ing into those issues he was sure. “I’m unaware of the specifics of any
such abuses, but these are exactly the sorts of things this task force is
designed to end forever, and that’s what I support.” Only at the end
did one question come out that the Congressman didn’t seem quite
prepared for. It was a question Paul had taken a great deal of time and
effort to plant, something from Kal Petersen, a low-level
Washington
Post
reporter/blogger who was second or third string covering the House
of Representatives and looking for a break.
“Congressman, what about your connections to lobbyist Ken Clover?
Were you aware of his connections to the Mariana Islands textile manu-
facturers or part of his so-called ‘earmark market’ of votes trading in
Congress? Have you ever worked with Mr. Clover?”
To his credit, Wolverton’s only sign of dismay was a slight narrow-
ing of the eyes and lips. “I know Mr. Clover, yes, but I’m unaware of
whatever it is you’re talking about. If you have some specific questions,
send them over to my office and we’ll get back to you.” He looked up
at the rest of the audience. “I’m due in a committee meeting now, so
I want to thank you all for coming out and if you have any follow-up
questions, address them to my office, thanks.” The live feed on the
website stopped there, cutting off an attempt by Kal Petersen to shout
out another question.
It only took ten minutes for the word to get back to Ken Clover that
something to do with him was going on, and for the first time their tar-
get began to realize that his life was turning to shit. “Wow, he’s upset,”
said Paul, watching the stream of text messages and e-mails flood out of
Clover’s computer and listening in on his calls. They shunted anything
directed at the Congressman or Danny to voice mail. “Really, really
fucking upset. He’s calling everyone. I don’t think we’re going to keep
a lid on him for long.”
“Then let’s send Danny the rest now,” said Chloe.
“You don’t think it’ll make him suspicious?” Paul asked.
She knew Paul seldom felt comfortable deviating from the plan unless
necessary. “It’s plan B for us. We hit him with all of it and keep him
thinking about how bad it would be if he weren’t so lucky and then
hopefully he’ll never get around to feeling suspicious about how lucky
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145
he is. At least this way he’s not already suspicious, which is what he will
be if Clover decides he’s tired of voice mail and gets up off his butt and
walks over to see Wolverton in person.”
Paul thought about it for what seemed like a full minute, time she’d
learned to give him in these instances. “Yeah, yeah, I see that. OK.
Lemme just change a few things in the e-mail.” He was already pulling
it up, ready to go. “Yeah, this could work. Absolutely.”
Ten minutes later he launched the attachment laden info bomb from
the e-mail account of one of the assistants in Clover’s office, aimed
straight at Danny. Posing as a disgruntled employee who’d become
disgusted with what his boss was doing and who he was working for,
the e-mail laid out everything. It was confidential material taken from
the Clover & Associates computers that detailed vote-trading transac-
tions, payments, and connections between Clover and the slavers Isaiah
had been hitting, including links to the Marianas groups. It was a lot of
data, but Paul had composed a summary cover letter and included a sort
of table of contents that Mr. Data had come up with that summarized
the most damaging tidbits from each of the attached documents. Paul
changed the letter some to incorporate some new material explaining
that the assistant had been planning to send the files to contacts in the
media, but after seeing Wolverton’s courageous stand he thought that
the congressman might be able to do some real good with the docu-
ments. Just in case though, he would be sending the documents on to
the media in six hours no matter what.
The six hours gave Wolverton a final out—one more hoop to jump
through. Chloe honestly didn’t think it would matter a whole lot if he
took their bait or not. Just releasing all that confidential data from the
Clover servers would cause the lobbyist an immense amount of trouble
for both himself and his clients. But if Wolverton decided to get in front
of the coming trouble he could both ensure he was safe from most of the
fallout and score some points for himself as a kind of crusader for honest
government. In the process it would also go a long way towards sealing
Clover’s fate even more dramatically. None of his allies in Congress
would be able to publicly come to his aid, and even privately they’d
be hard pressed to do him any favors. Any association with him would
become poisonous, just like any association with Jack Abramoff had
been. And while Clover’s crimes were more subtle than Abramoff’s, he
was still potentially radioactive. Just to spur Wolverton on towards mak-
ing the right decision, the files that Paul sent him had been scrubbed of
anything that might incriminate the Congressman himself. The version
they’d release to the media on the other hand, would have some more
146
Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues
incriminating material in them. Although Paul’s e-mail didn’t mention
this fact, Chloe was betting that the Congressman knew full well how
in bed he was with Clover and would probably take the opportunity to
jump clear of the sinking ship.
Things went dark for both Wolverton and Danny in the hour
that followed. Presumably the two of them and maybe some of the
rest of the senior staff were discussing options. Meanwhile Clover
was going more and more ballistic. “What the hell is that fucker up
to?!?!” he screamed into his phone to one of the other congressmen on
Wolverton’s committee. No one seemed to know, and since none of
his direct calls or e-mails were getting through to the congressman,
the lobbyist began to assume that he’d been frozen out in prepara-
tion for being thrown under the bus. Meanwhile, representatives from
The Enemy down in Florida kept asking for help from Clover as
their situation collapsed around them, but he wasn’t receiving any of
them, making his biggest clients just as angry at him as he was with
Wolverton. Chloe reveled in all the anger she’d helped sow between
these utter assholes.
