The Capitol Game

18

The Pentagon office of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service was located in room 5E322, on the fifth floor, almost midway on the outermost ring, indisputably the least desirable location in a building known for its lack of pleasant accommodations. The fortified doors hid a windowless warren of cubicles, in essence a large walk-in safe due to the sensitive nature of the work done inside these walls.

The room was designed for no more than twenty. Currently, forty investigators and assistants were crammed and pigeonholed into the space, at risk of suffocation.

Nicholas Garner, chief of the financial crimes division, cursed as he banged a shin on a stray chair, and fought and squeezed his way through the terrible sprawl of office furniture. He finally reached the seventh cubicle on the left, where he dropped an armful of papers on the desk. “I need you to plow through this.”

“When?”

“Today, Mia.”

Mia pushed away what she was doing and looked up. “What is it?”

“Mendelson Refineries.”

“Is this a quiz?”

“Midsize refining outfit. Located in Louisiana. Place called Garyville.”

“Is there some particular suspicion I’m supposed to hunt down?”

“You tell me.”

She picked up the thick stack of papers and began riffling through the pages. It was a chaotic mess-financial spreadsheets, billings, invoices, payment slips. Nicky had apparently ordered one of the overworked assistants to make a mad dash through the procurement directorate and dredge up every piece of paper dealing with Mendelson Refineries. It would take hours to go through it all. Then many more hours to separate the wheat from the chaff in a frenzied hunt for real evidence, if indeed any existed inside this mass of garbage. “Another inside tip?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

A quick nod. “Hotline, again. Male voice, anonymous, the usual. He swore up and down Mendelson’s cheating us blind.”

Mia sipped a Diet Coke and rolled her eyes.

Garner offered a stiff, apologetic smile. “I know, and I’m sorry. We did get a trace this time.”

“And where did it originate?”

“Pay phone outside Garyville. Maybe another prank, might be real. Standard rule applies-you don’t check, you don’t know.”

The hotline was a great idea that was rapidly souring into a dispiriting disaster. Sources were supposed to call the hotline number to report abuse or financial shenanigans, and this would trigger an investigation. The ratline, it was called. All tips were confidential and this was the beauty of it. No names, just blame.

The past few months, however, the hotline had been inundated with a suspiciously large number of reports of abuse or thievery. The callers were nearly all anonymous. All the calls had to be painstakingly looked into; very few panned out.

The heads of the DCIS now suspected that the industries that did business with the military were adding a new wrinkle to their never-ending ways to screw the government-send the investigators chasing after a flood of false leads and empty claims, and they would become too busy to watch and catch the real crooks. It seemed to be working, unfortunately. The room was full of bloodshot eyes. Sick days were shooting through the ceiling. Morale was sinking. Worse, since the calls picked up, overall convictions were down thirty percent.

Mia stared back in mock frustration. “Why me again, Nicky?”

Garner ignored the look and the comment. “The source claimed Mendelson’s undercutting deliveries by two percent. Last year, the Navy bought a hundred million in jet fuel from the company. All told, about two million in fraud.”

“Wonderful.” At thirty-one, Mia Jenson had four years of practicing law in the private sector, and now two hard years under her belt laboring in the trenches of the DCIS. It was a small agency with big responsibilities.

And by almost every measure, Mia Jenson was its most bizarre member.

A graduate of Dickinson College, early, compacting four years into three, then she attended Harvard Law, where she shot to the top of the class. Not number one, but an incredibly close number two, and had she not overloaded on securities courses, number one would’ve eaten her dust. She concentrated on corporate and contracts; two of her case studies made the law journal. She was associate editor of the law review her final year.

Beautiful, brilliant, fluent in two languages, she was courted and offered an associate job by twenty top firms. Almost all offered six figures with a dizzying array of perks.

She interviewed them. She spurned all offers to visit their firms; she insisted they come to her, peppered them with questions, and made it clear she was picky.

They didn’t mind, or at least they pretended not to. She was hot, she was in demand. They wanted her.

She turned down the top fourteen offers and settled eventually on a small, quirky boutique firm in D.C., at half the salary of her top offer, but the promise of a fast track to partnership. The money meant nothing to her, she insisted. The challenge and the nature of the work were all that mattered.

That firm, Wendly and Wexer, specialized in cutting-edge corporate legal issues. Mainly its clients were oil companies, big communications firms, sports stars, and entertainment-all areas where laws, regulations, and contracts were constantly shifting.

For four years, Mia worked the twenty-hour days demanded of eager young associates with dreams of an early partnership rattling around their heads. Eventually the firm billed her out at $450 per hour-amazingly, a rate equaling that billed by full partners in many top firms.

One of her victories forced the FCC to change a long-standing law after she discovered a loophole and drove a truck through it.

The early partnership was hinted at, and she had no reason to doubt it.

