brilliant defense-for any defense-was in shambles.
“But we didn’t come here to gloat,” Jack informed him.
“Yes you did, you bastard.”
“Okay, maybe a little. You have one final thing to do for us. One last job.”
Slowly the face came out of the hands. “I wouldn’t piss in your mouth if you were dying of thirst. Not if my life depended on it.”
“Oh, but it does,” Mia told him. “It very much does.”
“Are you wondering why you alone weren’t arrested or indicted?” Jack asked him. “You don’t really believe it was due to your brilliant legal skills, do you? That blustery press conference, those nasty threats you threw around? Please tell me you’re not that naive and stupid, Jackson.”
It was a one-two punch. Mia barely allowed that thought to sink in before she lowered the hammer. “Of course we screened the tapes before we handed them over. If you’re interested, we kept about thirty of them.”
Jack’s turn again. “Thirty tapes in which you are flagrantly breaking several serious laws, Jackson. Any one of them will get you disbarred and some prison time. Your career in Washington will be over. But the entire collected works… no, you really don’t want them heard by a jury of twelve impressionable jurors.”
Jackson was beyond arguing or resisting at this point. They had it all figured out. In a way he admired these two, their brilliance, their trickery, their persistence; in a much larger way he loathed and feared them. “Tell me what you want.”
“What lawyers do best: settle,” Jack told him very firmly. “When the Defense Department comes after the Capitol Group, you’ll persuade the board to settle. It will cost you another five and a half billion. We want to be sure you pay back the taxpayers every penny you stole from them.”
He tried to suppress it, tried his best to force it down, but a weak smile began to form on Jackson’s face. The number didn’t surprise him. Of course Jack knew exactly how much had been paid; CG’s offices had been wired like a porn studio. But a friendly settlement was the best way out of this mess anyway. The board was already brought on. Three billion had been placed in reserve. Jackson and the boys from legal counsel already had their defensive strategy laid out; they would fight every penny, itemize and inflate every expense, whittle it down until three billion felt like an incredible act of contrition and remorse on CG’s part. With any luck, they’d get away with far less.
As if reading his mind, Mia added, “Don’t even dream of counteroffers. You’ll pay the full 5.5 billion, Jackson. We’ll be listening closely. At the slightest hesitation, even a hint of resistance, Jack will suddenly remember the thirty tapes he sloppily misplaced.”
Jackson locked eyes with her and had no doubt they meant it. His mind immediately turned to ways to reverse his earlier advice to the board. The Capitol Group’s earnings this year were already an unsalvageable wreck. Now, after a month of wretched press coverage, the last thing CG wanted was a long, contentious brawl that only further dragged its name through the mud and antagonized an already furious Pentagon.
Jack added, “The Defense Department is also going to try to throw a one-billion-dollar penalty at you. Coincidentally, that equals my reward. You’ll smile and pay every single dime of that, too.”
Jackson grabbed his throat and looked like he was going to be sick. Six and a half billion dollars! That was the cost of keeping him out of prison. The board was going to howl, yet there was not the slightest doubt in his mind that he’d find a way to force them to pay it.
Mia said, “Somehow, we enjoy the thought of you paying our bill.”
“Up yours.”
“Don’t be that way. Think of the good cause it’s going to when you sign the check.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, one other thing,” Jack told him as he got to his feet.
Mia stood also. She looked down at him and said, “Tell all your friends out there in the big defense companies that we’re here. We’re not going away, Jackson. Now we have a boatload of cash, and plenty of clever ideas. We’ll be keeping a close eye on you and them.”
Brian Haig
