The Capitol Game

16

The hearing was everything they had paid for. And every bit as entertaining as they’d hoped.

Four GT executives showed up-three accountants and a smooth-looking, unctuous lapdog from GT’s congressional relations branch, brought along to appear friendly and ride herd on the number nerds. The executives arrived ten minutes early and seated themselves at the long witness table. They came armed with spreadsheets, which they spent five minutes meticulously arranging on the table. They came fully prepared to answer the most vexing questions about the cost of the GT 400.

The two previous days, the three accountants had spent long hours in front of murder boards exhaustively preparing for the hearing. A team of inquisitors bellowed questions at them, contradicted, argued, and browbeat until the three never blanched at the most egregious assault. The hearing was only a pro forma cost review. A mundane event, nothing more. But given the egos in Congress, there was always the risk of some loudmouthed representative trying to grandstand at their expense. They were ready. They had all the answers. They sat quietly and tried to hide their cockiness.

Thirty-five members of the congressional subcommittee were in attendance-an unexpectedly large turnout for such a tedious hearing. All were seated on the large podium, already looking bored out of their minds. All thirty-five had tried to squirm out of it, but Earl had bent elbows and traded favors in an effort to arrange a large audience. In addition, a small cluster of reporters, including one from the Washington Post and one from the New York Times, were on hand, seated in the empty rows of chairs reserved for guests. They’d been lured to the hearing by telephonic tips from a sneaky member of Earl’s staff he often used to plant stories or leaks. The reporters had been told to expect a big story and plenty of fireworks. A pair of C-SPAN cameras were rolling, a common sight these days, nothing to be alarmed about. Three bright-looking staffers were hunched in their seats directly behind the empty chairman’s chair, exchanging notes, smirking at each other, eager for the fun to begin.

The air of boredom broke with three minutes left to begin. The door in the rear cracked open and a new visitor stepped inside, an attractive female dressed in a flattering red business suit that nicely accented her dark brunette hair, long legs, and slender figure. She had large green eyes, a small, upturned nose, high cheekbones, and a wide, generous mouth. The thirty men on the podium sat up and took notice. A few male reporters noisily shifted seats to make room for her.

She looked around for a moment before the Capitol cop on duty rushed over and offered to help her find a seat. They wished they were him: oh, for an excuse to engage her in a conversation. They all watched as she shook her head-her long hair flipped back and forth, her features crinkled so beautifully. She chose her own seat, an aisle chair far in the back, where she was by herself. They watched as she sat, and they peeked and stared as her skirt rose and showed a little more leg. Great legs. Long legs. Legs that seemed to go all the way to the ceiling.

One of the reporters, tall and lanky, with a well-groomed fashionable three-day stubble, who obviously thought of himself as a cocksman, spun around in his seat and unloaded a flash of teeth. “Hey, babe, what paper you with?”

“I’m not.”

“I’m with the Journal,” he said, as if that meant something.

She said nothing. It meant nothing.

“My name is Rex,” he tried again. “Rex Smith. So why’re you here?”

By now every eye in the room was on her and Rex. Rex had had the nerve to do what they all wanted to.

The universal hope was that he failed miserably.

“I work in the Department of Defense,” she said. “I was having lunch nearby. Thought I’d drop by and watch.”

“You have a name?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” In other words, get lost.

“What’s yours?”

“Mia,” she said. No last name, just Mia. She began digging through her briefcase, visibly trying to ignore him.

Spurred on by all the stares he was attracting, Rex wasn’t about to back down. He couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so he offered the lame compliment, “Nice name.” Another smile and he asked, “So, what do you do in the Department of Defense?”

“Well, Rex, I’m a lawyer,” she answered without looking up.

“A lawyer.”

She finally met his stare. “Yes,” she said very calmly, very coldly. “I specialize in suing reporters for lying, defamation, or deliberate falsification.”

“Oh.”

“So I suggest you turn around and pay close attention to the hearing, Rex. Get every detail right. I’ll be watching.”

Rex stared blankly at her for a long moment, then turned around; he suddenly became preoccupied with his reporter’s pad. A few chuckles broke out among the other reporters. It was a brutal putdown. They admired her delivery.

Mia ignored the stares and chuckles and went back to digging something out of her briefcase.

