The Capitol Game

12

At nine the next morning, the assault began-an army of nosy, cold-eyed accountants, mouthy consultants, and human resources assassins descended on Arvan Chemicals. They scrambled out of four large buses and poured resolutely and quickly through the front door of the plant. All were hired locusts from an arsenal of northeastern consulting firms who would give the company a long-overdue scrubbing. In their gray and blue business suits, and by their calm but chilly demeanors, they were easy to distinguish from the workers wearing stained overalls and strained, anxious expressions.

The assault was well planned, a maneuver rehearsed and perfected countless times as the Capitol Group took over and “turned around” other companies. The consultants were all seasoned veterans. Once they hit the front door they spread out and crashed into every nook and cranny of the business, from the mixing vats to accounting, to the employee records room, to the musty shipping room, to the dreary mail room in the back.

They asked thousands of questions, scribbled notes on the clipboards, then barked more questions. They spoke one language, the workers another: the consultants peppered the workers with phrases like, What are you doing to create multiphase strategic alliances?… How are you enabling expanded, collaborative commerce?… Name the steps you are taking to create seamless, integrated, and streamlined business manners. In response, they got a chorus of shrugged shoulders, bit lips, nervous chuckles, and befuddled expressions. Work at the plant ground to a standstill.

By 9:15, the five chemists who had worked on the polymer were located and herded into the small conference room upstairs. They mustered around the long table, were sternly ordered to sit, and step two commenced.

A glowering executive from the Capitol Group stood at the head of the table and threatened to fire them on the spot unless they immediately signed thick nondisclosure agreements protecting CG’s intellectual property rights. The six men looked horrified. They exchanged back-and-forth looks of confusion; Arvan Chemicals had always operated on integrity. Perry had never thought to force or even mildly encourage them to sign a vow of silence. Trust had always been good enough.

The executive, a lawyer naturally, went on a bit about what their new employer would do to anybody who refused to sign-firing would be immediate, and loaded in his briefcase was an expandable folder filled with devastating lawsuits and injunctions he would file that very day. Fill in a name and fire away. As only a lawyer can do, he threatened, cajoled, and bullied until the last terrified man scrawled his signature.

By ten, all documents pertaining to the polymer were collected in a large safe and a guard was posted.

Also by ten, Perry had signed the contract, a forty-page document loaded with legalese, clauses and subclauses, conditions piled on top of conditions. In return for his hundred million, among many other things, he agreed to relinquish all proprietary ownership rights, to abide by a strict vow of silence, and to never set foot in the factory he had built and nurtured and groomed for over forty years. He vainly tried to insert a few clauses, mainly protections for his workforce, but CG’s negotiators crossed their arms, scowled, and stonewalled.

Perry had already consigned himself to surrender anyway. The negotiators had been through this a hundred times, the last-minute guilt of the conquered. But why, on the cusp of victory, allow him to burden them with troublesome conditions? Just sign the agreement, they flatly insisted, just get this over with, and eventually Perry caved completely.

At eleven, four burly guards with Capitol Group patches on their thick arms helped Perry out of his chair and escorted him downstairs, then across the factory floor and out the broad double doors, straight to his car. A large group of horrified workers tried to approach him, but the guards pushed and barreled through like an NFL offensive line. The uniformed quartet stood with grim smiles and watched him climb in and start the engine. He gave one long pathetic look at the plant, one look at what had been his life’s work, then slowly he eased out of the parking lot.

They watched until Perry’s car disappeared into the streets of Trenton.

Reinforcements arrived promptly at noon. Another bus pulled up and disgorged a squad of CG chemists and metallurgists, technical experts brought in to assess Arvan’s breakthrough and decide on the fastest, most efficient way to kick it into production. They crowded into the small conference room and began studying the blueprints for the precious polymer. They had been given three principal questions to answer: How much of the polymer should be manufactured here? How much could be shifted to other plants, in other states, in order to build broader political support? How fast could it be jammed into mass production?

Meanwhile, the consultants on the shop floor began breaking the production teams into new units, breaking apart teams that had operated together for years. It was all part of the standard shock treatment. Sow confusion and fear, upend the old ways, disorient the workers, humiliate the supervisors, divide and conquer.

By close of business they would know who to lay off; by dawn the next day, a squad of guards would be posted at the doors, gripping clipboards with the names of those who would be allowed to enter and those who would be coldly sent home, permanently.

