Jeff finds himself in Washington DC on business trying to close a big deal for his company where he meets up with Nancy again, the FBI agent he had fallen in love with in Atlanta nearly two years ago. Jeff is separated from his wife because of Nancy
Chapter 14 of
Sunday 5:06 PM: Wired
They fit Jeff with a wire,
then take him to a meeting with the three congressman. Jeff meets with them to
find out if they are playing crooked in the arms deal, and then they offer Jeff
hush money!
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- Chris Lamela
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Author contact: Chris Lamela,
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K Street, Chapter 14
Sunday
5:06 PM: Wired
A moment later a man pushed through the curtain, introduced himself
telling Jeff to take off his coat. Jeff pulled it off handing it to the man.
The man weighed the coat in his hand, reaching down to the heavy bulge in a
pocket.
“Gun?” he asked Jeff.
Jeff glanced at Nancy
“Yeah, well, we can’t have it in the coat,” he reached into the pocket
pulling out the little snub-nosed gun handing it to Jeff, “it’ll interfere with
the signal.” Nancy
“We’re going to wire your coat in case they are smart asses and try to
scan you.” He dropped the black box into an inside pocket, pulled out a roll of
black cloth tape. Laying the jacket down on the table he stretched the wire
from the box across the inside of the coat laying cloth tape along the wire,
pressing it firmly as he went.
“Okay, look here,” Jeff leaned to look, the man pulled the little box
back out of the pocket. “This little switch here,” fingering it with his
forefinger, “turns it on. You are to flick this switch before you go in, then
you are to carry your coat over your arm as you enter.” He draped the coat onto
the table, sitting down in a chair next to it. “Make sure the coat is next to
you like when you are sitting. If they want to scan you, step away from the
coat―give it at least three feet from you―just to make sure it’s not picked up
by their scanner.”
“Couldn’t I just carry a recorder?”
The man looked to Arnie and Nancy, Arnie
spoke up, “We don’t expect anything to go wrong, but just in case, we will want
to come in there.” He looked toward Nancy who nodded, “And this is the safest
way. Carrying this in the coat should be safer than you wearing it, so I think
we are good to go.
“Hold on, let me get the receiver,” the man stepped through the curtain,
coming back a moment later with a box that looked like small boom box in black
plastic. He reached into a pouch attached to the back pulling out two pairs of
small headphones like Jeff had for his Walkman, plugged them into the box. He
handed one pair to Nancy while he put the other
set around his head, pointed to a switch for Nancy
“Okay,” he said pointing to the coat laying on the table, “talk for us.”
Jeff smiled to himself, “Gettysburg Address?” nodding to Nancy who gave
him a big smile remembering his test speeches from Atlanta
“Anything,” the man said.
“Four score and seven years ago, I had a little slut,” Nancy
The man flipped a dial on the front of the box, “Keep talking.”
Jeff laughed, “And Abraham Lincoln said that all free men should have a
little sl―”
“Good, got it!” the man said pulling off his ear phones. Turning to
Arnie, “This has about a three hundred foot range maybe a little more depending
on the materials in the building.”
“It’s brick and mortar,” Arnie said looking to Nancy
“Then you should be good for at least two hundred feet to be safe.” He
looked around to everyone, “Anything else?”
“No, we’re good to go, thanks,” Arnie gave an appreciative grin. The man
turned pushing through the curtain.
“Okay then,” Arnie leaned over scribbling an address on a piece of
paper, handing it to Jeff, “there’s a cab outside that will take you to this
address, we’ll be right behind you.” Arnie looked at the pen in his hand, Jeff
nodded reaching for it.
“So what am I supposed to be talking about with these guys?”
Arnie glanced to Nancy , “These guys are
the other side of arrogant, so my guess is,” he looked to Nancy
Jeff nodded, “What do you suspect?”
Arnie put his hand up to interject, “We suspect that these guys don’t
really have the congressional mandate. That they are outside their authority.
We suspect that they are doing this deal getting paid a lot of money directly
for doing it.”
“That would be bad, right?” Jeff said almost to himself.
“That would be prison. We already told you that the President’s office
has told us we can’t touch these guys, so the only way we can go back is to
have something really solid on these cats. If they are as bad like we think,
then we can get the go-ahead from the President, after that go to Gingrich to
figure out what he wants to do.”
Jeff shook his head wondering that he had somehow gotten this close to
that wacky character Newt Gingrich who was Speaker of the House.
“So you want me to draw them out.”
“Exactly.”
“Is there any danger here?”
