The Capitol Game (32 page)

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.

O
n December 2 the House of Representatives met to vote on HR 3708, a discretionary appropriations bill to authorize two years of payments for CG’s amazing polymer. It had been sent to Congress off-cycle, which was not unusual in the crush of war. The originating request had come out of the Pentagon. It was a short, direct plea for a fast-track, noncompetitive authorization, another common feature of a chaotic war. The needs and safety of the troops did not adhere to inconvenient schedules.

The floor debate was brief and uneventful. A few lonely voices tried to raise a squawk, but the tally was decisive: 415 in favor, 20 against.

The measure had popped out of the House Armed Services Committee only a few days before, and after Earl rubbed a few elbows in the Speaker’s office, it sped to the larger body for a floor vote.

Representative Drew Teller of Michigan, reeling under intense pressure from General Techtonics, made a spirited attempt at opposition. The committee vote to push back the GT 400 had caught him completely flat-footed, and put him miserably behind in the race to capture all those Pentagon dollars. Obviously it had been an ambush. And just as obviously, it was a creation orchestrated and skillfully executed by Earl Belzer. In the days afterward, the
executives of General Techtonics and representatives from the many loudmouthed lobbying firms in its employ flooded Teller’s office with calls and visits to get to the bottom of this.

Money and favors were leaking out of Earl’s office like lava from a volcano, their sources informed them. Big money. The kind of dough that could only mean big corporate backing, but by who? Where was Earl getting the juice from? And why?

The answers to those questions became crystal clear when the legislation authorizing the Capitol Group’s polymer sprinted through Earl’s committee, got greased on a fast track through the Speaker’s office, and in almost record time ended up on the floor for a full vote.

It was a classic rush job: notice of the House vote came with less than twenty-four hours’ warning. Poor Teller did his best to rally the troops. He called in every favor. He made more promises than he could begin to meet. He called and begged and cried to everyone in reach trying to muster opposition. It was Drew’s finest hour. He worked tirelessly throughout the night, working the phones, leaving no stone unturned, fighting this measure like an all-out war. The result was as pathetic as it was predictable.

Drew was no competition for Earl Belzer. He could not begin to match Earl in tenure or legislative acumen; nor, try as he might, in sleaziness. He was a pretty-boy second-termer from a small, insignificant Michigan district that was choking to death on closed factories. His lone claim to fame was his marriage to the daughter of a former governor, a rather homely girl with few prospects. In return for taking the ugly cow off his hands, the governor fixed his election.

On his own, in fact, Teller was only able to collect serious commitments for a paltry two votes against. One was a scoundrel facing a certain indictment for graft, who wanted to go out with his middle finger waving in the air. The other was a boisterous, ponytailed radical from San Francisco who, as a matter of firm liberal principle, opposed any defense spending.

Aside from this pair of notorious oddballs, nobody wanted to be seen voting against a measure to protect the troops, much less
one that had been the object of so much favorable press in recent days.

Earl, in a particularly nasty tactic, arranged for the vote to occur at midday, then persuaded his friends in C-SPAN to air it repetitively into the night. He bused in a small army of military wives and parents. They arrived at dawn and stood on the steps of the Capitol building, handing out a slick brochure filled with before-and-after shots of soldiers wounded and killed by IEDs and terrorists’ bombs. The brochure was bluntly titled
Let’s See Who Cares About the Troops
, and closed with a dire warning that America was watching.

At the last moment, though, Earl had second thoughts. A total shellacking might raise suspicions of a fix, so he ordered seventeen of his friends to vote against. Not an impressive amount of opposition, but a respectable showing. All were either in safe districts or doomed to certain defeat in the upcoming election. Their votes were meaningless and harmless.

Afterward, Teller sent him a short note of thanks for absolving him from a total humiliation.

That same afternoon, members of the House and Senate met in conference and compared bills, the usual procedure when considering a massive splurge of taxpayer money. The meeting was cordial and went smoothly. Oddly enough, their committee bills regarding the polymer were almost identically worded, as if they’d been written by the same hand.

By late evening, via a hasty voice vote, the authorization for two years of spending on the polymer was approved by both the House and the Senate.

Jack was seated in Walters’s big office, along with Bellweather, Haggar, and a ragtag gaggle of the boys from the LBO section, waiting for the call to come. They had gathered together at five, after receiving the welcome news about the House vote. Now they were awaiting confirmation by both the House and Senate. Though the outcome was nearly certain at this point, the tension in the room was thick as grease. A few were smoking. The head of LBO couldn’t
stop pacing from wall to wall. Bellweather repeatedly mumbled dire warnings about nothing being certain in love or politics; on both counts, he should know. Every five minutes, Walters speed-dialed somebody on the Hill and demanded an update.

Jack leaned against a wall, arms crossed, and said little. Though he had brought them this breakthrough product, he was obviously an outsider, and even more obviously, he was now seen as the guest who had stayed at the party long past his welcome.

The call didn’t come until seven. Though Jack couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, he was sure it was Earl himself calling to take credit.

Walters held the receiver to his ear. Very gradually, acquiring velocity with each word he heard, he broke into a huge grin. “Uh, okay,” he muttered. Another pause, then, “Listen, we can’t thank you enough.”

Another brief pause to listen, then, “No, that doesn’t mean we intend to offer you a bonus.”

He closed his eyes and, without looking, hung up. A table was positioned in the corner of his office. Six ice buckets sat there holding enough chilled bottles of Dom Perignon to inebriate a herd of horses. All eyes were on his face.

Finally, ever so slowly, the eyes cracked open and Walters whispered, “Break out the champagne.”

The loud cheer was followed by a mad dash to the corner table. The sound of corks being popped occupied the next thirty seconds. After fifteen minutes of loudly toasting and congratulating one another, the meeting began to break up. The LBO boys needed to rush back downstairs. Time to get back to their unending hunt for more targets, more takeovers, more ways to increase the ballooning wealth of the behemoth known as the Capitol Group.