The hatchet men from human resources were given a fairly light objective: eliminate fifty percent of the workers and ninety percent of the supervisors, who were considered too set in the old ways.

Of course, not a dime would be paid to those they dismissed. Not a cent of the promised severance packages.

Of course, this would incite the usual flood of lawsuits and occasional picketing over broken promises.

And of course, CG’s lawyers would employ their usual tactics to drag out the cases for years, filing motions, pushing extensions, stonewalling for all they were worth.

Eventually, CG would settle for half of three months’ pay to anybody financially able or stubborn enough to cling on that long. But statistically, they knew only four out of ten employees had the resources to hire a lawyer; only one out of those four had the angry persistence to battle it out to the bitter end.

Day three, one of CG’s many former senior government officials would be dispatched on a fast trip to Trenton for a pointed, one-sided chat with the mayor and city council. The economics of keeping the plant in Trenton looked dire, he would warn them with an appropriately grim and regrettable look. Poor schools, high personal and business taxes, dangerous streets. Not a good combination, he would say, frowning tightly.

The Capitol Group also happened to own another chemical company, a recently modernized plant with plenty of room for expansion, one situated in a nice, lovely, leafy community with first-rate schools and safe streets. It was located in Tennessee, where the politicians were friendly to businesses and understood the need for generosity.

The business logic of shuttering the archaic Trenton plant and shifting the entire operation to shinier Tennessee was nearly irresistible. A war was being waged back at headquarters. The accountants were well armed, loud, and pitiless. Their main concern, really their only concern, was with the numbers. The financial logic screamed for consolidation; it would reap a thousand economies and savings. The senior leaders of CG were humanists, though, and horrified at the thought of heaping more damage on an already depressed town, though they found it hard to argue against the numbers.

If, on the other hand, the city fathers could find it in their hearts to cough up a few generous tax concessions, perhaps the carnage could be avoided. The humanists needed something, a weapon to curb the hard appetites of the number crunchers.

A complete tax holiday for five years would go a long way.

Further, he would warn them, there would be some necessary personnel “dislocation”-as polite a way as possible to say mass firings-and CG expected the local politicians to ignore the complaints.

Agnes Carruthers was the first casualty. She was seated behind her desk, in the same lumpy old chair she had occupied for thirty-two years, through good times and bad, tending to her boss’s every whim and need. She knew the company inside and out. She knew all the suppliers and all the customers, could nearly recite from memory the birthdate of every employee. She prided herself on being a mother figure, figuratively and literally, as all three of her children now worked at Arvan. Lawrence, her husband, had as well, before he passed ten years before, God bless him.

A courier walked in, dropped an unmarked envelope on her desk, and briskly departed. Agnes took a long sip of her tea and opened it: “You remember yesterday when I asked you, Do you know who I am? I’ll tell you. I’m the new owner of this company. Collect your things and get out. You’re fired.”

The takeover was a godsend for Mitch Walters. For two days he was a hit on all the business shows, who were enchanted with the concept of a thin coat of paint that could deflect a rocket. Mitch was hazy on the particulars-frankly, he had no idea how the polymer worked-but huffed and bluffed his way through.

A telephonic board meeting was held four days after the takeover to confirm the purchase and plot the next steps.

Walters plunged into the call with an overly generous narrative about how his personal intervention “defanged an unexpected Hail Mary pass by Perry Arvan” and “salvaged the deal that nearly slipped out of Wiley’s grip.” He was vague on the details. Nobody bothered to ask him to elaborate. In Walters’s case, it was better not to ask, they all knew.

He was followed up by the chief financial officer, a thickset, brainy accountant named Alex Ringold, with a serious manner and droll voice, who bluntly confessed the bad news. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had slowed into grinding contests. From their very profitable starts they had bottomed out into slow-motion battles of attrition that were dramatically eroding the company’s earnings. Few of CG’s defense companies had any upward momentum-Humvees were still selling briskly to replace those that were blown up, as were select electronic products-but the month before the Pentagon had canceled a large artillery program, as well as an order for three additional battleships. And now a big-ticket future fighter program for the flyboys was hanging in doubt. CG was the lead contractor on two of the three programs, and a healthy contributor on the third.