As chairman, Earl entered five minutes late, fell gingerly into his chair, pulled his pants out of his crotch, offered the witnesses a pleasant, hospitable smile as if they were old chums, welcomed them to the hearing, then led off with a few empty peremptory remarks about the great importance of protecting our troops, buying them the very best equipment, and the role of this committee in oversight.

Then he fixed his bleary eyes on the three accountants. In his most homespun tone, he asked, “So you three fellas are all executive vice presidents?”

The older, plumper one in the middle answered, “Actually, sir, I’m a senior VP.” He motioned at the men to his left and right. “Rollins and Baggio here are executive VPs. They work for me.”

Earl nodded. “A senior VP, huh? Guess that makes you pretty high up over there.”

Edward Hamilton, the senior VP, offered a quick smile in response. This was so easy. “I’m one of only ten senior VPs in the company,” he announced as if he were a finalist for Miss America. Any second he’d be blathering about world peace.

“So we got the right folks up here to talk about this GT 400?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“And we should expect you to know a lot.”

“I think that’s a fair assumption, sir,” Hamilton answered with a loud, confident smile.

“Good, good. I was hoping GT didn’t send a coupla dunces up here.”

Hamilton chuckled. He decided a little more explanation might be helpful. “Rollins, Baggio, and I have been overseeing the GT 400 from its birth, you might say. I’d venture to say we know as much as anybody.” He smiled brightly. He should’ve said about the finances, but why waste words?

“Well, then, I’m surely delighted you’re here,” Earl announced, smiling tightly as one of his aides leaned forward and handed him a piece of paper. He adjusted his glasses and squinted at the paper for a moment. He cleared his throat, leaned into the microphone, and asked very softly, almost pleasantly, “Can any of you gentlemen tell me when you first became aware of the rollover problem?”

“I’m sorry.” Hamilton hesitated, then asked, “What problem?”

“I’m sure you heard me. The rollover problem.”

“I’m, uh, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t, huh?” Earl asked. He leaned his big bulk forward in his chair, planted his elbows, and asked, “Do you think a company that wants to sell the military a multibillion-dollar product has a responsibility to thoroughly test it?”

Hamilton by now was completely flustered. He glanced at the stooge from congressional relations for help, for advice, for a signal, anything. The stooge couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the floor. “I, uh, well-”

“This is one of those easy questions, Mr. Hamilton. Answer it.”

“Uh… why, yes. Yes, of course.”

“Thank you. Now, that didn’t hurt, did it?”

A nervous smile. “No, sir.”

“Now, if, during the course of this testing, a problem surfaces, what should the company do?”

Again Hamilton glanced anxiously down the row at the weasel from congressional relations. He was looking away; the walls of the chamber now seemed to hold his interest. After a long pause Hamilton said, “To be frank, this isn’t my area of-”

“Look at me, not him,” Earl barked. “This is my hearing after all. Do I need to repeat the question?”

“No.” Hamilton drew a deep breath and fingered a few spreadsheets. What was going on here? “I suppose it should report the problems.”

“You suppose?”

“Uh… yes, I believe it has that legal responsibility.”

Earl nodded. “So why didn’t you?” he asked in a very reasonable tone.

Unsure what this was about, Hamilton said, “I wasn’t at the testing.”

It was the wrong answer and Earl made him pay dearly for it. He lifted up a thick binder and waved it in the air like a thunderbolt he was about to stuff down the witness’s throat. “Have you seen this report?”

The question was spurious; no, of course he hadn’t seen it. Other than Earl, nobody in the room had laid eyes on it. The report-a thick compendium of charts and graphs and diagrams and tables-had only been compiled late the night before. It had been placed in Earl’s hands only that morning.

The man who prepared it, formerly a research analyst at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, now a hired whore at a local think tank, had labored around the clock for two weeks trying to get it right. To his dismay, the GT 400, it turned out, had an almost impossibly low center of gravity. He was forced to tinker with the computer models until a ninety-degree turn performed at 140 mph did, in fact, produce a mild tipover.

The best-designed European race car would be hurtling toward Mars long before that speed. As for the GT 400, it couldn’t surpass 60 mph if it had three rocket engines strapped to its ass.

