Chapter 80

We stopped by the cafeteria and the three of us got a loaded salad on a carry plate, from there we went to the big table in Section Twelve. The conversation over lunch was about the elevator meeting.

‘‘You wouldn’t really do that? Would you?” Anne asked.

‘‘Do what?’’ I asked.

‘‘Dry?” she asked.

‘‘No but don’t tell anyone - it’s not going to happen, I wouldn’t give them the pleasure. I just wanted them to worry a lot, hopefully not getting a good night’s sleep any time soon,’’ I said.

‘‘Can you document everything you said in there?’’ Andrew asked.

I opened my portable office and pulled the six folders out, putting the three I had just confronted on the table. The top sheet was the Pirate Bank Logo and had the account number with the copy of the paper index card with all the real information on the account owner. The paper card was one of the only two places that information could be found at the bank.

The next sheet was the request to search the account and authorization. My name and signature was on it in two places. One as the bank officer requesting and as bank director authorizing. The next sheets were the accounting pages on which I had written notes where the deposits had come from.

Anne had Senator Hope Emerson’s account and Andrew had Senator Ruth Gavin’s. Anne picked up on the signatures right away. I could tell by the eye cut she gave me and then by the finger tap on the paper after she nudged Andrew under the table.

Sly girl but not sly enough I thought - you need training or more practice.

They looked while we were eating then swapped papers and I read the Senator Howell file.

‘‘Very profitable business,’’ Andrew said.

‘‘Yep, if they hadn’t been so greedy they may have gotten away with it for a very long time,’’ I said.

‘‘Did you notice the dates? There were six accounts started the same day, within minutes of one another,’’ I said.

‘‘There are more?’’ Anne asked.

‘‘This one has a committee meeting after lunch. We shall go see her. The other two are having a committee vote on funding for the grants today or tomorrow. I will wait until after the vote. I would hate to influence the outcome. Doing things like that tend to bite you in the ass,’’ I said.

The others started to return from lunch, I tapped the papers and motioned to return them and then I put them away.

‘‘The real question is - what else are they willing to sell and to who?’’ I said.

‘‘That’s a good question,’’ Andrew said.

‘‘What can be done about it?’’ Anne asked.

‘‘Nothing without a major restructuring and chaos in the Senate and House. I cannot get any more information from the source or allow this to go public without major repercussions. You have no idea the difficulty and expense in getting these,’’ I said as I put the papers away.

‘‘Oh, I can just imagine! Everyone in the world has been trying to get information from that bank without success,’’ Andrew said.

‘‘I would like to get their access to classified documents canceled but that would start a fire storm. But on the other hand, none of the deposits so far are - although I am not finished - from any foreign banks. If there were, they would be in jail already,’’ I said.

‘‘I need thirty days of quiet and then I will hang them,’’ I said.

‘‘Why don’t you talk to Dick James - as Secretary of State he is the one that has to cancel their security clearances, and Art Cummings as head of NSA - he may be able to have all their systems watched. They do work with you a lot and you are always bailing them out it seems. Also they were instrumental in the Black Bear takeover,’’ Anne said.

‘‘I could do that in the morning, which would give me time look at the rest of the data I have. They were the ones that encouraged me to investigate everything at Black Bear so maybe they knew or suspected something,’’ I said.

I decided not to see the other three - unless they gave me more trouble today - until I had more time to review all the data and meet with Art Cummings.

After lunch we went to the House set of committee meetings. Congresswoman Roxy Granger of the House Foreign Affairs committee avoided me at all cost- never looked at me during the whole presentation and made sure she was on the opposite side of the room. She was texting the whole time. There was no doubt she had been warned. The minute the gavel struck she was gone like a bolt of lightning.

The Senate Appropriations committee passed the funding request for the college security bill. Senator Rose Pearlman railed against it and voted against it as did Senator Sherman Ballard.

I wondered if Roxy was running - she was scared. I was willing to bet there was more in her file than was in the others plus the dollar amount was a lot higher than the others, as I glanced through it again. I looked at all the deposits closer and where they came from. I then compared the bank numbers eliminating those from Black Bear, the defense industry and the broker.

I called Robert and read the bank numbers. It only took him fifteen minutes to call back. They were from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, China and Russia. That was the only motivation I needed.

I placed a conference call to Art Cummings and Eric Roberson, ‘‘Put a tag on Representative Roxy Grainger, travel, phone the works - do it today, she may be trying to run. If she tries to get into any foreign embassies or a flight out, arrest her. It’s important; I will fill you in on the details tomorrow.’’

Tomorrow I would have enough answers to decide the fate - or what was left of it - for the others.

The trip home was a beast. We left just as the rush hour was underway. There were big meetings tonight, also Andy was back and putting his people together. Black and Bear were moving into their offices and the employees from McLean were setting up their new offices - they had been there all day. The movers had started this morning bringing the things we owned and not leased over from the western shore.