Then, whatever had been wasted on upgrading factories, hiring workers, raw materials, etc., etc. Throw in another two or three hundred million there, Walters guessed-the numbers were already dizzying.

Nobody had worried about the costs when the polymer looked like a fountainhead of profit. Money had been spent profligately with little regard to the risks. They had been so sure of themselves, so optimistic about their amazing product, so quick to commit a hundred million here, five hundred million there. Chump change when the dream promised to produce tens of billions in profit.

When you’re robbing a bank you don’t stop to count the change.

Coming back as losses, the numbers fell like artillery shells.

Their moods sank from bad to nearly suicidal.

There also was the ancillary financial damage to be factored into the heartbreaking total. Globalbang, which Walters had coerced into canceling Arvan’s chemical contract, had never recovered. After the other suppliers witnessed Globalbang pulling the plug on Arvan, nearly all of them sprinted for the exits the moment their contracts expired. No way were they going to bank their economic survival on a firm that behaved so arbitrarily, so dishonorably, so cruelly.

Suddenly denied the materials to manufacture its rockets and bombs, after several months of desperate efforts, Globalbang strangled to death on a last series of futile cost cuts. It went bankrupt and out of business.

The Capitol Group had paid a whopping three billion for Globalbang back in the opening year of the Iraq war, when it seemed that buying any defense company was a license to print money. According to the general accounting principles, that stupendous write-off would have to go on this year’s annual earnings. Yet another casualty of the cursed polymer.

Walters tried to make the feeble argument that the steep losses offered a tax offset, as if that was a solace. It wasn’t, not at all. It was dawning on everyone in the room that, for the first time in the Capitol Group’s storied history, there would be no annual profit to be taxed.

Jackson was scribbling numbers on a legal pad as fast as his ears and fingers could keep up. The creaming was worse than he ever imagined. As best he could tell, the loss could total a whopping ten billion. Ten billion!

Once Jackson mumbled that number out loud, the magnitude began sinking in with Walters. His face went pale, his chest ached, he was having trouble breathing.

The fat bonus he had planned on demanding, and had already mentally spent, was laughable. The three-million-dollar renovation of his Great Falls estate would have to stop. He’d have to withdraw the offer he made two weeks before for the lovely lodge in Aspen. He would be lucky to hold on to his job.

Jackson and Bellweather looked almost as miserable. Both had vast fortunes already, enough and more to live in grand style for the rest of their lives. But like many rich men, it was never enough. In a city increasingly sprinkled with billionaires, both were nothing more than run-of-the-mill millionaires. Sadly, millionaires just didn’t get the respect they once enjoyed. A billion bought much better invitations, better access, vastly more people sucking up to you. And the word “billionaire” just sounded so much better; it had such a charming ring when the lips pursed to spit that lovely word.

The polymer had been their ticket from the M-word to the B-ranks.

Haggar wasn’t nearly as depressed about the numbers as the other three. They, as well as the other directors, all had big, expensive mansions, fleets of cars, vacation homes, yachts, greedy ex-wives, even a smattering of private jets to worry about. Big lifestyles required big profits.

After a long, impoverishing career in stingy public service, Haggar had yet to cash in and had relatively little money. His lifestyle remained modest. He had few expenses-a fair-sized town house in Springfield, one kid so disgruntled, dumb, and lazy he was lucky to be attending an inexpensive community college. Plus he was still married to his first wife, the same college sweetheart he’d been hitched to the past thirty years, through good times and bad, sickness and health, and all that. In truth, they could barely stand the sight of each other. They slept in different beds, used different bathrooms, avoided each other as much as possible. But both, for their own selfish reasons, had seen his job in the Capitol Group as a reason to tough it out.

Haggar planned on waiting till he made a bundle before cashing her in for his dream, a younger trophy, somebody with uplifted boobs, slimmer thighs, less wrinkles. Someone always ready and willing for a little sex.

Her plan was to wait till he was rich enough to be worth divorcing.

Well, what the hell, Haggar figured. After ten years of sleeping in separate beds, the dream could wait for another few years.

25

They picked up Jack the moment he rushed out of the big cylinder that housed CG’s headquarters, jumped into his car, and sped away. Following him was too easy. Months before, they had planted a tracking device on the undercarriage of his Lincoln. Though he spent much of his time at home, they liked the cool assurance of knowing he couldn’t slip away.

They stayed at a safe distance, usually at least three cars back. The risk of being spotted was much higher than any chance of letting him slip, which was essentially zero. The tracking device was the newest thing, tethered to a satellite thousands of miles overhead; he could be driving in Europe and they’d know which street, to within ten inches. They followed at a leisurely pace, as Jack shot across the Memorial Bridge, then ground his way through the thick, midday D.C. traffic. Once or twice he got a few headlights ahead, but the TFAC trackers remained calm.

They had expected him to jump on 95 and bolt north, directly toward Jersey and his big house. Apparently he had business in D.C. to accomplish before he made the long drive home.

They were stuck at a red light when Jack made an abrupt left turn and sprinted into the busier streets of a shopping section. Every inch of his progress was followed carefully and closely on their screen. They were only mildly concerned when he made another quick turn, then his Lincoln stopped for a moment, then picked up speed again and began doing slow circles on their screen.

“Better kick it up a notch,” the passenger ordered the driver. He glanced at his watch, then buried his face back in the tracking screen.

“What is it?”

“I dunno. Target’s doing small circles.” He thought about it a few seconds. “Maybe a parking garage.”

The driver tried edging around the cars directly to his front but it was no use. He pounded the horn a few times and was coldly ignored. D.C. drivers.

He finally turned left, then followed the tracker’s orders straight to a large parking garage on 18th Northwest. “Should we go in?” he asked.

“No, pull over. Let’s see when he comes out.”

By his calculation, Jack’s car had entered the garage only two minutes before. He watched the garage entrance for a moment before he saw people getting out of their cars, and attendants climbing in to park them.

“Damn it, it’s full-service,” he complained, banging a hand off the dash.

“We lost him,” the driver said, voicing the obvious.

“Don’t sweat it, we’ll find him. Cruise around. Keep your eyes peeled on the shops and local buildings. He can’t be far.”

Wrong guess, because Jack at that moment was seated in the rear of a taxi speeding toward Union Station. He had called for the cab from his cell phone, and dodged into the back a moment after the attendant handed him a parking ticket for his car. Thirty thousand dollars in large bills were stuffed in his pocket. Another pocket held his Amtrak ticket for an afternoon run to New York City. A rental car arranged by somebody else awaited him there.