Brian Haig - The Capitol Game

“I asked how, Mr. Parner, not how well.”

After another moment’s hesitation, Parner said, “Uh, I wouldn’t know, not exactly, anyway. I head LBOs, not test and evaluation.”

“I know who I’m talking to.” Then very calmly she asked, “Did your company contribute any money to Congressman Earl Belzer, of Georgia?”

“What?”

“It’s not complicated. Did you bribe Belzer, yes or no?”

Parner wasn’t about to answer that. No way. Not truthfully, anyway, and he was saved the trouble of having to tell another big whopper by Warrington, who somehow worked up his nerve, took a big step forward, and planted himself firmly in the middle of the discussion. “We’re through answering questions without a subpoena. This company has done nothing wrong, and I don’t like your questions.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Uh… are we under investigation, and if so, for what?” It was the question he should’ve asked the moment he laid eyes on her. He knew he was on dangerous ground, but wasn’t exactly sure why. “What’s your purpose for coming over here?” he demanded, continuing his feeble attempt to turn the tables.

Now Mia looked amused. “I came to introduce myself.”

“Introduce yourself?”

“Since you’ll be seeing plenty of me, I thought we should become acquainted.”

She was on her feet and out the door before they could ask her what she meant by that vague threat.

The meeting convened in the expansive office of Mitch Walters. The pen-and-ink portrait of his head from the Wall Street Journal now hung, front and center, in the place of honor on his wall of fame. Only a select few were invited-Walters himself, Daniel Bellweather, Alan Haggar, and Phil Jackson, the steering committee for the polymer. It was an emergency meeting. It was also a tense one.

Jackson was the legal cutthroat whose judgment would mean the most, and from the beginning he proceeded to take charge.

It opened with a hard, fast-paced interrogation of Thomas Warrington, the babyfaced lawyer from the general counsel’s office who had had the dismaying misfortune to meet Mia. Jackson treated him with all the cold contempt he reserved for a rookie attorney who had gotten his pants pulled down. “So you just let her waltz into our LBO section,” Jackson taunted, as if to say Warrington had stood aside and let her pillage the company safe.

“She had a shield,” Warrington answered, plainly terrified. “And she was very assertive.”

“But you failed to force her to explain why?”

“She never gave me the opportunity.”

“Idiot. Of course she didn’t.”

He winced. “I tried to get it out of her,” he complained, painfully aware of how pathetic that sounded.

“Beat it, get out of here. I never want to see your face again,” Jackson barked with a threatening glare. Warrington nearly scorched the carpet he moved so fast.

The other three men were all staring with deep intensity at Jackson’s face.

“What do you think?” Bellweather was first to ask.

The glare melted into his more typical expression of bored condescension. “My guess? She’s fishing. She smells something, but she’s got nothing. Not yet.”

“I don’t like the questions she asked Parner,” Walters complained. Then, as if anybody needed to hear it recounted, “About the takeover, about the testing, about the money to Belzer. They were too close to home. Why would she be interested in those areas?”

“Could be she was firing shots in the dark,” Haggar suggested. “Everything she asked could be gleaned from the newspapers. Everyone knows we bought Arvan-hell, Mitch shot his mouth off to every TV network and newspaper that would give him a second of attention. And everyone knows defense products are tested. Also, it’s fairly obvious to any observer that Belzer hammered the polymer through Congress.”

This provided a reassuringly harmless explanation that was comfortably plausible, of course. And it satisfied nobody, including Haggar, who had suggested it in the first place. He produced a slight shrug to show he wasn’t buying it himself.

“What do we know about this Agent Jenson?” Jackson asked, shifting his black eyes across their faces.

Haggar leaned forward. “I called a source in the IG’s office. Guy who used to work for me. He didn’t know her, but he pulled her file.”

“What’s it say?”

“Harvard Law, second in her class. Don’t ask me why she’s working in DCIS, it makes no sense, but there it is. Worse, she’s good at her work. Last year she earned two awards for excellence. Quite impressive for a rookie agent.”

“So she’s an eager beaver,” Bellweather said, trying to sound dismissive, as if that made any difference.

“Does your source say we’re being investigated?” Walters asked Haggar.

“No. He knows nothing about it. A lot of investigations, though, especially sensitive ones, are kept compartmentalized until the last minute. It’s possible he’s out of the loop. I told him to nose around, see if he can find anything out.”

“Sounds like we have nothing to worry about,” Walters said, relaxing back into his seat.

Ever the lawyer, Jackson snapped, “You’re a fool, Walters. You’re paid to worry. It sounds like she just came over to rattle our chains, but you can bet she’s not through. She was sending us a message.”

They discussed the perplexing problem of Mia Jenson till they were tired of talking. The meeting lasted forty minutes, long beyond the point where the conversation was at all useful. In the end, after much bickering and arguing, they decided no action was warranted. They would do nothing and watch, for now. They would prepare a few options in the event Mia Jenson developed into a bigger problem, but the ball was in her court.

Jackson, the expert in scandals, took the seasoned legal view that she was attempting to provoke them into doing something stupid. A classic cop’s ploy. She had good intuition, a strong hunch, and absolutely no evidence. She was hunting and bluffing, precisely because she lacked legitimate grounds to ramp up an official investigation: without that authority her options were severely constrained.

“So don’t do her any favors,” Jackson cautioned, staring pointedly at Walters, the hothead.

Bellweather said, “But we do have one loose end to worry about.”

“Jack Wiley, I know,” Jackson said. “I’ll pay him a visit.”

The shiny black Town Car rolled up to Jack’s house at five. Jackson had called ahead. Jack was waiting for him.

No warm hands were proffered, no phony pleasantries exchanged. Jack led Jackson to his big family room, where they fell into a pair of comfortable burgundy leather chairs and spent a moment getting settled.

Finally Jack asked, “What’s this about?”

“Have you been contacted by any DCIS agents?”

“What’s DCIS?”

Jackson briefly explained, then said, “An agent stopped by the headquarters this morning. She has nothing remotely concrete, but she’s nosing around.”

“About our polymer?”

“What else.”

“If she has nothing, why’s she nosing around?”

“We’re not worried at this point. You shouldn’t, either. It’s actually predictable. The polymer is a very large, no-bid, single-source contract. That sends up warning flags and suspicions. I’m sure she’s just poking around.”

“So it’s harmless?” Jack asked. His elbows were planted on the armrests, his fingers formed a steeple in front of his lips. He could’ve been a cocky college professor in the faculty lounge quizzing a hapless freshman. His posture and the skeptical tone of his questions were getting on Jackson’s nerves.