At 3:30 they learned about the Congressman’s decision. Danny sent
an e-mail to Kal Petersen from
The Washington Post
, offering him an
exclusive head start. Kal could have the documents and be the one to
make them widely available, but Wolverton’s name had to be kept out
of it. In effect, Danny was becoming a deep-throat style source, never
to be revealed. Petersen would have all the evidence he needed to go
after Clover and some of his clients with front-page worthy material
and plenty of Pulitzer-level follow-ups to come after. Kal took the deal
and Danny sent him the documents. That night he would be teasing
the story on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Tuesday morning
it would run on the front page.
“He’s so fucked,” said Chloe. “I mean, we did it right? We fucking
won?”
“I really think we did, yeah,” said Paul. Clover had gone silent
just after 5:00 pm. No e-mails, no phones, nothing. The GPS on his
Blackberry showed that he’d gone home early from the office. He
seemed like a beaten man. “I think so.”
“Name one way we didn’t win?” said Sacco, who’d been practically
bouncing off the walls for the last hour, he was so excited. “Did we ruin
his political connections? Oh yes. Did we steal a shit load of his money
and give it to some deserving workers? Hell yes! Is the Washington
fucking Post digging into every aspect of his dirty life? My God are
they fucking ever! Did Isaiah and those guys take down his biggest
Rick Dakan
147
fucking client? They took them down in motherfucking flames! How
is that not winning?”
“That’s winning,” said Chloe. “That ain’t nothing but winning.”
“We should get really drunk,” said Sandee, rising to the occasion
finally as the victory settled in on him.
“Oh yeah,” said Paul. “I’m ready for that.”
“We should get out of this city and then get fucking drunk,” Chloe
said, looking around the stuffy, hot, computer-filled motel room. “Let’s
pack up and go somewhere nice. Somewhere with silk sheets and hot
tubs and room service and private rooms for all of us. Let’s get out of
this cesspool capital city and spend some hard stolen cash on ourselves.
Our work here is fucking done!”
Paul called Bee and c1sman and gave them the all clear. Sandee and
Sacco and Chloe started packing shit up. Twenty minutes later they
were on the road and headed south, Googling the nicest hotel they
could find in Richmond that wasn’t named after a Confederate presi-
dent (Sacco had his standards). They all really did think their work
was done.
Interlude
“Hello? May I speak to Ms. Marsh please?”
“Speaking.”
“Ms. Marsh? This is, um, this is Ken Clover calling. Mickey Walters
gave me your number.”
“Yes, Ambassador Walters said you would be getting in contact. How
can I help you?”
“Yeah, this is… I’m the Ken Clover from the papers. Here in DC.
I’m sure you’ve seen the news.”
“I have. What is it you’re hoping I can do for you? I’m not a publicist
or the kind of lawyer it sounds like you need.”
“I know that. I’ve got those other guys… I’ve got a lawyer. I’ve done
nothing wrong. But something very wrong has been done to me. I’ve
been framed, I think. Certainly attacked.”
“And you don’t wish to go to the police or the FBI?”
“I can’t. I mean, I don’t think it would be a good idea. A conflict of
interest for them, right? I mean, they’re already investigating me, they
can’t also investigate whoever attacked me without maybe me having
to tell them some stuff that they could, well, misinterpret. In their zeal,
you understand.”
“Yes. So you were attacked?”
“Hacked I think. Someone hacked into my bank accounts and issued
a couple million dollars worth of checks to a few thousand illegal work-
ers down in Florida.”
“Really? How odd. Why would someone do that?”
“I’ve got no idea. But they did, and took all my cash reserves with
them. Both my business and my personal accounts, all gone in the space
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149
of twenty-four hours and I never got a word of warning. According to
my bank, I told them the checks were going out, warned them to be
ready.”
“But of course you did no such thing, and with so many different
people cashing the checks, tracing down who’s responsible will be even
more difficult.”
“I’m sure whoever did this fucked me… sorry… screwed me in dif-
ferent ways too. There’s some weirdness in my stock portfolio and with
my credit cards.”
“But you’re still capable of paying my fees?”
“The money, yeah. They didn’t get everything. I’ve got the second
house on Martha’s Vineyard if it comes to that. As for the other, well,
only if you can help me get out from under this other stuff.”
“I assume your recent troubles in the press and in the bank are linked.
Who would do this to you?”
“I’ve no idea. I never saw anything like this coming. It’s fu… it’s
crazy.”
“I’ll look into it and see what I can do. One of my people will be
coming by tomorrow morning first thing to look at your computers.
He’ll require full, unquestioning access.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Anything you need.”
“All that’s left is the matter of my retainer. Once that’s settled then I
assure you, I’ll find whoever did this to you.”
“Thank you so much. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, Mr. Clover.”
It was soooo good to be home. Back in Key West in early March,
where the weather was warm and wonderful and the Spring Break
hordes were still a week or two away. They’d stayed over at c1sman’s
place in Athens for a day, most of which Bee spent trying to convince
him to come down to Key West and most of which c1sman spent try-
ing to convince her to come out West to visit his son (the mere thought
of which obviously freaked Bee out). Sacco was coming down to the
Crew’s home base for the very first time, and Sandee’s tales of island
excess had him fired up and ready for some serious neuron blasting fun.
Word had come in from Marco that their share of the money had moved
on through all the appropriate hoops and that their cash delivery would
be coming in with the next cruise ship to dock at Mallory Square. Even
Chloe seemed psyched to be home, judging by the upbeat head bopping
as she drove down Highway One towards mile zero listening to some
obscure ska band he couldn’t remember the name of.
He was still monitoring the e-mails back and forth between Danny,
Wolverton, and Clover, although he’d stopped intercepting them and