IT WAS FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON. But as usual, many of the staffers within the cavernous Dirksen Senate Office Building were still busy at work. The worker bees in the congressional offices—young, bright, and energetic—had learned to absorb the endless hours. When budget battles flared or special legislation of overriding national importance arose—or just before recess when a myriad of business was being done before members of Congress would fly back to their constituencies in their home districts—that was when the pace could be brutal.
But the staff of Senator Jason Bell Purdy didn’t mind the long hours. What they did find irritating was their new boss’s habit of disregarding deadlines, appointments, or schedules for the sake of his own personal comfort or individual interests.
The chief of staff, the legislative assistant, and the press secretary had been waiting since three-thirty. They knew the senator was not on the floor voting. In fact, he was out taking another long lunch. The staff meeting, which Purdy himself had set for that time, was now on hold while the staff awaited the arrival of the newest member of the United States Senate.
For Jason Bell Purdy, schedules were something to be kept or broken depending on whim and personal desire. Such were the consequences of his upbringing as the grandson of a former Georgia governor and heir to the vast Purdy fortune, which controlled a healthy chunk of Georgia politics.
Purdy’s chief claim to fame was his co-ownership of a professional baseball franchise, coupled with his ranking as richest man in the state.
As the senator meandered down the halls of the Dirksen Building he tugged slightly at his starched white collar and tightly knotted red-white-and-blue tie. The formal trappings of the Senate were something he was having to get used to. If it were up to him, he would stroll into his office every day wearing a golf shirt, khakis, and canvas boating shoes.
As he glided into his office, his staff quickly grabbed notepads, clipboards, and briefing books, and scurried in. The three staffers sat in the brown leather chairs in a semicircle around the ornate mahogany desk. Purdy slipped off his blue silk suit coat, hung it up on the brass coat rack, and then plopped into his overstuffed leather executive chair and swung both feet up on the desk.
“Hey, Myron,” he called glibly. “Give me the box score here.”
The chief of staff flipped through his legal pad and began a rapid-fire recitation of the status of his Senate office.
Purdy had upcoming meetings with several contingencies of constituents, a half dozen different lobbyists, followed by a briefing by his legislative assistant on several items of pending legislation. But he had failed to return a phone call from the chief of staff of Senator Wayne O’Brien, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chair of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism.
“Would you like me to get Senator O’Brien’s office on the line right now?” Myron asked.
“Hey, let’s not rush the gun on this thing,” Purdy replied. “I have a feeling O’Brien just wants me to do some Chinese laundry for him. He’s tossing me nuts for the squirrels. I’ve been waiting for a decent leadership assignment on the Counterterrorism Subcommittee since I got here.”
“Senator,” the legislative assistant said diplomatically, “your selection, as a freshman senator, to the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism is a real coup. From what I know, it certainly takes time to build ethos with the other senators. I’m sure in a short period of time that Senator O’Brien and his colleagues on our side of the aisle are going to recognize your value.”
“Jimmy—with all due respect—don’t patronize me, now. I’m telling the three of you that we gotta get some distinguishing assignments—we need some blue-ribbon issues to sink our teeth into. Otherwise, you boys and girls are going to end up with the shortest congressional careers of any staffers in the Beltway—when election time comes up and I get a whopping because we haven’t done anything significant during what’s left of my appointment term.”
Linda, his press secretary, smiled and then volunteered her thoughts.
“Senator, how about that Mexico incident?”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Purdy said, pulling his feet off the desk and slapping the top of the desk with his hand. “That Mexico deal is exactly what I’m talking about. We got some kind of massacre that’s going on down there. The Pentagon’s not telling us. Everybody’s scratching their heads over that. I can smell a feeding frenzy on this deal. We got that group of marines—what do you call that, a…you know, a small group…”
“A squad?” Myron asked with a wry smile.
“That’s exactly right,” Purdy continued. “This squad of marines goes down there and shoots up a bunch of innocent people. Now I know we’ve gotta tip our hats to them for the rescue of our Secretary of Commerce. And I do tip my hat—I thank God for his safe rescue. But this colonel—what’s his name?”
“Marlowe. Colonel Caleb Marlowe,” Linda, the press secretary, said.
“Right. Colonel Caleb Marlowe. He needs to be investigated. I think there is some slime on the bottom of this pond. I think the Pentagon is trying to make some kind of covert move—or maybe even the White House—I’ve just got that sense. They’re not telling us the full story.”
“With all due respect,” Jimmy, the LA said, “Chairman O’Brien has got that as his number-one agenda item—”
“I don’t want to hear what Chairman O’Brien has on his little shopping list,” Purdy snapped back. “I’m here to tell you what’s on the top of my list. And this is what I want for Christmas, little boys and girls, so listen up—I want a Senate subcommittee hearing—I want to chair it, and I want to look into this Mexico massacre and this whole Marine Corps incident. And I want that to happen.”
The senator dismissed his chief of staff and legislative assistant but asked his press secretary to stay.
After the two male staff members left, Jason Bell Purdy grabbed the crystal golf ball off of the brass golf-ball holder on his desk and poised it between his index finger and thumb.
“Linda—you have any plans tonight? I was hoping we could order in some Chinese food—go over some of these press releases that need to go out tomorrow.”
“Sure,” the young press secretary said, with a tinge of hesitation in her voice.
“Why don’t you go order the food—I’ve got a call I need to make.”
She stood up dutifully and left his office, closing the door behind her.
Then Purdy grabbed his cell phone and punched the number for Howard John “Howley” Jubb.
Jubb picked up the cell phone in his black Hummer as he was nearing downtown Atlanta.
“Hey,” Purdy said. “Jason calling. I want you to be by your landline at ten o’clock tonight. I’ve got to talk to you about something.”
“Are you sure?” Jubb asked. “I was heading into the city to have some fun tonight.”
“Change of plans. Be by your landline. I need you to start thinking about contacts we might have down in Mexico. I’ve gotta have you do an investigation for me. I need some inside stuff on that Mexican shoot-up down there in the Yucatán involving the marines. Think about some of the banditos down there who are willing to give us some information.”
“Sure—I’ll be by the phone. We’ll work it out then. Say,” Jubb added, “are you all settled in in your new house up there in Chevy Chase?”
“Yeah—I sure am. I’ll have you over some time. We’ll bring you out here to DC.”
“Sure,” Jubb replied, sounding as if he didn’t believe it. “I thought when you went east, I was going east with you.”
“We’ll talk about it. See ya.”
Linda knocked on the door, and Purdy told her to open it.
She poked her head in and asked, “What kind of Chinese do you want?”
The senator smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Sweet and sour,” he said. “Just like me.”