Hamilton was squinting, trying to see what Earl was waving around. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, well, I expected you’d say that,” Earl said, rolling his eyes and glaring with contempt at this pathetic attempt to lie. “This here’s an expert report showing that the GT 400 is subject to rollover.”

Hamilton exhaled a deep breath. “I find that hard to believe.” He had no idea whether it was true or not.

“You calling me a liar, son?”

The reporters perked up and began scribbling notes-the promised entertainment had arrived.

“No, sir. It’s just I find that report-”

But Earl was already furiously waving another paper in the air. “And what about this?” he demanded, now sounding quite aggrieved. “I received this here letter from somebody in the Defense procurement office. Know why? He became incensed by what he called a big whitewash during the GT 400’s shoddy testing.” Earl was wired and on a roll; he’d managed to squeeze “incensed,” “whitewash,” and “shoddy testing” into the same sentence.

“That’s absurd.”

Another aide bent forward and handed Earl a thick stack of clippings. He grabbed them and began flinging them, one by one, on the floor in the direction of the witness table. “Know what these are?” he yelled. “Newspaper and magazine reports from the past few weeks. They detail the shoddy testing and deplorable effort by your company to hide the rollover problem.”

Hamilton’s mouth hung open. His face was red and forming the first drops of sweat; he could not stop tugging at his shirt collar. He felt as though he were suffocating. This was just so atrociously awful, so unfair. If Earl wanted to know about amortization rates or outyear repair costs, fine. But Hamilton wasn’t a vehicular engineer. Hell, aside from a few glossy photos in the company brochures, he’d never even seen a real GT 400. He tried two or three times to make that point, but Earl talked right over him as he kept flinging those damning articles in his direction like bullets.

When Earl’s hands were finally empty, he yelled, “I can’t believe you’d come in here and ask us to spend forty billion dollars on a rolling death trap.” He paused, wanting to be sure the reporters captured his pet phrase. “Forty billion. For a rolling death trap,” he repeated, again, more deliberately this time, as though the more slowly the words were pronounced, the more lethal they became.

“I’m sure we can explain those reports and that letter,” Hamilton sputtered lamely.

“Explain now. I’m listening.”

“Well… I-” This was all so humiliating; he hated Earl Belzer.

“Do you know we are at war, sir?”

“I read the papers, yes.” That glib response just popped out of his lips. He instantly regretted it.

Earl carefully removed his reading glasses and placed them on the table. “Was that crack meant to be funny?” he sneered.

“Uh, well, no,” Hamilton stammered, visibly squirming in his seat. The murderboard sessions were a limp badminton game compared to this.

“ ’Cause let me tell you something, boy. Over three thousand of our fine boys and girls have died over there. Three thousand sons and daughters slaughtered by Muslim fanatics and weirdos. Maybe that’s funny to you and your company, but not up here, Mr. Big Shot executive.”

The other thirty-four committee members were now wide awake and watching intently. Most were old pros at this game, and until this moment had reserved a fair amount of pity for poor Hamilton trapped behind that big witness table. It was all about power. Earl was both a player and the ref, free to make his own rules, free to barrage his witness with unanswerable questions, free to interrupt at will.

Hamilton never stood a chance. He was a bit player in a long, hallowed congressional prerogative to hold lopsided hearings, scold and browbeat witnesses, and never allow anyone but the members to deliver a complete or coherent thought. It was ridiculously unfair, of course. Still, Hamilton was expected to adhere to the proper decorum-behave like a slaughtered lamb, lie down, and be gracefully butchered.

A row of deepening scowls were now glaring down at the witnesses. Rollins and Baggio began quietly inching their chairs away from Hamilton, avoiding the line of fire, trying to dodge a stray bullet from Earl, who looked like he wanted to pull out a gun and blast away.

Hamilton wanted to get up and bolt, but his feet felt like concrete. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled as contritely as he could the moment Earl seemed to be finished.

The aides hunched in the seats behind Earl launched into giggles as they fingered the large stacks of papers positioned on their laps. Hamilton couldn’t take his eyes off them-what would they hand Earl next? What other loathsome crime was this awful man going to accuse him of? What fresh claim was going to appear, without warning, out of thin air?

He needn’t have worried. Earl was out of ammunition-the remaining papers were a harmless collection of office memos and take-out menus carelessly added to the mix-but his aides had been ordered to appear ready to drown the witnesses in damning reports.