Then out of the blue, one day, she walked into the office of the managing partner and politely handed him her resignation. He was stunned-his most promising associate, such a bright future, a billing machine, and she wanted to walk away.

Worse, she was a woman in a firm that was painfully overdue for a partner who wore lipstick. Also, like nearly every male in the firm, he secretly nursed a big crush on her.

He begged her to reconsider. She wouldn’t, she said, with an expression that indicated she meant it. Did you get a better offer, he asked; come on, give us a chance to match it. Nope, not that, but she offered no other reason. Better partners to work with? A firm shake of the head; they’ve all been wonderful, absolutely great. A bigger office, better perks, nicer view, shorter hours? How about a one-year sabbatical to unwind and enjoy life?

No, no, no, to all of the above.

One week later, Mia entered nineteen weeks of rigorous training at the Basic Agent Course held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Then ten weeks bouncing around various Army bases where she mastered the byzantine world of the military procurement and contracting system.

A federal law enforcement agency, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service works under the Department of Defense’s inspector general. The IG is the Pentagon watchdog, and DCIS is the IG’s hammer, filled with boys and girls who carry real guns and nice gold shields. They investigate waste, fraud, terrorism, and theft, and they execute real warrants and make real arrests.

Based presumably on her background, Mia made a strong plea to be assigned to the financial crimes unit in the Pentagon, and that request landed on the desk of Nicky Garner. His office was ridiculously understaffed and scandalously overworked. With two wars raging and a defense budget ballooning out of sight, corporate graft was a huge growth business. It was as if a big sign hung outside the Pentagon-“Here’s the jackpot, boys, come and grab it.” A tenfold increase in investigators wouldn’t have a prayer of keeping up. Almost any warm body would do.

Still, Nicky didn’t know what to make of her.

For one thing, she was absurdly overqualified for a starter agent. Besides, how could anybody trade the fat paychecks and enviable perks of corporate law for a lowly starting government salary of $36,000? The best anybody could recall, no Harvard Law grad had ever worked as a special agent. Not one, ever.

Was she an eccentric, a power freak, or just plain nuts?

Nicky decided to initiate her in charge card fraud. It was menial, low-level work, busting small-time hustlers and crooks; it was also a perfect excuse to keep her under close scrutiny for a while. See if she had a screw loose, or scary aggression issues, or ran naked through the halls-it had all happened before.

When, after only three months, she surpassed the office record for arrests leading to prosecutions, Nicky changed his mind. She seemed perfectly normal, whatever the hell that meant these days. She was efficient, hardworking, and with her impressive background in law, a magician at building airtight cases. Nicky piled the work on her. She was already handling triple the caseload of a typical DCIS grunt.

The only peculiarity was that she preferred to work alone, with a curious tendency to be slightly secretive; she wasn’t snobby or standoffish, though. She was a welcome addition at the Friday night happy hours when the investigators unwound from a long week of weeding out crooks and busting perps.

The past eleven months, she had been chasing the big-time white-collar crooks at the corporate level. And whatever doubts Nicky once harbored were a thing of the past.

“What else are you working on today?” Nicky asked, very reasonably, as though this was negotiable. It wasn’t.

“A meeting with the prosecutors on the Boeing case. Case goes to court next week. Also, I need to take some depositions on the Phillips Aviation case.” She waved a hand at the stack he had just placed on her desk, almost lost among all the other stacks. She was very neat and tidy but the profusion of paper was too much for such a small desk. “Don’t worry, Nicky, I’ll do it.”

“Yes, you will. But thanks.” Nicky turned around and began the torturous journey back to his office.

The moment he was out of sight, Mia pushed aside the documents dealing with Mendelson Refineries. She pulled out the stack she had hidden beneath another stack when Nicky surprised her and returned to the documents she had been reading.

In her right hand was the Senate bill providing funding for CG’s polymer, in her left the House version of the same bill. She was halfway through the two pieces of legislation, meticulously comparing them line by line. They were identical, so far; even the periods and commas were identically placed.

Mendelson Refineries, even if the tip panned out, was worth, at best, only $2 million in fraud. She would study it later, only after she finished her own project.

A much bigger fish was in her sights.

It took Morgan a full day to track down Su Young O’Malley in a small, untidy row house in Queens, about midway on a long block of eerily identical homes. He’d wasted nearly a week locating her. The name change threw him for a full five days. After she left Primo, it turned out, she had married an NYPD cop, produced four kids, and now lived the harried existence of stay-at-home mom.

Morgan could hear small kids squalling in the background when she came to the door. He withdrew his phony badge and gave her the usual cooked-up story about a routine background check.

She explained that she was alone with the kids, and quite busy. He assured her that he didn’t mind; he would fit his questions in between diaper changes and feedings.

After a moment of indecision she caved and invited him in. The home was small and cramped, the floor covered with toys and child pens and enough kiddy bric-a-brac to outfit a Kids-R-Us superstore. Su Young immediately dashed over to a crib where a tiny runt in PJs was howling and flailing his arms.

