The Capitol Game (29 page)

He watched Eva spin around and stomp to her car, heels making loud angry clacks on the concrete the whole way. She climbed in, slammed the door, and burned rubber all the way down the street.

Jack stared down the street after her, then stepped inside and closed his door.

The meeting was short and to the point. Walters was sitting behind his desk, idly playing with a paperweight. Bellweather, with his arms crossed tightly against his chest, was hunched against the far wall.

O’Neal and Morgan stood before the desk and wrapped up the final details about the meeting with Charles in New York, and his astounding revelations. They had been speaking for fifteen fascinating minutes. Mr. Big Shot Walters never invited them to sit.

“He killed her?” Walters asked, coming forward in his chair.

“That’s what Charles claimed,” Morgan answered.

“And you believe it?”

“I see no reason not to,” Morgan said. “The story was so elaborate, so detailed. Hard to believe it was fabricated.”

“It was considerably more than we expected to learn,” O’Neal offered, a loud understatement, though somewhat short of an endorsement.

The room fell quiet as the men considered the full import of Jack’s past. A con artist, a thief,
and
a murderer. Two of three they had hoped for, maybe even expected; the murder gave them pause.

“Well, he was Delta,” Bellweather remarked, as if that explained everything. “Purebred killers. Jack certainly had the ability and experience to pull it off.” But he still wasn’t sure he believed it
himself. Could Jack Wiley really be a murderer? Did he really kill an old lady? Could the smooth, aloof Jack they all knew be that viciously cold-blooded?

Walters looked at the wall for a moment until he found the good news. “If it’s true,” he said, “it gives us the edge we’ve been looking for. If he steps out of bounds, we’ve got all the ammunition we need to yank him back.”

“Except evidence,” O’Neal answered, injecting a bit of reality.

Walters fixed him with a hard stare. “Do you believe it?”

“Maybe. But we don’t know the identity of the source. This guy Charles is a blank slate. We got nothing that proves whether it’s true or not.”

Morgan felt the need to throw his two cents in and said, “I’m convinced Charles was telling the truth.”

“Are you?”

“In fact, if I had to guess, Charles was Ted.”

“Who?” Walters asked. He did not enjoy talking with this common investigator and made no effort to hide it. He was the CEO, after all; it was beneath his station.

“Ted,” Morgan repeated. “The friend from Princeton who introduced Jack at the firm. Ted vouched for him. Ted was responsible for Wiley getting the job. After Jack walked with the old lady’s money and a million-dollar buy-off, Ted was left holding the bag.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. A hunch.”

“We don’t pay you for guesses,” Walters snapped.

“There just was something in the way he told that part of the story. A pause, a hesitation, an intonation. I dunno, something. He’s Ted. I’m sure of it.”

Walters leaned back in his chair and unleashed a skeptical frown. “Anything else?” he asked. “I mean anything factual?”

“Yeah. He had names, dates, plenty of details. Only one thing explains that. He was in the firm same time as Jack.”

“That it?” Walters asked. He now had his hands clasped behind his big head with his feet on the desk, pretending to be bored. It
was his favorite managerial stunt, making them sweat, intimidating his underlings with indifference, forcing them to say more than they intended.

“Only this,” Morgan said, looking Walters directly in the eye without blinking. Morgan had never met him before but he’d certainly heard the rumors; a tough-guy wannabe in Gucci loafers. Seemed about right to him. “He asked if you guys intended to hurt Jack or just humiliate him. This is important to him.”

“And what did you say?”

“That you’re gonna bring a world of pain on Jack. He liked that, Mr. Walters. Liked it very much,” Morgan said. “Charles, or Ted, or whoever, is carrying a real nasty grudge.”

Walters paused and glanced at Bellweather. “What do you think?” he asked, unsure he wanted to hear the answer. The accusation of murder was a new factor, one with a world of troublesome ramifications, but they were in too deep with Jack to walk away at this point. Jack had that damned contract that bound them together. And he had been with them almost every step, dodging and bribing their way through Washington.

After a moment, Bellweather surmised, “Jack might be more than we bargained on. Depending on your perspective, we either over- or underestimated him.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Question is, do we have anything to worry about?” Bellweather pushed off the wall and began pacing around the office as he talked. “If true, Jack is sly, deceptive, and very dangerous.”

“Yeah, but if we can prove it, he’ll be a lot less dangerous.”

O’Neal and Morgan studied their shoetips as Bellweather and Walters went back and forth, bickering over the pros and cons of getting the goods on Jack. Both did their best to appear bored and ambivalent as they bit back nasty smiles. It was a waste of their time, but they would bill CG for every second of this meeting, so who cared? Really, what was there to debate?

Of course Bellweather and Walters were going to go for it—they’d throw a fortune at the hunt for evidence, if that’s what it took. This tale was simply too good to ignore.

Walters, the expert in human behavior, would be the first to figure out the big possibility, O’Neal was sure. Bellweather might be more ruthless, but age and success had dulled his edge. Walters was all that, plus he was hungry and ambitious. He’d clawed and backstabbed and stepped over a hundred bodies on his way up to CEO. He would yank out his mother’s fingernails if it would gain him another inch of advantage. He was actually surprised it was taking Walters this long to figure out the enormity of the incredible break that just landed in his lap.

They had uncovered Jack’s dirty little secret; now, if they could prove it, Walters had the weapon he needed to drive Wiley out of the deal. Here’s a blast from your past, Jack—evidence that you whacked an old lady, evidence you stole her money, evidence you blackmailed your firm into shoving it under a rug. Proof of just one of those charges would drive Jack to his knees. Sign over your shares, forgo a billion in profit, and it’ll remain our nasty little secret.

Eventually Bellweather and Walters stopped talking. Walters stood and walked around his desk. “Do you think you can get proof?” he asked, directing a finger at O’Neal. “Something that would stand up in court?”

“Probably,” Martie answered, making the word sound more like “absolutely, no big deal.” It was, however, not merely a big deal, but a huge one. He’d bill the Capitol Group for millions. He’d throw a dozen people at it, work them around the clock, invoice triple for overtime, and bill his client for every paper clip and wasted photograph. “Charles left us plenty of leads,” he continued, listing his reasons. “We know the victim. We now have it narrowed down to one firm. We’ll get the names of everyone in Primo during those years. Somebody will know something. Someone’ll talk.”

“I want it done fast.”

“I’ll put my best people on it.” Dozens of them at inflated costs.

“Don’t get caught.”

“Not a chance. A good cover and he’ll never know a thing.
Anyway, we’re still watching his house. We’ll add a few more men, watch him everywhere he goes.”

“What are you waiting for?”

O’Neal and Morgan backed away and fled from the office. The moment the door closed, Bellweather put his rear end on the corner of Walters’s desk. “Good call,” he said.

“I know.” Walters walked back behind the desk and collapsed into his chair. He picked up the picture that O’Neal had left in the middle of the blotter.

It was taken by one of the trailers following Morgan and Charles that night. A color, blown up to ten-by-twelve, showing Charles meeting Morgan on the street corner. He pinched the bridge of his nose and studied it closely. The mystery man was maybe five inches taller than Morgan, thin, well dressed, wearing an expensive blue cashmere topcoat. The shot was blurry and mildly out of focus but showed that Charles had dark features, dark, swept-back hair, a large beak, and shrewd eyes. “Know who this guy is?” he asked without looking up.

“Not a clue. Who?”

“The billion-dollar man.”

T
he 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.”