Black Hat Blues (28 page)

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