Steve Martini: The Enemy Inside

“She’s gone now. You can relax,” said Fischer.

“There’s everything to worry about.” Proffit froze Fischer with an icy glance. “You don’t kill a vampire in a car crash. That requires a silver bullet or a wooden stake. Take your pick. And even then you can’t be sure she hasn’t left toxic entrails behind.” He was curious as to details of how she died. According to the sparse reports, the accident happened on a deserted road some miles from San Diego. What was she doing there? He had already told his secretary back in L.A. to get a copy of the accident report as soon as it was prepared.

Proffit hated Serna in a way that left its mark on the core of his very being. They both prayed at the altar of progressive politics, and in a public fashion that no one could miss. Proffit did his time on the board of the ACLU and took his share of high-profile pro bono cases for the poor, minorities, the oppressed, and every other needy group.

Serna wrapped herself in the body armor of women’s rights as protection against the male lawyers who dominated the firm. She served on the board of directors of several women’s organizations and carried the banner of liberation like a cattle prod. She poked Proffit in the ass with it enough times to remind him that electricity could hurt. The last thing you ever wanted was an injured woman coming out of the woodwork screaming sexual harassment when your name was on the short list for power player of the week in a rising administration. To those in the glass bowl of power it was all a matter of perspective. If your heart was in the right place and your behind was on the correct side of the political divide, such claims would wither in a desert of disregard. But woe unto those in the wrong party, or worse, who had made enemies in the activist camp. For them the ninth circle of hell would provide a refreshing interlude from the pounding they would take before Senate committees in confirmation hearings. Tales of pubic hairs on cans of cola were mild compared to the nuclear crap that would rain down on you from the cloud and the Internet, which had a habit of breeding other victims and cloning new complaints. All of this could be yours if you fell into the cross hairs of the wrong activist group, something that Olinda Serna could guarantee if you got on her wrong side.

“You worry too much,” said Fischer.

“Is that right? Tell me,” said Proffit, “how much do we really know about what she was involved in, here at the firm, I mean? Do you know?”

Fischer stood there, his lower jaw beginning to quiver with disclaimers. “I just meant. .”

“I know what you meant. She was running her own secret empire within the firm. You know it and I know it. What we don’t know are the details of what she was into.”

“As I recall, you didn’t want to know,” said Fischer.

“That was when she was alive,” said Proffit.

Cyril Fischer was Proffit’s number two, managing-partner-in-waiting at the firm, and a man who Proffit knew would never get there. He lacked the instincts for survival as well as the searing coals in the belly that fired ambition. This was the reason Proffit kept him around. He was useful as a pair of eyes and ears, but he was no threat. Fischer ran the Washington office, at least on paper.

“If she had people on the cuff in Congress that she was paying off, you’re damn right I didn’t want to know. If you mean poisoned e-mails from Olinda to keep me in the loop, you’re correct. I had no desire to be on that mailing list.”

It was the kind of stuff a wily lawyer and pillar of the community like Proffit generally didn’t want to know about. He had imagination enough to fill in the blanks. And if Serna got in trouble, Proffit would protect himself like a mobster with at least three or four layers of subordinates to insulate him from accountability. But now that Serna was dead he had no choice. If there were damaging documents lurking in her files, he had to protect the firm, and by extension, himself. They would have to find some lawyerly way to inoculate themselves and disinfect the office.

Serna was the firm’s “juice lady,” specializing in political law and lobbying-“mother’s milk,” political money, action committees, and donor lists-the dark side of democracy. She had no personal life, no family, and seemingly no existence outside of the steaming swamp that was Washington and in which she seemed to thrive. For some time now, from what Proffit could see, her ambition had gotten the better of her. She had turned her job into a launching pad in an increasingly obvious campaign to unseat him at the head of the table within the firm.

“I’ve got two trusted associates and three secretaries auditing her files and checking her e-mails as we speak,” said Fischer. “If there’s anything there, I’m sure we’ve got it contained.”

This is what Proffit expected. They were looking in all the wrong places. “What I’m worried about you won’t find in her files.” Proffit knew that anything in her office files, short of hostage notes or blackmail letters, the firm could probably throw a blanket over under attorney-client privilege or lawyer work product and probably make it stick. “That’s not the problem.”

“What then?” said Fischer.

“Sit down for a minute and let me think.”

Fischer wandered toward one of the client chairs across from Proffit’s enormous mahogany desk, slumped into the deep cushions, and stared at his boss across the shimmering plate-glass surface.

What troubled Proffit was that Serna was a loner. If she had shot a dozen people in a shopping mall they would have said she fit the profile. Usually in a hurry, irritable, always on her own mission, a cipher you couldn’t read if they gave you the code. She was dedicated to her work in the way a zealot is to his ideology. She had her fingers in almost everything the firm handled if it had to do with the gods of politics. She blanketed Congress, the regulatory agencies, and the White House and did it all by herself. At times Proffit was left to wonder if she had cloned herself. If she had posted a sixty-hour day on her billings no one who knew her would have accused her of padding the bill. Her work ethic wasn’t the problem. The fact that she had an ambition to match it was.

More to the point, Serna had her own power base outside the firm, mostly friends on Capitol Hill and in the bowels of the administration. She was a registered lobbyist, one of only three in the firm. She either directly or indirectly ladled campaign money on members of the House and Senate from well-heeled clients, many of them large well-organized trade associations and corporate business groups. It wasn’t her money, but as far as the recipients were concerned, it didn’t matter. She was on the giving end. Otherwise, it would have been an easy task for Proffit and his supporters in the firm to outflank her, undercut her, and send her packing. The problem was, if they did that, they couldn’t be sure of the political or economic fallout.

If deals were made on critical legislation with Serna in the middle and her friends in Congress on the doing end, high-paying clients of the firm might feel more comfortable with her than with Mandella. Especially if they started receiving phone calls or e-mails from Serna’s friends in the Capitol. She had come from congressional staff when they hired her, consultant to the Senate Banking Committee. She had a lot of friends there. It was a delicate problem, not one that was easily or quickly dealt with.

“Where did she live?” Proffit looked off into the distance to the side away from Fischer as he asked the question.

“Somewhere in Silver Spring. We have the address in our records.”

“Has anybody been over there since the accident? Anybody with a key?” Proffit turned and burned two holes through Fischer with his gaze. He didn’t have to wait for an answer. The expression on Fischer’s face said it. Fischer hadn’t thought about this.