Earl fixed him with another nasty frown, then said, “I won’t waste any more time reviewing the vast hoard of material I’ve received”-he waved a dismissive hand through the air as though his aides had three trucks full of reports and terrible claims and dreadful assertions that, out of generosity, Earl would not rub in his face-“and I don’t know whether all these reports and complaints and technical analyses are true or not. I’m no expert in such things. But my daddy always used to say, where there’s smoke, there’s somethin’ burnin’.”

Hamilton knew he had to do something. He took a deep swallow and said, “I’m sure we can satisfy your curiosity on these rumors.” He paused and tried to look hopeful. “Now, uh, now that we know your specific concerns, I feel sure that-”

“Are you proposin’ another hearing?”

“Yes,” Hamilton said, exuding relief at the thought of someone else taking this awful beating. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

Earl stared at him in disbelief. “Do I work for you, Mr. Hamilton?”

“Uh… no.”

“That’s right, Mr. Big Shot. You might find this hard to believe, but this committee stays fairly busy with the people’s business.”

“I didn’t mean to imply-”

“Excuse me, sir,” Earl bellowed with a ferocious finger pointed at Hamilton’s face. “This is my committee. I set the rules. You speak only after you are asked a question. Do you understand that?”

Hamilton could barely produce a limp nod. If he had a gun he’d shoot Earl; he’d shoot himself, too.

“So, since we have all these reports and vile accusations of vehicle deficiencies”-Earl paused to steal a glance at his notes to be sure he got the words just right-“and since I’m sure you gentlemen from General Techtonics want the very safest equipment for our soldiers in battle, I’m gonna do you a big favor. I propose to this committee that we give you six more months to extensively test your vehicle.”

Hamilton was rubbing his temples. His bosses were going to kill him. A six-month delay would be financially devastating. More tests could cost billions. “Am I allowed to register a protest?”

“You certainly may. We live in a democracy.”

“How?”

“Write your congressman.”

Earl asked for a hand vote. Without objection or comment, he quickly got thirty-five in favor. Twenty of those yeas had recently received mysterious donations to their reelection committees; three had been promised assistance or support on various pet bills or pork requests; two new members were simply trying to garner favor with the committee chairman.

Amazingly, Earl had pulled this off with only one million dollars; the other million contributed by CG to his buying spree, of course, ended up in his pockets. Democracy at its best.

He slammed the gavel and the hearing immediately broke up. Mia ignored the noisy exodus of chattering congressmen, staffers, and reporters and stayed glued to her seat, pretending to read a memo, until the last member quietly closed the door behind him.

She got up and approached one of the C-SPAN cameramen, a large man with a big belly, awkwardly bent over gathering his equipment, preparing to move on.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said to his back. “Would it be possible to get a copy of your tape?”

He was playing with a machine on the floor. He never looked up. “Sorry, no.”

“Try yes instead.”

“Not mine to give, lady. Belongs to C-SPAN.”

“Would it help if I showed you this?” she asked, flashing a card at his back. He turned around and stared at it: Mia Jenson, Investigator, Defense Criminal Investigative Service. Then out popped her DCIS shield, which he glanced at also for another moment. “It’s quite real,” Mia assured him. “I’m a federal agent.”

“What’s this about?” he asked, now staring at her,

“That’s none of your business.” She glanced at the identity card hanging around his neck. “Listen, Carl, I’m asking politely now. I could just as easily come back with a subpoena.”

“Look, I’m not trying to be a pain.”

She gave him a slight smile. It seemed apologetic. “Oh, what the hell. Between you and me, Carl, we’re looking into a few irregularities in the GT 400.”

“I see.”

“Probably nothing. Chasing rumors. My bosses ordered me to come back with the tape.”

“Why don’t we bring this to my bosses?”

“I’d rather not.”

His forehead was wrinkled with suspicion. “Is there a reason why?”

“It’s a confidential investigation at this point. That’s how we’re treating it. Like I said, it’s merely exploratory and we’d rather not have GT learn we’re looking.” Her features wrinkled with disgust. “They’ll throw a battalion of lawyers at us, and hide anything incriminating. The investigation will be dead before it gets started.”

“Okay.”

