On the next trip to Washington Dennis McPherson is taken by Louis Goldman to a restaurant in the “old” section of Alexandria, Virginia. Here prerevolutionary brick is shored up by hidden steel, and the old dock warehouses are filled with boutiques, ice-cream shops, souvenir stands, and restaurants. Business is great. The seafood in the restaurant Goldman has chosen is superb, and they eat scallops and lobster and enjoy a couple bottles of gewürztraminer before getting down to it.

Plates cleared, glasses refilled, Goldman sits back in his chair and closes his eyes for a moment. McPherson, getting to know his man, takes a deep breath and readies himself.

“We’ve found out some things about the decision-making process in your case,” Goldman says slowly. “It’s a typical Pentagon procurement story, in that it has all the trappings of an objective rational process, but is at the same time fairly easy to manipulate to whatever ends are desired. In your case, it turns out that the Source Selection Evaluation Board made its usual detailed report on all the bids, and that report was characterized as thorough and accurate by our information source. And it favored LSR.”

“It favored us?”

“That’s what our source told us. It favored LSR, and this report was sent up to the Source Selection Authority without any tampering. So far so good. But the SSA takes the report and summarizes it to use when he justifies his decision to the people above him. And here’s where it got interesting. The SSA was a four-star general, General Jack James, from Air Force Systems Command at Andrews. Know him?”

“No. I mean I’ve met him, but I don’t know him.”

“Well, he’s your man. When he summarized the SSEB’s report, he skewed the results so sharply that they came out favoring Parnell where they had originally favored you. He’s the one that introduced the concern for blind let-down that’s not in the RFP, and he’s the one who oversaw the most probable cost evaluations, to the extent of fixing some numbers himself. And then he made the decision, too.”

Remarkable how this Goldman can spoil a good dinner. “Can we prove this?” McPherson asks.

“Oh no. All this was given to us by an insider who would never admit to talking with us. We’re just seeking to understand what happened, to find an entry point, you know. And some of this information, conveyed privately to the investigators at the GAO, might help them aim their inquiries. So we’ve told them what we know. That’s how these legal battles with the Pentagon go. A lot of it consists of subterranean skirmishes that are never revealed or acknowledged to be happening. You can bet the Air Force lawyers are doing the same kind of work.”