirt that showed off his overhanging gut and shorts that displayed his sunburned, hairy legs. Neither man had slept the night before, O’Neal concluded. Walters had developed a nervous twitch that made his left eye flutter. Bellweather seemed cooler and somewhat more collected, but the competition was light.

  “Look, you warned me to be careful,” O’Neal complained. “That limits my options.”

  “All right, what’s next?” Bellweather asked.

  “Haven’t gone into her home yet. Who knows what could turn up there, or what nasty surprise we could leave. We could try to infiltrate her family. They always know more dirt than anybody.”

  “Can you get into her office?” asked Walters, looking hopeful for the first time.

  “It’s a secure facility,” O’Neal replied, wincing as if to underscore how tough it would be. “But yeah, probably. It’ll take a little creativity, though. You want to see how much she’s got on you, right?”

  “That would be nice,” Bellweather observed. A wicked smile broke out, his first of the morning.

  “But if that doesn’t work,” Walters snapped, playing the tough guy and pounding a hand on his desk, “it’s time to consider other measures. Something more extreme.”

  “Extreme” was a vague and interesting word. It could mean blackmail, extortion, or perhaps something considerably more drastic.

  O’Neal did not warm to this idea, nor did he ask for clarification. He was more than willing to bend and break a few laws for these people—or, more accurately, their money. No way, though, was he going to snap legs or waste anybody on their behalf. It was a stupid, desperate suggestion anyway.

  After a respectful moment meant to suggest he was being thoughtful about it, O’Neal said, “Forget it, Mitch. Christsakes, she’s a federal agent.”

  “So what?” Mitch was suddenly enjoying the thought of her dead.

  “Settle down and think. Maybe a week ago you coulda tried something like that. Not now. Not after she popped this bomb on you. Something happens to her now, if she slips and falls on ice, Feds will be crawling up your ass.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up, Mitch,” Bellweather snapped with a mean scowl. He turned back to O’Neal. “What about Wiley?”

  “What about him? I’m not sure what you want me to do at this point. We’re keeping this guy Wallerman on ice, for now.”

  “Where?”

  “Holed up in a luxury suite at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Room’s four grand a day, he’s ordering takeout from Atelier’s and Alain Ducasse’s, insists on going to a Broadway play every night. He’s got us by the balls and knows it. He’s costing you boys a bundle. He’s two million in the bag on us already, and now he’s making noise about more. A lot more.”

  Bellweather and Walters exchanged looks.

  “What does that mean?” Bellweather asked.

  “Says he’s already accomplished everything we asked. We already got all the help two million will buy.”

  “How much is he asking?” Walters asked.

  “An additional five.”

  “Five what?”

  “What do you think? Five million, or he swears he’s through.”

  “Greedy bastard.”

  “Thing is, at these prices you should make a decision about Wiley fast. I know you fellas can afford it, but he’s getting expensive.”

  “Well, it’s touchy at this point,” Bellweather moaned, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “Consider the possibility that Wiley conned us. Somebody did, and there are only two candidates. Wiley or Arvan.”

  “Or maybe both,” Walters commented.

  “Yeah, but Wiley’s done something like this before,” O’Neal argued, and the insinuation was clear. “Once that we know of.”

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air a moment. They had reached the real purpose of the meeting. Everything was coming unglued so fast: first, Mia’s terrifying hint to Jack about that incriminating picture with Earl Belzer; then that horrible bitch getting their precious polymer stopped in its tracks; now the disastrous news that the report that had drawn them to the polymer in the first place was a hangman’s noose.

  The jackhammers just kept striking. What was next?

  It was all happening so fast. They needed to get in front of this thing, get control. This was no time to lash out blindly; neither could they afford to sit tight and do nothing.

  “I called Phil last night,” Bellweather said softly. “We played with the possibilities until four this morning. Somebody’s taking us on a ride.”

  “Where’s Arvan?” Walters asked. He’d given some thought to this as well, and had formed his own suspicions about who might be behind this catastrophe.