The loss of the artillery and the battleships alone would cost CG many billions in future revenue. The pain, though, was being felt across the board. Military munitions, contract services to the troops, maintenance contracts for tanks and Bradleys that were no longer seeing much use-all were sinking and not likely to see any improvement in the near term. The latest analysis projected only nine percent growth in profits, which incited a disgruntled chorus of angry groans and curses from the board.

One of the board members, a garrulous former secretary of state with strong Texan roots and a gargantuan ego to match, roared, “What the hell, what do we gotta do? Maybe we’ll start another war. Iran could use a healthy ass-kickin’. That’d be a good war, and a long one.”

This coarse strategic insight caused an onslaught of light laughter. It wasn’t at all clear he was joking, though. Two months before he had authored a red-meat editorial in the Wall Street Journal that argued the same case, that if Iran wanted nuclear weapons so much, well, we should send them a few of ours, free of charge.

Ringold waited till the chuckling died down and said, “So as you can see, the timing of the Arvan takeover is a financial boon. The idea is to get it under contract and into production at the earliest date. Mitch, is it possible to have an impact this fiscal year?”

“That’s the whole point,” Walters announced, bubbling with enthusiasm. “We should see an eight to twelve billion pop, maybe as early as next year.”

A nice one-two punch; it was apparent that he and the CFO had colluded on this conversation.

“You’re sure that’s not exaggeration?” a voice asked, a high-pitched twang they all recognized as Ryan Cantor, the son of Billy Cantor, the aging former president. The old man, they knew, was eavesdropping on another line, leaving the tawdry business negotiations to his middle child. After a long career in politics the old man had his heart set on cashing in-since leaving the presidency he had sold his name to anybody who offered, and now was doing TV pitches for Flagorex, a preventative for premature ejaculation-but had no intention of leaving his fingerprints.

It was the same way he had run his presidency; after four years there was no Cantor Doctrine, no great peace initiative, no treaties, or even a telltale title that identified his tenure. It was all so sad. His years in the Oval Office elicited little historical interest, because, frankly, aside from a devastating recession, nothing of note had been accomplished. In frustration, the president secretly paid a writer to produce a glowing biography-the only one written, complimentary or otherwise-then couldn’t find a publisher willing to print it.

Walters almost chortled into the line. “Oh, no, Ryan, it’s quite real. If we short-circuit the Pentagon procurement process, the cash flow should start pumping in a few months.”

“I know it’ll be a stretch,” the CFO added, doing his part, “but our projections show that a contract inside two months would make a world of difference on the bottom line.”

“How do you intend to accomplish that?” asked another voice in a strong Australian brogue. This was William Haverill, the former Australian prime minister, a charmingly manipulative man who had left office under an ugly cloud of suspicion. Procurement scams were a field in which he had considerable expertise and success. It was rumored that he and a few close chums had ripped off over two hundred million dollars.

The rumors were flagrantly false-three hundred was more like it.

Nobody could prove it, though; the money disappeared into the black hole of government programs, shuffled back and forth through a dizzying maze of appropriations until all sense of accountability was lost. The cash eventually squirted out the pipeline into a series of amorphous consulting companies, all empty shells registered under a miasma of phony names, then got washed and rewashed in a byzantine tango through countless banks. Haverill was currently living high on the hog in a large, sumptuous chateau in southern France, along with three doting mistresses. The warm weather and sultry beaches reminded him of home. The mistresses made him glad it wasn’t home.

Walters allowed that question to sit for a moment before he suggested, “I propose we put Mr. Secretary himself in charge of that. In fact Dan’s perfect.”

Bellweather, as Walters knew, was not on the line. He was at Walter Reed Hospital at that moment having a hemorrhoid lanced. It was an appointment he had booked only after Walters swore that the telephonic board meeting was meaningless and missable: a pro forma discussion, nothing more. The trap was laid, now the time had come to snap it shut. Walters was tired of Bellweather, tired of his “oversight,” tired of the board’s watchdog looking over his shoulder and second-guessing his every move.

“You think that’s a good idea?” another voice asked.

“You kidding? He’s a highly respected former secretary of defense. A living legend. He can-”

“Are you there, Dan? Are you listening?” another voice broke in, a provincial British accent this time; obviously the former defence minister.

“No, he’s at a doctor’s appointment,” Walters informed the voice, swallowing the urge to unload the degrading details-at that moment Bellweather was probably bent over a metal table, howling his guts out, with his naked butt up in the air as an Army doctor stabbed and prodded at his best side.