“Make me a copy. Nobody’ll know. Please, Carl.”

“Sure. No problem.” Carl happened to have a high-speed tape copying machine, and two minutes later he handed her the tape.

Mia thanked him and disappeared.

They walked at a fast clip through the elegant lobby of the Madison Hotel until they were met by a duet of burly men; East Europeans of some variety, both of them. They looked like bookends, spectacularly muscled, fierce-looking, and no doubt armed to the teeth. Neither spoke a word of English. They greeted Bellweather and Walters with respectful grunts, escorted them to the elevators, then stood stiffly and quietly in the corner while the elevator whisked them to the ninth floor.

Next, a brisk walk down the long hallway to the very end, where one of the Madison’s most opulent and expensive suites was located. Another pair of brutish bookends was planted beside the door. After quick nods and more courteous grunts, they ushered the Americans inside. No patdowns, no questions. They were expected, obviously. And they were welcome.

The large suite they stepped into had been transformed from standard American luxury fare into an Arabian fantasy. The floors were plastered wall to wall with thick, handwoven oriental carpets. Shimmering silk fabrics and tapestries hung from the ceilings. The sofas and chairs had been replaced with enough oversize floor cushions to seat a hundred. The temperature was set at a sweltering ninety degrees. All the discomforts of home.

Two gentlemen in white robes with bright gold edging sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor. They were sharing a silver hookah pipe and munching from a large bowl of dates.

The one on the left offered a faint smile. “Ah, Daniel, nice of you to arrive on time.”

“Your highness,” Bellweather said, and bowed slightly. The exaggerated and entirely phony formality brought smiles to both their faces.

“Won’t you be seated,” Prince Ali bin Tariq requested with a commanding flourish of his right hand. Ali was the forty-third son of the Saudi king, formerly, and for an amazingly long eighteen years, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he was highly westernized, an accomplished diplomat, a drunk, a womanizer, and a flamboyant rascal who had once treated D.C. as his own playground.

During his long tenure as ambassador he had helped fix three presidential elections, bought enough congressmen and senators to stuff two Rolodexes, fathered countless illegitimate children, purchased six fabulous homes from Palm Beach to Vail, along with three luxury jets to shuttle him around his real estate empire, and along the way became the senior and most esteemed member of Washington’s diplomatic corps.

Eighteen years away from his stuffed-shirt kingdom, eighteen years of sin and frolic, and all the pleasures and contentment unlimited wealth could buy.

During many of those years, Bellweather had been his frequent partner in bar-hopping and whoring around town. They shared women, they drank an ocean of booze, and on one amazing occasion they christened Ali’s newest Boeing 737 with a wild, fantasy, around-the-world orgy. Just Bellweather and Ali, and thirty women chosen for their physical variety and amorous skills.

That exhausting but remarkable trip had been the cause of Bellweather’s second divorce, the ugliest of the three. Definitely the most enthusiastic and sexually imaginative of the ladies, it turned out, was a very determined PI hired by his wife. The PI returned from the trip with a thick photo album showing Daniel in an assortment of insane poses.

After one glance at the album, he offered wife two a swift, uncontested divorce with a “fair settlement.” When she then mentioned her ambition to open a public photo gallery, he collapsed completely; whatever she wanted, she could have it. She took him at his word and looted him for all he was worth. The house, the cars, all of his cash that she knew about.

It was worth every penny. The thought of those terrifying photos in the public eye was nauseating.

Then, three years ago, after a series of media articles about the prince’s outrageous lifestyle became too ugly to ignore, his father called him home. It was one thing for a Saudi prince to bribe, corrupt, fix, and blackmail in a foreign land. Infidels, after all, were born incorrigibly corrupted; what was wrong with squirting a little more fuel on the fire?

His father, however, drew the line over a photograph of Ali in Entertainment Weekly, a leering smile on his lips, a bubbling flute of champagne in one hand, the other planted firmly on the rather skinny fanny of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated sluts, which said something. The girl was only sixteen. Worse, she was made up to look only thirteen. Ali was crushed. For eighteen years he had lived the life of dreams. The idea of returning home, to a hot, sandy, dry country, to give up his American mansions, his powerful dedication to scotch, to live in a barren land without booze or blonde women-he’d developed a particular longing for golden hair-sickened him. He sent a long letter home, an elegantly worded missive telling his father to screw off.