  “Nobody knows. The Pentagon tried for hours to locate him. He’s disappeared, been gone for months. He took our money and fled to Central America.” When nobody responded to that revelation, he suggested, “He might’ve done this alone, or at the least he was Wiley’s accomplice.”

  “Wiley’s not our boy,” Walters countered, hefting a paperweight in his hand and looking quite sure of himself.

  “I suppose you have a reason for that blind opinion.”

  “Sure, plenty of them. Because Wiley owns a quarter of the polymer. Because he thinks he’ll make billions on this deal. So why feed us a poisoned chalice? Why flush a fortune down the toilet? Doesn’t make sense. Also, he’s still in plain sight, right where we can reach out and touch him.”

  “Maybe he’s not as smart as we thought,” O’Neal offered.

  “Or he’s smarter than we thought,” Bellweather snarled, still under the influence of his long, rambling discussion with Jackson the night before. The lawyer never liked Wiley; he certainly never trusted him. Perhaps it was an emotional bias, but he was strongly inclined to believe Wiley was the driving force behind this fiasco. Bellweather badly wished Jackson were here in the room with them now, applying his aloof logic to the situation.

  Unfortunately, at a well-attended press conference the night before, the crooked senator Jackson was representing had made a crass stab at pinning the rap on his dead wife. The attempt bombed badly. The senator’s teenage children became incensed at all the mean things he said about their mom and hastily rushed out to the parking lot where they convened a fascinating press conference of their own.

  The kids confessed they were lurking in a dark corner of the basement, pushing a little coke up their noses, when Dad came bounding down the stairs happily hauling a big sack. Peeking around a bunch of old boxes, they watched their old man pack the dough in the freezer. Took him twenty minutes to cram it all in.

  Jackson was with the senator now, at the federal court where he was being arraigned. Jackson had shifted his strategy; now the senator was being framed by his own kids, a bunch of selfish, rotten, ungrateful thugs who got the money pushing drugs to rich classmates at their elite private school. The senator was probably a lost cause, but Phil Jackson never left a client in a lurch, especially when it was such a public spectacle and Jackson could preen and glower in front of the cameras. It was good for business.

  “Let’s bring Wiley down for a talk,” Bellweather sug
gested. “Send up the jet. We’ll get this straightened out this afternoon.”

  “Good idea,” O’Neal said, having nothing better to offer. “He has no idea you’re behind Wallerman. It’ll be a big, nasty surprise,” he said, only wishing he could be there for the show.

  “Any chance you can locate Perry Arvan?” Walters asked, directing a look at O’Neal. He still had his doubts about Wiley. Perhaps it was stupid pride, but he just couldn’t believe Jack had outsmarted him.

  “I doubt it. I got no people in the Caribbean. I could hire some locals, but nobody I trust. Besides he could be hiding on a boat in the middle of a grove on some out-of-the-way island. Or he might be on the other side of the world. We got only what his kid said. The kid might be wrong, or he might be covering for his old man. Let the Pentagon look for him. They have a much higher chance.”

  Walters nodded. Made sense.

  For now they would concentrate on the bird in hand, Jack Wiley.

  24

  It turned out Jack had left his car in D.C. after his last visit. Some sort of vacuum lock developed in his brakes, he left the car at a repair shop, and took the train and taxi home. The car now sat in the CG parking lot, fit and ready to roll, but clearly some other means of transportation needed to be devised.

  So Bill Feist was sent up with the smaller jet to fetch Jack. No need to pretend to be pleasant this time, and it was a point of pride with Feist to suck up only when he had to. From the opening moment, he was cold and distant. Jack came along willingly. He kept to himself. He folded his long frame in the seat and read a trashy paperback novel on the way down.

  Feist sipped gin by himself and stared out the window at the ground whizzing by below.

  An hour later, they landed at Reagan National and glided up to the private terminal. Thirty minutes after that, following a fast sprint in a corporate limo through D.C. traffic, they were standing outside the CG conference room.