Brian Haig - The Capitol Game

“Mendelson Refineries.”

“Is this a quiz?”

“Midsize refining outfit. Located in Louisiana. Place called Garyville.”

“Is there some particular suspicion I’m supposed to hunt down?”

“You tell me.”

She picked up the thick stack of papers and began riffling through the pages. It was a chaotic mess-financial spreadsheets, billings, invoices, payment slips. Nicky had apparently ordered one of the overworked assistants to make a mad dash through the procurement directorate and dredge up every piece of paper dealing with Mendelson Refineries. It would take hours to go through it all. Then many more hours to separate the wheat from the chaff in a frenzied hunt for real evidence, if indeed any existed inside this mass of garbage. “Another inside tip?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

A quick nod. “Hotline, again. Male voice, anonymous, the usual. He swore up and down Mendelson’s cheating us blind.”

Mia sipped a Diet Coke and rolled her eyes.

Garner offered a stiff, apologetic smile. “I know, and I’m sorry. We did get a trace this time.”

“And where did it originate?”

“Pay phone outside Garyville. Maybe another prank, might be real. Standard rule applies-you don’t check, you don’t know.”

The hotline was a great idea that was rapidly souring into a dispiriting disaster. Sources were supposed to call the hotline number to report abuse or financial shenanigans, and this would trigger an investigation. The ratline, it was called. All tips were confidential and this was the beauty of it. No names, just blame.

The past few months, however, the hotline had been inundated with a suspiciously large number of reports of abuse or thievery. The callers were nearly all anonymous. All the calls had to be painstakingly looked into; very few panned out.

The heads of the DCIS now suspected that the industries that did business with the military were adding a new wrinkle to their never-ending ways to screw the government-send the investigators chasing after a flood of false leads and empty claims, and they would become too busy to watch and catch the real crooks. It seemed to be working, unfortunately. The room was full of bloodshot eyes. Sick days were shooting through the ceiling. Morale was sinking. Worse, since the calls picked up, overall convictions were down thirty percent.

Mia stared back in mock frustration. “Why me again, Nicky?”

Garner ignored the look and the comment. “The source claimed Mendelson’s undercutting deliveries by two percent. Last year, the Navy bought a hundred million in jet fuel from the company. All told, about two million in fraud.”

“Wonderful.” At thirty-one, Mia Jenson had four years of practicing law in the private sector, and now two hard years under her belt laboring in the trenches of the DCIS. It was a small agency with big responsibilities.

And by almost every measure, Mia Jenson was its most bizarre member.

A graduate of Dickinson College, early, compacting four years into three, then she attended Harvard Law, where she shot to the top of the class. Not number one, but an incredibly close number two, and had she not overloaded on securities courses, number one would’ve eaten her dust. She concentrated on corporate and contracts; two of her case studies made the law journal. She was associate editor of the law review her final year.

Beautiful, brilliant, fluent in two languages, she was courted and offered an associate job by twenty top firms. Almost all offered six figures with a dizzying array of perks.

She interviewed them. She spurned all offers to visit their firms; she insisted they come to her, peppered them with questions, and made it clear she was picky.

They didn’t mind, or at least they pretended not to. She was hot, she was in demand. They wanted her.

She turned down the top fourteen offers and settled eventually on a small, quirky boutique firm in D.C., at half the salary of her top offer, but the promise of a fast track to partnership. The money meant nothing to her, she insisted. The challenge and the nature of the work were all that mattered.

That firm, Wendly and Wexer, specialized in cutting-edge corporate legal issues. Mainly its clients were oil companies, big communications firms, sports stars, and entertainment-all areas where laws, regulations, and contracts were constantly shifting.

For four years, Mia worked the twenty-hour days demanded of eager young associates with dreams of an early partnership rattling around their heads. Eventually the firm billed her out at $450 per hour-amazingly, a rate equaling that billed by full partners in many top firms.

One of her victories forced the FCC to change a long-standing law after she discovered a loophole and drove a truck through it.

The early partnership was hinted at, and she had no reason to doubt it.

Then out of the blue, one day, she walked into the office of the managing partner and politely handed him her resignation. He was stunned-his most promising associate, such a bright future, a billing machine, and she wanted to walk away.

Worse, she was a woman in a firm that was painfully overdue for a partner who wore lipstick. Also, like nearly every male in the firm, he secretly nursed a big crush on her.

He begged her to reconsider. She wouldn’t, she said, with an expression that indicated she meant it. Did you get a better offer, he asked; come on, give us a chance to match it. Nope, not that, but she offered no other reason. Better partners to work with? A firm shake of the head; they’ve all been wonderful, absolutely great. A bigger office, better perks, nicer view, shorter hours? How about a one-year sabbatical to unwind and enjoy life?

No, no, no, to all of the above.

One week later, Mia entered nineteen weeks of rigorous training at the Basic Agent Course held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Then ten weeks bouncing around various Army bases where she mastered the byzantine world of the military procurement and contracting system.

A federal law enforcement agency, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service works under the Department of Defense’s inspector general. The IG is the Pentagon watchdog, and DCIS is the IG’s hammer, filled with boys and girls who carry real guns and nice gold shields. They investigate waste, fraud, terrorism, and theft, and they execute real warrants and make real arrests.

Based presumably on her background, Mia made a strong plea to be assigned to the financial crimes unit in the Pentagon, and that request landed on the desk of Nicky Garner. His office was ridiculously understaffed and scandalously overworked. With two wars raging and a defense budget ballooning out of sight, corporate graft was a huge growth business. It was as if a big sign hung outside the Pentagon-“Here’s the jackpot, boys, come and grab it.” A tenfold increase in investigators wouldn’t have a prayer of keeping up. Almost any warm body would do.

Still, Nicky didn’t know what to make of her.

For one thing, she was absurdly overqualified for a starter agent. Besides, how could anybody trade the fat paychecks and enviable perks of corporate law for a lowly starting government salary of $36,000? The best anybody could recall, no Harvard Law grad had ever worked as a special agent. Not one, ever.

Was she an eccentric, a power freak, or just plain nuts?

Nicky decided to initiate her in charge card fraud. It was menial, low-level work, busting small-time hustlers and crooks; it was also a perfect excuse to keep her under close scrutiny for a while. See if she had a screw loose, or scary aggression issues, or ran naked through the halls-it had all happened before.

When, after only three months, she surpassed the office record for arrests leading to prosecutions, Nicky changed his mind. She seemed perfectly normal, whatever the hell that meant these days. She was efficient, hardworking, and with her impressive background in law, a magician at building airtight cases. Nicky piled the work on her. She was already handling triple the caseload of a typical DCIS grunt.