But after the king threatened to cut off not only his inheritance and lifestyle emoluments, but also his head, Ali decided his affection for his family was calling him.

Bellweather and Walters had by now fallen onto their rear ends. Emitting a series of loud grunts, they were trying their damnedest to wrench their legs and knees into the same cross-legged stance as the Saudis.

His features twisted with pain, Bellweather asked, “You got a call from President Cantor?”

“Yes, yes,” Ali said with a quick wave. “Billy mentioned you have something interesting for us. Something quite lucrative.”

The moment Ali returned home, he had begged his father for a position in the Kingdom’s Ministry of Finance. High, low, didn’t matter. With his contacts and unscrupulous friends, he swore he could do a world of good for Saudi investments overseas. The king had a different idea and instead threw him in a Wahhabi-run rehab facility to dry out. A prison would’ve been more merciful, and less dreadful. Ali found himself in a small, unadorned room with only a bed and prayer mat, trapped in the middle of the desert with nobody but other spoiled and depraved reprobates for company.

He nearly went mad. It was such a steep drop from his former life. After a long, horrible two years of staring at white walls, of interminable sermons on faith and abstinence, of prostrating himself in prayer throughout the day, while he secretly dreamed of booze and blondes, Ali finally got his chance. He wrote a long rambling letter to his father swearing he was cured. A newly purified servant of Allah, he was now anxious to get out and make serious amends for his many sins. His timing couldn’t have been better. With oil prices shooting through the ceiling, the royal family was suddenly awash with cash. Gobs of it, many, many billions of Western money, was flooding the small kingdom. Black stuff was pumped out, rivers of green stuff flowed in.

Finding safe places to park all that cash had become a mammoth problem.

But at long last, after two horrible years of unmitigated misery, his father gave Ali the chance he had dreamed of, an opportunity to escape and make frequent trips to the West.

Over the wretched course of those two pathetic years, the only thing that had kept Ali from hanging himself in his cell were all the wild fantasies he stored in his head and replayed over and over. He developed a mental catalog; things he had done, things he would like to do again, new things he’d like to try. The time had come, at last, to indulge every last one of his preserved fantasies.

However, the man seated to Ali’s right, Bellweather knew, was a former imam and an iron-willed zealot, dispatched by the king to keep a tight rein on his forty-third son and be sure he didn’t lapse back into his nasty old habits. The temptations of the West were strong, and Ali obviously had a few willpower issues.

“How much did Cantor tell you?” Bellweather asked.

“A little. Something about a liquid you will squirt on your tanks and jeeps.”

“He told you what the polymer does?”

“More or less.”

“Are you interested?”

“More or less,” he repeated in that maddeningly opaque Middle Eastern way. In Arabland, apparently the words “yes” and “no” would draw a lightning bolt from the heavens.

“Then let me update you,” Bellweather suggested. He quickly proceeded through an energetic explanation of the polymer, a hilarious story about the dashed hopes of the GT 400, and the state of play in getting a defense contract. He made it sound like a gold mine-which it was-and a sure thing-which was drawing closer to reality every day.

Ali and his watchdog made loud slurping noises as they pulled tokes from the hookah. Ali listened politely but appeared only mildly interested.

Walters sat quietly and let Bellweather handle the pitch. Walters secretly loathed Arabs. His family name had been Wallerstein before he got it legally changed. He had aunts and uncles in Israel. A few cousins in the IDF. He wanted nothing to do with these Bedouin schlemiels, except for their money; about that he had absolutely no qualms.

“So now you want to sell us a piece,” Ali suggested the moment Bellweather finished.

“That’s the general idea, yes.” No fuller explanation was asked for, or indeed necessary. CG never put its own money on the line. They developed a project or takeover target, then quickly invited others to share the financial burden and gains. The financial term was “leverage,” shorthand for accumulating capital and spreading the risks of failure across multiple parties. In this case it meant buying all the influence that CG’s powerful group of insiders and power-peddlers could muster in the hunt for profit.

CG, however, carried it to absurd lengths. This was the secret to its success, the basic principle its founders had always preached. No matter how enticing the gamble, do it with other people’s money. They took funds from New York, Geneva, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Taipei, Moscow, really from anyone with deep pockets and the willingness to accept their stark terms. The source of the money made no difference. But the Saudis had long been their most frequent investor.