The same voice, with typical British dryness, observed, “Well, uh, about Dan, he might not be the right sort for this job.”

“No?”

“I seem to remember that he wasn’t all that popular or admired when he was secretary.”

“There’s an understatement,” another voice chimed in quite loudly, now that it was clear Bellweather wasn’t listening. The boys at the top were quite competitive. “He was hated. Absolutely detested. One hundred generals threatened to resign in protest over his behavior.”

“What was that about?” the former Australian prime minister asked. He loved nothing more than hearing tales of political scandal.

“Well, it wasn’t any one thing. He shifted a few big Army programs to friends. Covered up several scandals, ignored billions in cost overruns, saddled the Army with some horrible programs. All deals he cooked up with old cronies on the Hill. Then in a tragic effort to refurbish his image, he got 160 soldiers killed-”

“Ah, yes, I remember that. The Albanian fiasco. That was Dan’s watch?”

“Sure was. What a farce. We had to apologize to Albania for allowing our troops to bleed and die on their soil.”

“Not to worry,” Walters quickly reassured them all. “Today’s generals and admirals were young lieutenants and captains back then. They remember nothing about those problems.”

“As they say, time cures all ills,” Haverill noted with a hearty chuckle-it was his favorite mantra, and they all laughed. He was ensconced in France with his mistresses and away from his wife and two children, because if he set foot in Australia he would likely be thrown in chains. But like all politicians he was an incurable optimist. With time and enough money thrown at the right public relations firms, his rumored crimes would be pasted over or forgotten. That, or the statute of limitations would run out and he could return home, the beloved old man, the prodigal son back from the lam.

“Today,” Walters insisted, “Dan is a senior statesmen. Last of the old breed, that sort of thing. He can open any door he wants.”

“I think he’s an ideal choice,” said Ryan Cantor, obviously speaking for his father. The boy had less brains than a turnip. His old man wasn’t much brighter, but he didn’t get to be president without understanding how Washington ticked.

“Be sure to tell your father how much we admire him,” Walters said, grinning. The message was received; the old man would hide behind the scenes but he would back up Bellweather, twist elbows, and make whatever calls were needed.

“What do we do about Wiley?” asked Phil Jackson, as if to say Jack had served his purpose and was outliving his usefulness.

“Easy,” Walters answered. “Assign him to Bellweather’s team. Lord knows, he’s got as much riding on this as we do.”

“But he knows nothing about Pentagon contracting,” said Alan Haggar, the former deputy secretary of defense.

“Exactly.”

“Oh, I see. Just get him out of the way.”

“You got a better idea?”

They all laughed.

Andrew Morgan was hunched over in his booth by the window, nursing his fourth beer as he quietly admired the gallery of James Joyce photographs on the wall. It was his third straight night at Ulysses, a legendary Stone Street bar where the rich and hopefuls of Wall Street gathered after work to boast and complain.

A quick glance at his watch, 8:00 p.m. He’d been there since five, watering and watching, long enough that his ass had slipped into a coma. He waved at the waiter to haul over another beer, his fifth. One more, he promised himself. Just one, a fast one, then he’d wander back to his hotel and call it an early night.

It was now three weeks to the day since his boss, Martie O’Neal, had dispatched him to New York City to dig up all the dirt he could find on Jack Wiley. Two other associates plumbed the more traditional snoop’s sources, the firms Jack had passed through on his way to a partnership at Cauldron. Morgan was assigned the more ambiguous, less promising role of hunting in less structured environments for an informal source, primarily hanging around Wall Street hangouts and watering holes, praying for a miracle.

Three weeks of long days spent in fashionable restaurants and longer nights trolling in bars. Twenty-one straight days befriending Wall Street lizards, and rewarding their tedious ego-swollen stories with free lunches and drinks. Amazing how much they could drink and eat when someone else was paying the tab.

What a steep descent from his former days in the CIA, he thought. All those years undercover in Moscow, Cairo, and Peru, ducking and dodging, trying to turn KGB agents, hunting terrorists, and harrassing narcotraffickers. All good things come to an end, but after twenty-five years of honorable work for an elite government agency he was stunned at how far he had fallen.

