Brian Haig - The Capitol Game

“Yeah,” Earl rattled on, filling in the now unnecessary details. “Seems their robot’s got a few awkward habits. They did this big test a few months back and invited ever’body. That crazy little robot apparently sniffed gunpowder, and began chasing one of the guards around, threatening to blow him up.”

Bellweather laughed. “And did the test have a happy ending?”

“Oh, he ran all over the place, screamin’ and hollerin’, for ’bout five minutes. It was real entertaining. After a while he got smart and dropped his piece, then, boom-the robot blew it to smithereens.”

After a few obligatory chuckles, the table grew quiet for a moment. Jack stared into his tea. Haggar was smiling. Bellweather was thinking, calculating the odds against him.

Earl looked expectant-with one hand he was snatching and gobbling more rolled-up delicacies from the dim sum plate, while with the other he was drumming his chubby fingers on the table, impatient to hear the deal.

“Focus on GT first,” Bellweather suggested. He popped something loud and crunchy in his mouth.

“Yeah, good call,” Earl seconded as though he’d thought of it himself.

“We’ll lay the groundwork for you.”

“That’s important,” Earl noted. “How?”

“This vehicle… what’s it called?”

“The GT 400.”

“Right. It’s… well… a great idea with fatal flaws,” Bellweather said, mentally forming the idea as he spoke. “Rushed through design and development, hurried through testing. The usual sad story. Haste makes waste.”

“That’s the ticket,” Earl said. “What flaws?”

“Well… uh, it’s top-heavy, for one thing.”

“It is?”

“Sure. A major design snafu, an all too common misstep by combat vehicle designers. They piled on so much armor it’s subject to rolling. Can’t keep its balance on curves. You know, unsafe at any speed.”

Getting on top of the idea, Earl said, “A rolling death trap.”

“Yeah, I like that. It’s catchy,” Bellweather said, beaming at his student. “To achieve a safe distance from underground explosions, they kept raising the chassis off the ground. Now the center of gravity is too high.”

Earl had his fist stuck deep in a bowl of fried shrimp, or something that resembled shrimp. He was fishing around, hunting for the perfect mouthful. “Like that Ford SUV,” he mumbled, his eyes glued to one particular shrimp. “Tippin’ over all the time.”

“I’ll hire a couple of experts to build the case, maybe expound on it a bit to the press.”

Stuffing the piece in his mouth, Earl mumbled, “There’s gonna have to be some hearings, naturally.”

A pat on the arm and a grave nod from Bellweather. “Only responsible thing to do, Earl.”

Earl scratched his head and said, “ ’Course, I’d need ample justification. Y’know, a spark to get it rollin’.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure one will come along.”

“How you figure to handle that?”

Bellweather thought about it for a moment. “I have a strong premonition that somebody in Defense’s procurement department is about to send you an anonymous letter. An insider, terribly bothered by the shoddiness of the testing. The vehicle was dangerously tipsy but nobody wanted to hear about it. He was brushed aside, and isn’t happy about it.”

Earl shook his head, dismayed by the horror of it. “Hell, that’d have to be looked into.”

“I like your logic. And were you to schedule the hearing for… oh, say about three weeks from now, a lot of critics will be ready to raise a noisy racket about it.”

Haggar, feeling like a third wheel, decided to throw in his two cents. “Make it a last-minute thing, Earl. No warning. In fact, announce an entirely different reason for the hearing.”

“You mean, call it a program review, maybe a cost overview. Something like that.”

“Perfect, something totally innocuous. GT won’t be expecting an ambush. They’ll send over a bunch of accountants and be totally off guard.”

“Great idea,” Earl mumbled, already picturing it in his mind. A bunch of number crunchers armed with spreadsheets and cost analysis proposals, gawking in shock as they were being pilloried about the intricacies of vehicular physics. Get a few staffers to work up a bunch of questions that would stump Albert Einstein. How fun. They’d be frozen in their chairs, peeing in their drawers, totally clueless. “Wonderful. What then?” Earl asked, popping a shrimp between his lips and clamping down hard.

Bellweather tackled this one. “But be careful. An outright program termination would incite too much resistance. Too much heat and noise. GT and the generals will scream murder.”

“Not just them,” Earl observed, sucking on a dim sum roll. “Teller’ll throw a real hissy fit. Don’t get between that boy and a TV camera.”

“So don’t kill it,” Bellweather advised, “delay it. Send it back for another year of rigorous testing until the safety concerns are ironed out and mollified. A good hard scrub before we waste all those billions, a reasonable pause before we expose our boys to uncertain dangers.”

Like that, Bellweather stopped talking. Earl stopped eating. Haggar began scribbling something on a napkin. The meeting seemed to lurch into a new phase. Jack knew enough to keep his face expressionless, his mouth shut.

By unspoken agreement, the ball had slid to Earl’s corner. He wiped his plump lips on a cheap white paper napkin and leaned back in his chair. “I believe it will work,” he concluded with a small, mysterious smile.

But there was nothing at all mysterious about it to Bellweather.

The former SECDEF who had first introduced Earl to this game looked slightly annoyed. “We will of course be very appreciative,” Bellweather muttered, sounding anything but. A long, awkward silence. “What do you have in mind, Earl?”

“Glad you asked, Dan.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“Five million for my next campaign would certainly be nice.” Earl had dropped the country bumpkin and was suddenly the sharpy riverboat gambler. He was leaning across the table, eyes narrowed, gleaming with total concentration.

Bellweather threw down his napkin and nearly howled. “Christ, Earl, that’s too much.”

“Well… what’s enough?”

“Three million. That’s all we budgeted, all we can afford.”

“See, Dan, I’m also factorin’ the price of ushering this polymer of yours through the political thickets. I expect you’ll be looking for a noncompetitive, fast-track deal.” When nobody contradicted that, he continued, “I’m a one-stop shop, Dan, all that and a bag of chips.”

“Five is still too much.”

“Nah, it’s a real good deal and you know it. Kill the competitors, and grease the pole for your polymer. Nobody else can handle this.”

After a long, tense pause, Bellweather said, “Even you can’t do it alone, Earl.”

“Oh, damn, you’re right. I’ll need a little more to spread around. Throw another two million into my PAC.”

Bellweather looked ready to argue, but he didn’t have the strength. “You’ve learned this game too well,” he whispered.

“Yeah, well, I had a good teacher,” Earl said.

Martie O’Neal was happily hidden in the third stall to the left, comfortably ensconced on the toilet, when his cell phone began bleeping and rattling. He dropped the girlie magazine, lurched over, and spent ten frantic seconds trying to dig the phone out of the pocket of the trousers gathered around his ankles. “What?” he barked.

“Martie, it’s me, Morgan,” said the familiar voice.

“Whatcha got?”

“Gold, maybe, or maybe fool’s gold.” Morgan quickly filled in the story about Charles, omitting only a few insignificant details like how Charles found him, how he escaped, and that infuriating little stunt with the note in place of the glass. Some things are better left unsaid.