She lifted him out, planted him firmly on a shoulder, and began to weave back and forth. After about fifteen seconds, the kid shut up. “What do you want to know?” she asked with a strong Brooklyn accent.

Morgan quickly took her through his repertoire of soft opening questions, the same ones he had tried out on Marigold Anders-was Jack a good boss, was he honest, forthright, a true red-white-and-blue American, and so forth.

Yes, all the above.

Then came an unwelcome break while she dashed into the kitchen for some mysterious purpose. He sat and listened to her banging around. She emerged a few minutes later, her hands loaded with feeding bottles. She tossed one at him. “Pick any kid you want and get to work,” she ordered.

He chose the one who looked almost catatonic, put him on his lap, and stuffed the bottle between his lips. “You’re not working anymore?” he asked, an attempt to be friendly.

“Nope.”

“All these kids, I guess. Good call.”

“No, I quit before the kids.”

“Why?”

“Working for Jack was a ball. After he left, I got stuck with a slimy jerk. One of those guys with a fetish for Asian girls. Know what I mean? Always touching me, always making lewd comments. ‘Hey, open my zipper and read your fortune, cookie. Why don’t you chop on my stick?’ And those were his best lines. I got creeped out and quit.”

“Should’ve reported him.”

“Hah! Good luck. It’s Wall Street. Boys will be boys.”

Morgan paused for a moment. Who cared? “Do you remember a client named Edith Warbinger?”

For a moment she looked confused, and he was ready to end it there. But she popped a palm off her forehead. “Oh, you mean Mrs. Warbitcher.”

“Yeah, I guess. How much do you remember about her?”

“A lot. Too much. Our most high-maintenance account.”

“I heard from someone that she had Parkinson’s.”

“Only later. She was just very, well, let’s say demanding.”

This didn’t match what Charles had told him, about a sweet, naïve old lady who had entrusted Jack with everything. Maybe it was a matter of perspective. “In what ways?” he inched forward and asked.

“What way wasn’t she? She thought that bundle of dough gave her the right to be that way. She’d had a miserable life, and after the money came in, took it out on everybody. Drove Jack and me crazy.”

“I heard she went on a long cruise.”

“Oh that.” Su Young laughed. “What a relief. For us, I mean. I’m sure it was miserable for the cruise line.”

“Then she disappeared, right?”

“Someplace in Greece, I think.”

“Any idea what happened to her?”

“My guess would be the crew tossed her overboard. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but she really was a demanding bitch.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I could tell you stories for an hour.”

“What did Jack do when she disappeared?” he asked, before the stories could start.

“He, or maybe the firm, hired some private detectives. For good or bad, she was our client. Jack insisted on it.”

“Was she ever found?” Morgan asked.

“What’s this got to do with Jack’s background check?” She was staring at him with growing suspicion now.

“Just following up on something somebody mentioned. Please bear with me.”

“No, she wasn’t found.”

“And this was right around the time Jack left the firm?”

“I suppose it was around then.”

“Why did Jack leave?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“We did. I’m corroborating. Please answer.”

Su Young pondered this for a moment, as though she had never considered the question. “You know what I thought? I don’t think he was ever happy there.”

“Wanted to make more money, huh?”

“No. I mean, I guess who doesn’t, right? Just, well, it wasn’t a nice place to work. Cutthroat, dog-eat-dog. Plenty of backstabbing and unhappy people.”

“Did Jack have any problems with the CEO?”

“You mean Kyle?”

A quick nod. “I heard they were at each other’s throats.”

“No, he… well, they all loved Jack. He brought in so much money, the big shots pretty much left him alone. Even gave him a million-dollar bonus when he walked out the door. Should’ve been a lot more, given what he did for them, you ask me.”

Morgan had a long list of questions left to ask but it would be a waste of time to prolong this. Jack’s more questionable activities evidently did not make it down to the secretarial level, which came as no surprise. Morgan put down the baby and stood. He straightened his jacket, then slapped his head. “Oh, one last question.”

Su Young was already out of her chair and moving for the child he had just put down. The kid was making fast tracks for the hot radiator in the corner, but she snatched him off the floor just in time.

As nonchalantly as possible, Morgan asked, “Do you remember who introduced Jack to the firm? They must’ve been close. Another Princeton grad, I think.”

“Tough question.” She paused for a moment. “All the Wall Street firms are loaded with Ivy studs. But Jack was always pretty close with Lew Wallerman. I think they knew each other before.”

Morgan thanked her, then walked out and closed the door quietly behind him. He stopped for a moment on the porch, withdrew the copy of Primo’s personnel chart, and began running his finger down the page, scanning for Wallerman.

The thirtieth line down, there he was, listed as working in wealth management, just like Jack.

“You’re Charles, and I got you,” he said out loud, and laughed.