He’s sitting in a car with Goldman. Goldman, he realizes, is angry; he’s saying, “That bastard, that bastard. The case was clear.” McPherson remembers the feeling he had at the ceremony where the contract was awarded; this is nothing like that for him, but for Goldman …

“We can pursue this,” Goldman says, looking at McPherson and striking the steering switch. “The GAO’s report has got the House Appropriations Committee interested, and several aides to members of the House Armed Services Committee are up in arms about it. We can make a formal request for a congressional investigation, and if some representatives are open to the idea then they could sic the Procurements Branch of the Office of Technology Assessment on them, as well as light a fire under the GAO. It could work.”

McPherson, momentarily exhausted at the complexity of it all, only says “I’m sure we’ll want to try it.” Then he takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Let’s go get a drink.”

“Good idea.”

They go up to a restaurant in Georgetown and sit at a tiny table placed under the street window. Window shoppers check them out to see if they are mannequins. They down one drink in silence. Goldman describes again the plan to influence the committees in Congress, and it sounds good.

After a while Goldman changes the subject. “I can tell you what went on behind the scenes at the Air Force. We finally got the whole story.”

Curious despite his lassitude, McPherson nods. “Tell me.”

Goldman settles back in his seat, closes his eyes briefly. He is getting over his anger at the judge’s contempt for the rule of law, he’s convinced they can win in Congress, and he’s seduced by the gossip value of the story he’s ferreted out: McPherson can read all that clearly. He’s getting to know this man. “Okay, it started as far as you knew when Major Feldkirk came to you with a superblack program.”

“Right.” The cold bastard.

“But the truth is, that was part of a story that has been going on for years. Your Major Feldkirk works for Colonel T. D. Eaton, head of the Electrical Systems Division at the Pentagon—and Eaton works for General George Stanwyck, a three-star general also based in the Pentagon, and responsible for much of the ballistic missile defense. Now, your superblack program was presented to the Secretary of the Air Force as part of a campaign to pull the power of weapons procurement a little closer to the chest, so to speak—back completely in the Pentagon’s power. Official reasoning for that was that procurement is in terrific disarray, because so many ballistic missile defense programs are getting into serious cost overruns, or deep technical trouble.”

“I’m aware of that,” McPherson says bleakly.