“These are respected congressional leaders, there won’t be any guns if
that’s what you mean,” Nancy
“Okay, then, lead on!”
Arnie stepped to the curtain tying it back again, soon Jeff was sitting
in a cab, in only ten minutes pulling up in front of another big brownstone in Georgetown
Stepping out of the car Jeff looked around seeing no sign of Arnie or
Nancy. He decided they must be on the case, walking up the steps to the door
pushing the doorbell button he heard a loud chiming ring inside. He reached
inside his coat flicking the little switch on the box in his pocket. A few
seconds later the door was opened by a man wearing a tux.
“Jeff, I assume?”
“Yes, I have a meeting here?”
“Certainly, sir, come in,” the
man stepped aside, Jeff went through door hearing the door closing behind him,
“follow me, sir.”
The decorating was thoroughly modern, a super contrast to the
surroundings in Nancy
Roger Clement, the congressman that Jeff had met yesterday stood up
walking over, shaking Jeff’s hand warmly, “Good evening, thank you for taking
time to meet with us.” The other two men stood to introduce themselves, Jeff
immediately forgot their names except for their first names of Phil and Henry.
Henry was a congressman from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho .
That stuck in Jeff’s mind because he had been through there so much on his way
to visit his parents in Montana
Jeff took off his jacket,
casually laying it on the end table thinking how perfect a placement, sitting
down in the chair with the coat to his right.
Roger stood up, “I’m sorry, but we have a little formality here, if you
don’t mind,” signaling to the butler who started to approach Jeff holding a
scanning wand. Expecting this, Jeff stood up walking toward the man away from
his coat on the end table with his arms held out graciously like he was perfectly
okay with the ritual without glancing back at his coat which he figured was a
good ten feet away.
“Not to worry, scan away,” the
butler waving the wand around Jeff, the butler smiled when he was done, backing
away.
“Good then, we can get down to business.” Jeff was offered a cigarette
which he turned down, asked if he wanted something to drink which was followed
by the delivery of an opened Sam Adams. He took a sip setting his bottle down
on a coaster that was efficiently slid under the bottle by the butler as it
descended to the table.
“So again, Jeff, thank you for coming to meet us.” Roger glanced at Phil
and Henry to see their subtle signs of approval. “We are sure that you know all
of the little details about the deal with your avionics and surveillance gear
and UAV airplanes. I assume that you know the destination of your gear and the
UAV airplanes?” Jeff nodded picking up his beer taking a drink. “We have only a
few questions just to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Do you mind
if we ask a few questions?”
Jeff nodded again, “Ask away.”
“First, you know that under normal circumstances this kind of export
would be illegal.” Jeff nodded. “And that the three of us are in a unique
position because of our committee affiliations in Congress to allow such deals
to happen.” Jeff didn’t answer, he studied Roger, noticing the slightest
discomfort. “Okay, maybe this deal is kind of borderline, actually past the
borderline, but we have been asked by the President to push the envelope to
make this deal happen.”
Jeff put his bottle down, “Honestly, I don’t get why we are so anxious
to put this stuff in Saddam’s hands.”
Roger almost jerked at the name Saddam
putting his hands up, “Please, let’s not mention any names here. But yes,”
he looked to the other two, back to Jeff, “we are much less concerned with him
than we are the Ayatollahs.”
“You mean Iran
With hands up Roger admonished again, “Like I said, let’s not mention
names. The point is that we have been asked to do something that some may find
illegal, or at least very borderline at
best. In fact,” he looked to the other two again, “we were never exactly asked to okay this deal. We are, how
would you say, taking high signs from
the administration.”
“So you’re overstepping your bounds.”
At this point Henry spoke up, “Overstepping is such a harsh word. We
would like to think of it as more like extending
the administration’s wishes.”
“Does Gingrich know about this?”
Now Phil spoke up, “Gingrich is not in our little circle. He has no
affiliation with ODS.”
“He doesn’t know about your involvement in ODS. It’s not approved?”
Agitation instantly poured into the room, Henry stood up with firmness,
“Look, you don’t know how we work, you have no business speculating about any
of this.”
Jeff felt like he needed to firm up the ground beneath him, “Well this
is what I do know. If I think this deal is not authorized then I will cancel
the deal.”
“Look, Jeff,” Roger stood up with a disdainful air, “all you care about
is that you have an export permit. Anything more than that is not in your need
to know.”
Jeff looked sternly from man to man, back to Roger, “Well this is what I
do know, the delivery contracts
haven’t been signed and I’ll be damned if I will betray my country!”
Phil signaled the two men to sit down, “Okay, gentlemen, let’s be calm
here. Roger, Henry, sit down. We’re getting too excited here.”
