Brian Haig - The Capitol Game

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.

Jack and Bellweather ended up alone with Walters. Mitch had his feet up on the desk, guzzling champagne straight from the bottle, like it came out of a firehose. His shirtfront was drenched, he was gulping it down so fast. Walters pulled the bottle away from his lips just long enough to ask Bellweather, “Ever seen a deal come together so beautifully?”

“Never, not once. From concept to legislation in two months. I’m sure it’s a record. How much did Earl say they authorized?” he asked.

“You’re gonna love this.”

“Spill it.”

“We asked for sixteen billion spread over two years.”

“I know. I did the asking.”

“On his own, Earl added another four billion.”

“Twenty billion,” Bellweather said, almost unable to believe it himself. Twenty! CG had produced some sweet deals in its run, but nothing remotely comparable to this.

Jack was still sipping from his first glass of bubbly and he broke up their mutual congratulations, saying in a tone of clear admiration, “I have to admit I never imagined this could happen so fast.”

“You came to the right place,” Walters boasted. “Didn’t we tell you that at the beginning?”

“I never doubted you for a minute. I just thought…” Jack shrugged and let that thought trail off.

Walters was uncorking another bottle with his big hands. “You thought what?”

“I thought there’d be more testing, for one thing.”

“Already done.” The cork popped out and a big gusher flowed over the sides of the bottle into Walters’s lap. “Remember? You gave us the results.”

“Yeah, but those were done by private contractors, not Defense people.”

“So what?” Walters bent forward and splashed champagne into his goblet. Half of it spilled onto his desk. Between the victory and the bubbly he was giddy. “The tests were done in Iraq, in real-life, authentic conditions. We’re in a war and time is a definite consideration. The Pentagon chief of research, development, testing, and evaluation was also at that big demonstration we threw out at Belvoir. He saw the results firsthand.”