A complete and utter waste of time, he’d told Martie after his first week. Seven days and nights wasted on mingling with arrogant brokers and haughty investment banker types. He’d located six Wall Street boys who knew, or knew of, Jack Wiley. None knew him well. All had the same thing to say: great guy, honest as the day is long, a Boy Scout in a resplendent suit. Played squash with him once was the closest recollection he got; Jack had spotted his opponent ten points, and kicked his ass off the court. He doesn’t even cheat at squash, Morgan had moaned. Stay at it, Martie had ordered. Sometimes a shot in the dark pays off. You never know.

Their client, after all, was willing to foot the rather impressive bills for a ritzy Manhattan hotel and all the expensive food and booze Morgan could guzzle. It was a big boondoggle, Morgan knew, and a very expensive one, but his interest in it had flagged weeks before.

From Morgan’s experience of the past three nights, Ulysses didn’t really start hopping till eight. The early starters and ambitious drunks were already there in force. But by nine the floor would be clogged up with the world’s youngest millionaires, and an even larger number of motivated young ladies hunting a lifetime pass to a grand home in the Hamptons, a Maserati, all the trappings the right husband could buy.

Another hour and the place would be shoulder to shoulder with couples in lust, half for sex, the other half for money.

He was turning to study a troop of glittering young lovelies who had just entered when a man fell heavily into the seat across the booth. “I hear you’re buying free drinks,” the man said by way of introduction.

“I was, but I’m tired. Shove off, pal. Find yourself another table.”

“Sorry.” One of the business cards Morgan had been handing out by the thousands over the past three weeks landed on the middle of the table. “Thought we might have something to talk about, but okay, fine.”

He was getting up and starting to leave when Morgan reached over and grabbed his arm. “Maybe I’ve been hasty. What’ll you have?”

“Gin and tonic.” The man smiled and fell back into the seat. He picked up the card and inserted it back into his pocket.

While he signaled the waiter, Morgan used the opportunity to examine his visitor. Tall, about Wiley’s age, expensive, well-tailored gray suit, dark, oiled-back hair. More or less your typical Wall Street type. The suit, though, was a thousand dollars, definitely not two; chances were he was on the mid- to lower end of the food chain. After three weeks Morgan could write a book about the denizens of Wall Street and their culinary and haberdashery tastes. The waiter arrived and Morgan ordered one for his guest, another beer for himself. “So who are you?” he asked.

“Is that important?”

“If you want the drink, yeah, it is.”

“I don’t come that cheap, Mr. Morgan.”

Morgan leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “I’m not sure I hear what you’re saying.”

“Then listen close, pal. You’re hunting for info on Jack Wiley. I have what you’re looking for. I’m not the charitable type, though.”

“I don’t remember running into you before.”

“You didn’t. A friend gave me your card.”

The drinks arrived and Morgan and his guest sank back into their seats and took their first deep sips together. Well, he was dressed and coiffed like a Wall Street type, but Morgan had a feeling he was a little out of place. Time to get the important detail out of the way. “How much?” he asked, swirling his beer in the air.

“Fifty thousand.”

Morgan nearly spit his beer across the table. His elbows flew off the table, his big head pushed forward. “Who are you kidding?”

“If you knew what I have, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question.”

“What makes you think anything you have is worth that much?”

“For starters, you gave my friend your card almost three weeks ago. I figure you’ve been here at least that long. Three weeks in a luxury double suite at the Wall Street Inn, frequenting some of our fine city’s most exclusive bars and nightclubs. Somebody’s footing a lot of cash to learn about Jack.”

Morgan neither confirmed nor denied, just sat and tried to hide his astonishment. He was stunned. This guy knew everything: how long he’d been in town, the places he had visited, where he was staying. Morgan had been detected, followed, and apparently watched like a two-bit novice. Mr. Former Spook, a veteran of Moscow and Cairo and Colombia, and this guy across the table had totally outfoxed him.

His guest allowed himself a slight smile. “Also, you’re hired help. No offense, but that cheap off-the-rack suit doesn’t help you fit in. I don’t know how much a private dick costs, but three weeks of your time can’t be cheap.”

Morgan pointed his chin in the air and said, “So what?”

“So it’s not your money, right? Why should you care what it costs?”

“Fifty thousand would have to buy some very good information.”

“What do you have so far?”

“A few interesting tidbits. Some very valuable leads,” Morgan lied and tried his best to make it sound sincere. In truth, he had gained ten pounds, swilled enough booze that his liver was swollen, and learned absolutely nothing remotely interesting about Jack Wiley.