The other two sat down, Roger fidgeting in his chair, the room gaining
composure again.
“I need to know what’s going on.” Jeff frowned at Roger, “And if you
pull that need-to-know crap one more time I’m out of here and you guys can go
find other avionics! And just so you know, there
are no other avionics!”
“Again,” Phil’s soothing voice filled the room, “we are all on the same
side here.” He sighed, “Look Jeff, you know that we are enemies with Saddam and
Iran , that we are supposedly
friends with Israel
“You mean, in spying on them?”
“Spying is a harsh term. Let’s just say that good information helps good
friends stay good friends.”
“And so my gear is going to be used to spy on Israel
“There are six systems, right?”
“Six, yes, with an option for six more.”
“Well, Jeff, that’s a lot of spying. Assuming the assets are well used―that
is that they don’t get shot down―then there are lots of things they could be
used for.”
Jeff picked up his beer cogitating this
information. “The range of the UAV’s is not enough to reach Israel Iraq or Iran Egypt
“See,” Phil smiled looking around to the other two, “this gentleman has
all sorts of insights!”
“But Jesus, the Jewish lobby would kill you guys,” Jeff frowned looking
back-and-forth between the three.
“There are all sorts of possible things that can go wrong with
everything, so you just have to play the odds hoping that you can keep things
to yourself long enough so that there won’t be any steam when people do find
out.”
Roger shook his head, “And they will find out eventually, guaranteed.”
“So let me see if I have this straight. This deal is not completely
legit even by your guys’ standards.”
There were nods, Jeff knew he needed words. “So is that right Roger?”
“Yes, there could be a lot of trouble if this gets outside of our little
circle.”
“So there is overstepping or there wouldn’t be this concern, right?”
Nods again. “Phil, is that right?”
“Like you’ve heard already,” Phil looked to the others for support, “overstepping
is in the eye of the beholder, some beholders may call it that.”
“Beholders like Gingrich?”
Jeff asked wryly.
“Please don’t use that name again, okay? None of us like that guy.”
“Well I don’t see a whole lot of holy cause here, so the only reason why
you guys would be sticking your necks out like this is for money. I assume you
get your compensation as advisors for ODS, right?” There was a sustained
silence.
Jeff knew there was more to the story.
He hit a nerve.
“Or is there a bonus for this particular deal outside of your ODS pay?”
“Can you keep a secret?” Phil looked anxiously to the others, Jeff
nodded. “We are getting paid a special fee, just the three of us for making
this deal happen.”
“This is way more than I
wanted to know, than I needed to know,” Jeff said slowly shaking his head. “I
am not any more encouraged that allowing this to happen is going to be a good
thing.”
Roger sat up leaning forward toward Jeff, looking back and forth to the
others, “What if there was a special fee for you?”
“You mean like payola for me?”
“There you go using loaded words again,” Roger frowned, “It’s not
payola, it’s a facilitation fee.”
“How much are we talking about?”
Roger looked to the others, Jeff
could see a rapid exchange of silent communication. Roger looked back to Jeff,
“Say five hundred thousand. Would that work?”
“So let me get this right, you’re offering me five hundred thousand
dollars to do nothing but just let this deal go through?”
“That’s right,” Roger said with a satisfied sigh, “all that money for
doing exactly what you’ve been doing, just doing your part to make sure the
deal happens. And not telling anyone, of course.”
“I can only control what I can control.”
Phil spoke up, “Yes, but a positive
attitude on your part will make a world of difference for the other players. So
in a way we are paying you to have a positive attitude. That’s pretty simple,
right?”
“I don’t know. The way I see this is that I can walk out of here, go do
what I was going to do anyway before I even came here and either take your
money or refuse it and it would have the same outcome.”
“Refusing it would be your choice, but is that what you want to do?”
Phil replied in an encouraging voice.
“Okay,” Jeff stood, the other three rose on his cue, “this is enough for
me tonight, I need to think about this.”
“But you are going to let the deal happen no matter what, right?”
Roger’s expression showed concern.
“All I know is what I knew before I came in here, and I am going to
ignore everything I’ve heard since.”
“So you don’t want the money?” Phil asked.
Jeff paused thinking what it would be like to get five hundred thousand
dollars but realized that he would be haunted by the money wondering where it
came from, what trouble it could get him into. It would feel like blood money.
“I’ll think about it.”
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NOW READ THE NEXT CHAPTER IN
K STREET!
http://chrislamela.blogspot.com/2012/09/k-street-chapter-15.html
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