There was good reason for this. Billy Cantor, the former president and now CG board member, had during his time in office done the Saudis a few quiet favors. He had squelched several embarrassing inquiries that ranged from bribing American officials to some fairly egregious SEC violations. When several of the Saudi royals visited Las Vegas, and engaged in a wild bash that led to allegations they had kidnapped ten showgirls and treated them like a private harem, he had signed a secret order allowing them to jump on planes and flee home.

Then, after sixty American soldiers were butchered in a horrifying terrorist bombing at a U.S. air base outside Riyadh, with strong hints of government involvement, he had ordered the FBI and CIA to bring home their investigators and call it quits.

He did these favors not out of love for the Saudis. Truthfully, Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians-all those semi-dark people looked so much alike to him. He was well aware, though, that his long life in politics was grinding to a sad close. He had so little to show for it.

He’d been such a miserable president, with so few accomplishments to write or brag about afterward. No, he wasn’t likely to get rich off speeches and books, like the others of his ilk. With his heavy lisp and oversize tongue, he’d never been a good orator anyway. Even Nixon-Nixon!-had made a large fortune peddling books.

Sadly, the sum total of Billy’s insights and ruminations about statecraft or good governance could barely fill a two-page article. And after his regrettable attempt at reelection prompted a record landslide for the other side, it was clear the nation just wanted to forget him. So he’d spent his last months in office stuffing in as many favors to rich, unpopular countries and greedy defense contractors as he could get away with.

Now those old favors were paying back a thousandfold. The Saudi royal family came when Bill Cantor called. They had few fans in America, and a president, even a former one, even one with such a lackluster record and astounding level of unpopularity, was worth whatever he cost.

“This sounds interesting,” Ali murmured before he took a long draw on the hookah. After holding it for a long period he exhaled a large cloud in Walters’s direction. Walters nearly fell over. The smell was oddly pungent and seemed familiar. After a moment of careful sniffing, it came to him. Cannabis. Ali and his watchdog were sharing a huge doobie.

Well, what the hell. Maybe Allah had a thing against alcohol but not weed.

Ali selected a nice plump date from the bowl and studied it. “How much have you laid out so far?” he asked.

“About 128 million, between the purchase of the company and a fee to the finder. Then twenty million or so, for… well, let’s call it marketing expenses.”

Ali’s eyebrows shot up. “Twenty million?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“The price has gone up, Daniel.”

“Everything’s going up. The price of buying an election. The price of holding the seat. The bastards pass on these costs to us, their customers.” Bellweather leaned back and stretched his legs. The effort to twist his old body to mimic Ali’s contorted position was killing him. “Their greed is astonishing.”

“So all told, what, nearly 150 million?”

“More or less. We project another 250 million for production costs and assorted odds and ends. Raw materials, factory upgrades, new equipment, that sort of thing.”

“How much will you charge the government?” Ali asked.

“Impossible to say at this point. Depends how many vehicles they want coated. And how fast.”

“Yes, yes,” Ali said in a knowing tone. “Cut the bullshit, Daniel, it’s me. How much?”

Bellweather considered a bluff or a lie, but this was Ali bin Tariq; he was better wired in this town than the CIA and FBI combined. Finding it impossible to hide the proud smile, he said, “Conservatively, eight billion the first year.”

Without missing a beat, Ali said, “A sixteenfold markup. You’re talking almost a two thousand percent return.”

Bellweather attempted a humble shrug that quickly turned into a loud smirk. It was impossible to act humble about this. “Yes, it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

“My God.” Ali’s eyes lit up. He had to take another deep draw from the hookah. Walters was getting high off the exhaust.

“We’re at the stage now of turning this into a joint venture,” Bellweather informed him, suddenly very businesslike. “The risks are minuscule at this point. No, they’re negligible. But we like to take care of our friends.”

“How much can we get in for?” Ali asked without hesitation. His eyes looked like smokeholes but his instinct for business was perfectly lucid. Bellweather wasn’t at all surprised. In the old days, Ali could have sex all night long, slug down two bottles of scotch for breakfast, and still pilot his plane from Florida to Vail. His stamina was legendary.

“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.