“You got nothing.” The smile widened. “This is Wall Street, buddy. Nobody’s telling some stranger tales out of school. No angle in it.”

“What about you? You’re willing to break the code.”

Morgan detected the first flash of anger-a slight tightening around the eyes, a jaw muscle flexing. Barely perceptible, but it was enough. “Maybe I’ve got reasons,” the man insisted, making an obvious effort to mask his strong dislike of Jack Wiley.

“Like what?”

“It’s personal. It’ll cost you an additional ten grand to find out about that.”

“Give me an idea what we’re talking about.”

“Fair enough. Here’s a hint. Did you ever wonder why Jack bounced in and out of so many firms?”

“Yeah, we thought about that… for about two seconds, ’cause it’s so obvious. Better offers, better pay. Greed. The usual motives. I figure you guys are all whores. It’s all about money.”

The man chuckled and sipped from his drink. “You don’t know much about Wall Street.”

“What part did I get wrong?”

“The only part you got right was about all of us being whores.”

“Now tell me something I don’t know.”

“I can’t believe you guys missed it. It’s right before your eyes. Jack hopped through four firms in twelve years. Four. The Street doesn’t work that way. It’s all about seniority, Morgan, about sticking around to get tenure. That’s where the big money is.”

“Then why did he leave?”

“Leave? Usually, he didn’t; he was shoved.”

“I asked why?”

“That’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question.”

“Come on, give me a little more to go on here.”

“No, you have enough.” The pleasant smile was replaced by a deadpan grin. “Now here’s the rules. Pay attention, because if there’s any mistake, you’ll never see me again. The payment will be in cash. You don’t have that much on you, and anyway, you’re just a flunky. So tell your bosses you think I’m a good investment.”

“Listen, you need-”

“No, I don’t need to do anything. But you definitely do. Call by tomorrow, or don’t bother,” the man said, and he was on his feet. He was holding a card by the edges and he quickly flipped it on the table. “When you have permission, call this number. Ask for Charles.”

“Wait… uh, Charles, I don’t have enough-” but before he could finish that thought the man rushed into the thick crowd and began making tracks for the exit.

It was unexpected and happened so fast, Morgan was caught flat-footed. He quickly recovered his senses, darted out of his seat, and began racing after Charles. He caught sight of a head of glistening black hair, and began dodging left and right, shoving people out of his way. Charles had about a twenty-foot lead, but Morgan was brutally clearing a path and closing fast.

Suddenly a pretty young blonde woman grabbed his arm and started howling at the top of her lungs. Morgan tried to break loose, but her grip only tightened. Her screams began to draw a world of attention. He quickly found himself hemmed in by young men, a mob of nice suits glowering at him, blocking him, and asking the young woman what he’d done to her.

“He grabbed and squeezed my ass,” she roared quite loudly, her arms flailing as if he’d assaulted her.

“I did not,” Morgan bellowed back in a tone filled with indignation. “I swear. Listen, I’ve got a wife and three daughters, for godsakes. I never touched her.”

She stamped a foot and pointed a scornful finger at his face. “Pervert. You sick, disgusting pervert,” she howled.

“I didn’t touch you.”

“Well, somebody did.”

“Not me.”

“I thought it was you.”

“It wasn’t, okay?”

The crowd around him settled down. The situation was harmless. Maybe the old guy did it, maybe he didn’t; so what? Just a harmless squeeze anyway, and who cared if this old lecher indulged in a quick feel? A few of the men backed off and returned to what they were doing. Others began talking among themselves. A few chuckled.

Morgan dodged through an opening that suddenly cleared and raced as fast as his feet could carry him toward the exit. But Charles was gone, disappeared into the night.

All right, so you think you’re smart, Morgan thought; the girl had obviously been a setup, the perfect diversion. He was surprised he had fallen for such a simple trick.

And he was nearly certain that the phone number he was given was connected to a disposable cell phone, probably under a false name. He could easily find out, but knew it would be a waste of time. Based upon what he’d just seen, Charles knew enough tradecraft to avoid such a stupid mistake.

Charles wasn’t as smart as he thought, though.

Morgan raced back to his booth. Charles had left his glass and, by extension, a clean set of fingerprints. By the next day Morgan would know Charles’s real name, where he lived, where he worked, and from there he would uncover his relationship to Jack Wiley.

When he got to the table the glass was gone. In its place was a small note: “Nice try, Morgan.”